atching the ceremony on the TV yesterday morning, something between dizzying and intoxication crept into my head and down to my joints… 

I saw, through the fog of memories, Abdullah El-Saghir, the last defeated Andalusian Arab king, gathering those who survived the siege of Granada on that miserable wintry night of 1492 before ending eight centuries of dazzling Arab civilization on the northern shore of the Mediterranean… 

...It was black and white… crosses everywhere as if the whole Iberian peninsula turned into an endless crusade cemetery… we were salty from tears and waves… shameful… and utterly orphaned… 

...Fast forward 511 years… we’re still very much salty, shameful and orphaned… but out of all the miseries, exiles, and defeats, slivers of light are puncturing this suffocating darkness every now and then, declaring that the dawn is near.. that with more determined and focused resistance, the whole world will, sooner than we dream of, wake up to the call: “Allah-u-Akbar”!

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§ More Articles by Khalil El-Saghir:

• "Co-Existence in the Middle East" - 6 May 2003

• "The Lebanese TV Fleet - MTV Ordeal" - 25 April 2003

• "Heaven Has Its Own Answers Too" - 23 February 2003

• "FEAR" - 22 February 2003

• "Targeting a Fruit and Vegetable Market?!" - 19 May 2002

• "Al-Qaeda Members Infiltrate Hizballah!" - 8 February 2002

• "Close your eyes, aim, shout!" - 6 January 2002

• "Justice for All" - 20 October 2001

• "Watch Out From Hoaxes" - 24 September 2001

• "We People" - 18 July 2001