Of PI, Rania and the Champion of the New Middle East

Where was I when Puteri Impian I & II were released? Must be in No-Malay-Movie-Land. Anyway, it was truly noble and honorable of Tengku Farid (TF) to counsel and deliver Puteri Nora (PN) to his brother. Azri Iskandar was Hmm ... as TF, and I didn't get to see the actor who played the role of Tengku Faisal; but PN chose Cico instead. There's no accounting for taste, is there?
Talking of taste, Queen Rania may have opted for modern Western fashion to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show, but she's definitely an asset to Jordan - a diplomat par excellence and an ardent activist to boot - the way she addressed the issue of terrorism and her commitment to educating women ("POVERTY IS A SHE"/"When you educate a woman, you are educating the future"? Or something like that).
And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the present Iranian President - who shines like a beacon of hope for the New Middle East, as defined by the settlers of the region, not by BUSH, BLAIR or OLMERT. If the Arabs in particular, and the Muslims in general, had once looked up to Gamal Nasir or Muammar Qadafi for leadership and solidarity, then the fate of the Arabs and the Greater Middle East might just rest on courageous leaders like Ahmadinejad and legitimate resistance or reformists ("One person's terrorist is another person's hero or freedom fighter") such as the Hezbollah and Hamas.
Some quotes:
On July 15 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compared the actions of Israel in launching an offensive against Lebanon to that of Nazi Germany. "Hitler sought pretexts to attack other nations," "The Zionist regime is seeking baseless pretexts to invade Islamic countries and right now it is justifying its attacks with groundless excuses," he added.
(Isn't that the way of the pecking order? If you can't exact revenge on your oppressors, you find weaker and more vulnerable groups to oppress? Indeed, we internalize the rules of our own oppression)
On Aug 3rd, 2006, in a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders, Ahmadinejad said, "although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented". "[Israel] is an illegitimate regime, there is no legal basis for its existence." "Today the Americans are after the greater Middle East," he said. "The Zionist regime is used to reach this objective. The sole existence of this regime is for invasion and attack." [57]The solution to the Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel.[58]
(Turn your former enemy into an ally and concurrently create a new bogey-man - if the Russian spy-villains were perfect for the Cold War, the Arab terrorists are custom-made for the "Clash of Civilizations". Groom and pamper the "blue-eyed boy" into a "spoilt brat" or proxy to serve your agenda - Oil, "Reconstruction" and Power. Doesn't that sound very much like a meta narrative or a macrocosm of a dysfunctional family? The Bold & the Beautiful or The Royal Tannenbaums of the world stage!)
And last but not least, an excerpt from an Editorial "MID-POINT IN THE MIDDLE EAST?" by TARIQ ALI
New Left Review 38, March-April 2006
http://www.newleftreview.net
"New forces and faces are emerging that have something in common. Muqtada, Haniya, Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad: each has risen by organizing the urban poor in their localities—Baghdad and Basra, Gaza and Jenin, Beirut and Sidon, Tehran and Shiraz. It is in the slums that Hamas, Hizbollah, the Sadr brigades and the Basij have their roots. The contrast with the Hariris, Chalabis, Karzais, Allawis, on whom the West relies—overseas millionaires, crooked bankers, cia bagmen—could not be starker. A radical wind is blowing from the alleys and shacks of the latter-day wretched of the earth, surrounded by the fabulous wealth of petroleum. The limits of this radicalism, so long as it remains captured by the Koran, are clear enough. The impulses of charity and solidarity are infinitely better than those of imperial greed and comprador submission, but so long as what they offer is social alleviation rather than reconstruction, they are sooner or later liable to recuperation by the existing order. Leaders comparable to figures like Chávez or Morales have yet to emerge, with a vision capable of transcending national or communal divisions, a sense of continental unity and the self-confidence to broadcast it. Thanks to its ex-mayor, there is now a statue of Bolívar in Tehran. The region awaits an equivalent spirit."
Wassalam.