ESSAYS & FEATURES IN THE CURRENT AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Lebanon’s Tide of Change: Revolutionaries vs. Predators
By Elie Chalala

The Lebanese and Iraqi uprisings, and recently those in Algeria and Sudan, have shaken up the gloom and doom discourse following the first wave of the Arab Spring in 2011. Following the Iranian-Russian-Assadist “victory” over the Syrian revolution, Hezbollah pundits and pseudo-leftists declared it fruitless to replace more than half a century of Syrian tyranny with a democratic system. Those same pundits have recently demonized the second wave of Arab protests in Lebanon and Iraq, portraying them as the outcome of imperialist conspiracies and predicting for them the same fate of the first wave in Syria. Unlike previous conflicts in Lebanon that divided the country along confessional lines, the current revolution includes all sects, both Christian and Muslim – a remarkable historical change. While sectarianism is deep-rooted in Lebanon, and in fact enshrined in the confessional apportionment of state power, the current uprising has united ordinary Lebanese against the corruption of the powerful.

Essays and Features

ESSAYS & FEATURES IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Muayyad al-Rawi, Iraqi Poet And Renaissance Man Whose Work Painted a Portrait of the 1960s
By Al Jadid Staff

Muayyad al-Rawi, the poet and intellectual, pushed the free verse movement of Arabic poetry into a new dawn during the 1960s. To many, Muayyad was a literary theorist and spiritual guide for this generation of Iraqis. “If we want to draw a portrait of the 1960s, al-Rawi was one of its most important members; and however short the memory of subsequent literary generations, that era remains a milestone in the history of radical rebellions in Iraqi culture,” said Iraqi author Fatima al-Mohsen.

Essays and Features

ESSAYS & FEATURES IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Lebanese Jewry: Once Part of the Country’s Confessional Map, Now Vanished
By Al Jadid Staff

With roots going back to the 7th and 15th centuries, many Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition settled in Lebanon. By the early 1700s, more Jews who had earlier fled to North Africa and the Middle East followed and settled in Lebanon’s Shouf Mountains, according to British Historian Kristen Schultz. But in recent years, this small Jewish community has been decreasing even further, numbering less than a hundred. Once boasting a population as high as 14,000 in 1958, the number of Lebanese Jews has shrunk in the wake of conflict: the short-lived civil war of 1958, the 15-year 1975 war, as well as the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The fascination in the dwindling numbers within this community has especially enraptured news media.

Essays and Features

INTERVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

From the Euphrates to the Chicago River, ‘My Paintings Are My Home’ for Syrian Artist Etab Hreib
By Al Jadid Staff

The nostalgic paintings of Etab Hreib are deeply imbued with memory – from images of plains, rivers, and valleys, to the blue sea she recalls from her childhood. Etab said in a recent interview with Akram Qatrib, “The colors of the Euphrates have pulsed through my fingers like blood – the Euphrates is in my genes.” After leaving Syria for the U.S., her art has taken new shape, influenced by yearning for home and the tragic loss of her son Mazen at the hands of the Jihadists in Syria.

Interviews

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

How Lebanon’s Shiites Came to Live By ‘Hezbollah Rules’
By Al Jadid Staff

The emergence and influence of Hezbollah is the subject of numerous studies and books. “Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God” by Joseph Daher, a Swiss scholar of Syrian origin, asks what is Hezbollah and how did it come about? More specifically, Daher asks, what kind of hegemony does it exercise over the Shiite community in Lebanon? These questions are quite relevant in light of the unfolding Lebanese historical uprising. Hezbollah’s pivotal role in Lebanese politics and several other questions are explored thoroughly in this doctoral dissertation-turned analytical book.

Books

ESSAYS & FEATURES IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Despite Decades-Old Controversies, Iraqi Poet Badr Shaker al-Sayyab Still Relevant!
By 
Al Jadid Staff

The Arab cultural scene never tires of Iraqi poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s legacy, refusing to let it rest even 55 years after his death. The recent publications of Jasim al-Muttair’s “The Swinging Moods of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab,” as well as several columns on the poet by Iraqi writer Yassin al-Dulaymi and Lebanese columnist Mohammad al-Houjeiri, have again brought the poet’s life into the public eye. Sayyab did not shy away from politics in his work. “He was the kind of person who thought that a literary person and an educated person and a poet had a duty to get involved in the politics of his country and his nation and to point his finger and to be on the side of the poor and the struggling sectors of society. Governments were not, still are not, accepting of people who are not accepting of their line,” said his son, Ghailan al-Sayyab, in an interview with The National.

FILM REVIEWS FORTHCOMING IN AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

‘Out on the Burning Sands’
By 
Al Jadid Staff

Despite being a 20-year-old film, “Hollywood Harems,” directed by Tania Kamal-Eldin, discusses myths and fantasies of Orientalism and Arab women that still resonate today. The documentary takes a close look at several films, from “The Sheik” (1921) to “The Mummy” (1932), and others spanning between the 1930s and 1960s, with a sharp focus on the portrayal of women -- from fictionalized harems and the voyeuristic “intruder’s gaze” of men, to the depiction of their exploiters as Arab men and saviors as white men.

For a Friend Sorely Missed

Moayyad al-Rawi (1939-2015)
By 
Elie Chalala


This brief column can only begin to do justice to Iraqi poet and critic Moayyad al-Rawi. A longer tribute will appear in Al Jadid’s next issue later this year (Vol. 23, No. 77, 2019).

Moayyad, who died in 2015, fled the Iraqi dictatorship in 1970 for Lebanon, making it his first stop in a life in exile; it is there I met him. Imprisonment and repression following the 1963 Baathist coup forced him to leave Baghdad and Kirkuk, which he loved, and which figured prominently in his writings.

Ali al-Shawk in the Eyes of One Acquaintance

By 
Mahmoud Saeed


Ali al-Shawk’s death leaves an empty space that no one can fill. He was prolific, thoughtful, articulate, and of high manners. Personally, I thought of him as one of the most cultured intellectuals I have met inside or outside of Iraq. His cultural depth owed to the greatness and diversity of his reading, which included his fluent command of English, from which he translated several books.

‘Sexuality in the Arab World’: Book Attempts to Shed Multi-Faceted Light on Subject Long in the Shadows

Forthcoming in Al Jadid
By 
Al Jadid Staff


“Sexuality in the Arab World” has fascinated many Western scholars, though not as many Arabs, mainly for political and cultural reasons. Edited by Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon, this book first appeared in English in 2005 and then was published in Arabic by Dar al-Saqi in 2015, translated by Osama Manzalji. Novelist and critic Mahmoud Houjeiri has reviewed this book in Arabic, a review that offers an Arab perspective which is worthy of sharing and translating. 

Mustafa Khalifa’s ‘The Shell’ Latest Example of Literature Offering Insight of Syrian Ordeal

Forthcoming in Al Jadid
By 
Al Jadid Staff


A mere glance at the most notorious prisons in the world, Assad’s Tadmur moves to the forefront, ranking 2nd on a list of the 10 worst prisons. This is the prison which “hosted” Mustafa Khalifa, the author of “The Shell” for more than 13 years, and which Fawaz Azem reviews for the next issue of Al Jadid.

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