(this article appeared in the January edition of the Amman-based men’s mag - U-Men)

Lyrics from the Busta Rhymes song “Arab Money”

“Now there ain’t no way that you could kill the beats dead
Middle East women and Middle East bread
I got Oil Well money in the desert playin’ Golf…

Women walkin’ around while security on camelback
Club on fire now — dunno how to act
Sittin in casino’s while I’m gamblin’ with Arafat
Money so long watch me purchase pieces of the Almanac
Ya already know I got the streets bust
While I make ya bow down makes Salaat like a Muslim”

 

By JACKSON ALLERS

Errr. Put the brakes on!

Busta Rhymes. My man. Former member of the legendary hip-hop crew in the early 1990’s – the Leaders of the New School. Multi-platinum selling recording artist. Movie star…

What were you thinking homie?

Putting out a heavily released single called “Arab Money?” Using verses from the Quran’s Surah Fateha as a hook in the remix chorus – propping up oil money as an admirable Arab trait as if it’s something you gotta glorify?

The stuff doesn’t add up.

Just ask Iraqi MC the Narcicyst, one of your biggest fans and an up-and-coming wonderkid on the mic.

“As a person of his [Busta Rhymes] stature, I would have expected more and would have loved to see our people celebrated for our culture and not our money,” he said, adding, “I just think the song wasn’t calculated right. Get an Arab dude on the hook, talk about the reality. I respect that it was an attempt at bridging the gap, but unfortunately it did the total opposite.”

And Busta there’s definitely been fall-out since you released the song. Not nuclear fallout but pretty volatile nonetheless. Ask Steve “Smooth” Sutherland, a UK DJ with Galaxy FM.

“Smooth” played Arab Money in late November and was suspended along with his producer after Galaxy’s owner, Global Radio, received several complaints about the content of the song.

“How you gonna have Qu’ran in a song about Money? The new chorus (for the remix) is the opening to every time you read a su’ra from the Qu’ran. Arabs do not take that lightly at all,” the Narcicyst explains.

“Then you got cats talking about women, cars, houses? What does “In the name of God the most beneficent the most merciful” have to do with you being able to buy whatever you want? That right there really really really really really pissed me and a lot of fellow Arab MCs Off. ”

Some of those Arab MCs also include huge Busta Rhymes fans like Omar Offendum of The NOMADS, Ragtop from The Philistines (both picture below with Narcy) and Moroccan hip-hop heads Cilvaringz and Salah Edin.

Galaxy even put out an apology – almost disavowing the DJ that was voted winner of the 2002 and 2006 MOBO (Music of Black Origin) awards for “Best UK DJ.”

While I could personally care less about some over-the-hill DJ from the UK, Busta, you also managed to offend a fair amount of Muslim’s – both fans and non-fans – for your use of Surah.

And damn if the blogosphere isn’t chock full of comments variously dissing and praising the song.

One woman who goes by the name of Shani writes about on the website AllHipHop.com:
“It’s a dumb song, what more can I say. The average Arab only makes 3-7K a year. And even if you don’t like Arabs you sound like a dummy if you pronounce it “AA Rab” these fools got the knowledge level of Popeye.”

Another user calling himself H-bomb writes on AllHipHop.com:

“Yes, the ‘Arab Money’ is about partying and having fun. So, you mean to tell me that devout Muslims who regularly recite the Bismillah + Surah Al-Fatiha do not party at all? Man, Arab-Muslim society must be super-chaste and saintly, then! (go Wahabbis!)

Such adherence to Quranic tradition sounds a lot like how old, traditional U.S. Christians used to condemn the devilish black churches for singing Biblical hymns with harmonizing choirs and dancing.”

Now Busta. I gotta be honest too – a lot of supporters got your back on this one.

A user calling himself HipHop1524 writes on the website InsideDesi, “The arguments about the song are dumb! It’s freedom of speech, even if what he’s sayin’ is wrong or blasphemous, he’s allowed to say whatever the hell he wants!! Keep goin Busta!”

There’s a whole grip load of folks who defend your right to say whatever it is you want to say even if they’re offended.

Take one supporter called Lexxcom. He says, “I’m a big fan of Busta and I will continue to be a fan. Busta has made a big mistake but it was not purposely done to disrespect Arabs or Muslims.”

He adds, “Keepin’ it 100% though, this is Hip Hop and it’s not always politically correct music. Arabs nor Muslims get a pass. I have heard songs talking about women, children, black people, white people, Chicanos, Asians, Native Americans etc. I have even heard Dj Khaled an Arab American (who appears in the video), scream Nigga!, but this is only a small part of the music I love, just like this is only a small part of Busta’s legacy in hip hop music.”

Busta your legacy is large!

Like your most vocal critic, the Narcicyst says, “I want to say this to make it clear, Busta Rhymes is a lyrical idol of mine. I have always had mad love for his lyrical ability, his style and his grace as an artist.

“His albums are opuses and his delivery is absolute bananas. He was actually one of the first MCs I saw on stage and I was blown away. I will most probably buy B.O.M.B. (the album in question). I’m not making this (the release of the song and remix) stop me from listening to Busta anymore. Busta is dope dude!”

As Narcy says, Busta had Stevie (Wonder) on his last album (The Big Bang 2006). Busta did “Woo-hah,” (first break out song in his solo career, 1996), and he was on “Scenario,” (legendary group/showcase track from 1990 featuring some of the biggest MCs to emerge from hip-hop’s late 80’s-early 90’s massive). These are all milestones in hip-hop history.

I know what makes it even more complicated is the fact that you, Busta, are a convert to Islam. Something I knew and something that made the use of the Surah that much more surprising.

So apparently are some of the other’s on the “Arab Money” remix, which prompted one online comment from M. Burmy who said, “If ‘Arab Money’ was making fun of Arabs and offensive to them, then neither Swizz Beatz nor T-Pain nor Akon would be on the remix (all three are Muslims).”

Now Busta, you haven’t exactly been able to avoid the controversy. That’s for sure.

In response to the firing of UK Radio DJ “Smooth” Sutherland, you said, “I really only respect the Arab culture. I ain’t really trying to pay no attention to, ya know, these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain’t Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times, what are you really showing all of this concern for?”

And as I write this I hear you called the Narcicyst (below) and had a 30-minute dialog clearing up any misunderstanding created by the song. Apparently you told him that the whole intent of the song had been overtaken by the controversy and that the masses take things they way the want to.

I agree that it would’ve been hard to put out some essay explaining the content of the song and why you put it out. Still, it’s out there and you know how it is with saying something and trying to take it back – people only tend to remember the first thing you tell them, not the follow-up.

But you seem to have won over at least one important supporter. “It was a thorough explanation and he was a very respectful man,” the Narcicyst told AllHipHop.com about the phone call you made. “He explained to me his experience as an African-American man in the States and [it] seemed to me as an experience that I can correlate as an Arab being in the Middle East and having been displaced from my nation (Iraq) and seeing my country being bombarded in the media, being misrepresented.”

I guess in the end what you did Busta was foster an equal amount of ire and understanding about Arabs and the image of Arabs in the media. That’s a good thing.

Like hip-hop as a movement, controversies are part of the game. But I like what Narcy said:

“I’m a strong believer in truth and breaking stereotypes down and not allowing people to box you in. And this whole experience has been a huge eye opener for me. This is what Hip-Hop is about. Two brothers from another mother can come to a peaceful and just conclusion for all sides.”

Salam to that.

[published in January edition of Amman-based mens mag….U-Men.]

By Jackson Allers

[© Nidal El-Khairy]
The sheer stupidity of Israel’s war on Gaza was overwhelming.

The arrant weight of the stupidity - incomprehensible.  Not for years will the effects be known, long after the dust has settled in Gaza and the men, women and children have buried their dead relatives and friends.

All along the Israeli military brass knew that “Operation Cast Lead” was as much about destroying Hamas as it was an existential exercise.

But the biblical, fire-and-brimstone method it chose to annihilate Hamas and ultimately kill more than 1,200 men, women, and children was beyond folly.

Journalist Robert Koehler called the Gaza War a “moral dead zone of the human heart” which evoked all of the familiar trappings of justified “perennial” warfare in Israel and in Gaza.

Heroes. Honor. Triumph. Glory. Martyrs…the familiar refrains, as much for the Palestinian resistance as for future generations of Israelis whose only contact with Palestinians will be while wearing their army, navy, marine uniforms.

More to the point, the Israeli military brass has gotten away with fighting an unwinnable war in Gaza precisely because it invoked valor and the most important tenet of “righteous” modern warfare – defense against terror.

Going to war as a defense against terror inverts historical context. Violence in defense of terror stifles any debate about the efficacy of that violence.

So with the full might of the fourth most powerful military in the world, on December 27, 2008 Israel set about stopping Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel – what Michael J. Gerson wrote in the Washington Post was a justified military offensive to alleviate the suffering (mostly mental) of about 1 million Israelis in southern Israel living within range of the crudely made rockets.

“No nation can tolerate a portion of its people living in the conditions of the London Blitz–listening for sirens, sleeping in bomb shelters and separated from death only by the randomness of a Qassam missile’s flight,” Gerson wrote.

The inversion of history is clear here. Blame the victim. Turn the victim into the terrorist and you can have your just war.

Ignore the fact that the Israeli government drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands in 1947-48 with tens of thousands pushed into the Gaza strip in the years following.

Ignore the 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip, which ended in 2005.

Ignore Hamas’ legitimate rise to power in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Ignore the U.S.-orchestrated coup attempt to oust Hamas in 2007, which prompted Hamas’ violent take over of the Gaza strip that summer.

Blame the Palestinian Authority. Blame Hamas.

Forget the effects of Israel’s unrelieved control of air, water and land, and the near two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip before the war - an act of war itself according to legal experts.

Gloss over the levels of malnutrition the UN special rapporteur on the right to food said “was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara,” conditions that were worsened during Operation Cast Lead.

 

[Photo: Menahem Kahana © Agence France-Presse Getty Images]

Add it all up and surely these facts are no match for Israel’s need for security. Operation Cast Lead was the defensive, offensive maneuver to assure Israel would now be safe from the evil that men do in Gaza.

Nonsense.

Still, western pundits and western governments agreed to the bloodletting.

Israel’s biggest ally in the terror war, the United States had given and taken from the same war textbook.

US consumer advocate and former presidential hopeful, Ralph Nader wrote in the last days of the war, “The latest illustration of this Washington puppet show…during the massive bombing and invasion of Gaza,” was a US congressional decision to “blame Hamas for all the civilian casualties and devastation-99% of it inflicted on Palestinians.”

The bills “zoomed through the Senate by voice vote and through the House of Rerpresentatives by a vote of 390 to 5 with 22 legislators voting present.”

Hence the “dittoheads on Capitol Hill” squashed any legitimate dissent and did the thing that classically defines the dialectic approach from the “war on terror” textbook: you’re a traitor to the honor of the country if you question the country’s right to defend itself in heroic manifestations of warfare.

Which is what leads me to my usage of the word “stupid” to describe Israel’s military offensive.

Operation Cast Lead was neither heroic nor was it effective. It was stupid precisely because it was so unheroic and so disproportionate.

Gerson, George W. Bush’s former speech writer argued in the Washington Post that the Gaza War was “proportionate” because, “The goal of military action, when unavoidable, is not to take one life in exchange for each one unjustly taken; this is mere vengeance. The goal is to remove the conditions that lead to conflict and the taking of life. So far, Israel’s actions have been proportionate to this objective. And the convoys of fuel, medical supplies and food sent by Israel into Gaza show an appropriate concern for Palestinian suffering, even during a broad assault on Hamas forces.”

This is pure delusion.

Gerson’s justification for war – echoed in the halls of government throughout the west and in Israel - cuts to the heart of my definition of stupidity.

The truth is there was no Hamas army, airforce or navy to defend itself. Few forces could defend itself against Israel in the region.

The Shia movement Hezbollah did it in Lebanon in 2006, and the Israeli public felt bruised by the defeat – more to the point the Israeli military leadership felt they needed to polish up some of the luster that had been lost in the summer of 2006.

So Hamas and the besieged Gazans were perfect patsies for Israel’s frustration. When in doubt, and when unable to provide security for your citizens because you have no real desire to change unjust policies towards your Palestinian neighbors – go to war as subterfuge.

And Israel’s military leadership knew there was no real Palestinian resistance to speak of.

Speaking about the so-called formidable defense that Hamas and other armed movements like Islamic Jihad said was waiting for the Israeli military, one Israeli gunner on an armored personnel carrier told The New York Times: “They are villagers with guns. They don’t even aim when they shoot.”

Left-leaning Israeli writer Gideon Levy wrote in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz that Operation Cast Lead was “a brutal and violent operation…far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south.”

Dissenting voices such as Levy’s – many former Israeli soldiers – knew that bloody excursions like the Gaza War would only create more enemies and sew deeper seeds of hatred.

But that was the point after all.

And I have a feeling I would hate if I had been in Gaza during the Israeli offensive.

I was in Lebanon in 2006 when American-made munitions were raining down from Israeli warplanes on locations near the southern Lebanese port town of Tyre and in the densely populated neighborhoods of south Beirut where Hezbollah’s support base was greatest.

Nimrod, and Hellfire missiles blowing up banana fields and leaving huge swaths of urban destruction - otherworldly special effects caught in video game-like images Israel posted on the Internet.

[Photo: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa © Reuters]

 

Imagine. Explosions in 2006 that sent shock waves out from their points of impact that were so strong they literally liquefied peoples insides, making them look as if they were alive to the untrained eye.

I imagined these bombs, and then I imagined being in Gaza with no place to run or hide.

Israeli journalist Amira Hass described, “The earth shaking under your feet, clouds of choking smoke, explosions like a fireworks display, bombs bursting into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, mushroom clouds of pinkish-red smoke, suffocating gas, harsh burns on the skin, extraordinary maimed live and dead bodies.”

Irish human rights activist Caoimhe Butterly working as an ambulance volunteer during the Gaza War wrote about the morgues overflowing with bodies in “blood-soaked white shrouds…Some (bodies) are intact, most horribly deformed, limbs twisted into unnatural positions, chest cavities exposed, heads blown off, skulls crushed in. Family members wait outside to identify and claim a brother, husband, father, mother, wife, child. Many of those who wait their turn have lost numerous family members and loved ones.”

I imagined men, women, children, friends, acquaintances, relatives, neighborhood rivals – the lot of ones existence in Gaza destroyed with impunity before your very eyes.

So, I can’t but help to call what the Israelis have done stupid.

Is there any better example of stupidity when you somehow justify so many indiscriminate deaths, thousands of injured and destroyed hundreds of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, pharmacies, granaries, farmer’s fields and many critical public facilities – all for security?

Well this is indeed stupidity. And “fools rush in where fools have been before.”

 [Photo: Muhammad Salem © Reuters]

 

END