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Top Ten List: What To Expect In Lebanon Now That The STL Indictment is Out
![[Lebanese Flag; Image From The CIA]](/content_images/3/sm_Lebflag.jpg "[Lebanese Flag; Image From The CIA]")
1-Sa`ad al-Hariri will release a videotaped statement from Paris saying that everyone in Lebanon must be brave and steadfast in pursuing justice for assassinated Prime Minister Rafik al Hariri. He will then go out for a five course meal, in Paris. 2-Hassan Nasrallah will release a videotaped statement from an unknown location where he announces that there will be peace and stability in Lebanon. He will sweat profusely, smile, and point his finger at the camera.He will then dispatch armed forces around the country to “enforce” this peace and stability. 3-Walid Jumblatt will provide the answers as he blows, and blows with the changing winds. A remake of the Bob Dylan ...
Keep Reading »100 Days of the 2011 Moroccan Constitution
The February 20th Movement is the public and youthful face of the Arab spring in Morocco, emerging on that date into the streets as part of a series of coordinated Sunday demonstrations throughout the country. One of its rallying slogans is dastarat tawsi’at hay’at al-insaf wa-al-musalaha, or “’constitutionalize” the recommendations of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (ERC).” The ERC, more commonly known by its French initials IER, “Instance Equité et Reconciliation,” is a state-mandated body to investigate cases of torture, forcible disappearances, political prison, locations of mass graves, and to make judgments about individual and communal reparations. ...
Keep Reading »ما قبل العاصفة - سينما عربية مستقلة
![[صورة لمشهد من فيلم حاوي لإبراهيم البطوط]](/content_images/3/sm_hawi3.jpg "[صورة لمشهد من فيلم حاوي لإبراهيم البطوط]")
لم يتوقع المنظمون من معهد غوته وسينما آرسنال، في العاصمة الألمانية برلين، أنهم سيضطرون لإعادة بعض القادمين لمشاهدة فيلم ابراهيم البطوط ”عين شمس“، إلى البيت. كانت القاعة البرلينية الصغيرة في سينما ارسنال في شارع بوتسدامر المكتظ بالعمارات الزجاجية، قد إمتلأت بمحبي السينما فجلس بعضهم على الأرض لمشاهدة عرض الأمسية الأولى من الأمسيات الأربع التي خصصت كل ليلة فيها لفيلم مصري روائي آخر. وأضطر المنظمون إلى تخصيص عرض أخر لم يكن مقرراً مسبقاً لفيلم ” عين شمس“ في اليوم التالي بغية تعويض هؤلاء الذين عادوا أدراجهم في الأمسية الأولى ولم يتمكنوا من مشاهدة الفيلم. سبقت الليالي الأربع هذه ليلتان للأفلام العربية القصيرة أو ما يعرف ببرنامج ”Arab Shorts” والذي يقوم ...
Keep Reading »Debating the Future of the Arab Revolutions in Cairo: Democracy, Imperialism and Neoliberalism
![[Tree in Tahrir Square covered with the revolution's demands. Image by Nicola Pratt.]](/content_images/3/sm_prattcairoconference.jpg "[Tree in Tahrir Square covered with the revolution's demands. Image by Nicola Pratt.]")
Egyptian, Arab and international socialists and progressive forces met in Cairo 3-5 June, to discuss the future of the Arab revolutions in light of imperialism, Zionism and global capitalism. The Forum in Solidarity with the Arab Revolutions was organized by a number of progressive groups in Egypt and represented the first attempt to revive the annual Cairo Conference against Imperialism and Zionism, which was shut down by the Egyptian authorities in 2009. The Cairo Conference began in December 2002, in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq. Initially, it was an attempt to build international alliances against the Iraq war and to insert Egypt into the global ...
Keep Reading »الانتخابات أولاً": شعارٌ مفرغ من المضمون"
![[شعار حملة الانتخابات أولاً]](/content_images/3/sm_sep1st.jpg "[شعار حملة الانتخابات أولاً]")
تقوم توجهات سياسية شتى اليوم بتوظيف شعار "الانتخابات أولاً" للهجوم على من يطالبون "بالدستور أولاً"، وعادة ما يستند هذا الشعار لاتهام المعسكر الأخير "بالالتفاف" على نتائج الإستفتاء، متجاهلين أن المجلس العسكري عينه قد التف على الاستفتاء بالفعل من خلال إعلان دستوري خرج عن حدود المواد التى أقرت في الإستفتاء، وعدل بالفعل المواد التي أقرها الاستفتاء، لكن لم تثر عملية الالتفاف السافرة تلك حفيظة حاملي شعار "الانتخابات أولاً" حينها. وفي المقابل يرد معسكر "الدستور أولاً" بالانخراط المستفيض في دحض دعاوى الالتفاف على نتائج الاستفتاء هذه، وهي دعاوى يسهل تقويضها بسهولة لتناقض منطقها. وقد أضر هذا التركيز على نقض دعاوى ...
Keep Reading »Mind the Gap
![[Outisde Aleppo's Airport. Image by Amal Hanano]](/content_images/3/sm_AleppoAirport.jpg "[Outisde Aleppo's Airport. Image by Amal Hanano]")
[This is the first installment of Amal Hanano's diary of her trip back to Syria] I begin to lose sleep weeks before I leave – waking in the middle of the night, my mind racing with anxiety. My insomnia may be the obvious sign that I have no business going to Syria while the country, as my close friend likes to remind me, “is on the brink of civil war.” Although I plan to visit Aleppo, where apparently “nothing” is happening, Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been steadily marching north in the last few weeks, creeping closer to my hometown. Moving from southern Daraa to the central cities of Homs and Hama, and along the coast through Banyas and Latakia, the latest frontier ...
Keep Reading »Entrevista al novelista egipcio Sonallah Ibrahim sobre la revolucion; la imaginacion como acto transitivo
![[Sonallah Ibrahim, Cairo, Spring 2011, Image from Elliott Colla]](/content_images/3/sm_sonallah.jpg "[Sonallah Ibrahim, Cairo, Spring 2011, Image from Elliott Colla]")
[This interview was conducted in Arabic by Elliott Cola and translated/published in Spanish by www.rebelion.org] Entrevista al novelista egipcio Sonallah Ibrahim sobre la revolución: La imaginación como acto transitivo [Traducción para Rebelión de Loles Oliván] El mes pasado el novelista egipcio Sonallah Ibrahim se sentó con Jadaliyya para hablar de revolución, literatura e imaginación. Como siempre, el autor fue generoso: abordó su amplia visión sobre la política, la literatura y la vida. (Grabado en El Cairo, el 14 de mayo de 2011; el texto árabe se puede encontrar aquí.) Elliott Colla: ¿Lo que ocurrió en enero y febrero fue una ...
Keep Reading »Of Course the Flotilla is a Political Provocation
![[Image from unknown archive.]](/content_images/3/sm_wirewirewire2.jpg "[Image from unknown archive.]")
As the launch of the Freedom Flotilla – Stay Human approaches, increasing numbers of Zionist officials and commentators illuminate the depths of their moral and intellectual bankruptcy by arguing that it is a political – not humanitarian – project. Ran Curiel, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, offers an example as good as any other. On May 10, he actually went to the trouble of calling a press conference in Strasbourg to offer this conclusion. “In our view, the flotilla is clearly a political provocation . . . since there's no need for a flotilla to aid Gaza,” he said. “You can pass whatever you want to Gaza through normal channels.” Curiel’s reasoning leaves ...
Keep Reading »Culture XI
Only Jadaliyya can put together an Egyptian novelist, an Iraqi musician and a tyrant in the same space. Our eleventh installment features two interviews and a famous poem from the late 1980's being read again nowadays in Syria and other Arab countries. We also have a series of images from Yemen: On Writing and Revolution: An Interview with Mohamed Salah Al-Azab by Chris Stone Nizar Qabbani's "The Journal of An Arab Executioner" by Gaelle Raphael On Resonance/Dissonance: An Interview with Khyam Allami by Sinan Antoon Postcards from the Yemen Uprising by Mohamed Saleh Al Haj You can read last week's posts here. All previous culture posts can be ...
Keep Reading »Nizar Qabbani's "The Journal of An Arab Executioner"
![[A Syrian proteser in Istanbul, April, 29, 2011. Image by Bulent KiliC, from AFP]](/content_images/3/sm_SyriaVSign.jpg "[A Syrian proteser in Istanbul, April, 29, 2011. Image by Bulent KiliC, from AFP]")
The Journal Of An Arab Executioner Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) 1 O people I have become a sultan over you Break your idols after straying, and worship me… I don’t always reveal myself… So sit down on the patience pavement to see me Leave your children with no bread And leave your women with no husband…and follow me Give thanks to God for His grace He has sent me to write History And History is not written without me I am Joseph in beauty The Creator did not create golden hair like mine Or a forehead as prophetic as mine My eyes are a forest of olive and almond trees Always pray for God to safeguard my eyes O people I am Majnun ...
Keep Reading »WANTED!
The International Criminal Court has now officially made Qaddafi an internationally wanted felon, for Crimes Against Humanity. Libyans everywhere are excitedly anticipating his imminent downfall. However, the “King of Kings” seems to lack the ability to take a hint.
Keep Reading »Ma Fi Shi: The City of Nothingness
[This is the second installment of Amal Hanano's diary of her trip back to Aleppo. You can read the first installment here] While “The people want to topple the regime” has become the anthem of the Arab Spring, “There is nothing” is the unofficial chant of the people of Aleppo. “Ma fi shi” is the must-use, “it” phrase of the season peppered into every conversation about the current events in Syria. Once upon a time in the 80’s, Aleppo was the capital of resistance against the regime, but now it has ...
Keep Reading »What Is [the] Left?
Lebanon has been without a government for months. Finally, a thirty-member cabinet was formed two weeks ago. With a revolutionary uprising in Syria and the brutal response by the Syrian regime intensifying, there is now a Lebanese government whose sole function, it seems, is to weather the storm at the country's northern border, the increasing instability of its border to the south, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's indictment that approaches the country with the unstoppable velocity of a train ...
Keep Reading »Call for Submissions: Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication Special Issue Call for Papers Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa: Negotiating Identities, Spaces and Power Guest Editor: Loubna H. Skalli (American University, Washington D.C.) This special issue of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication solicits theoretical and empirical papers on “Youth, Media and the Politics of Change in North Africa: Negotiating Identities, Spaces and Power.” The purpose of this special ...
Keep Reading »Traffic Jam
Pardis Mahdavi, Gridlock: Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. In the ten years since Bill Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) into law, human trafficking has been transformed from a public policy backwater into a critical component piece of national security. At the time, TVPA provided the capstone to a growing international movement dedicated to combating the trade in people. It explicitly criminalized all forms of human ...
Keep Reading »On the Possible Recognition of A Palestinian State at the United Nations
There is much interest in what will happen regarding Palestine at the United Nations in September. Contrary to much of what has been written on this subject, this is not a matter of “declaring” Palestinian statehood. The PLO already declared the independence of Palestine in 1988. Like many things in life, this is something you can only do once. Moreover, this already proclaimed state of Palestine did not and does not enjoy sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over the territory it claims. Nor do either ...
Keep Reading »NPR: Israeli Chef Invents Baba Ghannouj
In news that stunned millions of listeners, NPR confirmed that the dish once known as "Baba ghannouj" (or "Spoiled Papa") is actually the recent creation of the inventive Israeli chef Yoram Ottolenghi who, in his new book, prefers to call it "Burnt Eggplant with Tahini." In an exclusive interview with NPR's Senior Levantine Food Correspondent Susan Stamberg, Ottolenghi also admitted to using pomegranate and even cilantro in his unique culinary creations, a choice that he ...
Keep Reading »Youth, Media and the Art of Protest in North Africa
“Everyone has his own way of fighting, and my weapon is art!” says Milad Faraway, a 20 year-old Libyan who created the rap group Music Masters with another young friend in 2010. Their song “Youth of the Revolution” urges “Moammar [to] get out” and end the violation of Libyans’ rights. “Qadhafi, open your eyes wide” sings another rap group Revolution Beat: “you will see that the Libyan people just broke through the fear barrier.” In neighboring Tunisia, twenty-one year old Hamada Ben Amor, known as El ...
Keep Reading »On Writing and Revolution: An Interview with Mohamed Salah Al-Azab
Chris Stone met with the writer Mohamed Salah al-Azab in Cairo on May 30, 2011, and the Arabic text can be found here. When Chris mentioned that Jadaliyya was thinking of juxtaposing his interview next to one with Sonallah Ibrahim, Mohamed asked if his name had been brought with Sonallah, as they had apparently disagreed at a conference recently. CS: What was the conference about? MSA: It was about a book on the revolution. CS: I've noticed that there are already a number of books. MSA: ...
Keep Reading »On Resonance/Dissonance: An Interview with Khyam Allami
Khyam Allami, a London-based Iraqi musician, has just released his debut work, Resonance/Dissonance (available through Eka3 in the Middle East and Nawa Recordings everywhere else.) This interview was conducted by e-mail. You can see him live in concert on: Thu 7 July– Home for Cooperation (H4C), Nicosia, Cyprus Sat 9 July – Théâtre de Beyrouth, Beirut, Lebanon Mon 11 July – Al Balad Theatre, Amman, Jordan Sat 16 July – Rich Mix, London, United Kingdom
Keep Reading »Infomous
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