QUESTION SET #4 Use the Balance of Payments (BoP) 2011 and Graph .docx

QUESTION SET #4: Use the Balance of Payments (BoP) 2011
and Graph Set #4 provided to answer these questions. Answer
them on your own and upload them to your team's file exchange
by Monday, December 1. Read the uploads of your team
members. On Team Day in class (Wednesday, December 3) you
will discuss your answers and send a final, agreed upon set of
answers to me by email. It is not necessary for all members of
the team to agree on a single answer, but if team members hold
different opinions you should be able to state those opinions
with their supporting rationale.
All of these questions should be answerable in one word, or in
one or a few short sentences.
1. The Balance of Payments shows the flow of money in and
out of our country. The money moves in the opposite direction
from the goods and services, so when we import goods we have
a negative money flow, and when we export goods we have a
positive money flow.
Look at the Current Account on our BoP for 2011. Using only
the bold numbers which represent totals (lines 1, 18, and 35),
calculate the balance on Current Account for 2011. (You can
check your answer on line 77.)
2. Does the BoP for 2011 indicate a trade deficit or a trade
surplus?
3. Will the currect accounts balance in 2011 put downward
(depreciating) or upward (appreciating) pressure on our
currency exchange rate?
4. Look at the Capital Accounts (also called Financial

Accounts) in line 40 and 55. Although foreign owned assets in
the US exceed US owned assets abroad, the trend from 2010 to
2011 is for our loss of foreign holdings to decrease while the
increase in US holdings abroad is slowing down. In other words,
there has been a shift of asset ownership back toward the US.
Will this put downward (depreciating) or upward (appreciating)
pressure on our currency exchange rate?
5. Look at US official reserve assets in line 41. This is the
balancing account of the BoP. Are our reserve asset increasing
or decreasing from 2010 to 2011? And will this put downward
(depreciating) or upward (appreciation) pressure on our
currency?
Answer one of the following two questions in your individual
uploads. If both have been answered by different members of
the team you may include both answers in your team
submission.
6. Give one reason why a country might wish to have a slightly
overvalued currency, as Great Britain and the United States
have relative to the European Monetary Union and other trading
partners.
7. Give one reason why a country might wish to have a slightly
undervalued currency, as China does relative to its trading
partners.
5

The themes of politics and love in Arabic contemporary
literature – A case study of Memories in the flesh
Name
30th November 2014
Background information
There are numerous themes embodied in many of the literary
works that exist in the world today. However, some of these
literature pieces equip and relate to some themes very strongly.
This is the case of discussion here. This paper discusses the
themes of politics and love in Arabic contemporary literature
through an exploration of the work of Ahlam’s Mostaghanemi’s
Memory in the flesh.
Politics and love in Memory in the flesh
Khalil-Habib (2008) joins other scholars in the stipulation that
Arabic contemporary literature has “come of age” in the
development and analysis of key themes such as politics.
Mosteghanemi’s (2003) work is a manifestation of this.
Through the eyes of this author and his characters, we can be
able to configure a few themes relating to love and politics.
The theme of politics
Mosteghanemi’s (2003) work follows the life of the
protagonist, Khaled and it is through him that these two major
themes are revealed. There is a lot of political issues and affairs
that arise through this work and through the eyes, mind and
thinking capacity of Khaled. Khaled’s journey takes the reader
back awhile to the times that Khaled served as soldier in the
military. Those days were glorious to him. He was young,
energetic, of service to his country and clearly in control of his
life. Other factors in the political platform are beyond his
control however. The novel offers an avid and detailed
explanation of the individuality approach to the concept of
culture and nationality. In the setting of the novel, the country
(Algeria) is going through a turbulent time. The citizens of the

nation are in constant struggle to redeem themselves from the
grasps of their white colonial masters (French). It is during this
period that Khalid, having grown into a strong young man gets
recruited into the army in a bid to fight off this oppression.
Even before going into the embodiment of Khalid’s story to
bring out the politics theme, it is important to note that the
author herself has her own predisposition towards the political
life in Algeria. Having been born and raised in French as her
mother tongue, expectations would have it that she should have
written the novel in French. Having originally written the work
in Arabic could be portrayed as a disdain and perhaps even
loathing and rebellion towards the colonial master. This forms a
basis for the development of the politics themes in most of these
Arabic literature.
As noted in most of the works done in Arabic during this era,
politics took a central point of interest in the minds of these
authors. These colonial masters were highly loathed. More so it
was because of the fact that most of these Arabic countries had
a very centralized form of government. Arabic nations were
ruled by kings and Emirs who centralized powers and ruled in a
dictatorial manner. French’s form of rule of assimilation was
highly regarded as a way of disrupting the culture of these
people. It was not welcomed at all.
In the literature by Mosteghanemi (2003), Khalid loses his hand
in battle. In more ways than one, this loss is directly linked to
the political setup in the country. This culminates into his exile
where he starts writing “The Constantine night creeps up on me
from my window of exile…” (Mosteghanemi, 2003)
He is proud of the loss in one way; it occurred while fighting to
redeem their nation from oppressors and he also feels that part
of his life was gone with that loss. Mosteghanemi’s (2003)
work is indeed, to a very large extent, an allegory of the torture
of these Arabs in Alegria and the whole world at large. It
depicts the political struggles, the fights, the constant push for
freedom. As observed through the eyes of Hassan, Khalid’s
brother, “Casantinians only come back for weddings and

funerals" (Mosteghanemi, 2003). This statement shows the
weight of death as carried by the civil war from whence the
book was authored. The people died in thousands. Apparently,
there seemed to be death all round, instigating this comment
from Hassan. Hassan himself was to be killed in the civil war
later. Years after this battle claimed his hand, and part of his
mind per se, Khalid is optimistic of the transitions in politics
the nation has undergone. The exit of the French from Algeria
shows some hope for these war veterans who had suffered
immensely. However, there are still some shreds of connection;
some ‘strings’ to the French colonial rule and this bitterness
Khalid takes to his grave (Mosteghanemi (2003).
The theme of love
In her sharp, daring, distinctive and unique manner,
Mosteghanemi (2003) is able to bring out the theme of love in
her works on such a manner that resonates and connects with
the reader very well. Arabs are a little conservative and sketchy
when it comes to matters of love for a long time (Foreland,
2011). Their approach to love and such intimate matters is
cautious, having stemmed from teachings of their prophet about
respecting this kind of connection (Abdulrahim, 2013).
However, as Abdulrahim (2013) notes, we see how this has
increasingly changed as the world continued to evolve. Today,
the Arab women are allowed to dress a little less conservatively
as before. Even the commencement of the book reflects this
theme of love “I still remember you once saying, ‘what went on
between us was real love. What didn’t happen was the stuff of
love stories’” (Mosteghanemi, 2003).
The literature under discourse reflects Khalid’s woes under his
total love for one of his comrade’s daughter, Hayat. The chance
meeting that blows Khalid’s mind occurs after twenty or so
years. Hayat, known as Ahlam during her birth has grown to
become a woman of great beauty. Khalid’s hopelessly falls in
love with her despite being old enough to be her father. In a
long monologue, we are able to see what Khalid goes through as
he tries to woo this young lady. His monologue is full of

bitterness. Hayat remains aloof in all of this, making the reader
wonder why Khalid harbored such bitterness towards her. The
relationship seems very one sided. Mosteghanemi (2003) is able
to depict the love theorem and culture in this work by carefully
circumventing the topic of love and sexual intimacy in the
perceived connection between Khalid and Hayat. There is no
direct relation to the sex topic apart from a few thrown back
utterances by Khalid subjected to Hayat. Hayat is mute
throughout these utterances. The love theme is well brought out
and well developed. It shows how the protagonist faced life
daily despite having faced many issues in the past during his
days in the army. As an old man, he is consumed by his love for
this young lady. Even though this love seems to be one sided,
the author is able to bring out the key concept of love in such a
manner that is not only consuming but engaging as well. This
shows how the development of the themes of politics and love
have occurred in the Arabic contemporary literature pieces
(Abdulrahim, 2013). Mosteghanemi’s (2003), Memory in the
flesh is a true reflection of this transition and exploration of the
themes of politics and love.
Citations
Abdulrahim, S (2013). Between Empire and Diaspora: Identity
Poetics in Contemporary Arab-
American Women's Poetry. Web. Available from
http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/19525/1/Safa'a%20Thesi
s.pdf
Foreland, L.R (2011). Love versus Political Commitment An
Arab Intellectual’s Dilemma as
Portrayed In Love in Exile. Web. Available from
https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/24252/Ferdigxo
ppgave.pdf?sequence=1
Khalil-Habib , N (2008). Al-Awda: the Theme of Return in
Contemporary Arabic Literature: a
Case-Study of Samira ‘Azam. Nebula. 88-97.
Mosteghanemi, A (2003). Memory In the flesh. American

University in Cairo press, Cairo
Brief, love letter.pdf
A Brief Love Letter
By Nizar Qabbani
My darling, I have much to say
Where o precious one shall I begin ?
All that is in you is princely
O you who makes of my words through their meaning
Cocoons of silk
These are my songs and this is me
This short book contains us
Tomorrow when I return its pages
A lamp will lament
A bed will sing
Its letters from longing will turn green
Its commas be on the verge of flight

Do not say: why did this youth
Speak of me to the winding road and the stream
The almond tree and the tulip
So that the world escorts me wherever I go ?
Why did he sing these songs ?
Now there is no star
That is not perfumed with my fragrance
Tomorrow people will see me in his verse
A mouth the taste of wine, close-cropped hair
Ignore what people say
You will be great only through my great love
What would the world have been if we had not been
If your eyes had not been, what would the world have been?

By Nizar Qabbani
Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover
On my brow, a rose and a book
For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion
Whose singing turns the herbs green
A Damascene moon travels through my blood
Nightingales... and grain... and domes
From Damascus, jasmine begins its whiteness
And fragrances perfume themselves with her scent
From Damascus, water begins... for wherever
You lean your head, a stream flows
And poetry is a sparrow spreading its wings
Over Sham... and a poet is a voyager
From Damascus, love begins... for our ancestors
Worshipped beauty, they dissolved it, and they melted away

From Damascus, horses begin their journey
And the stirrups are tightened for the great conquest
From Damascus, eternity begins... and with her
Languages remain and genealogies are preserved
And Damascus gives Arabism its form
And on its land, epochs materialize

Damascus, what are you doing to me.pdf
Damascus, What Are You Doing to Me?
1
My voice rings out, this time, from Damascus
It rings out from the house of my mother and father
In Sham. The geography of my body changes.
The cells of my blood become green.
My alphabet is green.
In Sham. A new mouth emerges for my mouth
A new voice emerges for my voice
And my fingers
Become a tribe
2
I return to Damascus
Riding on the backs of clouds
Riding the two most beautiful horses in the world
The horse of passion.
The horse of poetry.
I return after sixty years
To search for my umbilical cord,
For the Damascene barber who circumcised me,
For the midwife who tossed me in the basin under the bed
And received a gold lira from my father,
She left our house
On that day in March of 1923
Her hands stained with the blood of the poem…
3
I return to the womb in which I was formed . . .
To the first book I read in it . . .
To the first woman who taught me
The geography of love . . .

And the geography of women . . .
4
I return
After my limbs have been strewn across all the continents
And my cough has been scattered in all the hotels
After my mother’s sheets scented with laurel soap
I have found no other bed to sleep on . . .
And after the “bride” of oil and thyme
That she would roll up for me
No longer does any other 'bride' in the world please me
And after the quince jam she would make with her own hands
I am no longer enthusiastic about breakfast in the morning
And after the blackberry drink that she would make
No other wine intoxicates me . . .
5
I enter the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque
And greet everyone in it
Corner to . . . corner
Tile to . . . tile
Dove to . . . dove
I wander in the gardens of Kufi script
And pluck beautiful flowers of God’s words
And hear with my eye the voice of the mosaics
And the music of agate prayer beads
A state of revelation and rapture overtakes me,
So I climb the steps of the first minaret that encounters me
Calling:
“Come to the jasmine”
“Come to the jasmine”
6

Returning to you
Stained by the rains of my longing
Returning to fill my pockets
With nuts, green plums, and green almonds
Returning to my oyster shell
Returning to my birth bed
For the fountains of Versailles
Are no compensation for the Fountain Café
And Les Halles in Paris
Is no compensation for the Friday market
And Buckingham Palace in London
Is no compensation for Azem Palace
And the pigeons of San Marco in Venice
Are no more blessed than the doves in the Umayyad Mosque
And Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides
Is no more glorious than the tomb of Salah al-Din Al-Ayyubi…
7
I wander in the narrow alleys of Damascus.
Behind the windows, honeyed eyes awake
And greet me . . .
The stars wear their gold bracelets
And greet me
And the pigeons alight from their towers
And greet me
And the clean Shami cats come out
Who were born with us . . .
Grew up with us . . .
And married with us . . .
To greet me . . .
8
I immerse myself in the Buzurriya Souq

Set a sail in a cloud of spices
Clouds of cloves
And cinnamon . . .
And camomile . . .
I perform ablutions in rose water once.
And in the water of passion many times . . .
And I forget—while in the Souq al-‘Attarine—
All the concoctions of Nina Ricci . . .
And Coco Chanel . . .
What are you doing to me Damascus?
How have you changed my culture? My aesthetic taste?
For I have been made to forget the ringing of cups of licorice
The piano concerto of Rachmaninoff . . .
How do the gardens of Sham transform me?
For I have become the first conductor in the world
That leads an orchestra from a willow tree!!
9
I have come to you . . .
From the history of the Damascene rose
That condenses the history of perfume . . .
From the memory of al-Mutanabbi
That condenses the history of poetry . . .
From the blossoms of bitter orange . . .
And the dahlia . . .
And the narcissus . . .
And the 'nice boy' . . .
That first taught me drawing . . .
From the laughter of Shami women
That first taught me music . . .
And the beginning of adolesence
From the spouts of our alley
That first taught me crying
And from my mother’s prayer rug

That first taught me
The path to God . . .
10
I open the drawers of memory
One . . . then another
I remember my father . . .
Coming out of his workshop on Mu’awiya Alley
I remember the horse-drawn carts . . .
And the sellers of prickly pears . . .
And the cafés of al-Rubwa
That nearly—after five flasks of ‘araq—
Fall into the river
I remember the colored towels
As they dance on the door of Hammam al-Khayyatin
As if they were celebrating their national holiday.
I remember the Damascene houses
With their copper doorknobs
And their ceilings decorated with glazed tiles
And their interior courtyards
That remind you of descriptions of heaven . . .
11
The Damascene House
Is beyond the architectural text
The design of our homes . . .
Is based on an emotional foundation
For every house leans . . . on the hip of another
And every balcony . . .
Extends its hand to another facing it
Damascene houses are loving houses . . .
They greet one another in the morning . . .
And exchange visits . . .
Secretly—at night . . .

12
When I was a diplomat in Britain
Thirty years ago
My mother would send letters at the beginning of Spring
Inside each letter . . .
A bundle of tarragon . . .
And when the English suspected my letters
They took them to the laboratory
And turned them over to Scotland Yard
And explosives experts.
And when they grew weary of me . . . and my tarragon
They would ask: Tell us, by god . . .
What is the name of this magical herb that has made us dizzy?
Is it a talisman?
Medicine?
A secret code?
What is it called in English?
I said to them: It’s difficult for me to explain…
For tarragon is a language that only the gardens of Sham speak
It is our sacred herb . . .
Our perfumed eloquence
And if your great poet Shakespeare had known of tarragon
His plays would have been better . . .
In brief . . .
My mother is a wonderful woman . . . she loves me greatly . . .
And whenever she missed me
She would send me a bunch of tarragon . . .
Because for her, tarragon is the emotional equivalent
To the words: my darling . . .
And when the English didn’t understand one word of my poetic
argument . . .
They gave me back my tarragon and closed the investigation . . .

13
From Khan Asad Basha
Abu Khalil al-Qabbani emerges . . .
In his damask robe . . .
And his brocaded turban . . .
And his eyes haunted with questions . . .
Like Hamlet’s
He attempts to present an avant-garde play
But they demand Karagoz’s tent . . .
He tries to present a text from Shakespeare
They ask him about the news of al-Zir . . .
He tries to find a single female voice
To sing with him . . .
“Oh That of Sham”
They load up their Ottoman rifles,
And fire into every rose tree
That sings professionally . . .
He tries to find a single woman
To repeat after him:
“Oh bird of birds, oh dove”
They unsheathe their knives
And slaughter all the descendents of doves . . .
And all the descendents of women . . .
After a hundred years . . .
Damascus apologized to Abu Khalil al-Qabbani
And they erected a magnificent theater in his name.
14
I put on the jubbah of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi
I descend from the peak of Mt. Qassiun
Carrying for the children of the city . . .
Peaches

Pomegranates
And sesame halawa . . .
And for its women . . .
Necklaces of turquoise . . .
And poems of love . . .
I enter . . .
A long tunnel of sparrows
Gillyflowers . . .
Hibiscus . . .
Clustered jasmine . . .
And I enter the questions of perfume . . .
And my schoolbag is lost from me
And the copper lunch case . . .
In which I used to carry my food . . .
And the blue beads
That my mother used to hang on my chest
So People of Sham
He among you who finds me . . .
let him return me to Umm Mu’ataz
And God’s reward will be his
I am your green sparrow . . . People of Sham
So he among you who finds me . . .
let him feed me a grain of wheat . . .
I am your Damascene rose . . . People of Sham
So he among you who finds me . . .
let him place me in the first vase . . .
I am your mad poet . . . People of Sham
So he among you who sees me . . .
let him take a souvenir photograph of me
Before I recover from my enchanting insanity . . .
I am your fugitive moon . . . People of Sham
So he among you who sees me . . .
Let him donate to me a bed . . . and a wool blanket . . .
Because I haven’t slept for centuries
-----------------------------

I Conquer The World With Words
I conquer the world with words,
conquer the mother tongue,
verbs, nouns, syntax.
I sweep away the beginning of things
and with a new language
that has the music of water the message of fire
I light the coming age
and stop time in your eyes
and wipe away the line
that separates
time from this single moment.
Nizar Qabbani
-----------------------------
Five Letters To My Mother
Good morning sweetheart.
Good morning my Saint of a sweetheart.
It has been two year mother
since the boy has sailed
on his mythical journey.
Since he hid within his luggage
the green morning of his homeland
and her stars, and her streams,
and all of her red poppy.
Since he hid in his cloths
bunches of mint and thyme,
and a Damascene Lilac.
*
I am alone.

The smoke of my cigarette is bored,
and even my seat of me is bored
My sorrows are like flocking birds looking for a grain field in
season.
I became acquainted with the women of Europe,
I became acquainted with their tired civilization.
I toured India, and I toured China,
I toured the entire oriental world,
and nowhere I found,
a Lady to comb my golden hair.
A Lady that hides for me in her purse a sugar candy.
A lady that dresses me when I am naked,
and lifts me up when I fall.
Mother: I am that boy who sailed,
and still longes to that sugar candy.
So how come or how can I, Mother,
become a father and never grow up.
*
Good morning from Madrid.
How is the 'Fullah'?
I beg you to take care of her,
That baby of a baby.
She was the dearest love to Father.
He spoiled her like his daughter.
He used to invite her to his morning coffee.
He used to feed her and water her,
and cover her with his mercy.
And when he died,
She always dreamt about his return.
She looked for him in the corners of his room.
She asked about his robe,
and asked about his newspaper,

and asked, when the summer came,
about the blue color of his eyes,
so that she can throw within his palms,
her golden coins.
*
I send my best regards
to a house that taught us love and mercy.
To your white flowers,
the best in the neighborhood.
To my bed, to my books,
to all of the kids in the alley.
To all of these walls we covered
with noise from our writings.
To the lazy cat sleeping on the balcony.
To the lilac climbing bush the neighbor's window.
It has been two long years, Mother,
with the face of Damascus being like a bird,
digging within my conscience,
biting at my curtains,
and picking, with a gentle beak, at my fingers.
It has been two years Mother,
since the nights of Damascus,
the odors of Damascus,
the houses of Damascus,
have been inhabiting our imagination.
The pillar lights of her mosques,
have been guiding our sails.
As if the pillars of the Amawi,
have been planted in our hearts.
As if the orchards are still perfuming our conscience.
As if the lights and the rocks,
have all traveled with us.

*
This is September, Mother,
and here is sorrow bringing me his wrapped gifts.
Leaving at my window his tears and his concerns.
This is September, where is Damascus?
Where is Father and his eyes.
Where is the silk of his glances,
and where is the aroma of his coffee.
May God bless his grave.
And where is the vastness of our large house,
and where is its comfort.
And where is the stairwell laughing at the tickles of blooms,
and where is my childhood.
Draggling the tail of the cat,
and eating from the grape vine,
and snipping from the lilac.
**
Damascus, Damascus,
what a poem we wrote within our eyes.
What a pretty child that we crucified.
We kneeled at her feet,
and we melted in her passion,
until, we killed her with love.
Mahmoud Darwish 3 poems.pdf
Mahmoud Darwish
Poet
Website: Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish, the great Palestinian poet, passed away on

Saturday 9 August
2008, following complications after major heart surgery in
Houston, Texas. He
was just 67. He never stopped writing and performing his
poetry, which has
inspired thousands upon thousands of people of all ages and
nationalities, and will
surely continue to inspire them. He is one of the most
renowned, respected and
loved poets of today's world, a poetic giant who became the
voice of Palestine, of
Palestinian loss and exile, and in later years its voice of
conscience. Mahmoud
Darwish commanded audiences of thousands, thirsty for the
sounds he uttered,
wherever he went in the Arab world. In July 2008 he gave a
massively attended
reading in Haifa, back there for the first time since the early
1970s, and later
another packed performance in Ramallah to mark the 60th
anniversary of the
Palestinian Nakba. Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1941 in al-
Barweh, Palestine,
and had to flee with his family in 1948, only returning later. He
grew up under
Israeli occupation to become the world’s best-known Palestinian
poet. He
published his first collection of poetry in 1960. Jailed several
times, he left to go to
Moscow in 1971, afterwards living in Cairo, Beirut, Tunis and
Paris, before
settling in Ramallah in the early 1990s. He published over 30
collections of poetry
and of prose, with some of these works being translated into 35
languages. In 1981,
he started the literary quarterly Al-Karmel, which he later

edited from Ramallah. In
1995, his book Memory for Forgetfulness (trans. Ibrahim
Muhawi) was published
in English. A French anthology of his work Poesie: La Terre
nous est étroite was
published in March 2000 by Gallimard. Several collections of
his work in English
translation have been published, notably Why Did You Leave
the Horse Alone?,
Archpelago Books, 2006, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise
(California University
Press, 2003), and The Adam of Two Edens (Syracuse University
Press & Jusoor,
2000, reviewed in Banipal No 12, Autumn 2001). In 2001 he
received the Lannan
Foundation’s Award for Cultural Freedom and in 2004 the
Prince Claus Fund
Award. The latest translation of his poetry is the bilingual
volume The Butterfly’s
Burden, translated by Palestinian American doctor Fady Joudah,
which brings
together three of Mahmoud Darwish’s collections. On 29
September 2008 Fady
Joudah was awarded the 2008 Saif Ghobash – Banipal Prize for
Arabic Literary
Translation for this work, by unanimous decision of the judges.
In the press
release, the judges remark on “the translator’s sensitivity to the
nuances and music
of the original texts”. Mahmoud Darwish was thrilled to learn
that Fady Joudah’s
translation had won the prize. It seems inexplicable that his life
has come to such a

sudden and tragic end. The Palestinian people held three days
of national
mourning declared by President Mahmoud Abbas, who said:
"Words cannot
describe the depth of sadness in our hearts." See Al Jazeera's
tribute portrait of
Mahmoud Darwish, by Jacky Rowland: Also Mahmoud Darwish
reading his
poems 'Mural' and 'A State of Siege' to a typically huge
audience.
-from Inpress Books UK with permission
Passport
They did not recognize me in the shadows

That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah... Don't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
Don't leave me pale like the moon!
All the birds that followed my palm
To the door of the distant airport
All the wheatfields
All the prisons
All the white tombstones
All the barbed Boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs
All the eyes
were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport
Stripped of my name and identity?
On soil I nourished with my own hands?
Today Job cried out
Filling the sky:
Don't make and example of me again!
Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
Don't ask the trees for their names
Don't ask the valleys who their mother is
>From my forehead bursts the sward of light
And from my hand springs the water of the river
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my passport!
Mahmoud Darwish

An excerpt from
Mural
This is your name --
a woman said,
and vanished through the winding corridor
There I see heaven within reach.
The wing of a white dove carries me
towards another childhood. And I never dreamt
that I was dreaming. Everything is real.
I knew I was casting myself aside . . .
and flew. I shall become what I will
in the final sphere. And everything
is white . The sea suspended
upon a roof of white clouds. Nothingness is white
in the white heaven of the absolute.
I was and was not. In this eternity's white regions,
I'm alone. I came before I was due;
no angel appeared to tell me:
"What did you do back there, in the world?"
I didn't hear the pious call out,
nor the sinners moan for I'm alone
in the whiteness. I'm alone.
Nothing hurts at the door of doom.
Neither time nor emotion. I don't feel
the lightness of things, or the weight
of apprehensions. I couldn't find
anyone to ask: Where is my where now?
Where is the city of the dead,
and where am I? Here
in this no-here, in this no-time,
there's no being, nor nothingness.
As if I had died once before,

I know this epiphany, and know
I'm on my way towards what I don't know.
Perhaps I'm still alive somewhere else,
and know what I want.
One day I shall become what I want.
One day I shall become a thought,
taken to the wasteland
neither by the sword or the book
as if it were rain falling on a mountain
split by a burgeoning blade of grass,
where neither might will triumph,
nor justice the fugitive.
One day I shall become a bird,
and wrest my being from my non-being.
The longer my wings will burn,
the closer I am to the truth, risen from the ashes.
I am the dialogue of dreamers; I've shunned my body and self
to finish my first journey towards meaning,
which burnt me, and disappeared.
I'm absence. I'm the heavenly renegade.
One day I shall become a poet,
water obedient to my insight. My language a metaphor
for metaphor, so I will neither declaim nor point to a place;
place is my sin and subterfuge.
I'm from there. My here leaps
from my footsteps to my imagination . . .
I am he who I was or will be,
made and struck down
by the endless, expansive space.
One day I shall become a vine;

let summer distil me even now,
and let the passers-by drink my wine,
illuminated by the chandeliers of this sugary place!
I am the message and the messenger,
I am the little addresses and the mail.
This is your name --
a woman said,
and vanished in the corridor of her whiteness.
This is your name; memorise it well!
Do not argue about any of its letters,
ignore the tribal flags,
befriend your horizontal name,
experience it with the living
and the dead, and strive
to have it correctly spelt
in the company of strangers and carve it
into a rock inside a cave:
O my name, you will grow
as I grow, you will carry me
as I will carry you;
a stranger is brother to a stranger;
we shall take the female with a vowel
devoted to flutes.
O my name: where are we now?
Tell me: What is now? What is tomorrow?
What's time, what's place, what's old, what's new?
One day we shall become what we want.
Translated by Sargon Boulus from the author's collection
'Judariya'['Mural'],Riad
El-Rayyes Books, Beirut, 2000. Reprinted from Banipal No
15/16

Another piece from Mural
Just as Christ walked on the lake, I walked on my vision.
Yet I came down from the Cross, fearing heights, and keeping
silent about
the Apocalypse.
I changed only my heartbeat to hear my heart more clearly.
Heroes have their eagles, mine is a ring-necked dove,
a star lost over a roof, an alley ending at the port.
This sea is mine. The fresh air is mine.
This sidewalk, my steps and my sperm on the sidewalk are
mine.
The old bus station is mine.
Mine is the ghost and the haunted one.
The copper pots, The Throne Verse, and the key are mine.
The door, the guards and the bell are mine.
The horseshoe that flew over the walls is mine.
Mine is all what was mine.
The pages torn from the New Testament are mine.
The salt of my tears on the wall of my house is mine.
And my name, though I mispronounce it in five flat letters, is
also mine.
This name is my friend’s name, wherever he may be, and also
mine.
Mine is the temporal body, present and absent.
Two meters of earth are enough for now.
A meter and seventy-five centimeters are enough for me.
The rest is for a chaos of brilliant flowers to slowly soak up my
body.
What was mine: my yesterday.
What will be mine: the distant tomorrow,
and the return of the wandering soul as if nothing had happened.

And as if nothing had happened:
a slight cut in the arm of the absurd present.
History mocks its victims and its heroes.
It glances at the in passing and goes on.
The sea is mine. The fresh air is mine.
~
And my name, though I mispronounce it over the coffin, is
mine.
As for me, filled with every reason to leave,
I am not mine.
I am not mine.
I am not mine.
Without exile, who am I?
Stranger on the bank, like the river . . . tied up to your
name by water. Nothing will bring me back from my free
distance to my palm tree: not peace, nor war. Nothing
will inscribe me in the Book of Testaments. Nothing,
nothing glints off the shore of ebb and flow, between
the Tigris and the Nile. Nothing
gets me off the chariots of Pharaoh. Nothing

carries me for a while, or makes me carry an idea: not
promises, nor nostalgia. What am I to do, then? What
am I to do without exile, without a long night
staring at the water?
Tied up
to your name
by water . . .
Nothing takes me away from the butterfly of my dreams
back into my present: not earth, nor fire. What
am I to do, then, without the roses of Samarkand? What
am I to do in a square that burnishes the chanters with
moon-shaped stones? Lighter we both have
become, like our homes in the distant winds. We have
both become friends with the clouds'
strange creatures; outside the reach of the gravity
of the Land of Identity. What are we to do, then . . . What
are we to do without exile, without a long night
staring at the water?
Tied up
to your name
by water . . .
Nothing's left of me except for you; nothing's left of you
except for me -- a stranger caressing his lover's thigh: O
my stranger! What are we to do with what's left for us
of the stillness, of the siesta that separates legend from legend?
Nothing will carry us: not the road, nor home.
Was this road the same from the start,
or did our dreams find a mare among the horses
of the Mongols on the hill, and trade us off?
And what are we to do, then?
What
are we to do
without

exile?
My Love, Qabbani-2.docx
My Love (Do Not Ask Me)
Do not ask me, the name of my love
I fear for you, from the fragrance of perfume
contained in a bottle, if you smashed it,
drowning you, in spilled scent
By God, if you even croaked a letter,
Lilacs would pile up on the paths
Do not look for it here in my chest
I have left it to run with the sunset
You can see it in the laughter of doves
In the flutter of butterflies
In the ocean, in the breathing of dales
and in the song of every nightingale
in the tears of winter, when winter cries
in the giving of a generous cloud
Do not ask about his lips…as elegant as the sunset
And his eyes, a shore of purity
And his waist, the sway of a branch
Charms…which no book has contained
Nor described by a literate's feather
And his chest, his throat, enough for you
I won't breath his name, my lover…
Nizar Qabbani

1
T-BILL RATES and EXCHANGE RATES (Graph set #4)
Please read the legends carefully so that you understand
whether the prices of our bonds and the buying power of our
dollar is going up or down. The second graph is on the next
page.

QUESTION SET #4 Use the Balance of Payments (BoP) 2011 and Graph .docx

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