independent skies magazine fifth issue

Sep 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 1

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Fifth Issue

2 | Independent Skies Magazine | Sep 1st 2012

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Content

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09-1004-05

06-07

A Mesopotamian Journey

The Evolution of a dream

The Beautiful Mind

by Hasan Ahmed

by Ali Ahmed Majed Altaha

by Elvan Chan

by Karolina Durdova

The Day I Lift-ed Glory

Book Review:The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

by Taha Mahmoud


A MESOPOTAMIAN

JOURNEY by Hasan Ahmed

It was a shift…. when I started knowing my true feelings towards my country. The place I never had the chance to see for the last 8 years. It was difficult trying to convince myself of the idea that at one point I would have to spend my last 24 hours in the only place I call home and leaving as a stranger; somewhere I did not know.

Here is a little something I want to share……

I was eight years old when my father told me that we are leaving our country, simply because our country was not safe anymore after the horrible happenings of 2003.And of course, just like any other thing in life there were advantages and disadvantages to the news that never seemed too right, yet.

We had to leave the country after long hours of ne-gotiation; we had to come to a conclusion. And ob-viously we had to be in favor of the advantages of leaving even though we were going to a new place far away from home to start life all over again.

The days I have had before we moved on to our new life were the most challenging. But, the worst of it all was that I had to keep this entire secret for safety measures. Therefore, my life style had changed along with my communication and atti-tude towards everything.

A couple of months later, my father told me: ‘’ son, it’s the time to leave”. It was dark outside, and I couldn’t go out because it was a typical cold winter day. I packed my bag, while tears were running down my cheeks. I fell asleep crying, knowing that I was

leaving something behind…. Something I didn’t know.

At dawn I woke up from the shakes I got from my mother in the back of my grandfather’s car “Hasan, Hasan!!! Wake up, we need to leave” she said.Yes, we had to use the sea to get to our destination because all airports were closed and used solely to transfer military equipment.

And after four nights in the sea, we have finally reached the destination; the good thing was that I saw some of my relatives waiting at the deck.I eventually moved on and we have been living a great life here in the UAE, But...

Till the day I am back, the journey continues……….


continued next page...

By Ali Ahmed Majed AltahaChoosing a career is an essential part of life that we all have to do at one point. When we are young, we think that we have it all figured out, thinking that we could just be whatever we want to be when we grow up, but we actually don’t have a clue on how to get our dream job. After growing up seeing your elders go to work every day, you come to think that their dream jobs and current jobs are one and the same. Well, that is not usually the case.

When you reach the age of having to choose what to pursue in life, many things will in-tervene with your decision, like whether if you can afford to study for the subject that you desire or not, that is why one should think thoroughly before choosing a career, because it will be something that defines you and you only, though you have to place a certain amount of thought on how it will affect your loved ones, because if you choose your future career on a whim, you might end up not only disappointing yourself, but your loved ones as well.

I used to dream of becoming an architect, because that is what my parents do for a living, but when the time came for me to choose what I want do for the rest of my life, I learned that architecture is not the thing that intrigues me and that it is not something that I can excel at, so after continuing to search for what I really wanted to do in life, I managed to find my real profession, the one that felt like it can help me contribute to the world.

THE EVOLUTION OF

A DREAM




Unfortunately, most of my friends are in a state of confusion, because of the pressure that their families have placed on them. Placing high expectations on children is something that most families have been doing since the beginning of time. Parents expect their sons and daughters to be better than them, therefore pressuring them to the point where it might have the opposite effect. It is not a bad thing to wish for your child to be better than you, but you have to put into consideration the feelings and opinions of all parties and not just the parents’.

In our modern age, sentences like “you should pursue your dream” or “you must love your work in order to do it” have become a bit clichéd, because only a few people actual-ly manage to get their dream jobs as statistics show, however that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to pursue our dream jobs, because dreams are also an essential thing in life and a great motivation to people of all ages, but we should give it more thought, because the job that you dreamt of having as a child might not really suit you, or you might have certain qualities that qualifies you to become a shining star and one of the leaders of evolution at another job. Confining ourselves to only a limited amount options might lead us to regret the decision that we have made in the future.

The youth of today and the creators of tomorrow shouldn’t be prisoners to such limita-tions and we should try our best to break free from these shackles that have been placed upon us by the society.So moral of the story is that we have to keep dreaming, but we should place our dreams in the right direction where it would make us lead a successful life.


“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection” Before I begin the topic of my writing today, I was originally told to write about my European trip in summer. However, when I start to seriously think about what I can really write to truly inspire the fellow youth around the world, I realized just another brilliant travelling experience will not re-ally make a great difference to one’s life apart from inspiring those to seek for a more adventurous life and eventually a better personal resume.

Instead, I want to share with you a dilemma that has been stuck in my mind for years, but had finally found an answer to it quite recently. I hope that in light of hearing this article, you will be able to find your answer too.

Have you ever in your life come to a point that you want achieve so many things that you try so hard to change yourself to pursue them???? It is not just the methods, or a certain behavior, but your entire lifestyle, everything that relates to your life you want to change them in order to create your perfect scenario.

It was not always like that for the boy who grew up in a small peaceful family in a small Asian city. Like every child, he enjoys the fun time with the people and the nature, however unlike his active and talkative brother, he possess a more reserve and observant character. From an early age, this observant style has made him to be extremely curious to everything around him, not just the object itself but how things interact with others. As he grows, his curiosity has brought him compli-ments from people around him as bright and all rounded, he loves read-ing, kicking the ball, painting, playing musical instrument, almost every single activities he shows a level of potential to prosper in it. As he grows older, he starts to develop a joyful and cheering character, in which they had brought him good companions on the very first day of his elementary school life. All of these seem to be pointing to a very healthy prosperous growth for the little boy.

But no one knows that beneath the smile and the seemingly bright path of this boy, lays a sense of insecurity.

He realizes that he does not belong to any group.

He realizes that this perfect interaction with everything does not seem to last when he starts to focus on a certain aspect of the activities he loves and try to master. As he plays football, he found that he lost friends from his music class; as he read, he found out that he lost his friends from the football field.

Tip!The Beautiful Mindby Elvan Chan

Continued next page...


The once perfect scenario has broken down as he and his friends proceed to secondary school life.

Everyone seems to have their own little social group, with their very own opinions and judgments. While this little boy can maintain his level of intelligence in studies and several aspects of life, like extracurricular activities and family. He is no longer happy, and he does not understand why people that he once shared happiness with, no longer seem to understand him and turn away from him.

Despite so, he still has 3 best friends whom they would understand and listen to his thoughts and push him forward until the very end of secondary school.

But the moment they were separated to pursue their higher education in different parts of the world, the fear of losing the bond emerged, and coming to a to-tally different place with people from all around the globe, gets the boy worried.

He does not know how to maintain that perfect state of integration with everything; friendship, interest, tal-ents.. And fear that he will lose happiness again. So he decided to shut himself and change himself entirely. He noticed that in order to obtain that perfect scenar-io, he needs to master everything at once, therefore every single detail of his lifestyle, he tries to alter them so as to reach the perfect scenario again.

That’s when he starts to push himself harsh on every-thing.

From academics, sports, friendship to family and even the very tedious life events, he wanted everything to be perfect. He changed his diet, the way he dressed, his behavior and he wanted it so bad that, he spent sleepless nights feeling guilt every time he could not achieve it.

Instead of being encouraged by his failure, he tries to forget it and keep pursuing the goal in the same way until it’s done.

He kept thinking that he could start everything fresh again in a place where diversity is cherished. But with that obsession of perfection, it is a slow and painful start, and soon the more he tries to avoid the past, the more those memories came back and haunt him.

Eventually, the perfect state was never achieved in the way he wants, it will never be achieved in the way he wants, because it is motivated by the fear of losing it away.

And it was only after a month long trip abroad, far away from his hometown, does he allow to give him-self some time and space to realize that the art of per-fection, is not about the material or the goal you are chasing after, but the mind has to be perfect or else how will you be able to say something is imperfect? It only becomes imperfect when it merges with the materialistic part of life. In this case, the fear of losing things that we once held on to.

Just as Michael Angelo once said “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection” The beauty of art is not of the art itself, but the shadow of perfec-tion, where only our mind is beautifully perfect.

Nevertheless, this little fearful boy might pop up in-side my mind from time to time, but only if you can stay conscious of your mind rather than focusing on the materialistic part of life. Turn the mind in upon it-self and view the inner light that is illuminated by the mind. Cherish the good memories and forgive those that caused the bad ones, including you.

Then you can truly find the perfection to life.

Author: Elvan Chan

Editors: Ali Ahmed and Almustafa M. Khalid Continued next page...


One day, as I was playing football…. my coach came up to me and said “we need you to lead the team in this upcoming tournament and bring home the trophy”. At first, I was shocked from the unexpected words but then, I realized how much the team needs my presence and how I can use this chance to prove myself for the future. The moment I was told about this tournament, I did extra training to be well prepared, I even went on a proper diet to keep myself fit and in a good shape. The day finally arrived and we travelled to Indonesia to attend the opening ceremony, and as the opening ceremony ended, the tournament officially started. We had to wake up at sunrise to go

and face our opponents. The scene was nerve racking as I saw the speechless, nervous faces of my teammates waiting for the match to start. Being burdened with the Capitan’s arm-band, I had to act like one; Therefore, I calmed my teammates and boosted their morale.

As our match kicked off we took control, domi-nated and won the game. Luckily, it was an easy match for us, but as we qualified to quar-ter finals things got tougher; nevertheless, we managed to win with a tight 1-0 score.We then qualified to the semi-finals, and faced an even tougher challenge from a Brazilian team visiting South East Asia all the way from Rio de Janeiro (the home of the samba play-ers).

They were well prepared for this game but we were too, so we gave it everything we had but we still ended up with a draw, and after 70 minutes of football the match was ex-tended to extra time; we then scored our first

and only goal that led us to the finals. It was a memorable and an exhausting encounter with the samba boys; a match I will remember because, we would have not made it this far in the competition without the guidance of my coaches and mentors.

The finals kicked off, and all we heard on the pitch was the spectators’ shouts and cheers, It was a feeling beyond imagination; something that urges us not to disappoint our coaches and spectators. So, we gave everything we had on the field. And fought till we reached the lucky shots (penalties)…… I scored our last shot and our amazing goalkeeper kept their last shot out to grant us the championship.

Because of this, I gained confidence and lead-ership.To me, this experience can never be forgotten

This was the day I lifted my first cup……. The Day I Lifted Glory

The Day I Lifted Glory

by Taha Mahmoud


“This article marks the launch of Independent Skies latest section, which will appear as tab on the website where everyone can send book reviews for us to publish.We are very excited to receive your reviews, and hopefully you will enjoy interacting and reading the recommended books.

Almustafa M. Khalid (Founder of I.S)”

Book review by Karolina DurdovaIt was during a television interview with its author, Masha Gessen, when I heard about this book for the first time and I immediately added it on my must-read list. This charismatic journalist, activist fighting for the rights of sexual minorities and an author of various pub-lications with topics ranging from the genetics to Russian state affairs was introducing her most recent book that was going to be published the following day.

She starts off the biography of Vladimir Putin with a prologue in which she narrates a story of her close friend, politician and a temporary leader of the political party Democratic Rus-sia Galina Vasilyevna Starovoitova. She was mainly known for her work to protect ethnic minorities and for promoting democratic reforms in Russia. It was her murder in 1998 that made Gessen go to Saint Petersburg to write the story of Starovoitova and it was in Saint Petersburg where Gessen found “a state within the state still controlled by the all-powerful KGB”. As she states in the prologue, it was there, where the murders of the politicians and businessmen, unjustified imprisonment and wiretapping of journalists were nothing un-usual. According to Gessen, Saint Petersburg seemed very similar to Russia a few years afterwards, when it was governed by the same people as Saint Petersburg in the nineties. The second biggest city in Russia is also home to the man who was about to become one of the most significant world leaders in the years to come, Vladimir Putin.

In the interview, Gessen summarizes Putin s rise to power in a few phrases. “Putin was plot out of nowhere in 1999, completely unknown, chosen by the former president Yeltzin’s in-ner circle, from a line of other faceless bureaucrats. He is basically an accidental president who got incredibly lucky during the Russian law reform.” In the eleven chapters and an epilogue, she narrates a chilling story starting in the years of Yeltzin’s rule and ending in December 2011 when the people in Moscow went to streets to protest against Vladimir Pu-tin. The book was published three days before the Russian presidential elections were held but whose results were known beforehand anyway. In the interview, Gessen called the

Continued next page...

THE MAN WITH-OUT A FACE:

The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

Book Author: Masha Gessen


elections “Putin’s own elec-tions” and added, with an ironic smile, that he was plan-ning to win them in the first round. However, she seemed fairly skeptical about Putin’s ability to maintain in power for long. She stated that Pu-tin’s power structure rests on fear, power, personal connec-tion and money. The mani-festations, according to the author, have proved that the fear had been taken out of the equation and that means the whole power structure is going to collapse and it is going to happen soon. “Any-thing that huge was not hap-pening in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union,” added Gessen with an optimistic look.

In her book, Gessen goes as back as to Putin’s childhood, to talk, between others, about Putin’s uncontrollable and hot-tempered charac-ter that Putin did not man-age to control even decades later during the years of his presidency. The story line of the book is also enriched with anecdotes from Putin’s private life, such as the story

about the unusual way he proposed marriage to his wife.

“When he was chosen, he did not hide what he was like but nobody wanted to see it. As he was working for KGB, he spent his whole life in secret, so he had the opportunity to write his life story when he finally became a public poli-tician.“ Gessen attempts to rewrite the life story of Putin that was written by the biog-raphers during his first presi-dential election campaign. To do so, she travelled around the whole country in order to find her sources and con-vinced them to talk to her. Be-tween the most remarkable ones belongs Marina Salye, a charismatic and democratic leader from Saint Petersburg, who had accused Putin for corruption in 1992 when he was working in Leningrad. After being threatened (she never revealed who and how was threatening her) and with the fear of knowing too much, she voluntarily went to exile in a village of about twenty six people in the far Russian countryside in 2000,

in the year when Putin be-came president for the first time. After refusing to talk to journalists for about 10 years, Gessen will be forever one of the few who had the chance to interview this woman. Ma-rina Salye died at the age of 77, twenty days after the book of Masha Gessen got published.

Gessen was trying to keep in secret that she was working on such project as she was al-ready threatened in the past, for the first time in 2000 while carrying out an investigation about the imprisonment of Dimitrij Rozhdestvenski. Af-ter reading her book, you might be surprised she and her children still have the courage to live in Moscow, al-though holding both Russian and US citizenships.

Some call her book “fishy” and suggest changing the name of it to “Why should we hate Vladimir Putin”. The true is that her book rarely seems objective as in nearly every ambiguous case, such as the poisoning of Alexander Lit-vinenko or the various terror-ist bombings in Russia, Ges-sen suggests an explanation that links back to the Russian president.

However, it is unarguable that this biography is an ad-dictive and fascinating read-ing that can serve as a great introduction to the world of current Russian politics, writ-ten by an author who is ex-tremely well acquainted with the topic that she is writing about.


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