Author: Ammar

A Syrian dreamer & dissident, not necessarily in that order.

The Rich and the Poor

A Heretic’s Log: A series of philosophical essays written between September 20, 2002 and July 15, 2004. 

When it comes to the issue of poverty in the world, there are no lights at the end of the tunnel, although there is a need for lights to be present all through it.

We can easily assert today, and studies in this regard are too numerous to mention, that the majority of the peoples of Earth are not receiving their “fair and reasonable” share of the material benefits of globalization. Meanwhile people’s expectations regarding what constitutes this fair and reasonable share are being reshaped daily, making it ever harder for their attainment to take place and creating a condition of constant frustration as a consequence. Continue reading “The Rich and the Poor” →

Heretical Tumult!

Life seems increasingly unfathomable to me of late, increasingly tumultuous. You cannot make sense of anything in the absence of silence. Yet, silence seems more and more like the luxury I can never afford again. My grip on reality is bound to become increasingly uncertain, I know. But then, has it ever been anything but uncertain? Through silence and tumult, it seems, in time, life is simply bound to lose all meaning, all significance. That is why I will be able to let go of it, one day. Will it be near?

The Cannibalized Heretic!

In the back of my mind (or is it my consciousness?), there lingers a burning certainty instructing me that everything I am doing today, that everything I have ever done all through my life, is nothing more than a continuing loss of myself to the world. The world is a cannibal and I its willing prey. How can I fight against something that comes from within and without and from yesterday and the morrow, and is present in every tremor and every minute of my night and day?

Fear & Inaction

What is it that could make people mad enough to act? What is it that could motivate them into action? I mean, there are regimes out there that have persecuted, starved, and humiliated their peoples using all hideous tactics conceivable to the human mind, and yet, their victims remained inactive, inactive on account of their fear, of their sense of and desire for self-preservation. What does that mean? Is the threat of genocide the only way to get people to break through the barrier of fear?