ali akbar moradi concert

Concert in the time of blasts

There could hardly have been a greater antidote to the grim and apprehensive atmosphere in terrorism-stricken London than the concert of Iranian Kurdish music at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last Friday evening.

If the bombings and mass murder reveal the vile depths to which those terrorists who misuse Islam are prepared to sink, the concert affirmed the high level of culture that artists from the Muslim world bring to London. Some of the music had a deeply spiritual, meditative character while other pieces were joyfully exuberant.

The concert featured musician and vocalist Ali Akbar Moradi, one of the leading Iranian masters of the tanbour lute. Alongside him were his sons Arash, who plays sehtar, and Kourosh who plays the tombak goblet drum and daf frame drum. One of the numbers they performed was an extraordinary trio, with each of the Moradis playing a tanbour.

The programme also featured the well-known London-based percussionist Fariborz Kiani, on tombak and dohol.

The programme opened with a tanbour solo from Ali Akbar Moradi, accompanied by Kourosh. The solo was a fusion of Kurdish maqam music with classical Persian music.

The second half of the evening consisted of Kurdish music and dance. Towards the end, some Kurdish members of the audience couldn’t resist rising leaving their seats and dancing in front of the stage.

Ali Akbar Moradi was born in Kermanshah in 1957 and started playing tanbour at the age of six, encouraged by his grandfather. Later on he received lessons from the grand masters of Kurdish tanbour. By the age of 30 he had completed learning the entire 72 maghams played on tanbour.

The concert was part of the Rhythm Sticks International Drum and Percussion Festival held at the South Bank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room from July 16-24.

The 18 concerts were given by percussionists and musicians from around the world, such as Musicians of the Nile from Upper Egypt, Master Drummers of Africa, and Iraqi oud player Ahmed Mukhtar with Master Arab Percussionists.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette July 26 2005

leila aboulela's 'minaret' on BBC

By a quirk of timing, BBC Radio 4's serialisation of Sudanese-Egyptian writer Leila Aboulela's novel "Minaret" was broadcast in the Book at Bedtime slot during the period following the bomb attacks in London on July 7.
It is hard to think of a more appropriate book for this time when understanding between Muslims and wider British society is under huge strain. The serialisation was wonderfully rendered by actress Adjoa Andoh, who brought a lively variety of voices to her reading.

Aboulela has a gift for writing from the interior experience of a Muslim woman, and "Minaret" takes us deep into the life of her Sudanese first-person narrator Najwa. Aboulela approaches the story with her customary grace and skill, and her characters are subtly drawn. We learn what it is that brought Najwa to a renewal of her religious faith, and to the decision to start wearing the Islamic headscarf.

The novel, published recently by Bloomsbury, constantly moves in place and time between Khartoum and London, in a time frame from the mid-1980s to today. The minaret of the title is that of Regent's Park mosque, glimpsed by Najwa as she waits to enter the flat of her new employer Lamya whose small daughter she looks after.

Najwa tells us at the beginning of the novel "I've come down in the world." Born to a privileged family in Sudan, and with her father close to the president, she mixes with a Westernised partying crowd of young people in Khartoum in the mid-1980s. At university there is a mutual attraction between her and Anwar, a young radical who is critical of her father and the family's well-off lifestyle.

Disaster befalls the family after a coup in which Najwa's father is arrested. Najwa flees to London with her mother and twin brother Omar and her father is tried and hung. Najwa's twin Omar, who has long been a worry to her, ends up in prison.

While working for Lamya, Najwa develops a close friendship with Lamya's brother Tamer, which causes her conflicting emotions.

Aboulela was in 2000 the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing for the short story "The Museum". She was longlisted for the Orange prize for women's fiction in 2000 with her first novel "The Translator". Her collection of stories, "Coloured Lights", was published in 2001. She has had several dramas performed on BBC Radio.

Aboulela's writing exemplifies the capacity of fiction to touch readers and encourage empathy in ways that straight reporting can never do. Such imaginative leaps are needed now more than ever.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette
July 19 2005

afolabi of nigeria wins the caine prize

Segun Afolabi with bust of Sir Michael Caine

This year's winner of the $15,000 Caine Prize for African Writing, Nigerian-born Segun Afolabi, has had a succession of stories published in some of the most prestigious literary magazines in Britain. They include the London Magazine, Wasafiri, Edinburgh Review and Pretext.

Afolabi won the prize for his story "Monday Morning", published in the spring 2004 issue of Wasafiri. He is set to make a high-profile debut in the book world when Jonathan Cape (part of Random House) publishes his short story collection "A Life Elsewhere." The collection was due to be published next April, but now that Afolabi has won the Caine Prize the publication date may be brought forward. The collection will be followed by Afolabi's first novel, "Goodbye Lucille", due to be published by Cape in early 2007.

The Caine Prize was established in 2000 in memory of Sir Michael Caine, the businessman lover of literature and of Africa who was for nearly 25 years the chairman of the Booker Prize management committee.

The chairman of the judges, Baroness Young, announced that Afolabi had won the prize at the prize-giving dinner held on July 4 in the Divinity School at the Bodleian library, Oxford University.
She described "Monday Morning" as "a very fresh, elegantly written tale which gave us an insight into the perspectives of a family who escaped torture and mutilation in their own country to arrive in London, which for them is a city of misunderstandings and hostility."

When I met Afolabi the day after the won the prize, he told me that he is halfway through the year he has taken off from full-time employment in order to write his second novel. He has been trying to get by on as little money as possible, and the prize has come as a "big boost". Afolabi's past jobs have included working as a subeditor on the Radio Times and as an assistant content producer for BBC digital radio.

Afolabi was born in Kaduna in 1966. His father's work as a diplomat took the family to live in countries including Congo, Canada, Indonesia, Japan and Hong Kong. When Afolabi was nine, he was sent to school in England and later on he read management studies at Cardiff University, Wales.

While at school Afolabi developed a passion for literature, and he continued to read voraciously at university, getting through the entire works of James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, John Steinbeck and others. His favourite writers today also include Caryl Phillips, Jamaica Kincaid, Lorrie Moore and Jhumpa Lahiri.

It was while working in a London bookshop that Afolabi attended evening classes in creative writing at the City Lit Institute, under the tutorship of the poet and novelist Alison Fell. His first published story, "Jumbo and Jacinta", appeared in the London Magazine around 10 years ago. It is a quirky tale about a very overweight husband and his nagging wife, from St Lucia, visiting Niagara Falls in Canada.

One recurring theme in Afolabi's stories is people moving to other countries and "trying to negotiate their lives." His novel "Goodbye Lucille" is set in Berlin, Nigeria and London. The central character is a young Nigerian photographer, and the novel is informed by Afolabi's experience of living in East Berlin where his father was posted in the mid-1980s before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The novel has comedic aspects and "I set it in Berlin partly because it is a very eccentric city."

Afolabi is halfway through the first draft of his new novel, but smilingly fends off enquiries with "I tend not to talk about a work in progress." He is greatly looking forward to attending the Caine writers' workshop to be held in Kenya next year.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette
July 12 2005

caine prize at rosl

Nick Elam and Muthal Naidoo

The final phase of judging for the annual $15,000 Caine Prize for African Writing, during which the shortlisted writers are invited to London for some days, always includes an evening at the Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL). The writers read excerpts from the stories for which they have been shortlisted and there is then a question and answer session.

Nick Elam, administrator of the Caine Prize since its launch in 2000, said at the ROSL last Friday that the ROSL evening is "one of the most delightful of the occasions that we have during the Caine prize programme each year."

With his unflappable manner, friendliness and quick humour, Elam has a way of making the shortlisted writers who have travelled to London feel at home. He said that this year more stories than ever arrived - over 100 - that were suitable for submission to the five judges. This year the judges are chaired by Baroness Young, chair of the arts advisory committee of the British Council.


At question time the Jamaican-born writer Patrick Wilmot set the cat among the pigeons. He said he had read all the stories and was quite impressed by them, and by the quality of the prose. "But if I didn't know you I would have thought it was someone my age who was writing," said the 63-year-old writer, who taught sociology in Nigeria for 18 years and has turned from writing academic textbooks to writing novels. He described the stories as "polished, middle class, quiet, sedate prose… I like your stories, but next time you're writing let's have some fireworks."

The Ugandan writer Doreen Baingana responded: "As a writer you can't really write to demand, we all have our individual styles. Hopefully, some people can appreciate our styles."

Doreen was shortlisted for the Caine Prize last year, and is the first author to be shortlisted two years running. Her story "Tropical Fish" is hardly "sedate" in its subject matter, being the explicit first-person account by a young Ugandan student of her physical relationship with a white man 15 years her senior. Before starting to read, Doreen joked: "I hope you're all over 18!"

The Sudanese novelist Jamal Mahjoub's story "The Obituary Tango" is also a first-person narrative, of a middle-aged Arab man located in London. The man's observations and grumbles, especially about Africans and Arabs in Britain, met with appreciation and amusement.

Nigerian writer Segun Afolabi's story "Monday Morning" explores the efforts of a refugee family to settle in London. South African Muthal Naidoo's story "Jailbirds" depicts the tension between two black women in prison. One of the women was detained for organising a demonstration on the release of Nelson Mandela, and the other is her jailer.

The other shortlisted Nigerian, Ike Okonta, started to write fiction in the early 1990s when, as a political journalist and oppositionist, he was forced to go underground. Okonta explained that he enjoys "the push and pull between fiction and fact in the creative process". The central character in his story "Tindi in the Land of the Dead" is a journalist who visits a village devastated by a strange and terrible illness. The precision and sensitivity with which the story is told may not have "fireworks" in the Patrick Wilmot sense, but the story has a cumulative power and sense of horror.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette
July 5 2005

serpentine pavilion

Visitors strolling in London's Kensington Gardens during the next three months will notice an intriguing new architectural structure on the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery. The striking building is the latest of the Serpentine's annually commissioned summer pavilions. With its segmented, armoured appearance it resembles something from the animal world.

The Pavilion has been variously compared to an armadillo, a dinosaur, and a cross between a turtle and a millipede. Its impermeable shell (a translucent polycarbonate material on a timber lattice) stops 1.3 metres above the ground, giving the impression that the Pavilion hovers over the lawn.

The Pavilion opened last Saturday and remains in place until early October when it will be dismantled. As well as viewing the Pavilion from outside, visitors can go inside for a cup of coffee or a meal. The pavilion is a café and restaurant by day, and a space for learning, debate and entertainment by night.

The Pavilion was designed by Portuguese architects Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, together with the deputy chairman of Arup, Cecil Balmond, and his team. Siza is regarded as the greatest living Portuguese architect, and has received many awards. In designing the Pavilion he tried to establish a "dialogue" between it and the contrasting Neo-classical architectural style of the Serpentine Gallery.

The Pavilion is based on a rectangular grid, skewed into a dynamic, curving form. It is constructed of interlocking timber beams. This use of timber gives the structure an organic character, and evokes the relationship between the Pavilion and the richly treed Kensington Gardens.

The first Serpentine Pavilion was designed in 2000 by the London-based Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. Hadid's structure, which marked the gallery's 30th anniversary, subverted the conventional idea of a tent or marquee.

In the years since, the erection of the Serpentine Pavilion has been a highlight of the London summer. The Serpentine has commissioned some of the world's most distinguished architects to design pavilions. In summer 2001 the architect was Polish-born American Daniel Libeskind.

In 2002 the commission went to the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, and in 2003 to the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer - who was 96 years old at the time. Last year there was no summer pavilion because the Serpentine was trying to raise money for the highly ambitious scheme of Dutch architects MVRDV to build an artificial grass-covered mountain to completely enclose the gallery. This is MVRDV's novel concept of a summer pavilion, but the project has proved costly and technically challenging and has been postponed until 2006 at the earliest.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette 5 July 2005

paula cox's palestine prints

Palestinian Wedding Dance © Paula Cox

Unsung Heroines
by Susannah Tarbush

Palestinian women are in a sense the unsung heroines of the extraordinarily difficult circumstances in which the Palestinians find themselves. "Celebrating the Life of Palestinian Women", an exhibition of prints by British artist Paula Cox, pays tribute to their role. The show opened at the Kufa Gallery in West London last Wednesday and runs until 5 July.

Cox was awarded a grant by the Arts Council in spring 2004 to go to Palestine as an artist in residence. She has worked with Amnesty International since 1988 as a painter on human rights, and says her art project in Palestine "allowed me a sensitive insight into the rich but devastated Palestinian culture as I attempt to document the daily lives of women who are the innocent victims of a brutal conflict, whose most basic rights are being eroded by life under Israeli occupation."

As a woman artist she was "able to share a special intimacy with the women from a predominantly Muslim culture. I spent time in towns villages and refugee camps in the West Bank but because of the extremely volatile situation I was unable to visit Gaza."

Cox's pictures, with their eloquent fluid lines, reflect the texture of the women's lives. In some pictures women are engaged in everyday tasks such as harvesting olives and preparing bread, vine leaves and other foods. In others they talk with their friends, pray or dream.

In the caption to the colourful print "Palestinian Wedding Dance", Cox recalls how she and Fatimah bought orange, pink and white carnations to take to Fatimah's friend's wedding celebrations in Bethlehem. The groom's brother was not at the wedding; he is in an Israeli prison and has been adopted as a political prisoner by Amnesty International.

The picture "Percussion of falling olives", an assembly of three images, has as its caption a delightful poem by Cox on these "ancient ancestral trees" and "the sweet bitter smell of olives baking in the hot sun/Shovelled by beautiful strong hands/into hessian sacks, sewn up with a huge needle and string."

In "Stuffed Vine Leaves" women share their secrets as they prepare vine leaves for the Ramadan feast. "Mervat's aunt" depicts a woman from Tulkarem refugee camp bringing delicious date and sesame biscuits, and telling of her work as a volunteer in the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

In "Moment of Peace" a woman gazes out beyond a blue door. "Women sitting in their doorways in the villages and refugee camps often look malnourished by the poverty of their situation" Cox says. "I try to bring to life, with line and colour, the beauty and nobility of these strong, generous people who have had their land and human rights stolen from them."

The exhibition embarks on a tour of Palestine in October, starting in Bethlehem. Cox hopes the exhibition will be shown in Gaza, at A M Qattan Foundation's Centre for the Child. She also hopes that a tour of France, the US and some other Western countries can also be arranged.

Saudi Gazette
June 28 2005

Istanbul women's festival

Leila Hatami

picture of Haifa Al-Mansour

Women of the East
by
Susannah Tarbush

The women's festival held earlier this month in Turkey was a remarkable assembly of Middle Eastern women intellectuals and artists, but it seems to gone largely unnoticed by the British and presumably other Western media. I heard about it only by chance from one of the participants, the Palestinian singer Reem Kelani, who gave an evening concert during the event.

The "Eastern Women" festival took place in Istanbul from 11 to 17 June. Music events were sprinkled liberally through the programme. The opening concert on the first evening was given by Lebanese singer Jahida Wehbe, who is regarded as one of the great classical Arabic singers performing today.

From Iran came the singer Sima Bina. Born in Khorasan, Bina started her singing career on Iranian radio at the age of only nine under the direction of her father Ahmad Bina, a master of Iranian classical music and a poet who wrote many of Sima's early songs. Another Iranian singer, Sussan Deyhim, gave the closing concert of the festival.

Women filmmakers were present in force at the festival. Saudi filmmaker Haifa Al Mansour showed two films, the prize-winning "The Only Way Around," and "Women Without Shadows". The latter film was recently shown privately at the French consulate in Jeddah where its theme of the covering of women's faces in public elicited a variety of reactions.

The Iraqi filmmaker Maysoun Pachachi (daughter of the veteran politician Adnan Pachachi) showed her films "Journey to Iraq" and "Return to the Land of Wonders." Pachachi has lived in London for many years. In 2004 she co-founded a free-of-charge film-training centre in Baghdad.

"Return to the Land of Wonders" documents her return to Iraq with her father after the 2003 war and Adnan Pachachi's work as head of a committee drafting a new constitution. The film shows how Iraqis were trying to survive and to rid themselves of a sense of despair and defeat.

Egyptian filmmaker Hala Khalil showed "The Best of Times", which has won several prizes. The Iranian film actress and director Rakhshan Bani Etemad hosted a film showing, and Iranian actress Leila Hatami also participated in the festival.

Writers at the festival included Hoda Barakat and Iman Humaydan Younes from Lebanon, Iranian writer Shiva Arastui, Iraqi poet Amal Al-Jubouri, Egyptian novelist Miral Al-Tahawi, Syrian poet Lina Tibi and UAE poet Maysoon Al-Saqr.

The festival's opening panel was entitled "Heritage of the Women of the East." There were also panels on music, cinema, poetry and literature.

It is clear from the festival that Middle Eastern women are very active at the new frontiers of the arts. Given the misconceptions about Middle Eastern women in the West, it might be an idea to stage a similar festival, with the addition of Turkish women artists, in London and other Western cities.

Saudi Gazette
June 28 2005

sharq magazine launched in london

Why do British Arab men go back to their home countries to find brides rather than marrying Arab girls brought up in the UK? This is one of the topics covered in the first issue of “Sharq”, a new glossy magazine of British Arab Culture.

In her article “Takeaway Bride”, Layla Maghribi argues that only an Arab girl raised in Britain can understand the bi-cultural upbringing of an Arab British man.

She asks: “What is it that our fellow compatriots have on the Arab continent that is sending the men over, away from the local and familiar women?” She blames among other things the laziness of Arab men, who take the easy option, and the snobbishness and unapproachability of many Arab women in Britain.

In their countries of origin, British Arab men are viewed as a “fine catch indeed.” And they may think women back home make “better wives”, and are more likely to be “pure.” But Maghribi says that girls back home could actually have a more “colourful history” than Arab girls in London.

The content of “Sharq” is a mixture of features, interviews, fashion shoots, beauty, travel, regular columns, reviews and listings of forthcoming events. The magazine has an agony Tante, Suhad Jarra, and a Girl About Town, Ranya Khalil.

The cover of the first issue is graced by a photograph of the musician, model and broadcaster Mona Ibellini. The caption reads: “Mona Ibellini: the New Alicia Keys?”

Sharq’s Editor in Chief and Creative Director is Reem Maghribi, who writes in her editorial: “I have had the pleasure of meeting some fabulously talented and generously spirited Arabs over the past few months.”

She mentions among others Isam, Waqas and Lenny, the members of Danish group Outlandish whose hip-hop is inspired by their Honduran, Pakistani and Moroccan origins.

The magazine includes a features by Judith Brown on “The Image of Arabs in the British Media.” The chairman of Arab Media Watch, Sharif Nashashibi, gives a first hand account of the daily ordeal of travelling around Palestine, and also contributes an interview with Dr Yahya Aridi, the director of the new Syrian media centre in London.

There is a review of the play “My name is Rachel Corrie”, based on the life of the American peace activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in March 2003. On a lighter note, in the Dating, Courting & Relationships section four women “tell all about blind dates, arranged marriages, a slapper and a mother-in-law.”

“Sharq” is sold by subscription and at hotels and newsagents in areas of London frequented by Arabs. It is to be welcomed as giving a voice to the new generation of Arabs brought up in Britain, provided it survives the tough challenges involved in establishing a new publication.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette June 21 2005

sowing seeds of peace

On Thursday June 22, the Curzon Cinema in the Mayfair area of central London is to host the UK Gala Premiere of "Seeds", a full-length documentary highlighting an attempt to reconcile young people from some of the world's hottest areas of conflict.

The film was produced by the Al Madad Foundation, which was founded in 2000 as a UK-registered charity by Faiza Alireza of Saudi Arabia with the support of her daughters Basma and Yasmin.

Al Madad is dedicated to the relief of poverty in the developing world, with a particular emphasis on the welfare of children. It raises financial support for cultural, medical and educational projects.

Guest speaker at the premiere is CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, winner of numerous awards. The film's producer and director, Marj Safinia and Joseph Boyle, will introduce the film and answer questions afterwards. The £50 tickets for the premier include a buffet dinner at Al Sultan restaurant in Mayfair.

"Seeds" is an account of the work of Seeds of Peace, the organisation established in 1993 by author and journalist John Wallach.

Seeds of Peace brings teenagers from regions of conflict together for three weeks every summer at an international camp in Maine. The idea is that through getting to know and listen to each other, the young people will learn mutual respect and the skills needed to make lasting peace.

At the Maine camp teenagers meet those from the "other side" whom they would ordinarily be unable to get to know. They include Palestinians and Israelis, Americans and Afghans, Indians and Pakistanis.

"Seeds" focuses on ten of the 166 teenagers at the camp, and chronicles the often difficult and emotional process of reconciliation from the perspective of the children themselves. As one of the Seeds says: "In order to make peace with your enemy, you have to go to war with yourself."
The film has been part of the official selection at some 30 international film festivals. It was runner up in the Audience Award category at both the Palm Springs and Cleveland film festivals.

The world premiere was as the opening night film at Silverdocs, the documentary film festival of AFI/Discovery Channel.

The project to make "Seeds" first took root in February 2002 after Marj Safinia was invited to a Seeds of Peace fundraiser in New York. She and Joseph Boyle subsequently drafted a film proposal and approached John Wallach - little realising that nine other filmmakers had approached Seeds with similar proposals.

Seeds of Peace gave Safinia and Boyle permission to film, and in just over five weeks they and producer Hana Alireza succeeded in raising more than $70,000 for production. They immediately set off for the camp in Maine, and had just three weeks to tell the story with its dramas and twists of fate.

There have been some glowing tributes to the film. Chris Walny of Detroit Documentary Festival described it as "one of those films that just might change the world." Judy Woodruff of CNN said it is "a spectacular film…truly impressive."

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette June 14 2005

palestinian echoes

Reem Kelani and her ensemble

The concert given by Palestinian Reem Kelani and seven musicians in London last Thursday night was an example of synergy and ensemble playing at its best. Each of the musicians is well-established in their own particular musical spheres, and each made a significant contribution in complementing Kelani’s rendering of Palestinian songs.

The venue was St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace located in Bishopsgate in the financial heart of the City of London. The small church was badly damaged by an IRA bomb 12 years ago and has been extensively restored.

Kelani first performed at St Ethelburga’s six months ago, and the fact that she has been invited to give a return concert so soon reflects the enthusiasm with which her previous appearance was received.

In introducing the concert, the director of the centre, Simon Keyes, said that the previous Friday the great novelist, critic and painter John Berger had attended an event in his honour at the centre. Berger had “made two remarkable observations. One was he said ‘us’ and ‘them’ are the two most dangerous words in any language, and the other thing was he had just come back from Palestine and said he couldn’t wait to get back there because he had found it such a moving place to be.

“The reason for that, he said, was that more than anyone else in the world, the Palestinians have really learnt to live in the present moment. They have faced up to the most extraordinary, appalling history, but they are here, and they are living now today, and they are really beginning to move forward.”

The concert lived up to it billing as “Middle Eastern Harmonies: an Evening of Music and Laughter with Reem Kelani and Friends.” There was plenty of humour, but at the same time there was much passion and pain in Kelani’s moving delivery of traditional improvisations and settings of contemporary Palestinian poetry.

The musicians included jazz pianist Zoe Rahman and her saxophonist brother Idris, who have emerged as important forces on the British jazz scene. Zoe Rahman has her own jazz trio, and also works with many prominent musicians. Idris Rahman is co-leader of the London-based band Soothsayers which plays jazz, African and Caribbean music.

On violin was Egyptian Sami Bishai and on double bass Oil Hayhurst. Iranian Fariborz Kiani played daff and tombak. Salah Dawson Miller played frame drums, and Patrick Illingworth was on drum kit.

Kelani and the ensemble are now in the process of recording tracks for her first CD, which is due to be released in October.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette 24 May 2005

the naomi shemer affair

"Even the Song is Stolen"
by Susannah Tarbush

When Israeli composer Naomi Shemer was on her deathbed last year, she made a startling confession to a friend: her song “Jerusalem of Gold”, sung by Israeli forces to celebrate the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, was derived from the melody of a Basque lullaby.

“Jerusalem of Gold” is not the first composition to be involved in a case of musical plagiarism. For example the late former Beatle George Harrison lost a lawsuit in which he was accused of using the melody of The Chiffons’ 1964 hit “She’s So Fine” in his composition “My Sweet Lord”. But the Middle East political angle has made Shemer’s admission a particularly hot talking point.

“Jerusalem of Gold” was Shemer’s most famous composition, and after the 1967 war it became a sort of unofficial national anthem. Shemer was often asked over the years whether she had plagiarised the Basque melody, but she always angrily denied this. In 2000 in an interview with the newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, she insisted that the two songs didn’t sound the same at all.

Shemer finally came clean in a letter to fellow composer Gil Aldema written just a few days before she died last June. News of her confession surfaced a few days ago, and Aldema explained to Israeli Army Radio that although Shemer had agreed that her secret should be revealed after her death, he had allowed some time to pass before doing so.

In her letter, Shemer said that in the mid-1960s she had heard a well-known Basque lullaby in the mid-1960s, sung by her singer friend Nehama Hendel.

“In the winter of 1967 when I was working on the writing of ‘Jerusalem of Gold’, the song must have creeped into me unwittingly,” she wrote. “I also didn’t know that an invisible hand dictated changes in the original to me…it turns out that someone protected me and provided me with my eight notes that grant me the rights to my version of the folk song. But all this was done, as I said, unwittingly.”

Shemer told Aldema that she regarded “the whole matter as an unfortunate work accident – so unfortunate that maybe this is what caused my illness.”

A few days after the news of the confession broke, Haaretz newspaper quoted the famous Basque singer Paco Ibanez as saying he had sung sang the Basque melody in question at a performance in Israel in 1962, and perhaps Shemer had heard it then.

Ibanez said his mother used to sing the melody to him when he was small. He recorded it in his volume “Songs I heard from my mother”. As soon as he heard Shemer’s song in summer 1967 he recognised it as his song “Joseph’s Hair.”

He said he was sad to hear of Shemer’s guilt feelings over basing her song on the Basque folk melody and not admitting it. “It is a shame. She had no reason to feel guilty.”

Many Haaretz readers e-mailed messages to the newspaper on the Shemer case. Some of the messages were supportive, and pointed out that classical composers have often used melodies from folk songs. Several noted that the Israeli national anthem Hatikva is based on a melody from Czech composer Bedrich Smetana’s “Moldau”. Others observed that singers such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez have borrowed folk melodies.

But there were also some more critical comments, with “Arik” from Toronto writing: “Even the songs are stolen…just like everything else …the land you live on….the water…everything.” Others noted that Shemer had become a patron of the settler cause after 1967 and that her song had become the anthem of the settlers.

One Basque wrote he felt ashamed for the use of the Basque lullaby as a war hymn, and he criticised Shemer for stealing Basque folklore for war purposes. Another reader said part of Shemer’s estate should be seized and given to the Basques.

Saudi Gazette, 10 May 2005

new issue of Banipal

Banipal: cover picture by the Iraqi Kurdish artist Sadradeen

Overcoming language barrier
by Susannah Tarbush

One of the pleasures of reading Banipal, the magazine of modern Arab literature, is the opportunity it offers of discovering authors who have through translation overcome the language barrier.

In the spring issue of the magazine, which has just been published, one such author is Algerian writer, journalist and musician Aziz Chouaki who has lived in France since the political upheavals in Algeria in the 1990s.

Banipal carries an excerpt from Chouaki’s novel “The Star of Algiers”, written in French and translated into English by Ros Schwarz and Lulu Norman. The novel was published in English by Graywolf Press, USA earlier this year. To judge by the extract, Chouaki is a fresh, original voice.

While Chouaki is new to English translation, some of the names in the latest issue of Banipal are long-established. From Tayeb Salih, the Sudanese writer, we have the story “If She Comes”, set in an office, translated by Shakir Mustafa.

The Saudi writer, poet and novelist Ali al-Domaini is represented through an extract from his novel “The Grey Cloud: Parts of the Biography of Sahl al-Jabali”. The novel was published in Arabic in Beirut in 1998, and the extract, which is set in a prison, has been translated by Issa Boullata.

Al-Domaini has been in prison in Saudi Arabia since last year. Last week, at a ceremony in New York attended by many prominent American and international authors, PEN conferred a 2005 ‘PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award’ on the Saudi author.

Issa Boullata is a writer as well as a translator, and Banipal includes his short story “A Forgotten Gentleman”, which is set in Canada.

There are in all seven short stories in the issue. The story “Wind”, by Tunisian Ali Mosbah, who lives in Berlin, gives a powerful metaphorical account of the effects of winds on the inhabitants of an area of Tunisia.

The poets featured in the issue include Palestinian medical doctor Fady Joudah, who won the $1,000 first prize in the River City writing awards in 2004. Joudah lives in Houston and is an active member of Medicins sans Frontieres. There are also love poems by the Lebanese poet Inaya Jaber.

One of Banipal’s regular sections is Literary Influences, in which a writer tells of the books he or she has read since childhood, and the influences on their work. In this issue the writer is the Syrian Rafik Shami, who lives in Germany. His parents originally came from the village of Malula where the ancient language Aramaic is spoken.

In its section on literary events, Banipal has a report on the awarding of the 2004 Prince Claus Awards, with the principal prize going to Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Darwish’s eloquent acceptance speech is published in full.


Banipal is at: www.banipal.co.uk

visions of Palestine

Behind the Wall
by Susannah Tarbush

At the Visions of Palestine evening in the Royal Geographic Society last Tuesday, journalist Lauren Booth – half sister of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie – spoke with passion about her recent first-ever visit to the West Bank and Gaza.

The bouncy journalist, who writes, inter alia, for the Mail on Sunday, New Statesman, and Observer, read from the diary she kept on her trip – expressing for example her amazement at the size of Israeli settlements, and her dismay at the sight of the town of Kalkilya surrounded by the so-called security wall and barbed wire, making the Palestinians like foreigners in their own land.

She found Nablus “stunning”, and fell in love with Ramallah, “the Beverly Hills of the occupied territories” where she felt “a lot safer than in the streets of Haringey” (a borough of London known for its guns and street crime). Throughout her trip she was overwhelmed by the hospitality and generosity of the Palestinians.

Visions of Palestine was organised by the Council for Arab-British Understanding and raised funds for four charities. It was chaired by the journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown, who is a columnist in the Independent, a frequent commentator on radio and TV, and the author of several books.

The 20-year-old Palestinian singer Shadia Mansour, dressed in a traditional embroidered Palestinian dress, added a musical flavour to the evening with her unaccompanied singing.

Palestinian writer Adania Shibli, whose work has been published in literary magazines in the Arab world, read one of her short stories. She has twice been awarded the Young Writer’s Award – Palestine by the A M Qattan Foundation.

British photographer Tom Craig displayed on a screen some of the photographs he took in Gaza while accompanying the actor Daniel Day-Lewis as part of a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) project. Day-Lewis’s article on Gaza and Craig’s photographs were published in the Sunday Times colour magazine a few weeks ago.

During their visit Day-Lewis and Craig saw the work MSF is doing to help traumatised children. Craig’s photographs are full of scenes of rubble and shattered buildings, and of children who have suffered physical and emotional damage. And yet the spirit of the people, especially the children, shines through.

Gaza was a main focus of the evening. The distinguished Gaza-born artist Laila Shawa, who has lived and worked in London for some years, presented some of her striking images based on the children and graffiti of Gaza.

Dr Eyad El-Sarraj, the Palestinian psychiatrist who is founder and medical director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, gave a humanitarian discourse on how a solution to the conflict can be achieved once Israel starts to see Palestinians as equal human beings and treats them as such.

Israeli-Dutch filmmaker Benny Brunner showed extracts from two films. One was his latest documentary, “The Concrete Curtain”, in which he looks at the impact of Israel’s separation barrier on Palestinian life in Jerusalem.

The other film was Tama Goldschmidt’s “Qalandiya Checkpoint Report” which conveys the frightening crush of Palestinian women and children struggling to get through the turnstile which is the entrance to their refugee camp while Israeli soldiers look on.

At the end of the evening a visibly moved Yasmin Alibhai Brown told the Palestinians: “I am absolutely humbled by your struggle and what you go through. I salute your courage and your spirit.”

Saudi Gazette, 3 May 2005

Arab blogging catches on

Blogging Their Way
by Susannah Tarbush

If anyone wanted proof of the increasing attention being paid in the West to the views of Arab bloggers, they need only have listened to last Sunday’s edition of the BBC radio current affairs series Broadcasting House.

In his report from Cairo on the political situation in Egypt, the BBC correspondent chose to interview not a mainstream analyst or politician, but a prominent blogger known only as “Big Pharaoh”.

Big Pharaoh is just one of a growing band of Arab bloggers whose blogs are widely followed and commented on by other bloggers and the media. Blogging in the Arab world has come a long way since Iraqi “Salam Pax” became the first internationally known Arab blogger after starting his blog in September 2002.

Word of Salam Pax’s blog spread quickly around the internet, and he gained a huge readership. He was eventually invited to be a columnist for the London-based Guardian newspaper, and Atlantic Books and Guardian Books jointly published the book of his blog.

Now Salam Pax makes regular film contributions to BBC TV’s Newsnight, and in February he won the innovation award from Britain’s Royal Television Society.

Arabs, particularly members of the techno-savvy younger generation, have become enthusiastic users of services such as Blogger and Live Journal through which a blog can be set up free of charge. The blogger can disclose as much or as little about their identity as they wish, which increases the sense of freedom in expressing their views in their online diaries. But at the same time the use of pseudonyms can create suspicions about who is “really behind” a particular blog.

The number of Iraqi blogs has mushroomed over the past two years, and they play a unique role in giving readers an insight into what life is like in different parts of the country, at a time when it has become very difficult for Western journalists to get around.

There are sizeable blogger communities in a number of other countries, such as Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt. Sites such as Jordan Planet and Bahrain blogs have links to numerous blogs.

The importance of blogging in encouraging freedom of expression has led Reporters sans Frontieres (English name Reporters Without Borders) to organise the Freedom Blog Awards in partnership with Deutsche Welle.

Sixty blogs have been chosen divided into six geographical categories, and internet users can vote by the closing date of 1 June, with the results announced two weeks later.

One category is devoted to Iranian blogs, and no fewer than 21 of the 60 blogs up for voting are in Farsi. In the Middle Eastern and African category, there are eight Arab blogs - three of them in Arabic, three in English and two in French. There are two blogs from Bahrain, two from Egypt and one each from Morocco, the UAE, Tunisia and Iraq.


Saudi Gazette, 3 May 2005

waiting for mordechai

© Jenny Morgan

pro-Vanunu demonstrator with gag


Waiting for Mordechai
by Susannah Tarbush

The tense and drama-filled days surrounding the release of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu from prison last April are the focus of “Waiting for Mordechai”, the latest film by London-based filmmaker Jenny Morgan.

Morgan filmed, directed and produced “Waiting for Mordechai”, which follows a group of international campaigners who arrived in Israel a few days before Vanunu’s release from Ashkelon prison on 21 April. She brings humanity, integrity and the eye of an artist to her 30-minute film.

The campaigners fought during Vanunu’s 18 years in prison (11 ½ of them in solitary confinement) for his release, and for a nuclear-free Middle East. In London, they held a weekly vigil outside the Israeli Embassy from 1992, and organised various fund-raising events.

“Waiting for Mordechai” had its first screening at London International Film School in Covent Garden in early February, and was shown on 21 March at a meeting in the House of Lords organised by the Campaign to Free Vanunu. It will be screened in West London on 12 April at a meeting organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The campaigners were harassed by security personnel when they landed in Israel. Among 11 people delayed at the airport were British actress Susannah York and Liberal Democrat MP Colin Breed.

On the day of Vanunu’s release, the campaigners joined the crowd outside the prison. Many in the crowd were extremely hostile to Vanunu. Some hoped he would be killed, and posters of him were set alight.
Vanunu’s release was not the end of his ordeal. The film records Vanunu’s brother, Meir, learning shortly before his release that he was to be subject to tough restrictions, including bans on leaving Israel and speaking to the media.

Now Vanunu is facing trial, accused of violating some of the restrictions. The first court hearing will be held on 6 April.
An international delegation is travelling to Israel on 16 April to mark the first anniversary of Vanunu’s release, and to support him over his trial. The coordinator of the British Campaign, Ernest Rodker, told Saudi Gazette that the delegation will try to go to Dimona nuclear reactor where Vanunu worked, and where he secretly took photographs. “It is very difficult to get permission, but we hope to get to Dimona if we can,” he said.

The final scenes of the film (shot by Adeline O’Keeffe) show Vanunu after his release in the guest house at St George’s Anglican cathedral in Jerusalem where he has lived ever since (he had converted to Christianity before his arrest). He was recently elected rector of Glasgow University, Scotland.

At the end of the film Vanunu says:. “The Israel government continue to pursue me, don’t want to let me go free after 18 years. I don’t have any more secrets, so the Israeli government should realise this case is over, dead – they should let me go.”

The film is available on DVD and video, and clips can be downloaded, from the London-based distributor Journeyman Pictures at: http://www.journeyman.tv/

Saudi Gazette
5 April 2005

©Jenny Morgan

anti-Vanunu demonstrator burns poster

caine prize shortlist

shortlisted writer Jamal Mahjoub



Caine Prize shortlist announced

The shortlist for this year's Caine Prize for African Writing, announced last week, includes the Sudanese-English writer Jamal Mahjoub. Mahjoub is the author of five novels including the acclaimed Travelling With Djinns published in 2003.

Although the Caine Prize was in 2000, its first year, won by Sudanese-Egyptian writer Leila Aboulela for her story The Museum, very few writers from Arab Africa have made the shortlist since then, so Mahjoub's appearance is particularly welcome.

The shortlisted writers will be invited to London for a round of events related to the prize, and on 4 July the winner will be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The $15,000 prize is awarded for a short story by an African writer, published in English, of between 3,000 and 15,000 words. Mahjoub is shortlisted for the story The Obituary Tango, published in the special summer 2004 20th anniversary issue of Wasifiri magazine.

Wasifiri's spring 2004 issue is the source of another shortlisted story, Monday Morning by the Nigerian S A Afolabi. The Nigerian Helon Habila won the Caine in 2001 and Nigerian writers have often featured on the Caine shortlist. They include also this year Ike Okonta, whose story Tindi in the Land of the Dead was published in Humanitas, the journal of George Bell Institute, Queen's College of Birmingham, England.

For the first time, a writer is shortlisted for the second year in a row. She is Doreen Baingana of Uganda, whose story Tropic Fish appeared in African American Review in 2003. The fifth shortlisted writer is South African Mutual Naidoo for the story Jailbirds from Botsotso, Botsotso Publishing 2004.

Baroness Emma Nicholson established the Caine Prize in memory of her late husband, Sir Michael Caine, who was the former chairman of Booker plc and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years. Baroness Nicholson is the president of the Council of the Caine Prize.

The chairman of this year's panel of judges, Baroness Lola Young, a member of the House of Lords, said: "The entries for this year's Caine Prize for African Writing are a rich mixture - everything from folk to urban grit. The shortlist encompasses a variety of styles and perspectives and represents a really good read."

The other judges are Professor of English at Howard University in the US Victoria Arana, Sri Lankan novelist Romesh Gunesekera and senior lecturer in African Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, Dr Nana Wilson-Tagoe.

Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette April 26 2005

shariah TV

Saudi Gazette 26 April 2005

Young, British and Muslim
by Susannah Tarbush

In recent days Channel 4 has been screening daily one-hour programmes in the Shariah TV series, in which young British Muslims discuss with scholars issues of particular relevance to them. This is the second series of Shariah TV, and in the run-up to the general election one might have expected it to generate interest among non-Muslims also.

After all, there is constant media speculation over how Muslims will be voting on 5 May, and the decisive role they could play in deciding the result in certain marginal seats. At the same time a vocal minority of Muslims has resorted to disruptive tactics to try to discourage Muslims from voting at all.

So it was disappointing to find that Channel 4 had pushed the series into a graveyard slot beginning at five minutes past midnight.

In the programmes a studio audience of young Muslims poses questions to a panel of three Islamic scholars, with a different audience and panel for each of the eight programmes. The presenter is So Rahman, who was born in Chester England and has won various TV awards.

The series shows that young British Muslims are a more diverse and open-minded group than they are often portrayed in the media. Some of the women wear hijab, others are in casual clothing. Some of the men are in traditional Islamic garb and headdress.

The exchanges between the young people and the scholars give a flavour of the debates taking place between Muslims in Britain and in the wider world. Among the subjects tackled in the series are the clash of civilisations, the environment, art and culture, women and families, Islam in the modern world, and what it is to be young, British and Muslim.

The first programme, on politics and leadership, considered whether Muslims in Britain should participate in political activity, and what form such participation should take.

The panellists were Timothy Winter, a Cambridge lecturer and convert to Islam, the principal of the Muslim College Dr Zaki Badawi and Professor Tariq Ramadan, who teaches philosophy and Islamic studies in Switzerland, at the College of Geneva and the University of Fribourg.

The panel disagreed with those who thought Muslims should not vote in non-Muslim Britain, and said that, on the contrary, voting is a duty and maybe an obligation. Asked if political activism is a form of jihad, the panel said voting, protesting, campaigning and working to make the world better are all forms of jihad.

Should Muslims become involved in secular political parties? The panel considered that although obeying the party whip could be a problem for a Muslim MP, it is worth becoming involved and inserting Muslim values into policies and political culture.

When asked if the Shariah can guide Muslim as to how to vote, the panel said Muslims should look at the ethics of those for whom they vote. “Consider general principles, such as social justice and human rights. Don’t ask your imam how to vote!”

british book awards

Saudi Gazette 26 April 2005

Commercial Considerations Overtake Literary Merit
by Susannah Tarbush

The British Book Awards held last Wednesday at the Grosvenor House Hotel, and screened on Channel 4 TV two days later, lived up to their claim of being “the Oscars of the book trade” and the tables were packed with literary and other celebrities.

But at the same time the glitzy gathering, held annually since 1990, was disconcerting proof of the extent to which commercial considerations now dominate the publishing world . When the novel “The Da Vinci Code” by American author Dan Brown won the Book of the Year award, this was more for its phenomenal sales, 2.4 million paperback copies in the UK alone, than for any literary merit.

And unlike the annual televised Man Booker prize ceremony, where each shortlisted novel is discussed before the winner is announced, the British Book Awards whisked through the shortlisted and winning books at such speed that no in-depth assessments of books were given.

The husband and wife TV presenter couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan hosted the event. The couple have had a dramatic impact on book sales since moving from ITV to Channel 4 in 2001 to host the daily Richard & Judy Show. They have attained a success with their book club comparable to that of the Oprah Book Club in the US.

The winners of the 12 awards were presented with giant gold pen nibs, which have earned the awards the nickname of The Nibbies. There was also a lifetime achievement award, won by wheelchair-bound 82-year-old John Mortimer, creator of the fictional lawyer Rumpole. Mortimer’s Hollywood actress daughter Emily had flown over from the US to present him with the award

The evening was particularly rewarding for novelist David Mitchell. His novel Cloud Atlas, which was beaten in last autumn’s Man Booker prize by Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, won the Literary Fiction award.

Cloud Atlas also won the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year prize. This prize was voted for by viewers of the Richard & Judy Book Club.

There was a poignant moment when footballer Paul Gascoigne stepped up to receive the award for Sports Book of the Year for his book Gazza – My Story. The former tearaway, whose book describes a hell of drink, drug and relationship problems, was a shadow of his previous self. In a tearful acceptance speech he spoke of the depression from which he is suffering.

Actress Sheila Hancock received the Reader’s Digest Author of the Year award for The Two of Us, her memoir of her marriage to actor John Thaw. Thaw, best known for his TV role as Inspector Morse, died of cancer in 2002.

This year’s awards saw the launch of the new Decibel Prize, supported by the Arts Council, for the writer of African, Caribbean or Asian descent who has made the most important contribution to the literary scene during the past year. The winner was Hari Kunzru, author of the novels Transmission and The Impressionist.

Do black or Asian British writers really need a special prize? There is something rather patronising and politically correct in arguing that they do - especially given their success in winning mainstream literary prizes. Think of Andrea Levy, Hanif Kureishi, Zadie Smith, Caryl Phillips, Ben Okri, Aamer Hussein and Monica Ali among others.