There is little doubt that the Arab novel has been on the rise in recent years. The volume of published works, the expansive themes and forms, the breaking of taboos, the new emerging prizes and the active translations into other languages all point to such a rise. Size of readership is also widening, though not at the same pace as other promising developments. In certain ways, part of the impetus of this rise could be accredited to the late Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz winning the Nobel Prize in 1988. Since then Arab novel writing and publishing have witnessed a remarkable leap.
This new contemporary wave of Arab novel has indeed moved the art of fiction writing in the Arab world into new territories: breaking more taboos and developing new aesthetics.
Socially and culturally, the Arab novel has come to the forefront, exposing and questioning many previously unquestionable traditional forms of sociality.
Aesthetically, creative forms and experimental structures and prose have also flourished, challenging classical traditions and reflecting more self-confidence and adventurous attitudes.
Key to understanding the rise and success of the recent surge of the Arab novel, which deserves to be underlined, is its relation to the suppressive socio-cultural and political conditions in the Arab world. The flourishing of Arab fiction is in fact linked and provoked by the continuation of these conditions, and is a sharp response against its coercions and an uncompromising denunciation of it.
This key linkage between the success of the Arab novel and the suppressive environment from which it is emerging merits further elaboration in more than one aspect.
In the first place, the sheer contradictions and interwoven sets of political, social and religious patriarchies of the Arab reality at home and/or abroad keep creating manifestations of suffering, longing and revolt at individual and group levels.
All this produces ripe themes waiting to be captured aesthetically and creatively, not only in novel writing but also in other forms of art. The Arab reality over the past two decades, in the 1990s and 2000s, has perhaps witnessed a trajectory of the sharpest changes: global wars fought on Arab land, deep rifts among and within many individual countries, a mushrooming of sectarianism, increases in religiosity and conservatism.
The recent Arab reality has also experienced both a continuing lack of justice and the heavy presence of authoritarianism, compounded with confusion over modernity and westernisation led by the globalisation of communication, satellite broadcasting and internet penetration.
Added to this has been the collapse of pan-Arab ideologies which has brought with it lack of meaning and purpose, and also the alienation of younger generations and general challenges to identity and belonging. For many Arabs, aspects and consequences of this vastly compounded surreal reality seem in fact unbelievably more fictitious than fiction.
Thus successful creative representations of these aspects and consequences, when cleverly formulated, have yielded astounding works, as has indeed been the case over the past two decades in the field of novel writing.
A second aspect worth noticing is the fact that the Arab novel has become one of the freest intellectual and yet public platforms of expression in the Arab sphere.
Apart from the internet and blogging, no other intellectual platform could accommodate the sensitivity, daring and provocation that the new Arab novel is addressing. While some relatively free media outlets that challenge the boundaries of political free expression shy away from touching traditional social taboos, representations in Arab fiction challenge exactly these religious, social and cultural boundaries.
Fanaticism in general and even religion itself is criticised, existential questions are posed, social norms and traditions are deconstructed, self-expression and longing for emancipation takes voice limitlessly, and so on and so forth.
But on top of all this and related to it is the incidence of both female writings and writers. A generation of female novelists, from the Maghreb countries to the Gulf countries, has strongly and confidently burst on to the literary scene. All prize short-lists have had on them successful female writers. It could be said that nowhere else in Arab writing or social platforms are women’s issues, including suppression, desire for rebellion against traditional constructs and emancipation, expressed and presented as they are in the Arab novel.
Intimately related to the above is a third aspect that is worth mentioning and that is the diverse background of the Arab novelists in general.
Because of the harsh Arab reality and the limited venues of free expression, we have witnessed ex-politicians, journalists, academics and activists, males and females, migrating to the field of fiction writing. Most of them have done so seeking a freer sphere for self-expression. Some of their production suffers, expectedly, from directness and emphasis on message-delivering at the expense of aesthetics. But a considerable part of the writing by these groups has nonetheless succeeded in impressing.
Many of these newcomers have discovered in fiction writing a new terrain. It is here and not in academic or serious journalistic writing where almost everything is allowed: subjectivity and self-expression, freedom from political correctness, wild articulation, naming things even with prejudice, nurturing metaphors that are decoded by all, and so on.
Notwithstanding all of the cultural considerations mentioned above, it must be said that it is not just cultural criticism that matters in fiction and creative writing. Literary forms, artistic presentations and imaginative approaches remain first and foremost. No compromise on the aesthetics of literary works should ever be accepted. And the guarding of the aesthetics of the new wave of Arab novel has evolved into the a motivating cause for a number of fiction prizes in the Arab world, chief among them the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, launched in 2007/2008.
In taking a quick or even a deeper look at the titles that have made it on to the long and short lists in the past three years, one could safely conclude that a combination of fine artistic writing and social and political taboo-breaking themes has lain at the heart of this plethora of Arab fiction writing. Taboo-breaking works are common in all cultures; most of them substitute lack of aesthetics with sensationalism. This type of work has little artistic value, if any. The same applies to Arab fiction writing. There have been many “works of fiction” that were produced exploiting a challenge to the three traditional taboos: politics, sex and religion. Hastiness and opportunism are clear in many cases where authors seek fame and publicity, claiming heroism because of the sensitive subjects they embark on, sometimes with risks. One could compile a long list of Arabic works over the past few years that belong to this taxonomy.
However, the carte blanche that used to be given to these works only on the basis of taboo-breaking has been revoked. The true contribution of the fiction and literary prizes comes exactly at this juncture – that is to shepherd all experimentation, cultural challenges and theme exploration within the boundaries of literary criticism as the main criteria for judging creative writing.
Dr Khaled Hroub is the Director of Cambridge Arab Media Project at the University of Cambridge. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is funded by the Emirates Foundation and is independently managed by its own board of trustees
Source: The National: Liberation and artistry have transformed the Arab novel
Showing posts with label arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arts. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Veils, gold, calligraphy
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie considers the mixed crop of new books surveying Middle Eastern art practices.
In early October, the Dow Jones news agency warned that the emerging market for Middle Eastern art was crashing, with prices falling by as much as 50 per cent. Matthew Girling, a chief executive with the auction house Bonhams, said the global financial crisis had hit the market particularly hard because it was still so new, and because its collector base was still so thin. A week later, Bonhams staged a sale of contemporary Arab, Iranian and South Asian art in Dubai; the results supported this prognosis. The auction fared reasonably well, raking in $1.8 million (Dh6.6m), but this was nowhere near the mark Bonhams made in early 2008, when its Dubai debut earned a thumping $13 million (Dh47.8m) and broke 33 world records in one go, charting some of the highest prices ever paid for Middle Eastern art.
It is too soon to tell whether this drop in prices signifies a market correction or a bubble bursting. But that probably isn’t the most interesting question. More to the point: How did the market for Middle Eastern art heat up so quickly, and why? Five years ago, it was a nonexistent category. Now it is a commodity. What changed, and to what effect?
September 11, 2001 is a convenient place to start the story of how interest in art from the Middle East developed. But in the 1980s and 1990s, artists such as Shirin Neshat, Mona Hatoum and Ghada Amer were gaining prominence in the art world by showing their work in powerhouse galleries and high-profile biennials. Later on, artists such as Walid Raad and Emily Jacir attracted considerable critical acclaim. Before 2001, all five of them were already stars on the merits of their work. Sure, there was noise about their biographies and backgrounds. But they were unknown to each other and working in very different ways.
Ghada Amer was primarily a painter layering muscular, abstract expressionist brush strokes over delicately tangled threads in a peek-a-boo routine with drawings of women in auto-erotic poses. Mona Hatoum, with her deep roots in performance art, was making sculptures and installations that commented on power, domesticity and the industrial prison complex. Shirin Neshat’s photographs and film work could be read, with some generosity, as an embellishment on Cindy Sherman-style role-playing and self-portraiture.
These artists were not clumped together as Middle Eastern artists until after 2001. This made sense: what they shared was incidental. In the near or distant past they had come from a part of the world that was vastly complicated, egregiously misunderstood, faintly exotic and – given a certain convergence of factors that had little or nothing to do with art – in the news all the time. In the 1980s and 1990s, that was not enough to create a curatorial area of interest, much less a sales category.
But that changed after September 11, the war in Iraq, and the so-called war on terror. These events and the discourses they engendered did not in and of themselves lead the international art world to the Middle East. But the mainstream media probably did, albeit indirectly. Against the fear-mongering of, say, Fox News, curators, critics and collectors began to seek out the more nuanced narratives afforded by contemporary art. For some, it was a search for balance and a more complex picture of current events. For others, it was about discovering art’s capacity to make sense of trauma . The experiences of artists from Beirut to Baghdad suddenly offered important lessons for the world.
Unfortunately, although the art world’s visitors to the region in the early years of this decade said they were looking for artists whose work would complicate or contradict stereotypical images of the Middle East, the artists whose work they found often conformed to those same stereotypes. Moreover, plenty of impresarios came to the region to pad sales catalogues and support what would soon be perceived as the nub of an emerging market. For them, the work needed to “look” like the Middle East, or at least some half-baked, abstract, neo-orientalist, harem fantasy of the Middle East – veils, calligraphy, embroidery and gold.
In the last seven years or so, disparate artists have been gathered into groups and presented as collective representations of the region. This has happened through sprawling exhibitions, from Catherine David’s Contemporary Arab Representations and Jack Persekian’s DisORIENTation to Without Boundary at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Arabise Me at the V&A and Unveiled at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The pioneering artists from the 1980s and 1990s have been piled onto the bandwagon of Middle Eastern art, and made exemplars of “the scene” at its best. In reality, there is no such thing as the Middle Eastern art scene. But for better or worse, the group shows – whether strong, thoughtful, crass or confused – created the illusion otherwise.
Continue reading- The National: Veils, gold, calligraphy
In early October, the Dow Jones news agency warned that the emerging market for Middle Eastern art was crashing, with prices falling by as much as 50 per cent. Matthew Girling, a chief executive with the auction house Bonhams, said the global financial crisis had hit the market particularly hard because it was still so new, and because its collector base was still so thin. A week later, Bonhams staged a sale of contemporary Arab, Iranian and South Asian art in Dubai; the results supported this prognosis. The auction fared reasonably well, raking in $1.8 million (Dh6.6m), but this was nowhere near the mark Bonhams made in early 2008, when its Dubai debut earned a thumping $13 million (Dh47.8m) and broke 33 world records in one go, charting some of the highest prices ever paid for Middle Eastern art.
It is too soon to tell whether this drop in prices signifies a market correction or a bubble bursting. But that probably isn’t the most interesting question. More to the point: How did the market for Middle Eastern art heat up so quickly, and why? Five years ago, it was a nonexistent category. Now it is a commodity. What changed, and to what effect?
September 11, 2001 is a convenient place to start the story of how interest in art from the Middle East developed. But in the 1980s and 1990s, artists such as Shirin Neshat, Mona Hatoum and Ghada Amer were gaining prominence in the art world by showing their work in powerhouse galleries and high-profile biennials. Later on, artists such as Walid Raad and Emily Jacir attracted considerable critical acclaim. Before 2001, all five of them were already stars on the merits of their work. Sure, there was noise about their biographies and backgrounds. But they were unknown to each other and working in very different ways.
Ghada Amer was primarily a painter layering muscular, abstract expressionist brush strokes over delicately tangled threads in a peek-a-boo routine with drawings of women in auto-erotic poses. Mona Hatoum, with her deep roots in performance art, was making sculptures and installations that commented on power, domesticity and the industrial prison complex. Shirin Neshat’s photographs and film work could be read, with some generosity, as an embellishment on Cindy Sherman-style role-playing and self-portraiture.
These artists were not clumped together as Middle Eastern artists until after 2001. This made sense: what they shared was incidental. In the near or distant past they had come from a part of the world that was vastly complicated, egregiously misunderstood, faintly exotic and – given a certain convergence of factors that had little or nothing to do with art – in the news all the time. In the 1980s and 1990s, that was not enough to create a curatorial area of interest, much less a sales category.
But that changed after September 11, the war in Iraq, and the so-called war on terror. These events and the discourses they engendered did not in and of themselves lead the international art world to the Middle East. But the mainstream media probably did, albeit indirectly. Against the fear-mongering of, say, Fox News, curators, critics and collectors began to seek out the more nuanced narratives afforded by contemporary art. For some, it was a search for balance and a more complex picture of current events. For others, it was about discovering art’s capacity to make sense of trauma . The experiences of artists from Beirut to Baghdad suddenly offered important lessons for the world.
Unfortunately, although the art world’s visitors to the region in the early years of this decade said they were looking for artists whose work would complicate or contradict stereotypical images of the Middle East, the artists whose work they found often conformed to those same stereotypes. Moreover, plenty of impresarios came to the region to pad sales catalogues and support what would soon be perceived as the nub of an emerging market. For them, the work needed to “look” like the Middle East, or at least some half-baked, abstract, neo-orientalist, harem fantasy of the Middle East – veils, calligraphy, embroidery and gold.
In the last seven years or so, disparate artists have been gathered into groups and presented as collective representations of the region. This has happened through sprawling exhibitions, from Catherine David’s Contemporary Arab Representations and Jack Persekian’s DisORIENTation to Without Boundary at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Arabise Me at the V&A and Unveiled at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The pioneering artists from the 1980s and 1990s have been piled onto the bandwagon of Middle Eastern art, and made exemplars of “the scene” at its best. In reality, there is no such thing as the Middle Eastern art scene. But for better or worse, the group shows – whether strong, thoughtful, crass or confused – created the illusion otherwise.
Continue reading- The National: Veils, gold, calligraphy
Friday, 10 July 2009
JISC: Islamic Manuscripts
Press Release
JISC helps bring Islamic resources online for the first time. Two of the oldest known copies of the Qur’an will be available to researchers and scholars across the world today (July 8th 2009) – as part of a major project to digitise one of the richest collections of Eastern manuscripts.
The two Qur'ans, one of which may date from the 7th century A.D, are part of the priceless Mingana Collection, which is housed by the University of Birmingham.
The University's Special Collections department has painstakingly digitised more than 10,000 pages from the collection. As well as the Qur'ans the documents now online include unique illustrated manuscripts from the 16th century and early Arabic poetry. The project has been generously supported by JISC and The Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust.
Dr Peter Robinson from the Department of Theology, who has led the project,comments: “We’re delighted that for the first time some of the oldest and rarest Arabic manuscripts will be available for the public and scholars to view and enjoy.
“The Qur'ans are astonishing: one (number 1572) may date from within a century of the death of the prophet Mohammed. This would make it one of the oldest copies of the Qur'an in existence. However, the collection also includes poetry, illustrated texts and even coins covering nearly 1000 years.
“The process of digitising these fragile manuscripts can be painstaking, but the result is something that is a beautiful reproduction of the original.”
The Mingana Collection is unique, spanning more than 3000 manuscripts in 11 languages across nearly 1000 years of history. The team is now intending to continue the project to complete the digitising of the 3000 texts that make up the collection.
Another key part of the project is the Virtual Manuscript Room, which aims to make the manuscripts accessible to scholars and the general public across the world. This is done by embedding information about individual pages and passages of text.
By making searching for information far easier and more effective the Birmingham team hope that scholars will be able to comment on the works, add them to other websites and share them with the world.
Dr Robinson adds: “We don’t want these fabulous documents to be a static archive that is hard to access and use.
“A collection like Mingana ought to be viewed, commented on and added to.Technology provides an ideal opportunity to create an archive like that.
“We sometimes have very little information about the history of individual documents so we want to share them and get opinions and input from across the globe.”
Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC said: “There is a lack of high-quality digital material available for those studying Islamic Studies.The Mingana manuscripts, presented via the Virtual Manuscripts Room (VMR), will therefore be a valuable resource for researchers and teachers, both in the UK and internationally.
“Their presentation online is a crucial part of JISC’s £1.8 million ‘enriching digital resources programme’, a set of 25 projects which enhances the use of online content for teaching, learning and research.”
The virtual manuscript room can be viewed at: http://www.vmr.bham.ac.uk Find
out more about JISC's enrich digitisation programme at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/enrichingdigi.aspx
Additional information about the University of Birmingham's Special Collections can be found at: http://www.special-coll.bham.ac.uk
JISC helps bring Islamic resources online for the first time. Two of the oldest known copies of the Qur’an will be available to researchers and scholars across the world today (July 8th 2009) – as part of a major project to digitise one of the richest collections of Eastern manuscripts.
The two Qur'ans, one of which may date from the 7th century A.D, are part of the priceless Mingana Collection, which is housed by the University of Birmingham.
The University's Special Collections department has painstakingly digitised more than 10,000 pages from the collection. As well as the Qur'ans the documents now online include unique illustrated manuscripts from the 16th century and early Arabic poetry. The project has been generously supported by JISC and The Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust.
Dr Peter Robinson from the Department of Theology, who has led the project,comments: “We’re delighted that for the first time some of the oldest and rarest Arabic manuscripts will be available for the public and scholars to view and enjoy.
“The Qur'ans are astonishing: one (number 1572) may date from within a century of the death of the prophet Mohammed. This would make it one of the oldest copies of the Qur'an in existence. However, the collection also includes poetry, illustrated texts and even coins covering nearly 1000 years.
“The process of digitising these fragile manuscripts can be painstaking, but the result is something that is a beautiful reproduction of the original.”
The Mingana Collection is unique, spanning more than 3000 manuscripts in 11 languages across nearly 1000 years of history. The team is now intending to continue the project to complete the digitising of the 3000 texts that make up the collection.
Another key part of the project is the Virtual Manuscript Room, which aims to make the manuscripts accessible to scholars and the general public across the world. This is done by embedding information about individual pages and passages of text.
By making searching for information far easier and more effective the Birmingham team hope that scholars will be able to comment on the works, add them to other websites and share them with the world.
Dr Robinson adds: “We don’t want these fabulous documents to be a static archive that is hard to access and use.
“A collection like Mingana ought to be viewed, commented on and added to.Technology provides an ideal opportunity to create an archive like that.
“We sometimes have very little information about the history of individual documents so we want to share them and get opinions and input from across the globe.”
Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC said: “There is a lack of high-quality digital material available for those studying Islamic Studies.The Mingana manuscripts, presented via the Virtual Manuscripts Room (VMR), will therefore be a valuable resource for researchers and teachers, both in the UK and internationally.
“Their presentation online is a crucial part of JISC’s £1.8 million ‘enriching digital resources programme’, a set of 25 projects which enhances the use of online content for teaching, learning and research.”
The virtual manuscript room can be viewed at: http://www.vmr.bham.ac.uk Find
out more about JISC's enrich digitisation programme at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/enrichingdigi.aspx
Additional information about the University of Birmingham's Special Collections can be found at: http://www.special-coll.bham.ac.uk
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Fair deals in London
Spring has arrived in London and with it, swathes of bookish professionals made their annual pilgrimage to Earl’s Court. For TS Eliot, April may have been the cruellest month, but there were no signs of decline at the London Book Fair. The international publishing elite gathered for the three-day event, which has become one of industry’s most important trade fairs. It is the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels and brings together 23,000 members of the global publishing community. This is a place where authors can meet publishers; publishers, distributors; distributors, retailers. As Kelly Pike of Saqi books said: “It’s one of the best advertising and marketing opportunities in the world.”
It’s difficult to know what to expect at such an event. There is a distinct element of literary celebration, opportunities to meet famous authors and chat about favourite books and even a look at the innovations shaping the publishing world of the future, including the UK debut of the Espresso book machine – a vending-style contraption that prints books while you wait.
For all the fun and novelty, though, the fair is firmly centred on business. Inside, the exhibition floor is littered with stalls and busy chatter fills the vast expanses as publishers, authors and distributors vie for lucrative contracts. Figures are bandied around, hands shaken, acquaintances renewed and friendships formed. Books deals are made in boardrooms and corridors.
It’s exciting, urgent and overwhelming. Fittingly, India was the focus country for the fair this year. The organisers presented an impressive range of authors, including Vikram Seth and the Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen. Being the focus gives the kind of publicity that money can’t buy. The British Council provides support at every level: organising meetings, seminars and networking events. Last year’s fair showcased the Arab world but this year, exhibitors aimed to capitalise on the recent wave in literature from the region.
The Arab presence demonstrated both an increasing literary awareness within the region and a growing international interest. The buzz was linked in no small part to the obvious potential of this emerging market. “The statistics speak for themselves – 24 Arab countries, a population of 340 million and 422 million Arabic speakers living outside of the region,” said Bachar Chebaro, the owner of Arab Scientific Publishers and the secretary general of the Arab Publishers Association.
In the current economic climate, western publishers are increasingly tempted by this largely untapped market. Bloomsbury and Penguin have already announced plans to expand into the Gulf. “I was lucky enough to visit the Cairo Book Fair as part of the British Council delegation,” Jonathan Nowell, President of Nielsen Books said. “When I came back to the UK my brain was bursting with ideas. There is so much opportunity for international publishers and, most importantly, for Arab publishers, to meet the enormous consumer demand for education and entertainment that books can deliver.”
The London Book Fair enables participants to find out more about the specificities of international consumer demand and genre preference. According to Dr Ali Bin Tamim, the project manager of Kalima, an organisation which aims to make western texts accessible to Arab audiences through translation, Emiratis gravitate toward “novels, autobiographies, science books, illustrated and architectural books and books about Islamic history”.
It is these types of publications that Kalima is seeking to promote in the Arab world, with 150 texts already translated. “We are encouraging Arabic publishers to forge links with foreign firms and also to support the work of translators.” An attempt is being made to keep Arab readers up to date with western bestsellers and Kalima will shortly be publishing Barack Obama’s autobiography in Arabic. “The challenge here in London is to find a great book and a great publisher that can reach as many people as possible,” Tamim said.
For Irum Fawad of Kitab, the organisers of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, a presence at the London event is a necessity. “It helps us to improve our visibility, promotes networking opportunities and encourages professionalism”, she said. “Our 20th book fair will be held next year and it will be more international than ever before because it is now seen as a credible forum.”
“Book fairs in the Arab World are generally focused on selling books” adds Claudia Kaiser, the general manager of Kitab. “In Abu Dhabi, we are changing this by using the event to develop business contacts and to offer professional training. In 2008, we hosted 480 exhibitors hailing from 42 countries. This year we had 637 exhibitors from 53 countries. We also included a targeted matchmaking event where people could register in order to meet Arab or international publishers. That was a big breakthrough,” she said.
Ahmed Al-Amri, the director of the Sharjah World Book Fair, the first representative from the UAE to begin exhibiting at the London Book Fair four years ago, also commented on the positive impact that inclusion in the London event has had on the domestic book fair.
“A great deal of interest has been generated here and it has helped to boost success back home,” he said. “Last year, the Sharjah fair welcomed 400,000 people – eight per cent of the population of the UAE – and reached sales of around $28 million (Dh103m). That is a lot of money in the world of books. People understand that in business, the figures don’t lie.
“In particular, visitors here in London have been excited by the Knowledge without Borders government initiative. It is designed to encourage parents and children to spend more time reading by providing a library of 50 Arabic books to 24,000 families in Sharjah.”
The project is part of a wider educational programme to disseminate Arabic texts domestically and internationally. Literature is not geographically bound and texts do not operate or exist in isolation, but are instead part of a wider body of sources and quotations that form links with other nations and other eras. The Arab initiatives recognise the value of intertextuality while giving native writers a platform to share their work and enter it into this broader literary community.
“Much has been achieved since last year,” said the writer and presenter Maya Jaggi. “The Arab World now offers a number of prestigious awards that stimulate both reading and translation in the Arab world. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is now in its third year and the Egyptian author Bahaa Taher, the first winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, held in association with the UK’s Booker Prize, will have his novel Sunset Oasis published in the UK in September. Clearly there is huge potential in the 24 countries.”
Obstacles, however, still remain. “We have at least 70 million illiterate people in the Arab world,” Chebaro said. “The literacy rate means that more educational programmes are needed.”
In addition, the Arab world still lacks a viable distribution network and proper marketing for books. A failure to collate statistical information means that there is insufficient data regarding what is being published. The absence of literary agents and a paucity of first-rate translators also threaten to disrupt the progress being made in the Arab book industry.
“We need to create a more efficient supply chain in the Arab world” Nowell added. “We are working towards a situation whereby the consumer is informed about what is available, they can find information on these products and can easily make a timely purchase decision to buy what is available. We need to rely more on print on demand in the Arab World. The technology now gives us the opportunity to accelerate the wider dissemination of books in the Arab World without having to go through traditional distribution channels.”
“We have made progress and we must continue to co-operate and share our experiences across the region,” said Kaiser. “There is an increasing understanding that to move forward we have to work together. We are not in an ideal world yet, but we are getting there.”
It’s difficult to know what to expect at such an event. There is a distinct element of literary celebration, opportunities to meet famous authors and chat about favourite books and even a look at the innovations shaping the publishing world of the future, including the UK debut of the Espresso book machine – a vending-style contraption that prints books while you wait.
For all the fun and novelty, though, the fair is firmly centred on business. Inside, the exhibition floor is littered with stalls and busy chatter fills the vast expanses as publishers, authors and distributors vie for lucrative contracts. Figures are bandied around, hands shaken, acquaintances renewed and friendships formed. Books deals are made in boardrooms and corridors.
It’s exciting, urgent and overwhelming. Fittingly, India was the focus country for the fair this year. The organisers presented an impressive range of authors, including Vikram Seth and the Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen. Being the focus gives the kind of publicity that money can’t buy. The British Council provides support at every level: organising meetings, seminars and networking events. Last year’s fair showcased the Arab world but this year, exhibitors aimed to capitalise on the recent wave in literature from the region.
The Arab presence demonstrated both an increasing literary awareness within the region and a growing international interest. The buzz was linked in no small part to the obvious potential of this emerging market. “The statistics speak for themselves – 24 Arab countries, a population of 340 million and 422 million Arabic speakers living outside of the region,” said Bachar Chebaro, the owner of Arab Scientific Publishers and the secretary general of the Arab Publishers Association.
In the current economic climate, western publishers are increasingly tempted by this largely untapped market. Bloomsbury and Penguin have already announced plans to expand into the Gulf. “I was lucky enough to visit the Cairo Book Fair as part of the British Council delegation,” Jonathan Nowell, President of Nielsen Books said. “When I came back to the UK my brain was bursting with ideas. There is so much opportunity for international publishers and, most importantly, for Arab publishers, to meet the enormous consumer demand for education and entertainment that books can deliver.”
The London Book Fair enables participants to find out more about the specificities of international consumer demand and genre preference. According to Dr Ali Bin Tamim, the project manager of Kalima, an organisation which aims to make western texts accessible to Arab audiences through translation, Emiratis gravitate toward “novels, autobiographies, science books, illustrated and architectural books and books about Islamic history”.
It is these types of publications that Kalima is seeking to promote in the Arab world, with 150 texts already translated. “We are encouraging Arabic publishers to forge links with foreign firms and also to support the work of translators.” An attempt is being made to keep Arab readers up to date with western bestsellers and Kalima will shortly be publishing Barack Obama’s autobiography in Arabic. “The challenge here in London is to find a great book and a great publisher that can reach as many people as possible,” Tamim said.
For Irum Fawad of Kitab, the organisers of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, a presence at the London event is a necessity. “It helps us to improve our visibility, promotes networking opportunities and encourages professionalism”, she said. “Our 20th book fair will be held next year and it will be more international than ever before because it is now seen as a credible forum.”
“Book fairs in the Arab World are generally focused on selling books” adds Claudia Kaiser, the general manager of Kitab. “In Abu Dhabi, we are changing this by using the event to develop business contacts and to offer professional training. In 2008, we hosted 480 exhibitors hailing from 42 countries. This year we had 637 exhibitors from 53 countries. We also included a targeted matchmaking event where people could register in order to meet Arab or international publishers. That was a big breakthrough,” she said.
Ahmed Al-Amri, the director of the Sharjah World Book Fair, the first representative from the UAE to begin exhibiting at the London Book Fair four years ago, also commented on the positive impact that inclusion in the London event has had on the domestic book fair.
“A great deal of interest has been generated here and it has helped to boost success back home,” he said. “Last year, the Sharjah fair welcomed 400,000 people – eight per cent of the population of the UAE – and reached sales of around $28 million (Dh103m). That is a lot of money in the world of books. People understand that in business, the figures don’t lie.
“In particular, visitors here in London have been excited by the Knowledge without Borders government initiative. It is designed to encourage parents and children to spend more time reading by providing a library of 50 Arabic books to 24,000 families in Sharjah.”
The project is part of a wider educational programme to disseminate Arabic texts domestically and internationally. Literature is not geographically bound and texts do not operate or exist in isolation, but are instead part of a wider body of sources and quotations that form links with other nations and other eras. The Arab initiatives recognise the value of intertextuality while giving native writers a platform to share their work and enter it into this broader literary community.
“Much has been achieved since last year,” said the writer and presenter Maya Jaggi. “The Arab World now offers a number of prestigious awards that stimulate both reading and translation in the Arab world. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is now in its third year and the Egyptian author Bahaa Taher, the first winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, held in association with the UK’s Booker Prize, will have his novel Sunset Oasis published in the UK in September. Clearly there is huge potential in the 24 countries.”
Obstacles, however, still remain. “We have at least 70 million illiterate people in the Arab world,” Chebaro said. “The literacy rate means that more educational programmes are needed.”
In addition, the Arab world still lacks a viable distribution network and proper marketing for books. A failure to collate statistical information means that there is insufficient data regarding what is being published. The absence of literary agents and a paucity of first-rate translators also threaten to disrupt the progress being made in the Arab book industry.
“We need to create a more efficient supply chain in the Arab world” Nowell added. “We are working towards a situation whereby the consumer is informed about what is available, they can find information on these products and can easily make a timely purchase decision to buy what is available. We need to rely more on print on demand in the Arab World. The technology now gives us the opportunity to accelerate the wider dissemination of books in the Arab World without having to go through traditional distribution channels.”
“We have made progress and we must continue to co-operate and share our experiences across the region,” said Kaiser. “There is an increasing understanding that to move forward we have to work together. We are not in an ideal world yet, but we are getting there.”
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Language no barrier for Moroccan author
RABAT // In the room where she writes, Laila Lalami keeps a small stone with the Arabic word for “nation” painted on one end and “foreigner” painted on the other.
“But according to the root, you could also take it to mean ‘outsider’,” said Lalami, whose novel Secret Son comes out this month, speaking by telephone from her home in Santa Monica, California.
That word describes Lalami, a Moroccan novelist living outside her native country and working outside its main literary vehicles, French and Arabic. Writing in English, she is crashing through linguistic barriers that have long hindered Moroccan authors from reaching a world audience – and winning critical acclaim in the process.
Secret Son, Lalami’s second book, cements her place in the vanguard of a generation of Moroccan writers influenced less by the colonialism of the 20th century than by the globalisation of the 21st.
Modern literature in Morocco blossomed during 20th-century French rule that introduced the novel and brought foreign writers to the country. Many settled in Tangier, for decades under international administration, drawn by its cocktail of nationalities and partying lifestyle.
“It was a cultural gateway,” said Khalid Amine, professor of performance studies at the Abdelmalek Essaadi University in the nearby city of Tetouan. “Modernity came to Moroccan through Tangier.”
Tangier remained an artistic hub after Morocco gained independence in 1956. Moroccan writers mixed with sojourning foreigners such as Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams and William S Burroughs, and with the American writer Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangier from 1947 until his death in 1999.
It was Bowles who mentored a poor young Moroccan named Mohammed Choukri and translated his autobiographical For Bread Alone into English in 1973.
Choukri became a star of Morocco’s early literary scene. Some writers, including Choukri, wrote in Arabic. Others used French, a colonial legacy that still dominates much of Moroccan cultural life, business and education.
“I grew up with books in the house,” said Lalami, who developed a taste for writing as a child in the 1970s in Rabat, the capital. “Most bookstores carried children’s literature in French, so when I started writing it was in French.”
English came in high school and university. Armed with a grant from the British Council, Lalami decamped for postgraduate studies at University College London, eventually earning a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Southern California.
In the midst of writing her dissertation, she decided to try her hand at composing fiction in English.
“I felt that there was too much of a colonial relationship with French,” she said. “It’s used in Morocco to indicate social class and educational level – it’s not neutral.”
Secret Son tells the story of Youssef, a poor young Casablancan who discovers that the father he believed dead is very much alive, and a member of the country’s glossy elite. Youssef embarks on a quest for identity in Casablanca’s messy confluence of westernisation and conservative Islam, “with disastrous consequences”, Lalami said.
“Most of our problems emanate from the compromise between East and West, tradition and modernity, religion and secularism,” said Mr Amine, from the Abdelmalek Essaadi University. “These are the main questions reflected in our arts.”
“Globalisation is not just a concept for the average Moroccan, it’s a reality,” Lalami said. “If you are in Morocco, you see how much the rest of the world penetrates the country.”
Lalami has come of age as Morocco has opened economically, seeking to position itself as major tourist destination and regional hub of business and commerce. That puts her among a young generation of Moroccan artists who are both products and chroniclers of globalisation.
University reading lists are reflecting the change, said Mr Amine. “Ten years ago we taught almost exclusively French literature, but now students are reading Moroccan writers.”
Some critics have portrayed Lalami as an emerging national voice.
Only some three per cent of books published in the US are translated foreign works. That makes Lalami one of a handful of Moroccan authors appearing in the language of globalisation.
“I am aware of an enormous responsibility, because many books written in English get translated into other languages,” she said. But she is not interested in serving as “a spokesperson for any kind of idea about Morocco”.
“I just want readers to journey with the characters and get to know their lives.”
“But according to the root, you could also take it to mean ‘outsider’,” said Lalami, whose novel Secret Son comes out this month, speaking by telephone from her home in Santa Monica, California.
That word describes Lalami, a Moroccan novelist living outside her native country and working outside its main literary vehicles, French and Arabic. Writing in English, she is crashing through linguistic barriers that have long hindered Moroccan authors from reaching a world audience – and winning critical acclaim in the process.
Secret Son, Lalami’s second book, cements her place in the vanguard of a generation of Moroccan writers influenced less by the colonialism of the 20th century than by the globalisation of the 21st.
Modern literature in Morocco blossomed during 20th-century French rule that introduced the novel and brought foreign writers to the country. Many settled in Tangier, for decades under international administration, drawn by its cocktail of nationalities and partying lifestyle.
“It was a cultural gateway,” said Khalid Amine, professor of performance studies at the Abdelmalek Essaadi University in the nearby city of Tetouan. “Modernity came to Moroccan through Tangier.”
Tangier remained an artistic hub after Morocco gained independence in 1956. Moroccan writers mixed with sojourning foreigners such as Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams and William S Burroughs, and with the American writer Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangier from 1947 until his death in 1999.
It was Bowles who mentored a poor young Moroccan named Mohammed Choukri and translated his autobiographical For Bread Alone into English in 1973.
Choukri became a star of Morocco’s early literary scene. Some writers, including Choukri, wrote in Arabic. Others used French, a colonial legacy that still dominates much of Moroccan cultural life, business and education.
“I grew up with books in the house,” said Lalami, who developed a taste for writing as a child in the 1970s in Rabat, the capital. “Most bookstores carried children’s literature in French, so when I started writing it was in French.”
English came in high school and university. Armed with a grant from the British Council, Lalami decamped for postgraduate studies at University College London, eventually earning a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Southern California.
In the midst of writing her dissertation, she decided to try her hand at composing fiction in English.
“I felt that there was too much of a colonial relationship with French,” she said. “It’s used in Morocco to indicate social class and educational level – it’s not neutral.”
Secret Son tells the story of Youssef, a poor young Casablancan who discovers that the father he believed dead is very much alive, and a member of the country’s glossy elite. Youssef embarks on a quest for identity in Casablanca’s messy confluence of westernisation and conservative Islam, “with disastrous consequences”, Lalami said.
“Most of our problems emanate from the compromise between East and West, tradition and modernity, religion and secularism,” said Mr Amine, from the Abdelmalek Essaadi University. “These are the main questions reflected in our arts.”
“Globalisation is not just a concept for the average Moroccan, it’s a reality,” Lalami said. “If you are in Morocco, you see how much the rest of the world penetrates the country.”
Lalami has come of age as Morocco has opened economically, seeking to position itself as major tourist destination and regional hub of business and commerce. That puts her among a young generation of Moroccan artists who are both products and chroniclers of globalisation.
University reading lists are reflecting the change, said Mr Amine. “Ten years ago we taught almost exclusively French literature, but now students are reading Moroccan writers.”
Some critics have portrayed Lalami as an emerging national voice.
Only some three per cent of books published in the US are translated foreign works. That makes Lalami one of a handful of Moroccan authors appearing in the language of globalisation.
“I am aware of an enormous responsibility, because many books written in English get translated into other languages,” she said. But she is not interested in serving as “a spokesperson for any kind of idea about Morocco”.
“I just want readers to journey with the characters and get to know their lives.”
Monday, 30 March 2009
A Lebanese diva shines at the Palace
“You couldn’t say she’s less than a diva. She’s very special to everyone,” explained Bilal, one of the hordes of concertgoers who poured into the lobby of the Emirates Palace auditorium a clear hour ahead of this charity engagement. “As soon as you’re saying Magida el Roumi... it’s like you’re saying Andrea Bocelli or Pavarotti.” And yet, in the West, she’s scarcely known at all.
Here’s a primer. El Roumi came to prominence in the early Seventies when she won a Lebanese TV talent show. From the start of her professional singing career, she offered a potent blend of classical and pop styles, delivered with a stirring side order of nationalism. Poets wrote for her, most notably the Syrian love-lyricist Nizar Qabbani; the greatest Arabic songwriters and arrangers shaped her sinuous, disco-inflected sound. And to match that dramatic music was a stormy life story: divorce, bereavement, a turn to the consolations of faith, a comeback. Such careers seem drawn from some mystic well of universal archetypes – the chanteuse with a thousand faces.
Yet, the capacity audience at the Emirates Palace had come to see just one. And at first sight, it isn’t clear why el Roumi should command such adoration. She’s shy, oddly reticent. As she slipped out in front of her 30-piece band, she seemed almost apologetic. The crowd stood and applauded and she floated her way through the thunderous Ya Bladna, demurely acknowledging the pounding handclaps, at times offering the ghost of a shimmy, her arms hanging limp by her sides. Her voice was unforced, conversational.
During her next number, something of the strange mutability of her sound became apparent: slinky bossa nova rhythms and a wonderfully twangy pop-orchestra electric guitar gave way to rattling, skeletal percussion. Strings swooped and darted like something from an Isaac Hayes soul epic. And el Roumi’s voice began to lift in shuddering melismas, falling away with infinite world-weariness.
During Ghanni Lel Hob, her Seventies roots were revealed in further detail. The band locked into what was unmistakably a disco beat. A wah-wah guitar percolated away beneath bongos, and el Roumi’s voice climbed to a racking intensity. Though still almost motionless, her onstage persona had shifted slightly: chorus followed crashing, tear-stained chorus, and she hovered between Dancing Queen excess and the stalking grandeur of fado.
Throughout the show, her sharp band negotiated the swerves and tempo-changes of her material with aplomb. A sextet of sad-eyed, tuxedoed backing singers provided a funereal backdrop for the increasingly animated star – funereal, that is, until three of them locked arms and began a synchronised jig across the stage, tumbling to and fro like sailors on a pitching deck.
At one point, a fez was delivered to the star. She put it on for a number which exhibited as well as anything the strange breadth of her style. A sparkling jazz melody laid over a near-dubbish rhythm section gave way to one of the singer’s Olympian choruses, surging like something out of the Elvis comeback special. Then – a great and inexplicable touch – an African woodblock melody floated in.
More startling still was her sudden blast of operatic singing in Amb Bihlamak, a piercing, imploring aria. She rolled it out for the encore, too, draped in the Lebanese flag, laden with flowers, the audience standing and clapping along. It was madly incongruous, moving, in short, fabulous and all that connotes. No, you couldn’t say she’s less than a diva.
Here’s a primer. El Roumi came to prominence in the early Seventies when she won a Lebanese TV talent show. From the start of her professional singing career, she offered a potent blend of classical and pop styles, delivered with a stirring side order of nationalism. Poets wrote for her, most notably the Syrian love-lyricist Nizar Qabbani; the greatest Arabic songwriters and arrangers shaped her sinuous, disco-inflected sound. And to match that dramatic music was a stormy life story: divorce, bereavement, a turn to the consolations of faith, a comeback. Such careers seem drawn from some mystic well of universal archetypes – the chanteuse with a thousand faces.
Yet, the capacity audience at the Emirates Palace had come to see just one. And at first sight, it isn’t clear why el Roumi should command such adoration. She’s shy, oddly reticent. As she slipped out in front of her 30-piece band, she seemed almost apologetic. The crowd stood and applauded and she floated her way through the thunderous Ya Bladna, demurely acknowledging the pounding handclaps, at times offering the ghost of a shimmy, her arms hanging limp by her sides. Her voice was unforced, conversational.
During her next number, something of the strange mutability of her sound became apparent: slinky bossa nova rhythms and a wonderfully twangy pop-orchestra electric guitar gave way to rattling, skeletal percussion. Strings swooped and darted like something from an Isaac Hayes soul epic. And el Roumi’s voice began to lift in shuddering melismas, falling away with infinite world-weariness.
During Ghanni Lel Hob, her Seventies roots were revealed in further detail. The band locked into what was unmistakably a disco beat. A wah-wah guitar percolated away beneath bongos, and el Roumi’s voice climbed to a racking intensity. Though still almost motionless, her onstage persona had shifted slightly: chorus followed crashing, tear-stained chorus, and she hovered between Dancing Queen excess and the stalking grandeur of fado.
Throughout the show, her sharp band negotiated the swerves and tempo-changes of her material with aplomb. A sextet of sad-eyed, tuxedoed backing singers provided a funereal backdrop for the increasingly animated star – funereal, that is, until three of them locked arms and began a synchronised jig across the stage, tumbling to and fro like sailors on a pitching deck.
At one point, a fez was delivered to the star. She put it on for a number which exhibited as well as anything the strange breadth of her style. A sparkling jazz melody laid over a near-dubbish rhythm section gave way to one of the singer’s Olympian choruses, surging like something out of the Elvis comeback special. Then – a great and inexplicable touch – an African woodblock melody floated in.
More startling still was her sudden blast of operatic singing in Amb Bihlamak, a piercing, imploring aria. She rolled it out for the encore, too, draped in the Lebanese flag, laden with flowers, the audience standing and clapping along. It was madly incongruous, moving, in short, fabulous and all that connotes. No, you couldn’t say she’s less than a diva.
Monday, 16 March 2009
Egyptian wins Arabic Booker prize
Yusuf Zeydan has won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) with his novel Beelzebub, it was announced at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi last night.
The Egyptian author was one of six writers to be shortlisted for the prize, otherwise known as the Arabic Booker, and wins a total of US$60,000 (Dh220,380) as well as an English translation of his work paid for by the Granta magazine owner, Sigrid Rausing. Beelzebub is a poetically told story of the religious and cultural schisms caused by the Roman Empire’s appropriation of Christianity in the fifth century in upper Egypt, Alexandria and northern Syria. Receiving his prize from Mohammed Ahmad al Bowardi, the Secretary General of the Executive Council and board member of the Emirates Foundation, Zeydan said: “This prize is indeed a landmark in my life that will make me deal with even more seriousness in my approach to writing, and will encourage me to surpass borders in creativity. This prize is distinguished by its integrity, its international calibre and the fact that it is closely related to the long-standing Booker Prize. There is no doubt that the precise work of analysing the novels will contribute to the interaction between Arabic and international literature.”
Each of the five other finalists receives US$10,000. The IPAF, an award for the best new novel in the Arabic language, was officially launched in 2007. It is a collaboration between the philanthropic Emirates Foundation and the British charity the Booker Foundation, which awards the Man Booker Prize. Dr Jonathan Taylor, the chairman of the Booker Prize Foundation and chairman of the board of trustees for the IPAF, said before the award: “I think what the two prizes have shown, with the enormous number of entries from all over the Arab world, is that there’s a huge wealth of high-quality fiction in Arabic. What this award will do is to make the literature available both in translation and to get it more widely read in the Arabic world.”
In a speech at the ceremony, Ahmed Ali al Sayegh, the managing director of the Emirates Foundation, commented: “The IPAF award is one of the best ways to support both new Arab creative writing and its translation into the world’s leading languages.” He emphasised that a key long-term aim for the prize was “to increase global readership of Arabic literature, through the widest possible publication and distribution of contemporary Arabic fiction in translation”
The Egyptian author was one of six writers to be shortlisted for the prize, otherwise known as the Arabic Booker, and wins a total of US$60,000 (Dh220,380) as well as an English translation of his work paid for by the Granta magazine owner, Sigrid Rausing. Beelzebub is a poetically told story of the religious and cultural schisms caused by the Roman Empire’s appropriation of Christianity in the fifth century in upper Egypt, Alexandria and northern Syria. Receiving his prize from Mohammed Ahmad al Bowardi, the Secretary General of the Executive Council and board member of the Emirates Foundation, Zeydan said: “This prize is indeed a landmark in my life that will make me deal with even more seriousness in my approach to writing, and will encourage me to surpass borders in creativity. This prize is distinguished by its integrity, its international calibre and the fact that it is closely related to the long-standing Booker Prize. There is no doubt that the precise work of analysing the novels will contribute to the interaction between Arabic and international literature.”
Each of the five other finalists receives US$10,000. The IPAF, an award for the best new novel in the Arabic language, was officially launched in 2007. It is a collaboration between the philanthropic Emirates Foundation and the British charity the Booker Foundation, which awards the Man Booker Prize. Dr Jonathan Taylor, the chairman of the Booker Prize Foundation and chairman of the board of trustees for the IPAF, said before the award: “I think what the two prizes have shown, with the enormous number of entries from all over the Arab world, is that there’s a huge wealth of high-quality fiction in Arabic. What this award will do is to make the literature available both in translation and to get it more widely read in the Arabic world.”
In a speech at the ceremony, Ahmed Ali al Sayegh, the managing director of the Emirates Foundation, commented: “The IPAF award is one of the best ways to support both new Arab creative writing and its translation into the world’s leading languages.” He emphasised that a key long-term aim for the prize was “to increase global readership of Arabic literature, through the widest possible publication and distribution of contemporary Arabic fiction in translation”
Sunday, 15 March 2009
The Turkish publishing sector: Not an industry yet, but getting there
Books are one of the many things in life that we tend to take for granted. They are always simply there, at the library or bookstore, when we need them. Of course, with the advent of Internet shopping, the effect has become even more exaggerated. And yet behind all this lies the world of publishing, and in Turkey this is a world that is just coming into its own.
Though it is not yet large enough to be called an industry in itself, the Turkish publishing sector has witnessed a number of major transformations over the last two decades, according to author and publisher Cem Akaş, from G Yayın Grubu (G Publishing Group). "Its structure and branches still do not function in an efficient and effective way, but things are nonetheless very different from, say, 1995. For one thing, Turkish publishers have gotten much better at keeping up with recent titles that get published in the United States, the UK, France and, to some degree, Germany and Italy. They have also become better at selling their writers abroad. This is thanks to the increased 'visibility' of Turkey, the increased activity of literary agents and, of course, Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize," he explains.
The number of writers going down the road of self-publishing has also increased considerably, Akaş notes. One form of publishing, what Akaş calls "institutional publishing," publishing by corporate conglomerates, particularly private banks, is now "past its heyday." He says, "It is still there, but it is not flourishing anymore."
"The Internet has been warmly embraced by a huge number of budding writers -- a lot is going on there," he continues, concluding, "The general trend is continuing with respect to the constant increase in new publishers, the constant increase in small publishing companies that go under and the constant decrease (as percent of population) in readership."
Emine Eroğlu, the head of the Timaş Publishing House, one of the major publishers in the country, agrees that publishing has reached the level of institutionalization, even if it cannot yet be called an industry. "The fact that it has not completed the process is a disadvantage. Pirate prints are a serious threat for the market. The biggest advantage of European or American publishers, for example, is that they are publishing to the world and selling their books everywhere," Eroğlu says, adding that they are trying to survive off the domestic market alone and that this blocks their growth.
The world publishing industry is like an enormous football game, with the main players being such countries as the US, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain, Nermin Mollaoğlu, from the Kalem Literary Agency, explains. "Sometimes a backup member from India or China plays, but that fashion fades away very quickly," she adds. However, she says Turkey's advantage is that it generally follows a very wide range of high-quality writers from both East and West without being much affected by fluctuations in "fashion."
Bestsellers in Turkey
When it comes to sales figures and bestsellers in Turkey, Mollaoğlu says there is a vacuum in the sector. "I don't trust any of the bestseller lists in Turkey. Internationally, bookstores prepare them according to the books they have sold most in a given week. If you ask most of the bookstores in Turkey how many books they sold today, they could not answer," she complains.
According to Akaş, one of the signs that publishing hasn't reached industry status in Turkey is the lack of dependable numbers. "The numbers we do have are usually of limited use and outline only the broadest trends. Big bookstores such as D&R, Remzi and İnkılap have their own bestseller lists, and online bookstores keep their own, but there are huge variations among them," he says, noting that they usually have to make do with a general sense of what is selling best at any given time and that pirate editions are usually a good indicator, even though they have been known to misjudge demand at times.
Eroğlu, on the other hand, argues that there are no real "trust issues" with the existing figures. The problem is that only a few bookstores participate in them. "In order to get more accurate numbers, a lot more bookstores should be included, together with Internet sales," she suggests.
Turkish literature goes international
Turkish literature has gained some international notoriety in recent years, particularly as a result of the selection of novelist Orhan Pamuk for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 and of Turkey as the guest of honor at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair. However, it is still very difficult for Turkish writers to get their work published in foreign languages.
"We have to have perfect translations, but the translation business is very expensive and requires a lot of effort," Eroğlu explains. But she adds that with hard work and sufficient investments of time and money, success can be achieved, as the Timaş Publishing House has seen in recent years.
In 2008 the Kalem Agency alone sold the copyrights to 153 Turkish books for publication in other languages, Mollaoğlu says. "Even this number is an indicator that the situation is going well. The Frankfurt Book Fair and the Nobel Prize are, of course, very important, but the most important part is to be prepared and to put in the effort," she stresses.
Another problem limiting the publication of Turkish books abroad is the preconceived notions of Western readers, Akaş says. "Compared to 10 or 20 years ago, many more Turkish writers are able to find an audience outside of Turkey's borders. Yet I do believe that the European audiences -- an American audience does not really exist for books in translation -- still behave like tourists shopping at the Grand Bazaar; they want souvenirs that are explicitly 'Turkish,'" he observes. "They are mainly interested in women novelists who write about sex, religion or ethnicity, because those are the issues that spring to their minds when they think of Turkey."
Advice for unpublished writers
Despite Turkey's recent spot on the international stage, the publishing sector in the country has been in a state of economic decline since 2004 at least, Akaş points out. "The recent global economic crisis is, for many, just another nail in the coffin. Publishing companies go under, printers fold, bookstores are closed down, no one can afford to take any risks with young writers or off-mainstream writing," he explains.
Akaş warns that the current situation in the sector does not offer much for writers hoping to publish their books for the first time. "I hate to say this, but this is the worst time for being a young, unpublished writer, and yet I have to say it because I have personally seen incredible talent forced to go to waste. One of the best manuscripts I have seen in 10 years, for example, has been rejected by nine publishing companies, and the 10th is probably on its way," he laments.
But for insistent writers, there are new options available. "We now have print-on-demand, a technology that allows writers to publish their own books in very small numbers for reasonable prices. For TL 350, for example, you can publish around 50 copies of your novel and send it to influential critics and hope that some of them will read it and perhaps one of them will put in a good word or two in one of the book reviews, so that you will have a basis to build on for your next book. Another way to go is self-publishing, of course, and this is what we at G Yayın Grubu do. That way, once you invest in your own work and meet all expenses, your book appears on bookshelves across the country, and you also receive all the revenue from sales," he explains.
Another way to increase the chances of getting published is to decide which publishing house is best for oneself. "This, of course, requires reading at least half of the published books of that particular publishing house," Mollaoğlu notes. Eroğlu, on the other hand, recommends that young writers first work to prove themselves in literary magazines.
Though it is not yet large enough to be called an industry in itself, the Turkish publishing sector has witnessed a number of major transformations over the last two decades, according to author and publisher Cem Akaş, from G Yayın Grubu (G Publishing Group). "Its structure and branches still do not function in an efficient and effective way, but things are nonetheless very different from, say, 1995. For one thing, Turkish publishers have gotten much better at keeping up with recent titles that get published in the United States, the UK, France and, to some degree, Germany and Italy. They have also become better at selling their writers abroad. This is thanks to the increased 'visibility' of Turkey, the increased activity of literary agents and, of course, Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize," he explains.
The number of writers going down the road of self-publishing has also increased considerably, Akaş notes. One form of publishing, what Akaş calls "institutional publishing," publishing by corporate conglomerates, particularly private banks, is now "past its heyday." He says, "It is still there, but it is not flourishing anymore."
"The Internet has been warmly embraced by a huge number of budding writers -- a lot is going on there," he continues, concluding, "The general trend is continuing with respect to the constant increase in new publishers, the constant increase in small publishing companies that go under and the constant decrease (as percent of population) in readership."
Emine Eroğlu, the head of the Timaş Publishing House, one of the major publishers in the country, agrees that publishing has reached the level of institutionalization, even if it cannot yet be called an industry. "The fact that it has not completed the process is a disadvantage. Pirate prints are a serious threat for the market. The biggest advantage of European or American publishers, for example, is that they are publishing to the world and selling their books everywhere," Eroğlu says, adding that they are trying to survive off the domestic market alone and that this blocks their growth.
The world publishing industry is like an enormous football game, with the main players being such countries as the US, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain, Nermin Mollaoğlu, from the Kalem Literary Agency, explains. "Sometimes a backup member from India or China plays, but that fashion fades away very quickly," she adds. However, she says Turkey's advantage is that it generally follows a very wide range of high-quality writers from both East and West without being much affected by fluctuations in "fashion."
Bestsellers in Turkey
When it comes to sales figures and bestsellers in Turkey, Mollaoğlu says there is a vacuum in the sector. "I don't trust any of the bestseller lists in Turkey. Internationally, bookstores prepare them according to the books they have sold most in a given week. If you ask most of the bookstores in Turkey how many books they sold today, they could not answer," she complains.
According to Akaş, one of the signs that publishing hasn't reached industry status in Turkey is the lack of dependable numbers. "The numbers we do have are usually of limited use and outline only the broadest trends. Big bookstores such as D&R, Remzi and İnkılap have their own bestseller lists, and online bookstores keep their own, but there are huge variations among them," he says, noting that they usually have to make do with a general sense of what is selling best at any given time and that pirate editions are usually a good indicator, even though they have been known to misjudge demand at times.
Eroğlu, on the other hand, argues that there are no real "trust issues" with the existing figures. The problem is that only a few bookstores participate in them. "In order to get more accurate numbers, a lot more bookstores should be included, together with Internet sales," she suggests.
Turkish literature goes international
Turkish literature has gained some international notoriety in recent years, particularly as a result of the selection of novelist Orhan Pamuk for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 and of Turkey as the guest of honor at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair. However, it is still very difficult for Turkish writers to get their work published in foreign languages.
"We have to have perfect translations, but the translation business is very expensive and requires a lot of effort," Eroğlu explains. But she adds that with hard work and sufficient investments of time and money, success can be achieved, as the Timaş Publishing House has seen in recent years.
In 2008 the Kalem Agency alone sold the copyrights to 153 Turkish books for publication in other languages, Mollaoğlu says. "Even this number is an indicator that the situation is going well. The Frankfurt Book Fair and the Nobel Prize are, of course, very important, but the most important part is to be prepared and to put in the effort," she stresses.
Another problem limiting the publication of Turkish books abroad is the preconceived notions of Western readers, Akaş says. "Compared to 10 or 20 years ago, many more Turkish writers are able to find an audience outside of Turkey's borders. Yet I do believe that the European audiences -- an American audience does not really exist for books in translation -- still behave like tourists shopping at the Grand Bazaar; they want souvenirs that are explicitly 'Turkish,'" he observes. "They are mainly interested in women novelists who write about sex, religion or ethnicity, because those are the issues that spring to their minds when they think of Turkey."
Advice for unpublished writers
Despite Turkey's recent spot on the international stage, the publishing sector in the country has been in a state of economic decline since 2004 at least, Akaş points out. "The recent global economic crisis is, for many, just another nail in the coffin. Publishing companies go under, printers fold, bookstores are closed down, no one can afford to take any risks with young writers or off-mainstream writing," he explains.
Akaş warns that the current situation in the sector does not offer much for writers hoping to publish their books for the first time. "I hate to say this, but this is the worst time for being a young, unpublished writer, and yet I have to say it because I have personally seen incredible talent forced to go to waste. One of the best manuscripts I have seen in 10 years, for example, has been rejected by nine publishing companies, and the 10th is probably on its way," he laments.
But for insistent writers, there are new options available. "We now have print-on-demand, a technology that allows writers to publish their own books in very small numbers for reasonable prices. For TL 350, for example, you can publish around 50 copies of your novel and send it to influential critics and hope that some of them will read it and perhaps one of them will put in a good word or two in one of the book reviews, so that you will have a basis to build on for your next book. Another way to go is self-publishing, of course, and this is what we at G Yayın Grubu do. That way, once you invest in your own work and meet all expenses, your book appears on bookshelves across the country, and you also receive all the revenue from sales," he explains.
Another way to increase the chances of getting published is to decide which publishing house is best for oneself. "This, of course, requires reading at least half of the published books of that particular publishing house," Mollaoğlu notes. Eroğlu, on the other hand, recommends that young writers first work to prove themselves in literary magazines.
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Reading Lohaidan in Riyadh: Media and the struggle for judicial power in Saudi Arabia
Along with a reported one in seven viewers across the Arab World, Saudis were glued to their television sets during 2008 watching a Turkish soap opera called Noor.[1] The show was dubbed into Levantine Arabic and broadcast three times daily during Ramadan by MBC, a pan-Arab satellite network owned by Walid al-Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of the late Saudi king Fahd bin Abdelaziz Al Saud. Starring an economically independent, unveiled female lead and her tender Casanova of a husband, Noor was so popular that it spurred a large number of Gulf Arab tourists to visit Turkey, including the Saudi first lady Princess Hissa Al-Shaalan, and its blonde and blue-eyed star Kivanc Tatlitu became a heart-throb for Saudi and other women. The drama had a particular grip on the public because, unusually, it was dubbed into colloquial rather than classical Arabic, and its Turkish milieu had a familiarity for Arab audiences that other foreign soaps lack.
The popularity of Noor prompted some Saudi ulama to warn that “secularism” was making its subversive way into Saudi society through the cathode ray. “It is not permitted to watch the Turkish series...They are replete with wickedness, evil, moral collapse and a war on virtues that only God knows the truth of,” Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, the official voice of the government on religious affairs, said in July.[2] In this context, public comments made last Ramadan by one of the most powerful Wahhabi clerics of all, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, head of Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Sharia courts, seemed calculated to create the perfect storm of media controversy. Speaking on a religious radio show, Lohaidan claimed that owners of television networks who broadcast “indecent programming” could be executed if tried for their celluloid crimes.[3] Pan-Arab, self-styled liberal outlets such as MBC’s al-Arabiya and Elaph, whose owners have strong connections to the royal family, breathlessly relayed the story with the implication that Lohaidan was inciting vigilante violence against media moguls. Western media, in turn, quickly picked up the story, eager to trumpet what they framed as simply yet another case of the whacky excesses of Saudi Arabia’s puritanical Wahhabi doctrine.
By one reading, the incident marks another episode in the debate over decency in the Islamic state and the limits of expression being conducted by Saudi Arabia’s conservative clerical establishment and the secular, modernist programming broadcast throughout the Middle East by “liberal” satellite channels and their well-connected owners. It is hardly the first time the liberals and the religious conservatives have locked horns. The ma‘rakat al-hadatha, or the “battle for modernity,” as it is often referred to, dates back to the 1980s, when literary critic Abdullah al-Ghaddami, Saudi Arabia’s leading intellectual, introduced the ideas of deconstructionism that had become de mode on Western university campuses to the ultra-conservative Saudi-Wahhabi state. In 2006, al-Qa‘ida leader Osama bin Laden singled out Saudi Labor Minister Ghazi al-Gosaibi, a poet and novelist, as representing a liberal “fifth column” corrupting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Beyond that Wahhabism has been struggling with elements of modernity for decades, objecting, for example, to the introduction of television and radio in the 1960s and telegraph in the 1920s.
Indeed, Lohaidan’s intervention is part of this wider historical tussle between the two institutions, the Wahhabi clerics and the Al Saud royal family, that give Saudi Arabia its form and substance – a struggle over their respective spheres of influence within the state structure. His controversial comments sprung from a dispute over the future of the judiciary as the traditional preserve of the clerics and the ability of the Wahhabi religious establishment to hold on to the extensive powers it has amassed, not least since the late 1970s.
A shock to the system
The September 11 attacks were the biggest international crisis the Saudi state had faced since the oil embargo of 1973, if not since the kingdom’s foundation. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi. They acted in the name of a group headed by a Saudi dissident, and they were all a product of the puritanical and xenophobic religious milieu of Saudi Arabia – though one could argue that the pro-Western policies of Saudi leaders was an equal if not greater factor in producing the mindset that led to the attacks. Revelations emerged in the weeks following 9/11 of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed system of funding of Islamic causes, charity and proselytism around the world being exploited to funnel money to al-Qa‘ida.
When George W. Bush declared his “axis of evil” in early 2002, many Saudis were relieved they had not been included. In an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Crown Prince Abdullah faced the question in February 2002 of why Saudi Arabia had not offered a clear apology to America for the atrocity.[4] As it became increasingly clear during 2002 that the Bush administration was set on invading Iraq, the Saudi regime and the business, tribal and religious elites huddled around it worried again that the real target in one way or another was Saudi Arabia. Would the invasion end at Iraq? And if it did in a military sense, the democratic experiment there could expand and create unwelcome pressures on the royal family. Further, word leaked from Washington that Pentagon analysts were bandying around ideas of decapitating Al Saud and chopping their ever-controversial state into pieces.
The Saudi response, masterminded by Crown Prince Abdullah despite resistance from his half-brothers Prince Nayef and Prince Sultan, according to diplomats in Riyadh, was to push forward with some modernizations that would gradually roll back the influence of the clerical establishment while not tampering with the fundamentals of the relationship between Al Saud and al-Wahhabiyyah, where the royal family controls state policy while Wahhabi clerics take charge of society – the duality at the heart of the Saudi-Wahhabi polity.
Saudi media have played a central role in this ongoing strategy. The Saudi press was given a green light to engage the liberal-conservative debate more forcefully and risk attacks on the religious police, the “committee for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice,” one of the citadels of clerical power which retained the support of Nayef and other powerful princes. Changes were also enacted in the education curriculum to water down the focus on religion and introduce compulsory English lessons at the primary school level. But the Interior Ministry was supportive of more state monitoring of clerics at Friday prayers once Saudis who had fought in Afghanistan opened a front inside Saudi Arabia itself in 2003. These changes reflected the fact that the now-dominant Saudi crown prince and his allies agreed with the Western analysis that the discourse of Wahhabi clerics needed disciplining and that smoothing the rougher edges of al-Wahhabiyyah was key to ensuring the family and their state’s survival.
Saudi Arabia’s project to recover its international standing after the debacle of September 11 also included opening its doors to the foreign press. The word went out that major news outlets were welcome in the kingdom, not just to send correspondents in for reporting stints, but to open offices. The foreigners may not like what they see, but the more familiar they make the West with Saudi society, the less likely that Western decision-makers would entertain ideas of changing the regime. It was a reaffirmation of the theory “better the devil you know,” and mirrored the policy which Washington and its allies have followed with Saudi Arabia for decades, rejecting the dissidents who emerged in London in the 1990s and fearing the Islamist base that produced the likes of bin Laden and his famed fifteen followers.[5]
But the opening to foreign media has moved at a snail’s pace. Though Reuters established an editorial operation in 2003, the death of a BBC cameraman and injury of a BBC reporter in a shooting incident during the mini-insurgency launched by al-Qa‘ida operatives in 2004 caused many media organizations to think twice. It was difficult to find journalists prepared to work in the kingdom and the costs were prohibitive in themselves. When CNN identified an able Saudi in 2006 to establish as their correspondent in the kingdom, they preferred to send him to Atlanta to train and make use of him abroad rather than have him set up an operation inside a country where red tape, invisible red lines and a suspicious mentality make the journalist’s work extremely difficult. To date there is no BBC or CNN office in Saudi Arabia, and the number one Arabic news outlet, al-Jazeera, spent years shut out of the country because its open editorial line gave no special consideration for Saudi Arabia and its self-described khususiyya (special characteristics). Al-Jazeera stopped reporting sensitive news about Saudi Arabia in 2007 following a rapprochement between its Qatari royal owners and Al Saud, and as a result the channel hopes to open an office in Riyadh soon.
Reading Lohaidan
With domestic media outlets polarized along the conservative-liberal divide, and foreign media still lacking a firm foothold in the country, Saudi Arabia remains far from being an open book. Perhaps no incident better illustrates this than the recent controversy over Sheikh Lohaidan’s statement on the owners of satellite networks. The sheikh often speaks on a radio show Noor ‘ala al-Darb (Light on the Path) on the state-run Qur’an Station, a weekly program where senior clerics offer fatwas, or religious opinions from a specialist in Islamic law, in response to questions from listeners or the presenter directly. In an edition that aired during Ramadan of 2008, the presenter asked Lohaidan what his advice was to the owners of Arab satellite channels that air “bad” programs generally, and even in the month of Ramadan (when comedy shows air after the sunset prayer as a captive audience settles down in front of the television after breaking the daylong fast). “I want to advise the owners of these channels that broadcast programs containing indecency and vulgarity and warn them of the consequences … They can be put to death through the judicial process (qada’an),” he said. “If the evil of those who promote corruption in belief and actions cannot be held back through lesser punishments, then they can be put to death through the judicial process.”[6]
The key phrase here was qada’an, through the judicial process. For Lohaidan there was no need for him to clarify this point further in his initial comments, since for the Saudi clerics the process is all there is; they could not conceive of a moral-criminal issue in any other fashion. In classic Sunni legal thinking, followed to the letter in Saudi Arabia, God’s justice is dispensed by His cleric-lieutenants on Earth who are to be found in Sharia courts ready to pass judgment based on the divine law. The Saudi ulama have the unique privilege in the Islamic world of presiding as judges in a Sharia court system – this is the very definition of the Islamic state in their eyes. But this did not prevent Saudi-owned “liberal” media from playing-up Lohaidan’s remarks because they fit their agenda of watering down the power of the Wahhabi ulama. Before long, the story was all over pan-Arab television networks such as MBC and its al-Arabiya news channel, owned by the brother-in-law of former King Fahd, and newspapers such as al-Watan, owned by Khaled al-Faisal, son of former King Faisal and nephew of King Abdullah.
Indeed, it was the Saudi-owned television channels that were directly under attack. The main entertainment channels on pan-Arab satellite TV showing the offending material are all Saudi-owned. The MBC network, which includes al-Arabiya news channel, is owned by a brother-in-law of the late King Fahd; Lebanon’s LBC and the music channel Rotana are owned by the entrepreneurial Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and the Orbit and ART networks are also owned by Saudi citizens. Their popularity far surpasses that of the staid state television channels that fit the orthodoxy of a religiously conservative society under the eyes of Sharia court judges. They also outdo in popularity the plethora of religious channels ranged against them, many of which were set up by the same royals or royal hangers-on (viz. Alwaleed’s al-Resala) or were themselves post-9/11 efforts to tame, redirect and channel Saudi religious zealotry (such as al-Majd).
Channels and websites such as al-Arabiya and Elaph ran headlines saying the fatwa “approved killing” satellite channel owners and gave the impression that Lohaidan was encouraging vigilantes to assassinate television chiefs. Western and other Arab outlets tended to take their cue from those reports.[7] Yet the implication was ridiculous; it was hardly as if Alwaleed, King Fahd’s sister, or her family, or the manager of al-Arabiya in Dubai were seriously worried about attacks to their person. The royals live in a world apart of palaces, servants, private planes and cruise ships on the French Riviera. No one could get near them if they tried.
The popularity of Noor prompted some Saudi ulama to warn that “secularism” was making its subversive way into Saudi society through the cathode ray. “It is not permitted to watch the Turkish series...They are replete with wickedness, evil, moral collapse and a war on virtues that only God knows the truth of,” Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, the official voice of the government on religious affairs, said in July.[2] In this context, public comments made last Ramadan by one of the most powerful Wahhabi clerics of all, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, head of Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Sharia courts, seemed calculated to create the perfect storm of media controversy. Speaking on a religious radio show, Lohaidan claimed that owners of television networks who broadcast “indecent programming” could be executed if tried for their celluloid crimes.[3] Pan-Arab, self-styled liberal outlets such as MBC’s al-Arabiya and Elaph, whose owners have strong connections to the royal family, breathlessly relayed the story with the implication that Lohaidan was inciting vigilante violence against media moguls. Western media, in turn, quickly picked up the story, eager to trumpet what they framed as simply yet another case of the whacky excesses of Saudi Arabia’s puritanical Wahhabi doctrine.
By one reading, the incident marks another episode in the debate over decency in the Islamic state and the limits of expression being conducted by Saudi Arabia’s conservative clerical establishment and the secular, modernist programming broadcast throughout the Middle East by “liberal” satellite channels and their well-connected owners. It is hardly the first time the liberals and the religious conservatives have locked horns. The ma‘rakat al-hadatha, or the “battle for modernity,” as it is often referred to, dates back to the 1980s, when literary critic Abdullah al-Ghaddami, Saudi Arabia’s leading intellectual, introduced the ideas of deconstructionism that had become de mode on Western university campuses to the ultra-conservative Saudi-Wahhabi state. In 2006, al-Qa‘ida leader Osama bin Laden singled out Saudi Labor Minister Ghazi al-Gosaibi, a poet and novelist, as representing a liberal “fifth column” corrupting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Beyond that Wahhabism has been struggling with elements of modernity for decades, objecting, for example, to the introduction of television and radio in the 1960s and telegraph in the 1920s.
Indeed, Lohaidan’s intervention is part of this wider historical tussle between the two institutions, the Wahhabi clerics and the Al Saud royal family, that give Saudi Arabia its form and substance – a struggle over their respective spheres of influence within the state structure. His controversial comments sprung from a dispute over the future of the judiciary as the traditional preserve of the clerics and the ability of the Wahhabi religious establishment to hold on to the extensive powers it has amassed, not least since the late 1970s.
A shock to the system
The September 11 attacks were the biggest international crisis the Saudi state had faced since the oil embargo of 1973, if not since the kingdom’s foundation. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi. They acted in the name of a group headed by a Saudi dissident, and they were all a product of the puritanical and xenophobic religious milieu of Saudi Arabia – though one could argue that the pro-Western policies of Saudi leaders was an equal if not greater factor in producing the mindset that led to the attacks. Revelations emerged in the weeks following 9/11 of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed system of funding of Islamic causes, charity and proselytism around the world being exploited to funnel money to al-Qa‘ida.
When George W. Bush declared his “axis of evil” in early 2002, many Saudis were relieved they had not been included. In an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Crown Prince Abdullah faced the question in February 2002 of why Saudi Arabia had not offered a clear apology to America for the atrocity.[4] As it became increasingly clear during 2002 that the Bush administration was set on invading Iraq, the Saudi regime and the business, tribal and religious elites huddled around it worried again that the real target in one way or another was Saudi Arabia. Would the invasion end at Iraq? And if it did in a military sense, the democratic experiment there could expand and create unwelcome pressures on the royal family. Further, word leaked from Washington that Pentagon analysts were bandying around ideas of decapitating Al Saud and chopping their ever-controversial state into pieces.
The Saudi response, masterminded by Crown Prince Abdullah despite resistance from his half-brothers Prince Nayef and Prince Sultan, according to diplomats in Riyadh, was to push forward with some modernizations that would gradually roll back the influence of the clerical establishment while not tampering with the fundamentals of the relationship between Al Saud and al-Wahhabiyyah, where the royal family controls state policy while Wahhabi clerics take charge of society – the duality at the heart of the Saudi-Wahhabi polity.
Saudi media have played a central role in this ongoing strategy. The Saudi press was given a green light to engage the liberal-conservative debate more forcefully and risk attacks on the religious police, the “committee for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice,” one of the citadels of clerical power which retained the support of Nayef and other powerful princes. Changes were also enacted in the education curriculum to water down the focus on religion and introduce compulsory English lessons at the primary school level. But the Interior Ministry was supportive of more state monitoring of clerics at Friday prayers once Saudis who had fought in Afghanistan opened a front inside Saudi Arabia itself in 2003. These changes reflected the fact that the now-dominant Saudi crown prince and his allies agreed with the Western analysis that the discourse of Wahhabi clerics needed disciplining and that smoothing the rougher edges of al-Wahhabiyyah was key to ensuring the family and their state’s survival.
Saudi Arabia’s project to recover its international standing after the debacle of September 11 also included opening its doors to the foreign press. The word went out that major news outlets were welcome in the kingdom, not just to send correspondents in for reporting stints, but to open offices. The foreigners may not like what they see, but the more familiar they make the West with Saudi society, the less likely that Western decision-makers would entertain ideas of changing the regime. It was a reaffirmation of the theory “better the devil you know,” and mirrored the policy which Washington and its allies have followed with Saudi Arabia for decades, rejecting the dissidents who emerged in London in the 1990s and fearing the Islamist base that produced the likes of bin Laden and his famed fifteen followers.[5]
But the opening to foreign media has moved at a snail’s pace. Though Reuters established an editorial operation in 2003, the death of a BBC cameraman and injury of a BBC reporter in a shooting incident during the mini-insurgency launched by al-Qa‘ida operatives in 2004 caused many media organizations to think twice. It was difficult to find journalists prepared to work in the kingdom and the costs were prohibitive in themselves. When CNN identified an able Saudi in 2006 to establish as their correspondent in the kingdom, they preferred to send him to Atlanta to train and make use of him abroad rather than have him set up an operation inside a country where red tape, invisible red lines and a suspicious mentality make the journalist’s work extremely difficult. To date there is no BBC or CNN office in Saudi Arabia, and the number one Arabic news outlet, al-Jazeera, spent years shut out of the country because its open editorial line gave no special consideration for Saudi Arabia and its self-described khususiyya (special characteristics). Al-Jazeera stopped reporting sensitive news about Saudi Arabia in 2007 following a rapprochement between its Qatari royal owners and Al Saud, and as a result the channel hopes to open an office in Riyadh soon.
Reading Lohaidan
With domestic media outlets polarized along the conservative-liberal divide, and foreign media still lacking a firm foothold in the country, Saudi Arabia remains far from being an open book. Perhaps no incident better illustrates this than the recent controversy over Sheikh Lohaidan’s statement on the owners of satellite networks. The sheikh often speaks on a radio show Noor ‘ala al-Darb (Light on the Path) on the state-run Qur’an Station, a weekly program where senior clerics offer fatwas, or religious opinions from a specialist in Islamic law, in response to questions from listeners or the presenter directly. In an edition that aired during Ramadan of 2008, the presenter asked Lohaidan what his advice was to the owners of Arab satellite channels that air “bad” programs generally, and even in the month of Ramadan (when comedy shows air after the sunset prayer as a captive audience settles down in front of the television after breaking the daylong fast). “I want to advise the owners of these channels that broadcast programs containing indecency and vulgarity and warn them of the consequences … They can be put to death through the judicial process (qada’an),” he said. “If the evil of those who promote corruption in belief and actions cannot be held back through lesser punishments, then they can be put to death through the judicial process.”[6]
The key phrase here was qada’an, through the judicial process. For Lohaidan there was no need for him to clarify this point further in his initial comments, since for the Saudi clerics the process is all there is; they could not conceive of a moral-criminal issue in any other fashion. In classic Sunni legal thinking, followed to the letter in Saudi Arabia, God’s justice is dispensed by His cleric-lieutenants on Earth who are to be found in Sharia courts ready to pass judgment based on the divine law. The Saudi ulama have the unique privilege in the Islamic world of presiding as judges in a Sharia court system – this is the very definition of the Islamic state in their eyes. But this did not prevent Saudi-owned “liberal” media from playing-up Lohaidan’s remarks because they fit their agenda of watering down the power of the Wahhabi ulama. Before long, the story was all over pan-Arab television networks such as MBC and its al-Arabiya news channel, owned by the brother-in-law of former King Fahd, and newspapers such as al-Watan, owned by Khaled al-Faisal, son of former King Faisal and nephew of King Abdullah.
Indeed, it was the Saudi-owned television channels that were directly under attack. The main entertainment channels on pan-Arab satellite TV showing the offending material are all Saudi-owned. The MBC network, which includes al-Arabiya news channel, is owned by a brother-in-law of the late King Fahd; Lebanon’s LBC and the music channel Rotana are owned by the entrepreneurial Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and the Orbit and ART networks are also owned by Saudi citizens. Their popularity far surpasses that of the staid state television channels that fit the orthodoxy of a religiously conservative society under the eyes of Sharia court judges. They also outdo in popularity the plethora of religious channels ranged against them, many of which were set up by the same royals or royal hangers-on (viz. Alwaleed’s al-Resala) or were themselves post-9/11 efforts to tame, redirect and channel Saudi religious zealotry (such as al-Majd).
Channels and websites such as al-Arabiya and Elaph ran headlines saying the fatwa “approved killing” satellite channel owners and gave the impression that Lohaidan was encouraging vigilantes to assassinate television chiefs. Western and other Arab outlets tended to take their cue from those reports.[7] Yet the implication was ridiculous; it was hardly as if Alwaleed, King Fahd’s sister, or her family, or the manager of al-Arabiya in Dubai were seriously worried about attacks to their person. The royals live in a world apart of palaces, servants, private planes and cruise ships on the French Riviera. No one could get near them if they tried.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Romance film sparks debate on taboos
RABAT // In anger she reties the headscarf over her hair and slips from his embrace.
“I’ll see you after Ramadan,” he says bitterly, as she reaches the door of his apartment. “Once you’ve escaped from that disguise.”
The lovers’ quarrel takes place in Amours Voilées (Veiled Loves), a new Moroccan film about a woman torn between her headscarf and the boyfriend who resents it.
Amours Voilées unleashed controversy even before it hit cinemas in January, the latest product of a film industry that is increasingly challenging taboos in a society struggling to balance tradition and modernity.
The story begins with Batoul, a 28-year-old doctor from Casablanca who has given up on love since the tragic death of a boyfriend. She spends her days at the hospital and her free time with a gaggle of female friends all seeking to attract a man.
One evening in a nightclub they meet Hamza, a raffish interior designer. Hamza can dance. He can cook. His eyes smoulder. His seduction of Batoul is swift and effective.
Their trysts are clandestine, their lovemaking passionate. As her family grows suspicious, Batoul dons a headscarf during Ramadan, which Hamza comes to accept grudgingly as the affair continues.
The depiction of this sort of behaviour has angered some religious conservatives.
Abdelbari Zemzmi, a parliamentarian from the Islamist Renaissance and Virtue Party, led the charge against Amours Voilées, calling on Moroccans to boycott the film and the government to ban it.
“This film doesn’t reflect reality, and gives Morocco a bad image,” he said. “Most girls don’t behave like that.”
Mr Zemzmi was joined by the Islamist opposition Justice and Development Party, whose secretary general, Abdelilah Benkirane, told the television station France 24 Amours Voilées slowed the spread of Islam and smacked of Zionism.
“I knew my film might provoke debate – so much the better,” said Aziz Salmy, who wrote and directed Amours Voilées. He maintains that some Moroccan women are conflicted over the headscarf, widely considered a requirement of Islamic dress.
“I’m showing women who are asking themselves questions,” Salmy said. “It’s in showing things as they are that we can evolve.”
The face of Moroccan society has changed radically since the country gained independence from its coloniser, France, in 1956.
In expanding modern cities, women have traded kitchen and headscarf for designer hairstyles and full-time careers. But a scratch beneath the surface reveals the traditional values of family, modesty and piety.
Recently, Moroccan filmmakers have begun shining a light on areas where those values break down – something the government increasingly accepts.
“Tackling taboos is a good thing,” said Mohammed M’ghazli, head of distribution at the Moroccan Cinematography Centre, an official body that decides which films may be produced in the country. “We need to talk about things that upset us in order to find answers.”
Authorities occasionally block films they deem too risqué, but had no qualms about Amours Voilées, Mr M’ghazli said.
The debate sparked by the film echoes controversy that erupted in 2006 over Marock, a teenage romance between a Muslim girl and a Jewish boy played out in the decadent world of Casablanca high society.
And Amours Voilées comes on the heels of Casanegra, which depicts the gritty underbelly of Morocco’s commercial hub, replete with violence and sexuality.
As filmmakers push boundaries, some elements of Moroccan society have leapt to their defence.
“Casanegra does not depict an amoral society, but rather a society that is not afraid to acknowledge its amoral side,” wrote Ahmed Benchemsi, editor of the leading magazine Tel Quel. “In other words, a society that is not afraid of itself.”
Amours Voilées, which closed last week, similarly portrays Morocco as it is, said Zouhair Mhaissar, 22, a university student who saw the film recently in Rabat. “It shows the contradictions between Islamic values and the needs of everyday life, especially sexual needs.”
“Islam says that covering one’s hair is obligatory, and I love my God,” said Mr Mhaissar’s friend, Rajaa Kada, 20, who saw the film with him and chooses to wear a headscarf. “But I have friends who only cover their hair because they’re under pressure from their parents.”
Around them, moviegoers are streaming from the cinema, where Amours Voilées has just ended with the break-up of Batoul and Hamza by the conflicting forces of social values and personal desire.
Disaster strikes when they bump into Batoul’s protective brother, Hicham, while out partying and flee in Hamza’s car. Hicham gives chase and is killed in the ensuing crash.
Batoul, grieving and pregnant, turns to Islam for solace and demands that Hamza marry her. He refuses. Batoul rejects him utterly, vowing to raise their child alone.
“I want people to leave the cinema with the idea that we should not judge others without knowing their motivations,” said Salmy.
“I think Batoul made the right decision in the end,” Ms Kada said. “I liked the film – but I wouldn’t see it with my parents.”
jthorne@thenational.ae
“I’ll see you after Ramadan,” he says bitterly, as she reaches the door of his apartment. “Once you’ve escaped from that disguise.”
The lovers’ quarrel takes place in Amours Voilées (Veiled Loves), a new Moroccan film about a woman torn between her headscarf and the boyfriend who resents it.
Amours Voilées unleashed controversy even before it hit cinemas in January, the latest product of a film industry that is increasingly challenging taboos in a society struggling to balance tradition and modernity.
The story begins with Batoul, a 28-year-old doctor from Casablanca who has given up on love since the tragic death of a boyfriend. She spends her days at the hospital and her free time with a gaggle of female friends all seeking to attract a man.
One evening in a nightclub they meet Hamza, a raffish interior designer. Hamza can dance. He can cook. His eyes smoulder. His seduction of Batoul is swift and effective.
Their trysts are clandestine, their lovemaking passionate. As her family grows suspicious, Batoul dons a headscarf during Ramadan, which Hamza comes to accept grudgingly as the affair continues.
The depiction of this sort of behaviour has angered some religious conservatives.
Abdelbari Zemzmi, a parliamentarian from the Islamist Renaissance and Virtue Party, led the charge against Amours Voilées, calling on Moroccans to boycott the film and the government to ban it.
“This film doesn’t reflect reality, and gives Morocco a bad image,” he said. “Most girls don’t behave like that.”
Mr Zemzmi was joined by the Islamist opposition Justice and Development Party, whose secretary general, Abdelilah Benkirane, told the television station France 24 Amours Voilées slowed the spread of Islam and smacked of Zionism.
“I knew my film might provoke debate – so much the better,” said Aziz Salmy, who wrote and directed Amours Voilées. He maintains that some Moroccan women are conflicted over the headscarf, widely considered a requirement of Islamic dress.
“I’m showing women who are asking themselves questions,” Salmy said. “It’s in showing things as they are that we can evolve.”
The face of Moroccan society has changed radically since the country gained independence from its coloniser, France, in 1956.
In expanding modern cities, women have traded kitchen and headscarf for designer hairstyles and full-time careers. But a scratch beneath the surface reveals the traditional values of family, modesty and piety.
Recently, Moroccan filmmakers have begun shining a light on areas where those values break down – something the government increasingly accepts.
“Tackling taboos is a good thing,” said Mohammed M’ghazli, head of distribution at the Moroccan Cinematography Centre, an official body that decides which films may be produced in the country. “We need to talk about things that upset us in order to find answers.”
Authorities occasionally block films they deem too risqué, but had no qualms about Amours Voilées, Mr M’ghazli said.
The debate sparked by the film echoes controversy that erupted in 2006 over Marock, a teenage romance between a Muslim girl and a Jewish boy played out in the decadent world of Casablanca high society.
And Amours Voilées comes on the heels of Casanegra, which depicts the gritty underbelly of Morocco’s commercial hub, replete with violence and sexuality.
As filmmakers push boundaries, some elements of Moroccan society have leapt to their defence.
“Casanegra does not depict an amoral society, but rather a society that is not afraid to acknowledge its amoral side,” wrote Ahmed Benchemsi, editor of the leading magazine Tel Quel. “In other words, a society that is not afraid of itself.”
Amours Voilées, which closed last week, similarly portrays Morocco as it is, said Zouhair Mhaissar, 22, a university student who saw the film recently in Rabat. “It shows the contradictions between Islamic values and the needs of everyday life, especially sexual needs.”
“Islam says that covering one’s hair is obligatory, and I love my God,” said Mr Mhaissar’s friend, Rajaa Kada, 20, who saw the film with him and chooses to wear a headscarf. “But I have friends who only cover their hair because they’re under pressure from their parents.”
Around them, moviegoers are streaming from the cinema, where Amours Voilées has just ended with the break-up of Batoul and Hamza by the conflicting forces of social values and personal desire.
Disaster strikes when they bump into Batoul’s protective brother, Hicham, while out partying and flee in Hamza’s car. Hicham gives chase and is killed in the ensuing crash.
Batoul, grieving and pregnant, turns to Islam for solace and demands that Hamza marry her. He refuses. Batoul rejects him utterly, vowing to raise their child alone.
“I want people to leave the cinema with the idea that we should not judge others without knowing their motivations,” said Salmy.
“I think Batoul made the right decision in the end,” Ms Kada said. “I liked the film – but I wouldn’t see it with my parents.”
jthorne@thenational.ae
'Hijabi Monologues': the women under the head scarves
The play examines a simple piece of clothing and the complex reactions to it in the U.S.
By Raja Abdulrahim
March 6, 2009
To get into character for a play she was doing in L.A., actress May Alhassen wrapped a black pashmina around her thick, dark hair and tied the loose ends into a bun at the back of her head. Then she stepped out onto the street.
She stopped for coffee at Starbucks. She purchased a binder at Office Depot. Everywhere she went, Alhassen felt self-conscious and a little on edge.
"I think the thing that surprised me the most was how angry and paranoid it made me: Are they looking at me because? Are they not looking at me because?" said Alhassen, 27, who does not normally wear the hijab. "It really gave me a chip on my shoulder."
ogues," a little-known play by three University of Chicago graduatesabout women who
Later that night, Alhassen drew on the wide range of emotions she experienced to help her slip into three characters in "Hijabi Monolwear the Muslim head scarf.
There is no central theme; rather, the play focuses on individual women and their stories. One monologue addresses the types of men who hit on hijabis, another tells the story of a mother who loses her son in a car accident. The one that draws the most reaction is about a teenager who gets pregnant -- a taboo subject in Muslim communities.
"Hijab is not the centerpiece," Alhassen said of the play, "it's the background."
The name "Hijabi Monologues" is a takeoff on the "Vagina Monologues," Eve Ensler's discourse on the mystique of female genitalia. But other than similar titles and formats, organizers like to say the "Hijabi Monologues" takes something so public and makes it personal whereas Ensler's play does the opposite.
The intent is to challenge notions about the women who wear the hijab, but not in a direct, I-am-hijabi, hear-me-roar kind of way. Instead it is a subtler presentation of simple stories about ordinary lives that are juxtaposed against more stereotypical narratives about such women -- as objects of mystery or oppression.
It is the unexpected but universal elements of these stories that convinced Dan Morrison in 2006 that they needed to be shared with a broader audience. His friends and fellow classmates in the University of Chicago Middle Eastern master's program, Sahar Ullah and Zeenat Rahman, would tell him about going to a college football game dressed in school colors and full niqaab (face covering) or having high school friends designate themselves as Ullah's hijab protectors.
"I think that's why it's so powerful, because it's taking something that is seen as very Muslim and going, well, wait, these aren't really Muslim stories," Morrison said. "They're human stories that everybody has experienced or will experience in their lives."
Morrison, Ullah and Rahman have written about 10 monologues -- some of them Ullah's personal stories and others borrowed from people they know or stories they've heard -- and are hoping that as they have more performances, they can collect more.
The grass-roots production has been staged at small venues fewer than a dozen times nationwide -- the first was in 2007 at an interfaith event at DePaul University in Chicago -- and once in Egypt. Its following is mostly word-of-mouth and through their Facebook site.
Performances are organized according to where a couple of the performers happen to be, and the group is still centered on the three creators and a handful of people -- organizers and performers -- allowed into the fold. The creators admit the project's growth has been slow, in part because of hectic schedules and also because of a fear of growing too quickly and losing sight of the original message.
But in recent months, a handful of amateur performers, including Alhassen, have started chapters in Los Angeles and Washington. A workshop was held at Georgetown University to recruit more performers, organizers and writers. There are plans for a national tour this summer or fall that would target community or religious venues where the group could recruit more members.
The most recent performance was held in late January in Los Angeles at the Lebanese restaurant Pi on Sunset Boulevard. It drew an audience of about 45, mostly women.
In one of the monologues Alhassen performed, she told the story of Leena Al-Arian, who threw on her hijab early one morning in 2003 when law enforcement agents came to arrest her father, Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor and a longtime Palestinian rights activist, and search their Tampa home.
"They took humanitarian awards, plaques my parents hung up on the wall," she said as Al-Arian. "They took cheesy Egyptian film operas my mother followed with a passion; they took virtually every shred of paper that contained Arabic writing; they took my father."
Standing before her audience, Alhassen's oversized earrings swung back and forth as her anger rose. She spoke of Leena's father but, in a separate interview, said she was thinking about what it would be like if this happened to her own parent.
That, the creators and performers believe, is the strength of the play: the familiar story lines and problems that allow audiences to connect with the characters as people and not religious figures. In November, at a performance in Chino at LionLike MindState, the monologue "I'm Tired," performed by Aisha Nouh, 24, resonated with the mostly black audience.
"Do you know what it's like to represent a billion human beings every day you walk out of your house?" Nouh asked as part of the monologue. "It's exhausting. . . . I'm tired of wanting to curse but don't every time some idiot . . . asks me and my friend when we're standing in line waiting for ice cream, 'Where ya'll from?' And when my friend responds, 'Miami,' he says, 'Listen, don't . . . with me.' "
Soon the group hopes to increase the number of performances. On its Facebook page, several people ask when the show will come to their cities: Pittsburgh, Miami, Houston, New York.
"A couple of contacts in Europe e-mailed us and asked us, 'Are you coming here?' " Rahman said.
There is talk of a possible spring performance in Abu Dhabi. It's that type of reach the group aspires to.
"In five years you go to a university and there's the 'Hijabi Monologues' club, and it's a movement and it's growing," Morrison said. "Everywhere we go people say, 'Man, you've got to go to rural America.' "
By Raja Abdulrahim
March 6, 2009
To get into character for a play she was doing in L.A., actress May Alhassen wrapped a black pashmina around her thick, dark hair and tied the loose ends into a bun at the back of her head. Then she stepped out onto the street.
She stopped for coffee at Starbucks. She purchased a binder at Office Depot. Everywhere she went, Alhassen felt self-conscious and a little on edge.
"I think the thing that surprised me the most was how angry and paranoid it made me: Are they looking at me because? Are they not looking at me because?" said Alhassen, 27, who does not normally wear the hijab. "It really gave me a chip on my shoulder."
ogues," a little-known play by three University of Chicago graduatesabout women who
Later that night, Alhassen drew on the wide range of emotions she experienced to help her slip into three characters in "Hijabi Monolwear the Muslim head scarf.
There is no central theme; rather, the play focuses on individual women and their stories. One monologue addresses the types of men who hit on hijabis, another tells the story of a mother who loses her son in a car accident. The one that draws the most reaction is about a teenager who gets pregnant -- a taboo subject in Muslim communities.
"Hijab is not the centerpiece," Alhassen said of the play, "it's the background."
The name "Hijabi Monologues" is a takeoff on the "Vagina Monologues," Eve Ensler's discourse on the mystique of female genitalia. But other than similar titles and formats, organizers like to say the "Hijabi Monologues" takes something so public and makes it personal whereas Ensler's play does the opposite.
The intent is to challenge notions about the women who wear the hijab, but not in a direct, I-am-hijabi, hear-me-roar kind of way. Instead it is a subtler presentation of simple stories about ordinary lives that are juxtaposed against more stereotypical narratives about such women -- as objects of mystery or oppression.
It is the unexpected but universal elements of these stories that convinced Dan Morrison in 2006 that they needed to be shared with a broader audience. His friends and fellow classmates in the University of Chicago Middle Eastern master's program, Sahar Ullah and Zeenat Rahman, would tell him about going to a college football game dressed in school colors and full niqaab (face covering) or having high school friends designate themselves as Ullah's hijab protectors.
"I think that's why it's so powerful, because it's taking something that is seen as very Muslim and going, well, wait, these aren't really Muslim stories," Morrison said. "They're human stories that everybody has experienced or will experience in their lives."
Morrison, Ullah and Rahman have written about 10 monologues -- some of them Ullah's personal stories and others borrowed from people they know or stories they've heard -- and are hoping that as they have more performances, they can collect more.
The grass-roots production has been staged at small venues fewer than a dozen times nationwide -- the first was in 2007 at an interfaith event at DePaul University in Chicago -- and once in Egypt. Its following is mostly word-of-mouth and through their Facebook site.
Performances are organized according to where a couple of the performers happen to be, and the group is still centered on the three creators and a handful of people -- organizers and performers -- allowed into the fold. The creators admit the project's growth has been slow, in part because of hectic schedules and also because of a fear of growing too quickly and losing sight of the original message.
But in recent months, a handful of amateur performers, including Alhassen, have started chapters in Los Angeles and Washington. A workshop was held at Georgetown University to recruit more performers, organizers and writers. There are plans for a national tour this summer or fall that would target community or religious venues where the group could recruit more members.
The most recent performance was held in late January in Los Angeles at the Lebanese restaurant Pi on Sunset Boulevard. It drew an audience of about 45, mostly women.
In one of the monologues Alhassen performed, she told the story of Leena Al-Arian, who threw on her hijab early one morning in 2003 when law enforcement agents came to arrest her father, Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor and a longtime Palestinian rights activist, and search their Tampa home.
"They took humanitarian awards, plaques my parents hung up on the wall," she said as Al-Arian. "They took cheesy Egyptian film operas my mother followed with a passion; they took virtually every shred of paper that contained Arabic writing; they took my father."
Standing before her audience, Alhassen's oversized earrings swung back and forth as her anger rose. She spoke of Leena's father but, in a separate interview, said she was thinking about what it would be like if this happened to her own parent.
That, the creators and performers believe, is the strength of the play: the familiar story lines and problems that allow audiences to connect with the characters as people and not religious figures. In November, at a performance in Chino at LionLike MindState, the monologue "I'm Tired," performed by Aisha Nouh, 24, resonated with the mostly black audience.
"Do you know what it's like to represent a billion human beings every day you walk out of your house?" Nouh asked as part of the monologue. "It's exhausting. . . . I'm tired of wanting to curse but don't every time some idiot . . . asks me and my friend when we're standing in line waiting for ice cream, 'Where ya'll from?' And when my friend responds, 'Miami,' he says, 'Listen, don't . . . with me.' "
Soon the group hopes to increase the number of performances. On its Facebook page, several people ask when the show will come to their cities: Pittsburgh, Miami, Houston, New York.
"A couple of contacts in Europe e-mailed us and asked us, 'Are you coming here?' " Rahman said.
There is talk of a possible spring performance in Abu Dhabi. It's that type of reach the group aspires to.
"In five years you go to a university and there's the 'Hijabi Monologues' club, and it's a movement and it's growing," Morrison said. "Everywhere we go people say, 'Man, you've got to go to rural America.' "
Monday, 9 March 2009
The rhyme and reason behind an Arab tradition
As I watched Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremony in January, I was particularly captivated by Elizabeth Alexander’s poem Praise Song for the Day, recited in honour of America’s first black president.
I was dismayed to learn later that the poem had minimal impact in America, where interest in poetry seems to be receding to the eccentric confines of academia and the literati.
For many of us in the Arab world, this diminishing stature of poetry in American public life is hard to accept, because it undermines a central pillar of our cherished heritage that continues to shape our cultural identity.
Throughout Arab history there is evidence that poetry was an institution in which individuals, groups, governments and leaders found immense fulfilment.
And nowhere in this region has enthusiasm for fostering poetry talents been as conspicuous as in the United Arab Emirates, where the promotion of nabati, traditional Bedouin poetry, is a key facet of the country’s cultural policies.
Last week was poetry week par excellence in the UAE, with an international poetry festival in Dubai, the launch of a poetry academy, the continuing popularity of a poetry-dedicated reality TV show in Abu Dhabi and the opening of a centre for popular poetry in Sharjah.
For many westerners it is perhaps hard to understand the sentimental attachment of Arabs to their poetry, both classical and modern, but a look back at the past shows that poetry was an outstanding feature of social life in pre-Islamic and classical Arab-Islamic times.
In the Arabian tradition, fluency was a central social virtue, and when combined with generosity, courage and honour, it added up to the perfect profile of Arabian chivalry.
Written in rhymed form, the Arabic qasida, or ode, often amounted to a binding policy statement for the poet himself or for the tribe or the leader on whose behalf it was composed.
I remember from high-school books the tragic story of Al Mutanabbi (915-965), that most eminent of Arab poets, who harnessed his genius to promote himself among rival political leaders. Al Mutanabbi, while travelling with his servant from Syria to Iraq on horseback, was intercepted by a band of criminals.
Gripped by panic, he contemplated fleeing into the dark mountains, until his servant reminded him: “Aren’t you the one who said, ‘I’m known to the horses, the night and the wilderness. I’m known to the sword, the spear, the paper and the plume’?” As he turned to face his enemies, Al Mutanabbi told his servant: “You got me killed!”
Of course, the important role of poetry in Arab life has continued in the postcolonial era with the increasing use of poems as tools of national integration, social mobilisation, cultural cohesion and even political dissent. Poets such as Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani and Ahmed Fouad Negm have inspired whole generations of Arabs.
As I was studying reaction on the internet to the recent Gaza conflict, I was amazed by hundreds of poetry postings glorifying Palestinians and vilifying Israelis.
Because poetry is the defining component of secular oral Arab traditions, UAE cultural policies that support it have two beneficial effects: they promote a core feature of the country’s national identity, namely the Arabic language, and they also encourage the continuity of our highly cherished values.
The Abu Dhabi Poetry Academy, an initiative by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, is already receiving applications for admission and has entered into academic partnership agreements with two of the UKs top universities.
The Million’s Poet and Prince of Poets television shows have captivated audiences across the region. The Dubai Poetry Festival, which brought together hundreds of poets from around the world, will surely be a valuable platform for popularising nabati, as will the Sharjah Center for Popular Poetry.
But while the power of the spoken word has always galvanised audiences, poetry faces new challenges in the age of the internet and satellite TV.
To preserve it as part of our national identity we must go beyond talent-hunting into the development of a mass culture that easily identifies with this oral communication tradition: in other words, we need not only to discover new talents, but also to cultivate a collective sense of appreciation of what those talents deliver.
And to achieve this, perhaps we should go beyond the media sphere. I see educational institutions as promising target arenas for a new poetry drive.
Muhammad Ayish is a professor of communications at the University of Sharjah
I was dismayed to learn later that the poem had minimal impact in America, where interest in poetry seems to be receding to the eccentric confines of academia and the literati.
For many of us in the Arab world, this diminishing stature of poetry in American public life is hard to accept, because it undermines a central pillar of our cherished heritage that continues to shape our cultural identity.
Throughout Arab history there is evidence that poetry was an institution in which individuals, groups, governments and leaders found immense fulfilment.
And nowhere in this region has enthusiasm for fostering poetry talents been as conspicuous as in the United Arab Emirates, where the promotion of nabati, traditional Bedouin poetry, is a key facet of the country’s cultural policies.
Last week was poetry week par excellence in the UAE, with an international poetry festival in Dubai, the launch of a poetry academy, the continuing popularity of a poetry-dedicated reality TV show in Abu Dhabi and the opening of a centre for popular poetry in Sharjah.
For many westerners it is perhaps hard to understand the sentimental attachment of Arabs to their poetry, both classical and modern, but a look back at the past shows that poetry was an outstanding feature of social life in pre-Islamic and classical Arab-Islamic times.
In the Arabian tradition, fluency was a central social virtue, and when combined with generosity, courage and honour, it added up to the perfect profile of Arabian chivalry.
Written in rhymed form, the Arabic qasida, or ode, often amounted to a binding policy statement for the poet himself or for the tribe or the leader on whose behalf it was composed.
I remember from high-school books the tragic story of Al Mutanabbi (915-965), that most eminent of Arab poets, who harnessed his genius to promote himself among rival political leaders. Al Mutanabbi, while travelling with his servant from Syria to Iraq on horseback, was intercepted by a band of criminals.
Gripped by panic, he contemplated fleeing into the dark mountains, until his servant reminded him: “Aren’t you the one who said, ‘I’m known to the horses, the night and the wilderness. I’m known to the sword, the spear, the paper and the plume’?” As he turned to face his enemies, Al Mutanabbi told his servant: “You got me killed!”
Of course, the important role of poetry in Arab life has continued in the postcolonial era with the increasing use of poems as tools of national integration, social mobilisation, cultural cohesion and even political dissent. Poets such as Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani and Ahmed Fouad Negm have inspired whole generations of Arabs.
As I was studying reaction on the internet to the recent Gaza conflict, I was amazed by hundreds of poetry postings glorifying Palestinians and vilifying Israelis.
Because poetry is the defining component of secular oral Arab traditions, UAE cultural policies that support it have two beneficial effects: they promote a core feature of the country’s national identity, namely the Arabic language, and they also encourage the continuity of our highly cherished values.
The Abu Dhabi Poetry Academy, an initiative by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, is already receiving applications for admission and has entered into academic partnership agreements with two of the UKs top universities.
The Million’s Poet and Prince of Poets television shows have captivated audiences across the region. The Dubai Poetry Festival, which brought together hundreds of poets from around the world, will surely be a valuable platform for popularising nabati, as will the Sharjah Center for Popular Poetry.
But while the power of the spoken word has always galvanised audiences, poetry faces new challenges in the age of the internet and satellite TV.
To preserve it as part of our national identity we must go beyond talent-hunting into the development of a mass culture that easily identifies with this oral communication tradition: in other words, we need not only to discover new talents, but also to cultivate a collective sense of appreciation of what those talents deliver.
And to achieve this, perhaps we should go beyond the media sphere. I see educational institutions as promising target arenas for a new poetry drive.
Muhammad Ayish is a professor of communications at the University of Sharjah
Saturday, 7 March 2009
What Arabia lost in translation
When the Muslim armies were on the move, defeating their enemies in battle and giving birth to a glorious and widespread empire, it was the translator who brought home the greatest prize.As warriors overran foreign cities, he entered the libraries of earlier civilisations and redrafted in Arabic the wisdom found there, allowing Islamic scholars to absorb the knowledge of thinkers who had gone before.
His work laid the foundation for a golden age, strengthening the Islamic empire and making Arabic the global language of the time.
In this medieval period, the activity of translation had two clear objectives: to enrich the Arab world with what the rest of the world had to offer; and to enrich the rest of the world with what the Arab world had to offer.
Consequently, centres of learning and splendour, unrivalled in their time, were created in Baghdad in the east and in Cordoba in the west.
Today this tradition of translation has faltered. Modern Arabic translation fails to fulfil either of those early objectives in any comprehensive way.
For historical reasons, both colonial and postcolonial, there exist difficulties that are hard to reconcile. Today there is a lack of social awareness about the importance of translation, while trained and competent translators are few and far between. In addition there appears to be little political will to promote translation across the Arab world.
Arabic translation receives neither the same attention nor encouragement as it does in Europe and America, nor does it enjoy the prestige bestowed upon its medieval ancestor.
The reason appears to be that translation is viewed as having no independent identity. Rather it is assigned a secondary status within language departments and seen as auxiliary to allied curricula.
There is very little documentation about training or the books translated. Available data show the meek state and status of Arabic translation. Shahada al Khouri reports in Translation: Past and Present (published in Arabic), for example, that between 1970 and 1980 the Arab states together translated only 2,840 books into Arabic.
That such a small number of books should be translated over a decade for a population of some 200 million people demonstrates the low esteem in which the discipline is held.
Furthermore, the great majority of these books were for university students and most, if not all, were reworked by university teachers not properly trained as translators but chosen because of their expertise in their field.
Often this approach sacrifices quality for a quick return. University teachers and publishers profit because students are required to buy textbooks, but those who carry out the translations have little training, knowledge or appreciation of the discipline’s ethics or its mission as a bridging activity between cultures and as a catalyst of progress.
During Al-Mamoun’s Caliphate (813-833), some 386 books on philosophy, mathematics and medicine were translated into Arabic.
This was achieved despite the fact that acquisition of these books and the production of the translations were hugely laborious and time-consuming activities.
One might wonder why some 22 Arab nations with all the advantages of modern technology at their disposal could only manage 2,840 translations between them.
This compares with Spain, which translates some 10,000 books a year into Spanish, and Brazil, which translates the same number into Portuguese every four years or so.
Translation, involving as it does processing, decision-making, problem-solving, and other creative activities, falls outside the mainstream practice of education in most Arab countries.
The problems facing translation and the training of people to carry out the work cannot, therefore, be effectively resolved until the problems of education in general are addressed and clear policies for Arabicisation and the social realities of the Arab world are drawn up with sense and sensibility.
What steps have been taken over the years to train translators are the results of ad hoc political decisions and the endeavours of well-intentioned individuals. But these measures have no pan-Arab ramifications.
If the situation regarding general translation is poor, when it comes to children’s literature it is absolutely dire. In the Arab world the translation of children’s books is almost non-existent.
Yasir Suleiman, a professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge and a trustee of the Abu Dhabi International Prize for Arab Fiction, known as the Arab Booker, comments on translation for Arab children in Translation, Representation and Identity in Intercultural Translation (which I edited). He says: “Even the most basic information is lacking on which empirically to base research, including a list of translated works into Arabic which would provide the necessary data for describing existing selection practice, and whether this practice is accidental, or fits into a rational policy or set of coherent policies.”
Translation for Arab children, like its adult counterpart, urgently requires a clear pan-Arab decision to extend the diversification of sources, which are currently mostly English or French. Programmes are also required to train translators in the nuances of children’s literature. One solution could be to establish a body, perhaps under the auspices of the Arab League, to oversee such translations.
In general terms, modern Arabic translation suffers from serious ailments. For it to regain some state and status, the following points need to be addressed seriously and urgently:
• The state of education, in general, and of Arabic and foreign languages, in particular, needs to be overhauled.
• The social status of translation needs to be improved.
• A large-scale and sustained push to publish and distribute native and translated books needs to be undertaken.
• An organised, state-sponsored and pan-Arab co-ordinated translation movement needs to be launched that can “imitate” medieval Arabic translation.
• Truly competent-cum-expert translators need to be trained and an open “shopping list” of source texts drawn up that covers all areas of knowledge.
• Clear policies need to be established for translation as a project of national importance and pride.
• Collective efforts and clear strategies need to be devised to deal with and hopefully solve the problems of terminology as well as other issues relating to machine translation, translation memory and language engineering systems.
• A strategic plan should be drawn up for the choice of texts for translation and pan-Arab shared databases of translation activities.
• And, of course, the provision of generous funding needs to be forthcoming.
The recently established translation organisations in the Gulf region, notably in the Emirates, are encouraging beacons for a renaissance of translation in the Arab world. Such organisations should be encouraged and “copied” in other Arab countries with a view to establishing networks of translation that can be linked together for the benefits of the Arab world.
The great cultural shifts of history have been made possible because of translation. Medieval Arabic translation is a clear case in point and today’s Arab world needs to re-enact that movement. Translation as a socio-cultural enterprise cannot be left to ad hocness. It should rather be at the centre of priorities as it remains the sure means of benefiting from and being contributing partners to knowledge in a rapidly globalised world.
Dr Said Faiq is a professor of Translation & Intercultural Studies at the American University of Sharjah. He is a Visiting Professor at Exeter University in Britain.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
The Bookseller of Kabul responds
Shah Muhammad Rais was depicted in “The Bookseller of Kabul” as Sultan Khan, a liberal intellectual in public but a tyrant in his own home. Rais’ anger and bewilderment at that portrayal are apparent in his literary rebuttal, published in Afghanistan in 2007.
An Afghan bookstore owner displeased with his portrayal in a bestseller based on him and his family has written his own book telling his angry, bewildered side of the story.
That would be the Bookseller's. The epic literary feud that erupted with the book's publication more than five years ago still endures -- at least from the perspective of Shah Muhammad Rais, who hated his depiction as Sultan Khan, a liberal intellectual in public but a tyrant in his own home.
The author is Asne Seierstad, a young Norwegian journalist who had come to Afghanistan in late 2001 to cover the fall of the Taliban government. On arriving here in the capital, she encountered Rais, the erudite, English-speaking proprietor of the battered city's best bookshop, which then had a branch in a half-ruined hotel where many journalists stayed.
Seierstad asked if she could live for a time with Rais and his family to document their domestic life as the country and its people emerged from five years of harsh Taliban rule. Without hesitation, he agreed.
The result: a memorable portrait of a man who had fought for freedom of expression in Afghanistan but oppressed and repressed the women of his own family. "The Bookseller" became a runaway bestseller, a book club favorite that was translated into more than 30 languages.
Rais says that Seierstad willfully misinterpreted almost everything she witnessed, failing to take into account deep-seated social customs and the traditional roles of men and women in Afghan society. Seierstad, for her part, has said in interviews over the years that she stands by everything she wrote, and that she could not have ignored the intimate cruelties that transpired before her eyes.
Her book opens with a searing account of the suffering of the bookseller's wife of 16 years when he brings home a second bride, a comely teenager: "Sharifa cried for 20 days. 'What have I done? Why are you dissatisfied with me?' . . . Sultan told her to pull herself together."
As "The Bookseller" became an international sensation, Rais -- a figure readily recognizable in Kabul, despite the name change in the book -- became increasingly furious. He prowled the city's bookstalls, buying and destroying any copy he could find. He pursued Seierstad to her homeland, threatening legal action and demanding retractions and apologies.
The vehemence of his accusations so unsettled the author, now in her late 30s, that she agreed to meet him only with her own father present, on the theory that he would demonstrate more respect for a man older than himself than he would for her alone.
More recently, Rais has come out with a literary riposte: a slim English-language volume that tells his side of the story. Stacks of the book, titled "Once Upon a Time There Was a Bookseller in Kabul," are displayed front and center in his downtown bookshop, which is crammed to the rafters with tomes on Sufi poetry and Mughal architecture.
"It is the only way I have to reply to all the things she said about me," said Rais, a soft-spoken, portly man who was nursing a toothache on a chilly day in January. The sound of clamorous Kabul traffic leached through the sleet-streaked windows.
Rais' book, published in Kabul in 2007 under the imprint of his Shah M. Book Co., is unlikely to garner the accolades of the original. In his telling, a pair of Norwegian trolls with magical powers appear to him and agree to hear his pleas for redress.
Despite the awkwardness of the conceit, the author's still-vivid anger and bewilderment give a sense of the powerful cultural dislocation that ensued when he met Seierstad.
He rails at what he considers her abuse of his hospitality, a sacred tenet in Afghan society. He insists that she misread the dynamics of Afghan family life, with its web of obligations and subsuming of individual happiness. He still chokes on a graphic description of his aged mother in a public bath -- a shaming violation of her womanhood, he said.
Seierstad has long since moved on. After leaving Afghanistan, she covered the war in Iraq and wrote another memoir, "A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal." Though critically well-received, it did not approach the blockbuster status of "The Bookseller of Kabul."
Rais, too, has embarked on a new chapter. His family is widely scattered now, his first wife and three children in Canada, the second wife and two other children in Oslo. Two grown sons help Rais run the business. "It's not a happy life," he said.
Although his demeanor is calm, the bitterness Rais feels toward Seierstad is echoed by his disillusionment with what he sees as scant progress in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban. After years of hardship that included jail, beatings and death threats during the Taliban era, the bookseller believes that the Western powers have squandered a chance to rebuild Afghan society.
"It's like when the computer freezes up," he said. "There is nothing to do now but reboot."
A suicide bombing nearby had shaken the building a few days earlier, but by Afghan standards, the bookshop appeared to be flourishing. Big price tags on high-end books in English, aimed mainly at a foreign audience, help subsidize schoolbooks for hundreds of students, Rais said. He sends a bookmobile to make the rounds of the many Afghan cities and towns that have no bookstore. Customers can order books on the website, which has been up and running for more than a year.
Rais acknowledged that "The Bookseller" brought him a measure of fame he would never have otherwise achieved. People who haven't read the book -- and occasionally, some who have -- will turn up with a copy for him to autograph. He always refuses.
"What happened was that she came to this country with a picture already in her mind, and put me and my family in the frame," he said of Seierstad. "It's like so much else that has happened here in Afghanistan. People from outside come here and think they understand things. But they don't."
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Shakespeare studied in Arabic
ABU DHABI // “The king’s name is a tower of strength”, the immortal words from Shakespeare’s tragedy Richard III, ring true in any language. And soon, university students here will be hearing them performed on stage for the first time in Arabic.
Students at two of the country’s biggest universities, Zayed University and the UAE University in Al Ain, are studying a translated version of the text in the run-up to the staging of an Arabic version of the play.
The initiative, launched by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach), may pave the way for Shakespeare’s works to be introduced permanently to university curriculums.
The official name of the text being taught is Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, by Sulayman al Bassam, a director and playwright from Kuwait. Mr al Bassam will also conduct drama workshops with the students.
Nezar Andary, assistant professor in humanities at Zayed University, has been teaching Mr al Bassam’s script to his drama students this week.
He said that while the language was difficult to deal with at first, it gave them an extra dimension of understanding.
“The translation is a mixture of fus-hah [classical] Arabic, colloquial Khaleeji dialect and some English. It wasn’t easy for everyone to handle. Some students appreciated it and some didn’t, some of those more immersed in Arabic culture helped me to understand it further. But in the end their knowledge of Shakespeare will be greatly enhanced by this play.”
Mr Andary said Richard III was one of Shakespeare’s most important plays in terms of language. King Richard’s soliloquies, which take up a large portion of the original script, were powerful, he said, and at times extremely manipulative.
“Richard III is a typical Machiavellian character whose language is very strong. He spends more than three quarters of the play on stage and in that time he persuades people to do things they don’t want to. For example, he seduces Lady Anne, a woman whose husband and father he has killed, and he sends one of his lords to kill his nephews.
“To understand the strength of his words in Arabic as well as in English allows the students to see the importance of the villain as a role not just in Shakespeare’s time but today,” Mr Andary explained.
He added that he put the play in historical context by teaching students about the War of the Roses in late 15th-century England. Mr al Bassam moved the action to an oil-rich feudal kingdom in his version, first performed in Stratford-upon Avon in 2007.
Richard III: An Arab Tragedy is not the first classical work to be translated for Arabic audiences. Last year Abu Dhabi Classics staged the first Arabic performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni and this weekend a translated version of The Marriage of Figaro will be presented in Al Ain.
Abdullah al Amri, director of the arts and culture department at Adach, said the latest collaboration with the universities would highlight the importance of drama education and the classical traditions of international theatre.
“Theatre should not only be entertainment, but also an educational formative experience, and an aspiration for higher thoughts and analysis of the universal human condition,” he said, adding that the Richard III production would help to promote contemporary Arabic theatre.
Mr Andary commented: “There are many traditional and avant-garde plays coming from within the UAE. In Sharjah, for example, in the next two weeks there is a theatre festival with many local shows.”
The translation of works should be “a two-way street”, he said. “If they translate Shakespeare to Arabic they should also translate Arab plays into English.”
Students at two of the country’s biggest universities, Zayed University and the UAE University in Al Ain, are studying a translated version of the text in the run-up to the staging of an Arabic version of the play.
The initiative, launched by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach), may pave the way for Shakespeare’s works to be introduced permanently to university curriculums.
The official name of the text being taught is Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, by Sulayman al Bassam, a director and playwright from Kuwait. Mr al Bassam will also conduct drama workshops with the students.
Nezar Andary, assistant professor in humanities at Zayed University, has been teaching Mr al Bassam’s script to his drama students this week.
He said that while the language was difficult to deal with at first, it gave them an extra dimension of understanding.
“The translation is a mixture of fus-hah [classical] Arabic, colloquial Khaleeji dialect and some English. It wasn’t easy for everyone to handle. Some students appreciated it and some didn’t, some of those more immersed in Arabic culture helped me to understand it further. But in the end their knowledge of Shakespeare will be greatly enhanced by this play.”
Mr Andary said Richard III was one of Shakespeare’s most important plays in terms of language. King Richard’s soliloquies, which take up a large portion of the original script, were powerful, he said, and at times extremely manipulative.
“Richard III is a typical Machiavellian character whose language is very strong. He spends more than three quarters of the play on stage and in that time he persuades people to do things they don’t want to. For example, he seduces Lady Anne, a woman whose husband and father he has killed, and he sends one of his lords to kill his nephews.
“To understand the strength of his words in Arabic as well as in English allows the students to see the importance of the villain as a role not just in Shakespeare’s time but today,” Mr Andary explained.
He added that he put the play in historical context by teaching students about the War of the Roses in late 15th-century England. Mr al Bassam moved the action to an oil-rich feudal kingdom in his version, first performed in Stratford-upon Avon in 2007.
Richard III: An Arab Tragedy is not the first classical work to be translated for Arabic audiences. Last year Abu Dhabi Classics staged the first Arabic performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni and this weekend a translated version of The Marriage of Figaro will be presented in Al Ain.
Abdullah al Amri, director of the arts and culture department at Adach, said the latest collaboration with the universities would highlight the importance of drama education and the classical traditions of international theatre.
“Theatre should not only be entertainment, but also an educational formative experience, and an aspiration for higher thoughts and analysis of the universal human condition,” he said, adding that the Richard III production would help to promote contemporary Arabic theatre.
Mr Andary commented: “There are many traditional and avant-garde plays coming from within the UAE. In Sharjah, for example, in the next two weeks there is a theatre festival with many local shows.”
The translation of works should be “a two-way street”, he said. “If they translate Shakespeare to Arabic they should also translate Arab plays into English.”
Thursday, 26 February 2009
CULTURAL HERITAGE IN GAZA DAMAGED AND IN GREAT DANGER
The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) deplores the loss of human lives and the destruction that has recently taken place in the Palestinian Territories and the State of Israel, in particular in the Gaza area, and the ongoing armed conflict that threatens to disrupt a fragile ceasefire. It is also extremely concerned by the threat that the present conflict could escalate still further.
ICBS, founded in 1996 'to work to protect the world's cultural heritage threatened by wars and natural disasters', now calls on all parties to be respectful of the cultural property in the region. In making this statement, ICBS takes no position on any other issue relating to conflicts in the region.There have been reports that two municipal libraries in Amoghazi and in Juhur-el-Deek were completely destroyed and that the libraries of the Islamic University and the Tal el-Hawa branch of the al-Aqsa University were severely damaged. Sadly we have to assume that civil records have been destroyed in the violence of the recent period.
In 1998, ten museums were registered in Gaza and on the West Bank, while this number
was reduced to five in 2002, and the number of visitors had decreased dramatically. In August 2008 the first archaeological museum in Gaza was opened, privately funded and with support of the Geneva Musée d’art et d’histoire. This private antiquities museum run by Gazan collector Jawdat Khoudary, has now been damaged. Furthermore, preliminary reports, still to be verified, of damage to cultural heritage sites, including excavated archaeological sites, are cause for alarm. Gaza is one of the richest crossroads of cultural history in the region, with many archaeological sites and historic buildings. The whole region has an exceptionally complex and rich cultural heritage and it is of greatest importance that all parties in the conflict take whatever precautions necessary to avoid destruction and damage to cultural heritage. The city of Gaza is thousands of years old and has been inhabited by all the important cultures in the region - Canaanite, Hebrew and/or Jewish, Greek-roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Crusader, Egyptian, Ottoman - leaving behind archaeological sites that are a dominating factor in the region. There are also many ancient mosques, churches, synagogues, a market hall, a caravanserai, the port of Anthidon, the end of the Incense route, as well as modern heritage which is also of great importance. Khan Younis is known for its well-preserved caravanserai. Rafah, Abasan al-Kabeera, Deir al-Balah and Ralia are ancient cities. The majority of destroyed buildings constitute the vernacular heritage that reflects the history of the daily life of ordinary people.
The clearing and rebuilding process that takes place as a result of armed conflict can often be hazardous. Interventions may take place without properly recording the damages to cultural heritage. Sufficient qualified staff required for such a task is often not available, etc. When the civil administration collapses cultural heritage, such as archaeological sites, is in great danger of being looted.
While ICBS is keenly aware that there are other compelling concerns at times of armed
conflict, not least the loss of human life, it wishes to stress that international humanitarian law also protects cultural property. It urges all parties concerned to be mindful of their responsibilities to respect the provisions of The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and its two Protocols, which calls on countries 'not to take any deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage' in the territory of other countries.
ICBS therefore calls on all parties to take the greatest possible care to protect the rich cultural heritage of the region, to refrain from using cultural property for military purposes or to shield military objectives and to take the necessary preventive measures to ensure that it is not damaged in any way during the present conflict.
Culture should be considered as a basic need and supported by International Organisations and Governments. Gaza needs its cultural heritage to strengthen its identity and unity.
On behalf of the Blue Shield Organization,
Julien Anfruns,
President
International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS)
Contact Information: secretariat@icom.museum
For more information please contact the Blue Shield Office
The Blue Shield is the protective emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention which is the basic international treaty formulating rules to protect cultural heritage during armed conflicts. The Blue Shield network consists of organizations dealing with museums, archives, audiovisual supports, libraries, as well as monuments and sites.
The International Committee of the Blue Shield, founded in 1996, comprises representatives of the five Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in this field:
- the International Council on Archives (www.ica.org),
- the International Council of Museums (www.icom.museum),
- the International Council on Monuments and Sites (www.icomos.org , and
- the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (www.ifla.org)
- the Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (www.ccaaa.org)
National Blue Shield Committees have been founded in a number of countries. The
Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS), recently founded in
December 2008, will coordinate and strengthen international efforts to protect cultural property at risk of destruction in armed conflicts or natural disasters. The ANCBS has its headquarters in The Hague.
ICBS, founded in 1996 'to work to protect the world's cultural heritage threatened by wars and natural disasters', now calls on all parties to be respectful of the cultural property in the region. In making this statement, ICBS takes no position on any other issue relating to conflicts in the region.There have been reports that two municipal libraries in Amoghazi and in Juhur-el-Deek were completely destroyed and that the libraries of the Islamic University and the Tal el-Hawa branch of the al-Aqsa University were severely damaged. Sadly we have to assume that civil records have been destroyed in the violence of the recent period.
In 1998, ten museums were registered in Gaza and on the West Bank, while this number
was reduced to five in 2002, and the number of visitors had decreased dramatically. In August 2008 the first archaeological museum in Gaza was opened, privately funded and with support of the Geneva Musée d’art et d’histoire. This private antiquities museum run by Gazan collector Jawdat Khoudary, has now been damaged. Furthermore, preliminary reports, still to be verified, of damage to cultural heritage sites, including excavated archaeological sites, are cause for alarm. Gaza is one of the richest crossroads of cultural history in the region, with many archaeological sites and historic buildings. The whole region has an exceptionally complex and rich cultural heritage and it is of greatest importance that all parties in the conflict take whatever precautions necessary to avoid destruction and damage to cultural heritage. The city of Gaza is thousands of years old and has been inhabited by all the important cultures in the region - Canaanite, Hebrew and/or Jewish, Greek-roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Crusader, Egyptian, Ottoman - leaving behind archaeological sites that are a dominating factor in the region. There are also many ancient mosques, churches, synagogues, a market hall, a caravanserai, the port of Anthidon, the end of the Incense route, as well as modern heritage which is also of great importance. Khan Younis is known for its well-preserved caravanserai. Rafah, Abasan al-Kabeera, Deir al-Balah and Ralia are ancient cities. The majority of destroyed buildings constitute the vernacular heritage that reflects the history of the daily life of ordinary people.
The clearing and rebuilding process that takes place as a result of armed conflict can often be hazardous. Interventions may take place without properly recording the damages to cultural heritage. Sufficient qualified staff required for such a task is often not available, etc. When the civil administration collapses cultural heritage, such as archaeological sites, is in great danger of being looted.
While ICBS is keenly aware that there are other compelling concerns at times of armed
conflict, not least the loss of human life, it wishes to stress that international humanitarian law also protects cultural property. It urges all parties concerned to be mindful of their responsibilities to respect the provisions of The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and its two Protocols, which calls on countries 'not to take any deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage' in the territory of other countries.
ICBS therefore calls on all parties to take the greatest possible care to protect the rich cultural heritage of the region, to refrain from using cultural property for military purposes or to shield military objectives and to take the necessary preventive measures to ensure that it is not damaged in any way during the present conflict.
Culture should be considered as a basic need and supported by International Organisations and Governments. Gaza needs its cultural heritage to strengthen its identity and unity.
On behalf of the Blue Shield Organization,
Julien Anfruns,
President
International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS)
Contact Information: secretariat@icom.museum
For more information please contact the Blue Shield Office
The Blue Shield is the protective emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention which is the basic international treaty formulating rules to protect cultural heritage during armed conflicts. The Blue Shield network consists of organizations dealing with museums, archives, audiovisual supports, libraries, as well as monuments and sites.
The International Committee of the Blue Shield, founded in 1996, comprises representatives of the five Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in this field:
- the International Council on Archives (www.ica.org),
- the International Council of Museums (www.icom.museum),
- the International Council on Monuments and Sites (www.icomos.org , and
- the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (www.ifla.org)
- the Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (www.ccaaa.org)
National Blue Shield Committees have been founded in a number of countries. The
Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS), recently founded in
December 2008, will coordinate and strengthen international efforts to protect cultural property at risk of destruction in armed conflicts or natural disasters. The ANCBS has its headquarters in The Hague.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
