Recent Stories

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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Our Current Issue

The Fragility of Stone, the Fragility of Nations:

Beirut’s Raouché Rock Tells Stories of Endurance and Collapse
By Elie Chalala
 
As a Lebanese and as many others who grew up not far from Beirut and the Raouché district — also known as Pigeons’ Rock — I was captivated by its grandeur. Two massive limestone outcrops rise from the Mediterranean along Beirut’s western coast, separated from the mainland by an ancient earthquake. This natural landmark is not only a symbol of beauty but also a silent witness to Lebanon’s triumphs and tragedies.
Essays and Features

Doria Shafik:

The Daughter of the Nile Who Refused Oblivion
By Naomi Pham
 
There is a sense of irony, or perhaps tragic justice, in that the story of a woman whose life and presence were forcibly erased from the public sphere continues to linger on the minds of many, unforgettable even 50 years after her death. Just as she forged a path through the social and political barriers confronting her, the Egyptian feminist, poet, and editor Doria Shafik’s legacy as one of the leading figures of the Egyptian women’s liberation movement in the 1940s cannot be forgotten. Shafik strived to make her voice and the voices of all Egyptian women known, undeterred by the many who hurled insults, slander, and mockery her way — but in exchange for her efforts, all her work was seized, her allies turned their backs on her, and she lived out her final years in silence and isolation.
Essays and Features

The Elegy of the Resistance:

Hezbollah’s Last Stand Against the Lebanese State
By Elie Chalala
 
Marwan Harb offers a sharp critique of Hezbollah’s estrangement from Lebanese national identity, portraying it as a militarized organization that derives its legitimacy not from democratic participation but from its arsenal. Harb traces the evolution of Hezbollah’s weaponry — once venerated as a sacred tool of liberation — through three distinct phases: initially serving as a sectarian shield during vulnerable times, then an instrument of internal political domination, and ultimately a hollow burden, clinging to relevance without justification. This trajectory illustrates the symbolic decay of the ‘weapon,’ transforming it from a shield of defense to a mechanism of control.
Essays and Features

The Ashes of Victory:

When Triumph Fails to Heal Syria’s Wounds
By Naomi Pham
 
Like others reacting to the state of Syria following the fall of the Assad regime, Nour al-Sayed’s response is heavy with disappointment and dismay, expressed in the title of her essay for Al Modon, “If We Knew the Depth of Our Hatred… We Wouldn’t Have Needed a Revolution.” Sayed, adding a surprising levity, acknowledges the title comes across like something a child might say after not having their way, but just as quickly states that the severity of Syria’s predicament is not a matter that can be treated as “a child’s folly.” Her assessment of the country is sobering: the ‘victory’ against the Assad regime has “failed to mend the wounds, but instead has reopened them and deepened the pain.”
Essays and Features

The Rise and Fall of Ziad Rahbani Through Syrian Eyes

By Elie Chalala
 
For decades, Ziad Rahbani occupied a unique place in the Syrian imagination — a figure at once satirist, musician, and political voice, whose art offered both entertainment and coded dissent. His relationship with Syrians moved through phases of clandestine admiration, public estrangement, and finally to a bittersweet mixture of betrayal and a lingering, conflicted gratitude that survived even the most profound political disappointments. His artistic journey intertwined with Syria’s own political and cultural shifts, making his transformation all the more personal for those who once claimed him as their own.
Essays and Features

The Only Diner in the Restaurant: A Travel Writer’s Perspective on the Arab Spring

By 
Daniel Hugh-Jones
 
Several excellent articles and books have been written concerning the revolutions of the Arab Spring, most by participants, relatives of the fallen, political analysts or foreign correspondents. Tom Chesshyre makes no claim to any of these perspectives. Instead, he deals with the subject of life during and after revolution with the light touch and charm of a travel writer.
 
A Tourist in the Arab Spring
By Tom Chesshyre
Bradt Travel Guides, Ltd., The Globe Pequot Press Inc., 2013
 
When the first violent images of the Arab Spring flashed across our television screens, most of us watched with interest, wished the demonstrators more or less success in their efforts, depending on our points of view, and then got on with our lives.

The American Mirage: Immigrant or “Un-American?”

By 
Frances Khirallah Noble
 
Carlos ben Carlos Rossman, a Puerto Rican Jew, is in for a surprise. When he lands in New York Harbor in 1950, he realizes that the American melting pot is more fable than fact. In many cases, diversity is likely to make one “Un-American” rather than American. Language, culture, religion, or even something as simple as a green baseball bat, when all of the other kids own plain pine bats, can result in ostracism.
 
In the House UN-American
By Benjamin Hollander
Clockroot Books, 2013
 
“In the House UN-American” is about tribes, how they differ and whether it’s possible to become a member of one you weren’t born into. Carlos ben Carlos Rossman, a Puerto Rican Jew (a double-pronged tribe!) lands in New York Harbor in 1950.

The Uncompromising Voice of Syrian Screenwriter Fouad Hamira

By 
Rebecca Joubin

A Study in Courage: Screenwriter and Activist Fouad Hamira

Cinematic activist, Fouad Hamira, who began his career working for the National Theater, has become one of the leading voices for justice in Syrian television. Despite all attempts to silence him, this man of courage and conviction remains as vocal as ever. Since the current uprising in Syria, he has denounced injustices such as the government’s attempts to reframe the battle for Syrian freedom as a sectarian uprising. 

 
Fouad Hamira, who began as an employee in the National Theater, has gone on to become one of the leading voices in Syrian television drama. He is renowned for his unwillingness to compromise with the forces of societal and political oppression. His controversial “Ghazlan fi Ghabat al-Dhi‘ab” (Gazelles in a Forest of Wolves), which was filled with a poignant critique of corruption and the abusive nature of power, was finally allowed to air in 2006, although he had written the miniseries 15 years earlier.

Wives in Tension

By 
Rebecca Joubin

In this exemplary documentary film, women (both veiled and unveiled, religious and secular) discuss the presence of Islam and secularism in contemporary Turkish ...

Women of Turkey: Between Islam and Secularism
A film by Olga Nakkas
Turkey/Lebanon
WMM, 2006

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