Author Archives: Arab America

By Anne Paq and Basel Yazouri The Electronic Intifada “Feeling free is the best thing about parkour. Everything is closed here for us. In Gaza, with or without war, the situation is so bad. Parkour is my oxygen,” says a smiling 18-year-old Hamza Shalan. A first-year university student, two of his brothers have been killed … Continued

By Jessica Battilana San Francisco Chronicle Not Reem Assil, who in 2009 called it quits on a career as a community and labor organizer and enrolled in the baking and pastry course at Laney College in Oakland, and in doing so changed the course of her life. Assil, who was born to a Palestinian mother … Continued

Naseer H. Aruri, an internationally renowned expert on the Middle East, a Palestinian activist and an author was not only remembered for his accomplishments, but for his sense of humor and his friendship at a memorial Sunday at UMass Dartmouth. 
“The turnout today is testament to the respect, the admiration and love with which Professor Naseer Aruri is held, not only in the community on this campus, but in the community around the world,” Chancellor Divina Grossman said to the 200 or so people gathered at the Woodland Commons.
Grossman said she never met Aruri, who joined the faculty in 1965 and retired in 1998 from UMass Dartmouth as a Chancellor Professor of Political Science. Aruri also served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International. He died Feb. 10, at the age of 81. 
“He worked to achieve peace through understanding,” Grossman said. 
Laughter filled the room during a series of speeches by friends and colleagues. Several members of Aruri’s family attended as well, from children and grandchildren to nieces and nephews. 
Jamal Aruri, one of Naseer’s sons, spoke about his father’s struggles when he first immigrated to the United States to study at the American International College in Springfield. He also spoke about how he fell in love with his wife, Joyce, who was present, and began a family.
People laughed when he talked about the strange haircuts he sported because his father believed he could cut his hair as well as a barber could, and the time he cut the hair of Franky, the adopted poodle.
When the children let go of the dog who had struggled to escape the scissors, he ran as fast as he could up the street, Jamal Aruri said.
“We never saw Franky again,” he said, as the room erupted in laughter once more. 
Maria Furman, another professor at UMass Dartmouth and a close family friend who led the ceremony, talked about the many ski trips she organized with Aruri’s family and other friends. When she asked the crowd if they knew Aruri skied, many shook their heads. 
“Well he did not actually” she said. Instead, Naseer would cook, read, play cards with friends and was in charge of the fun, she said. 
Hani Faris, who said his relationship with Aruri was more like one between brothers than friends, talked about his many academic accomplishments.
Aruri founded the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, and co-founded the Trans-Arab Research Institute, and the two worked together to publish books.
“Understandably, Naseer’s death hurt me deeply, and I find my solace in his legacy that lives on and the knowledge that I am very privileged to have known him,” he said.
Faris closed by telling the crowd what a mutual friend had told him about Aruri’s death, that best expressed how he felt himself.
“For me, Naseer was one of the rare individuals who makes you feel secure … by his mere presence on this planet” he said. “It is a life worth celebrating.”
Follow Carol Kozma on Twitter @CarolKozmaSCT

Source: www.southcoasttoday.com

A star-studded list of Palestinian and international filmmakers has called on the organizers of the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland to cancel its plans to highlight the Israeli film industry.

The call comes in response to plans by the festival to focus on Israeli film in its “Carte Blanche” program, taking Israeli government funding to do so.

The statement asks the festival to “reconsider their relationship to the government of Israel, and withdraw their partnership with the Israel Film Fund, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all other official Israeli entities.”

Signatories to the call include well-known Palestinian filmmakers and actors including: Annemarie Jacir, Elia Suleiman, Mohammed and Saleh Bakri, Hany Abu-Assad, Suha Arraf, Ruba Blal Asfour and Liana Badr.

They are joined by international names including Ken Loach, Richard Horowitz, Walter Bernstein, Paul Laverty, Yasmine Hamdan, Helene Louvart, Simone Bittone, Eyal Sivan and Jasmila Zbanic.

The festival has run annually since 1946 and is a major event in the cinema calendar, known for its focus on emerging talent in cinema.

Injustice

The section of the festival’s website devoted to the Carte Blanche special program currently reads:

The fifth edition of Carte Blanche, the Festival del film Locarno’s initiative dedicated to films in post-production, this year turns the spotlight on Israel. The films that will be selected will have the chance to be presented to the professionals attending Locarno during the Industry Days.

Thanks to a partnership with the Israel Film Fund, which coordinates the Israeli works in progress of the initiative, Carte Blanche will select 5 to 7 films in post-production. The producers of the selected films will attend the Locarno Festival and present their work to industry professionals. Intended to facilitate the films’ completion and distribution, they will be screened to sales agents, buyers, programmers and representatives of post-production support funds for attending Locarno during the Industry Days event (8 – 10 August). A jury of professionals from the sector will be convened to select the best film, which will receive an award worth 10,000 CHF.

But opponents of Israel’s inclusion in such a high-profile slot at the festival, and with major Israeli government funding for the festival, stated in an 11 April press release that:

We hope that our colleagues and friends at the Locarno Film Festival will stand with us. We hope you will recognize the direness of the present situation, and that you will choose to stand for human dignity in the face of barbarity and injustice perpetrated against any and all peoples.

A longer statement on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel added that:

We are particularly disturbed about the timing of this Locarno Film Festival decision to promote Israel, coming on the heels of Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza in the summer of 2014, where more than two thousand Palestinians were killed, including more than five hundred children. Locarno’s decision also follows the election of the most racist, far-right government in Israel’s history.

The calls for the Locarno Film Festival to reject Israeli government funding follow campaigns challenging Israel’s attempts to boost its international image through arts and cultural propaganda. These have seen Israel’s presence in film festivals challenged in recent cases from Montpellier, France and Bristol, UK to San Francisco and Texas in the USA.

The Locarno Film Festival organisers have also faced calls in previous years to rethink Israeli links. In 2006, the festival dropped funding from the State of Israel after an open letter by Palestinian, Lebanese and Swiss film-makers protested Israel’s ferocious attacks on civilians during its 2006 war on Lebanon.

Source: electronicintifada.net

Canton will spotlight arts and culture during the fifth annual Canton Acts of Culture Week, running Friday, April 24, through Sunday, May 3, throughout the community.

The week is presented by the Canton Commission for Culture, Arts and Heritage and sponsored by Canton Community Foundation.

Some of the many goals of Canton’s Acts of Culture Week include: showcasing community cultural resources and partnerships; celebrating diverse culture offerings; raising awareness of arts accessibility; instilling an appreciation of local arts organizations; and promoting the arts and heritage in and around the Canton community.

In celebration of the arts, a variety of events will be held, some of which include:

•The Michigan Philharmonic’s performance of “Middle Eastern Fusion Fest” at 2 p.m., Sunday May 3, at the Village Theater at Cherry Hill, 50400 Cherry Hill Road. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and youths. Middle Eastern music will be featured: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade: The Young Prince and The Young Princess, Oztoprak’s Zuzdil Samai and Arabian Waltz by Rabih Abou-Khalil. Special guest Michael Ibrahim, music director of the National Arab Orchestra, will be in attendance. Tickets may be purchased online at www.michiganphil.org or by contacting the Michigan Philharmonic at 734-451-2112

Source: www.hometownlife.com

A message to Obama from a Palestinian teenager
 

Dear President Obama,

I am 14 and live in the Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Almost four years ago my family and I were evicted from part of our home by Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli court decisions. The process has made life almost unbearable for me and tens of thousands of Palestinians. Settlers are working towards Jewish control of all of East Jerusalem, at times using violence against Palestinians.

This was once a beautiful neighbourhood. Everybody was so close, and before part of my house was evicted, I was never afraid of going to sleep. We used to have no worries. Now it doesn’t feel like a Palestinian neighbourhood any more. All the signs are in Hebrew, and the music too.

The people who’ve been evicted have lost financially and emotionally. My father has stopped going to work for almost a year, because it was so crowded and dangerous and every day there was tension and violence, so he couldn’t just leave us alone in the house with the settlers. The little kids wet their beds. My sister couldn’t sleep. The settlers have a dog in our house and every time it went past, she wet herself.

This thing that happened tore us apart. We were one big family, and now everyone lives in a different city. We are extremely uncomfortable and uncertain about what is going to happen here. Children my age and much younger are regularly arrested, interrogated and beaten by Israeli police, and violently attacked by settlers. For most of my life I have felt unsafe and threatened in my own neighbourhood and even in my own home.

Mr President, you have the power to change that. The most simple thing you could do is see our situation for yourself and speak out about it, to see the reality and talk about what you see. It’s not like you don’t know what’s happening here. I’m sure you know everything.

On this trip I hope that you will speak out against the Israeli government’s role in supporting the settlers and pressure the Israeli government to change its policies. US military aid to Israel is used directly against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators. I hope in the future you will stop giving military aid to support Israel’s illegal occupation of my people.

I also hope that in the future justice will return to the people. I hope the world will begin to speak out against the oppression we face in my neighbourhood and [the oppression] against all Palestinians. That you and others will not remain silent while our homes are taken, children are arrested and injured, and our future threatened.

Mr President, we want our houses back. And our pre-1948 land. It’s not fair what’s happening here, and most of the world doesn’t realise it. So if I had one wish I would get everyone’s rights back. From a little ball they stole from a boy in the street to a big farm they stole from a grandfather. #WakeUpWorld

Source: falastinews.com

Muscat: Violins, violas, cellos, a double bass, and even a vibraphone delighted the audience at the Bosch Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday night as the Kremerata Baltica Chamber Orchestra performed for the grand launch of the Muscat Chamber Music Series. 

To view more photos click here

The Muscat Chamber Music Series is an initiative by Arabesque International to provide free music workshops and concerts in Oman by a variety of international musicians. Since September 2014 it has had three pre-launch concerts to generate support, and Thursday’s concert marked its official launch, following a number of community and school workshops held earlier in the week with three of the musicians from the Kremerata Baltica.

“I thank all of you for coming tonight to celebrate with us this special evening, opening the dream…which we have been working on for 14 months,” said Ahmed Abouzahra, general manager of Arabesque International.

The Latvian ensemble played a wonderful selection of excerpts from popular classical compositions as well as few modern pieces.

Abouzahra said the diverse programme was partially based on a wish-list from Amin Al Husseini, CEO of the main sponsor Oman Arab Bank.  

“We were happy to find four or five pieces out of this wish-list which we could present as our concept is to bring classical music to Omani society to attract them,” Abouzahra told the audience.

Highlights included Bach’s “Air on the G String,” a piece so sweet and haunting that everyone in the audience seemed to calm down and focus all their attention on the talented young musicians, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence,” a colour and romantic piece that takes on directly to the Italian city.

The concert also featured a fantastic and exhilarating appearance by vibraphone player Andrei Pushkarev for two pieces by Astor Piazzolla and one by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Pushkarev is an incredibly expressive performer who doesn’t just play but seems to live the music, using his entire body to channel the music.

Finally the audience was treated to a wonderful encore featuring a surprise special guest, Ahmed Abouzahra’s 9-year-old violin prodigy daughter Amira, who joined the Kremerata Baltica for a moving performance of the three movements of “Spring” from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Abouzahra admitted that Amira was one of the inspirations for the Muscat Chamber Music Series, which aims to instill children with a love and appreciation for music.

While visiting Oman in February 2014 to perform at the Royal Opera House Muscat, Amira also performed at a number of local schools, sharing her passion for music with local children.

The Muscat Chamber Music Series relies on the generosity of sponsors.

Its primary supporters are Oman Arab Bank and Ominvest. Other supporters include the Embassy of Germany in Oman, the British Embassy in Oman, Omantel, Strabag Oman LCC, Holiday Hotels & Resorts, Al Shabiba, Al Royal, Merge 104.8, Al Wisal 96.5, and Muscat Printing Press. The patron is Brigadier Ramis Jamaan Al Oweira, Director General of Music, the Royal Guard Oman.

Source: www.timesofoman.com

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced gave 37 defendants to life terms, including Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Soltan.

The rulings were each for forming what came to be known as the “Rabaa Operations Room” during a sit-in in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. The court also sentenced 14 defendants, including Muslim Brotherhood Guide General Mohamed Badie, to death for violence-related charges.

“The US government is deeply disappointed in the Egyptian court’s decision in the case of US citizen Mohamed Soltan,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. “We remain deeply concerned about Mr. Soltan’s health and detention.”

She reiterated that the Obama administration’s call for Soltan’s release on humanitarian grounds, and urged Egypt to reverse the verdict.

The statement did not mention the other defendants.

They were charged with “masterminding a plot to sow chaos and storm and set fire to police stations, state institutions, public and private property and churches.”

Prosecutors also accused the defendants of “coordinating with e-committees to disseminate doctored images of people killed and wounded protesters.”

Hundreds were killed when security forces violently dispersed two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo’s Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square and Giza’s Nahda Square last year.

The dispersal came only a few weeks after Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, was forcibly removed from office by the army following massive opposition demonstrations against his one-year presidency.

The Egyptian government then launched a sweeping crackdown on Morsi’s supporters, in which the Rabaa dispersal is widely seen as having been a turning point.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

Move over, Cairo, Beirut and Casablanca. Dubai is launching a drive to become one of the Arab world’s top centres for art, design, film and fashion – areas that have traditionally been dominated by old Arab cities outside the Gulf.
Success is not certain. The wealthy emirate is much better known as a trading and banking hub and luxury shopping destination than as a centre for the arts. It lacks the established cities’ centuries of history and culture.
But Dubai has advantages which the old cities can find it hard to provide: security, cosmopolitan lifestyles and comprehensive travel links to the rest of the Arab world.
It is throwing hundreds of millions of dollars and the latest technology into its effort, using state-linked companies to develop the project in the same way that it’s successfully jump-started other industries.

“We want to encourage local and emerging talent from within the region,” said Amina Al Rustamani, group chief executive of TECOM Investments, a business park operator owned by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.
Other cities have allowed neighbourhoods of artists and designers to emerge over decades. Dubai is not leaving that to chance; TECOM is creating a purpose-built 21 million square foot (2 million square metre) area called the Dubai Design District.
Tenants of the district are to include galleries, studios, workshops, boutique stores and museums, plus office and residential space. The first phase, to open this year, will cost 4 billion dirhams ($1.1 billion). TECOM says over 220 companies have agreed to take part.
The Dubai Design and Fashion Council, a state-funded body, plans to set up a design school with students from around the world. One of the school’s specialties will be Islamic design.
The council intends to act as an incubator for new design businesses, providing technical support and advice. Eventually, Dubai state funds could be invested in some of the businesses, along with private sector money.
To some, Dubai’s top-down approach to culture may seem stifling or sterile. But executives see no contradiction; they argue that just as the emirate has attracted traders and bankers from the region by giving them an environment in which they can prosper, it can lure artists, designers and film makers.
Malek Sultan Al Malek, chief executive of TECOM Business Parks, said Dubai’s design drive followed naturally from its growth in other areas – for example, growth of its information technology and media sectors has spurred demand for designers.
“The ingredients for success come from the grass roots,” said the council’s chief executive Nez Gebreel, who helped to manage the businesses of David and Victoria Beckham for six years before moving to Dubai.
“We’re just creating the conditions which will allow people to flourish, and which don’t necessarily exist elsewhere in the region.”
One early design start-up in Dubai is Bil Arabi, a jewellery business opened in the emirate nine years ago by Nadine Kanso, a Beirut-born graphic designer.
Bil Arabi sold 1,500 pieces of jewellery in the shape of Arab calligraphy for $820,000 last year. Kanso described the pieces as “bling bling with a Middle Eastern edge”, but with a serious purpose, to explore Arabs’ cultural roots.
Political stability and security were key to her decision to start the business in Dubai, as war and social tensions can make it hard to operate in Beirut, Kanso said.
Three British-Iranian brothers in their 20s and 30s, Haman, Babak and Farhan Golkar, said they founded their high-end clothing brand in Dubai five years ago partly because the city was younger than the established fashion capitals, meaning there was room for newcomers.
Emperor 1688’s menswear sales, totalling $3.5 million in 2014, are growing at double-digit rates and a womenswear line was launched last year. Babak said Dubai was gradually developing its own fashion style, featuring opulent touches such as gold-plated suit buttons.
The brand is sold mostly in the Gulf and the Golkars plan to develop sales in Europe. Dubai’s tourism industry, which draws millions of visitors every year, may help the city develop global brands as the tourists spread recognition of them in their home countries, Babak said.
“In terms of retail power, Dubai is on a par with any city in the world, and that’s an important factor for a brand.”
In film making, the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 pushed business toward Dubai; movies and television series that might previously have been made in Cairo or Damascus could more safely be shot on a Dubai sound stage, using computer graphics to generate backdrops.
Film makers in Dubai don’t always operate with quite the same artistic freedom as they would in their home countries – productions in the United Arab Emirates must respect local cultural and religious sensitivities. A proposal to film a Sex and the City movie in the UAE was rejected, and it was shot in more liberal Morocco instead.
But such considerations aren’t an obstacle to most films. There were 777 applications to make short films, TV series or commercials in Dubai last year, up from 741 in 2013; 146 TV channels broadcast from the emirate – although Dubai faces stiff competition from neighbouring Abu Dhabi to host blockbusters.
“Morocco’s film industry is about 50 years old and Egypt is 80 years. We can’t match that, but we can compete in convenience, technology and low costs,” said Jamal Al Sharif, managing director of Dubai Studio City, part of TECOM.

Source: www.arabianbusiness.com

Khalil Gibran might be the most recognisable name among Arab poets. His work has reached millions in the East and millions in the West, and has a roster of fans that includes Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Johnny Cash, the last of whom recorded an entire audio book of Gibran’s work.

This month marked the 84th anniversary of the wordsmith’s death, but his memory remains alive on stage thanks to the Jordanian-British actor and writer Nadim Sawalha (You might recognise him from George Clooney’s Syriana).

Sawalha’s Gibran-inspired play, Rest Upon the Wind, returns to the UAE — it had its first run in 2012 — on April 14-15 at Al Jaheli Theatre in Abu Dhabi and on April 16-18 at Ductac in Dubai.

“If you see it twice, you will know there has been a difference. It’s a living thing. It’s growing and developing. As with every work of art, it’s a long time before you say, ‘That’s it’,” Sawalha told tabloid!.

The 79-year-old’s fascination with Gibran’s work began six decades ago, when a teacher advised him to look into the immigrant poets of New York. He began writing a story based on Gibran’s life around ten years ago, when he was hospitalised for a knee operation. The result is a play almost two hours long that highlights the plight of the Arab immigrant.

“In recent Arab history, there are hundreds of personalities — fascinating, beautiful personalities that I could have written about, but it just happened that I stumbled on Khalil by chance,” he said.

“I felt the life of the Arab immigrant should be celebrated, somehow, and I thought: I can’t think of anyone better than Khalil. Why? Because Khalil made a big name for himself, really, in the West, through the book of The Prophet.”

Born in 1883 in Lebanon, Gibran immigrated to the United States when he was 12. He struggled with poverty but created art that would touch the lives of many. His magnum opus was The Prophet, which has sold over 100 million copies since 1923.

“It has nothing to do with religion, really, although it’s called The Prophet,” said Sawalha. “But it was a human book. Human in its advice, almost. One friend advising the other how to behave in order to achieve a kind of equilibrium in life — some kind of happiness.”

While Sawalha included some passages in the play, he was careful to mix things up onstage with the six-person cast. As he put it: if you don’t entertain the audience, they’ll go for dinner instead.

“I make the story as simple for myself as possible, hoping that it will be as simple for my audiences as possible. I’m not here to complicate people’s lives — I’m here to amuse them by telling them a story.”

While Sawalha’s daughters, Julia (Absolutely Fabulous) and Nadia (EastEnders), have both made a name for themselves in the UK’s acting circuit, it’s his niece, Lara, who shines on stage in Rest Upon the Wind as Annie.

“She sings in Arabic, which is very important, to remind people that we are dealing with an Arab theme, and the life of an Arab man,” said Sawalha. “Even though it happened a hundred years ago, we have not forgotten that Gibran Khalil Gibran is basically Lebanese from Mount Lebanon. I wanted to keep that spirit alive.”

Tickets to Rest Upon the Wind are Dh175-250 in Abu Dhabi, and Dh140-Dh200 in Dubai, available through virginmegastore.me. All shows begin at 8pm. Call 050-7367480 for the Al Jaheli Theatre shows and 04-3414777 for the Ductac shows.

Source: gulfnews.com

Marwan al-Dwiri (left) with an alleged ISIS fighter showing the ISIS hand signal in Iraq. April 1, 2015. Alessandria Masi International Business Times Marwan al-Dwiri wasn’t your usual terrorism suspect. At 22, the young Tunisian was a promising rapper who had nothing to do with violent radical Islam; he wasn’t even very religious. He was … Continued

Thousands gather in Old City’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher on eve of Orthodox Easter to mark resurrection of Jesus

Source: www.timesofisrael.com