Author Archives: Arab America

Some of the world’s funniest Muslims will share the stage when comedian Mo Amer performs “Legally Homeless” at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, May 3. The stand-up comedy show, presented by Live Nation Comedy, will be recorded for later broadcast on national television.

“We are excited to be working with Mohammed ‘Mo’ Amer,” said Geof Wills, president of Live Nation Comedy. “He may be the funniest ‘Mohammed’ in the world.”

At a time of heightened tension and news coverage focused on violent religious extremists, Amer believes it is more important than ever to use humor to combat negative stereotypes often associated with Muslims.

“I find that just by being myself and sharing my culture on stage, it helps to counter the negativity,” he said. “I talk about things that are relevant, but in the end, it’s all about being funny because this is a stand-up comedy event. This is not just a show for Muslims. I want to attract a diverse audience.”

“Legally Homeless” is the first ever one-hour stand-up special starring an Arab-American comedian. The show’s title is derived from the fact that Amer has traveled to more than 20 countries without a passport, and straddled multiple cultures while growing up in the U.S.

Amer was born to Palestinian parents in Kuwait, but was raised in Texas after his family fled to the U.S. as political refugees in 1990, during the first Gulf War.

“The first time I saw a comedian was when my older brother took me to a rodeo as a kid, and Bill Cosby performed,” Amer said. “That’s when I knew I wanted to make people laugh.”

Source: www.broadwayworld.com

Soha Hilal viewed much of Saturday’s Lebanese Festival through the camera lens on her phone.

She took photos of her daughter, Carla, before the 8-year-old and about 20 other children carried a giant Lebanon flag to a stage on Fayetteville Street’s City Plaza.

Hilal snapped more photos just before Carla walked on the stage to perform a traditional Lebanese dance, known as Dabke.

In fact, it wasn’t until after the music stopped and Carla struck a pose that Hilal stopped taking pictures. After kneeling in front of the stage and holding her gold phone aloft, Carla’s mom stood and high-fived several other camera-wielding Lebanese parents.

“We’ve had her dancing (in the festival) since she was 4,” Hilal said of her daughter, who was born in Raleigh. “We want her to get used to our beats, our music, our culture and our people.”

Organizers said more than 5,000 people crowded the south end of Fayetteville Street on Saturday afternoon to experience dancing, food and other customs of the Middle Eastern country.

Saturday’s festival was the 17th hosted by the Triangle Lebanese Association, founded in 1986.

New home

Lebanese have been a part of North Carolina culture for more than a century. But this year, the association had an extra reason to celebrate. TLA late last year bought the first building it can call its own: a 4,500-square-foot structure on Horizon Drive in Raleigh.

“We’ve been saving up for it since we got started,” said Doumit Ishak, a co-founder of the association who serves as its president.

The Lebanese are known for being nomadic, Ishak said. And the Triangle association was no different – gathering in restaurants to socialize and renting out different venues for events over the years. Now it has a space to introduce new cooking classes, dance classes and Arabic classes, Ishak said.

On Saturday, the 50-year-old could hardly contain his excitement. He took a break from manning a grill to hug dozens of friends – even lying on the sidewalk to arm-wrestle with boys.

“These kids are like my own,” he said. “This is an event that, as you can see, makes us so happy and proud.”

North Carolina has been home to Lebanese immigrants since the 1880s and now has about 16,000 Lebanese-Americans, say with N.C. State University’s Khayrallah Program for Lebanese-American Studies.

Prominent Raleigh businessman and restaurateur Greg Hatem – who owns Sitti, Gravy and the Raleigh Times, among others – comes from a Lebanese family.

The community has been a part of the culture for so long that the N.C. Museum of History last summer hosted an exhibit called “Cedars in the Pines,” which chronicled Lebanese life in North Carolina.

But for others, such as 7-year-old Jacob Pogerelski, Saturday’s festival provided a rare opportunity to learn about an unfamiliar culture.

His family, which is of Polish descent, spent time at a booth learning Phoenician – the language of some of ancient Lebanon’s earliest settlers – before studying the food selections.

“I can’t believe my name in Phoenician is only two symbols,” Pogerelski said. “It’s interesting.”

Lebanese are known for being hospitable and family-oriented, so many are eager to share their culture, said Bisharah Libbus, who moved to the U.S. from Lebanon in 1971 and now lives in Chapel Hill.

Saturday’s event, which acted as a reunion for many Lebanese in the community, reminded him of when he was embraced by a stranger while walking in his hometown of Tyre last year.

“Your grandmother and my grandmother were sisters! Come, come let’s have coffee,” he recalled the woman saying. “I had never met her. But that’s how we are, very warm.”

Source: www.newsobserver.com

“You shouldn’t be scared or have fear of judgment,” said Asmaa Elamrousy who tested her hustle and flow for an audience the first time at the annual Arab-Americans Got Talent competition. “You should say what’s on your mind.”

Asmaa’ is 20 years-old, born in Egypt and raised in Staten Island, New York where her interest in rap music stemmed from sibling rivalry of exchanging insults back and forth with her older brother Ahmed that escalated into rap battles. Ahmed then introduced Asmaa to her current idols Lupe Fiasco and Tupac Shakur, rappers whom she could identify with as Muslims who don’t, as she puts it, just “rap about sex, money, drugs.”

“I’m not doing anything wrong, anything haram (forbidden),” explained Asmaa as she doesn’t perform in bars and clubs that serve alcohol or objectify herself sexually, but she knows that some Muslims might still see what she is doing as wrong. “Hijabis are supposed to be quiet, they’re not supposed to go out there and sing or rap, as there is a debate over the traditional saying “sawt al maraa awra (a woman’s voice is exposing).”

But Asmaa received a lot of community support at Brooklyn’s second Arab Americans Got Talent competition, especially from last year’s winner Omnia Hegazy, a singer/songwriter who says she faces such responses addressing critical issues from Arab communities publically, such as child marriage and women’s rights. “They say well Arab Americans are discriminated against and you should be helping us look good, so let’s deal with it within our own community,” said Omnia who makes it a point to expose these issues and bring awareness to them. “But I think what makes us not look so great, is the fact that we ignore them.” She hopes that more Arab-Americans, like Asmaa, will follow in her footsteps as a professional artist given that Arab-Americans are one of the least represented groups in the American music industry.

Despite her take no prisoners attitude, Asmaa is currently battling with the idea of whether rap and music will stay a hobby or become a profession for her as she doesn’t want to disappoint her parents. “They’re supportive in a way,” said Asmaa who wants to make sure they approve of her choices but at the same time show that hijabis can rap just as good as the men, if not better. “Anything a man can do, a woman can do it better.. I really believe that.” Asmaa hopes to prove her claim one day by forming an all hijabi rap group.

Source: www.aquila-style.com

In an exclusive interview with Daily News Egypt, Arafa revealed some secrets about his beginning, the messages he aims to convey through his artistic works and the inspiration sources of his outstanding drawings. By Rana Khaled With a pencil between his fingers and an inspiring piece of music playing in the background, artist Hatem Arafa … Continued

After a month of delicate strings and intricate orchestral performances, the Abu Dhabi Festival rocked the house as it concluded on Thursday.

Young Lebanese starlet Mayssa Karaa made all the right noises as she premiered her new concept show, When Music Matters. Split across seven sections, the concert went a long way in clearing up a few lingering preconceptions.

The first of these was the notion that “taking an audience on a journey” is a groan-inducing prospect – this was indeed a journey of discovery wrapped up in an enjoyable, well-paced show.

It began with classic songs from the Levant before travelling to the western Mediterranean with some flamenco sounds. Finally both elements came together to receive a full-bodied rock-music treatment.

Such combinations could have fallen prey to overreaching ambition, but they were held together thanks to Karaa’s eclectic vocal talents and an all-star band that included members of the New York Arabic Orchestra and musicians who have played with a who’s who of the music world, including Bruce Springsteen, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder.

The only downside to the show’s pioneering approach was that the audience were a bit slow to catch on at times. In a region where certain Arab artists are almost sacred, some of the crowd baulked at hearing Fairouz’s Bi Karm el Loulou and Dalida’s Helwa Ya Baladi mixed with flamenco rock by guest artist Marcus Nand.

But after a few hard stares at the beginning, both tracks eventually won the crowd over, thanks in no small part to Nand’s evocative guitar work. He gave the elegant and, let’s face it, sometimes dainty original orchestral compositions a welcome sensuality.

In Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, the passion was strictly Karaa’s alone. Featured prominently on the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning film American Hustle, the song was Karaa’s calling card to the world. Her smouldering Arabic delivery for the first half of the song, as it appeared in the film, recalled Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang, before she switched to the original English language in a raging delivery that the original singer Grace Slick would surely have approved of.

Bob Seger’s Turn the Page, also sung mostly in Arabic, sounded effortless, the chief reason being that the 1972 ballad was composed in minor keys that were well within the palette of Arab music. It’s a realisation that should provide welcome encouragement to other aspiring Arab artists in the audience, which is precisely the point of the whole affair.

The audience was also treated to the first live rendition of a couple of Karaa solo tracks from her upcoming album.

While the soaring power ballad Over Again was well delivered, worryingly it lacked the freshness and ingenuity that have increasingly become a hallmark of her sound.

This returned with the second debut track, Stop Me Going in Circles, which was a skilful mash-up of Arabic melodies and a delicious blues riff.

The track served as a welcome example of musical fusion, preconceptions about which Karaa successfully challenged in her show. Fusion has been long derided – in some cases rightly so – for being lazy, bland stuff best listened to in coffee shops; Karaa and her band gave the audience the welcome opportunity to hear it executed well.

When this is the case, as it was for most of the concert, the music often transcended the barriers, to prove good art can be appreciated by all.

With such a vision, Karaa’s future career looks bright.

Source: www.thenational.ae

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is coming to Dubai. Organisers of the Middle East Film and Comic Convention yesterday announced that Hayley Atwell will be attending the three-day event, which begins at Dubai World Trade Centre on Thursday, April 9. Atwell starred as Peggy Carter in the Captain America movies and in the TV spin-off Agent Carter, which was broadcast this year. She will also reprise the role in the film Avengers: Age of Ultron, which will be released at the end of this month. MEFCC also announced that actor and sportsman Clive Standen will be a guest. An international Muay Thai boxer, medal-winning fencer and an ambidextrous swordsman, Standen is best known to genre fans for a string of roles in popular TV shows. He can currently be seen as the warrior Rollo in the historical action-drama Vikings. He also appeared in Doctor Who as Unit soldier Private Harris, and in the third season of the BBC’s Robin Hood as Archer. On the big screen, he appeared in the Viking drama Hammer of the Gods and will next be seen starring alongside former Doctor Who star Matt Smith, Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer and Hollywood star Stanley Tucci in Patient Zero, a fantasy-horror film about a rabies pandemic that turns victims into highly intelligent zombies. The National staff

Teen Emirati hopeful out of The X Factor

The only remaining Emirati contestant in The X Factor was eliminated from the show at the weekend. Teenager Almaz had made it through from the audition phase to the second round of the fourth season, but will not be taking part in the live rounds of the talent show. Selected as one of 10 contestants in the Solo Arabic category mentored by the Lebanese judge Elissa, the 15-year-old failed to secure a spot in the top four that will continue to the next round. Almaz took to the stage looking visibly nervous and sang Sodfa, a popular tune by the Lebanese singer, Yara. A few seconds into her performance, however, Almaz forgot the words and froze. The Lebanese judge Ragheb Alama, who is mentoring the 10 contestants in the International Solo category, was quick to comfort and reassure her and said she would not be judged for forgetting the words, but for what she had sung so far. The Egyptian judge Donia Ghanem then reminded her that she had done well to get this far in the competition to such a young age and with little previous experience. The judges described her as a “young butterfly”, as Elissa hugged her and told her not to be upset and take comfort from the fact that she had come so far. Almaz, however, was crestfallen and could not speak as she was sobbing so hard. – Hala Khalaf

Source: www.thenational.ae

Almost as soon as he had announced a nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama called King Salman of Saudi Arabia to reassure him of America’s “enduring friendship.”

Returning the courtesy, King Salman, who is Iran’s chief regional rival, responded that he hoped the deal would “reinforce the stability and security of the region and the world,” the Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday.

But the picture on the ground was not so harmonious.

As Tehran and its clients around the Arab world celebrated the accord as a triumph of Iranian resolve, Saudi Arabia and its allies declared that the agreement had only reinforced their determination to push back against Iranian influence, with or without Washington. On the front lines of battles with Iranian proxies in Syria and Lebanon, some cried betrayal.

“The Saudi king decided his country could no longer bear the provocative Iranian expansive policy in the Middle East, or the American silence over it,” wrote Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and former government adviser, in a commentary this week on what he called “the Salman doctrine.”

Source: www.nytimes.com

Explain what you think the West has wrong about the Islamic State, both as a movement and a military opponent.

The biggest mistake has been not understanding that the Islamic State has launched a war within the Muslim world. This is not a war against the West in the way that we saw with 9/11 and al-Qaeda, where the priority was to bomb the United States or Europe. The priority of the Islamic State is to set up a caliphate across the Middle East. That means that the broader Muslim world should have a much greater responsibility in dealing with this crisis. This is not America’s war as such. America has to be involved, obviously, providing military support, logistics, et cetera. But the Arab regimes, not the West, should be taking the lead.

Is there the capacity and consensus in the Arab world for an Arab-led coalition against the Islamic State?

Unfortunately, I’m not seeing that. Where the Arabs are coming together [involves] the wrong target, and that is Yemen. The Houthis, who are the main rebel group, have been oppressed and marginalized for a long time. They are asserting themselves, which makes this a civil war. The main target for the Arab regimes should be the Islamic State, rather than a side show in Yemen.

What is the relationship between Islamic State and Saudi Arabia?

If you go back to the 1980s, all the Sunni extremist groups that have emerged, starting with al-Qaeda, have Wahhabism as their base. Unfortunately, these groups have been admired by Saudis because they are reflecting the views of the Wahhabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia. Now, the Saudis are trying distance themselves. They’ve denounced al-Qaeda, they’ve denounced the Islamic State, but they’re not making any real changes in their own curricula and religious schools. As long as this doesn’t happen, we’re going to see more and more extremist Sunni groups emerge around the world owing their pedigree to Wahhabism.

Explain why you think the analogue for Islamic State isn’t al-Qaeda but the Taliban, in terms of how they use physical territory to advance their tactical and strategic objectives.

Al-Qaeda’s philosophy was to create a caliphate in the Middle East. They want to get rid of the Arab regimes. But their whole strategy was that we have to undermine the props of these corrupt Arab regimes, and that is the United States and Europe – we have to attack the afar power rather than the nearby power. The Islamic State is just the opposite. It wants to directly challenge the Arab regimes and set up a new state, which would comprise almost all of the Middle East. To do that, they don’t want to just launch terror attacks against the targets in the Arab world. They have formed a regular army which is extremely well armed. It carries out conventional warfare as well as guerrilla warfare and suicide attacks. They are also trying to create a state in the areas that they have conquered, just like the Taliban did once they set out to conquer Afghanistan.

Why is the attraction to the Islamic State stronger within some Western countries than it is to al-Qaeda?

The Islamic State actually has something to offer young people if they want to do jihad. Joining al-Qaeda was much more difficult, almost impossible for ordinary people. And here you have young Americans, British, Europeans, who have literally no background in jihad or connections with militants, going on the Web and being able to arrive in Iraq. Joining a jihad has just become much easier because of the control of territory the Islamic State enjoys.

Where does this conflict go from here – will it be on a slow burn for the next decade or more?

If the Arab states were able, in the next year or so, to put together a serious coalition and boots on the ground, the Islamic State would be in recession, as it were, and sputter out eventually. But if the Arab states don’t get their act together, I think what we could see is the destabilization of the Gulf. I think we will start seeing terrorist attacks in the Gulf States, perhaps in Saudi Arabia itself. If terrorist attacks start there, you will see a global impact. Bringing down or creating economic chaos in the Gulf States would be catastrophic. I hope something changes in the next year or so, and we see the Arab world responding in a much more aggressive and positive way – but I am not hopeful.

Source: www.theglobeandmail.com

She paints with a knife and excels in it, and places in her paintings touches of the Hijazi and Asiri heritage. She also provided childhood letters, roses and peace.

She told Arab News that painting is a talent she has since childhood, she has developed it through personal study and extensive art culture.
Since her childhood she had a need to express herself, and since she was silent, she did not find a need to express through language, but she had found it in painting. “I wish I could achieve what I dream of doing now, it is worth to be achieved, because the artist is looking all his life for something that is tangible, just like a dream and this dream must come one day in a beautiful canvas,” she said.

She has tried to develop her talent with determination and through exploring international exhibitions and participation in local exhibitions in various parts of the Kingdom with the aim of meeting local, Arab and international artists.

Al-Shehri said, “In my art letters, I spontaneously aim to depict childhood, innocence and transparency. So you will find in my paintings under this title a sense of harmony between the feeling, the picture and light.

It is an aesthetic relationship that stems from the aspects of art and culture, and we can say that the emotions and suggestive and impressionistic effects in my works interfere with all its elements.”
Al-Shehri added, “Painting in my opinion is similar to poetry and writing; it is the translation of what is reserved in the feelings and understood by the mind. It is a tool for expression and an important, smooth tool to convey the concept through symbols and art forms, meaning that it is a color language that simulates the sensation directly. The painting is a situation that reflects the reality and pain of the human being, as is poetry through word and letters.”

“Painting addresses the human whatever his/her cultural level, and the pen addresses only those who know how to read. The pen is the most widely used tool of expression, and illiteracy is still widely spread in the community. Painting needs a special place to be displayed and presented to all classes in society.”

She continued, “A painting to me is a question or an answer to a question. From a personal point of view, I think it is objective and positive, it is also a lesson in its birth time given the circumstance surrounding it.

While there are different methods of art, just like of music as well as visual arts, including fine art, the media plays a big role in the audience’s feelings regarding the artwork, she said.
As an artist, she represents through her paintings images of Hijazi heritage, in which she explains the beauty of Al-Rawachin, ancient yards and alleyways and the wealth of the beautiful heritage, where she highlights the details and features of the place.
She also loves to paint roses and flowers, they are characterized by their softness and beautiful colors and sensations that gives the viewer comfort and tranquility.
“I like to paint flowers of different types of schools, abstraction, impressionism, sympathetic and realistic.

Source: www.arabnews.com

The Egyptian artist Wael Shawky (born 1971) spent four years filming “Cabaret Crusades,” a film trilogy that retells Amin Maalouf’s 1983 book “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes” using hundreds of puppets. The trilogy will screen alongside another movie series he made, “Al Araba Al Madfuna,” based on parables by the Egyptian novelist Mohamed Mustagab. A number of sketches and puppets that Mr. Shawky used to film his crusades trilogy are also on view.

Source: artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group’s promised Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the globe.

Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow commanders at an Islamic State meeting last year, he said, he was placed under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.

Abu Hamza, who became the group’s ruler in a small community in Syria, never discovered the Iraqis’ real identities, which were cloaked by code names or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State’s own shadowy security service, he said.

His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq’s former Baathist army in an organization more typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome videos in which they star.

Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.

They have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the Islamic State’s illicit oil trading.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Bill Maher has received the outrage of One Direction fans online after comparing the former band member Zayn Malik to a terrorist.

During his Real Time show, the US talkshow host and comedian was discussing Zayn’s exit from the boyband when he likened him to the Boston marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

During a skit in his show, Maher said: “I think after everything we’ve been through, I at least deserve the common respect of being told face to face [that you’d quit One Direction].

“Just tell me two things Zayn. Which one of the band were you?

“And where were you during the Boston marathon?”

At which point, the screen split to show images of Zane and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev side by side, while Maher suggested they looked similar.

The audience can be heard audibly gasping and then applauding on the video, which has been shared on YouTube.

Source: www.theguardian.com