Café Crem: “Let us talk about us”

Hi Folks

Just a little bit on my experiences on Eid-al-Adhaa, or ‘’Festival of the sacrifice’’ as known here, I have always celebrated eid in England, and never in Kashmir (where my family originates from), where I believe there is a world of difference as to how this occasion, spanning 3 days is spent.

Eid-al-adha represents the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and their hardships and trials that they faced in order to prove their love of God, they went through all the other tests and succeeded but the final and most challenging and extreme task for any human, for him to prove his devotion, was to sacrifice his own son, the beloved Ismaa’il, and that they chose to be blindfolded as they could not bear the sight of what was to happen, but once they lifted the blindfold they saw that in his place a goat was slaughtered instead and there stood Ismaa’il, smiling back up at his father.

The Hajj (pilgrimage) represent’s the above, which comes to a close, the night before Eid, with each person sacrificing an animal, a goat, sheep, lamb, cow and sharing the meat with the poor. The Sacrifice (Qurbaani) is obligatory upon every-able bodied adult, though I’m not sure if its obligatory every year upon the same individual? Its all about how much you can afford.

For the rest of the world, it all depends on the sighting of the moon at its correct phase, and soon as it is sighted in a suitable region of the world, an announcement is made by a responsible committee, that Eid is the following day.

Back to my own Eid-al-Adha experience, I have spent a lot of time in Pakistan/Kashmir but have never been there around Eid time, which is a shame, as I know in Pakistan/Kashmir they have a tradition where a week or two prior to Eid, each family buy a goat (or a few, depending on how rich they are) and they then take the goat(s) home and feed, groom, exhibition them until their time is up (gulp!). The local butcher does his rounds and goes through the Slaughter (Zibaah) procedures, where the meat is then ready to cook, before moving on to the next house. This is more the theme in the cities, in the more rural and agricultural areas, the families take from their own livestock and then carry out the sacrifice themselves, as per they’re ordinary routine.

In England, the meat is ordered at the Butchers and then its picked up on Eid day or the day before, and when we get to see it, it will come in a huge presented tray, in a variety of specially prepared ‘lamb chop’, bitesize lamb chunks and minced meat, as per our requests, ready to cook as we wish, we are able to save some of the meat and store in the freezer, for a suitable time. The meat is split into little clear bags and then given out to friends, family, neighbours, I’m sure its split in 3 thirds, where 1 3rd we keep for ourselves, 1 3rd between family and friends and 1 3rd for the poor, but I’m not entirely sure. We all help out by dropping these bags off. We cook a variety of yummy food, using the meat, for e.g. lamb chops, kebabs, rice with meat, meat curry and so forth.
I suppose its all become very consumeristic (as everything is becoming in this day and age). We hardly ever think back to the actual real significance of this occasion, more emphasis is put on our clothes, the amount of money (Eidi) or alternatively, gifts we’ll recieve, or give out, how we decorate our houses, who has better food, etc.
P.s. Eidi or Eid money (or alternatively gifts) is what you receive as kids, up till an age where you’re earning yourself and able to give from your own pocket, you give the money out to the children and make their day, this Eid money comes in notes of £5, £10 and £20, some people even give £100, but they’re the ridiculously rich ones, whom I wish would bump into on an Eid day sometime.
Sadly I’m now a giver, too old to be a receiver now, but me and my friends do give each other presents.
As a child Eid was all about an excuse to spend a whole day with friends and cousins of the same age, and we’d be all dressed up, with henna’ed hands and get lots of Eidi, which we would spend at the ice cream van, well that’s when Eid-al-adha was in the Summer.

SUPERSIZEME

I guess all of you are aware now, that on the 1st and 15th of each month a new topic is introduced in Cafe Crem. Each author here and indeed all visitors are invited to participate with one or more entries about the theme, like always with words, paintings, films, music, etc…. Please remember that any coffee cup entry, about the theme or not, will be warmly welcomed!

The new theme proposed by Psychscribe and starting 1st of January, will be

“Parents & Children”

Please feel free to join in!

MIKI

This is the seventh (and last) entry in a week-long series on the Muslim Festival of the Sacrifice.

When I first heard of this ritual, I thought it was barbaric. The first year I came to Morocco, I experienced this ritual and took pictures. It was really horrific, but the pictures were really interesting. I wrote home about the experience (similar to the description of the day here). Not many people replied, but one person who did mentioned it didn’t sound much different than killing an animal on the farm in preparation for winter (which is what she had experienced in America when she was young). At any rate, few Americans under age 70 would have had this experience, which probably makes it seem all the more barbaric to most people.

Different years, I’ve seen different amounts of callousness and different degrees of skill among butchers who have come to kill the sheep. My husband says that no one is thinking about whether the animal suffers (and when this point is brought up by children, they are just told the sheep is “lucky to be chosen, because he goes straight to Paradise.”) The children see the adults celebrating, and then after a few years they get used to seeing an animal killed as a fact of life, thus becoming another generation which is not shocked by it.

At this point, what disturbs me the most is when some butchers begin to skin the animal before it is entirely dead! I am the only person in the family to speak up about this, and my husband tells me, “Don’t disturb the butcher, he’s in a hurry to get to the next house.” I was not there this year, but I was the past few years. Now, I get my brother-in-law (who does listen to me when I bring this up) to take the butcher aside as the butcher is getting things ready, and TELL the butcher that if he has to wait an extra full minute to start skinning the animal until WE are satisfied it is really dead, then he must do so. That way, my husband doesn’t tell me that I’m “bothering the butcher.” So the last three years, I was satisfied about this.

A few women have told me that their husband is sacrificing a cow, or a sheep and a cow! The women don’t like this at all, as it makes a lot more work for them (a cow is a lot bigger than a sheep). I asked my husband about this, and he thinks anyone in Morocco who does this is just “showing off.” However, when I checked the internet, I found in many parts of the Muslim world they are sacrificing a cow, or even a camel, or a goat, depending upon what is the norm in their own community. The animal has to be a male, at least one year old, with perfect horns, and without blemish–not just any sheep will do. Prices of sheep go way up right before the Festival. So anyone in the Christian world who complains of Christmas being too “commercial” can see that the same problem is happening in the Muslim world with this festival.

After seeing this the first time, I recalled being told in Sunday school as a child that Jesus was the supreme sacrifice for all mankind, and that never again was an animal to be sacrificed. So I asked a lot of people for a lot of years about why, when Islam started 600 years after the birth of Christ, would God now “change his mind” and require animal sacrifices? If God is omniscient, it does not make sense that he would make one decision, and then later reverse himself to the opposite!

The standard answer of all Muslims I encountered, or put this question to, is that the Bible is incorrect, and that it has been purposely altered in the past! So then I found myself getting into a lot of debates about how much or how little it may have been changed, and how significant those changes were. Later on, I discovered than NONE of the people I was talking to had ANY real knowledge of the Bible, or of the Christian religion, but were just spouting off about what was said in the Koran.

It has only been in the last couple of years that I finally found someone who gave me a decent answer to this question. This person is a sincere Muslim scholar, a dual-national who understands both the Moroccan and American culture. Basically, she said the issue would never come up under Islam, since Islam believes that Jesus was a prophet, but not the son of God. It is also believed in Islam that Jesus did not really die on the cross, that another was substituted in his place, and that there was no resurrection. Therefore, any questions about the “sacrifice of Jesus for mankind,” are non-existent. If you try ask anyone about obvious historical events, you just get the response that the Bible has been (greatly) falsified.

Some years in school, I have children in my class tell me forcefully (after coming form Arabic class), “Do you know that part of the Christian religion is false?” (referring to the above-mentioned points about Jesus).   Since we are not supposed to discuss religion in school at all, any more if that question ever comes up, I just tell my eight-year-olds that it’s not “polite” to tell people something in their religion is false. I say they can think whatever they want, but they don’t have to say it. My eight-year-olds can understand this perfectly, and it solves the problem.

Today, I came across a really interesting article in the New York Times, which I highly recommend about this festival:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFD81030F93AA15750C0A96F958260

Anyone who wants to see that really BAD video I mentioned in a previous post of that terrible woman in Cairo slaughtering sheep in a completely wrong and inhumane way (this is a very disgusting video, so be sure you want to see it), you can see it here (I purposely did not embed the video).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yqy0VQSbgJ0

But I also want to include the comment a Saudi person left after seeing it, just so that people know that even most Arabs would never do it like this:

“This freaking video is amazing! As an Arab i am embarrassed, by the way she slaughters these animals one of the sheep is still moving around on the ground, this is so WRONG.The other sheep she cut its neck and it started running, WRONG AGAIN and this is happening in an Arab country. Shame, shame shame. I hope my country (Saudi) knows/and does better than this. This is PURE CRUELTY to animals. ya Allah!( may Allah have mercy on her for she knows not what wrong she is doing)”

I want to tell readers that I have never seen anything even remotely approaching this atrocious scene in sixteen years here. Most butchers know what they are doing, and the kill is done properly.

This concludes my series of articles on the Festival of the Sheep Sacrifice.

Madame Monet

“…For many women these days, it means a lot of messy work and a lot of serving of visitors who arrive at the home–some expected, and some unexpected…”

But some Mali women seemed to have a lot of fun too, in the preparation phase, making themselves looking beautiful… it really didn’t sound as if they were suffering because of too much work, although this here, looks like real big work for me!!! But well, to make herself beautiful, a woman doesn’t hesitate to spend hours of work, and sometimes in the most uncosy situations…

(Photos directly taken from Michael Palin BBC documentary film “Sahara”, during the Festival of the Sacrifice in Mali)

MIKI

I am just in shock over hearing about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  I was away from my computer for several hours, and saw it shortly after sitting down.  I ran to the TV and have been glued to it for over an hour.  Personally, I always liked her, and I had read her biography (or it might have been an autobiography, but I don’t recall)  back in 1990.

What do other people feel?

 Madame Monet

This is the sixth entry in a week-long series on the Muslim Festival of the Sacrifice.

Washing offal out of intestines can be an awful job! It’s cold, wet work, especially when the day falls in the winter season of November through February.

I’ve heard several women admit to me over the years that they don’t really like this holiday. Those who have admitted it to me were more well-to-do women, admittedly, whose families probably eat meat every day. In past centuries, all the work was was probably worth it for the reward of eating meat. For many women these days, it means a lot of messy work and a lot of serving of visitors who arrive at the home–some expected, and some unexpected.

I have yet to meet any men who tell me they don’t enjoy this holdiay.

Most children are not expected to help with the work. The children brag to each other about how many sheep their family will sacrifice. It seems to be the Western equivalent of wearing used ski-lift tickets on your jacket to school (the more the better) in terms of increasing your status among other kids.

In my next and last post in this series, I will discuss My Feelings About the Day, and How They Have Changed Over the Years.

Madame Monet

By W.R. Jones

     I’m reluctant to share this photo as the painting on the easel has been there for a couple of years now.  I have some type of mental block about finishing this piece.

    For those of you itching to send me stuff my birthday is May 20, 1945.  For those tightwads who don’t send me anything, I think my birthday remains the same.

    This photo clearly shows the young woman has just had a great cup of coffee while my dour face says I won’t paint a lick until I get a fresh cup and a donut. 

Hi All, Sorry you have to click to the photo, but it was the only way I could figure out how to send it through without it being too large. I hope this goes through ok. I decided to send a photo of myself and my Alpha Male who I write so much about - taken last month at a surprise 20th anniverary wedding party our kids threw us

I love seeing all the photos too - gives a much nicer sense of belonging

Each year it is tradition in my family to watch the Queen’s Christmas Message.

My father did this when we were children and my family continues the tradition.

Merry Christmas and God Bless Everyone,

The Pokocky’s

{the woman that keeps me young & the kidz dream team} in response to giving out our ages and explaining or {proving} my wife’s birthday is 12th of May, 1971 while I am 26th of March, 1955. {By the way Nathalie’s mother is my age and she seemed to accept the idea 20 years ago or so when we wanted to get married.}