Category: the petri dish
The Nation‘s Adam Shatz remembers Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, who was killed in a bomb attack on June 3rd. Kassir wrote for Al-Nahar, and was a staunch member of the anti-Syrian opposition.
In Lebanon he has ascended, if that is the word, to the status of “the martyr Kassir.” Yet Kassir was an unusual kind of martyr in today’s Middle East, a staunch secularist who wanted to live in a free country, not to die for one. In a region driven increasingly by a politics of death and sacrifice, he stood for a vision of peaceful reform, progressive social change and democratic secularism–the values of any left worthy of the name. The day after Kassir’s murder, hundreds of journalists poured into Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut to observe an hour of silence. Many raised black pens to the sky, visually evoking the adage that the pen is mightier than the sword. It is not. But to wield the pen rather than the sword in the face of mortal threats requires uncommon courage. This Samir Kassir had in abundance. His death is a terrible blow not only to his family and friends but to Lebanon, Syria and the cause of Arab freedom.
You can see some of the pictures Shatz refers to here. You can also read Randa’s brief post from last Friday.
Acclaimed director Ziad Doueiri‘s new film, Lila Says, sounds like something I’d line up to see. Here’s the summary:
In a Marseilles ghetto, Lila, a gorgeous sixteen-year-old Catholic girl (Vahina Giocante), stops to talk to Chimo, a nineteen-year-old Arab boy (Mohammed Khouas). Lila asks Chimo to look up her skirt — if he can handle it, and puts into motion a sequence of events that is shockingly raw, sensual, and devastating. Lila’s angelic demeanor barely contains the vitality and powerful eroticism that she shares with him and with which she transports the shy and sensitive Chimo from the bleakness of his life. “Lila” is a coming-of-age tale that focuses on Chimo, a sensitive young man emerging from adolescence in a working class, largely immigrant quarter of Marseilles. Like many sensitive young men, he doesn’t spend his whole day sitting around reading poetry – he knocks around town getting into mischief with three pals.
Since all four are Franco-Arabs in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, universe, being hassled by the cops is part of the process as much as getting drunk. So is sticking their noses into the local mosque to check out what the sheikh has to say. None of this business is pursued in any detail. Though they evidently have pious friends, none of Chimo’s pals seems to be serious-minded enough to either engage with Islam or reject it.
Unfortunately, the movie is out only in limited release and I won’t get to see it in Portland for a long while. But you lucky bastards in L.A. get a preview and a panel, courtesy of The Levantine Center.
Lila Says
Exclusive Preview Screening/Panel
Thurs, Jun 23, 7:30 pm
Westside Pavilion Cinemas
10800 Pico Blvd.
310.281.8223
Go. Just go. And then tell me how it was.
Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me fame) is producing a new TV show for the FX network. The reality series, called 30 Days, places people “in unfamiliar social circumstances” for a month and documents their reactions. One of the shows is about a “fundamentalist Christian” who is taken to Dearborn, Michigan for a month. Says Spurlock:
“We took a fundamentalist Christian from my home state of West Virginia, somebody who is very pro-war, pro-‘us versus them’, that when you hear Muslim the only thing he thinks of is a guy standing on a mountain with an AK-47,” Spurlock said.
The man leaves his wife and children at home and goes to live with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States.
“He dresses as a Muslim, eats as a Muslim, he prays five times a day, he studies the Koran daily, he learns to speak Arabic, he works with an imam, a Muslim cleric, to learn the history of Islam, what are the five pillars, why are they important.”
“And the transformation this guy goes through in 30 days is miraculous, it’s incredible,” Spurlock said.
The documentary maker, who has visited more than 100 schools as part of his campaign to improve school food programs, says the television show is driven by the desire to make people think about societal problems.
Another show has Spurlock and his fiancee trying to survive on minimum wage for a month. Now that I’ll watch. Maybe I’ll set my TiVo.
The Guardian has a fascinating profile by Maya Jaggi of the legendary Senegalese novelist/screenwriter/director Ousmane Sembene. (His latest film, Moolade, was released in the U.S. late last year, and is opening in Britain this week.) Sembene started his career as a novelist, but turned to film in order to reach a wider audience in Africa. I was particularly interested in this tidbit about African cinema and how it is regressing due to many factors, including the obvious one: economics.
Sembene has always been uncomfortable with French sponsorship and patronage, though what is known as African cinema, Shiri points out, “was born out of France’s desire to retain cultural influence in the continent”, through subsidies to officially approved films. Sembene increasingly taps EU coffers. “I go everywhere, knock on all doors,” he says.
According to Talbot, he has “always been in total financial control of his work; he has all his negatives.” For Sembene, “Africa is my audience; the west and the rest are markets.” But he feels the chronic distribution problem in Africa (where many commercial cinemas offer a diet of Bollywood and kung fu) has “gone backwards not forwards, especially in francophone countries”. Outside festivals, Gadjigo says, “it is hard to see African films in Africa. African leaderships don’t see the role cinema can play in development,” and 90% of Senegalese cinemas have closed in the past 10 years. Shiri notes that under IMF belt-tightening in the 1980s and 90s, “governments weren’t given any leeway to support culture”.
Read the rest here.
Colombian painter Botero will soon be showing a series of paintings inspired by the treatment of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in the Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq. (Caution: Graphic material.) You can view a selection here, where you can also read an interview with the artist. And here’s an interesting snippet, where Botero discusses what Abu-Ghraib meant to him and whether politically-inspired art is valid.
“En el momento de la gestacion o creacion de estas nuevas obras sintie que existia alguna similitud entre estos dos hechos de horror?
-No. La situacion es distinta. La violencia en Colombia casi siempre es producto de la ignorancia, la falta de educacion y la injusticia social. Lo de Abu Ghraib es un crimen cometido por la mas grande Armada del mundo olvidando la Convencion de Ginebra sobre el trato a los prisioneros.
“Espera que esta serie, que seguramente sera polemica, tenga efecto politico en el mundo?
-No. El arte nunca tuvo ese poder. El artista deja un testimonio que adquiere importancia a lo largo del tiempo si la obra es artisticamente valida.
The paintings are not for sale, and will remain part of Botero’s private collection.
Link via Daily Kos, via Maud Newton.
Am I an eternal optimist or does it seem as though stories like this one, of artistic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, are becoming more common these days? A welcome trend, for sure:
The Palestinians and the Israelis get about equal stage time in Ms. Muskal’s version of “The Yellow Wind.” The piece features the vocalists Keren Hadar and Mira Awad singing in Hebrew and Arabic, and work by the Israeli poets Shaul Tchernichovsky, Natan Alterman and Natan Yonatan. The Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish’s “I Am From There,” featured in the composition, says: “I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: home.”
Brian Lehrer, the WNYC radio moderator and talk show host, will be the narrator.
Ms. Muskal took lessons in Arabic music and learned enough Arabic to set the words to music fluently.
Bassam Saba, a Long Island-based musician who plays the nay, an Arab flute, is onstage the whole time. He helped familiarize Ms. Muskal with Arabic music. “I saw how she thinks to force these two cultures together, composition-wise,” he said.
“It follows all the discovery and connections between people on earth now,” Mr. Saba continued. “People are looking for each other more. It represents this kind of cultural communication. For me, it was important to look for this marriage, coming from the Middle East.”
On a related note, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which emerged out of a cooperation between Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim, is still active and will tour again this summer.