Global Imam vs Al-Azhar. The Iron Wall in Gaza

No clerics in islam !as it is often said but the reality may be slightly different since the modern times and the professionnalisation of the various religious careers. Since the last decades, the muslim clergymen are not anymore the ones they used to be, because of a set of changes in the social realm (education, urbanization…) and in the media : radio imams have been followed by tape imams, then came the time of the TV imams who became today internet imams delivering online fatwas. And it is no surprise that such a quick and violent and deep transformation of the religious institution leads to some eccentricities as it has been the case more than once.

Modern states have also played an important role, creating a religious bureaucracy submitted to stick-and-carrot incentives as illustrated by the last controversy about the building of an "iron wall" on the southern border of Gaza with Egypt.

As very few people seem to be convinced that it is a good idea to reinforce an already cruel siege on the population of Gaza, the Egyptian government called to the rescue leading clerics in order to legitimate what they were doing. One more time, shaykh Tantawi, rector of Al-Azhar, has demonstrated that he was an obedient servant of the state. He explained that opposing the wall was illegitimate and, thus, against against the islamic law.

Of course, such a statement has been followed by countless critics from all sorts of religious authorities, and notably enough from the « Global Imam », shaykh Qardawi, one – if not – the leading cleric for the Sunni Muslims.

But the worst thing is that the only voice to be heard for shaykh Tantawi’s defense was that of the Palestinian minister of religious affairs (Waqfs). He explained that Egypt was perfectly right in building on his border a wall (which will add to the suffering of the population of Gaza !)

Unsurprisingly, clerics in Egypt have opposed their reputed boss at Al-Azhar. Members of "Al-Azhar scholars front" have made a demonstration and various imams have refused to read the speech prepared for the Friday prayer in the Egyptian mosques. Their employer, the minister, has cut their wages in retaliation and it is possible that things get worst.

In the West Bank too, the local imams have been asked to read a prepared speech which was very critic of shaykh Qardawi. Those who have obeyed the official instructins have not been able to finish and the police had to come sometimes to calm the vociferous worshiping. Obviously, it is not necessary to be a sophisticated cleric to understand where does justice stand in Gaza case !

On the cultural side, famous Tunisian director Al-Majiri is preparing a moovie about the tunnelers of Gaza. Khalid Taja, a very respected Syrian actor, will play the leading role. Al-Qardawi’s life is represented on stage in a theater in Qatar. The illustration of this post is taken from the cover of a book edited by Bettina Gräf and Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen about Al-Qardawi well depicted in this interesting article.

As usual, the link to the original post in French.

TV Serials between Comedy and Tragedy in Palestine

Although many Arab TV serials dealt with the Palestine issue during the last years, it has not been the case in Ramadan 09, a fact which can be explained by the economical situation of most of major Panarab channels, but also by the situation of the Palestinian political scene.

Nonetheless, one of the good surprises of last Ramadan TV programs came from Palestine where millions of TV viewers have been watching Watan ‘a watar (something like “a country on the tightrope”).

A success which is linked to the way the authors and comedians dealt with day-to-day problems with a frankness and a boldness quite unusual on the national channel. For instance, an episode was filmed at the 7th Fatah’s congress hold in Nablus in 2509 with the great-great grandsons of the actual leaders and an everlasting Mahmoud Abbas repeating in an infinite loop: negotiations, always negotiations, and only negotiations!

It is said that the President of the Palestinian Authority had a good laugh watching his own caricature. But all of this happened just before the UN Human Right Council took the decision to postpone its vote for the approval of the Goldstone report.

Sadly enough, the Palestinian officials did not make very sincere efforts in order to gain the approval of the majority at the Council. Thus they proved to their many critics among the Palestinian people how right they are when they laugh at their leaders who act and speak like the ridiculous characters of a sad muppet show.


Various links to be found in the original post in French.

Mahmud Darwish : the story of an heritage

As they have been told by Mahmud Darwish that he had a collection of poems almost ready to be published, some of his friends looked in his papers for those works, and found different pieces.

Regarding their publication, some thought they could publish a selection of the works who looked finished or almost but Elias Khury, the famous Lebanese novelist and critic, convinced them to publish everything, arguing that nobody could take Darwish’s place and choose for him what was to be published or not. It was also suggested to entitle the book “The Last Poems” instead of “The Last Collection”, in order to emphasize the different character of this last publication.

But problems appeared when Riyad El-Rayyes, Darwish’s exclusive publisher since the 1990’s, printed the book, أريد لهذه القصيدة ان تنتهي (I don’t want this poem to end) which was distributed with a little booklet, written by Elias Khury, explaining the founding of those poems and the circumstances of the publication.

Various articles published in the Arab press, sometimes by well-known poets, have mentioned quite an amount of mistakes in Darwish’s last publication, especially at the rhythmical level. Something people could notice as the Palestinian poet used to write a “cadenced poetry,” in a way opened in the 1950’ in Iraq, which only follows some of the rhythmical laws of the classical Arabic versification.

Following a bitter exchange in the press of justifications and renewed critics, the publisher, Riyad El-Rayyes, publicly declared that he could not be considered responsible of such failure, as he could not see the original manuscript as he used to do when Mahmud Darwish was alive. It was then Elias Khury’s fault, who did not give him access to the original text and who had insisted very much in order to have his own text, explaining the founding of the poems, published as a preface or a postface, something which never occurred during Darwish’s life and that Rayyes totally refused.

Obviously, the real question is that of Mahmud Darwish’s symbolical heritage, and there are people who think that Elias Khury tried to sing his own praise and at least has given the impression that he was willing to do so.

The various episodes of this heritage story must be only mentioned because they show how terrible is the lack of some real great names on today’s Arabic cultural stage. Such a desire for great cultural icons makes thus natural the project that Fares Ibrahim announced to the press some months ago: after Umm Kulthum, Ismahane and Nizar Kabbani, this famous Syrian producer of TV serial wants to make a TV novella based on Mahmud Darwish’s life…

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

Jerusalem, the “complete and united” capital of Arab culture

Since 1995, there is every year a new “Capital of Arab Culture”. After Damascus, it was normally Bagdad’s turn. Due to the circumstances, another city had to be proposed and the Palestinian minister of Culture, in the new Hamas government, suggested, in 2006, Jerusalem.

It was a real challenge to make a city under Israeli occupation – at least for the Eastern part of the city – the symbol of the ‘urûba (Arabism/ “arabity” for “Arab identity”). To be successful, such a project had to tackle various difficult issues, starting with the difficulty to deal with the occupied city of Jerusalem as a cultural capital when Ramallah has became, since the Oslo agreements, the real focal point of the Palestinian cultural life.

Jerusalem itself was a problem as one could ask which “city” had to be celebrated: the Eastern part, still reclaimed by the Palestinian authority although the Oslo agreements have enforced its “judaization” or the whole town, with the Western area on which Israel has full “legitimacy”? And who was to be involved in the cultural events: Palestinians living in the West Bank who are not allowed to go Jerusalem or Palestinian living either in the Israeli state or abroad and who are not under the “Palestinian Authority”?...

The political struggle between Hamas and Fatah made things worst as each party insisted to have its “official” committee: one has organised in Gaza, cut off from the rest of the world, its opening on March 7th, when the second had its own one last Saturday (March 28th) – plus a last one, led by Palestinians from the Diaspora, to be set on Earth Day, the 30th of March.

For the second one, Mahmud Abbas was obliged to attend the celebration, with some official who had come from various Arab countries, in Bethlehem as the Oslo agreements stipulate that the Palestinians are not allowed to have any political activity outside "their" territory.

Jerusalem being since 1980 the “complete and united” capital of their state, the Israeli authorities had no problem in cancelling a series of Palestinian cultural events in Jerusalem, as they had already done, one year ago, at the meeting for the launching of Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture motto.

The lack of any serious protestation in the world shows that everybody is obviously convinced that the celebration of Arab culture in the Holy city is, indeed, a political matter.

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

Natives in Palestine

At Ben Gurion International airport, travellers are suggested to buy local souvenirs. Among them, “Ethnic sweets” packs of pastries which say with a lot of straightforwardness that Palestinians are now considered like the “Native Americans”: an almost disappeared population, without even a name.

The keffieh as a symbol

Since a previous post post written two years ago (and not translated into English), about the "globalisation" of the Palestinian keffieh and its transformation, in Western societies, to a fashion accessoire, the phenomenon has spread to the Arab world where the keffieh has been adopted by many young men and women with its trendy look (with all sort of colors and sometimes a modification of the patterns). In the “historical Palestine” for instance, Israeli Jews may wear the “new” keffieh, something unbearable for many Palestinians who see it as another spoliation of their national heritage (as it has been the case before with the hommous and the falafel).

In Lebanon too, the (now) fashionable keffieh has made a noticed apparition in the streets of Achrafieh and Ayn al-Rumaneh, areas of Beirut whose people were not precisely well known as supporters of the Palestinian cause. Thus, the traditional keffieh still to be found in the refugees camps faces the challenge of two different versions of the Palestinian symbol : that of the trendy globalised keffieh but, also, that of the Shiite Lebanese who have adopted a different similar in patterns but where the black color dominates.

For old people, the rejection of the modernized keffieh transformed in a accessoire à la mode could be less a political question than a “moral” one, as the keffieh has always been traditionally associated to masculine values. Something Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum made very clear in her famous “Keffieh” – presented at her last personal exhibit in Amman – were the apparently usual headscarf interweaves strands of women's hair with the Arab symbol of machismo.

In Palestine as in other places, the keffieh is a reliable barometer of the public opinion. After the bombardments of Gaza, the classical keffieh has made a noticeable come back on the shoulders of many stars of the Arab screen as around the neck of many demonstrators in the streets.

Is it still possible for the classical keffieh to reaffirm itself as the symbol of the Palestinian identity? Whatever is the answer, it is worth to consider that the last local keffieh factories are on the verge to disappear after the market has been flooded with cheaper products made in Asia.

Is this symbolic of the Palestinian fate?

(On the last Palestinian keffieh factory, there is wonderful – and short video - made by a French journalist, Benoit Faveley, which I founded on Hawgblawg, an always very interesting blog, in English.

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

Singing politics: Gaza

The consequences of the Israeli bombardments on Gaza are difficult to appreciate but, with the exception a few opinion leaders like Adel Imam pretending to defend an untenable position, most of the Arab intellectuals and artists have lined up with the Arab victims.

Nothing exceptional regarding a singer like Abdel-Rahim “Shaaboula” Shaaban whose speciality is to give “live comments” on the political actuality of the area, but something much more unusual for popular singers : Nancy Ajram for instance, whose last video-clip have been modified in order to fit with the last events, or even Tamer Hosny.

Before he paid a visit to Gaza’s hospitals, the heartbreaking star of the Arab teenagers gave a new song, officially called “All together” (Kulluna wahed) but apparently known as “I don’t know what to do” (Mesh aref a3mel haga).

Such a title may be a clear indication of the prevailing mood in the Arab opinion and many articles have been published in the press to critic the too compassionate and lachrymal tone of most of the songs, especially with regard to Michael Heart’s song for Gaza, entitled “We will not go down”.

People go even further and say that many singers are going political just to surf on the wave and to benefit from the media coverage of everything related to the Gaza events. It could be true but one has to remember that songs have been, and remain, a powerful tool for political mobilization in the Arab history which various dramatic stages are connected, in the Arab popular imagination.

Thus, the poor quality of most of the political songs written about Gaza reflects the regional political crisis as much as it is a consequence of the general transformation of the local cultural practices dominated by global mass-production patterns.

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

Adel Imam's star is falling when he speaks his mind on Gaza

Adel Imam, probably the most popular Arab comic actor, has publicly criticized not only the Hamas party but all the Egyptians who have demonstrated in support to it. In his opinion, Hamas was to be blamed for its senseless provocation of the Israeli forces.

Taking such a stance, at the beginning of the Israeli shelling on Gaza, the actor was adding his voice, well-known to be close to President Mubarak’s family, to that of the “Arabs moderates” who were not so unpleased to see the Israeli army doing the dirty job.

But with more and more bombardments and victims, his declarations have aroused considerable reactions. To the point that the leader of an extremist group based in Algeria and supposed to be closed to Al-Qaida has issued a fatwa saying that the killing of the “traitor” was legitimate.

An opportunity for the actor to correct the awful impression made by his first declarations, and to explain that he always considered Hamas resistance legitimate and that his critics were addressed to the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood (although there are not so many ideological differences between the two political movements).

Once a courageous defender of the Arab feelings, Adel Imam seems to have lost his political beliefs but may be also his popularity. The issue is not only that of a movie star getting older, but that of his whole generation, born in the Nasserite era, raised at Sadate’s time and active during Mubarak’s regime, whose fate seems to be sealed.

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

Waltz in Gaza

Ari Fomman took best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes Awards on January 11 with Waltz With Bashir, a personal documentary about Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982. The same day, as Tania Tabar’s article on Menassat reminds us, around 60 Palestinians died under the Israelis bombs in Gaza. And many more during the following days…

Tania Tabar follows mentioning that nearly 90% of the public opinion in Israel supported the war in Gaza (a statistic which does not include the “useless” opinion of the Palestinian citizens). How is this possible regarding the success, even in Israel, of an “antiwar film” like Waltz with Bashir, and compared to the thousands of Israelis who marched in the streets of Tel-Aviv as a reaction to Sabra and Shatila massacres? (Again, the 100 000 Arab Israelis who demonstrated against the war in Gaza in Sakhneen, one of the major Arab towns of Galilee, do not matter very much !)

A first explanation is the fact that Ari Folman’s film places the responsibility of the massacres in 1982 on the Phalangist militia and on Ariel Sharon who gave his green light” for the killing of civilians in the Palestinian camps of Beirut. Thus, the “naive young men (…) were only participating in a massacre because of the time and the place they happened to be” explains Tania Tabar, who also underlines that the “personal” narrative of Waltz with Bashir fails to provide a complete historical background which could explain why and how the Israeli state has been using for such a long time systematic violence against the Palestinian and Lebanese populations.

Waltz with Bashir ends with the animation suddenly shifting to real footage of the massacres which took place in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, and with Palestinian ladies yelling and screeming at the camera [and the viewer] : “Where are the Arabs, where are they ?”

Since Waltz with Bashir is not a political movie, but a kind of personal testimony, accordind to Ari Folman's declarations, why did he choose such an ending? asks Tania Tabar.

Indeed, the question needs an answer. As an answer is needed to many others, today, “after” the war in Gaza, as many people ask : where are the Arabs? Where are they?

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French. Illustration : We are all Gaza. Demonstration in Beirut (Al-Akhbar)

Gaza under the rain...

... and blogging seems very useless... This drawing is by Mazen Kerbaj, a Lebanese artist (and musician). I suggest you visit his blog, and that you do your best to stop that criminal (and politicaly stupid) war.

Wandering Jewish Arabic Voices in Israel

We don’t hear very much about Antun Shammas, a Palestinian that many specialists considered as one of the best writers in Hebrew. But who has never heard about Samir Naqqash (سمير نقاش), an Israeli Jew writing in Arabic?

His family arrived in Israel when he was 13 years old, like many other Jewish families signing away their Iraki citizenship in order to emigrate to Israel, after bombings in Bagdag that could have been done by some sionist organisations willing to “encourage” the millenarian Jewish community in Irak to flee to Israel.

Samir Naqqash spent his whole life in search of a “better” exile, crossing the Lebanese border when he was 15 years old, then looking hopelessly for a more appropriate homeland in Iran, India, Turkey, Egypt after the Camp David agreements…

He died in 2004, after half of a century in his new homeland where he refused to give up his first language, the colloquial Arabic spoken by the Jewish people of Bagdad. His last novel, Shlomo the Kurd, myself and time, has been published by al-Jamal, an Arabic publishing house in Germany, a good summary of the literary destiny of an Israeli Jewish author writing in Arabic facing the Arab policy toward the Arab Jews and the contempt of the sionist state for the Arabic culture.

But not all the Iraki Jews living in Israel stuck to their native language. On the contrary, most of them use Hebrew, sometimes as a way to promote the Arabic culture through translations. Born in Irak in 1926, friend of the great Palestinian writer Emile Habibi, Sami Mikhail (سامي ميخائيل) has translated into Hebrew Nagib Mahfouz’s famous Trilogy.

His latest book, The pigeons of Trafalgar, offers a rather unusual dialogue with the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, assassinated in Beirut by the Mossad in the beginning of the 1970’ and author of the world-acclaimed Returning to Haifa. In his own novel, Sami Mikhail suggests another ending to this story of a couple of Palestinians going back to Haifa in order to enquire about the son they had lost there because of the war in 1948. After the death of her husband in a military operation, the mother of Khaldun/Dov – the Palestinian boy raised as an Israeli – refuses to abandon none of her children and tries to gather them around her in Cyprus.

Not surprisingly, some people have been upset by what they have called the “spoliation” (see previous post) of a Palestinian work but others were obviously interested to see how two voices, doomed to live in two different endless exiles, could, nonetheless, hold such a literary dialogue.

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

Again, the boycott and its many questions

Again the boycott issue, with its difficult questions already tackled in previous posts, like that one about two movies, an Israeli one, The Band’s visit, and another, Egyptian, Salata Baladi (Salade maison).

This time the discussion concerns a book, Madinah, City Stories from the Middle East. This collection of short stories edited by the Lebanese writer Joumana Haddad gathers ten texts written by various Arab writers, by a Turkish one and… by the Israeli writer Yitzhak Laor with a text about Tel Aviv.

The Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish started the whole discussion in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar asking how Arab writers could have accepted to participate in a project which presents Tel Aviv side to side with the other Arab towns, as a figuration of the New Middle East map…

Because of such reactions, the English publisher published on his site a declaration mentioning among other things that “the request to include an Israeli story was the publisher's” and that the editor “was initially very much against it (…) until the name of writer Yitzhak Laor was eventually suggested”, an idea “highly supported by the Palestinian contributor to the book, Ala Hlehel.”

Hlelel, a Palestinian living in Acco, had already expressed his point of view in Al-Akhbar saying that Yitzhak Laor, as a radical opponent to the Sionist state, was perfectly entitled to participate in such a book, even with a story about Tel Aviv, a city built on the ruins of the Palestinian villages.

Later on, Al-Akhbar published Laor Yitzhak’s answer. His text begins with an interrogation about the wijdân¸a word used by Najwan Darwish and for which there is no easy translation in other languages. Then, Yitzhak Laor goes on saying that Darwish’s attitude means in fact that when an Arab public discourse speaks of secularism, democracy and so on, another one, like in Darwish’s article, denies any right for a Jewish presence in the Middle East.

Of course, explains Yitzhak Laor, nobody is asked to forget on which ground Tel Aviv has been built but, at the same time, somebody like Najwan Darwish should learn that all the people who live in that city are not the same. Something the reading of his text, which describes Tel Aviv as a huge and frightening military camp, makes quite obvious…

Pierre Abi Saab, the editor of Al-Akhbar cultural section, comments on Yitzhak Laor’s position. He regrets that the Israeli writer sees Najwan Darwish’s position as racist when it is just the denial of a policy which aims at making the Jewish occupation like something natural (tabî‘î, a key word very closed to the Arabic tatbî‘ for “boycott” "normalization" [see comments]).

Of course, the dispute is much more elaborated than said in this short summary. But it has to be mentioned that it was published in Al-Akhbar, a daily supposed to be very close to the Lebanese Hizbollah, and thus to Al-Manar. A TV station that Germany has recently banned on grounds that it violates the country's constitution!

Just to make things more complicated, another boycott issue was raised by the same Al-Akhbar with the possible coming to Beirut of the West-Eastern Divan. Founded by Daniel Baremboim and the Palestinian Edward Said, the orchestra has played only once in an Arab country. It was in Ramallah, some three years ago. Knowing that the players come from various Arab countries, from Spain and from…Israel, should the visit be boycotted?

As usual, here are the links to the more developed posts in French, about Al-Madinah and the West-Eastern Divan.

Taxis in Egypt and in Palestine

Are the old Cairene taxis due to disappear? According to the new regulation, cars over 20 years will not be used for taxi cabs anymore and new authorisations will not be delivered to cars over ten years. Before long, the eternal Nasr 1300 should not be seen in Cairo streets.

In Khaled Al Khamissi’s view, the author of the unexpected best-seller Taxi, it would also be the end for the typical “osta”, the classical local taxi driver. Around 100.000 copies of his little book, largely written in colloquial Egyptian arabic (and translated into English, Italian and very soon French), have been sold, probably as much as there are taxicabs in the streets of the capital of Egypt! An indication, according to the writer, of the new cultural climate made possible by the absolute failure of the actual regime.

Less famous abroad than film directors like Michel Khleifi (Wedding in Galilee, 1987) and Elia Suleiman (Divine Intervention, 2002), Rashid Mashharawi (رشيد المشهراوي), born in Gaza in 1962, has just finished Laila's Birthday, the story of a juge obliged to work as a cab driver but still fighting in order to enforce the law on his fellow citizens in a country tore to pieces by the Israeli occupation.

Mohammed Bakri, probably the more praised Palestinian actor, plays the main character who compels his clients to fasten their seatbelt in a taxi with a sticker on the windshield which says: Forbidden to people bearing arms!

Things are changing, and artworks are not anymore the narrow-minded expression of an ideology. For those two Arab writer and film maker, the taxi is thus a way to stay in line with a definition of art which commands the artist to be a careful commentator of the social reality, but paying attention not to the great historical narratives but to the many little stories of everyday life.

Here is Laila's Birthday trailer and as usual, the link to the more developed post in French.

Local salad and identity spoliation

Wikipedia reminds us that the famous “Israeli salad” is also named sometimes an “Arabic salad”! Indeed, the borders of gastronomy do not always fit with the political frontiers and the (famous) Kefraya wine, from the Lebanese Bekaa, could become, according to this article (arabic) in al-Akhbar, an Israeli brand in the US States!

Obviously enough, people in the Middle East are quite upset to see that the recently born Israeli state has a tendency to phagocyte anything it could. For instance, air hostesses on El Al Israeli aircraft carriers wear a so-called “national dress” whith embroideries, a tradition which can be traced back to the Kanaan people who have been expelled from their original land by the Hebrew tribes according to the Bible.

During the last Olympic games, the Israeli state participated in the Beijing international garden by a symbolic donation: a “gazelle horn” -- as this flower has been referred to in Arabic for centuries – and, even more offensiveg, an olive tree, although thousands of them have been uprooted by the caterpillars of its alleged “Defense army”!

Not so long before, the publication of “Palestinian Art,” a book by Gannit Ancori became a sort of scandal when famous Palestinian artist and Art historian Kamal Boullata complained about the plagiarism of his own works and ideas by the author, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

However, Bilal al-Shubaki, professor of Political sciences in the West bank is probably right when he understands (article in arabic) the spoliation of the Palestinian memory as a consequence of Israel lack of national identity.

As usual, the link to the more developed post in French. Photo : Mémoire de soie, costumes et parures de Palestine et de Jordanie, Paris, IMA-EDIFRA, 1988, from the Widad Kawar's collection.

Palestinian Hip-Hoppers: Jackie Salloum’s "Slingshot Hip Hop"

Rap music in Palestine began as an “Israeli phenomenon”, with young Jewish and Arab rebels coming from the poor industrial suburbs of Israel sharing the same rage against their living conditions.

A short-lived artistic coexistence as the Palestinian hip-hoppers went their own way with the Second Intifada (2000) and the adoption a more nationalist political discourse by artists like Dam, while Israeli rappers like Subliminal became more and more extremist.

Today, rap music has been adopted by the young Palestinians as a way to express their (political) identity and musicians perform regularly in Israel, as well as in the so-called “Autonomous Territories” or in the Palestinian camps of the surrounding Arab states.

Thus, after Ramallah and Jenine in June, Jackie Salloum was in the Palestinian camps of Lebanon in August to show her first “real” movie, Slingshot Hip Hop. Listening to the soundtrack was a real shock for the young Palestinian raised in Lebanon: certainly not because of the music but because they were amazed to discover that Arabic and Hebrew could be used by “Israeli Palestinian” rappers.

As they explained in an interview given some time ago to the Moroccan weekly Telquel, the three members of Dam are eager to be heard, especially by an Israeli society upset by their national claims.

Under Slingshot Hip-Hop trailer...



... a link to the more elaborated post in French and to Jackie Salloum's website where two shorter moovies could be seen: a must !

Mahmoud Darwish Is Gone: Death of a Nation

The “Palestinian Authority” and a number of Arab intellectuals have asked Israel for Mahmoud Darwish to rest in his homeland, close to Akka. The answer was no, and the poet will be buried in Ramallah. Obviously, the Israeli state could not grant such a request. During
his whole life in exile (since 1970), the poet got a permit for a short stay in his homeland only three times, the last one being last year, for a lecture in Haifa (see previous post).

Mahmoud Darwish always asked to be heard as an artist, and not as the spokesman for the Palestinians. The world's reaction to his death shows that he succeeded in becoming recognized as the great poet he was. But he died before he could see any success on the other side of his life struggle, a real solution for the Palestinians, including for them the right to return, even after their death, where they were born.

The link to the original (and a bit different) post in french and a excerpt from Notre musique, a movie by Jean-Luc Godard which shows Darwish discussing with a Jewish student.

Crossing the borders : movies and music from Palestine

The Salt of this Land, a Palestinian movie, will be presented at the International film festival in Cannes (France). The film is about Emad, a young Palestian who tries desesparately to live in homeland, and Soraya, a third generation emigrant to the states travelling to her parents’ country looking for her roots.

A story which has something to do with the film maker’s one, Annemarie Jacir (آن ماري جاسر), born in Nazareth, raised in Saudi Arabia then in the USA. Since a few years, she lives now in the Occupied Territories or, better, she used to live as the Israeli authorites did not allow her to come back to her home in Ramallah, in spite of her American passport (something which helps usually).

Thus, the movie was finished not in Palestine but in… Marseille (south of France). Anyhow, Annemarie Jacir remains happy with that: with her movie, she will be able to express her ideas about the most sensitive issue, that of the right for the Palestinians to return to their homeland.


Rim Banna’s story, a singer from Nazareth, is about the same issue: how a Palestinian (artist) could make his/her voice heard across borders?

Since her beginning in the mid 80’s, Rim Banna has become a leading figure of the new Arab song which mixes traditional pieces with modern music and rythms. But, having an Israeli passport, she has more opportunities to meet her audience in the western countries than in the Arab ones.

For instance, she was invited some months ago to give a show in Damascus but she never got her visa to leave. Thus she decided to have a “virtual show” with her fans listening to her in an Internet coffee shop in Damascus, something she did also with for the Jordan, Lebanaese and Gazawis audiences.

To be fair, the Israelis authorities are not the only ones which make her travels to Arab countries almost impossible. Even if there are agreements between Israel and some Arab governments, the boycott issue, a difficult and painful one LINK, adds to the difficulties.

Nonetheless, Rim Banna was happy enough to meet some days ago her Arab audience, for the very first time, in Abu Dhabi. She had brought with her a little stone, taken from the ruins of a church in Saffuriyyeh, a little village close to Nazareth where it is said that Jesus’s mother was born.

It remains almost nothing of that village whose inhabitants live now in Nazareth or even in the Palestinian camp of Ain Heloue (Lebanon).

Is has been destroyed by the Israeli forces during the war.

Just 60 years ago.

Links to some videos and articles with the original post, in French.

Charms for a Suffering Society

For many Muslim believers, the Coran, the divine word, is supposed to have curative effects. In the Arab world, people may go to a shaykh “specialized” in Coranic medicine. Most of the times, he will “cure” psychological diseases.

If correctly used and as a way to recognize the power of God, the ruqy, the “magical incantation” of God’s words is a well known and rather accepted – if discussed – tradition in many Arab countries, especially among popular and uneducated segments of the population.

When people can’t see any solution to their difficulties, they are incline to turn to charms which can “magically” solve their problems. It is the case in Gaza where traditional “doctors” are mushrooming.

Same thing in Algeria, a country where people had to cope with dramatical events and where 10% of the population is said to suffer from psychological difficulties.

The revival of magical traditions is obviously an evidence of the suffering of many people in the Arab world.

Follow that link to read the original and more detailed post in French. Photo: www.tattar.com

The Many Places of Censorship

Regulating Arab Satellite TVs.
According to Syrian actor Duraid Lahham, the only Arab politicians able to reach an agreement between us are… Home Secretaries! In fact, when repression is on the agenda cooperation can be expected even between Information departments of most Arab countries.

It has been the case a few days ago when a document “regulating” satellite broadcasting in the Arab world was signed by all the members of the Arab League, with the only exception of Qatar.

Indeed, the “Al-Jazeera Emirate” has nothing to expect from a document which calls for sanctions against satellite TVs in case of defamatory statements against heads of state or “national and religious symbols.”

Prepared in no more than six months, adopted in less than one hour discussions, the “regulating” document is already adopted by the Egyptian authorities for all new media projects, including in the so-called “free zone” of Media City.

The coming meeting of the Arab League, next June, should see the creation of an Arab official body in charge of the application of the adopted document whenever prosecution will be necessary.

And now, according to “well informed sources” a similar document is under study in order to “regulate” the Arab internet.


Press freedom in Palestine
One more problem with political cartoons... In Palestine for a change. Because of this cartoon (taken from the very interesting www.menassat.com), the pro-Fatah daily Al-Ayyam in Ramallah has been banned by a Gaza court for being “defamatory”. According to the general attorney, the cartoon was not only offensing to Hamas members of the Parliament but also to Islam.

Al-Ayyam distribution is forbidden in Gaza since February 6th.


Western Censorship too…Whenever he scores in a soccer competition, Muhammad Abu Trika, from the Egyptian national selection, does not only make the sujûd (to prostrate oneself to thank God) as seen in the previous post.

Being an “engaged man” in the actual meaning of the word, he can also express his sympathy for a cause like the fate of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip.

Many Arab bloggers and journalist have noted that when the Egyptian soccer star has been fined by the soccer federation because of this demonstration, other players in similar occasions, Brazilian (and Christian Evangelist) player Kaka by instance, did not get any sanction even when he expresses his faith in God.

More than that, Abu Trika’s photo has almost disappeared from the Internet. Searching for “Abu Trika” and “Gaza” on Google does not give you anymore access to a photo which has been published so many times…

Enough, even though Google denies it, to allow many people in the Arab world to think that Egyptian and/or Israelis authorities are behind the vanishing of a too popular picture…


Follow that link to read the original and more detailed post in French.

From Kufiya to Islamic Scarf

The Palestinian kufiya is trendy in western boutiques. But even as a fashion accessory, the success story of this symbol of the Palestinian struggle may be unbearable to some people and an “Israeli kufiya” – white and blue, with stars of David on it – has been invented. A “spoliation” of the Palestinian heritage very much criticized in the Arab press, unless one could see it as an indirect and unintentional tribute to the Palestinian national cause.

The kufiya became world-wild known during the 60’, with the rising of the PLO and of their charismatic leader. This picture of Leila Khaled, famous for participating in various hijacking operations, reflects the spirit of that time when the struggle for liberation and national identity went hand in hand with the affirmation of the women’s rights and equality to men.

Well known in the whole Middle East and adopted by the Palestinians as a national symbol at least since the 30’, the kufiya is, according to Fred Halliday (100 myths about the Middle East, p. 13), a kind of ‘invented tradition’ (Eric Hobsbawn) as the pattern associated with Palestinian national identity was designed in an English factory of Manchester in order to be used by the soldiers of the famous Arab Legion!

Whatever origin it may have, a look at this picture of Venezuela’s President Chavez shows that the kufieh has not lost all of its political meaning. But a question remains: is it because the kufiya has become a fashionable accessory sold in the fancy boutiques of the Western World that the Islamic scarf is now so trendy in the Arab countries?

Plenty of comments on the kufiya on Ten Swedenburg's blog.
To read the original and more detailed post in French, follow that link