Saturday, January 29, 2005
Twenty-O-five
Twenty-o-five or two thousand and five?Am I alone (no, I know I'm not, for others have emailed, but I do love that pompous old formulation) in noticing that the year now in progress has been designated Twenty-O-Five? I seem to remember that last year was two thousand and four, but the BBC seems now to have settled for the date with the O in the middle. Logical, I suppose, since we often talk of Nineteen-O-Five; yet when did the habit of using O when you really mean nought become acceptable? When phone numbers were invented, perhaps. Ah well: poor old two thousand and four. It nestles today in the dustbin of history. Smallweed
Friday, January 28, 2005
غدير خم
By Hassan ibn Thabit
يُناديهمُ يومَ الغديرِ نبيُّهُم بخُمٍّ... فأسمِعْ بالرسولِ مُناديا
وقد جاءه جِبريلُ عن أمر ربّهِ...بأنّك معصومٌ، فلا تكُ وانيا
وبلّغْهُمُ ما أنزلَ اللهُ ربُّهُم...إليك ولا تخشَ هناك الأعاديا
فقام بهم إذ ذاك رافعَ كفّهِ...بكفِّ عليٍّ مُعلنَ الصوت عاليا
فقال: فمَن مولاكمُ ووليُّكم ؟...فقالوا ولم يُبدوا هناك تعاميا:
إلهُك مولانا وأنتَ وليُّنا..ولن تَجِدَنْ فينا لك اليومَ عاصيا
فقال له: قُمْ يا عليُّ، فإنّني...رَضِيتُك مِن بعدي إماماً وهاديا
فمَن كنتُ مولاه فهذا وليُّهُ...فكونوا له أنصارَ صِدقٍ مَواليا
هناك دعا: اللهمّ والِ وليَّهُ...وكُنْ للذي عادى عليّاً مُعاديا
فياربِّ اُنصُرْ ناصريهِ لنصرِهم...إمامَ الهدى كالبدر يجلو الدياجيا
What a contemporary Christian Lebanese poet had to say 1400 years on:
By Polis Salamah
لا تَقلْ: شيعةٌ هُواةُ عليٍّ...إنّ في كلّ مُنصِفٍ شيعيّا
هو فخرُ التاريخ لا فخْرُ شعبٍ...يَدّعيهِ.. ويَصطفيه وليّا
ذِكْرُه إن عَرى وجومَ الليالي...شقّ في فلقة الصباح نَجيّا
يا عليَّ العصورِ هذا بياني...صِغتُ فيه وحيَ الإمام جليّا
يا أميرَ البيان هذا وفائي...أحمَدُ اللهَ أن خُلِقتُ وفيّا
يا أميرَ الإسلام حَسْبيَ فخراً...أنّني منك مالئٌ أصغَرَيّا
جَلْجَلَ الحقُّ في المسيحيّ حتّى...عُدّ مِن فَرطِ حبّهِ عَلويّا
فإذا لم يكن عليٌّ نبيّاً...فلقد كان خُلْقُه نَبَويّا
يا سماءُ اشهدي ويا أرضُ قرّي...واخشَعي أنّني ذكرتُ عليّا
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
One of our traditional industries
Name me one of the oldest industries in Bahrain, an industry for which Bahrain has a comparative advantage in scale, price, resources, human capital, with access to a large consumer market. Manufacturing? No. Tourism? No. IT? No. Ok give up...it is s-e-x.Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
Karl Kraus 1874-1936, Austrian Satirist
When it comes to Bahrain, prostitution and corruption come hand in hand. Prostitution is one of the oldest industries known to humanity, it's been around for as long as sex has been a marketable product and demand and supply has existed in the 'market' place. Bahrain is not an exception. Despite it being a social taboo, Bahrain is notorious for it's red-light districts and Russian girls often seen walking around shopping malls with bodyguards (the Moroccans and Filipinos don't get a brainless pile of muscle for protection unfortunately). It is common knowledge that these prostitution rings are propped up by pimps, eh sorry, high ranking officials, who provide brothel-like accommodation, visas, and protection from the law.
Below is a government notice dated 8th February 1939. Other than making quite a funny read in arabic with words like 'Al3ahiraat almojahiraat' , it shows that the government has always been quite tolerant to this industry historically but has tried to confine it to certain areas. It states the following:
Notice Number 50, 1355
Prostitutes
- All immodest prostitutes are ordered to live in prostitute places and they
are not allowed to stay in honorable places in Manama and Muharraq.- The places assigned to the immodest prostitutes is (fareeg madree waish) x
district in Manama and x (madree waish) district in Muharraq.- Owners of the honorable places are responsible in a court [of law]
if they allow immodest prostitutes or gamblers.- If within one month from this date, any immodest prostitute is found
staying in an honorable place and hasn't moved to the prostitute
district will be prosecuted in court.- Any foreign prostitute caught violating these orders will be banished
from Bahrain.27 Dhul hijjah 1355
8 February 1937
Advisor to the Bahraini Government.
Who was the advisor to the Bahraini government in 1939? Was he British?
Come on, lets dish out the dirt, lets name some names - who is the big fish behind these prostitution rings? Who is the big-daddy pimp? Who is making millions exploiting third-world poverty-striken women?
Friday, January 21, 2005
The Big Eid
Its that time of year, where all your relatives who chose to go to Hajj return home after a couple of weeks in Mecca (that's a larger than average percentage in my family). Those who were going for the first time, those who go once a decade (average good-muslim joe), and those who go almost every year (die-hard hajjis). One of my aunt's, an archetypal diehard, even says that she is going to advertise going to Hajj for anyone who cannot go themselves, if they pay for all tickets and accomodation of course! Do you have a dead aunt or uncle or parents who didn't manage to complete a pilgrimage in their lifetime?Substitute pilgrim available here. Contact me on the email address below.
You welcome them back with a strong warm embrace, relieved that they made it in one piece and that no major crowd catastrophes occured- no tunnel closures, no stampedes, no fires, no disease. Despite the look of sheer fatigue, the radiance of pure happiness and enlightenment is apparant. You do get a strong sense, that something in them has changed, how long that will last is another issue, but at least they can live on with the thought that God has wiped their slates clean, as if they were born again.
Every muslim wrestles with themselves with the question of, when is a good time to go to Hajj? There is a clear payoff curve. If you are able financially and physically to go, then it is a sin in itself to delay Hajj, yet most people feel that the later they do it the better (the whole clean slate philosophy- get the sins done and out of the way first before the final repentance). At the moment i'm toying with the idea of going next year if all things work out, but I feel there are a few stepping stones that I need to do first before I feel 'ready'.
Reading Shariati's simply titled book "Hajj", discusses the symbolism and philosophy of this ancient ritual, it is a mustread for all those thinking of going to Hajj. He metaphorically describes the image of Hajj as:
"a symboli c demonstration of the philosophy of Creation of Adam. To further illustrate this, it may be stated that the performance of Hajj is a simultaneous show of many things; it is a "show of creation", a "show of history", a "show of unity", a "show of the Islamic ideology" and a show of the Ummah.
The following conditions prevail in this "show". Allah (God) is the stage manager. The theme portrayed is the actions of the people involved. Adam, Ibrahim, Hajar, and Satan are the main characters. The scenes are Masjid-ul Haram, the Haram area, Masa, Arafat, Mashars and Mina. Important symbols are the Kaaba, Safa, Marwa, day, night, sunshine, sunset, idols and ritual of sacrifice. The clothing and make up are Ihram, Halgh and Taqseer. Lastly, the player of the roles in this "show" is only one; and that is YOU!... The role of Adam, Ibrahim and Hajar in the confrontation between "Allah and Satan" is played by you. As a result, you, individually, are the hero of the "show"."
He describes seeing the Kaaba for the first time, and the questions that naturally arises:
"Made of dark rough stones laid in a very simple manner with white chalk filling the fissures, the Kaaba is an empty cube - nothing else. You cannot but shiver and wonder about what you see Here ... There is no one! There is nothing to view! An empty room (cube) is visible. Is that all?!! Is this the center of our faith, prayers, love, life and death?
Questions and doubts arise in your mind. Where am l? What is here? What you see is the antithesis of your visual imaginations of the Kaaba. You might have perceived it as an architectural beauty (like a palace) whose ceilings covered a spiritual silence. Another possible portrayal was that of a high tomb housing the grave of an important human being - a hero, genius, imam or prophet! No - instead it is an open square, an empty room. It reflects no architectural skill, beauty, art, inscription, nor quality; and no graves
are found there. There is nothing and nobody there to whom you can direct your attention, feelings and memories."
I've always wondered why there isn't a Lonely Planet Guide to Hajj with maps of the city, good places to dine in Mecca, where to shop (you'd be surprised, I picked up a few great things last time I was there), hotel guide, main attractions (its not just the Kaaba there!), transport and etiquette (how to live communeally, use the glisteningly clean Saudi washrooms etc). It would be a sell-out this time of year. Since we're on the topic of business and Mecca, the Economist's aptly? named article "Meccanomics, Profit from the Prophet" explores this interesting relationship- never knew land prices are around £60,000 per square metre in the Holy city! One of my friends jokingly said to me once, "globalisation has existed in Mecca for over 1000 years", referring to Mecca as the melting pot of persons of every race and colour. Another person was telling me about a staunch Marxist who went to Hajj out of obligation and found his basic communist ideals there and repented!
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Career Advice
"...So my second piece of career advice echoes the political advice offered by Benjamin Franklin: whenever you are faced with a choice between liberty and security, choose liberty. Otherwise you will end up with neither. People who sell their souls for the promise of a secure job and a secure salary are spat out as soon as they become dispensable. The more loyal to an institution you are, the more exploitable, and ultimately expendable, you become. " Monbiot: Choose Life
The above quote, although from a left-wing Guardian journalist, always rings a certain amount of truth for me, one of my basic philisophies was always to avoid being another 'tog in the wheel' or selling my soul to a capitalist corporation, for which my only incentive is the money. Thus I chose to delay this decision as much as possible, but inevitably, like every twenty-something graduate (including Homer), I will also have to face the unavoidable decision of which career path to take, and to be honest it looks like i'll probably throw that philosophy out of the window when faced with harsh reality.
Previous generations of Bahrainis, upon graduating from foreign universities, immedietly returned to Bahrain, and because of a skills shortage were instantly employed in the main corporate or ministerial organisations. Nowadays, graduate Bahrainis are not in such high demand, and hence not so keen on returning home on the first plane back. In addition, the labour market is failing to lure new graduates, as ambitions are quickly dampened when attempting to grapple with the reality of bureucracy, shitty pay, and ass-lickinging they're way to the top. The trend now is to gain experience abroad, make a bit of money, build a good CV in an international organisation and return to Bahrain one day in the hope of fast-tracking to higher ranking positions. An increasing brain-drain. The fear is that many Bahrainis will settle and not come back to Bahrain for a long long time either.
Many of my peers are now working in London, US, Dubai and even Qatar, enjoying a challenging work environment and a fat salary to top off. The fact that they manage to secure these jobs and overcome strict immigration restrictions in itself is an indication of the calibre of graduates that are shunning away from the Bahraini labour market.
The only thing one can hope for, is that the economic situation improves under proposed labour market reforms, and that this brain-drain will be reversed so that Bahrainis can return back to serve they're country and improve the situation, having gained valuable experience abroad, and with enough cash maybe to start they're own businesses or investments.
According to Monbiot however, "How many times have I heard students about to start work for a corporation claim that they will spend just two or three years earning the money they need, then leave and pursue the career of their choice? How many times have I caught up with those people several years later, to discover that they have acquired a lifestyle, a car and a mortgage to match their salary, and that their initial ideals have faded to the haziest of memories, which they now dismiss as a post-adolescent fantasy? How many times have I watched free people give up their freedom? "
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Blog Quiz #1
This is a simple quiz to test your knoweledge of A-B-C Bahraini History. If you're Bahraini then you should know the answer to these basic questions, just like you know about American or European History, American civil war, French revolution, WW1/2 etc. Although not exactly questions that will be appearing in Trivial Pursuit, I hope you all have a bash!
- What was the capital of Bahrain during the middle ages and who moved it to Manama?
- Name two families who ruled Bahrain for a total period of over 250 years before Alkhalifa?
- From the 6th-16th century what were the islands known as Bahrain today called back then?
- Who ruled Bahrain from 1058-1238?
- What is the town called Zinj named after?
- What was the name of the old capital of ‘Iqleem al Bahrain’- that stretched from Basrah to the Strait of Hormuz including the archipelago known as Bahrain today ?
- What year did the battle of 'dul3' occur in Bahrain and who was it between?
- Towards the end of the 19th century, Sheikh Ali bin Issa Alkhalifa divided Bahrain up into different provinces assigning a different rular over each province from his family. In each province, the rular was free to set his own laws and tax rates. Who ruled the Jidhafs and Sitra province?
Non-Bahraini persons who score full marks will be given a head-start in the queue for a free Bahraini passport (Yemeni special edition). Bahrainis, you should already know this so don't deserve a prize :)
Answers will be revealed in a week's time once I find them out myself :)
Saturday, January 15, 2005
A Family Enterprise
1.Prime Minister, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa2.Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Islamic Affairs, Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalid Al Khalifa
3.Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa.
4.Transportation Minister, Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.
5.Interior Minister, Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa.
6.Minister of Prime Minister's Court, Shaikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa.
7.Defence Minister, LT.Gen.Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.
8.Oil Minister, Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa.
9.Minister of Electricity and Water, Shaikh Abdulla bin Salman Al Khalifa.
10.Minister of Finance, Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa.
...and the rest of the pack in the bottom half
...oh sorry I was just day-dreaming of a meritocracy there for a second. tut tut tut mind always wonders off like that. Well at least certain sections of our society don't have unemployment issues.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Turki Al-Hamad's Trilogy
I completely agree with this review.Hamad's writing, on the other hand, is remarkably - almost unforgivably - limp and lifeless. On page after page of prose, he violates the age-old dictum of "show, don't tell," offering full passages of explanation. No gesture is left unanalyzed. No action is left to stand on its own. Emotions are simply told,
never felt or embodied. There are few suggestions lingering between the lines. Sure, there is a bit of heavy petting and vaguely stated anti-regime, pro-Marxist sympathies. But is this all there is to make Hamad's literary work "explosive"?
I put the so-called blandness down to the english translation which I touched upon here, totally lacking in dimensionality and depth. Its not an amazing literary piece, just includes some insignificant and uninteresting accounts of a vulgur sexual encounter and open confessions of alcohol consumption which is supposed to make it 'explosive', well if you're going by Saudi standards then that wouldn't be too hard. But credit where credit is due, it was an interesting insight into the nature of underground political activity in the 70s.
Da Vinci Code lover's dont even think of this one if your looking for suspense and excitement. Not a single cliffhanger, not a single twist! I'm not even sure if the translator attempted to spice things up or down. What kind of novel was it supposed to be anyway? Certainly not a thriller. I'm sure like most other writers, Hamad's trilogy is a biographical reflection of his past. Apparantly he wanted to get things moving, but since the dust has settled after the storm, I don't think he has set any sort of precedent for other writers in the Gulf. Its just another bit of 'native' writing that feeds to Western idealism quite nicely but has no echoes in the ME at all.
This is a view also shared by a well-respected Saudi academic who I discussed the book with a while back. She was invited to review the book on BBC radio. She refused on the basis that she is not a literary expert so had no authority on which to critique, but she probably just didn't want to openly critisize her Saudi counterpart on an international platform. Damn arabs take offence so easily. Either that or she just felt unappeased at all the exposure the book got by including a couple of paragraphs of sexual description, whereas her much more interesting non-fiction historical account of Saudi Arabia received not much publicity in comparison. I am also skeptical about the so-called fatwas and death threats Hamad supposedly recieved, as he certainly seems proud of them judging by the way they're plastered over the cover. This just makes me think it is a publicity ploy that decorates the blurb quite nicely. It seems, the number of fatwas you get now is supposed to reflect how good a book is?!
Overall, good plot, badly structured and badly narrated. Don't think i'll buy the third part when it comes out....I can't help feeling ripped off, he could have easily squeezed the whole thing in one book. Even so, with the dismal amount of books published in the Gulf, any attempt should be applauded.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
سطحية . غبية . مجنونة . بلهاء.
يا سيدي العزيز
هذا خطاب امرأة حمقاء
هل كتبت إليك قبلي امرأة حمقاء؟
اسمي أنا؟ دعنا من الأسماء
رانية .. أم زينب
أم هند .. أم هيفاء
أسخف ما نحمله - يا سيدي - الأسماء
**
**
لا تنزعج!
يا سيدي العزيز .. من سطوري
لا تنزعج!
إذا كسرت القمقم المسدود من عصور ..
إذا نزعت خاتم الرصاص عن ضميري
إذا أنا هربت
من أقبية الحريم في القصور..
إذا تمردت، على موتي..
على قبري، على جذوري..
والمسلخ الكبير ..
لا تنزعج، يا سيدي
إذا أنا كشفت عن شعوري..
فالرجل الشرقي
لا يهتم بالشعر ولا الشعور..
الرجل الشرقي
- واغفر جرأتي -
لا يفهم المرأة إلا داخل السرير..
معذرة يا سيدي
إذا تطاولت على مملكة الرجال
فالأدب الكبير - طبعا - أدب الرجال
والحب كان دائما
من حصة الرجال ..
والجنس كان دائما
مخدرا يباع للرجال..
خرافة حرية النساء في بلادنا
فليس من حرية
أخرى، سوى حرية الرجال..
يا سيدي..
قل ما تريده عني . فلن أبالي
سطحية . غبية . مجنونة . بلهاء.
فلم أعد أبالي..
لأن من تكتب عن همومها..
في منطق الرجال تدعى امرأة حمقاء
ألم أقل في أول الخطاب إني امرأة حمقاء...
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Anything to declare?
Yes, I blog. But i'm not gonna give you the website even if you tickled me to death (believe me that's the fastest and cleanest way).Bloggers, my friends, you can diss - sorry "constructively criticize" whoever you want- your government, Uncle Sam, Auntie Hilda, ur mechanic, gardener or even your postman, just NOT your BOSS, as Joe Gordon found out when he got booted from his job for blogging negatively about his "Evil Boss".
Why would you tell you're boss about your blog anyway if the main aim is to rant about them...if ur gonna do that at least keep your identity undercover. SillyBahrainiGirl, be careful!... unless you really love your boss like I do...middle-aged bosses don't treat young girls too bad in my experience, and NO, not cos we offer extra-curricular services ;) My bosses have always been kind and encouraging...their office doors are always open, lending a listening ear to all my suggestions...so much so, that I even submitted his name for the Boss of the Year 2004. Since i'm in the office before everyone else, and am extremely productive, my bosses appreciate this by rewarding me with frequent bonuses and promotions.
(see, if you were clever, Mr Gordon, you would have used your blog to climb the ranks of Waterstones, and left bookshelving behind, instead of losing your livelihood).
I'm hoping here, that blogging might even become a career booster, ur boss might love your blog so much he might let you blog at work and your blog may feature as a link on the company's website. So to my friend who was asking me whether to put "Blogging" under their Extracurricular Activities section on their CV, my answer is NO, unless you actively change your blog's agenda to tow a pro-boss line.
The day might come, my friends who are wallowing on the lower end of the corporate structural hierarchy, where we can stand proudly, and declare to the rest of the company....that we blog!
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Wisest Fool
The Economist has launched a competition in search of the Wisest Fool :Today we are after that rarer oxymoron: the wisest fool. He or she must be fundamentally an idiot, but a shrewd or cunning one. Candidates need not inhabit Christendom, but they must be alive, or have been in the past 50 years.
The "wisest fool" originally a term coined to describe James I of England, who in the words of Walter Scott:
He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom...He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public
labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated...He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language...
Sounds like a familiar description? So doors are open to nominate candidates who are alive or have been over the last 50 years.
I guess my contenders would be the obvious choice of G dubya Bush, depicted as the a monkey in Steve Bell's cartoons, yet leader of the biggest global power today! Second candidate, Arnold Shwarzenegger? Third maybe, Mugabe. Closer to home, I think our very own Amir, sorry King of Bah-a-rain, would make a good contender by certainly fitting the cunning and shrewd requirements after pulling off the Mithaq scam and the ensuing Consitutional_Coup!! And how could I forget....Colonel Gaddafi, of course!
Any other nominations are most welcome!
Saturday, January 08, 2005
I gotta get thru this...
I gotta get thru this...I gotta take gotta take my mind off u [blogger.com]
pressure pressure pressure...such bad karma
stress stress stress...so not good for the skin...
i demand free emergency facials and optional intravenous feeding of Red Bull for all students who need to meet deadlines ...
i need to figure out how to program a monte carlo simulation within the next 48 hours or i'm screwed! As with alot of probability theory , this was invented by people with too many brain cells, who decide to play card games, like Mr Ulam, a Polish mathematician:
Yeah, those thoughts cross my mind all the time when i'm playing solitaire on my PC :) Well he invented the Monte Carlo technique for fun, the real work came when he designed the hydrogen bomb in 1951, must have been lighting matches next to a cow's backside or something.The first thoughts and attempts I made to practice [the Monte Carlo Method] were suggested by a question which occurred to me in 1946 as I was convalescing from an illness and playing solitaires. The question was what are the chances that a Canfield solitaire laid out with 52 cards will come out successfully? After spending a lot of time trying to estimate them by pure combinatorial calculations, I wondered whether a more practical method than “abstract thinking” might not be to lay it out say one hundred times and simply observe and count the number of successful plays. This was already possible to envisage with the beginning of the new era of fast computers, and I immediately thought of problems of neutron diffusion and other questions of mathematical physics, and more generally how to change processes described by certain differential equations into an equivalent form interpretable as a succession of random operations. Later … [in 1946, I] described the idea to John von Neumann, and we began to plan actual calculations.
Ok, let me have just one more game of solitaire, i'm sure it'll help me figure out what the hell a MC simulation is... im convalescing i tell ya!
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
وحياة سيدنا الحمار
يقولون ان اثنين من حرامية الحمير الذين يظهرون في القرى الجرنوكيا في هجر، بين الحين والآخر, قد تسللا في الظلام الى احدى الزرائب وسرقا حمارا سحباه الى خارج القرية.....وسارا به في الظلام حتى وصلا الى منطقة فيها بصيص من النور ..وعندئذ تبين لهما ان الحمار الذي سرقاه حمار هزيل معتل الصحة ولايقوى على السير بطريقةالحمير الاخرين........وأنه باختصار شديد عبارة عن جلد علىعظم، ومستعد للنفوق في اية لحظة.......وطوال الطريق ظل اللصان يندبان حظهما التعس الذي اوقعهما في هذا الحمار الذي لايساوي شيئا في سوق الحمير....بل ولا يوجد أي مغفل يمكن ان يشتريه ولو بأبخس الاثمان....
وفجأة و توقف الحمار عن السير وسقط على الارض وانتفض مرتين ثم نفق ومات...وزادت بالتالي هموم اللصين في تلك الليلة الشؤم... فجلسا على الارض ليستريحا قليلا ،، وليفكروا في طريقة لسرقة حمار آخر بدلا من الحمار النافق.
وكان اللص الاول اذكى قليلا من اللص الاخر..فقال أن من الواجب اولا دفن الحمار لاخفاء جسم جريمة السرقة..فقال اللص الغبي ان لاداعي لدفن الحمار ومن الافضل ان يبحثا اولا عن حمار آخر يسرقاه..... فأصر اللص الاول على موقفه...بل وقال من الافضل أن يقلعا عن سرقة الحمير من زرائب الفلاحين، لأنها مهنة شديدةالخطورة، وأن يبحثا عن طريقة للحصول على اموال الناس ..وياحبذا لوكان ذلك يتم برضاهم! ..يعني بصراحة أن النصب أحسن من السرقة وأكثر أمنا..!
ولكن كيف السبيل الى ذلك؟
وظل اللصان يفكرا ويفكران الى أن طرأت الفكرة الجهنمية في رأس اللص الذكي قال ان عليهما ان يدفنا الحمار ويقيما فوقه ضريحا صغيرا..وعليهما ان يقنعا الناس من سكان القرية وسكان القرى المجاورة بأنهما غريبان كانا قادمين في صحبة رجل صالح اسمه الشيخ حمار..وهو رجل كان حبيبا للحمير وعطوفا عليها ،وله بركات يعرفها كل الحمير ،وكل اصحاب الحمير، وكل من يرغب في امتلاك حمار...
وقال اللص الغبي : طب وبعدين..؟!
فقال اللص الذكي مواصلا عرض فكرته الجهنمية ان حبكة هذه القصة تقتضي ان يدعيا ان الشيخ حمار قد مات عندما حل اجله في هذا المكان ولأنهما من مريدي هذا الشيخ فقد اقاما له ضريحا حيث مات ودفن، لتستمر بركاته على الحمير في كل ارجاء المنطقة وعندما تساءل اللص الذكي:وكيف سنحصل على النقود من الناس...ان الحصول على النقود هو الهدف المنشود....فكيف نحققه؟
فأجاب اللص الذكي بسولة ان الأمر بسيط...مجرد صندوق من الخشب يسمى(صندوق النذور) يضع فيه طالب الحاجة ماتجود به نفسه.... ومجرد عمامتين خضراوين يلبسانها كمظهر مميز لمهنتهما الجديدة وان عليهما ان يمارسا من الآن فن الاجابة على جميع الاستشارات المحتملة الخاصة بالحمير وشئونها المختلفة.
وهكذا اقيم للحمار النافق ضريح شاعت شهرته ...واخذ اصحاب الحمير يقصدونه ليبارك حميرهم ..واذا مرض حمار او اصيب فان صاحبه ينذر نذرا لسيدنا الحمار اذا شفي حماره او عادت اليه عافيته ...
كما كان من لا يملكون حميرا يطلبون من سيدنا الحماران ان يستجيب لدعائهم ويحقق لهم آمالهم المنشودة.. كما كان الناس يلجأون اليه ايضا اذا حبلت حماراتهم لطلب السلامة في الولادة والنسل الطيب......
وكان اللصان يشرفان بعناية على شئون الضريح ويحصلان من الناس على اتعاب محترمة...وكانا يبيعان ايضا احجبة وتمائم لتعليقها برقاب الجحوش الصغيرة لتقيها شر اعين الحاسدين،وتمنحها القوة والعافية والصبر.... وكلما ذهب احد الناس الى السوق ليبيع حمار او ليشتري... لابد ان يمر اولا على ضريح سيدنا الحمار ليدفع المعلوم ليحصل على بركة بيع الحمار .....ونظرالأاهمية حمير المنطقة وارتباطهاالشديد بحياة الناس ، فقد كان القسم بحياة سيدنا الحمار لاينزل الارض، ولايمكن الحنث به او التلاعب عليه... وهكذا مرت الايام والشهور والسنين.. واصبح اللصان من كبار الاثرياء.
ولكن لان اللص يظل دائما لص ، فقد كان كل من اللصين يسرق زميله بين حين وآخر..وفي احد الايام اتهم اللص الغبي زميله اللص الذكي بأنه يسرق بعض الاموال من صندوق النذور ويأخذ أكثر من نصيبه...واخذ اللص المتهم يحاول ان يبرىء نفسه من تلك التهمة فقال لزميله : وحياة سيدنا الحمار ....انا ماعملت كده!.
فقال اللص الغبي :انت تحلف لي بسيدنا الحمار .....
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