Journalists in the Kingdom have called on the Saudi Journalist Association (SJA), which held board elections in Riyadh last week, to be proactive, help women journalists and protect the rights of journalists in general.
Source: Arab News (Saudi Arabia), December 29, 2008
CULTURE can go beyond politics and bridge the gap between the US and Arab countries.
Qatari Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari, said that although the relationship between the US and Arab countries has been affected by the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is the cultural interaction between the two entities which can contribute to the removal of the negative stereotypes the two parties have against each other.
Source: Gulf Times (Qatar), December 26, 2008
Source: Al-Jazeera (Qatar), December 23, 2008
Columbia Professor Joseph A. Massad elaborates on how Arabs were previously seen as licentious and exotic according to Victorian standards, while later seen as repressed, once the West was sexually “liberated.”
Desiring Arabs is basically a modern Arab intellectual history, but with many a groundbreaking and provocative twist.
In a sense, it takes up where Edward Said left off, expanding the analysis of Orientalism into new, uncharted and previously concealed territory to reveal its influence “in shaping the Arabs’ own perception of themselves and each other”.
From the start, Massad warns that words are never neutral. One is forced to rethink many commonly used terms and concepts, from culture and civilisation to sexuality and deviance. Since the currently accepted definitions of terms such as culture and civilisation arose in the age of colonialism, they reflect Eurocentric value judgements.
Source: Lebanon Now; Jordan Times, September 24, 2007
Jasad (Arabic word meaning Body) is the name of the new seasonal Arabic literary magazine that will be in circulation soon this autumn 2008. Jasad magazine founded by Joumana Haddad (who is also the Editor-in-chief) is the first and the only of its kind among Arabic cultural publications to be specialized in the literature and arts of the Body, it will contain articles, studies, translations, illustrations and images by many Arab and international authors and artists.
The magazine will be available in high quality print through direct mail for subscribers only; parts of the material will also be available on the magazine website. The magazine is published in Beirut by ‘Al-Joumana’ publishing, translation and literary consultation company.
Jasad Magazine:
Website: http://www.jasadmag.com
Email: info@jasadmag.com
Lebanon is the hub of free expression in the Arab world, so it is perhaps not surprising that two exciting bodily projects have emerged from the country. The newest and glossiest is Jasad, or Body, magazine, its cover resplendent with female curves and red silk. The other is a book called Desiring Arabs, a rethinking of Arab desire by a man described as the Edward Said of sexuality.
Jasad, according to its creator and editor-in-chief, Joumana Haddad, who is also a poet, will be a “forum” for all kinds of expressions of the body — erotic and non-erotic — in the form of essays, literature, arts, photography and more. Jasad is, she says, neither a women’s magazine nor Arab pornography; it is not about beauty, “as we define it.”
The first issue of the publication will include topics ranging from fetishism and self-mutilation to cannibalism, while the second issue will feature a lengthy piece on the “relationship between the handicapped and their bodies,” one fraught with “love and hate” — topics that are not normally associated with notions of beauty. While steering clear of any political or ideological labels, Haddad, nonetheless, hopes that Jasad will help people see another vision of the body, going beyond the “superficial” dichotomy related to “women’s pornography or its counterpart, the veil.”
Jasad will hit bookstores in Lebanon in sealed bags and be distributed via DHL to subscribers in other Arab countries in order to avoid censorship in a region where open expression on bodies, sexuality and eroticism is considered taboo. Haddad has been receiving “insulting or bullying” messages on the magazine already, but she is convinced that Jasad, as a “niche cultural project,” will gradually gain acceptance.
Source: Lebanon Now
The number of visitors to YouTube from Turkey, increased two-fold after the country’s prime minister said he has been frequenting the video-sharing website, despite the ban implemented by courts for almost a year.
Source: Hurriyet (Turkey), December 16, 2008
A Saudi man offered to pay $10 million for the pair of shoes that an Iraqi journalist lunged at U.S. President George W. Bush, saying he considers the size 10s a "medal of freedom."
Retired school teacher Mohamed Makhafa, 60, said he thought Muntazer al-Zaidi's shoes, which almost hit Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, were more valuable than everything he owns.
Source: Alarabiya.net (Saudi-owned, Dubai-based), December 16, 2008
Cartoonist: Arman Homsy
Source: Annahar (Lebanon), December 12, 2008
Gebran Tueni was a Lebanese politician and former editor and publisher of An-Nahar daily newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon. Tueni was assassinated by a car bomb on December 12, 2005. His assassination coincided with the release of the second progress of a UN inquiry into Syria's involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
