Farfour free to burn - II - Poor translation?

An anonymous lengthy visit

An anonymous and hence invisible person albeit from Colorado, USA left a comment on my blog pertaining to Farfour free to burn where presumably a child had offered herself as a martyr to annihilate the Jews.

I am no Arabic scholar and I have no knowledge of the language apart from the numbers which I learnt in a thick Yoruba accent from Keu (Madrassa) students in Nigeria.

Apparently, it appears most of the conversation reported might have been lost in translation and thereby we have ended up with a story a lot worse than what was portrayed.

It however then begs the question why the Minister of Information in the Palestinian government asked for the show to be discontinued, extracted a promise to present a different format and roundly condemned the content of the parts that were broadcast.

Other respectable Palestinian broadcasters also expressed displeasure at the content.

In fact, the commentator portends that Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) an organisation based in Washington D.C. which is supposed to bridge the language gap between the West and the Middle-East had committed egregious atrocities in translation which could be deliberate with the view to excite negative review.

Being one who would always bring to the fore any comment that requires airing to bring balance to the topics I introduce, I publish here the full text of the comment left by Anonymous of Colorado – (I know where all comments come from).

If I have erred, I apologise, not meaning to cause offence to anyone, only to highlight issues of concern.

The comments

I would like to point out what can only be called an egregious mistranslation on the part of MEMRI with respect to the words of one of the children who were featured as a caller on the show this story reports on.

I call it that and not simply a mistake, because a MEMRI spokesperson appeared on CNN to confirm his organization standing by its translation "word for word" and "according to the syntax" even though it is easy for an organization that employs Arabic translators to actually see how wrong the translations that were produced at first are.

The transcript claims that "Sanabel", the little girl caller of the show, responds with "I will shoot" to the host's question "Sanabel, what will you do for the sake of the Al-Aqsa Mosque?"

As a matter of fact, and as can be seen in the video, it is the clown in the ridiculous Mickey Mouse like suit that says that and even makes the gesture of carrying a weapon.

The little girl Sanabel does however respond, but MEMRI omits her response. The little girl actually said in Arabic "bedi arsem soora", which means "I will draw a picture."

So this girl says she wants to draw a picture, and MEMRI transforms that to "I will shoot."

The second example is the most outrageous one, where MEMRI translates the little girl Sanabel's response to the question "we got that, what else?" as saying "We will annihilate the Jews." This is outrageously wrong and completely invented.

The girl can be clearly heard saying in Arabic "betokhoona el yahood", which means "the Jews shoot us."

The word "betokh-oo-na" can be broken down part by part and explained easily as follows:

betokh: the verb "shoots"

oo: the 3rd person plural subject pronoun meaning "they". It becomes "they shoot".

na: the 1st person plural object pronoun meaning "we". It becomes "they shoot us"

Having pointed that out, what the producers of this show are doing is morally outrageous. Instead of giving their children viewers the joy of watching child TV characters and enjoying that aspect of childhood, they are depriving them of that just as the Israeli occupation is depriving them from other aspects of normal childhood development. Both are equally wrong here.

Farfour free to burn

The future in unspeakable words

A children's television programme was banned yesterday by the Palestinian government when it appeared that a Mickey Mouse-like character called Farfour (butterfly) was indoctrinating kids with jihadist talk.

One child phoned in with these words, "I will shoot, we will annihilate the Jews ... I will commit martyrdom."

It is very much like having Tinky Winky the tellitubby prancing over the hill with handbag in one hand and Kalashnikov in the other shouting murderous obscenities.

It is a despicable misuse of the television medium and it should draw condemnation from any reasonable member of the human race as Hamas should and must cover their faces with shame.

The solution is a free Palestine

Now, we should not forget what gives rise to such venomous indoctrination of children in Palestine, it is the seething bitterness of the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the disillusioned and the desperate who see no progress in general terms to self-determination where a land and country called Palestine would be theirs devoid of occupiers and oppression.

The condemnation of this programme should also go in hand with a redoubling of efforts to reach a settlement between Israel and Palestine which is the nucleus and between the Arabs and the Jews which constitutes the people of the Middle-East.

You cannot have a monster and then starve it in the midst of plenty of food to keep it going, just as you cannot completely nip this kind of stuff in the bud without dealing with the causative issues.

Death eludes the State

Whoops! Missed death

The circus around the Al-Qaeda wannabe moves to the lion handling the whip with the man jumping through hoops of fire.

Everyone who is anyone in authority would hold a press conference to commend first, and praise each other to the point of immodesty. We would suffer the back-slapping and the roll call of names of no particular significance jostling for recognition to the point of extreme boredom. Phew!

Zacarias Moussaoui, they claim had an inside on 9/11 as he was arrested on immigration charges weeks before the event; the case was built around the view that he had knowledge of an event that the authorities might have been able to prevent.

The authorities were awash with other bits of knowledge they could have acted on but they were found wanted – Moussaoui, it would appear afterwards might have had less than a bit part or scant knowledge of the events.

Death becomes the state

What is most interesting and might be the turning point in the American polity is the whole weight of the federal government and prosecution was for the imposition of the death penalty.

There was a separate hearing to determine if the death penalty should feature in sentencing, which was almost derailed but some underhand activities by a member of the prosecution.

The defence team appealed to a greater sense of humanity; the fact that another tragedy of the death of a would-be terrorist would not bring the closure that would assuage the pain of victims but celebrate the death of a martyr to a despicable cause.

It shows that a jury can exercise a greater resolve of conscience than the machine of state which just needs to be seen doing something, even it is not right.

Death is no real justice

In Europe, we have already resolved that no vengeance is served with capital punishment; we hold the sanctity of human life as something to be valued to the point of natural expiration.

It informs why we still have serious ethical issues with euthanasia and abortion.

In the end, a jury voted in the majority and relatives of victims of 9/11 who might be in their rights in to demand the death penalty agreed to the sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

In some places, his sentence might be considered harsh, in that we are not certain of what knowledge Moussaoui had of 9/11 and if whatever knowledge he had would have helped the government in absolution of their dereliction of responsibility.

Where be the big fish?

More damning, is the fact that this man who has been a media celebrity for 4 and a half years is very small fry compared to the blue whales of the Al Qaeda leadership who frequently remind us that they are still about and sending forth troops for the global jihad.

At large, at peace and at liberty, they mock the global superpower to derision and more so after they could not persuade a jury of 12 to do their bidding.

This, I would say, this is the death knell of the death penalty in America, the people have spoken, I just hope the president and governors are listening.

The unjust condemnation of Palestinian choice

A Democratic exasperation

You can imagine my exasperation with the whole concept of the exercise of democratic privilege when people are empowered to govern but emasculated by the lack of financial and moral support.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Palestinian situation. The world or the West in particular having clamoured for ages incessantly for the people of Palestine to be given a voice in the deciding who leads them finally got that wish fulfilled.

Unfortunately, as the new Knesset was being sworn in, the Islamic Jihad found another martyr to blow up a Tel Aviv restaurant and Hamas gets abraded for not doing anything about it.

Now, let us juxtapose this situation against the motion that was about to be slated at the Knesset yesterday for its dissolution of the 17^th Knesset before commencement.

MK (Member of Knesset) Zevulun Orlev of the National Union-National Religious Party is of the opinion that Kadima lacks an ideology having been the brainchild of Ariel Sharon who fell into a coma literally in the conception stages of that party.

His words, “Kadima is creating a patchwork government devoid of ideology that is already tottering and won't last long”

The choices were stark

With that said, one wonders if the Palestinians did study the political choices before them before voting. It would be insulting to their intelligence to suggest that all parties in the Palestinian elections did not have their ideologies, ideas, programmes, promises and faults.

To the Palestinian people the corrupt and ineffective Fatah movement of which Yasser Arafat was leader did little to assuage the sufferings and problems of their people.

Hamas demonstrates the conscience of its people

It is however, on record and visible to all concerned that the Hamas movement though labelled terrorist in the West has done more than many other organisation to address socio-economic issues; these being very much in line with what the Palestinian majority requires.

There also no doubt in anybody’s mind that the Hamas ideology did not recognise Israel as a nation and they use tools of dissent albeit suicide bombers at certain times to highlight their message.

Israel over the years tired to decimate the leadership of Hamas through targeted assassinations, which included a blind old man in a wheelchair, but we could not find it in our hearts to condemn such measures.

Hamas is now the political force in Palestine, who along with their ideologies has considered reneging or ignoring the agreements made by previous governments on behalf of the Palestinians – I think that is also their prerogative.

Subverting ideology through blackmail

Having now clearly seen and heard the will and voice of the Palestinians, I find it unconscionable that leading democracies in the world can ask Hamas to change the ideology on which they won elections.

This would be tantamount to asking the American Republican Party to change from conservative values to liberal, if not communist values having just won an election. We all know that that would never happen in the West, so why demand it of Hamas?

We are now left in a very sorry situation where the self-same leading democracies have withheld funding to the Hamas-led government in order to force a change in the principles and platform on which Hamas was elected. That is patently not fair and definitely anti-democratic.

It begs the question that Kadima a party with no clear ideology assumes power in that sense of obscurity and Hamas with a well-documented ideology assumes power and they are assessed from different perspectives.

The poorer democracies speaking up

I would hope that the Arab states would step up to the challenge and ensure that the fledgling democracy in Palestine survives despite the animosity of the West. This would do well to slow down the democratic crusade marching into the Middle East, as many would see this as typical double standards.

As for dealing with the suicide bombers; if you want Hamas to be effective, you will have to put your money where your mouth is – It is to the shame of Europe, American and Japan that it is Russia, Qatar and Iran that is stepping forward to honour the decisions of a long-oppressed people.

Related Blogs

The martyrdom of the cartoon

Living with the results of true democracy

The people are high on opium - VI

A personal Islamic excursion

From the time the cartoon saga broke onto the global scene 4 months after the initial Danish newspaper publication, I have tried to study the actions, reactions, retributions, violence and commentaries that have kept this thing running for over a month.

Having explored the context of the cartoons, my Muslim heritage and the concept of freedom of expression, I intend to bring this “The people are high on opium” series to a close with one essential topic for reflection – predicated on the sayings of Mohammed (PBUH).

Our debt to Islamic civilisation

First, I call to remembrance that Islamic/Arabic civilisation provided us with the basis of our present day Western numerals.

Also, whilst Algebra (Arabic: al-jabr) does have a long progeny, modern algebra owes its existence to works of the Muslim Persian scholar Al-Khwarizmi in 820, four centuries before it was introduced to Europe by Leonardo Fibonacci.

In fact, we owe a debt of gratitude to Islamic civilisation for developments in mathematics, ground-breaking ideas in medicine and the concepts of civil society whilst the Western world then halted the advancement of the human race in the Dark Ages. See References [1][2][3]

Carly Fiorina the then CEO of Hewlett-Packard gave a speech just after the 9/11 incident and she said this much.

“The civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.

Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership.” [2]

The ink of a scholar

There was a time when Islamic scholarship made a whole lot of difference to civilisation as it has to humanity.

Nowhere is that admonition and call to a present-day Islamic Einstein most resounded than in one of Mohammed’s sayings.

“The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.” [4]

When I came upon this quote, I despaired about how some religious leaders had diverted viable Islamic resources from ink to blood and many who might have lived to become great scholars are shovelled down the path of becoming martyrs.

This saying of the prophet is further reinforced by this; "What is the best type of Jihad [struggle]?" He answered: "Speaking truth before a tyrannical ruler."  Riyadh us-Saleheen Volume 1:195 [5]

Tyranny [6] is described in terms of oppressive power or rigorous conditions imposed by an outside agency or force. That would definitely bring the Palestinian struggle under the spotlight.

The sufferings of the Palestinians is grievous indeed, but one can say more blood has been spilt in the Intifada than ink in the negotiations.

Furthermore, in the light of the atrocious insult and slur that the Danish cartoons depict, we hear the prophet say; “To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.” [4]

This saying would probably appear in any other religious book and it shows how we all probably have gone astray, being lead down the cul de sac of discord instead of the open road of enlightenment.

Resurrect the age of reason

The context of this message is simple; it is time for the age-old tradition of enlightened Islam to come back to the fore, not that of fundamentalist Islam that skews the message and creates a clash of civilisations, but that which builds upon civilisation through scholarship.

We need the emancipation of scholarship that keeps the engine of knowledge cranking forward in aid of humanity and in spite of circumstances.

In quick-fire succession, we can see that the quest for knowledge is paramount for the Muslim as it is for all humankind.

Here are other quotes attributed to the prophet.

“The acquisition of knowledge is compulsory for every Muslim, whether male or female.” [7]

I would suspect the Taliban got it radically wrong there, considering Taliban means the seeker of knowledge; as they kept females out of school.

“Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So you should not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded.” Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 2, Number 38 [7]

Has anyone gone back to the book to see that this pervades every strata of Islam? No better quote to state that extremism creates no perfection brings bad tidings and offers no beneficial reward.

“Worship, without knowledge, has no goodness in it and knowledge without understanding has no goodness in it. And the recitation of the Qur'an, which is riot thoughtful has no goodness in it.” [7]

I think it is time for the protesters to reconsider their strategy, we now all know that those cartoons were insulting; however, in the light if all said and done, it is unlikely that Islam has been best represented by what ensued.

If Islam is the religion of peace; would the peacemakers please step forward?

‘Nuff said!

References

[1] In praise of Islamic civilization - Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard

[2] HP Carly Fiorina Speech: Technology, Business and our Way of Life: What's Next

[3] Islamic science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Creative Quotations from Mohammed (570-632)

[5] Muhammad - Wikiquote

[6] Look up - Tyranny

[7] The Pleasures of Learning - By Dr. Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.D

[General reference] Islamic History and Civilisation, Islam in the West today