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Honesty is Honored in Selection of Judge Tarek Bittar as Lebanon’s Person of the Year

By Elie Chalala

Swallowed by crisis after crisis, Lebanon has struggled to stand beneath an economic meltdown, the Beirut Port explosion in 2020, and the worsening pandemic under a government that has failed to serve its people. With mounting fears that the country will continue to sink into despair, the people of Lebanon are in dire need of hope. Hope, as it turns out, comes in the form of one judge’s determined pursuit of the perpetrators of the August port explosion. In December, the Arabic online journal Daraj, along with other columnists, named judge Tarek Bittar the “Person of the Year” to wide public approval, marking the first time Lebanon has selected an individual for the achievement.

Essays and Features

About the Artist: Tom Young

By Naomi Pham
Throughout the past decade, British artist Tom Young’s work has captured Lebanon on the cusp of globalization and change. His contributions in safeguarding Beirut’s traditional architecture equally breathe life into the personal histories of the city’s residents. Young has lived in Beirut for the past 15 years in the neighborhood of Gemmayzeh, known for its hundreds of years old, beautiful historic buildings. Gemmayzeh was among the hardest hit by the devastating explosion of Beirut’s port on August 4th last year, a tragedy that killed hundreds, injured thousands, and left ruin in its wake. One may recall Young’s painting, “Toxic Beirut” (2020), featured on the cover of Al Jadid Vol. 24, No. 79, which was painted on September 11 when a fire broke out at the site of the port explosion. “All of us in Beirut were (and still are) scared that another disaster could happen at any time. Painting it is a way of harnessing that fear, transforming it into something meaningful, and perhaps, beautiful,” he told Al Jadid.
 
“We Want the Truth” (2021) appears on this issue’s cover. Depicting a crowd of people waving Lebanese flags, Young illustrates the gathering that took place on the one-year anniversary of the explosion. The people still have no answers, and those responsible are yet to be held accountable. In the words of Young: “People were demoralized and broken, helpless in the face of such injustice, corruption and brutality...as the country descended further into a state of collapse...no one knew what to do or how to change anything.”
Art

Sabah Fakhri: Loss of the Last Giant

By Sami Asmar
On 2 November 2021, the world lost a legendary singer at the age of 88 years. A Syrian who sang specifically the repertoire of his hometown of Aleppo and became popular worldwide in a rare occurrence due to his exceptional talent, charisma, perseverance, and specialization in a genre suiting his tenor voice and cultural background. 
 
Born Sabahudine (or Sabah al-Din) Abu Qaws in 1933, when he committed to a career in the arts as a teenager, his family and teachers felt Abu Qaws did not have a musical ring to it. In honor of Fakhri al-Barudi, a Syrian national figure who also founded the conservatory of Damascus and was one of his earliest sponsors, he adopted the stage name Sabah Fakhri.
Essays and Features

Arab Publishing Industry Drowning in Tsunami of Economic, Social Crises

By Naomi Pham with Elie Chalala
There is an old saying: Cairo writes, Beirut prints, and Baghdad reads. Books have played essential roles in the Arab world’s intellectual scene, and bookshops in Syria and Lebanon flourished in the 1960s and 70s. However, readers’ relationships with books have changed in modern times; scholars and intellectuals no longer flock to bookstores as they did in the past. Instead, book publishing worldwide — particularly their physical print and sale — appear to be a dying trade in the digital age.
 
Essays and Features

Founded in Egypt by Lebanese Immigrants, Legendary Al Ahram Newspaper Marks 145th Anniversary

By Elie Chalala and Naomi Pham

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Lebanese and Syrian immigrants took the Arab journalistic world by storm, leaving numerous literary and cultural achievements in their wake. These immigrants established newspapers and professional literary publications of renown. Overseas, some two dozen Arabic-language newspapers sprung in the United States alone, headed by writers like Ilya Abu Maadi, Mikhail Naimy, and Amin Rihani. In the Arab world, two Lebanese Christian brothers landed on the shores of Egypt and established one of the most prominent household publications in Egypt — Al Ahram Newspaper.

Essays and Features

Beating Up the Already Battered: Modern Arab Media’s Role in Bullying and Harassment

By 
Naomi Pham

Harming, intimidating, or mocking the vulnerable are familiar behaviors; some have witnessed the abuse from afar, while others have experienced it. We used to think of bullying as something that children do in the schoolyard, and ideally something they learn to stop after reflection and normal maturation. But beyond the playground, bullying and harassment serve as standard practice in fields like modern media. Arab media and television promote harmful and offensive depictions to impressionable audiences for higher ratings and money. Media networks also give platforms to regressive messages that cause both emotional and sometimes physical harm.

Plot Twist Ties up Distribution of Controversial Arab “Life Smuggling” Film

By 
Naomi Pham

Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab’s 2019 “Amira” faced a storm of social media backlash following accusations that the film belittles the Palestinian struggle. Diab — director of the well-received “Cairo 678” (2010) and “Clash” (2016) — has pulled the film from any future screenings, including Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival. This decision comes after Jordan’s Royal Film Commission ultimately withdrew “Amira” as its entry as the Oscar’s 2022 Best Foreign Film.

Poet, Publisher, Painter, and Patron of the Arts: Remembering the Extraordinary Etel Adnan (1925-2021)

By 
Elie Chalala
 
Lebanese-American writer Etel Adnan, beloved by many for her ‘meditative’ voice and colorful language in writing, passed away on November 14 in Paris at 96, leaving behind an evocative legacy of poetry, novels, and art that vividly depicted war, history, and nature.

Egyptian Belly Dance Losing Touch with Roots as Cultural Phenomenon

By 
Naomi Pham

Belly dance in Egypt has undergone major cultural and social transformations since the mid-20th century. Dancers often perform at live gatherings and across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. However, belly dancing as an art form has become redefined in today’s age. It has increasingly been the target of criticism, the latest being a claim by Abdel Halim in Al Araby that the dance has deteriorated further under neoliberalism.

Beauty Before Age Remains Dominant Casting Trend in Arab Film

By 
Naomi Pham

The presence of women on the Arab silver screen has historically suffered under patriarchy. Though the “male gaze” is not exclusive to Arab cinema and television, the marginalization of women on the screen has increasingly affected Arab discourse. Hiyam Bannout’s article “Masculinity Dominates Arab Drama and Marginalizes Women” in Independent Arabia explores the lack of veteran and older actresses occupying major roles in film. Arab actresses are “dramatically marginalized” once they turn 40, brushed aside in favor of young actresses at the expense of limited talent and experience, according to Bannout.

A Multifaceted Diaspora: New History Explores the Many Reasons for 20th Century Exodus of Egyptian Jewry

By 
Al Jadid Staff
 
Once home to as many as 75,000 Jews, today’s Egypt has a sparse population, with only nine Jewish Egyptians living in the country in 2021, according to the Jewish Virtual Library. Dr. Muhammad Abu al-Ghar’s new book, “The Jews of Egypt in the Twentieth Century: How They Lived and Why They Left” (Dar al-Shorouk, 2021, 476 pp) addresses the departure of Jews from the country from the early to mid-19th century to the present.

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