Mohammed and Ibrahim

friends,
please help give wings to this posting. it is long, it is graphic, and it is not likely to reach pulblic through mainstream media.
thanks, tal

dear all,

this afternoon, Ibrahim's heart stopped beating. We don't have words

right now. Allahu yirhamu, may he rest in peace.

Mohammed is 15 year old. He is Ibrahim’s cousin. Mohammad is very tall

for his age. He has big hands, large feet, and beautiful dark eyes.

Today, his head is shaven. In a few years, he will grow into a handsome

young man.

When we first met him, Mohammad’s face was rigid and tense. He didn’t

speak. His eyes only appeared to take notice of us. His eyes moved and

stared at us in a way that made me wonder whether he was still terrified

and in shock or whether he’s able to speak.

His father Atef moved to the end of the bed to show us Mohammad’s

bandaged legs. Before he even touched the blanket, Mohammad’s body

turned more rigid, and he started screaming. It was a terrible sound, a

sound I have never heard before, a sound that made me doubt whether I

was strong enough to witness this.

Like a chilling alarm-bell, the sound ebbs off, only to start again

whenever Mohammad suspects anyone might be about to touch him, when he

hears an airplane, during his sleep when he has nightmares.

Again and again he screams without any external triggers, from

unbearable attacks of pain. Mohammad cries that he wants to die, he

cries that he wants to go back to school, that he wants to see his

friends, that he wants to go home, he cries when he talks to his mother

on the phone.

Again and again, he begs his father to make sure he is given pain killer

injections before his bandages are changed, but his doctor has ordered

to cut back on injections, Mohammad could get addicted to them.

Where it is not covered in bandages – along his arms, on his fingers,

toes and his face – Mohammad’s skin is layered in various colors. The

oldest layer is dark brown, the next layer appears very pale and soft,

and the last layer is the angry, bright pink of his flesh. On his nails,

there are the rests of Henna, from a wedding he went to recently. On his

long fingers and toes, there are several rough, black spots. It is hard

to grasp that these are patches of scorched flesh.

When we talked to him, when we told him that people are asking about

Ibrahim and him, Mohammad briefly calmed down. With visible effort, he

tries to tell us things, he wants to tell us what happened and how it

happened, and he wants to tell it on his own.

About an hour before the Iftar on August 19, Mohammad got bored. He goes

out to play with his 12 year old cousin Ibrahim on the street in front

of his family home and the Wafa hospital in Sija’iya, in Gaza. The boys

are hungry and try to distract themselves until it is time to eat.

Mohammad’s uncle tells him to bring his baby brother Khamis (1 year and

a half old) inside. Mohammad does so and goes back out to play with

Ibrahim. He doesn’t remember hearing something out of the ordinary, he

only remembers playing, and then his memory gets blurred. He keeps

shutting his eyes and his speech cuts off, he has difficulties

concentrating. He remembers his cousin Ibrahim lying on top of him, and

he remembers a burning feeling like fire inside his chest. And above

all, he remembers pain, he is still feeling pain, sometimes all he can

say is pain.

Atef is Mohammed’s father. Atef didn’t see the single missile from the

unmanned drone that hit his son and his nephew. That single targeted

both children specifically. That single missile from the unmanned drone

was not mistakenly fired amidst a barrage of attacks but was the sole

attack in the entire area at that time. Atef remembers being called and

seeing both boys covered in blood. Since that day, his life has turned

upside down.

He was told the boys were lucky that the missile exploded on soft

ground; had it been on asphalt, they would have been killed, like the

seven others that were killed in air strikes that day. Instead, they are

two of five people that survived and were left injured.

After 10 days at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, Atef and his brother Adnan

accompanied their sons to the Israeli Kaplan hospital in Rehovot. Both

men received permission to move inside the hospital compound only. Their

ID’s have been taken away from them. They were granted a little room in

the hospital building, where they can sleep and take a shower. But the

brothers spend most of their time with their sons. When they first

arrived at Kaplan hospital, Mohammad underwent an eight-hour surgery,Ibrahim a five-hour surgery.

Atef translates for Mohammad and functions as his son’s nurse. Every few hours, he helps four nurses amid pained screams of his son to change his position and spare him bedsores.

Atef explained to us about his son’s condition. ( All medical

information are according to the information given by Adnan and ‘Atef,

we were unable to speak to the medics ). His son sustained burns of

various degrees on his face, along his left arm and hand, and on both

lower legs. The missile blew off the flesh of his right hand, abdomen

and both thighs. The medical team at Kaplan hospital replaced these

parts with flesh taken from the back of Mohammad’s thighs. The thighbone on one of his legs is fractured four times and was pushed out of the leg. The medics reset it. It is now fixed with a splinter and screws.

Both legs are twisted with his swollen feet pointing sharply to the

right. At Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, the medical staff had performed a

horizontal incision along the lower end of his abdomen to check for

shrapnel and other injuries. At Kaplan hospital, the procedure was

repeated with two vertical incisions along his lower abdomen. Mohammad doesn’t know this yet, but one testicle had to be removed.

Until a few days ago, Mohammad was mostly sedated, but now, he remains awake until he gets more painkillers. Atef spends most of his time in the small room with his son, feeding him cold water whenever Mohammad asks for it, adjusting pillows, blankets, and a fan, calling for the nurse, and mostly watching helplessly as his son screams in pain. At

night, he barely sleeps. Mohammad has nightmares of missiles attacking him again, he thinks he is burning up from the inside, and the pain becomes intolerable. This morning, Atef finally shaved off Mohammad’s thick hair to prevent him from tearing out more chunks in bouts of pain. Gradually, Mohammad makes attempts to eat, so Atef feeds him soft white bread dunked in cold milk.

Atef would like to install a TV above Mohammad’s bed to distract him

from his pain and fears, but he cannot afford the 700NIS the hospital

asks. Sometimes, he calls in random visitors of other patients just so

Mohammad can see other people beside his father, uncle and the medical team. And indeed, when we got up to leave the room in order to visitnIbrahim, Mohammad got anxious, and he begged his father to tell us to stay, to not leave him alone. He calmed down only when we left our bags with him to guarantee him that we will return.

Like his brother Adnan, Atef looks worn out, exhausted. On top of the

daily turmoil at the hospital that has become his life, he worries about

his 11 children and his wife back in Gaza. He knows that, like Ibrahim’s

siblings, the younger ones have nightmares, too. They have seen their

brothers covered in blood.

Days ago, Atef ran out of credit on his mobile phone, and he hasn’t been

able to talk to his family – or anyone else – since. When we gave him a

telephone card, he immediately called his wife and passed the phone to

Mohammad.

When we asked Atef and Adnan what they need, they replied “money”. Like the majority of the adults in Gaza, Adnan and ‘Atef are unemployed and have been living off the meager Gazan equivalent of social security

(wakala). The medical care of their sons is fortunately covered by some

agreement between the PA and Israeli authorities, both men can sleep at the hospital and eat the food prepared for the patients, but after 11

days, they cannot bring themselves to touch it any more. They cannot

afford to refill their mobiles phones to call their wifes and children

back in Gaza, they cannnot afford the sandwiches or drinks at the

Hospital cafeteria, and even if they could pay the considerably higher

prices of Israeli supermarkets, they are not allowed to leave the

hospital to shop. When we met them, they have run out of essentials,

such as soap (which they use in lieu of shampoo/shower gel). They worry how they can possibly sustain their extremely difficult lives and

conditions at the Israeli hospital for the next few months.

We first heard about 12 year old Ibrahim in an article that detailed

that he lost both of his hands while playing football due to a missile

attack. It turns out Ibrahim’s condition is much more severe than that.

After eight days in coma at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, where medical

staff were unable to treat his hands due to lack of adequate equipment,

so they had to cut them off to avoid gangrene, Ibrahim finally regained

consciousness. He was still awake when he passed through Erez crossing two days later together with his cousin (Mohammed who suffered from the same attack) his father and uncle. When they arrived at Kaplan hospital, he had fallen back into a coma. He immediately underwent a five-hour surgery. Since then, Ibrahim has not regained consciousness.

Ibrahim sustained various degrees of burns all over his body. The bones

in both of his legs are fractured, and an alarming portion of his flesh

was blown off in the explosion. After seven days at Kaplan hospital, he

needed blood transfusions due to internal bleeding. Ibhrahim’s liver is

damaged, his lungs are punctured, he has shrapnel in one eye, he is deaf in one ear, he sustained burns of various degrees all over his body.

When we went to see Ibrahim at the intensive care, his condition was

very critical. We were not allowed into the room to avoid infection,

although only a few days earlier, a visitor had been able to see him.

Ibrahim’s doctor explained: “you don’t want to see him, he looks worse

than what you could imagine”. The doctor also said it was unclear

whether Ibrahim will come through in the end.

Adnan is the father of seven children. Adnan is Ibrahim’s father. Adnan

disclosed that the physical condition and the smell of Ibrahim were so

shocking and distressing it cut off anyone’s appetite for days. He said

the doctors encouraged him to talk to his son, and so he tries. He tells his son that he is there with him, but most of the time he doesn’t

know what to say anymore.Adnan is traumatized and physically and mentally exhausted. He is just waiting and hoping.

DNE Videocast - March 11, 2011

Yet another comments experiment

I thought it might be worth a shot to try the Disqus system.

Play around.  See if it's any good.

Thanks.

Why the world needs virtuous autocrats

Why the world needs virtuous autocrats

Financial Times (UK). [Op-Ed]. Robert Kaplan 03/03/2011.

Analysis is built on distinctions. And in these times of upheaval in the Arab world, distinctions are being lost. All autocrats are not bad, as some neoconservatives are proclaiming, and should not be overthrown. The moral differences between one dictator and another are as vast as those between dictators and democrats. There is such a thing as a benevolent dictator - and we should not turn our back on all those that remain.

Vision, perceived legitimacy, the existence of a social contract and the ability to make society more institutionally complex - and thus ready for more freedom - are the distinguishing characteristics of good dictators. Libya's Muammer Gaddafi, for example, is not remotely in the same category as Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Sa'id, whose kingdom has seen violent youth demonstrations in recent days. Egypt's former Brezhnevite dictator Hosni Mubarak should not be compared to Jordan's energetic King Abdullah.

Oman's Sultan Qaboos has built roads and schools throughout the rural interior, advanced the status of women and protected the environment. He governs with a vision similar to that of many erstwhile Asian dictators such as China's Deng Xiaoping, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia's more problematic Mahathir Mohamad, who lifted their societies out of poverty and made them aspiring middle-class dynamos. Like the monarchs of Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, Sultan Qaboos's legitimacy is also built on royal tradition - which cannot be said of the security heavies of north African police states, who utterly lacked tradition and were equally void of vision.

This legitimacy depends on a social contract that treats the population as citizens rather than subjects, and has as its primary goal the economic and social advancement of society. China's leaders know they must generate at least 7 per cent economic growth per year to avoid widespread unrest. Yet even if they do, the social contract peters out as the society advances: citizens, and especially the young, demand political freedoms to go along with their economic liberty.

For this reason the restive youth of China and Oman are different from those of north Africa. They have been conditioned to expect more and more from their rulers: thus when their rulers cannot quite deliver, they rebel. In Tunisia and Egypt the youth have rebelled because they have been conditioned to accept less and less, and have waited patiently for a moment of weakness in the palace in order to unleash their fury.

Libya, of course, represents a level of megalomania and social pulverisation straight out of antiquity that has few recent parallels. Colonel Gaddafi built no institutions, whereas benevolent despots do. In the Gulf states ministries work. In Tunisia and Egypt they work, albeit not as well. In Libya they barely exist. As the late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington noted in the 1960s, the more complex a society is, the more institutions are needed to govern it. The dictator's job should be to make society more hierarchically complex, so that various economic classes emerge and citizens can climb from one level to the next. Development and the advancement of personal freedoms do this.

But the very success of a benevolent dictator - his abjuration of tyranny - indicates his own eventual downfall. Political freedoms must accompany a certain level of social complexity. A dictator's only respite from tragedy at the end of a successful reign is to see his people move beyond his rule without chaos ensuing. He is unlikely to get credit in his lifetime. It is only now being recognised in Indonesia that the long-standing late dictator Suharto helped to prepare his country for a decade of successful democracy. He was corrupt, but his rule was not without benefit for his people.

Sultan Qaboos must realise that in advancing Oman's social complexity as he has, the crowning jewel of his rule would be a modicum of real democracy. If he can appease the demonstrators by doing that, he could emerge as the Arab world's Lee, who brought Singapore from African levels of development into the first world. At a moment of democratic upheaval, such a thought seems out of fashion. But as the present rapture passes, it will become apparent that defeating tyranny is about much more than holding elections.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and author of Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power

Dinking around some more

Just trying to see if the changes I just made will only appear on a new thread...

Intense Debate experiment, Mark II

Since the spam folder is still irritating as shit but I'm having a difficult time emotionally with the notion of leaving "home", I thought I'd run this little Intense Debate experiment again.  ID is a Wordpress thingie, so I'm thinking it should give us the reliability of Wordpress commenting without leaving here?  Let's see.  Click on this post's headline to get to the comments.

The Group 'Interview'

Well, first off, it was not an interview.  The waiting room already contained 15 or so young people.  A couple of them nervously chatted, between uncomfortable silences - I work for Tescos, I work for Sainsburys, I just graduated…

We then file up to a large meeting/ lecture room; there are about 50 seats. After a further wait of 10 minutes 30 are occupied. Mostly young people; 2 of Indian extraction - male & female, 2 black guys (1 of whom shortly reveals he has 3 years exp at Sainsbury’s and an MBA from Napier), 80% are 20 – 25 years old, I’m probably the oldest there (cough41). Gent’s dress varies from suited and booted to black jeans, brown shoes and a jumper. The ladies similarly vary from sloppy coats, boots and scarves to power suits and stilettos.

A very tall guy, shirt and tie, sans jacket, strides confidently to the front of the room, he is followed by a younger man, shorter and wearing spectacles.  The tall man has a stripy tie, the shorter fellow sports a pale lilac one, and after introductions the tall chap outlines the nature of the presentation. Both are in their mid thirties.

There will be no assessments today, no questions or tests, numerical, keyboard or psychometric, this lecture is for information purposes, to let you see, and hopefully understand that we do things differently, I’m not saying my colleague or my self are better people than anyone who doesn’t fit with our organisation, just that we are different. We think that you must be a certain sort of person to work for us, but also that we can teach anyone to be that sort of person.

First we are all asked to say our names, where we have come from and what our current jobs are.   Everyone has supermarket/retail experience from 6 months part time as a student to 3- 5 years managerial. Many are recent graduates, business management, IT, information’s systems, retail management, BA’s and masters.

Tallman asks us what we know about the org. Many facts and figures are proffered.  All out off date we are assured, many more stores, a whole extra country, growth is our strength. A, b, c keep it simple, x, y, z, “..and something we call Productivity…” said with loving capital letter and the air of an intimated sexual suggestion by the seated shorter man. In fact,  Tallman moves along, we have a short film that explains many of the unique facets of our glorious firms modus operandi. 

It was about here my eyes started to glaze over.  A film with budget advert production values and a cast of ‘volunteered’ employees explaining the basics of bulk discounting and centralised decision making/planning/systems follows. I miss a lot of this as I’m boggling that they are blatantly using the theme tune from a major TV series as the inspirational music, the sample is less than 20 seconds, perhaps this is how they get away with it?

So, different, efficient, flexible (you need to be, we aren’t at all) lets get down to a typical day.  Starting at 7am, you, perhaps with up to two teammates, but mostly you will stock the shop.  Two pallets of veg, freezer cabinets, ambient, food, drink, household and special promotional lines, all must be transferred from their cages in the warehouse to the store.  In less than an hour you must charge the tills, and have the doors open to receive your first customers, where other operations have a cash manager, a produce supervisor, a personnel officer, here you take on each of those roles as necessary, in the same way that within half an hour you may take on the mantle of complaints tsar, till jockey, shelf stacker and toilet cleaner. The seated, lilac tie one tells how he regularly cleaned the toilet at his store, a fact, he assures us, that rocks other supermarket managers, wide eyed, in their seats.

After providing cover for lunches, monitoring stock levels on the floor and compiling orders it’s time to replenish the shelves and begin checking for short dated produce, of which there will be very little, thanks to our automated stock system, this wonder of the 1980s achieves such a level of refinement in a Europe wide offering, the same baked beans or smoked squid from Portugal to Greece, the same store layout, and themed week, from  Italy to Norway.

Tallman admits that sometimes his words tumble over themselves, such is the speed with which he seizes each second as an opportunity to serve the organisation that took him under it’s wing a mere decade and a half ago, although the time passes so quickly it barely seems like six months.

Has anyone heard negative reports of working with us? The seated one manages to interject, Tallman echoes the question.  Someone mentions a story they have seen in Wikipedia. Tallman smirks and acknowledges the story and others, ‘Plenty to read on the Internet.’ is accompanied by what in a mortal could almost be interpreted as a genuine smile, and it lasts perhaps 0.02 seconds.

All long in the past. Tallman admits that it used to be about the most willing to work 100 hour weeks becoming the shining stars, with many falling along the way, that staff turnover was way over 100%, but that has been addressed by head office and now everyone works a set 47 hour week, although the vaunted flexibility expected from all members of the team, means that you might have to cover sickness and holidays, hours over 53 a week will be offset with time in lieu. I think that was the deal, Tallman’s spiel was now tumbling from his lips with the starry eyed zeal of a true fanatic, and accelerating towards unintelligibility.

The questions peter out, it seems the bases have been covered, the 47 hour week is implemented in five 11 hour shifts, with unpaid breaks (subject to availability and team cohesion, and productivity).  Potentially plus six hours unpaid overtime - flexibility, productivity. It is hard physical labour, less manager, more gang master, running a cash rich business for a German trust fund, all the profits are reinvested, mostly to fuel the organisation’s expansion.  There were hints that the company makes considerable profits from interest on cash holdings.  And it was blatantly underlined that the speed of the distribution system and the muscle of the massive buying power meant that a cabbage, say, that was in a field yesterday could be sold tomorrow, money in the bank, but the farmer won’t be paid for 90 days…

Tallman’s final words return to his first statements, this is a hard physical job, it is five 11 hour days, days off are 2 out of seven, could be Mon & Wed more likely than Sat & Sun, it is not for everyone, and 25% he predicts will not take up the offer of a second interview.  I’ll be in that quarter.