Bambi's Thoughts
“Id meen el youm“? Ye, it is your birthday Joëlle today :). Happy Birthday from Bambi and all her family abroad and at home! May you have a wonderful day and a great year. One thing is sure: You do deserve all the love and happiness of the world ❤️!! Two songs for your today, hoping you will smile, enjoy, and maybe dance too :).
First of all, what is Shariah? It is a religious legal system, which is a code for living for Muslims. It is based on the Quran, Islam’s holy book, and both the Sunnah and Hadith. The latter are the reported acts and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Bearing the above in mind, Dubai-based ASDA’A BCW agency published results of a survey conducted with 3,400 Arab youth, aged 18-24 (half of them males and half females) living in 50 urban centres in 17 different Arab countries. The survey asked questions related to identity, politics, livelihood, global citizenship, lifestyle, etc.
One of the survey questions was related to the Shariah’s law. Despite a brief search, Bambi could not find the wording of this survey question or information on the survey errors. Nevertheless, as shown below, it seems that 56% of participants reported that their countries’ laws must be based on Shariah (Islamic law), not on civil/common law (https://arabyouthsurvey.com/en/findings/).
Of note, up to 70% of youth from the Gulf countries expressed their preference to have the laws of their states based on Shariah. In North Africa, 60% of youth reported wanting their countries’ laws to be based on Shariah. In comparison, only 41% of Arab youth in the Levant region expressed a similar view. Bambi suspects that this latter finding would vary across countries of the Levant, with Lebanon likely having the lowest percentage of youth expressing such views.
She does not know about you, but Bambi finds it highly worrisome that young Arabs seem to prefer to live under the Shariah law, which is incompatible with democracy, like in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. Why, Bambi cannot help to wonder? It would be highly informative if the next edition of this survey, and others, ask these youth about their reasons to prefer the Shariah law. Ideally, an open-ended survey question, without any predefined answer, would allow them to answer as they wish, that is with their own insights.
Bambi would like to begin by thanking her friend Rose for sharing Mr. Shervin Hajipoor’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shervin_Hajipour) most beautiful song!
It is highly shocking, and very sad, to learn now that he has been arrested days ago by the Iranian regime after he posted his song. It seems that the latter became like the national anthem of the protests in Iran. How sad and unacceptable that no one knows where he is right now.
Bambi is praying for you, Mr. Hajipoor. May you be found and released as soon as possible!!
To begin this brief post, Bambi would like to cite one of her good friends, if she may. Without naming her as she did not have the chance to ask her permission to do so, her friend will surely partly recognize her own words below: “In the name of religion: in some parts of the world, women are banned from wearing a hijab, when they wish to do so, like in India ( https://reut.rs/3CrpgbR). In contrast, in other parts of the world, women can be beaten to death if they show hair under a hijab, like in Iran, or do not wear a burka, like in Afghanistan” (ps://bit.ly/3Crvzw9).
This being said, Bambi will leave you with “the picture of the day”, which was taken from Orient Today (https://bit.ly/3y9c4po). For those who do not read Arabic, the signs of the demonstrators read as follows: “My hair and my body only belong to me” and “our bodies are ours“.
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Earlier posts on the topic:
Bambi is speechless… MANY of you know why, including you dear “Samo”. She loves you beyond words, thanking God because we are family ❤️️!
Before going to sleep, Bambi remembered the musical discovery she accidentally made three nights ago. She took the time to listen again to the angelic voice of Ms. Shireen Abusaad, featured in an older post shown further below. She would like to share with you two famous songs of Fairuz, as interpreted by this young Lebanese song writer/singer. She hopes you will enjoy them too. As for you Ms. Abusaad, please keep singing :)!
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Today’s post will be musical and brief. It is simply about Mr. Waked singing an Egyptian song that usually has a faster rhythm, which is literally a call to dance. Here, this melody is being sung by Mr. Paul Waked with his soul, not just his voice and guitar, as instruments. Bravo and thanks to him.
There is nothing like love and music in life. In Bambi’s mind, this song is and will forever be associated with celebrations of love with music at her sister’s wedding in Montreal MANY years ago [hello Roula/Doudou :)]. Yes, we had fun and danced until the early hours of the morning when Bambi had to literally run to her university to write a statistics undergraduate final exam in the middle of a HUGE snow storm.
To conclude, and If she may, Bambi would like to offer this song to three dear persons: Roula and Doudou, of course, and… you Fatma who also danced to this song and who may be reading this post now. Long live the Egyptian music :)!
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Older post mentioning Mr. Paul Waked’s talent:
Bambi has never ever imagined that a respectable hotel in a respectable metropolis of a respectable country will abruptly cancel reservations of customers, three nights before their trip, without advising them, to host refugees from now until May, 2023. If someone would have told her this, she would have not believed it. Well, no one needed to tell her about it. It just happened to her today, believe it or not.
Following her story that made her rush to find a room at another hotel, she searched the mainstream media and found these older three articles, from the CBC https://bit.ly/3Rrg1Nm), Epoch Times (https://bit.ly/3SketWy), and True North (https://bit.ly/3RhbDQD) that could perhaps tell us part of the story of what is happening…. not all of it. They seem to tell us that this program purportedly for Ukrainian refugees may be used for other refugees claimants.
Although Bambi has the utmost compassion for refugees and immigrants (since she is an old one), she would like to know for whom these programs are meant precisely? And why existing reservations cannot be honoured? Can someone explain this to her, please?
Just before getting ready to go to sleep, Bambi made an incredible discovery of a much talented young singer/songwriter from Lebanon. Her name is Ms. Shireen Abusaad. She sings in several languages, including standard and Lebanese Arabic. She sings a cappella. She also sings while playing the guitar as well as the oud, which is traditionally used in Middle Eastern and East African music. She is absolutely fascinating, bravo to her! As for you dear readers of this post, if you do not believe Bambi, please listen to the following song… and simply let your ears enjoy it!
Here is the original in English…
Bambi would like to thank you Gina for your beautiful pictures of nature taken yesterday in the area of Sainte-Thérèse-de-la-Gatineau in the province of Québec.
You kindly said that you thought of your friend when you encountered a few deer : ). You also generously accepted that she shares your pictures with this blog’s readers. Bambi is grateful!
Well, this post will be brief. First, you can appreciate Gina’s pictures. Second, if you wish, you can listen to the L’Hymne à la Beauté du Monde [“The Anthem of the beauty of the world“], as intepreted by one of Bambi’s preferred French-Canadian singers, Ms. Luce Dufault. Written by Ms. Francesca Gagnon, this song is a tribute to the beauty of nature. It is a call to preserve the latter for the next generations. Below is an English translation, for your convenience.
To conclude this post, Bambi hopes you will enjoy it. Happy Rosh Hashana for those of you celebrating this event and Happy new week to everyone [yes, it is Monday again, in case you have not realized it yet :)]!
The Anthem to the Beauty of the World (https://lyricstranslate.com)
“Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Each flower, each tree that we kill
Returns to kill us on its turn
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s not kill the singing of the birds
Let’s not kill the blue of the day
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
The last chance of the earth
It is now in the play
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s make a big garden of the earth
For those coming after us
After us
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
The last chance of the earth
It is now in the play
Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
Let’s make a big garden of the earth
For those coming after us
After us“.
