"Don't change"

An older Palestinian woman saw me in Irvine. She approached me and told me that she has seen me on Aljazeera and then passionately pleaded with me: Please, don't change. Please don't change, she kept pleading with me. (She meant don't sell out). I told her: it is too late. I am going to be 49 in March, and that people usually change earlier in life. She said that she has seen too many people change and sell out, and at different ages. Her comment stayed with me: it indicates the extent to which too many leftist Arab intellectuals switched positions and joined the Saudi Wahhabi cause. Have you seen that charlatan, Yasir `Abd-Rabbu, praise the Saudi king non-stop on Al-Arabiyya TV? Have you heard him refer to him as "the great, servitor of the two holy sites"? I have. I initially felt offended that the woman would say that to me, but then thought that I should not blame her. There were people I read and admired as a teen ager and I now read their drivel with astonishment and disgust on Saudi sleaze websites.