british arabs and the 6 may general and local elections

Arab engagement in the British general and local elections

by
Susannah Tarbush
[Arabic version published in Al-Hayat on 26 April 2010]

Despite the growing presence of Arabs in Britain, their participation within the mainstream political system, whether as activists or candidates, has not been very apparent.

Now, in the general election to be held on 6 May, there is the very real prospect that for the first time ever a candidate of Arab origin will be elected as an MP in the British Parliament. He is 30-year-old Bassam Mahfouz [pictured above], who is standing as the Labour candidate for the West London seat of Ealing Central and Acton.

Mahfouz says that if he is elected he will help integrate Lebanese and other Arabs in Britain into political life. He wants “to ensure that an Arab voice is heard in the British Parliament.”

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), told Al-Hayat: “Year by year British Arabs are getting more involved, more committed and above all more influential in British politics. It is a slow process but having Arab candidates such as Bassam Mahfouz in winnable seats is terrific.

Doyle adds: “CAABU will be aiming to build on this and remind all our British Arab friends that they too could do this and make a difference. The talent is there. We just have to make it count.”

Al-Hayat recently highlighted (in an article of 30 March) the fact that Iraqi-born Kurdish businessman Nadhim Zahawi is almost certain to be elected as the Conservative MP for the English town of Stratford-on-Avon, birthplace of playwright William Shakespeare.

Another candidate of Iraqi origin standing in the general election is Anood al-Samerai [pictured], who is the Liberal Democrat candidate in the constituency of Ilford South in north-east London. Al-Samerai lived in Kuwait until the age of 10 with her British mother and Iraqi father, then moved to London as a result of the first Gulf war of 1991.

Al-Samerai has served as an elected councillor in the London Borough of Southwark, and since 2004 she has managed the constituency office of the Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes.

It is probable that Ilford South will be retained for Labour by Mike Gapes, who has been the Labour MP there since 1992. In the 2005 general election he was re-elected with a nearly 50 per cent share of the vote. The Liberal Democrats were in third place with only a fifth of the votes.

The Liberal Democrat Party was the only one of the main three parties to vote against the invasion of Iraq. Its policy on this and on the Israel-Palestine conflict is in tune with many Arab and other voters.

The Liberal Democrat Party is usually some way behind the two main parties, Labour and Conservative, in general elections results, but it is of increased importance in this election given that it is probable that there will be a “hung parliament” with no one party having the overall majority. The party’s position in opinion polls soared after the excellent performance of its leader Nick Clegg in the first-ever televised debate between the three main party leaders.

There is little accurate information about the Arabs in Britain, which is one reason they are relatively “invisible”. There has been much government emphasis on encouraging the engagement of British Muslims in mainstream politics since, and the Arab identity tends to be submerged within this larger category.

Obviously the overall category “British Muslim” does include many of Arab origin. But the Arabs have an identity distinct from the bulk of British Muslims. By far the majority of British Muslims come from the Indian sub-continent countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. There are cultural and social differences between them and the Arabs. British Arabs tend to be secular minded, and there are many Christians among them.

Since 1997 four Muslim MPs have been elected, none of them of Arab origin. And from 1998 several Muslims have been appointed to the House of Lords – but there is still no Arab Lord in the House.

Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi [pictured] , the co-founder and chairman of London-based Arab Media Watch, thinks Arab political participation will improve after the 2011 census when for the first time the census questionnaire’s section on ethnicity will include the category “Arab” as a choice. Previously, Arabs were included only within the broad term of “Other”.

The 2011 census “will help greatly in terms of community development” Nashashibi says. He points out that there is much uncertainty over the number of Arabs in Britain: some estimates put the figure at half a million while other estimates are considerably higher.

The census will make it possible for the first time to have a picture of the number and distribution of Arabs in parliamentary constituencies, and in boroughs. This will aid in the targeting of Arab voters, and in their voting choices, giving them greater voting power.

Despite the apparent lack of Arab participation in the mainstream political process, in reality a growing number of British Arabs have become active in local democracy, campaigning for parties and standing as candidates.

One pioneer of Arab involvement in British local democracy is the Palestinian-Armenian businessman Ghassan Karian, who in 2002 became the first Arab in Britain to be elected as a mayor.
Born in Beirut, Karian came to London at the age of eight. His father, the well-known cartoonist George Karian, had been the cartoonist of Al-Hayat newspaper in Beirut, and in London George worked for Ash-Sharq al-Awsat.

Ghassan Karian was first elected as a Labour councillor in the West London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in 1994, at the age of only 21, and he served as a councillor for 12 years. In 2002 his fellow councillors elected him as mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Karian recognises that there is some overlap between the Arabs and Muslim communities, but says “there is a distinctive Arab voice that needs to be heard”.

On 6 May, the day of the general election, local elections will be held for councils in the 32 boroughs of London, and in some other parts of Britain. Each London borough is divided into areas called “wards”, and each ward elects three councillors to represent it on the borough council.

The Arab candidates include Atallah Said [pictured] who was born in Palestine in 1947 and grew up in Beirut and Qatar. He is standing as a Labour candidate in the ward of East Acton in the Borough of Ealing. There is clearly a big potential Arab vote in Ealing, and Said thinks there may be as many as 3,000 Arabs in his ward alone. But he says the problem is to get Arabs to actually go and vote. He stood in the 2006 local elections, and lost by only 50 votes.

Said joined the Labour Party in 1997, and in 2000 founded the Arab Labour Group in 2000, and is also the founder of the British Arabs Association which was launched in May last year at a reception attended by Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

The British Arabs Association recently held a reception in the Priory Community Centre in Acton attended by more than 200 people including Bassam Mahfouz and some of the Arab candidates in the local elections, as well as Arab ambassadors, and Andrew Slaughter, the outgoing Labour MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush. Slaughter is now standing for the Hammersmith seat.

The Colville ward of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London includes part of Portobello Road with its famous street market, and is near the largest Moroccan community in Britain. The ward’s three Labour candidates [pictured] include Amir Akrif, whose father is originally from Algeria but moved to Morocco during the war of independence before coming to Britain.

Akhrif studied at the London School of Economics, and worked for several years for the outgoing local Labour MP Karen Buck. He is the trustee on two youth charities in the area, and says his main political interests are housing, child deprivation and education.

The other two Labour candidates are Beinazir Lasharie and Dez O’Neill. Beinazir’s father Mushtaq was a supporter of the former Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and named his daughter after Bhutto’s daughter Benazir.

Akhrif is not the only candidate of Algerian origin to be standing in Colville ward. Samia Bentayeb [pictured with fellow candidates], who has lived in the UK for 17 years, is among the three Conservative candidates. While deeply involved in work with the local community, Bentayeb keeps closely in touch with her Algerian roots for example advising British companies visiting Algeria. She has also written a book on Algeria.

It is still so unusual for a Briton originally from an Arab country to be elected as a councillor that when they succeed this becomes news. This was the case when in 2006 Mouna Hamitouche became the first Algerian-born person to be elected as a councillor in the UK. She was elected as a Labour councillor in the north London borough of Islington, and is hoping to keep her seat in the forthcoming election. When Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika visited Britain in June 2006, Hamitouche was invited to meet him at the House of Commons, in recognition of her achievement in being elected. [picture shows Hamitouche with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his wife Sarah, and the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, Emily Thornberry].

Several Britons of Moroccan origin are standing in the local elections. Abdeslam El Idrissi El Amrani is standing for Labour in the ward of Catford South in the borough of Lewisham in south-east London. El Amrani has since 1983 been the director of trade services at the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce

Amrani joined the Labour Party in 1994, attracted by the ideas of New Labour under its then new leader Tony Blair. He served as a councillor in Lewisham from 1998 to 2006, when he lost his seat. He has been active in Labour politics in numerous ways, having been for example the treasurer of the local party, and was once shortlisted as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Kensington and Chelsea.

Another Labour candidate of Moroccan background is Aicha Less, who joined the Labour Party 14 years ago. She is standing in the Little Venice ward of the borough of Westminster, a ward which is part of London’s Arab area around Edgware Road. Less was born in London and grew up in the Little Venice area. Her Arabic language is particularly useful to her in communicating with the area’s many Arab and Kurdish residents.

Another Moroccan, Fatima Mourad, is standing for the Conservatives in the Westminster Borough ward of Church Street around Edgware Road. Until recently Mourad was a Labour voter but she says she is “now proud to call myself a Conservative”.

There is much social deprivation and problems of drug abuse and prostitution in the area. Mourad works for Al-Hasaninya, a support group for Moroccan women and says: “Young mums tell me they can’t afford to work because, after tax, they will take home less than their [social security] benefits.” She asserts that “life for many of the poorest in Westminster North has got worse over the last 13 years of Labour Government.”

The candidates standing against Mourad include Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Gharib Abdel-Hamid, a candidate for Labour. Abdel-Hamid has lived in Britain since 1973 and is the founder and chair of the Anglo Egyptian Society, a charity based in Harrow Road which provides legal and other services to the Arabic-speaking community and others.

The Somalis in Britain are a fast growing group, and are said to be Britain’s largest refugee community. Somali community leaders are making efforts to integrate the community in British society and politics. Abdiwali Mohamud joined the Liberal Democrats ten years ago and is standing for the party in the Kentish Town ward of the borough of Camden in central and north London.

Asked why he chose the Liberal Democrats, he declares: “I am Somali, I am Arab, I am a Muslim – so I cannot be Labour, as I am against the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.” He adds: “I believe in the politics of liberalism and am a staunch believer in human rights.” He sees things the Liberal Democrats as upholding values that “have been eroded in new Labour.”

Mohamud says 17 Somali candidates are standing in the local elections. Eight of them met recently in the studios of the Somali TV channel Universal TV for a televised discussion with an audience

The Somali candidates include Awale Olad, the former chair of Somali Youth Development and Resource Centre (SYDRC) who is standing for Labour in the in Holborn and Covent Garden ward of Camden. In the impoverished borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, where many Somalis live, Somali woman Asha Affi is standing for the Respect Party in East India and Lansbury ward.

Bassam Mahfouz
Will Bassam Mahfouz [pictured below at a recent meeting of candidates organised by West London Palestine Solidarity Campaign] succeed in the 6 May general election in becoming the first-ever Briton of Arab origin to win a seat in the British parliament? The answer partly depends on whether, and how, the many Lebanese, Arab and Muslim voters in his constituency of Ealing Central and Acton in West London use their vote.

The seat is one of the closest “three way marginals” in Britain, in which the three main parties are almost equal in support. This makes it all the more important for those Lebanese, Arab and other voters who support Mahfouz to make the effort to go and vote.

Bassam has lived in Ealing for 25 years. His father Hafez Mahfouz, who originates from Marjayoun, is the managing editor of Al-Hawadess magazine. His late mother Enaam, who passed away from cancer five years ago, was a teacher of English and Arabic who opened her own Saturday school in West London.

Mahfouz spent his earliest years in Kuwait, where his father worked for Dar Assayed. The family came to live in London when he was four. He is married and has a baby son, Alexander.

Mahfouz was interested in politics from a young age, and it was the desire to help people and make a difference that led him to join the Labour Party at the age of only 17. He became involved in local campaigns, while keeping an interest in national and international issues.
Three years ago, in competition with 50 other contestants, he was selected by the Labour Party as the official candidate for Ealing Central and Acton. His candidacy offers Arabs in Britain the first real opportunity to elect the first British MP of Arab origin, and Mahfouz says it “has enthused many who have previously disengaged in the political process to become involved.” Many young Arabs and Lebanese “have found out about my campaign and become encouraged to get involved.”

As a senior Ealing councillor Mahfouz has been heavily involved in local campaigns, and has served as the council’s Shadow Cabinet member for Environment, Climate Change & Transport. He has also been a strong advocate of the Lebanese and Arab cause, for example speaking out and meeting the then Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006.

He has also spoken out against the atrocities in Palestine, supporting the aims of, and speaking at meetings of, organisations such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Council for Arab British Understanding (CAABU).

Mahfouz says: “Coming from Marjayoun, I know first hand what Israeli occupation means and that we as Arabs, a free and intelligent people, will never stand for such atrocities.”
He recalls: “Watching the massacre at Qana in 1996 had a profound effect on my wanting to get involved in politics to ensure I could do whatever was in my power to make sure history did not repeat itself. I joined the million other people who marched against going to war in Iraq.”

Mahfouz adds: “I see many Arabs are passionate about politics, mainly that of the Middle East, and become involved when they see injustice... we need to turn that into real political involvement, and as an Arab MP in Westminster I could act as a focal point to encourage further integration in Britain’s political system.”

Mahfouz knows that Arabs also have concerns about many local issues, and says: “When I speak to them about politics, it is often about the key issues at stake in the forthcoming election: securing the economic recovery, and supporting a good education and world-class national health system (NHS) for all, as well as tackling crime with more police on the streets.” In addition, “policies such as protecting our aid budget will mean a real difference to the people living in areas such as Palestine.”

Regarding the Lebanese he says: “Everywhere around the world, Lebanese are known for having great restaurants, and for being great businessmen and excellent doctors. We are highly integrated in society, but the passion we have for politics is one area into which we yet have to be integrated. I want to change that, and to ensure the Arab voice is heard in the British parliament.”

beirut39 launched in beirut & london

39 Arab authors spread their literary wings
by Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette, 19 April 2010

In her preface to the newly-published anthology “Beirut39: New Writing from the Arab World” the acclaimed Lebanese novelist Hanan Al-Shaykh, whose first novel was published 40 years ago, praises the new generation of Arab writers.

“They have flung open the doors on Arab culture, inviting the reader to transcend cultural boundaries and land in a region known as the ‘Arab World’” writes Al-Shaykh. “The reader touches, feels, hears, tastes and sees the Middle East and North Africa as it really is: cosmopolitan cities, villages, towns, desolate mountains and deserts.”
The anthology features the work of the 39 Arab writers aged 39 or less who were chosen from more than 480 entrants by the Beirut39 panel of judges last October. The judges were chaired by Egyptian critic Gaber Asfour, Omani poet Saif al-Rahbi and two Lebanese literary figures – poet and critic Abdo Wazen, and novelist Alawiya Sobh.
A program of events held in Beirut and London last week marked the launch of the Arabic and English editions of the anthology, published by Bloomsbury Publishing of London in collaboration with the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts.
Beirut39 authors traveled to the Lebanese capital for four days of events starting with the presentation of awards at a ceremony in Casino du Liban. The writers took part in multiple literary conversations at venues dotted around the city. But two Palestinian authors, Ala Hlehel and Adania Shibli, had problems with the Israeli authorities over travelling to Lebanon. Even though the Israeli Supreme Court defied the government in agreeing to Hlehel’s request for permission to travel, the Lebanese authorities hesitated over giving permission for entry. The two authors were instead showcased at a series of events in London, including International PEN’s Free the Word Festival.
Beirut39 is a project of the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts which began in 1988 in the Welsh border town of Hay-on-Wye, famed for its numerous second-hand and specialist book shops.
The festival is constantly widening its international scope: Beirut39 follows Hay’s Bogota39 project which in 2007 identified 39 leading Latin American writers under 40. As in the case of Bogota, the Beirut39 project celebrated the designation of the city by UNESCO as World Book Capital for a year.
The anthology is edited by Iraqi author and journalist Samuel Shimon, the co-founder and deputy editor of Banipal, the London-based magazine of new Arab writing in English translation. He worked closely with the 39 authors, who live in 20 cities in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the USA, to select the pieces that would best represent their work. As well as being a sampler of the 39 writers’ work, the anthology is a testament to the translation skills of the team of 24 translators, some long established, others relatively new.
The Beirut39 writers include three Saudis: Abulllah Thabit, born in Abha in 1977; Mohammad Hassan Alwan [pictured] born in 1979; and Yahya Amqassim born in 1971. The anthology includes an extract of Thabit’s novel “The Twentieth Terrorist” translated by Peter Clark.
Also included is Alwan’s tender story “Haneef from Glasgow” about the friendship between a young Saudi man and his family’s Kashmiri former servant. The story was translated by Anthony Calderbank, deputy director of the British Council in Riyadh. Calderbank also translated a section of Amqassim’s novel “Raven’s Leg”.
In his introduction to the anthology Abdo Wazen says that the new generation of Arab writers is brought together by “their tone of protest and their rebellions against traditional literary culture.” The boundaries between the literatures of different Arab countries are breaking down, and “a youthful pan-Arab literary movement currently dominates.”
These young writers want to write as they speak - absolutely spontaneously. But sticklers for the rules of language may be uncomfortable with Abdo Wazen’s observation that the writers believe the new information age “does not leave them with enough time to decipher the mysteries of grammar and rhetoric.”
They are not afraid to make grammatical errors; some intentionally do not finish sentences, while others are fond of slang, street talk and dialect.
At a press conference held at the Free World Centre in London to launch the English edition of the anthology , and to introduce Hlehel and Shibli to the media, Hay Festival director Peter Florence outlined his hopes for the Beirut39 project over the next decade. He drew parallels with Bogota39, which has helped put young Latin American writers on the world literary map.
Florence said: “I am hoping that this group of 39 writers from the Arab world will become as familiar to us as European or American writers are in Britain.” From reading their work in translation he reckons “they are all at least as good as anybody I know of the same generation writing in English, French or Spanish.”
He plans to encourage Beirut 39 writers to participate in festivals around the world, thus bringing them new readerships. He believes that the most important way one can learn about another culture is through “the simple, intimate, sometimes domestic concerns of writers who have absolute freedom of imagination in their own heads... the more we learn about the Arab world, the more we meet these writers, the more we begin to understand stuff that we really don’t know.”
Bill Swainson, Bloomsbury Senior Commissioning editor, said the publisher will be trying to find foreign language publishers for the anthology in territories such as Spain, France, Holland and Germany. The American arm of Bloomsbury will publish the anthology in the USA later this year.
The Hay Festival - from May 27 to June 6 - will bring to Hay-on-Wye six Beirut39 authors: Adania Shibli, Joumana Haddad from Lebanon, Youssef Rakha from Egypt, Moroccan Abdellah Taia who lives in France , Algerian Faiza Guene from the Netherlands, and Palestinian-Egyptian Randa Jarrar from the USA.
While the future looks rosy for the Beirut39 authors, let’s not forget the many other highly talented Arab writers who did not make the list. As the judges said in announcing their chosen authors: “The final choice of the 39 names does not detract from the worthiness of many other, important, contributors. Many entrants were eligible to be shortlisted in the competition, but the Hay Festival’s commitment to the 39-name rule proved to be unlucky for some.”

first bqfp titles at tate modern evening

Bloomsbury starts making in roads in Arabic literature
Susannah Tarbush Saudi Gazette 12 April 2010

The issuing of the first batch of titles by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) was celebrated in London last Wednesday with an evening of readings, conversation and music. The event was held in the Tate Modern art gallery’s seventh floor restaurant – which has spectacular views across the River Thames – in the presence of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, wife of the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani.
Sheikha Mozah is founder and chairperson of the Qatar Foundation, which joined with British publisher Bloomsbury to set up BQFP in autumn 2008. On Tuesday Sheikha Mozah attended the official launch of the BQFP at a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor Castle.
The Tate Modern evening, entitled “Writing in Both Directions”, featured readings from, and discussion of, books by Suad Amiry and Inaam Kachachi which are among the first BQFP titles. Appearing on the platform alongside the two authors were BQFP’s managing director Seif Salmawy and BQFP consultant publisher Andy Smart. The Palestinian musician Nizar Al-Issa performed music on an oud during the evening
Amiry is a Ramallah-based Palestinian architect who founded, and is director of, the Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation. Her book “Nothing to Lose But Your Life: An 18 hour Journey with Murad” follows her internationally successful debut “Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries” which won the Viareggio-Versilia Prize in Italy.
“Nothing to Lose But Your Life” is the true-life account of the hazardous trip made by Amiry – a middle-aged woman disguised as a man – walking for hours through the night and breaking through the separation wall into Israel with a group of Palestinian men so desperate for work that they risk arrest, and even their lives.
Baghdad-born Inaam Kachachi works as a journalist in France. Her novel “The American Granddaughter” was shortlisted for the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF, known as the “Arabic Booker”). BQFP have published the book in an English translation by Nariman Youssef.
The novel’s central character, Zeina, is an Iraqi immigrant to the USA who returns to Iraq after the 2003 invasion to work as an interpreter for the US Army. In Iraq she is torn by conflicting allegiances, and her grandmother’s disapproval.
In her writing Amiry has a refreshing ability to extract comedy from the grimmest of situations. She sees joking about one’s life as being a coping mechanism when one is living under occupation and facing difficult situations day in and day out. Humor is also a good way of communicating with others.
The Palestinians are often portrayed in the media as “people who are dying or want to die, but in reality we are three and a half million Palestinians under occupation who are prevented from having a normal life.” She thinks it is “very important that people start perceiving us as people who love life and want to live, and this is why I think writing about everyday life is important.”
British-Egyptian translation specialist Nariman Youssef read from her translation of Kachachi’s “The American Granddaughter”. Andy Smart said that she is “one of our new generation of translators who’ll be joining us at a translation conference to be held at the end of May in Doha.”
In his speech at the event, the chairman of the BQFP Management Committee Nigel Newton said that BQFP has three aims: to publish books of quality and originality in Arabic and English; to help foster a life-long love of reading through writing and reading development activities; and to transfer publishing skills to Qatar.
The publishing industry stands at a crossroads. The digital revolution is under way, and electronic books are becoming accepted by the general public. “But potentially of even greater significance is the digital potential of the mobile phone in the Arab world,” Newton said. “At BQFP we are already exploring how best to use the digital medium for our publishing, and our reading and writing development work.”
BQFP has also held a poetry competition where entries had to be submitted via text message. “We are planning to host a roundtable event in Doha in the autumn to explore the issues around the digital potential for publishing and publisher.”
BQFP is “working with other organizations such as Vodafone in Qatar to encourage people who have never thought of themselves as writers to put pen to paper – or in this digital age to tap away at their keyboard and to let their voices be heard.” A book on the history of women and their true contribution to Gulf society will be published by BQFP next year.
“We want to collaborate where possible with other publishers across the region to help expand the market for reading and help foster writing and new writers,” Newton said. “An even more lively publishing scene across the Middle East will help build bridges within the region and between East and West.”
Books are not the only publications on which Bloomsbury and the Qatar Foundation will collaborate. “We are also setting up for the Qatar Foundation a journals publishing company which will publish research from the universities and research organizations in Qatar (which currently invests over 2.8 percent of its GDP in research) to be known as Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals. This will become a leading scientific publisher in the Middle East.”
The newly-published BQFP books include “Qatari Voices: A Celebration of New Writers”, edited by Carol Henderson and by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar who is BQFP’s director of reading and writing development. Another title is the Arabic translation of the prizewinning novel for young adults “Where the Streets Had a Name” (2008) by Randa Abdel-Fattah, born in Australia to Egyptian-Palestinian parents.
The new titles also feature five children’s books. “The Selfish Crocodile” by Foustin Charles and Michael Terry, in an Arabic and English edition, and Arabic editions of “No Matter What” (written and illustrated by Debi Gliori), “Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly” (by Sue Heap, illustrated by Nick Sharratt); “Eliza and the Moonchild” (written and illustrated by Emma Chichester-Clark); and “The Gruffalo” (by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler).
BQFP is attracting much interest in the Arab literary community. Later this year it is due to publish a book of essays by the prominent Algerian female writer Ahlam Mosteghanemi, entitled “Nisyane.com”. BQFP is considering publishing an English version of “Safinet Nouh” (“Noah’s Ark”), the second novel of Egyptian writer Khaled Al-Khamissi [pictured], who first came to attention with his bestselling debut “Taxi”.

british muslims & the general election

above: Respect leader Salma Yaqoob

British Muslims and the general election
by
Susannah Tarbush

Al-Hayat [in Arabic translation] 8 April 2010

Sajid Javid (40), the son of a bus driver who emigrated to Britain from Pakistan 50 years ago, has an excellent chance of becoming one of Britain’s first-ever Conservative Muslim MPs in the general election of 6 May.

Javid is standing as Conservative candidate in the constituency of Bromsgrove, which the outgoing Conservative MP Julie Kirkbride won in the 2005 election with nearly 52 per cent of the vote, far ahead of Labour’s 34 per cent.

Javid has a career as a high-flying banker. He became at the age of 24 the youngest-ever vice president in the history of Chase Manhattan Bank. In 2000 he moved to Deutsche Bank where he eventually became a senior managing director.

He has supported the Conservative Party for around 20 years since joining the student Conservative Association in his first week at Exeter University.

Another Muslim professional, lawyer Shabana Mahmood (29). is highly likely to become one of Britain’s first Muslim women MPs in the general election. She is standing for Labour in the constituency of Birmingham Ladywood. The former International Development Secretary Clare Short was re-elected as Labour MP for the constituency in 2005 with nearly 52 per cent of the vote, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 31.5 per cent. Birmingham Ladywood has a Muslim population of nearly 30 per cent.

Sajid Javid and Shabana Mahmood are examples of the way in which the younger generation of Britain’s community of up to 2 million Muslims is becoming increasingly involved in mainstream politics.

Muslims are still grossly underrepresented in the House of Commons. With Muslims forming up to 3.3 per cent of the British population of around 61 million, there should proportionately be up to 21 Muslim MPs. But there are actually only four Muslim MPs, all of them male, and all of them members of Labour.

It was only in the 1997 general election that the first Muslim MP, Muhammad Sarwar, was elected. He has now retired from parliament, and his 27-year-old dentist son Anas [pictured] is standing as the Labour candidate in his father’s constituency of Glasgow Central, Scotland. (Anas’s challengers include another young Muslim, Osama Saeed, who is standing for the Scottish National Party).

The 2001 election brought a second Muslim Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, to parliament. In 2005 Sadiq Khan and Shahid Malik were also elected. Malik became the first-ever Muslim to serve as a minister when he was appointed as parliamentary undersecretary of state in the Department of International Development in 2007. Sadiq Khan was the first Muslim to be a member of the cabinet when he was promoted last year to Minister of State for Transport.

Muslims are of growing importance as candidates, and as voters. The votes of Muslims could be particularly important if the result of the election is as close as expected.

Until earlier this year it seemed inevitable that the Conservatives would win with a comfortable majority, but in opinion polls the margin between the two main parties has narrowed dramatically, with the Conservative Party’s lead over Labour dropping to only a few points.

Such a small difference between the two parties would produce a “hung parliament” in which no party would have an overall majority of seats.

There are currently several initiatives from within the Muslim community to get increasing numbers of Muslims to vote in the election. Only a few Muslim groups in Britain oppose voting in the election, claiming it is unIslamic. They include Hizb Ut-Tahrir, and the banned Muhajiroun group and its successors such as such as Islam4UK which was banned earlier this year.

James Brandon, head of research at the government-funded anti-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation, told Al-Hayat: “It’s immensely encouraging to see the wide range of Muslim organisations that are calling on British Muslims to vote in the upcoming elections – from salafi-Wahhabi organisations to Islamists to secularists.”

Brandon added: “Although it is a shame that many of these groups are still calling on Muslims to vote along ethnic or religious lines, this increased enthusiasm for the elections is a welcome sign that Muslims are becoming more involved in the British political process – both as voters and increasingly as candidates.”
A new body, named YouElect, was set up recently in order “to encourage, inform and empower the Muslim community at the next general elections.” The co-ordinator of the project, Ismail Patel, says: “We aim to help make the election process easier by providing individuals with tools to make an informed decision when voting”.

The website of YouElect has the profiles of nearly 300 candidates in more than 90 constituencies of particular interest. It provides information for each constituency such as the results of the 2005 elections, the percentage of the population that is Muslim and the estimated number of Muslim voters. YouElect has also launched a drive for Muslim voter registration.

Other Muslim initiatives include the Get Out and Vote website, backed by a number of imams, and the Engage website which promotes greater media awareness, political participation and civic engagement amongst British Muslims.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK) has launched Operation Muslim Vote. Members of MPACUK engage in direct action, travelling to target constituencies where they descend on mosques and Muslim centres, distribute leaflets and energetically debate.

MPACUK has a confrontational approach. Its website is like a tabloid newspaper, with vivid colours and screaming headlines. An article on the MPACUK website says: ”It’s election time, what type of Muslim idiot are you? Are you the ‘I am an idiot and too lazy to vote’ Muslim, the ‘I am an idiot and always vote Labour no matter how they treat us afterwards’ Muslim, or the ‘I am an idiot and I think I will go to hell by voting against a war’ Muslim?”

The Muslim community in Britain is diverse, in terms of the many countries of origin, type of Islam practised, and socio-economic factors and status. There is no overall “Muslim vote”. Muslim voters take a constellation of factors into account when deciding for whom to vote.

Traditionally, Muslims tended to support Labour, but this relationship was soured by the invasion of Iraq and other foreign policy factors, and by some of the anti-terror measures aimed at Muslims. But the Conservatives too supported the Iraq invasion, and are tough on issues such as immigration.

Anger over the Iraq invasion led some former Labour supporters to abandon Labour in the 2005 election, some voting instead for the Liberal Democrats. Other Muslim voters were attracted to the Respect Party, set up in 2004 as an anti-war party by a number of Muslim groups and the left, particularly the Socialist Workers Party.

Respect is the only party standing in the elections to have a leader who is a Muslim and a woman – the highly competent Salma Yaqoob. But Respect was weakened when it split in 2007, and it is significant in only a few constituencies

Salma Yaqoob scored an impressive result in the 2005 election when she stood for Respect in the constituency of Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath, the population of which was nearly 49 per cent Muslim. She came second to Labour, and slashed the majority of the Labour MP Roger Godsiff from 16,000 to just over 3,000.

After border changes of constituencies in Birmingham, Smallbrook no longer exists, and has been partly absorbed into the constituency of Birmingham Hall Green which is 35.7 per cent Muslim. Salma Yacoob is the Respect candidate there, again standing against Godsiff.

It is not unusual to find Muslims standing against each other as candidates for different parties. A striking example is the East London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow where four Muslim candidates are standing.

The former Labour MP George Galloway, who was expelled from the Labour Party for his strong opposition to the invasion of Iraq, won Bethnal Green and Bow for Respect in 2005, beating the Labour black Jewish MP Oona King by a small majority of 823 votes. He received strong support from the constituency’s more than 39 per cent Muslim population, mostly from Bangladesh.

Galloway is now standing as Respect candidate in the neighbouring constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, where he hopes to defeat the Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick. The Respect candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow is Abjol Miah, while Rushanara Ali is standing for Labour, Ajmal Masroor for the Liberal Democrats, and Farid Bakht for the Green Party.


If Rushnara Ali [pictured] wins the seat back for Labour, she will be part of an expected influx of several Labour Muslim women MPs, including Shabana Mahmoud who is standing in Birmingham Ladywood. The criminal lawyer Yasmin Qureshi is almost certain to be elected in Bolton South East where Labour had 57 per cent of the vote in 2005.

Maryam Khan is thought to have a good chance of keeping the seat of Bury North in Labour hands, while Sonia Klein may take back Ilford North which was lost to the Conservatives in 2005.

Although the Conservatives as yet have no Muslim MPs, the most high-profile Muslim woman politician in parliament is a Conservative. She is the unelected Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who was appointed by the conservatives to the House of Lords in 2007 so that she could become Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action.

The Conservatives have made considerable efforts to try to ensure that several Conservative Muslim MPs will be elected. Mohammed Amin, vice chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, told Al-Hayat: “So far 14 Muslim candidates have been chosen to stand for the Conservative Party in the coming general election of whom five are women. We may have three or four Conservative Muslim MPs if things go well.”

Conservative Muslim candidates considered to have a chance of capturing seats held by Labour include Rehman Chishti in Gillingham and Rainham, Zahid Iqbal in Bradford West, Alok Sharma in Reading West and Adeela Shafi in Bristol East.

The Liberal Democrats have 17 Muslim candidates, including four women. The party considers that it remains attractive to Muslim voters. A spokeswoman said: “In regards to relevant policy, it is clear that the Labour Party has failed those from the Muslim community. From harsh and unnecessary flaunting of civil liberties to the creation of unworkable and damaging programmes like the Prevent strategy.”

And yet none of the Liberal Democrat Muslim candidates is standing in a safe Liberal Democrat seat. The editor of the Muslim News newspaper Ahmed J Versi asked Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in an interview why his party had not selected Muslim candidates for winnable seats

Clegg answered: “You’re not right by saying that we don’t have candidates in strong seats: we have candidates in Walthamstow, in Luton, in Birmingham. We have candidates who are in very strong positions campaigning against a very unpopular Labour Party.”

But Clegg accepted that his parliamentary party is “too white, too male” and said he would be “delighted if more candidates from the Muslim communities put their names forward.”

Nadhim Zahawi


It is highly likely that the general election will see the election of the first-ever British MP of Middle Eastern origin. He is Iraqi Kurd Nadhim Zahawi who is standing as a Conservative candidate in the seat of Stratford-on-Avon,the birthplace of England’s greatest playwright and poet William Shakespeare.

Stratford is regarded as a safe Conservative seat. The outgoing MP John Maples won it with 49.2 per cent of the vote in the 2005 general election followed by the Liberal Democrats at 28.3 per cent.

Zahawi was born in Iraq in 1967 and grew up the county of East Sussex in Southern England. He was educated at Kings College School in Wimbledon, London, and at University College, part of London University. He also became a keen horse rider and show jumper, competing at numerous events.

In the past decade Zahawi has had extraordinary success with YouGov, the international internet-based market research firm which he launched in 2000 with Stephan Shakespear. YouGov was floated on the stock exchange in 2005 for £18 million Sterling and employs more than 400 people in three continents. Zahawi stood down as the company’s chief executive in February so as to devote himself to his election campaign.

When Al-Hayat asked Zahawi whether as an MP he will take a special interest in foreign affairs and the Middle East, given his background and his fluency in Arabic, he said that if he is invited to enter government, “I’ll serve wherever the leader wants me to.” For the present, his “absolute focus” is on the election and his constituency, and he has moved into a house in the centre of Stratford.

Zahawi was three times elected as a Conservative Councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth, serving from 1994 to 2006, and stood as Conservative candidate at Erith and Thamesmead in 1997, coming second to Labour.

YouGov is best known in the minds of the British public for the political opinion polls it conducts for newspapers and TV stations. The polls are reputed to be particularly accurate. The company has expanded abroad, first into the Middle East where in 2006 it acquired Dubai-based Siraj Marketing Research and Consultancy. The hub of YouGovSiraj is Dubai, and it has offices in Riyadh and Jeddah and two big offices in Iraq. In March, YouGovSiraj signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jordanian research firm Analyseize to cooperate on joint projects. YouGov has also set up operations in Scandinavia, Central Europe and the United States.

uproar over plans to close bbc asian network

above: Asian Network DJs Bobby Friction (L) and Nihal

Plans to close BBC Asian Network radio cause dismay
by Susannah Tarbush

Saudi Gazette, 8 March 2010

BBC Director General Mark Thompson’s [pictured] confirmation last week that the BBC proposes to axe its Asian Network digital radio station as part of the strategy review he has submitted to the BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons, has triggered dismay and anger among Britain’s South Asian community of around 2.5 million people.

The Asian Network was launched as a national digital radio station in 2002. Under the proposal it would be replaced by local Asian services in five areas – London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester and West Yorkshire – and for only a few hours a day.


More than 150 Asians prominent in British arts, music, film, theater, politics and business have signed a letter of protest addressed to the BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons, which was published in the Guardian last Saturday.

The signatories included Lord Navnit Dholakia, Lord Kamlesh Patel, Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, actress Meera Syal [pictured], film director Gurinder Chadha, Olympic medal winning boxer Amir Khan, Labor MP Khalid Mahmood, musician Jay Sean, England cricketer Vikram Solanki, comedienne Shazia Mirza, and the president of the National Association of British Pakistanis and chairman of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony Dr. Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid. The letter expressed “profound shock” at the proposal to close the Asian Network as a national station. “The BBC we have grown up with has always prided itself on celebrating diversity. In that respect, the Asian Network is a national platform for musicians, Asian culture in general, news, debate and documentaries.”


The station provides a key platform for the national Asian community, “and offers an outlet to British Asian talent, which is demonstrably underrepresented in the more mainstream BBC.” This would all be “tragically lost” if the proposals are agreed.

The letter added that reducing broadcasts to just a few hours a day would be a retrograde step, leaving only the commercial Asian stations. “These stations will not and cannot deliver as comprehensive a service as the BBC Asian Network. This is a vital part of what the BBC offers in the name of public service broadcasting. As loyal licence-fee players we trust we will not be let down.”

The letter to the Guardian is one of several campaigns to try to rescue the Asian Network. There are several support groups on Facebook, the largest of which, ‘Save the BBC Asian Network!!!’ had by Saturday attracted 18,063 fans. Messages of support are also circulating on Twitter.
The station broadcasts primarily in English, but also broadcasts in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and Mirpuri. It has lost around 20 per cent of its listeners over the past three years, and had an average of 360,000 listeners a week at the end of 2009. At its peak it had some half a million listeners. The strategy review aims to free up some £600 million Sterling to be channeled into higher quality BBC productions such as journalism, drama and comedy.

In addition to axing Asian Network, the proposals in the strategy review include closing another digital station, Radio 6 Music and reducing the budget of BBC online by a quarter. A large-scale campaign, with some 100,000 supporters, has sprung up in support of Radio 6 Music, which specializes in “alternative” music genres of today and of the past 40 years. Sir Michael Lyons has admitted that if there is massive concern over the closure of Radio 6 Music, he might ask BBC management to rethink its strategy.

The most popular Asian radio station in Britain is Sunrise, which in addition to its national station also owns a number of local radio stations. Sunrise’s founder and chairman Dr. Avtar Lit has been unsparing in his criticism of Asian Network, describing it last week as “mediocre.” He said: “They had a wonderful opportunity to connect with the Asian community and it has been rejected.”

The founder and editor of Asians in Media online magazine Sunny Hundal [pictured] has criticized Asian Network in the past, but now insists that it is vital that it survives. To axe the station would reduce competition, especially with the Sunrise’s buyout of Club Asia radio late last year. “Closing Asian Network would leave no real alternative to Sunrise.”


Hundal argues that Asian Network has been “a stepping stone for scores of presenters, producers, journalists and actors across the media industry”. And to close the station would be to abandon Asian payers of the BBC license fee, which now stands at 142.50 pounds a year.” To get rid of Asian Network would remove a vital platform for British Asian culture.

Critics of the proposal also ask why the station should be done away with when the BBC is guilty in the eyes of many in massive overspending on bureaucracy and on bloated salaries for senior staff. At one time, its star TV talk show host Jonathan Ross was earning a reputed 6 million pounds a year.

saudi novelist abdo khal wins the $60,000 'international prize for arabic fiction' aka 'the arabic booker'

This is the press release from the publicist of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Colman Getty Consultancy, announcing that the prize has gone to Saudi writer Abdo Khal.
The prize is worth a total of $60,000 to the winner: $50,000, plus the $10,000 that goes to each of the six shortlisted writers.

SPEWING SPARKS AS BIG AS CASTLES

BY ABDO KHAL

WINS INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION 2010





www.arabicfiction.org



Supported by the Booker Prize Foundation

Funded by the Emirates Foundation



Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday 2 March 2010 – The winner of the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) is SPEWING SPARKS AS BIG AS CASTLES by ABDO KHAL, published by Al-Jamal Publications, Baghdad/Beirut, 2009. The winner of the prestigious literary prize was announced tonight at a gala awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi before an audience of international publishers, critics, writers and journalists.

A painfully satirical novel, Spewing Sparks ­as Big as Castles depicts the destructive impact that power and limitless wealth has on life and the environment. It captures the seductive powers of the palace and tells the agonising story of those who have become enslaved by it, drawn by its promise of glamour. Spewing Sparks ­as Big as Castles exposes the inner world of the palace and of those who have chosen to become its puppets, from whom it has stolen everything.

The winner announcement was made by the Chair of Judges, the renowned Kuwaiti writer Taleb Alrefai. With him were the three other members of the judging panel: Raja’ Ben Salamah, Tunisian lecturer from the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities at Manouba University, Tunisia; Frédéric LaGrange, French academic, translator and Head of the Arabic and Hebraic Department at the Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) and Saif al-Rahbi, Omani writer and poet.

The Chair of Judges, Taleb Alrefai, commented: “The winning novel is a brilliant exploration of the relationship between the individual and the state. Through the eyes of its two dimensional protagonist, the book gives the reader a taste of the horrifying reality of the excessive world of the palace.

“Although only one novel can win the Prize, many exciting and inspiring novels were submitted. The judging panel worked hard in order to consider all this year’s submitted novels, maintaining the established tradition of independence and transparency.”

The Prize, which is awarded annually, is run with the support of the UK’s Booker Prize Foundation and is funded by the Emirates Foundation, one of the leading philanthropic organisations in the UAE. Its aim is to recognise and reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage wider readership internationally through translation. In addition to the annual prize, IPAF supports literary initiatives and in 2009 launched its inaugural nadwa (writers’ workshop) for a group of aspiring Arabic writers.

The names of the six shortlisted titles for this independent and prestigious Arabic fiction prize – and those of the previously anonymous judging panel – were announced at a press conference in Beirut on 15 December 2009. For the 2010 Prize, the judges have read and discussed in detail a total of 113 Arabic novels, entered from 17 countries.

The shortlisted finalists for the prize each receive $10,000, with the winner receiving an additional $50,000. They can look forward to reaching wider audiences and potentially securing publishing deals – both within the Arab World and internationally. The previous two winners for the prize – Bahaa Taher (Sunset Oasis) and Youssef Ziedan (Azazel) – have not only secured English publications of their novels, through Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton) and Atlantic Books respectively, but also a number other international translations as a result of the prize.

Jonathan Taylor CBE, Chairman of the IPAF Board of Trustees, and of the Booker Prize Foundation, said: “In its third year, the Prize has recognised and rewarded another outstanding novel. The Prize continues to generate great excitement and discussion, both in the Arabic world and beyond.”

Salwa Mikdadi, Head of the Arts and Culture Programme at the Emirates Foundation, added: “The Emirates Foundation is pleased and gratified at the exceptional response the Prize ha received regionally and internationally which has resulted in an increase in readership and opportunities for emerging Arab writers."

The Administrator of the Prize, Joumana Haddad, commented: “The importance of the IPAF lies not only in its financial value, but in the social and cultural influence it has, the most important aspect of which is supporting high quality Arabic fiction and encouraging both writers and readers to consider writing and reading as vital acts.”

This year’s winner announcement took place on the evening of the first day of Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2010. A number of IPAF events will take place during the course of the book fair, details of which are given overleaf.

IPAF events taking place during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2010:

Wednesday 3 March

11am Al Multaqa Ladies’ Book Club event with the 5 shortlisted writers of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Location: Hall 8, E46

11.30-12.30am “Meet the Winner of the 2010 IPAF”, Discussion Forum at the

Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, hosted by Yassin Adnan. Location: Hall 9, D40

Thursday 4 March

11am Al Multaqa Ladies’ Book Club event, with the Winner of the

International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Location: Hall 8, E46

5–7pm “Meet the 2010 IPAF Shortlisted Authors” at the KITAB Sofa, hosted by Sayed Mahmoud. Location: Hall 8, K46

For more information visit: www.adbookfair.com

· This is the third year of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. For a full history of the prize visit the website: www.arabicfiction.org. The site features the rules of entry, background information and breaking news and is the quickest way for the prize’s worldwide audience to access information

All works submitted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction must be prose fiction in Arabic

The IPAF 2010 shortlist (with names in English) and authors (with country of origin), is as follows:


Al-Madhoun, Rabai
The Lady from Tel Aviv
Arab Institute for Publishing and Studies
Palestinian
--



Ez Eldin, Mansoura
Beyond Paradise
Dar Al-Ain
Egyptian
--



Jaber, Rabee
America
Al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi (Arab Cultural Centre)
Lebanese
--
Khal, Abdo
Spewing Sparks ­as Big as Castles
Al-Jamal Publications
Saudi Arabian

--

Mansi Qandil, Mohamed
A Cloudy Day on the West Side
Dar Al-Shorouk
Egyptian
--


Naji, Jamal
When the Wolves Grow Old
Ministry of Culture Publications
Jordanian

The IPAF 2010 judging panel consists of:
Taleb Alrefai (Chair), Kuwaiti novelist and short story writer; Raja’ Ben Salamah, Tunisian lecturer from the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities at Manouba University, Tunisia; Frédéric LaGrange, French academic, translator and Head of the Arabic and Hebraic Department at the Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV); Saif al-Rahbi, Omani writer and poet.

· The winner of the 2008 prize - Sunset Oasis by Egyptian novelist Bahaa Taher – has recently been published in the UK by Sceptre (an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton). It also has translation and publication deals in France, Germany, Norway, Greece Romania, Bosnia and Canada

· The winner of the 2009 prize – Azazel by Egyptian writer Youssef Ziedan – will be published in the UK by Atlantic Books in August 2011. It will also be published in Italian, German, Greek, Romanian, Bosnian and Croatian

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction was launched in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, in April 2007 and it is funded by the Emirates Foundation, one of the leading philanthropic organisations in the UAE

Other supporters of the Prize include Etihad Airways, as the official airline of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair
· An independent Board of Trustees, drawn from across the Arab world and beyond, is responsible for the overall management of the prize. The trustees are, in alphabetical order: Marie-Thérèse Abdul-Messih, Professor of English & Comparative Literature, University of Cairo, Egypt; Bachar Chebaro, Publisher, Scientific Arab Publishers, Lebanon; Dr. Peter Clark OBE, Independent Consultant and Writer, Middle East Cultural Advisory Services, UK; Sasha Havlicek, Executive Director, Trialogue Educational Trust; Khaled Hroub, Arab academic and director of Cambridge Arab Media Project, UK; Farouk Mardam-Bey, Cultural Advisor, Institut du Monde Arabe, France; Zaki Nusseibeh, Advisor, Ministry of Presidential Affairs – Vice-Chairman, Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage; Margaret Obank, Publisher and Editor, Banipal magazine of Modern Arab Literature, UK; William Sieghart Chairman & Founder, Forward Publishing, National Poetry Day, UK; Yasir Suleiman, Professor of Arabic, University of Cambridge, UK; Evelyn Smith, Company Secretary, Booker Prize Foundation, UK; Jonathan Taylor CBE, Chairman, Booker Prize Foundation, UK

· In addition to the annual prize, the IPAF supports literary initiatives and in 2009 launched its inaugural nadwa (writers’ workshop) for a group of aspiring writers from across the Arab world. The workshop – the first of its kind for Arab writers - took place in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. It resulted in eight new pieces of fiction by some of the Arab world’s most promising authors, five of whom have recently been selected for the Beirut39. This collection of stories is due to be published in 2010.

'kipling abroad' edited by andrew lycett

Rudyard Kipling, the travel scribe
by Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette 1 March 2010

Seventy-four years after the death of the Indian-born British author and poet Rudyard Kipling, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, his reputation is still hotly debated. This is partly because of his support for British imperialism, and his chronicling of the British Raj.

The controversy over Kipling led recently to the abandonment of plans to transform the house in Mumbai in which he was born in 1965 into a Kipling museum. Instead, the house is to become home to a collection of paintings by local artists.

The house is on the campus of Sir J J Institute of Applied Art, of which Rudyard’s father Lockwood Kipling was the first dean. There were worries that to establish a Kipling Museum there might lead to political uproar.

Mukund Gorashkar, head of the project to renovate the house for the JSW Foundation, was quoted in the London-based Daily Telegraph as saying: “If we tried to convert it into a Kipling museum simply because Kipling was born there, that would ruffle quite a few feathers. In the political storm, you may find that the conservation effort would be set aside.”

The Chairman of the Kipling Society Sharad Keskar reportedly said: “You have a fairly ignorant officialdom in India who don’t know much about Kipling apart from that he was an imperialist or part of the Raj. Officially he’s still persona non grata. I think that is changing, but it’s rather a slow change.”

The shelving of the plan for a Kipling Museum happens to coincide with the publication by London publisher I. B. Tauris of “Kipling Abroad: Traffics and Discoveries from Burma to Brazil”, introduced and edited by the prominent British biographer Andrew Lycett. The book was launched last week at the Nehru Center in central London with a talk by Lycett followed by a reception and book signing. Lycett has already done invaluable work in providing a more nuanced and rounded view of Kipling through his biography of the author published to critical acclaim in 1999.

For “Kipling Abroad”, he has selected excerpts from Kipling’s work – including stories, poems, letters and journalism – to highlight his gifts as a travel writer who roamed the globe to an extraordinary extent.

Kipling was a great recorder of places. “Not just the physical places, but their peoples, their quirks, their smells – indeed the total experience of being at a particular place... He was such a brilliant observer of the world around him,” Lycett writes.
In addition, Kipling was fascinated by social and historical change and was aware of living at a time when the nature of travel was changing. “No longer were heroic individual expeditions being mounted. Rather, he found himself at the cusp of an age of mass travel when tourism was becoming a commodity and with his journalistic instincts he was determined to exploit this.”
Kipling’s writings are peppered with observations about the business and practice of travel, whether poking fun at Western globetrotters in India or railing against mass tourism in the United States. He was also interested in the mechanics of travel, and how it was affected by forms of transportation such as cars, trains and ships. Kipling is associated above all with India, his country of birth. Although he never returned to India after the age of 26, his birthplace of Mumbai was “to remain a positive influence and memory throughout his life.”

In his autobiography “Something of Myself” Kipling wrote: “My first impression is of daybreak, light and colour and golden and purple fruits at the level of my shoulder. This would be the memory of early morning walks to the Bombay fruit market with my ayah and later with my sister in her perambulator, and of our returns with our purchase piled high on the bows of it.”

He went to school in England, in Westward Ho! In Devon, and on returning to India he worked as a journalist in Lahore on the Civil and Military Gazette (CMG) for which he reported from various places. The short stories in “Plain Tales from the Hills”, which first made his name when it was published in book form in India in 1888, were first published in the paper.

In late 1887 Kipling resigned from CMG, and went to work on its sister paper, the Pioneer, in Allahabad. His travel reports for that newspaper were collected in the volume “Letters of Marque” published in Allahabad in 1891. In one article for CMG he describes how, unable to sleep in the humidity of a Lahore night, he ventures to the walled City of Dreadful Night. In “Taj Mahal and the Globe-Trotter” he makes fun of a young male traveler from Manchester who is “doing India.”
Apart from India, Egypt was the first foreign country Kipling recalled visiting, having passed through it as a child on the way to Europe. In 1913 he spent several weeks travelling in Egypt, and his articles on this trip were published as “Egypt of the Magicians” (1913).

He returned to Egypt in 1929 and also went to Palestine where he visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. “In his regular search for winter sun, he also travelled to Algiers, which reminded him of Bombay”, writes Lycett.
In 1889 Kipling had left India and travelled on an eastward voyage to America and England. He was favorably struck by Burma, which inspired his poem “Mandalay.” China gave him the creeps and he much preferred Japan; so much so that he returned there on honeymoon with his wife Caroline Balestier in 1892.

Kipling’s bride was American, and he built a house ‘Naulakha’ in her hometown of Battleboro’ in Vermont. Kipling had robust opinions on the places he visited. San Francisco was “a mad city inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty”. Put off by the crowds of tourists in one major attraction he wrote: “To-day I am in the Yellowstone Park, and I wish I were dead.” He was appalled by Chicago and its stock yards where livestock were slaughtered en masse.

In 1896 Kipling returned from America to England and settled in the county of Sussex for which he developed a great fondness and which inspired his books “Puck of Pook’s Hill” and “Rewards and Fairies.” He enjoyed owning cars, and did a great deal of driving in Britain. When he became rich he indulged his passion for Europe and liked to be driven around France in his Rolls Royce. For some years he spent part of every winter in South Africa, and he also visited South America and the Caribbean.

Interviewed on BBC radio the day after the launch, Lycett was asked whether it is time for Indians to reappraise Kipling. Lycett said: “I can well understand why Indians look askance at him in this day and age, because he was an imperialist, he was not a supporter of Indian nationalism. On the other hand he was the first great Indian writer in the English language. And he was very highly regarded amongst a lot of Indian writers.”

'syrian school' series on bbc tv

‘Syrian School’ TV series aims to challenge stereotypes
by Susannah Tarbush

Saudi Gazette, 21 February 2010

The “Syrian School” series, currently being screened in weekly episodes on UK TV digital channel BBC Four, gives viewers an unprecedented insight into life among Syrian secondary schoolchildren. The five one-hour programs focus on the pupils and staff of four schools in Damascus over the course of one year.
The fly-on-the-wall approach takes the viewer into the schools, homes and streets of the Syrian capital as it follows the youngsters and tracks their lives. The teenagers come across as lively, good-humored, ambitious and independent-minded. The series, made by Lion Television, is a joint production of the Open University and the BBC and follows previous OU-BBC series on schools in Africa, India and China.
Anthropologist and filmmaker Max Baring directed and filmed the series. He says: “What excited me about working on ‘Syrian School’ was the possibility that we could un-pick some of the stereotypes that we in the West hold about the Middle East and the Islamic world in general.”
For example, while the number of Damascene girls wearing the hijab is rising, at the same time “young Syrians are eagerly exploring Western tastes and fashions, without compromising their closely-held Arab heritage.”
The series introduces viewers to an array of memorable characters. The headmistress of Zaki Al-Arsuzi Girls’ School, Amal Hassan, is a dominant presence in the first episode. She wants her pupils to see “how strong I am, and how I am proud of myself, and how I am free from inside... To face all the problems of life they have to be like this.”
The school’s pupils extend an ecstatic welcome to the elegant first lady of Syria, Asma Al-Assad, wife of President Bashar Al-Assad. She visits the school to talk to girls working on a newly-introduced innovation, which she is supporting, to prepare young Syrians for work in the private sector and to develop entrepreneurship.
The first episode is centered around two pupils starting the school year in new schools. Du’aa, a girl from a devout Muslim family, has transferred from a Sharia School to Zaki Al-Arsuzi School for her final year of studying for the Baccalaureate exams.
Du’aa, who memorized the Qur’an at 14, stresses that there is no contradiction between religion and a desire for education. “God urged us to seek knowledge and we prize knowledge a lot” she says. As a child she dreamed of space travel, and longed to be an astronaut.
Fifteen-year-old Iraqi Christian refugee Yusif Androus is beginning his first term at Jaramana Boys’ School. Some two million Iraqi refugees have fled to Syria since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Syria provides them with, among other things, free school education.
The influx of Iraqi pupils puts a strain on Syrian schools. Jaramana School, for example, has 500 pupils, including 200 Iraqis, but was built to take only 300. Yusif is a talented footballer, and when he was in Iraq it had been planned that he would play in front of a group of Dutch talent scouts. But after his eldest brother was murdered in sectarian violence the family fled to Syria.
Yusif is still affected by the violence and bombings he witnessed as a young child in Baghdad. Even now he finds it hard to tolerate loud bangs, such as those produced by firework displays.
The program shows a playground scuffle between two of Yusif’s Iraqi friends, who are reprimanded by a school supervisor. The supervisor later says that things are difficult for children from Iraq. “After what they’ve been through we can’t expect their nerves to be normal. They are under a lot of psychological pressure.”
The first episode coincides with the month of Ramadan. It shows pupils at the end of Ramadan going to Eid prayers and excitedly buying Eid presents, visiting family and going to the funfairs that spring up in parks.
The second program focuses on pupils at Yarmouk Girls School in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp established more than 60 years ago.
The Palestinian issue is never far from the pupils’ minds; when the TV crew visits in February 2009 it is a time of particularly strong feeling, just after the Gaza war. Girls express their responses to the war via art and poetry.

Two pupils want to become the first girl rappers in Yarmouk camp. Sixteen-year-old Shaza likes the music of American rappers Eminem, T-Bone and Akon and her love of rap is shared by Rahaf in the year above her. The girls visit the studio of Refugees of Rap, a successful local Palestinian-Syrian-Algerian rap group. The group members listen to the girls’ live performances and give them positive feedback.
Shaza and Rahaf hope to perform at the school prize giving. But this puts them on a collision course with their traditionalist Syrian headmistress Ghada Daloul who declares: “I don’t believe that rap music serves the Palestinian cause.” She is also unhappy that they went to the studio of the male rappers. The two girls’ families also turn against the idea of their becoming rappers. Rahaf confides to the camera: “Girls suffer a lot while looking on at boys enjoying a lot of freedom and going out: a lot of girls wish they were boys.”
Another Yarmouk School pupil, 18-year-old Safa’ Kiwan, is the Damascus girls’ discus champion. She is encouraged by the school sports mistress to train for the national schools championships, but she keeps her training secret from her strict father. Her paternal grandmother clandestinely accompanies her to training sessions.
A poetry writing club run by Muhannad at Zaki Al-Arsuzi School is a highlight of the third program. One club member, Ala [pictured], presents a poem inspired by a thwarted romance that began with an exchange of texts. Meanwhile at a boys’ primary school on the fringes of Damascus, two ten-year-olds compete to come top in class exams. In the following program the Syrian Junior Chess Champion travels to Beirut to take part in the Asian International Championships.

The series ends with preparations by twin sisters for the Baccalaureate exams. Farah dreams of studying English and exploring the world, inspired by her satellite TV heroine, British TV chef Nigella Lawson. Her twin sister Rahaf has more practical aspirations, hoping to study engineering.
Following its run on BBC Four, “Syrian School” is due to be shown on BBC World News in August. At the same time schools in the UK are being invited to twin with schools in the Arab world via an application form on the BBC website.

'sabra zoo': palestinian writer mischa hiller's debut novel

New Arab literary talent pens ‘Sabra Zoo’
By Susannah Tarbush

Saudi Gazette 15 Jan 2010

This month marks the publication by London-based Telegram Books of the debut novel of a striking new talent in Arab fiction, the Anglo-Palestinian writer Mischa Hiller. “Sabra Zoo” is a searing and accomplished novel that takes the reader back to the bloody events in Beirut in summer 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Hiller was born in Hull, northern England, in 1962 to a Palestinian father and English mother. He grew up in Durham, London, Beirut and Dar Es Salaam and currently lives in Cambridge, England.

The engaging first-person narrator of his novel is the 18-year-old son of a Danish mother and a father who is a PLO official. Ivan’s parents have left Beirut in the evacuation by sea of PLO forces after the two-month Israeli siege and bombardment of the city.

The novel opens three days after the evacuation. Ivan is euphoric: “The war was over and I was parent-free for the first time, with my own apartment. I couldn’t ask for more.” But his optimism is premature, and he will soon find himself caught in a perilous situation.

Ivan works as an interpreter at a Red Crescent hospital at Sabra Palestinian refugee camp, which is treating victims of the siege and bombardment. During the siege, nearly 7,000 people were killed and 30,000 wounded, more than 80 percent of them civilians from West Beirut. More than 2,000 of those seriously wounded were burnt by phosphorus bombs.

Ivan is street-wise and witty, yet vulnerable. He is constantly distracted by the attractions of women and is eager for experience. He is particularly drawn to Norwegian physiotherapist Eli, an older married woman with a son. Ivan is, to some extent, an outsider, with his mixed parentage, part-European looks and education at a school in Copenhagen. Those meeting him for the first time often ask about his Russian-sounding name.

Hiller lived in Beirut himself for 10 years on and off, leaving in winter 1982. In writing the novel “I used some of my experience briefly interpreting for foreign medics and journalists in 1982, although I want to be very clear that this is definitely a work of fiction and not my story,” he told Saudi Gazette. “My experience did provide the feel, emotion and even humor of the situation and hopefully allowed me to create a compelling point of view in Ivan – although I suspect his preoccupations are the same as teenage boys everywhere.”

Hiller delineates his characters, even minor ones, with skill, and the dialogue is expertly pitched. These qualities are apparent in Ivan’s interactions with the team of international medical volunteers. They include diminutive strong-minded Dr. Asha Patel and Scottish doctor John. The medical team members work intensively in the day and party hard at night.

One of Ivan’s closest buddies is his Lebanese driver, Samir, who had also been the driver of Ivan’s father. Samir also runs a little café, taking pride in his “special sauce.” He may have a crude womanizing side, but he is at the same time a warm and endearing character.

Ivan gradually reveals to the reader that his parents’ marriage has been crumbling since the accidental death some years earlier of his younger brother Karam in a fall from a balcony.

When Eli asks Ivan to help with a patient Youssef, a patient in his early teens whose foot has been badly damaged by an Israeli cluster bomb, Ivan is reminded of Karam who would have been of a similar age to Youssef were he still alive. Youssef is reluctant to try using crutches, and Ivan manages to get him to have a go. He becomes increasingly involved in helping Youssef back to recovery.

Ivan is leading a compartmentalized life, of which his work at the hospital is only one part. He has remained in Beirut at the request of a PLO official so as to courier forged documents and passports between PLO cadres who are living in hiding. Ivan’s Danish passport allows him to move relatively easily around the city. But there is a traitor among the comrades.
At the same time he works for an American TV company which brings him into the world of international journalists crowded into the Commodore Hotel. This adds a dimension to the novel of seeing the violence through the eyes and recordings of Bob, the American for whom Ivan translates.

Matters become increasingly precarious after the Commander of the Lebanese Forces and President-Elect Bashir Gemayel is assassinated. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invade West Beirut and their Phalangist allies conduct raids. There is tension on every corner, and hooded informers betray people at roadblocks. An atmosphere of paranoia and danger builds up.
The Palestinian refugee camps after the PLO withdrawal have been left exposed and defenseless. The violence culminates in one of the most ghastly episodes in the modern history of the Middle East: the massacre of hundreds or thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, under the noses of the IDF.

The Israeli government’s Kahan Inquiry of 1983 concluded that while the Phalangists were directly responsible for the massacre, Israeli forces were indirectly responsible. The report ultimately forced the reluctant resignation of Ariel Sharon as Defense Minister, but this was only a temporary blip in his brutal record in relation to the Palestinians.

“Sabra Zoo” is a fast-paced read with an economical style, and readily lends itself to a film treatment. Hiller wrote a film adaptation after completing the novel, while waiting for it to be sold to a publisher, “simply because I had always wanted to write a screenplay and love film as a story-telling medium.” In 2009 his screenplay won the European Independent Film Festival script competition.

Hiller says: “I did not study creative writing as such, but read a lot of screenplays to see how it was done. Since my writing style is sparse anyway, I was attracted to the idea that you can tell a story in 90 to 120 pages of double-spaced type, which is the ultimate in stripped-down writing.”
Hiller is now working on his second novel, in which “an orphaned survivor of the events of Sabra and Shatila is groomed and recruited by a mysterious PLO member to work for him secretly in Europe.” The sale of the book has yet to be finalized, but Hiller hopes that it will be published next year.

cultural cleansing in iraq

Counting the cost of cultural cleansing in Iraq
by Susannah Tarbush

Saudi Gazette February 1 2010

One of the most enduring sound-bites from the April 2003 invasion of Iraq was the then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissive phrase “stuff happens.” He was responding to questions over the chaos in which ministries, museums and other institutions were ransacked, looted and burned while US troops stood by and failed to intervene. Rumsfeld suggested that the looting was a positive sign, an understandable targeting of the hated symbols of the ousted regime.

In the nearly seven years following the invasion, the culture of Iraq has continued to be ravaged. A collection of papers newly published by Pluto Press of London and New York explores the different facets of the onslaught on culture. The book has the provocative title “Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered.”
The editors of the book are Raymond W. Baker, a politics professor of both Trinity College in the USA and the American University in Cairo; Shereen T. Ismail, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, Carleton University, Canada, and Tariq Y. Ismail, Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, Canada.

The book is dedicated to the late Professor Issam Al-Rawi, Professor of Geology at Baghdad University and Chairman of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) who was assassinated in October 2006. Al-Rawi had founded the register of murdered academics.

The editors of “Cultural Cleansing in Iraq” write that the destruction of the Iraqi state has killed over a million civilians, displaced some four million refugees abroad and internally, and led to the targeted assassination of more than 400 academics and professionals. “All of these terrible losses are compounded by unprecedented levels of cultural devastation, attacks on national archives and monuments that represent the historical identity of the Iraqi people,” they write.
They see Iraq as a country in which the ending of the state was an objective of the occupiers. “State destruction went beyond regime change and included the dismantling of state institutions and the launching of a prolonged process of political reshaping.” They draw parallels with 1980s Central America where death squads were “a foreign policy tool.”

Zainab Bahrani [pictured] – the Edith Porada Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, New York – argues that the damage and destruction to Iraq’s heritage was not just due to poor planning and collateral damage. She asks why the occupiers chose to locate military bases at main cultural heritage sites such as Babylon, Ur and Samarra. The establishment of these bases has causes severe damage, destroying thousands of years of archaeological material. “Like human rights abuses, the destruction of a people’s cultural heritage and history has elsewhere been regarded as a war crime.”

Some contributors note that damage to Iraqi culture started well before 2003. The former director general of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq, Abbas Al-Hussainy [pictured], considers that the modern assault on Iraq’s cultural heritage began in the second half of the 19th century. At that time there were illegal exports of artifacts to Asia, Europe and America.

The country’s heritage later suffered during the Iraq-Iran war and, from 1991 onwards, under sanctions. At the same time the regime sponsored “restoration” projects for propaganda purposes. A notorious example was Saddam’s restoration of Babylon with his name inscribed on each brick, in the style of Nebuchadnezzar II. The regime’s punitive actions against the south and the destruction of the salt marshes laid waste to the cultural riches of that area. “However, these earlier assaults on Iraq’s Mesopotamian heritage pale in comparison to the wreckage inflicted by the occupation of Iraq from 2003 onward,” the editors write.

The destruction of Iraq’s collective memory is a theme running through the book. Nabil Al-Takriti of the University of Mary Washington in the USA cites the scholar Keith Watenpaugh’s use of the word “mnemocide” to mean the murder of cultural memory. The push to remake Iraq has been destructive to the country’s collective memory. As Al-Takriti puts it: “In Iraq’s case, during a period of great chaotic flux, one country under occupation lost a great deal of its connection to its past while certain occupying powers profited from that loss in a variety of ways.”

Al-Takriti surveys the huge toll looting, burning and flooding has taken on the precious collections of documents in the Iraqi National Library and Archives (INLA), the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs Central Library (Awqaf Library), the Iraqi House of Manuscripts, the Iraqi Academy of Sciences, the House of Wisdom and the Iraqi Jewish Archive.
There are disputes over the ownership of some of the surviving documents. The controversial Iraqi academic Kanan Makiya, who was a strong proponent of the invasion, removed the Baath Party Archives from the Party headquarters in 2003 and eventually took them to California. His Iraq Memory Foundation (IMF) claimed stewardship of the archives and then turned them over to the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. But the director general of INLA Saad Eskander [pictured] challenges the IMF’s right to dispose of the collection.

Eskander is also involved in a tussle between Iraq and certain Jewish claimants over the Iraqi Jewish Archive of books, manuscripts and records that was recovered by US troops from a sewage-flooded basement. The Iraqi Culture Ministry agreed that the collection should be moved to the US for preservation, but it was supposed to be returned after two years. Now Iraq is pressing for its return. Explaining why the archive should be returned, Eskander has said: “Iraqis must know that we are a diverse people, with different traditions, different religions, and we need to accept this diversity...To show it to our people that Baghdad was always multiethnic.” But certain influential Jewish personalities and circles in the US object to the return to Iraq.

Philip Marfleet, Reader in Refugee Studies and Director of the Refugee Research Centre at the University of East London, warns that the scattering of Iraqi intellectuals worldwide is “making the prospect of return and reconsolidation of the country’s academic, professional and technical cadres increasingly difficult, leaving a gaping hole in its human resources. A loss of this magnitude will certainly affect the wider society for generations to come.” The Iraqi intelligentsia is in effect being evacuated; hence the presence in Iraqi refugee communities of disproportionately large numbers of academics, writers, journalists and artists.