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"Defaming the President" in Lebanon
![[Image from music video of Zeid and the Wings.]](/content_images/3/sm_zeidhamdan.jpg "[Image from music video of Zeid and the Wings.]")
Earlier today, Zeid Hamdan was arrested in Beirut, Lebanon, on the charge of "defaming the president" for a song and video he wrote and produced about "General Suleiman," the current president of Lebanon. The arrest came after three weeks of investigation by General Security and approximately two years after the song had first been released. A protest was planned tomorrow at 1pm in Beirut outside the Palace of Justice, where Zeid was being detained. However, confirmed reports indicate that Zeid was recently released. There is yet no indication of whether the charges have been dropped or not. As Kinda Hassan, one of the people mobilizing against ...
Keep Reading »Maroun Abboud's "Everlasting Everlasting"
![[A Statue of Maroun Abboud in Byblos, Lebanon. Image from Unknown Archive]](/content_images/3/sm_MarounAbboud.jpg "[A Statue of Maroun Abboud in Byblos, Lebanon. Image from Unknown Archive]")
It has often been remarked, with a note of frustration, that most of the literature produced in the Arab world and translated into English is characterized by its heavily sorrowful tone. One has to admit that most of the last two centuries has witnessed the invasion of western imperialism in that part of the world and this area has been wrought with wars until our days. These devastating experiences are more likely to produce a literary corpus in which expressions of loss, destruction, disorientation, and rupture are pervasive. And it is often the case. However, as it is also the case with literatures of trauma and war, there are myriad ways to relate these experiences ...
Keep Reading »What Is [the] Left?
![[Anti and Pro-Bashar Protestors Separated by Lebanese Army; Image From Unknown Archive]](/content_images/3/sm_2011-04-12-ap-syria-protestsjpg-047c9620ca4c3183.jpg "[Anti and Pro-Bashar Protestors Separated by Lebanese Army; Image From Unknown Archive]")
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 wreck. What this constellation of forces will bring is unknown, but it is certain that when the floodgates open, we will either sink or swim in a tide of violence and further ...
Keep Reading »Five Poems by Wadi Saadeh
![[Art by Ali Talib. Image from Unknown Archive]](/content_images/3/sm_alitalib.jpg "[Art by Ali Talib. Image from Unknown Archive]")
[These poems, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon, are from Wadi Saadeh's forthcoming collection "Man Akhadha al-Nazra Allati Taraktuha Waraa al-Bab" (Who Took the Gaze I Left Behind the Door). Lower Your Voice Lower your voice please! I want to hear what silence is saying Perhaps it is saying: come! And I want to follow it Signs Many signs on the roads Signs pointing to cities Signs pointing to streets Signs pointing to factories, institutions, shops, houses Many signs full of names He walks Looking for a sign That is empty I Want Another Moment I heard it Yes, ...
Keep Reading »Gays, Islamists, and The Arab Spring: What Would A Revolutionary Do?
![[Mix and Match Flag; Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_1297797167_img1.jpg "[Mix and Match Flag; Image from unknown archive]")
This past May, the blogger behind the “Gay Girl in Damascus” site responded to an alarmist front-page article by CNN International on the future of LGBT rights in the wake of the Arab Spring. The crux of the blogger’s response centered on the ways in which gay rights rhetoric is being used to undermine the revolutions sweeping the region and with them, the first tangible possibilities of democracy in states that have suffered under decades of brutal authoritarian rule. In the past few days, news has spread like wildfire that Amina Arraf, the blogger mentioned at the beginning of this article, is in fact a fabrication. Arraf, a self-described out Syrian-American Muslim ...
Keep Reading »Returning to the Border: Preparing for June 5th on the Lebanese Border
![[Bullet that was inside Miled Majthoub. Image from Nour Samaha.]](/content_images/3/sm_returntoborder.jpg "[Bullet that was inside Miled Majthoub. Image from Nour Samaha.]")
[Editors' Note: Since the writing of this report, the Lebanese Army declared the border area a closed military zone. Several Palestinian groups have cancelled their plans to organize and participate in the event and instead have chosen to hold protests in their respective refugee camps. Several of those injured on May 15, as well as their relatives and friends, have decided to reach whatever check-point is closest to the border and hold a sit-in there.] “I’m going to attend on Sunday, of course I am,” said Um Mohamed, with a smile. “I have already given one martyr for this, I don’t mind dying for Palestine.” Um Mohamed, sitting in her cramped living room surrounded by ...
Keep Reading »Legal Fallout of Israeli Attack on Lebanese Nakba Day March (Video)
The below video (courtesy of Wissam al-Saliby) was recorded on Friday, May 27th, 2011, when Omar Nashabeh (Arabic) and Salah El Dabagh (Arabic then English) held a press conference to discuss possible legal action against the Israeli authorities responsible for the attack on the Nakba Day commemorators that were marching in the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras. The press conference was held at the Press Syndicate H.Q. in Beirut.
Keep Reading »An Excerpt from "Judgment Day" by Rasha al Ameer
![[The Cover of Yawm al-Din (Judgment Day). Image from Unknown Archive]](/content_images/3/sm_YawmAlDin.jpg "[The Cover of Yawm al-Din (Judgment Day). Image from Unknown Archive]")
In Rasha al Ameer's Judgment Day (first published in Beirut in 2002 by Dar Al-Jadeed) a reclusive and middle-aged Muslim cleric from a rural background tells the story of how he falls in love with an independent, educated and urban woman who invites him to work on a book about the great Arab poet Mutanabbi. The relationship opens the man's eyes to aspects of life he has never encountered and leads him to reconsider everything he has ever learned. In this section, set in the early stages of their friendship, the sheikh goes to the woman's house and finds out that she wants their collaboration to continue, in a way that will bring them even closer together. ...
Keep Reading »Maroun al-Ras: Day of Death at the Lebanese-Israeli Border
![[Image from Natalia Sancha.]](/content_images/3/sm_nataliasanchaborder.jpg "[Image from Natalia Sancha.]")
[The following report and photographs were sent to Jadaliyya by Natalia Sancha in regards to events that transpired on Sunday May 15.] It all started as a commemoration. Buses, food, chanting, and derbakehs. We arrived to Maroun Ras after four hours of driving from Beirut. Some youth go off the path and start running downhill towards the border … they are not aware that there are mines on the way. Chanting while stones are thrown at the Israeli soldiers hiding between the electric fence and the forest. Impossible to be reached by stones. We hear the first shooting. The first martyr is less than twenty years old and they say he is from Ein al-Hilweh camp, ...
Keep Reading »The Ongoing War; Lebanese Leaders Against the Lebanese
![[Lebanese National Dialogue Table: Image From Unknown Archive]](/content_images/3/sm_nationaldialogue.jpg "[Lebanese National Dialogue Table: Image From Unknown Archive]")
It has been 21 years since the end of the Lebanese civil war. 21 years since the last spasms of violence reverberated through the country’s cities, towns and villages. More than two decades ago, a country torn apart, in ruins and in rubble, suddenly found itself at “peace.” Almost immediately, the reconstruction began. In these years, landmarks such as Nasser, Modca, Horshoe, and the Carlton were torn down and replaced with uniforms of the new global order; cheap clothing made in china, chain restaurants selling American fast food, and coffee houses selling the internet, caffeine, and a cosmopolitan varnish. Quickly after the war billboards began to cover gunfire ...
Keep Reading »Why Secularism is Not the Answer; Gays in the Lebanese Khutba
In the past 48 hours, a debate has erupted on the facebook page of the movement to “overthrow the political sectarian regime in Lebanon.” This debate was not about how to accomplish this lofty goal, or how to better strategize for more effective and powerful street demonstrations, or even what the actual demands of the movement are, should be, and how these demands can be enacted. Rather, the debate is about homosexuals and homosexuality in Lebanon. What does homosexuality have to do with secularism? A lot, if you ask many of the people involved in this debate. Last Friday, the sermon (khutba) delivered by a local imam at a local mosque warned that if civil marriages ...
Keep Reading »What is Political Sectarianism?
*Note: This analysis refers to political sectarianism in Lebanon, it cannot be “applied” to the workings of sectarianism in other contexts, such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain or Bosnia Herzigovina. There is an ongoing spasm of activism in Lebanon directed towards changing the sectarian structure and ethos of the state. For the past five weeks, growing numbers of people have taken to the streets stating their refusal of both the March 14 and March 8 coalitions and demanding the end of sectarianism in Lebanon. It has been inspiring to see men and women from all age groups, areas and socio-economic strata march together through parts of Southern Beirut, East ...
Keep Reading »Politics in a Time of Politicians
Last week the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) released the names of four men indicted in the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri to the Lebanese Ministry of Justice. For years now, the question of Hariri's assassination, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, has been one of two topics that have saturated the political field in Lebanon. The other topic of interest has been the question of whether or not Hezbollah should be disarmed. Hariri and Hezbollah, that is all we have been hearing about for years. ...
Keep Reading »Top Ten List: What To Expect In Lebanon Now That The STL Indictment is Out
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 ...
Keep Reading »My Coming Out Story
I am a Sunni. Yes, I said it. I am a Sunni from Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. I was born in a hospital that no longer exists, having been torn down to make way for a tower that houses, most probably, more Sunnis. After being born in that hospital that no longer exists, I was bundled up and sent home with my parents to Tariq al-Jadidah, a neighborhood that is known as the “Sunni bastion of Beirut". I grew up there, a blonde little thing with a working mother who spoke, at best, broken Arabic, a ...
Keep Reading »Does Guilt Matter?
This contribution shall deal with a number of topics having in common an emotion, a biblical story, and a painter. Its challenging title is not meant to exhaust the issue but rather to raise questions about the place individual and social “guilt” hold in a set of symbolic or real cases. For this purpose, I have chosen to begin with culturalism, then move to question the relevance of the orientalist couple guilt/shame; investigate the place of the story of David and Goliath in the Arab and Islamic ...
Keep Reading »The Lebanese Left Fails in Syria
[This article was written in Arabic by Khalil Issa and translated into English by Hanna Petro] When the left loses all the material elements of its steadfastness, as a result of its mistakes on the one hand and because of surrounding local pressures on the other, it is usually left with nothing but the political-ethical discourse as a principled stance on the basis of which to fight. In the end, being a leftist is to side with justice against oppression, with the victim against the perpetrator, with the ...
Keep Reading »Syria and Hizballah
[This article is written by Khalid Saghieh and translated by Assaf Khoury*] Translator's Introduction Up until a few months ago, Hizballah could legitimately claim pride of place in the Arab anti-imperialist camp. Hizballah was the only Arab force that repeatedly stymied the powerful Israeli military and never caved in. Over a period of nearly two decades, it was the most stubborn obstacle to imperialist domination of the Middle East. In more recent years, to its credit, Hizballah embraced ...
Keep Reading »When An Act of War Is Not An Act Of War
Two weeks ago Israel attacked Lebanon. Troops opened fire on a large group of protestors at the border between these two states. The Israeli army used live ammunition, killing at least eleven civilians and wounding over 100 others, some critically. The Lebanese army also fired their weapons at, and over, the protestors who had arrived at the border in order to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba. Since May 15, 2011, the border has been quiet. Local and international powers such as the Lebanese state, the ...
Keep Reading »On Our Way to Palestine: An Eyewitness Account of Nakba Day at the Lebanese Border
Sunday 15th May, 2011. 7.30am, Nada calls. "The buses are already full and they told us if we want to hitch a ride we'd have to stand the whole way down, is there space with you?" The buses are full? Big smile on my face. "Of course!" Quick change of plan, and I wait for Rana before we set off to pick up Nada and Lara and join Ahmad in Khalde. After a stop for coffee, we began our journey down, with Ahmad leading our two-car convoy. It was very unlikely we would get lost though, ...
Keep Reading »What is Sharia?
This question has animated scholarly, religious, and political debates for centuries. These debates have been lively, at times contentious, and have been held (under different circumstances and leading to different results) in different parts of the Muslim majority world as well as in parts of the world with few, if any, Muslims. More recently, it seems that the question “What is sharia?” has become a pressing concern in Western countries with growing Muslim minorities who continue to be unevenly ...
Keep Reading »Urge (to Keep) Going
Urge for Going. By Mona Mansour. Directed by Hal Brooks. Through April 17, Public LAB, The Public Theater, New York, NY. Urge for Going, Mona Mansour’s new work in development, is a coming-of-age story built from the outside in. Her 90-minute play follows Jamila, a seventeen-year-old Palestinian preparing to take the Baccalaureate on the eve of her graduation from a UN school in Beirut, Lebanon. Surrounded by her two uncles, her parents, and her brain-damaged brother, Jul, in a Beirut refugee camp, her ...
Keep Reading »Narrating the Past, Confronting the Present
The Kingdom of Women: Ein El Hilweh. Directed by Dahna Abourahme. Lebanon, 2010 Could I do today what I was able to do then, questions Nadia, one of the women in Dahna Abourahme’s latest documentary film The Kingdom of Women: Ein El Hilweh. Based on stories of the women of Ein El Hilweh, a Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon, between 1982-4 during the Israeli invasion and the imprisonment of the majority of the male population (those between the ages of 14-60), the film is also a reflection on the ...
Keep Reading »It's Official: In 2006, The Lebanese Government Was Hoping Israel Would Disarm Hezbollah For them
So now we know. In 2006, as Israel was bombing Lebanese highways, power supplies, the airport, and oil reservoirs, the Lebanese Prime Minister was hoping that Israel would finish “the job” quickly and successfully. Now we know. As over a quarter of the population was displaced from their homes under the threat of missiles, tank fire and artillery, the then commander of the army and now president of Lebanon, was letting the Israeli government know that the Lebanese army would stand down. As 10,000 homes ...
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