There is still hope hovering over

I used to say that the Arabic culture and language don't receive remarkable attention from its native peoples to be highlighted globally. However, a paradigm like A. M. Qattan Foundation made me hopeful.

Last year, I wrote an essay expressing my frustration that Arabic language and culture, in general, haven't been receiving remarkable attention from their natives at their different levels although the possibilities and attempts to do so. Because speaking the language isn't always enough, it's a matter of showing an attractive image of this language and its culture. 
I had felt so after a protracted multicultural experience outside the Arab world. This gave me lots of insights that our culture is also valuable and it's incumbent upon us to show how valuable it is within our frontiers and abroad. These efforts are supposedly made at a magnificent cultural and linguistic representative institute might be titled "Arabic Cultural Institute" to be like a global network where many interested people can resort to understanding us and our civilization.

A. M. Qattan Foundation at the inauguration/ Ramallah

Furthermore, this experience made me very impressed by the cultural efforts are being exerted by foreign institutes like French-German "Goethe Institute" that shows German and French landscapes in all walks of life. 
Americans take the pride in showing their culture at AMIDEAST Institute, where I had an experience, too, the British at British Council, Spain, Denmark at the Danish House ... etc. Not to mention other informal channels that work for different purposes. Meanwhile, they play a certain role in introducing their culture in the field of interest. 
These cultural channels, through immensely published materials in their native languages, aren't set up abroad just for the linguistic purpose, but also, they spread out the meanings of their traditions, culture, so on and so forth. They show the aesthetics, the accomplishments they've done, which reflect their successes. This makes us feel that they want to get a message across to us is "This is how we built our civilization!"
Of course, this significantly bridges understanding which I encourage all the time. 
At this inauguration event in Ramallah in Ramallah, a groundbreaking A. M. Qattan Foundation cheered me up when I explored the great job it has been doing over the past two decades. It's a cultural and educational channel that shows the meaning of all sorts of the Arabic culture, and the Palestinian culture, in particular. It attempts its best to reach out and create a potent ground of the values it works on. Then, after this visit, I realized that there is still a viable hope hovering over.

لا يزال هناك أملٌ يلوحُ في الأفق

لقد اعتدتُ القَول بأَن اللغة والثقافةِ العربية لا تَتلَقيان اهتماماً مَلحوظاً من شُعوبِهما الأصليين لِيتم تَسليط الضوء عَليهما عالمياً. لكن نموذج مثل مُؤسسة عبد المحسن القطّان جَعلني على أَمل

 كَتَبتُ مَقالاً العام الماضي مُعبِراً فيه عن إحباطي كون اللُغةِ العربيةِ والثقافة العربية بشكل عام لم يتلقيان اهتماماً ملحوظاً من روادهم الأصليين على اختلاف مُستوياتهم، بالرغم من الإمكانيات و المُحاولات لفعل ذلك. لأن التحدثَ باللغة ليس دائماً كافياً، إنها مسألة عرض صورة جذابة لهذه الثقافة. فقد شَعَرتُ بذلك بعد تَجربةً طويلةً مُتعددةِ الثقافات خارج العالم العربي، فقد مَنَحَتني هذهِ الفُرصةِ الكثير من الرُؤى الثاقِبة بأَنَ ثقافتُنا هي أيضا قَيّمةّّ! ويقع على عاتِقنا إيضاح كم هي قيّمة ضمن حدودنا وفي الخارج أيضاً من خلال ما يُفترض بأن تكونَ جهوداً لغويةً وثقافيةً مُهيبة يجري القيامُ بها في معهد تَمثيلي قد يكون مُعنوناً "مَعهدُ الثقافة العربية" ليكون كشبكة عالمية حيث يمكن للكثير من الناس المُهتمين اللُّجوء إِليها لِفهمنا وفهم حَضارتنا.

عَلاوة على ذلك، جَعلَتني هذه التجربة مُعجباً جداً بالجهود الثقافيةِ التي تُبذَلُ في معاهد ومؤسسات غربية والتي لدي تجاربُ مثمرةٌ في بعضها، كالمعهد الألماني-الفرنسي (غوتة) الذي يَعرض المَشهد الألماني الفرنسي في كافة مَناحي الحياة، هناك أيضا معهد (الأميديست) الذي يفتخر من خلالِه الأمريكيين بعرض ثقافتُهم، وفي المجلس الثقافي البريطاني الذي يعرض فيه البريطانيين لُغتهم وثقافتُهم، المعهد الإسباني، البيت الدنماركي الذي يَبرزُ الطيف الثقافي الدنماركي في فلسطين ... ألخ. 

مُؤسسة عبد المحسن القطان اثناء حفل التدشين\ رام الله

لا داعي لِذكر القَنوات الغير رَسمية الأُخرى التي تعملُ لأَغراض مُختلفة، وفي ذات الوقت تلعب دور معين في تقديم ثقافتُهم في مجال الإهتمام. 

هذِهِ القنواتُ الثقافية ومن خلال المواد المَنشورة بلغتهم الأصلية بشكل هائل لسيت فقط لغرض نشر اللغة في الخارج، بل لنشر معاني تقاليدهم، ثقافتهم ... ألخ حيث يَعرضون الجماليات والإِنجازات التي قاموا بها فتعكس نجاحاتهم. ذلك يَجعَلُنا ذلك نشعر بأَن رِسالتهم التي يريدون إيصالها لنا هي "هكذا بَنينا حضارَتُنا!"

بالطبع، هذا يَعمل على تَجسير التَفاهم بشكلٍ فَعَّال والذي أُشجِعَهُ كُلَ الوقت. ففي هذا الحدث التدشيني في رام الله، أَبهَجَتني مُؤسسة عبد المحسن القطَّان عند رُؤية العملُ الرائعَ التي كانت تقومُ به على مدى العِقدَين الماضِيَين ولا زالت مُستمرةً في العطاء. إنها مُؤسسةٌ ثَقافيةٌ تَعليميةٌ تَعرضُ معنى كل صُنوف الثقافة العربية والفلسطينية بشكلٍ خاص. تُحاول ما بوسعها الوصول للخارج لإنشاء قاعدة مَتينة لترسيخ القيم الفِكرية والإِنسانية التي تَعملُ عليها. فَبعد هذه الزيارة أدركتُ بَأَن هناك أملٌ قابلاً للحياة لا يزال يَلوحُ في الأفق.

Hamburg, the city of Harbor.

   It was a week long academic trip to the city of Hamburg 'the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg' or 'Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg.' It aimed to kick off a newly designed project by a sociologist staff at the University of Hamburg. It captures a contemporary issue, the transnational change in the Palestinian family that resides in three separated community the West Bank, the Palestinian minority within the occupied 1948 borders, and in Germany.

Hamburg caught my attention much in July last year when headlined the international media outlets when thousands of protesters went onto the streets across the city during the ceremony of G8 summit that was held there. The main reason behind the riots is protesting against president Trump's global policies and the summit that embraced these policies.

At the arrival, the city speaks itself with her various manifestations; streets, gardens, and the distinguished architecture is as usual insinuates a long history of civilizational building that seems to have passed through different phases to end up as such. This architecture reminds me of many things portray Europe, it's not only the field of interests that have highlighted Europe on certain occasions when I learned about the history, but also, I used to watch cartoons during childhood designed by cartoon makers who objectified the historical European landscape on their long episodes. For instance, The Three Musketeers (الفرسان الثلاثة)  by Alexandre Duma. These episodes left an image that Europe is a place should be explored one day. 

The city is harmonized with diverse cultures, there are multi-ethnic backgrounds coexist together in serenity. I couldn't touch upon any fissures among these diverse groups or had ever heard that Hamburg has attested ethnocentrism in its negative way, which led to vindictive reactions. 

To the contrary, the city of Harbour, per se, or as I could name it showed a role model of diversity. It's the way of life that I, all the time, call on all peoples to slip into in all walks of life. How wonderful this paradigm is! How wonderful to wake up every morning and see colourful landscape around and integrate into multiculturalism!

In Hamburg, it's inevitable to collide with individualism that means a lot to people there. I felt that those people would have said to me, had I asked why this individualism, "it's our absolute free choice to do whatever in this life as long as it doesn't violate the law or encroach on others' rights."

As we arrived the city, the Palestinian group through Jordan, the first day spent on touring around.  In the next days, we discussed the next steps to be carried out to get our long academic project done. How are we gong to carry it out by organizing interviews. There was a session captured our reflections on the interviews we had conducted experimentally just to get ourselves familiar with the atmosphere. What we did outside the workshops can be unforgettable, we enjoyed the amazement of the city, it's a cosmopolitan city reflects all colors of life in terms of the availability it provides its multiethnic citizens with, it's possible to pass by a convenience store or restaurants owned by Chinese, Italians, Latinos, Asians, Russians, Africans, Arabs, so on and so forth.

Therefore, in Hamburg you could indulge yourself with almost all tastes of life to the degree that you feel there is nothing missing in terms of food, outfits, and many other affinities.

The Elbe River gives the city another charming scene, we enjoyed a tour on the boat there, and we could see how it divides the city up into several areas from the north making wide fissures flooded by water. This constitutes as a water passageway to ships and to the international commercial shipping movement. Indeed, it constitutes an exist opens up more diversity to the city through touristic and industrial activities. From this point Hamburg can be names the city of Harbor.

 

The city is embellished by historical sites, like ancient buildings, churches have a lion share in these buildings. Also, there many pieces of arts are erected in different public places, these pieces are randomly shaped reflect meaningful messages that artists try to get across to the audience or their fans in particular. This kind of art in the street isn't only existent in Hamburg, but also, it's a common art existent across Germany. It amazes to stop by and start pondering what's the meaning behind such art, which is unfamiliar to us in the Middle East!

 

Although the hardship of fasting Ramadan there, I didn't spare time without taking advantage of to explore the city in all walks of life to relieve myself as much as possible. I did a small funny adventure just to add it in our commemoration with my colleague, we went out the classroom to roam the campus as we didn't join the lunch due to our fasting, we suddenly passed by a huge tree has much yellow fruit that didn't figure out what sort of fruit it is at the first glance. We approached to explore, it's like clusters of fruit shining under the sunrise, it attracted us to check it out, it was a cherry tree. I told my colleague, "let's pick up some, but let's take the permission."

 

Moral Philosophy

I received these twins a couple of years ago. Suddenly, I found them a bit dusty on the shelf and decided to explore what's going on inside.

To sum up, moral philosophy is a way of life when you go through it, you realize that life isn't merely a matter of working, earning money, eating, enjoyment ... etc. There are many aspects to put into consideration, these aspects whatever they are animals or plants, including us "human beings," existent for certain reasons to achieve the expected goals regardless dedicated to evil or to goodwill. These aspects can't be broken away from our daily activities, we deal with every day, we treat animals, we work in the field. Therefore, the relationship between these aspects is governed by how moral are you. For instance, you might pass by a beggar in the street, when you approach him, he might capture your purse or something valuable and then run away, while you aimed to give him some money. Would you afterward stop handing out to needy because your trust fell apart in them? Is it the guilt of other well-intentioned thousands of homeless who are starving? What's your moral decision then? At this point, it's incumbent upon us to wisely decide on what would be the next step either boycotting sympathizing with needy one way or another, or do the right thing by trying out something to help or teach this needy thief that your behaviour should be changed and i'm willing to help you change it, so that other needy won't be deprived of handouts by the bystanders. And so on in regards to innumerable attitudes where you should think wisely of your reaction or futuristic decision, like euthanasia-related issues, the corrupt legal systems that end up prosecuting non-guilty inmates, some ended up hung or executed. Not to mention, morality with animals.

Moral philosophy opens our minds to facts that there are always possibilities to keep off painful ends, don't be impulsive!

Moral philosophy gives a hint that there is a lot of things to think about, and the most important thing is emotionality shouldn't always embark on our own decision- making process away from rationality.

No doubt, it's really challenging and sometimes it's heart-breaking to collide with sad attitudes then you must decide before it's too late.

I recommend these twins.