Eman Al-Obeidy: The Whore Of Libya

This blog you will read below, I had written on the last day in March in recognition of Women’s History Month. The news report from which I  drew my inspiration,  didn't have much information about the woman in Lybia. Many people hadn't heard of this young woman, Eman Al-Obeidy who is a lawyer. Her story is tragic and at the same time triumphant. On Anderson 360 last night, we heard what is thought to be Ms. Al Obeidy's testimony translated to English where she reported that she was  sodomized with guns,repeatedly beaten, and raped by her captors. I paraphrase what she said:  My life  it is beyond this; it is meaningless, I don't care if I die; I just want people to know what is happening to me and other women in this country.
Eman, I saw you on television last night. You were outraged, and disheveled.  I saw your beauty, and felt your anger and pain. I understood your fury. I applauded your noble stance you have taken in the throes of your country’s upheaval.  You have inserted your own pain and made the world aware of what’s happening to women as the men go about fighting for their liberty. Your mere presence has sparked such terror in the souls of an entire country it seems.

It was reported that it was an army of men, who purposefully perpetrate a war against you; that you have been raped by 15 soldiers. Now you are imprisoned for their sins -- disappeared to an unknown location. I shutter, at the thought of what might be happening to you since you were last seen.

Fifteen men you say, who have misused the instruments of love as a weapon against your holy body and mind?  

I too fear for these men, who cannot see their mother in you, or their sisters or daughters. How blind they are, to not be able to see themselves in your eyes when they raped you.  For surly you must have thought about your son, brothers or father who sit with you at the same dinner table and who sleep beside you at night. Did you wonder if they were like these men?

Oh you Whore of Libya, I am also given to understand from the news report I watched on CNN last night that you’re insane. Well of course you are, as the image of your madness was clearly evident and repeatedly televised, to prove that you are out of your mind.  I watched you scream and shout and witnessed you being dragged away from the camera and shoved into the back seat of a car. I saw someone throw a black coat or something, over your head as if this would make you null and void in my mind.

Could it be possible, that you the Whore of Libya, who allegedly  took on these fifteen men like a champ, are part of a long line of women in your country who are silenced? And that you have broken this code by choosing to speak out about the age old atrocities, visited on women not only in Libya, but all over the world”

And if what you say is true, I am wondering if you will be seen as one of the heroes in your country’s war for liberation?   I am wondering if the women in your country are allowed to be heroes. Because clearly sister, you are well qualified to be Libya’s Whore.

I Want

I want to walk along the edge of time.

I want to meet a perfect stranger.

I want to romp and sing in the rain.

I want to dance when someone is looking.

I want to crawl among the stars.

I want to kiss the man in the moon.

I want to feel like a kid again.

I want to fall in love with love.

I want to cry unitil I laugh.

I want to hear the sound of peace.

I want to be a perfect stranger.

relatively synchronistic

the night of the earthquake in japan, leading to the tsunami, water ran from my kitchen sink and downstairs to my neighbor’s apartment.

the synchronicity of the two floods obviously can’t be compared by any stretch of my imagination, but the relatively lesser tragedy, of my neighbor's ceiling collapsing was as horrific to her, as the homes in japan being swept away.

this incident has caused me to take note that i must take more time, rather than rush through my days, as if my hair is on fire or that I have a plane to catch, as i so often do. further, i must not forget to turn off my stove and oven when not in use. more so, i might want to contemplate my navel more frequently, pay attention to my breath
and listen to my heart on a regular basis.

that i must focus more, give more thought to one thing at a time, rather than to think or worry about what i have to do tomorrow or the next second; that multi-tasking is an accident waiting to happen, as was so sorely evident on the night of the flood.

Josephine Baker A Universal Treasure On The Paris Noir Trail

Paris Noir, (Black Paris) is less than a place and more so a memory lane to where many African American’s make their pilgrimages every year. Their journey is as sacred to them as one going to Mecca, Benares or the Vatican. Along this trail one of the most universally recognized treasures is Josephine Baker (b. 1903).

At 18 years old, Baker a native of St. Louis, Missouri, was a dancer. She, had come to Paris to perform at the popular café, Bricktop’s (66 Rue Pigalle. The club’s owner was what was then termed, a Negro woman named Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Smith from West Virginia. Smith was in her business the equivalent to an Empress who held all of Europe’s royals, American dignitaries, celebrities and writers who had haunted her place till many early morning dawns in Paris, in the palm of her hands. It would be for nearly a half century that Bricktops was the place to be and to slum with America’s writer Ernest Hemingway and music composer Cole Porter and Europe’s Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name a few blue bloods and luminaries.

After World War Two had ended, Baker stayed on in Paris and would eventually adopt France as her country. She is still loved and remembered by the French people who claimed her as their own, had anointed her “La Baker”, connoting her stature and unique qualities, as an entertainer, a screen actor a humanitarian and citizen of France.

During her life, Baker’s image was the face (and body) on products from theatrical stage bills to automobile engine lubricant and everything in between the two. Today, her iconic image is highly valued by interior designers and collectors of objects baring her recognizable banana skirt and bare breasts found on curios, posters, caricatures, lithographs picture postcards and book covers, such as “Negrophilia, Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s” where Baker is posing with her famous pet cheetah.  It is also very important to remember that Baker, though having left her native country, America she had returned there to join Dr. Martin Luther King in his march for Civil Rights and racial equality, in the country where she was born, but one that never fully embraced her.

While visiting Paris, visitors and natives alike can take a dive in the Josephine Baker Swimming Pool, located on the banks of the Seine. (Paris’s famed river), known for its nine bridges that connect the Right and Left banks of the city, including the oldest one of all Pont Neuf.

During Baker’s lifetime, she held the prominence of being the most fabulously dressed, and most famous and wealthiest female entertainer in the world. And as a patriot of her adopted country, Baker was awarded the highest medal of honor in France for her bravery (working as a spy) in General Charles De Gaulle’s war against the Germans who invaded Paris in 1939. Tragically, she died a poor woman.

Baker’s last home, a Château located in the French Countryside is now a museum and though off the beaten track is included on the Paris Noir Trail.

It is there where Baker had lived almost to the end of her life, and where she raised her 13 adopted children, born in different countries,  who she called her Rainbow Tribe.

In New York City, on West 42^nd Street, is located Chez Josephine. The restaurant’s owner is Baker’s son, Jean Claude Baker (#13) of the tribe. It is a charming place, evoking France and a befitting tribute to his mother’s style and class and most significantly, Josephine Baker’s contribution to World Peace, World Culture Fashion and History.

Thanks again for coming to Moi, Mahmoudah. This blog is written in celebration and acknowledgment of Women’s History Month 2011.

Collague Mahmoudah Young

To Live in Hell, When the Devil is the Leader of Your Country

About Libya:  I take a moment  to peer at the evidence of what has taken place there in the last weeks.  To this,  I happened to turn to CNN the other night.  I stayed glued to Anderson Cooper's 360. He was speaking to a woman who was stuck in her apartment in Tripoli, the capitol of the country. Her voice was weak and thin; the tone scantily shrill, as she held on to the conversation with Cooper for dear life, conveying her situation to the world via her cell phone.

We will never know her face.  She will remain nameless forever. However  that night, hers was the lone voice that gave the world a thumbnail sketch, taken from the larger picture of violence taking place in her country. Her words were  caught  in her throat and snagged on her confusion and fear, as she delicately described the shootings and killings of innocent people  that was takin gplace right outside her door. She didn't know if someone could hear her voice. That it might be someone standing on the other side of her door ready to kick it in. Her uncertainly was potent.   I could touch it; feel it scraping the insides of my mind.

"Help us please" she repeated many times.  "Please tell your President Obama, please." she repeated this again and again.  Finally her ragged  refrain had lost its  grip, and the conversation between she and Cooper ended.

During that conversation, I asked myself,  how was she and the other people with her feeling? How would I feel if it were me?  What would I do? I wondered if they had food or water to drink? could they bathe? Could they sleep? How their normal life was suddenly on hold  as they waited their turns to be saved or killed. I wondered how many there were -- if they were young, old, sick -- men, women, children?

Their situation reminded me of the six women in Rwanda, during the genocide that took place there.  How these women had pressed their bodies together in a very narrow shower stall inside an empty house for days.  Maybe it was weeks.  While right outside, there were soldiers with machetes, roving around in the garden searching  for the next arm or leg to hack off.

Another more far reaching time in our human stories, is when people in Europe during the 1930's where faced  with the a mad man in power, named Adolf Hitler. There was once a fourteen  year old Jewish old girl who not being able to go outside and hang out with her sister and friends, for four years had kept track of her daily boring life while she and her family and a couple who argued all the time, hid under the eaves of a house (as I  recall). They were eventually found and disappeared from the world.

This  young girl's experiences are contained in the book titled,  "The  Diary  By Anne Frank". Frank's daily entries, would eventually inform future generations of what it is was like to live in hell when the devil is the leader of your country.   I read this book when I  was in fifth grade.    I was 11 years old.

Moi, Mahmoudah

The Sky Is Falling

I sit in the quiet and  stillness of my apartment.  I glance out the window. I write.

It’s a sentimental and cold morning. On the other side of the window,  on my  deck are the dregs of the recent snow storms that had continued to pile and pile on top of one another over the course of several  weeks, until the banks were so high, I could have been buried up to my neck. The pollution of New York City has turned what is left of the snow disgusting and black. 

I notice that the sky is blue and pink and cloudy.  A squirrel has just dashed by my window.  The wind is hallowing. It's echoing sound is like that of an old man in pain. The wind chimes ring in response to this force of Nature. The music is lovely.

I glance out the window again. The sky is low, causing  me to wonder if its falling?

I'm wondering now if people have heard that the Earth has moved to another place in the universe causing North and South poles to have moved to other locations as well? Or if anyone out there is aware there are now thirteen houses in the Zodiac rather than twelve? Now I am a Virgo -- the humanitarian, rather then a Libra always needing to keep things in balance.  No wonder I've been feeling off balanced lately. 

Often I wonder if what's  happened to Planet Earth --the repositioning of its axis, etc.  has something to do with  the  natural disasters that are occurring and people's uprising all over the world?  That every day is a replay of yesterday's news, and My Yemen is Your Ohio.

As an aside, am I the only one who has noticed  that time has collapsed -- as it seems that last Wednesday was only yesterday and in a blink of the eye its Monday morning again?

I think  perhaps that what's going on right now might be a  precursor to 2012, the year the world is predicted to end.  I question this theory though, that in December of next year, the world will just stop spinning and we can all get off? Are  we all going to just slide off the edge and die of something? And then of course should this prediction come to pass  only a chosen few will ascend to heaven, and the rest of us will go to hell. Well just wait a minute here, lLet's take a moment and  a good look at the hell that's right here on earth right now will ya? And is there any possibility that you or I might have something to do with the mess we often watchon television from the comfort of our homes? Hm mm

As Marvin Gaye once sang, what's going on?, I watch  the news on tee vee and  The other night after I was blue in the face from Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper's reports, I  clicked over to the Current TV Channel, which Al Gore help found in the 90's. I saw a documentary about grade school children in India. They wore uniforms -- the boys had on neck ties and dark blue blazers, which made them look like little men. They all spoke very well -- in Indian accented English  of course, since at one time in World History the British owned most countries in the world including India and its people, and therefore.... 

So one of the students talked to the camera. I leaned from her about the Green Revolution she and her peers have organized to save the planet.  She is 11 or 12 years old. Ancient in her way of being. An old soul as we say.  I learned that these kids had a protest march with signs and placards, and chants and their own version of “We Shall Overcome”. Their agenda is for once and for all to rid our planet of the toxic waste and the  dangerous fumes caused by plastic that has become the air we all breathe (in case you haven't noticed). Their argument was that the adults are slackers and are lagging too far behind in the effort to do something before its too late. They had the technical language of the chemical reactions of plastic and the effect this has on oceans and marine life down pat. I  sat back and listened, learned and applauded them for their vision, wisdom intelligence and t determination and courage to invest in their own future and ours.   

I am now remembering another documentary I recently viewed.   It was about the tribes  who live on top of the world in the Himalaya Mountains, at the highest point -- The Roof of the World as its called.  These people  teach their babies how to ride horses before they learn to walk. Their way of life is wholly connected and reliant on the land. They grow their own food. They drink clean water; they  use their animals for transportation, milk and fur and fat and bones. All of their life is held in the balance of Nature. I learned that if I sneeze they catch a cold.  If I don't decrease my carbon footprint this tribe will become extinct.

To be continued...

Moi, Mahmoudah - Brooklyn, NY

The World Famous Apollo Theater’s New Music Café

In New York City, last Friday night, “Joi’s Futuristic Throwbacks – The Apollo Session with Devon Lee’ opened the flood gates of the World Famous Apollo Theater's Music Café. The venue  billed as Harlem’s newest night spot, offers“…a unique experience for its audience, featuring diverse performers across a myriad of music genres…R&B, Hip Hop, Soul Jazz, Pop, Funk and Rock—transformed by cutting-edge artists in a stylize lounge space…” and runs through June, 2011.

On the night I  was there, as ticket holders arrived in the lobby they were immediately cast as silhouettes by the light boxes sitting on the floor in the open space. The  surrealism added to the exhibit of the abstract work by Harlem based artist, Dionis Ortiz that were hung on the surrounding walls.

At 9 PM, an hour before the show was to begin, it was a full house. I sat on a bar stool, my elbows kneading into the top of a high boy table, at the back of room; playing the role “The Silent Observer". I  had been hired to design and stage the space that now seemed to have magically turned  the Apollo Theater’s Sound Stage into a cafe, filled in brushed steel café tables, classic Thornet bentwood café chairs, bar stools and tall tables to accommodate the audience.


Near the entrance of the Music Cafe stood a white bar lit from inside, (similar to the light boxes in the lobby mentioned before), compliments of Heineken, the Music Café’s sponsor.

It was two days before that the spaces was still under renovation and filled with the sounds of buzzing saws, hammering, the shouts of the carpenters, stage hands. The electrician were setting the lights  with gels that cast the ceiling to floor velvet drapes  in magenta lighting. The velvet  adding a touch of glamour in the room, is reminiscent of  the bygone era of Harlem’s legendary night clubs – the Baby Grand and Cotton Club; where a long time ago, African American entertainers were made to enter those clubs through the back door and leave the same way they came, when the gig was over. 

As the lights went  down, my eyes narrowed toward the stage as the  Atlanta-based Joi adjusted her mic. Joi is tall, lean and has a tight body. Clearly she works out at the gym. Her lustrous skin is the color of lightly roasted cashews. Her brown hair, grown into Afro, crowns her natural beauty.

Then there was the  black Lycra dress that fit her  body like a second skin. It had a slit on one side that ran all the way up one  thigh, ending just before the point of no return. Another one of Joi’s talents is her outrageously daring fashion, though subtle, the dress she wore that night was no executaion to the rule.   


Joi's voice embodies that of America’s greatest Queens of The Blues from Bessie Smith to Dinah Washington. Her unabashed sensuality,style and superb singing talent -- the Futuristic Throwback as it were, revealed her incredible vocal range and riveting stage presence. In particular was her rendition of the Torch Song, “You Don’t’ Know What Love Is.” I’m certain that I detected Shirley Bessey’s virtuosity and Billie Holiday’s signature phrasing, as Joi flawlessly delivered the lyric’s lament and refrains slowly and authentically.

Backed by her five member band, and her partner, guitarist Lee Devon, throughout  her performance Joi moved sinuously across the stage like a cat and then at other times, stopping on a dime, to  grab the plastic bottle of water sitting on the floor upstage. After taking a long swallow Joi's seductive  moves integrated  seamlessly into her act. She began to stride  downstage toward the female drummer of her band; her hips swaying all the way there. And then with her back turned to the audience, Joi bent over and gave the audience a wide angle view of her derrièr  rounding it in verrrry sloooow rotations. I couldn't take my eyes off her, I didn't want to miss one moment of her performance.

She returns to the mic, and with her legs astride as to suggest that she meant business (and she did), she stoically stood at the edge of the stage reached out to the audience, captured us with her hypnotic gaze,and began gesturing to us with Hindu-like Mudras.  Her agile fingers appeared to be sending out a mysterious sign language or messages to Genesh, Shiva or Lady Durga,  the Indian Gods and Goddess; or perhaps she was  giving the audience her blessings. In any case, for me,  Joi turned my wonderment of watching her perform on its head, when she suddenly let out her giddy laughter and she then said to the audience, “This is all fun ya’ll”, spoken in her indigenous Southern drawl, entangled somewhere in there was the hint of  Joi’s Portugused and African ancestors channelled through her, I was certain.


Throughout the night, Joi unabashedly broadcasts her politics and sensuality. She gave us her deliberate bump and grind, suggestive of a strip tease dancer in the old fashion sense of its meaning; where her tell, but not show it ALL, could put a pole dancer to shame. 

And then in the next moment, the seriousness of a song’s lyrics was  juxtaposed to Joi’s tongue and cheek playfulness, the levity of which elicited from me laughter and my great pleasure of being her audience. At the finale, there was rousing ovations to The Queen and pioneer of Neo Soul,  and the "…hot and heavy and smoking guitarist Devon Lee who provided the dark dripping with sensuality grooves..."

Moi,

Mahmoudah Brooklyn, NY

Photo: Mahmoudah Young