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Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year

Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

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A Meditation on the Fractured Self: Wajdi Mouawad’s Autobiographical ‘Mother’ Revives Memories of Relationships Fragmented by War

Retrospective Look at Mouawad’s ‘Most Lebanese’ Play in Wake of Recent Boycott Campaign in Lebanon
By Naomi Pham
 
From his award-winning play “Littoral” and its continuation, “Incendies,” Wajdi Mouawad frequently delivers compelling narratives surrounding family — whether it be a bereaved son navigating the complications of burying his father in his native, war-torn Lebanon like in “Littoral,” or in “Incendies,” where two siblings based in Montreal return at the request of their dead mother to their birthplace in the Middle East in search of a father and brother they’ve never met. Like a connective tissue between many of his creative works, it comes as little surprise that family also takes a focal point in his autobiographical theater series, in which war-consumed Lebanon is as much the setting as the Parisian apartment 10-year-old Mouawad’s family lived in for five years while waiting for the war’s end. “Mother,” which the director presented in 2021, echoes a diaspora that Antoine Gouki of Independent Arabia considers “Promethean torture,” and critic Alma Abu Samra in Al Akhbar writes very likely felt no different from the basement shelters with which Lebanese families living through the civil war were all-too-familiar.
Theatre

The Art of Conveying Joy: The Late Latifa Multaqa on the Human Connection Between Actor and Audience

By Naomi Pham


A pioneer of female directors in the history of modern Lebanese theater, Latifa Multaqa has guided generations of actors since Lebanon’s golden age of theater, embodying the art of theater as an actor, director, and teacher. Multaqa, 92, passed away on April 9, 2024, joining her husband and partner on stage, Antoine Multaqa, who left this world a few weeks prior. Since the 60s and 70s, the Multaqa duo have established their reputation as pillars of modern Lebanese theater, opening doors to experimental theater alongside fellow pioneers Muneer Abou Debs and Raymond Jebara. From the legal pulpit to the stage, Latifa Multaqa laid the groundwork for serious avant-garde theater, and in mentoring students even after she retired from teaching, played an invaluable role in fostering the growth of Lebanon’s theatrical talent for generations to come.

Essays and Features

Antoine Multaqa, Enduring Pillar of Lebanon’s Golden Age of Modern Theater, Exits the Stage

By Naomi Pham

While Arab theater sits at a crossroads amid questions about its path toward the future, another pillar of modern Arab theater exits the stage. Antoine Multaqa, 91, who passed away in his sleep on February 21, 2024, nurtured the development of experimental theater alongside his wife, fellow director and actor Latifa Multaqa (née Chamoun), during Beirut’s golden age of theater. In its current state, Arab theater stands a shadow of its former self, nowhere nearly as celebrated as it was during the 1960s and 1970s when Antoine Multaqa, Muneer Abou Debs, Raymond Jebara, and others ushered modernism to the Lebanese stage. Modern theater was the backbone of cultural life in Beirut. At a time when theater mainly depended on translated works, poets played active roles in writing and translating plays, bringing Western classics by Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Brecht to Arab audiences. Multaqa’s passing is a nostalgic reminder of Lebanon’s theatrical heyday and the dilemma it faces today, caught between modernity and postmodernity.

Essays and Features

From Humble Roots to Self-Made Star: Undefeated by Time, Cultural Icon Umm Kulthum Captivates Arab and Western Interest Half a Century After Her Death

By Naomi Pham


Although nearly 50 years have passed since her death, Egypt’s beloved diva, Umm Kulthum, has continued to captivate generations. One can still hear her alluring voice emanating from cafes and car radios in the streets of Egypt or find photographs from her famous performance at Paris’ L’Olympia Theater sold as merchandise. She has consistently remained in the spotlight long after her death, with new books and other artistic homages giving a retrospective of her life and career. 

Essays and Features

Hussein Madi (1938-2024): An Artist Whose Lifelong Embrace of Nature Created an Art That Will Endure

By Naomi Pham


In recent years, media reports have raised concerns over a worrying decline in the Arab cultural scene. Government restrictions on the media and artistic expression have taken a toll on art and cultural production across the Arab world, whether in literature or art. In Lebanon, where the ongoing liquidity crisis has continued unabated since 2019, discontent with the state and worsening economic conditions were intensified by the pandemic and the disastrous explosion of Beirut’s port in August 2020, a tragedy still fresh on the minds of many. The blast decimated large parts of Beirut’s arts and cultural neighborhoods, Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael, among several others. Its aftermath witnessed damage not only to galleries, museums, and historic architecture but also to livelihoods, leading many Lebanese artists to emigrate after the explosion. Small victories have risen since then as museums and galleries slowly recover. Still, critics worry about an artistic drought, especially after the recent passing of one of Lebanon’s renowned artists, Hussein Madi.

Essays and Features

The Judiciary, Latest Indicator of Lebanon’s Impending Collapse:

A Judge Runs Amok
By 
Elie Chalala
The collapse of the Lebanese state grows imminent as news of different sectors unraveling emerges every day. The latest crisis reached the judiciary, which — though already known for its politicization and sectarianism — currently deals with a judge whose erratic, politicized personality violates all the norms of judicial behaviors and traditions. This controversial judge is Mount Lebanon state prosecutor, Ghada Aoun.
 

In a Statistical Vacuum, Speculating on the Arab-American Vote, 2016 vs. 2020

By 
Elie Chalala
 
While much of the country — and even the world — focused on the last U.S. election and remained engrossed even after its results and consequences, the picture of this historic event in the Arab world was unlike anything that was happening here. Regrettably, the distorted analysis and coverage by Arab media influenced to some extent the attitudes and electoral choices of many Arab immigrants in the U.S.

Beirut’s People Still Waiting: The Government That Left a Bomb on Their Doorstep Now Leaves Them Out in the Cold

By 
Al Jadid Staff
 
The never-ending reports from Lebanon on its social and economic crises are perplexing. Despite the gravity of the situation, officials sitting at the top refuse to relinquish or even reform the system. Recent news reports reveal a collapsing banking sector, a threatened educational system, and an impoverished and broken health system, all while the country watches a judiciary circus played daily on TV and social media, demolishing whatever legitimacy the courts still hold.

German Reinvention: Do a Million Syrian Refugees Bring Down the Curtain on WWII Legacy?

The devastating combination of the Syrian war, the failure of the Arab Spring, and the worsening state of refugee camps in the Middle East culminated in an influx of migrants across Europe. Between 2015-2016, two million migrants fled Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, and Eritrea to European countries. This mass migration produced a crisis across the continent, as several countries refused to undertake the moral and economic responsibilities of housing and feeding newcomers. According to the Pew Research Center, 45% of refugees came to Germany, among whom over 1.2 million were Syrians.

 
The devastating combination of the Syrian war, the failure of the Arab Spring, and the worsening state of refugee camps in the Middle East culminated in an influx of migrant

The Golden Notebooks

By 
Angele Ellis

Zed Books has chosen interesting times in which to re-release the English translation of the two-part autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi, “A Daughter of Isis” and “Walking Through Fire.” One of the most important and distinctive voices of her generation, not only in the Arabic-speaking world, but across the globe, El Saadawi has served as a physician, writer, rebel, and revolutionary. Born in 1931, she explores in these two interwoven volumes her personal struggles for autonomy – for the survival of body, mind, and spirit – as both girl and woman in an Egyptian society warped by patriarchal religion, as well as repressive social traditions and laws. She states in “A Daughter of Isis” that at the age of six, she learned “these three words by heart and they were like one sentence: ‘God, calamity, marriage.’”As I write this review, similar women’s words echo in the halls of the U.S. Capitol and throughout America.

Remembering Lokman Slim (1962-2021)

Lebanese publisher, filmmaker, and activist Lokman Slim, an outspoken critic of Hezbollah, was murdered on Feb. 4, 2021 while on his way home from southern Lebanon. In 2017, Al Jadid published a review of his award-winning film “Tadmor” (Icarus Films, 2016), co-directed with his wife, Monika Borgmann. “Ghosts of the past come in many forms.

Film “1982” Glimpses into Emotional Costs for Innocents Caught in Lebanese War

Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, director Oualid Mouaness’ contemplative drama film “1982” explores the anxiety of war for those who never wished to take part in it. For the teachers and students at a private school in East Beirut, what should have been a “normal” last day of classes becomes anything but, as the distant sounds of bombing come closer and closer. It is 1982, and Beirut, divided between Muslims on the west and Christians on the east, teeters on the cusp of invasion as Israel and Syria fight overhead.

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