Who does this destruction benefit?
By poet and novelist Munir Mezyed
At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of this new one, the world has witnessed a growth of fanaticism and escalating violence in many parts of the world. The consequences of this are really terrifying, including, but not limited to, the clashes which occurred in India after the burning of a mosque in which many innocent people were killed on both sides, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, the crimes committed by a fanatic in the Abraham Mosque in Hebron city, as well as the crimes and massacres committed against the Kurds, Armenians, the people of Chechnya, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. Following these tragic events, we can see the results of these attacks, the death, injury and atrocities committed against innocent people. Thus violence continues growing furiously. It escalated with the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C, and was subsequently followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, there were terrorist attacks that occurred on Bali Island in Indonesia and the bombing of the railway stations in Madrid and London as well as the terrorist attack on Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Sharm Al Sheik in Egypt, Aqabba in Jordan, and Bislan school in Russia. Still, the terrorist attacks continue to occur in various parts of the world.
Most astounding is the fact that terrorists continually use religion to explain and validate the execution of such attacks. Essentially, they are further splitting the world with religion. The fact is, religion has nothing to do with the crimes they commit. There is no religion that allows the deliberate killing of innocent people even in times of war. The innocents must be protected, not harmed or subjected to any kind of threat.
Terrorism has no ethnic color, religious belief or sect. Terrorism is the most prominent threat to mankind; jeopardizing and endangering our lives as well as contributing to the slow demise of civilization. It does not limit its threat to only one specific ethnic group or religion but threatens us all as human beings.
If we go back and read history books, we will notice that there were many attempts to unite the world but these attempts failed because they neglected the human issues and rejected other people's culture. Some of these attempts were done militarily by occupying other lands and confiscating territories by force. Such attempts failed due to people's firmness and insistence to live free. Then came the idea of communism that sought to unite the world through an ideology which did not allow individualism, respect culture or religion and tried to impose itself on others by any means. Thus it failed. Others ideas from Europe attempted to unite the world on the basis of economic aspect. This is Europe as we see it, divided, as it can not be united on an aspect of economy without understanding the philosophy of another nation's culture. The Europeans realized the importance of this issue. As they showed their willingness to be united, they freed the culture and allowed people to practice their cultural activities freely and respected the variety of the people's culture. To free culture is, subsequently, freeing human mind, thereby getting rid of fanaticism and extremism which are the results of the rise in terrorism.
When the phenomena of fanaticism and extremism started violently increasing, it allowed some of the western thinkers to believe that there is a clash and struggle within the people over their ideas and belief. They call this struggle "Civilization clash" and the end of history. Sadly, those thinkers have forgotten that culture is the vein of living as it has played a good role throughout human history to stop this bleeding.
With this in mind, the idea and dream began to bring together people from different cultures to foster understanding which would lead to friendships, as this is a necessity due to circumstances, international changing, and as a result of what is really happening in this world. Therefore, we must learn to communicate with each other and put an end to the false images we tend to have about other cultures. Thus was born the idea of Odyssey International Festival.
The main purpose and mission of this event was to bring together different cultures in order to establish better communication, thereby obtaining greater understanding and hopefully forging friendships. In addition, this event was to strengthen cultural ties, thus affording the participants an opportunity to develop greater knowledge and appreciation of issues that are of great significance to all countries. This was to be the first of what would become an annual event. It was to form the core of an international gathering that would meet in a different country each year.
I believe Writers have always contributed considerably to the social, political, traditional, religious, spiritual, and economic dimensions of societies everywhere. We have called serious attention to the unique understanding and knowledge that poetry provides, which allows us to see ourselves as well as the world with greater depth and clarity. Its broader significance, truth, and moral design are things that seize us immediately. The blood may be chilled, but we are able to see, for the first time, what should have been obvious. Life and poetry occupy very different spheres; however, through poetry we are able to travel with our eyes wide open in a world that is often times cruel as well as uplifting and beautiful. We are better able to understand our place in the grand scheme of things, as it was possibly our birthright, before science and the minutia of everyday life locked us out.
As is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God," and was subsequently followed by the first order from heaven to the Prophet Muhammad while he was in the cave supplicating, mediating and praying, "Read In the name of God", thereby, from these versions we can sense the importance of "word" and reading.
For the ODDYSSY INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL, we looked forward to inviting poets, writers, artists and journalists from all over the world in order to share with them reading poetry, learning about the cultures of others, as well as discussing issues which concern us all as human beings. I believe all human beings share the same hopes, visions and dreams of a better life. Although we live in different parts of the world in terms of geography, we share the same things. That was honestly what we hoped and longed for when we founded ODDYSSY. We continue to believe in dialogues between civilizations not clashes in civilizations. Culture is the treasure of humankind. It belongs to all of us and it gets its power, strength and continuity through interaction with different cultures. Cultures that interact with others are active and constantly renewing, but cultures that adopt separatism are exposed to decay and death. The dangerous thing that threatens Culture is "politicalized" culture". Politics and economic struggles can divide us but culture, through its human activities and creativity can bring us all together and unite us with one goal- "the human dream of Utopia."
A strange thing happened when I laid out this idea and Odyssey International Festival was formed. We started working day and night to make this festival a very successful one and to achieve the goals which were meant and hoped. Being the first seed of what was to become an annual event, Jordan was chosen to be the best place to host this festival because Jordan enjoys national security and openness, but the fanatics and enemies of civilization began to plot against this festival in many ways with their criminal minds and in a very organized way to destroy the festival. These are the ways:
1- They forced all cultural institutions to close their doors to us and to not cooperate with us or give us any help. Therefore, we could not find any hall in which to host our guests. When we did obtain a hall at Terra Sancta College, pressure was put on the Dean with threats of taking serious action by asking people to boycott the college.
2- They spread unfounded rumors.
3. They made false allegations about the goals behind the festival, claiming the festival was financed by enemies of our nation and was a step to cultural normalization with Israel.
4- They accused us of trying to destroy the Arabic and Islamic culture by westernizing it.
5- They made accusations that the festival had a secret agenda and this agenda was set up by enemies of our nation.
Despite these allegations, I made it very clear to everyone, and stated many times that the goals and aims of the festival were to open an international dialogue and pave a way to bring together different cultures in order to establish better communication, thereby obtaining greater understanding and hopefully forging friendships by inviting poets and writers to join in this dialogue, proving to them that we were a private sector, and we financed this project. Of course, the fanatics who adopted fascist and radical ideas did not like what we were doing, so they started their criminality campaign to destroy the festival.
The first indication of this destruction was when a Jordanian daily newspaper issued an article saying: "International festival which was supposed to be held this year at the Dead Sea, cancelled, and those who organized it received international funding in the amount of three million eight hundred thousand dollars. It didn't occur to me, at the time, that we were the ones the article was written about, until a journalist came to interview me and asked about the amount of money we had received, from which countries and why the festival had been cancelled. I told the journalist these allegations were nothing but lies, as we did not receive money from any one. Unfortunately, the journalist who interviewed me never published the article because he belongs to the Bath party and is pro Saddam Hussein. The most astonishing fact about this newspaper is that all the employees are also members of the Bath party. Therefore, the newspaper backs Saddam and his old regime.
After this weird article, I was surprised by the visit of one of the Jordan Writers' Society’s representatives who came to investigate. He started asking many questions, interrogating me, playing the role of Grand Inquisitor.
First, he wanted to know who financed the festival and how much money had been received. I replied that there were three of us, who as partners financed this festival. I further told him we had documentation to prove it. If he wanted to look at them, I would have been happy to show him. But he said to never mind, he would take my word for that. Then he asked if Israel was participating in the festival, to which I replied they were not.
Then he asked a very strange question," Do you support cultural normalization with Israel?"
I answered, "This is a cultural festival not a political one, beside I do not like or agree with the term 'normalization' since culture belongs to all human beings regardless of race, color or religion.
Surely, he did not like my answer as he kept insisting he needed a clear answer to the question as to whether I was for normalization or against. Knowing what was in his mind, I told him I did not like this term. So he walked out angry.
After his visit, the campaign to ruin the festival got very vicious and hard, which started the withdrawal of Jordanian poets. This was followed by an article written in a weekly newspaper with the headline "Scandal of suspicious American festival in Amman". This article was full of lies, false allegations, and above all, many contradictions. The journalist claimed, in his article, that the festival was American; also stating in the same article, that the USA Embassy in Amman sent a letter to the Ministry of Culture requiring information about this festival. He also claimed that the Ministry of Culture, as well as Jordan University were not aware of the festival. Yet, we have the correspondence which was exchanged with the Ministry of Culture. Also, Jordan University assigned a delegation, headed by two professors and two students working on their master's degree, to attend this festival.
The Jordan Writers' Society issued a statement to boycott the festival; the statement was full of provoking remarks against the festival, calling every patriotic person and poet to boycott the festival, and above all, asking the media to do the same. Then they called upon all Jordanian associations, political Parties, and Islamic groups to back them up with its war against those that they called the enemies of Arab and Muslim nations. After this we called everyone together for a press conference to explain the goals and aims and to answer any questions, but they did not come, in fact, they boycotted the festival, taking matters a step farther to ruin the festival.
To complete the circle of destruction, the tourism company, with which we signed an agreement to handle the accommodation, transportation, and sight seeing for our guests, cancelled the agreement without giving any notice, although we paid that company 30,000 dollars. This put us in a very embarrassing situation as we had no time to make new arrangements. It also put us in financial problems. To add insult to injury, when we went to the hall at Terra Sancta to hold the festival, we found out that Jordanian and Arab poets had been asked then forced to withdraw by the Jordan Writers' Society.
Sadly, what really happened was that the Jordan Writers' Society, supported by fanatics and enemies of peace and civilization worked together to ruin a beautiful dream called "ODDYSSY INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL"
The questions that will always remain are who benefited from this ruin, who was behind them, what did they want to achieve and to which hell do they want to take this world?!!!
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