On New Arabic Books: Shocking “Disclosures” Put Focus on Suffering of Syrian Women Inside and Outside of Assad’s Prisons

By Elie Chalala

“Bawh al- Dahaya” (“The Disclosures of Victims”) is not available in English to the best of my knowledge, though its subject matter ranks at the top of human rights violations in war zones. Thus any contribution from historians, research analysts, or journalists on the victims of war are telling about the crimes committed by the Syrian regime against its people. One should not exclude the various attempts to address these stories, whether through films, press interviews, or coverage by other mediums. These stories could enrich the documentation of these crimes regardless of the religious and cultural taboos surrounding them.

Books

New Novel Chronicles Life, Love of Poet Ahmad Rami and Singer Um Kulthum

By Sami Asmar

The story of Arab arts and culture cannot be told without a sizable chapter on Um Kulthum (1904 -1975), the legendary Egyptian singer venerated by generations of Arabs throughout the world. Many historical accounts have been written about Um Kulthum’s life and works, but never a fictional one, with the exception of a television series in which the script’s details were artistically filled in. 

Books

Documentary Reveals Constant Surveillance of Arab Americans

By Lynne Rogers
In her award-winning documentary, “The Feeling of Being Watched,” young filmmaker and journalist Assia Boundaoui records her own sleuthing efforts to uncover the FBI’s surveillance of her neighborhood. The film begins in her family home with a memory of two men on a telephone pole outside her bedroom window at 3 o’clock in the morning. Her feisty hijab wearing mom assures her that it is probably just the FBI and tells her to go back to sleep. As far back as 1997, she remembers the fathers of two of her friends being investigated for terrorism and found subsequently guilty instead of white-collar crimes; mail fraud and lobbying without a license. Still after these two men served their sentences, the constant surveillance caused the families to separate as the fathers migrated to other countries. Now as an adult, Assia, with her mother’s full support, turns to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to uncover the extent of surveillance on her tightknit Muslim community of Bridgeview, Illinois and to address the constant unsafe feeling “like someone is invading your life.”
Films

ON NEW BOOKS:

Acclaimed Author Leila Slimani’s New Novel Launches Trilogy on Dilemmas Faced by Biracial Families

The author of the Prix Goncourt winner “The Perfect Nanny” (2016), as well as “Adele” (2014) and “Sex and Lies” (2017), Leila Slimani returns with the first installment of a promising trilogy highlighting the struggles of living in between two worlds that both reject you. “Le Pays des Autres” (In the Country of Others), set for an English release on August 10, 2021, is the story of an interracial couple grappling to make ends meet between the Second World War and Morocco’s independence in 1956. Settling in Meknes, Mathilde, a Frenchwoman, and Amine, a Moroccan soldier, face the ire of both French colonizers and Moroccans for their marriage.

Books

ON NEW BOOKS:

Writing the Gift of Immortality in Kamel Daoud’s ‘Zabor, or the Psalms’
Combining the elements of storytelling and magic, Kamel Daoud’s “Zabor, or the Psalms” (Other Press, 2021) follows Zabor — born Ishmael — who tasks himself with an immense responsibility in his small village on the edge of the Sahara: to prevent death and to heal people by writing about them.
Books

ESSAYS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

How Lebanon’s ‘State within a State’ Escalated Financial Disaster: Two Beirut Landmarks – AUB, and Le Bristol Hotel – the Latest Collateral Damage
By 
Elie Chalala

It is painful to witness, even from afar, what recently befell Lebanon. This agony springs from the memories of my formative years during Lebanon’s post-independence era, when resentment of its ruling elites consolidated my belief in the necessity of change. I left the country without the reform wish fulfilled, and later watched the flames of civil war consume hopes of change – even when guns fell silent after the country’s second constitution in 1989. While the Lebanese started to come together to embark on reconstruction of the country, corruption, sectarianism, and the plundering of state’s resources soon took over.

ESSAYS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

Farah Al-Qasimi: Between Two Worlds: Arab Americans in Detroit
By 
Al Jadid Staff

The works of photographer Farah Al-Qasimi touch on the intricacies of life as an Arab American in Detroit, with each frame capturing both Arab and Western aesthetics. Of the 22 countries belonging to the “Arab World,” as defined by membership in the League of Arab States, seven – Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen – are prominently represented by immigrants in Metro Detroit. The Arab American community is also diverse in its religious representation, with Islam and Christianity in their Middle East iterations represented by a variety of sects and denominations including Chaldean, Coptic, Druze, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Melkite, Shi’a, Sunni, and Syrian Orthodox.

Play Reveals Wounds of Palestinian Occupation

By 
Bobby Gulshan

An event hosted by the Voices from the Holy Land Film Series will focus its next Online Discussion Salon on director Pamela Nice’s "It’s What We Do: A Play About the Occupation" on June 14, 2020 at 2 pm EST. The event will feature guest speaker Yonatan Shapira, a former IDF helicopter pilot, who has been involved in speaking out against the abuses of the IDF since his service. Please register for the one-hour discussion, which will be in a Zoom format, at this link. Organizers are asking all registrants to view a 55-minute video beforehand. You can access it at www.iwwdplay.org.

Earlier this year, the Israeli Knesset passed a law barring “Breaking the Silence” from presenting in schools, universities, or any other non-profit institutions. The initiative to enforce a ban on the group came from Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who accused “Breaking the Silence” of denigrating the reputation of the Israeli Defense Force in the eyes of Israeli youth.

 

ESSAYS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

Award-Winning Amin Maalouf Sees World Civilization on the Edge of the Abyss!
By 
Elie Chalala

Amin Maalouf recently received the National Order of Merit from the French government, earning the second-highest status in the title of Grand Officer. The author’s other decorations include the Prix Goncourt in 1993, as well as his induction into the Academie Francaise in 2011, filling the seat of Claude Levi Strauss. His books have been translated into 50 languages. His most recent work, “The Sinking [or Drowning] of Civilizations” (Le Naufrage des Civilisations, Grassat 2019), takes up Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, but shifts the focus from a clash between civilizations to a crisis that affects all aspects of human civilization as a whole. In the age of globalization and technological development, Maalouf claims that peoples and civilizations cannot be separated from each other in the way Huntington’s thesis suggests. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to add credence to the author’s claim.

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

New Film History Volume Documents, Preserves Legacy of Palestinian Cinema, From Nakba to the Present
By 
Al Jadid Staff

Nadia Yaqub’s recent book “Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution” (University of Texas Press) offers a valuable survey of Palestinian cinema, from its pre-history in the early photographs and films made by international relief organizations, up to its birth out of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s struggle against the Israeli State. Yaqub details the narrative of victimhood that dominated early visual documentation of Palestine, as presented by organizations like the American Friends Service Committee and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Such films depicted Palestinians as “seen but not heard, and their statelessness and victimhood are presented as timeless, ahistorical facts, rather than the results of a process of violent dispossession culminating in the Nakba in 1948.”

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

The Scanning of Signs: ‘Love, Sex and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability’
By 
Al Jadid Staff


Challenging ethnographic theorists like Claude Lévi-Strauss, L.L. Wynn’s “Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability” (University of Texas Press, 2018) considers aspects of love and desire often overlooked by theorists when describing kinship structures. Wynn focuses on 21st century Cairenes in her book, with research collected from 2000-2015 on middle- to upper-class men and women, predominantly heterosexual, and conversations overheard in Arabic.

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

Israeli Activist Narrates Palestinian Daily Struggle 'Behind the Wall'
By 
Al Jadid Staff


Jewish-Israeli author Ilana Hammerman’s recent memoir, “A Small Door Set in Concrete” (University of Chicago Press, 2019), takes readers into life after decades of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This memoir traverses the experiences of Palestinien men, women, and children living behind the wall who are unable to move and act freely.

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