Author Archives: Arab America

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have used a controversial speech at the school to launch a broader conversation about feeling unsafe on campus.

The UNC College Republicans invited conservative writer David Horowitz to speak at the school on April 13. In his speech, Horowitz said the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine are associated with terrorist organizations, reports the campus newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel.

Horowitz added that SJP and the MSA — along with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Fatah, Iran and Hezbollah — intend to “kill the Jews, to push them into the sea.”

“These accusations are harmful not only to members of these organizations but also to our community as a whole,” student body president Houston Summers wrote in a letter to the editor.

After Horowitz’s speech, some UNC students began an online campaign called #NotSafeUNC to show how they have felt discriminated against on and around campus. The campaign is not just for Arab and Muslim students, but for any student who identifies as a marginalized person.

Horowitz’s speech came two months after members of a Muslim family — Deah Barakat, 23, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Razan Abu-Salha, 19 — were killed in Chapel Hill by Craig Hicks, who will face a death penalty trial. The killings caused a strong reaction among Muslim and Arab students nationwide, who saw them as an indication that they may not be safe, even when on or near a campus.

The speech also comes during a school year that, nationwide, has seen increased attention to marginalization and microaggressions — for example, though the proliferation of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on college campuses.

Farris Barakat, brother of Deah Barakat, responded to #NotSafeUNC by tweeting that his brother died because “freedom of speech has been used to defame Muslims through lies. Speak up.”

“In no way did the UNC College Republicans intend to cause feelings of fear for any student,” the College Republicans said in a statement. “Being uncomfortable with something that’s said does not equate with being unsafe, and we intended to do nothing more than cause academic discomfort by inviting David Horowitz to UNC.”

The statement also listed five former MSA affiliates who were connected to terrorism since the early 1980s.

“Let it be published, that UNC Muslim Students Association (UNC MSA) is not a terrorist group, nor is it affiliated with or funded by any terrorist groups,” the MSA said in its own statement. “It is absurd that we even need to make this statement.”

Following Horowitz’s comments, UNC College Republicans’ chairman, Frank Pray, suggested that the school’s MSA and SJP be reformed, according to the Daily Tar Heel. Pray did not respond to The Huffington Post’s request for comment.

In response, SJP leaders wrote, “Pray’s call for MSA and SJP to be ‘reformed’ in light of Horowitz’s unsubstantiated assertions is paternalistic and groundless.”

“[Controversial speakers] create a hostile learning environment for Muslim and Arab-American students, and that’s what they’re designed to do,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told HuffPost. “They’re designed to demonize Muslim and Arab students.”

Students who have participated in the #NotSafeUNC campaign are facing backlash on Twitter from people arguing their points, calling them weak, and generally trolling.

Hooper said CAIR supports the students’ campaign.

“We support anyone, anywhere, who challenges bigotry and intolerance,” he said. “It seems wherever Mr. Horowitz goes, bigotry and intolerance follows.”

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Over the past half century, foundations—most notably the Ford Foundation—have famously helped empower different ethnic groups in U.S. society: Latinos, African African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. 

More recently, philanthropy has focused attention and resources on Arab Americans, but these efforts are less well known. 

Radio host Diane Rehm, actress Alia Shawkat, Accenture founder George Shaheen—the list of Arab Americans who have risen to success and made great contributions to life in America is quite long. And yet hurtful stereotypes of Arab Americans and Islam still run strong in this country, especially since 9/11. Beyond this, the Arab American community confronts many of the same social and economic challenges as any other group.

Several nonprofits have historically worked on issues of concern to Arab Americans, like the Arab American Institute, which has received modest foundation support at times from such major funders as the Carnegie Corporation, the Open Society Foundations, and Ford, as well as some corporate support.

But the biggest foundation money in recent years has gone to the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, or ACCESS, which has pulled in support from a who’s who of major progressive foundations—Ford, Kresge, Kellogg, Mott, and OSF—and has also drawn funds from a number of top corporate funders, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and AT&T. 

Not surprisingly, the Ford Foundation has been the top funder of ACCESS, cementing the foundation’s unmatched record of helping different ethnic groups in the United States. Since 2006, Ford has given ACCESS around $6.7 million. This money has gone toward a variety of efforts, including civic engagement.

One particularly robust and intriguing piece of ACCESS’s work that funders have helped scale up is the Center for Arab American Philanthropy (CAAP). While still housed at ACCESS, it’s become it’s own distinct organization.

CAAP commits grants to programs that equip Arab Americans with the tools not only to succeed at school and at life, but also to challenge and change anti-Arab prejudices. Such funding is related to, but distinct from, other philanthropic effort we’ve reported on lately to push back against anti-Muslim bias. 

Related – Philanthropy and the Fight Over Muslims in America

CAAP’s story begins in 2005, when ACCESS launched it as part of a larger effort to “strengthen philanthropy in the Arab American community.” Over the following three years, the new center found partner organizations across the United States and obtained infusions of startup capital from the Ford, W.K. Kellogg, and Rockefeller foundations. From 2009 onward, it’s been a grantmaker in its own right, issuing $53,000 or more in philanthropic awards every year.

CAAP will fund organizations in any city or state in the country, and its application process is open to all, e.g., no prior invitation to apply needed. But consistent with its mission, it requires its grantees either to be Arab American organizations, or at least to serve the Arab American community in a big way. CAAP also houses donor-advised funds and, in that way, is emerging as the de facto community foundation for Arab Americans. 

Here we should pause to note that while the community foundation model has mainly been applied to a specific geographic area (as the term implies), we’re seeing more examples of foundations that host donor-advised funds around a given substantive concern. 

Among CAAP’s priorities, children and youth are a sizable area of interest. For example, CAAP is a frequent contributor to the Arab American Heritage Council, which offers such services as tutoring bilingual Arab youth and hosting educational workshops. CAAP gave this group $5,000 in 2011 and $7,000 in 2012. CAAP has also issued:

a sum total of $13,500 in grants in 2011-2013 to the Arab American Association of New York for, among other things, “teen empowerment and engagement programs.”
a sum total of $7,000 in grants in 2013-2014 to the Arab American Family Support Center, a Brooklyn nonprofit that offers an array of support services to Arab American children and their families.
$5,000 in 2014 to the Chicago-based Arab American Action Network to support an anti-racial-profiling campaign led by the nonprofit’s youth-advocacy staff.
Note that a few of the grantees above are clearly community-centered organizations, while others are nationwide in scope. And CAAP funds all of them alike. So it doesn’t matter where in the country you work or how many clients you serve. If you’re making a positive difference for Americans who are of Arab descent, there may be opportunities for funding with CAAP.

Source: www.insidephilanthropy.com

A new mobile app will help Muslim travellers establish prayer times, locate mosques and find halal food more easily while away from home.

Going by the name HalalTrip, the app has integrated the latest available technologies to give Muslim travellers a simple way to find prayer times and locations whether on air, land or sea.

With just one click, the new feature instantly calculates the prayer times for the current location, the distances for nearby mosques and the time it will take to reach them. For travellers it will also work out whether you can reach your hotel in time for prayers.

The addition of this feature alongside its existing in-flight prayer calculator means the HalalTrip app now provides Muslim travellers with a seamless experience for all their needs.

Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of HalalTrip & CrescentRating, said embracing new technology to innovate and enhance the experience of Muslim travellers is a key ongoing focus for the company as the $145 billion Halal tourism sector becomes more sophisticated and smartphone savvy.

Bahardeen said, “The Muslim traveller is now much more technology savvy than ever before. They are increasingly coming from a younger demographic and are now some of the early adopters of online innovations.”

The HalalTrip app brings together a number of key essential travel resources for Muslims which includes Halal food discovery. The Halal food spotting feature allows users to “spot” Halal food dishes and upload images, comment and share via social media to millions across the world.

The new version of the app, available on both iOS and Android, now has English, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia user interfaces with more languages to follow.

According to the latest figures in the “MasterCard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) 2015”, the halal tourism sector was worth $145 billion in 2014. This figure is predicted to grow to $200 billion by 2020.

Over the next few months, HalalTrip will add new features to the app including a direct booking service and city guides.

The free app is available for both iPhone/iPad & Android smartphones/tablets and can be downloaded by searching for ‘HalalTrip’ in the App Store/Google Play.

Source: muslimvillage.com

A Libyan rapper known as “Volcano” has released an expensive-looking video featuring a backdrop of militants and flaming rubble in the city of Benghazi.

The song, “C5,” describes the Libyan civil war’s effect on the ancient city, which has found itself at the epicenter of the fighting. In the nearly seven-minute video, he wears gold chains and several Western-style outfits — including hoodies and crisp white sneakers — while striking hip-hop poses in parts of the city that have clearly suffered from the conflict.

He also raps his support for Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the military leader of the “Libya Dignity” campaign against the various armed Islamist groups that control about half the country. In the background, men in battle fatigues pose with machine guns, ostensibly members of Haftar’s fractured Libyan National Army. (RELATED: Gen. Haftar’s Libyan National Army Is Waging War Against ISIS)

In one verse, he mocks an Islamist recruiting slogan, saying, “Come to jihad! Come to rottenness!” In Arabic, it rhymes neatly: “Hayy ala-l-jihaad! Hayy ala-l-fasaad!”

Source: dailycaller.com

Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Mohammad Shaheen (Hesperus Press)

Mahmoud Darwish always denied that he spoke for or represented the Palestinian people, despite being the poet whose transcendent skill captured, for many, the sorrows of their situation. And yet, in his 1995 poem-cycle Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone, the resonances of his individual experiences do just that, evoking something much greater and more universal.

Darwish opens with “I See my Ghost Coming From Afar” — a poem which frames the collection, asserting the poet’s overview of the histories contained in the rest of the works. In a series of statements beginning with “I look at…” and culminating in “Like the balcony of a house, I look at whatever I will,” Darwish signals a kind of omniscience, laying claim to a knowledge of his own past which defies appropriation and distortion.

Nowhere is this more strongly expressed than in the first sequence of poems, set in Darwish’s native Galilee, recording a growing boy’s wanderings and interactions with his parents and the oppressive presence of British colonial troops: “My son, remember: here is where the British crucified/Your father on a prickly pear hedge for two nights,/But never did he confess.”

Despite this, there remains a sense of being rooted in the landscape — a familiar strand from Darwish’s earlier works. The poem continues: “The whole sky is ours from Damascus/To the lovely walls of Acre.”

The second sequence is titled “Abel’s Space,” evoking the Biblical story of Adam’s son, murdered by his brother in a killing which symbolizes the fratricidal violence of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine at the time of Israel’s establishment in 1948.

The origination of Arabs through Ismail, the brother of Isaac, is drawn from the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike. But in Darwish’s formulation, Ismail’s oud, the archetypal Arabic musical instrument in which “the Sumerian wedding is raised,” contrasts with the new, foreign guitar. The outcome, as Darwish sees it, is “merely two witnesses, two victims.”

Tinged with passion and grandeur

In the third section, Darwish evokes separation, distance and longing but, in a reflection of his own life story, tinges them with passion and grandeur. His mother is contrasted with beautiful foreign girls; the reader is reminded that the Palestinian rural traditions which are rooted in the land coexist with a history that is indebted to far-flung cultures, so that “I want both of you together, love and war… Two women who will never be reconciled…”

The emotion of the following sequences folds back in on itself, returning to inward reflection and imagery on a smaller scale — sparrows and butterflies, and the personal burdens of prison and separation.

Homer’s Helen of Troy becomes part of the everyday, in a meeting “on Tuesday/At three o’clock… In a street narrow as her sock.”

Lovers leave each other in sadness and chaos, and beauty and music always seem to exist alongside breakage and loss.

In the final sequence, we seem to meet a mature, sober, sometimes regretful Darwish. Moving from mythical and classical references he shifts to his literary companions — from the Arabic poet Imru al-Qais in the sixth century to Bertolt Brecht in the twentieth — and from love on a grand, sweeping scale to a more everyday scale: “And in order to dream I do not need/A large house.”

Source: electronicintifada.net

The Middle Eastern Leadership Council hosted Arab-American comedian and philanthropist Maysoon Zayid Monday. Zayid was invited by the group as the speaker for the last event of Middle Eastern cultural month. MELC Treasurer Abdulla Jastaniah, a second-year College student, said the group wanted to invite someone who could represent Middle Eastern culture, while also being … Continued

By Habeeb Salloum The hot Saskatchewan July wind made us uncomfortable as my brother and I went searching for wood scraps in the surrounding treeless prairie land. This was an important yearly task for us children in the age-old method of producing our yearly supply of burghul. We had to find enough wood to be … Continued

Armenian-Americans remember the start of the Armenian massacre at Livonia church

Source: www.freep.com

“Thank you for reaching out to us, however, as SJP has a policy of non normalization, we will not be advertising this play.”

This was the response we received from a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine when we invited them to take part in a series of talkbacks that we are conducting in conjunction with Martyrs Street, my play about Hebron currently playing at Theater for the New City.

While I understand the frustrations and failures that led to the anti-normalization movement, I still questioned their response. Did it come out of the sense from the press release that the play equates Hamas with Jewish extremists? Was it simply the fact that I am a former commander in the IDF? Or does the rejection of dialogue include those working to end the occupation?

Another rejection came from a journalist for a Jewish publication, who wrote to me:

“Quite frankly, neither my readers nor I need another left-wing, New Israel Fund-type slander against the Jewish State. We have quite enough of it in real life.”

Whatever their reasons, both SJP and this journalist missed an opportunity to influence the way people think and act on issues of occupation and separation. While they may come from opposite sides of the conflict, both make the same mistake under the guise of anti-normalization – the refusal to build reciprocal relations with the other side.

Martyrs Street tells the story of two houses on the same street in Hebron. One is the home of a Palestinian professor who may be forced out of her home by Israel because of the actions of her son, a bomb maker for Hamas. The other is inhabited by a cell of radical Jewish settlers who plan to bomb a rally by anti-settlement Jews in Jerusalem, in order to prevent the coming evacuation of their home. The stories that unfold intertwine to reveal how moderates are left with fewer and fewer options as the logic of radicals appeals to increasing numbers.

Source: 972mag.com

I shop, therefore I am. Globalisation has arrived in the Middle East and with it the brand-name accoutrements of the consumer society. Entire cities have been erected to celebrate this new age of unbound consumption, or of consumerism on steroids. Ikea may have descended on Riyadh and Abu Dhabi; the real impact is made by the likes of Hermès, Harry Winston, Bréguet, and other purveyors of ultra-high-end indulgencies. This is a rarefied segment of the luxury market that considers Louis Vuitton merely a staple – rather too ordinary to be publically associated with.

What is an artist to do? Well, join the hype.

Surrounded by the relentless demand for instant gratification generated by a society cast adrift from its roots, the art scene is positively buoyant – if not flourishing – in Saudi Arabia and the adjoining countries along the southern shore of the Arabian Gulf.

It makes perfect sense: in times of plenty, patronage of the arts goes on the ascendant. In fact, Saudi Arabia is currently in the midst of a Golden Age not unlike the one that produced the Dutch masters of 17th century – Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, and Rembrandt van Rijn. At that moment in history, the Dutch Republic was the most prosperous country in the world. This is no coincidence: the analogy holds.

In keeping with the times, art is now a globalised industry. At its Saudi vanguard is Edge of Arabia, a collective of independent artists pushing Arab art onto the world stage. In 2009, Edge of Arabia presented eight Saudi artists at the 53rd Venice Biennale, widely seen as a portal to Art Basel – the world’s largest commercial venue for modern and contemporary art.

After its debut in Venice, Edge of Arabia embarked on a world tour to the wide acclaim of critics, dealers, and the general public. Returning home to the kingdom, the collective’s founders extended the scope of their initiative to include educational programmes offering mentoring, workshops, and symposia to budding artists from the region.

One of those founders is Ahmed Mater who, through his art, seeks to address the deeper questions facing the nation: its transformation, religious heritage, and related existentialist queries. Is humanity more than just the sum of bodily parts, and if so: what is it?

The interest of the British Museum was piqued and it promptly acquired Mater’s opus magnum Prognosis: a series of collages depicting quintessentially Saudi vistas – the Ka’aba, the Grand Mosque, and other cultural references – superimposed on x-ray sheets in a nod to the artist’s background as a physician.

Concerned about the impending loss of heritage, Mr Mater has moved to the forefront of the opposition against the large scale redevelopment of Mecca that threatens a number of historical sites, including what some Islamic scholars contend was the birthplace of the Prophet – the Mawlid House.

The multi-billion dollar project aims to adequately equip the city so that it can safely handle the growing number of pilgrims arriving annually to carry out the Hajj. Mr Mater’s Artificial Light / Desert of Pharan – an urban exploration – illustrates the dissonance, questions the makeover, and expresses the concerns.

Often described as an illuminator of forms and ideas, Mr Mater abhors habits and routine, preferring lightness and surprise instead. His art is also served with a dash of humour. Mr Mater’s Yellow Cow Project – a self-described “ideologically-free product” – constitutes a frontal assault on the naïve presumption that humans may gain value by drifting away from the primordial mud of creation. “Real power is the ability to be a flower.”

Not entirely unlike Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable of the late 1960s, Mr Mater strikes a blow against the grain: “When everything is materialised, everything becomes stony – even one’s heart.” He takes no prisoners either: “If this sounds absurd, just rush out and buy some Yellow Cow products. It is an open market, ready to consume you – bon appétit.”

Source: cfi.co

Souad Massi’s new album El Mutakallimun, loosely translated as The Masters of the Word, reinterprets ten classic Arabic texts. “I just wanted to give people the opportunity to discover the beauty of the Arab culture. We are not barbarians or uncivilized people,” the artist says.

The album, set for an early May release, interprets Arabic poetry classics that range from writing by the sixth century Zuhayr bin Abī Sulmá to Abu al-Qassim al-Shabbi’s early twentieth century “To the Tyrants of the World.”

As the blog Arab Hyphen notes, Massi’s reworking of Arabic classics began with the Cordoba Choirs project, in which she and Eric Fernandez reinterpreted ninth- and tenth-century Cordoban poetry and songs.

When you look at the history of the Arab world, it is made of authoritarian powers, but also of resistance. And this fact is still relevant today. In my opinion, it is also important to underline the fact that texts from the 9th century already denounced tyranny and described how poets resisted tyranny. Author of the poem “To the tyrants of the world” (Ela Toghat al-Alam), Tunisian poet Abou el Kacem Chebbi’s verses were taken up by protesters in Tunisia and Egypt.

A Guardian review calls the new album an “ambitious set in which she uses her gently exquisite, languid voice to rework an intriguing set of Arabic poems”. Within, the reviewer writes, “gently sturdy melodies are influenced by western balladry, jazz and reggae, and translations of the poems are thankfully provided.”

The album is dedicated to Arab-Andalusian poets:

“I just wanted to give people the opportunity to discover the beauty of the Arab culture. We are not barbarians or uncivilized people. The Arab-Muslim world has produced great works in science, philosophy, mathematics, medicine and poetry, but it all seems forgotten now.”

And why poetry?

“I like these words written by contemporary Iraqi poet Ahmad Matar: ‘Poetry is not an Arab regime that eclipses with its leader’s death. And it is not an alternative to action. It is an art form whose mission is to disrupt, expose, stand witness to the reality and that expands beyond the present time. Poetry comes before the action… So poetry is regenerating. Poetry illuminates the path and guides our actions’.”

Source: www.albawaba.com

Illinois lawmakers are expected to vote Friday on two bills that civil rights defenders say will severely curtail the constitutionally protected right to engage in boycotts.

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Illinois House Bill 4011 and Senate Bill 1761 contain a provision that requires state pension funds to “create blacklists of companies that boycott Israel because of its human rights violations, and mandates that they withdraw their investments from these companies.”

The measure passed on the House floor and in the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday.

CCR says that these bills “must be opposed in order to protect the right to engage in boycotts that reflect collective action to address a human rights issue, which the US Supreme Court has declared is protected speech and associational activity.”

The draft law defines a “boycott” of “Israel” as “engaging in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel or companies based in the State of Israel or in territories controlled by the State of Israel.”

This means that the law would even discourage initiatives to boycott goods from Israeli settlements in occupied territories including the West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights that are considered illegal under international law even by longstanding US policy.

In an action alert aimed at Illinois residents, CCR says that “it was through strong collective action to address human rights issues, through boycotts and otherwise, that the civil rights and anti-apartheid struggles were successful in effecting change.”

“Don’t make it state policy to condemn this form of protected speech and association,” CCR urges.

The bill is sponsored by State Senator Ira Silverstein, a Democrat from Chicago. Last year, Silverstein sponsored unsuccessful legislation condemning the academic boycott of Israel.

Silverstein has long been a hardline opponent of Palestinian rights and in 2011 publicly opposed President Barack Obama’s endorsement of a Palestinian state “based on the 1967 borders.”

Growing efforts to outlaw BDS

The Illinois bills are the latest among a slew of measures intended to legislate against the increasingly visible boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

This week, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation also issued an “urgent” action alert about an “anti-BDS amendment” introduced in the US Senate by Maryland Democrat Senator Ben Cardin.

According to the action alert, Cardin’s bill would make it a “principal trade negotiating objective of the United States” to “discourage politically motivated actions” that “limit commercial relations” with Israel and Israeli businesses, including those operating in occupied territories.

In a Baltimore Sun op-ed, US Campaign executive director Yousef Munayyer writes that the amendment “is aimed at silencing and mitigating actions taken by some European states alongside the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.”

The Obama administration is currently negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU, which would create a major free trade area.

Munayyer also points out the hypocrisy of Cardin’s stance given that “it was only a few months ago that Senator Cardin himself praised boycotting as a tactic in nonviolent struggle” in the US civil rights struggle.

Last year, Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the US and now a member of Israel’s parliament, urged US legislatures to pass laws to suppress the boycott movement.

In January 2014, Israel’s then economy minister Yair Lapid warned that if the boycott movement was left unchecked it would hit every Israeli “in the pocket.”

Source: electronicintifada.net