The book “Christian Arab Poets and Islam”, published by the Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Prize for Poetic Creativity, has interested the readers greatly. All their messages about the book were hence favorable, except that Tariq Hashim told me that there was a mistake in the phone number and e-mail address I had provided for those interested in getting the book, and the reason for this can probably be traced to a glitch that caused the numbers to change from Arabic to English. The foundation may be contacted through this email address to order the book: [email protected] I had dedicated a column to write about the reactions to the death of Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO, and how they came to surpass any material ever published on the death of the head of a major state. The readers' responses were also favorable. Nevertheless, Sarwat Qasim conjectured that Jobs had threatened to wage a “thermonuclear war” against Microsoft, because of the competition between them, and not Google as I had mentioned. But I found upon consulting references that Walter Isaacson's biographical book on Jobs, which was published recently, had mentioned that Jobs did indeed threaten Google with that war, because he considered that the technology used in its Android phones was stolen from Apple's iPhone. I say that the flood of comments over the death of Apple's CEO, after a battle with cancer that forced him to retire, is still ongoing throughout the world media. And perhaps the title of the main report in the news review supplement in the Sunday Times last week is a sufficient example of the fascination with the man. The title was “In the beginning, there was Steve”, a play on a similar expression in the bible, which is “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) or “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God (John 1:1). His sister Mona Simpson (the father and mother got married after they offered Steve for adoption), an English language professor at the University of California and a writer, gave a most sincere eulogy for her brother, the eccentric genius, starting from their first meeting and ending with his last hours, as he bade life farewell and could barely speak. Also, in another article about Jobs, the title was “End of the genius era”. Steve Jobs was born to a Syrian father, but he was successful because he was born in America and because he benefited from the opportunities afforded to citizens in the land of Uncle Sam. If he were born in our countries, he would have lived in fear and died as someone no one knows, save for his close family. Staying with Syria, I had written a full column in which I criticized the security approach, which has failed over seven months, and called on President Bashar al-Assad to implement immediate reforms instead of just paying lip service to them. Al-Hayat reader mail then published letters that criticized the opposition's intransigence or belligerence, while I also personally received similar letters. There were also even more letters attacking the regime and calling for the downfall of its head, while criticizing what I wrote, although it was all protesting the killing and calling for real and immediate reforms. To God almighty and other readers, I bemoan the obnoxiousness of the Syrian opposition. The letters sent by some of its supporters said things like “Leave Bashar!”, and also that he can no longer reverse the tide, and that the protests must therefore continue. What the supporters of the opposition are saying, inadvertently, is that they want the daily killing to continue until the regime leaves, without accepting the other possibility, which is that the confrontation may culminate with the victory of the regime and with the people having died in vain. In other words, I am writing to try for us all to find a way out of the cycle of death, while some in the opposition want to sacrifice their countrymen, since they live abroad away from the “killing machine”. I say to the Syrian opposition supporters “open your eyes”, which is something I also said to the Bahraini opposition, but it refused to heed my advice, while some of its supporters even attacked me although I said that the demands of the opposition are legitimate, and limited my criticisms to the approach pursued by Al-Wefaq to realize them. Some of the letters sent by Bahraini opposition supporters insisted that the opposition does not want to overthrow the regime, and I read a statement by it to this effect. However, the fact that I had personally heard opposition supporters chanting for the downfall of the regime challenges the credibility of this statement. This is while others in the opposition stressed to me that the latter is not an Iranian fifth column, but I shall believe this only when Al-Wefaq distances itself from the ‘supreme leader' Isa Qasim. I also want to ask those defending the opposition, are those who stated that they want to subvert the Bahraini economy patriots, or deserve to be citizens? I wish the best for all the people of Bahrain, and when I disagree with some of them the reason simply is that I have a different opinion than theirs, nothing more and nothing less. [email protected]
