Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Makassed shoots itself in the foot this Ramadan

Photo provided by Mahmoud Ghazayel

Well, this just in. For their yearly donation campaign the Makassed philanthropic organization ended up shooting itself in the foot.

OK first the intentions: teach me and you will have your deed rewarded in equal.

How gracious is that? The problem - on first reading the ad goes "teach me and I don't give a damn" (or a much vulgar interpretation). For the Arabophones among you: "3allimni wa laka mithlou ajri" reads at first glance "3allmni wlak mitl ejre" (literally "same as my foot" and figuratively "don't give a f***").

The sad bit is that they really went over and above to actually use "annotations" (or 7arakat) for their words to be "correctly" readable but the mind has its own mysterious ways of interpreting things. Also to be clear, I have no idea why the face of the child is painted on (Mahmoud Ghazayel who provided the photo thinks the person who sent it to him wanted to protect the child's identity. But this is only a theory).