Our Current Issue

The Cultural View from Within and Without

Adieu to Sabah, a Lebanese diva with an eternally fertile voice

Although Sabah remained off the stage, professionally speaking, for some time, the Lebanese kept hearing of and from her. Many Arab generations, especially the Lebanese, would miss her. Few would deny that she had become a household name since the 1950s, and even before. Though her songs varied with time, still she will be remembered most for her traditional folk music where she specialized in a Lebanese folk tradition called the mawal, which held a great appeal for early Lebanese generations, ourselves as well as our parents.

My Story with You is Different

By Rima Assaf
 
Your fault is that you are dying in large numbers. Thus, you have ceased to be a rare scene. Your crime is that the photographs of your body parts no longer attract advertisers, and thus your death, pain, and displacement have ceased to attract TV viewers.
 
Your crime constitutes one of ordinariness.

Azadi for Kobani

Watching a Kurdish city almost disappear from its "Kurdishness" as hundreds of thousands flee to Turkey is as painful as watching the millions of other Syrians thrown out into the cold in their own country and in neighboring states. Kobani under siege by ISIS rekindles distant and recent memories of Arab-Kurdish relationship, a history marked by chauvinistic Arab condescension toward the Kurds.

Asala a Thorn in Assad's Side, Her Arrest a Black Eye for the Lebanese Government

By Elie Chalala
 
It is amazing how the Syrian regime orders its priorities at a time when an armada of allied forces daily bombards its territory. Nothing appears to restrain Assad’s war against his people. He ignores with equal facility the "global war," ceded daily to ISIS, the blood of 200,000 martyrs, the displacement of millions, and the reflexive, cynical destruction of some of civilization’s most ancient cities.

It's High Time for Statehood for Kurdish Nation-in Waiting!

I vividly recall the diatribes of the Baathists and Arab nationalists, during the course of which they even denied that the Kurds have  an ethnic identity of their own, instead asserting that they are actually Arabs! And if they did not know who they were, then we needed to "educate" them! But the important issue remains that the "rejectionists of today/pan-Arabists" rarely, if ever, support the establishment of a Kurdish state, and instead find themselves in the same bed with Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot, who left both the Kurds and the Palestinians stateless after WW I.

Music Trumps Politics: Israeli-Palestinian Orchestra Weathers Gaza Storm

By Elie Chalala
 
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s participation at the Lucerne Festival coincided with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza, the reverberations of which cannot go unnoted by the ensemble.
 
The West-Eastern Orchestra represents the legacy of Daniele Barenboim, an Israeli musician and conductor, and the late Edward Said, a Palestinian-American

'Photographs of Agony', from Vietnam to Gaza, from Ghouta to Mount Sinjar

The memory seems as though it is wired to store images, images that often live unpredictable lives within the psyche. Aziza, a 15-year old Yazidi Kurdish girl, has been haunting me for more than a week. Her innocent facial expression, a look of fear mingled with cognitive disorientation, continues to disturb me despite the helicopter that ferried her out of Mount Sinjar to safety. CNN’s Ivan Watson, the reporter who aided Aziza onto the chopper, is said to have become choked up with tears on several occasions.

New TV Series on Arab-Israeli Conflict Echoes Old Ideas of ‘Balance’

By Elie Chalala
 
Broadcasting “The Honorable Woman” is not an attempt to respond to current events, according to Hugo Blick, the British producer who wrote and directed eight episodes of the 4-hour mini-series.
 
The “Honorable Woman,” a TV drama shot in London and Morocco and produced by Sundance TV and the BBC, follows the life of Nessa, a British industrialist play

A Philosopher’s Tale: The Remarkable Life of Ibn Sab’in

 
Who would you pick given the opportunity to meet a key historical figure from the past? In his novel, “A Muslim Suicide,” translated from Arabic by Roger Allen, writer and liberal philosopher Bensalem Himmich has chosen to breathe life into Sufi philosopher, Ibn Sab’in (1217-1269). True to his independent nature, Sab’in acts as his own narrator, detailing his life and philosophy against the turbulent backdrop of 12th century Spain.

"Oil Curse": The Petro-Dollar Paradox

 
Ironically, the presence of rich natural petro-resources does not ensure sustained economic growth and development. Louis Martinez examines the political and economic histories of Algeria, Iraq, and Libya, postulating that petro dollars, far from guaranteeing stability and security for these countries, have instead allowed dysfunctional regimes to maintain power through the funding of abusive security forces.

Shakespearean Tragedy Brings Hope to Syrian Children of Al-Zaatari Camp

While reviewing readings I had missed, some photographs in the New York Times caught me off guard. Tricked by Ben Hubbard's lead to the April 1 news story ("Behind Barbed Wire, Shakespeare Inspires a Cast of Young Syrians"), I initially believed the King in the camp to be King Abdullah II, and the king’s daughters to be Abdullah’s own (although I did not know if he actually had any daughters). Were they there to comfort the Syrian refugees whose camp has become the equivalent of the fourth largest Jordanian city?

The Passing of Unsi al-Haj

By Elie Chalala
 
The Lebanese poet Unsi al-Hajj passed away on February 18, 2014. No one who cared about Arab and Lebanese letters could be unaware of Unsi al-Hajj's contributions. He distinguished himself as a modernist poet (especially by his association with the avant-garde journal Shi’ir--"Poetry"), art and cultural critic, essayist, and editor of what used to be one of Lebanon's most important dailies, An Nahar.

Pages