Ramadan Is Almost Over !

Ramadan is almost over . Maybe next Sunday or Monday ? Glade it is nearly finished . This has been the strangest Ramadan for Moe and I . Many of the people we know have also said that it was awful for them too . I can't describe the feeling but it wasn't nice . In the old days we would have said the " Vibes where bad man" !

The weather was bad . The food I cooked was bad . The people were nasty and tried to cheap me on the prices of things just because I was a foreigner . If it was someplace I didn't normally shop , that happened until I told them I was married to a Libyan , but WHY should I have to say that ?

Then the other day when we went to town to buy a few things we had a altercation with a Libyan man that quickly turned nasty and almost violent . He told Moe he couldn't possibly be a Libyan because NO DECENT LIBYAN WOULD MARRY A FOREIGNER WHORE OF A DOG . I was pretty sure Moe would've kill that man if he had been able to get a hold of him , cane or no cane . That left me shaking and Moe muttering for the rest of the day . That was the first time I had seen such naked hatred before here in Libya .

A person actually asked me was I fasting . That is not so shocking by it's self since people are always asking me stupid things like that all the time. I have learned just to ignore those questions , but this man knows me . I just looked at him , shook my head and walked off .

My sometimes sane friend called me all in a panic the other day . She had been reading the Hadiths , the sayings and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed , and in one of them somewhere it talks about Jinns . What upst her was that her husband had not harvested thier dates yet. She became upset when she read in one of the Hadiths that the Jinns eat the date pits . How where the Jinns going to have a thing to eat if her husband didn't harvest the dates so she could throw the pits out side for the Jinns ? And if they don't have anything to eat , then the Jinns would come inside their house and cause them trouble all this coming winter . I had to calm her down and convince her that the Jinns could find plenty of food all over the place since there are only at least 1,000,000,000,000 date trees in Libya . I could tell she had her doubts .

Ok , I will stop my moaning here before you stop reading my blog , but I am very glade this month is almost over ! I sincerely hope your month , whether or not you celebrate Ramadan, was much better than ours . And they say the Devil is locked up in Hell during the month of Ramadan , but I am not too sure about that this year . Evil is a foot .

Talks on Prisoners Release

I hesitated to write on this subject knowing full well I might be opening Pandora's box of very nasty surprises , but I felt I had to comment on Libya's proposed action to release some Islamist rebels from prison . Saif Al Islam Ghaddafi , chairperson for The International Foundation, is currently in negotiations with an Al Quada- affiliated Islamist rebel group to release some of it's members that are in prison .

As a foreigner living here , married to a Libyan , mother to Libyans , grand mother to Libyans , I am frightened to know this may come about . Used to be , being a Muslim was a natural thing here . There was no compulsion in religion to be extreme . I mean everyone is Muslim here . The Christain foreigner's working here , or the occasional Christian married to a Libyan are the exception to the rule , but they are treated with respect and are allowed to worship as they wish . They are not allowed to evangelize though . But more and more on the streets here in Tripoli you will see men with short Arabic style dress , all rumpled , many times not too clean looking even though the clothing most be clean to pray in , short pants , long unkempt breads , menacing glares towards people in general , women singled out for the " special " look . If you try to engage them in a conversation they act as if you are the bane of Righteousness . Sometimes in tow , you will see a woman covered from head to toe in swaths of BLACK material ,with a veil shielding her face from view . This is a relatively new affection one didn't see here in Libya before maybe the mid 1990's . Women dressed however they felt like either traditionally or "western" , the same for men .They still do , don't get me wrong . But this growing group is pushing this form of dress on others , onto people that don't necessarily agree with them . Much like the Taila-bad in Afghanistan did with the baraka .

This is alarming ... WHY ? Because these people ( here I loosely use this term ) are generally the NEW MUSLIM RIGHT and they , I have noticed when ever I have occasion to engage them in conversation, are the Extremist that want radical change in the Muslim world , if not the entire world . They are NOT tolerant of other views , cultures , or religions .They think like many other closed minded groups through out history , that if you are not with them , then you are their enemy .

Where ever they have the power ( Pakistan , Afghanistan , Iran etc....) then chaos follows in government and civilian life , with the collapse of the economy . Women and children seem to pay the price with loss of simple freedoms such as education and for some reason , medical care . I find the frequency of the NEW MUSLIMS RIGHT converts down right scary . They are so black and white in their dealings and thoughts with the world ,no grey anywhere . No give or take with them . I am not alone in this feeling. This isn't just a foreigners feeling either . I hear Libyans expressing their concern also .They are too cautious to vocalize loudly their fears due to their concern over this groups growing power in the society . This is a potential future problem taking root now .Hopefully it can be worked out without jeopardizing religious freedoms we have now .