Jeff Halper on the Gaza Boat Trip

I just received this in the mail from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Their Director, Jeff Halper, participated in the recent, successful effort of the Free Gaza Movement to break the Israeli siege of Gaza, sending two boats in with supplies and a team of dedicated volunteers. Jeff was trained as an anthropologist, and participated in a panel at the American Anthropological Association meetings last fall, for which I served as a discussant. Please read Halper's very important observations on the trip, and on Israel and its relations with Gaza.

I've also been receiving communications from Fun'Da'Mental's Aki Nawaz, who also participated in the mission, and I'll be posting those soon.

End of an Odyssey
Jeff Halper
September 1

Now, a few days after my release from jail in the wake of my trip to Gaza, I'm posting a few notes to sum things up.

First, the mission of the Free Gaza Movement to break the Israeli siege proved a success beyond all expectations. Our reaching Gaza and leaving has created a free and regular channel between Gaza and the outside world. It has done so because it has forced the Israeli government to make a clear policy declaration: that it is not occupying Gaza and therefore will not prevent the free movement of Palestinians in and out (at least by sea). (Israel's security concerns can easily be accommodated by instituting a technical system of checks similar to those of other ports.) Any attempt on the part of Israel to backtrack on this - by preventing ships in the future from entering or leaving Gaza with goods and passengers, including Palestinians - may be immediately interpreted as an assertion of control, and therefore of Occupation, opening Israel to accountability for war crimes before international law, something Israel tries to avoid at all costs. Gone is the obfuscation that has allowed Israel to maintain its control of the Occupied Territories without assuming any responsibility: from now on, Israel is either an Occupying Power accountable for its actions and policies, or Palestinians have every right to enjoy their human right of travelling freely in and out of their country. Israel can no longer have it both ways. Not only did our two little boats force the Israel military and government to give way, then, they also changed fundamentally the status of Israel's control of Gaza.

When we finally arrived in Gaza after a day and a half sail, the welcome we received from 40,000 joyous Gazans was overwhelming and moving. People sought me out in particular, eager it seemed to speak Hebrew with an Israeli after years of closure. The message I received by people of all factions during my three days there was the same: How do we ("we" in the sense of all of us living in their country, not just Palestinians or Israelis) get out of this mess? Where are WE going? The discourse was not even political: what is the solution; one-state, two-state, etc etc. It was just common sense and straightforward, based on the assumption that we will all continue living in the same country and this stupid conflict, with its walls and siege and violence, is bad for everybody. Don't Israelis see that? people would ask me.

(The answer, unfortunately, is "no." To be honest, we Israeli Jews are the problem. The Palestinian years ago accepted our existence in the country as a people and are willing to accept ANY solution -- two states, one state, no state, whatever. It is us who want exclusivity over the "Land of Israel" who cannot conceive of a single country, who cannot accept the national presence of Palestinians (we talk about "Arabs" in our country), and who have eliminated by our settlements even the possibility of the two-state solution in which we take 80% of the land. So it's sad, truly sad, that our "enemies" want peace and co-existence (and tell me that in HEBREW) and we don't. Yeah, we Israeli Jews want "peace," but in the meantime what we have -- almost no attacks, a feeling of security, a "disappeared" Palestinian people, a booming economy, tourism and ever-improving international status -- seems just fine. If "peace" means giving up settlements, land and control, why do it? What's wrong with the status quo? If it's not broken, don't fix it.)

When in Gaza I also managed to see old friends, especially Eyad al-Sarraj of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and Raji Sourani, Director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whom I visited in his office. I also received honorary Palestinian citizenship, including a passport, which was very meaningful to me as an Israeli Jew.

When I was in Gaza everyone in Israel -- including the media who interviewed me - warned me to be careful, to watch out for my life. Aren't you scared? they asked. Well, the only time I felt genuine and palpable fear during the entire journey was when I got back to Israel. I went from Gaza through the Erez checkpoint because I wanted to make the point that the siege is not only by sea. On the Israeli side I was immediately arrested, charged with violating a military order prohibiting Israelis from being in Gaza and jailed at the Shikma prison in Ashkelon. In my cell that night, someone recognized from the news. All night I was physically threatened by right-wing Israelis -- and I was sure I wouldn't make it till the morning. Ironically, there were three Palestinians in my cell who kind of protected me, so the danger was from Israelis, not Palestinians, in Gaza as well as in Israel. (One Palestinian from Hebron was in jail for being illegally in Israel; I was in jail for being illegally in Palestine.) As it stands, I'm out on bail. The state will probably press charges in the next few weeks, and I could be jailed for two or so months. I now am a Palestinian in every sense of the word: On Monday I received my Palestinian citizenship, on Tuesday I was already in an Israeli jail.

Though the operation was a complete success, the siege will only be genuinely broken if we keep up the movement in and out of Gaza. The boats are scheduled to return in 2-4 weeks and I am now working on getting a boat-load of Israelis.

My only frustration with what was undoubtedly a successful operation was with the fact that Israelis just don't get it - and don't want to get it. The implications of our being the strong party and the fact that the Palestinians are the ones truly seeking peace are too threatening to their hegemony and self-perceived innocence. What I encountered in perhaps a dozen interviews - and what I read about myself and our trip written by "journalists" who never even attempted to speak to me or the others - was a collective image of Gaza, the Palestinians and our interminable conflict which could only be described as fantasy. Rather than enquire about my experiences, motives or views, my interviewers, especially on the mainstream radio, spent their time forcing upon me their slogans and uniformed prejudices, as if giving me a space to explain myself deal a death blow to their tightly-held conceptions.

Ben Dror Yemini of the popular Ma'ariv newspaper called us a "satanic cult." Another suggested that a prominent contributor to the Free Gaza Movement was a Palestinian-American who had been questioned by the FBI, as if that had to do with anything (the innuendo being we were supported, perhaps even manipulated or worse, by "terrorists"). Others were more explicit: Wasn't it true that we were giving Hamas a PR victory? Why was I siding with Palestinian fishermen-gun smugglers against my own country which sought only to protect its citizens? Some simply yelled at me, like an interviewer on Arutz 99. And when all else failed, my interlocutors could always fall back on good old cynicism: Peace is impossible. Jews and Arabs are different species. You can't trust "them." Or bald assertions: They just want to destroy us. Then there's the paternalism: Well, I guess it's good to have a few idealists like you around...

Nowhere in the many interviews was there a genuine curiosity about what I was doing or what life was like in Gaza. No one interested in a different perspective, especially if it challenged their cherished slogans. No one going beyond the old, tired slogans. Plenty of reference, though, to terrorism, Qassam missiles and Palestinian snubbing our valiant efforts to make peace; none whatsoever to occupation, house demolitions, siege, land expropriation or settlement expansion, not to mention the killing, imprisoning and impoverishment of their civilian population. As if we had nothing to do with the conflict, as if we were just living our normal, innocent lives and bad people decided to throw Qassam rockets. Above all, no sense of our responsibility, or any willingness to accept responsibility for the ongoing violence and conflict. Instead just a thoughtless, automatic appeal to an image of Gaza and "Arabs" (we don't generally use the term "Palestinians") that is diametrically opposed to what I've seen and experienced, a slavish repeating of mindless (and wrong) slogans which serve only to eliminate any possibility of truly grasping the situation. In short, a fantasy Gaza as perceived from within a bubble carefully constructed so as to deflect any uncomfortable reality.

The greatest insight this trip has given me is understanding why Israelis don't "get it:" a media comprised by people who should know better but who possess little critical ability and feel more comfortable inside a box created by self-serving politicians than in trying to do something far more creative: understanding what in the hell is going on here.

Still, I formulated clearly my messages to my fellow Israelis, and that constitutes the main content of my interviews and talks:

(1) Despite what our political leaders say, there is a political solution to the conflict and there are partners for peace. If anything, we of the peace movement must not allow the powers-that-be to mystify the conflict, to present it as a "clash of civilizations." The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is political and as such it has a political solution;

(2) The Palestinians are not our enemies. In fact, I urge my fellow Israeli Jews to disassociate from the dead-end politics of our failed political leaders by declaring, in concert with Israeli and Palestinian peace-makers: We refuse to be enemies. And

(3) As the infinitely stronger party in the conflict and the only Occupying Power, we Israelis must accept responsibility for our failed and oppressive policies. Only we can end the conflict.

Let me end by expressing my appreciation to the organizers of this initiative - Paul Larudee and Greta Berlin from the US, Hilary Smith and Bella from the UK, Vaggelis Pissias, a Greek member of the team who provided crucial material and political input, and Jamal al-Khoudri, an independent member of the PLC from Gaza and head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege and others - plus the wonderful group of participants on the boats and the great communication team that stayed ashore. Special appreciation goes to ICAHD's own Angela Godfrey-Goldstein who played a crucial role in Cyprus and Jerusalem in getting the word out. Not to forget our hosts in Gaza (whose names are on the Free Gaza website) and the tens of thousands of Gazans who welcomed us and shared their lives with us. May our peoples finally find the peace and justice they deserve in our common land.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at: jeff@icahd.org.

Against Sixties Nostalgia: "Easy Rider"

Asked for his own impressions of these films and the period they capture, Mr. [Andrew] Lampert, 31, hesitated, then said: “I recently watched ‘Easy Rider’ and felt embarrassed for an entire generation. I would hope that life in the ’60s was much more like ‘Chafed Elbows.’ ”

From an article in today's New York Times Arts & Leisure section, about the 60s independent films of Robert Downey--which I had not heard of, nor have I seen. Since they've now been restored, I'll hopefully have a chance.

I was pleased to see the jab at Easy Rider. I've wanted to write something about some of the problems I see with iconic films of the sixties, which were much admired at the time, and which I must admit, I too liked a lot when they first came out. (Thanks to AMC, I've had the opportunity to see many of them again, for the first time since the sixties.) Easy Rider celebrates male hippy pot-smoking freeliving renegade motorcycle riders, turning them into martyrs at the hands of Southerners. That is, long-haired virtue is produced at the expense of a stereotype of redneck evil. (There is also an implicit identification made between the victimhood of the white hippies and that of African Americans, who suffered at the hands of crackers during the civil rights struggles.) I remember coming out the of theater after watchin g Easy Rider in summer 1969, feeling shocked and outraged. I didn't ride a motorcycle, but I did have the long hair. So I certainly identified with the Fonda, Hopper and Nicholson characters. It worked with me.

Such infantile and ill-informed sorts of representations (echoed in many other cultural artifacts of the time, like Neil Young's "Southern Man" and the film Deliverance) have had pernicious political effects, and are a part of the complicated story of how the South has gone very Republican. I've lived in Texas and Arkansas for a total of over twenty years, and I still have friends from the coasts, and urban centers in the Midwest, who can't understand how anyone could possibly live in the South or how anything good could possibly come out of (t)here. They are still apprehending the South through the lens of Deliverance and Easy Rider, it seems.

Other films I've been meaning to write brief notes about are MASH and its homophobia and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and its sexism. I was completely blind to these issues when I originally saw these films. And I considered myself a political radical. I guess I'm trying to make sense of my own memories of the sixties.

So I vote for a revival of "Chafed Elbows." And "Flaming Creatures"!

More in future, I hope...

Another report on the last Palestinian kufiya producer--plus hair gel

An AFP report on the Palestinian kufiya, with an overview of its recent uses in the West, the controversies, and the story of the last remaining Palestinian producer, Yasser al-Hirbawi, who faces severe competition face from Chinese producers. I like the fact that French reporters find it worthwhile to actually go to Hebron and talk to real live Palestinians. The report covers much the same ground as one that appeared in Le Monde this February.

But I do like this statement:

Even here [Hebron] most Palestinians, including the politically active, have cast off the traditional keffiyeh in favour of a more modern look.

"The young guys prefer to wear hair gel," Abu Rumilah, another merchant says.

It's been probably three or more decades, in fact, since anyone other than older men, especially those in traditional or rural garb, routinely wore kufiyas on their heads in the West Bank. But it has been very common for those wearing "modern" clothing to wear kufiyas as scarves, in much the same way as hipsters and politicos do in the West.

Abu Rumilah's statement has more to do with the fact that some in the older generation are quite critical of the younger generation for their modern and trendy hairstyles. It's true that many young men in the West Bank are quite concerned with keeping their hair looking smart, and with global clothing styles. This doesn't keep them from covering their necks with kufiyas in cooler weather, however.

(I found this via The Angry Arab.)

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid/Knockin' on Heaven's Door

I just finished watching Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid--part of the continuing obsession with Bob Dylan, inspired in part by the film I'm Not There. It helps to see the former in order to help make some sense of the Richard Gere-Billy/Garrett scenes in I'm Not There. But the film is of course supremely worth watching in its own right. I had seen the original, when it appeared in 1973, and I remember being underwhelmed. Now I know why--MGM butchered it. For some time the director's cut has been available, and I'm so glad I got to see it. I think it really tops what I used to regard as Peckinpah's masterpiece, The Wild Bunch. It's much more lyrical, understated, and moving.

I was particularly moved by the scene where Sheriff Colin Bear (played by Slim Pickens) is shot, knows he is dying, and goes to sit by the pond, to die, as the son goes down. His wife, played by Katy Jurado, sits near him, crying. No words are spoken, but Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" comes on, for the first time in the film. Watch it, I can't imagine that this scene won't just slay you.

Mrs. Bear/Katy Jurado, by the way, plays the only "strong "woman in this film. Which I seem to remember is typical Peckinpah, and typical sixties. Women in the film are mostly just there for men to sleep with (either whores or girlfriends) or cook food, and--probably most important--to show their breasts for the presumed male viewer. Rita Coolidge never says anything in the last scene, but she does show her tits. Mrs. Bear is middle aged and probably not worthy of objectification. So she goes with Pat Garrett (James Coburn) and her husband to hunt down some of Billy's pals, and she shoots them down, just like a man would, with her shotgun. (After shooting, she pulls new shells out of her cleavage--which we don't see.)

And wasn't Katy Jurado just great in High Noon?

I had an earlier "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" moment" when I saw I'm Not There. During the credits, a version of the song by Antony and the Johnsons comes on. I had never heard it, and was instantly hooked. One of the best Dylan covers I've ever heard. Since then, I bought the terrific soundtrack for I'm not there, with Dylan covers by the likes of Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo. But the Antony and the Johnsons track is still the best. I'm obsessed. Check it out:

More Darwish

Here's a great source for more on the recently departed Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, from Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, published in London.

And I was pleased to receive my copy of the latest New Yorker (August 25) and to find that they had published this poem by Mahmoud Darwish.

That (Sudanese) Target Ad

You've all seen it, that Target "dorm dance" ad, with what must be one of the best dance tracks and vocals ever in a mainstream advertisement. And you think, yes, every cool song, and especially now, the coolest world fusion tune, must, immediately and invevitably, be turned into a marketing tool.



(And if you are some nostalgist who imagines this never happened in the sixties, check out The Rolling Stones shilling for Rice Krispies, below.)



The song is "Calabria," by DJ Enur from Denmark, and features vocals by Natasja Saad, a Danish dancehall/reggae vocalist whose father, it turns out, is from Sudan. I can't claim there is anything remotely "Sudanese" about her singing, which is pure dancehall.

But she seems to be trying to look vaguely Sudanese in this photo, no?

On the other hand, here's Natasja in a more typical "dancehall" look.

Natasja was not just a star in Denmark, but also "the first non-Jamaican reggae/dancehall artist ever to win the Jamaican 'Irie FM Big Break Contest,'" according to wikipedia.

Here's the "official" video, in which Natasja appears. Pretty typical dancehall fare, I guess: one guy in a suit, ogling all the beautiful semi-dressed female bodies.



Natasja was killed in a car wreck in Jamaica in June 2007. "Calabria" was already a global hit by that time; in January 2008, it hit Number One on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay.

And for those of you who are a little slow on the uptake when it comes to Jamaican patois (as I certainly am), here are the lyrics you hear on the Target ad:

Easy now no need fi go down (2x)
Rock that run that this where we from

Whoop Whoop, when you run come around,
Cu(z) I know you're the talk of the town, yeah

Best shown overall, shiny and tall,
One touch make a gal climb whoever you are,
Brass hat, hatter than fireball
Whoop Whoop!
You not small you no lickle at all

more on Palestinian Olympians

Courtesy Kibbush. Below is an excerpt, but read the entire post (articles from China Daily and Ma'an News Agency.)

The [Palestinian] team spent 30 days at a sports camp in China where they received training from Chinese coaches. While the coaches say that the Palestinian team is talented, they lamented a lack of sports facilities and training opportunities in Palestine.

Hamza Abdu trains in a 25-meter pool, half the length of an Olympic pool.

`There aren’t any Olympic-size swimming pools in Palestine and the ones that are available here are just summer swimming pools and small ones, and Palestinian swimmers are training in these inadequate pools. In addition, their trainers aren’t of a high enough standard,` said Palestinian sports exert Omar Al-Jafari, who works for Ma`an News Agency in Bethlehem.

`Regarding the runners I can say that unfortunately there aren’t any full-size tracks for them to run into in all of Palestine, and runners just train in any place that they find suitable to run, sometimes in streets crowded with cars,` added Al-Jafari.

Ghadir Al-Ghrouf, the sprinter from Jericho, trains on a dirt track. Nader Al-Masri, the Gazan who plans to compete in the 5km running event, trains by jogging halfway down the 40km Gaza Strip.

My favorite Christian Bale/Heath Ledger flick

It's not Dark Knight (which I liked a lot) but Todd Hayne's Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There, which I have finally, just now, seen.

I thought the film was stunningly beautiful all the way through, as well as "difficult," but in a productive as opposed to an off-putting way. It helps a lot to prepare for seeing the film, as I did, by viewing Pennebaker's 1967 cinema verité masterpiece Don't Look Back and Scorsese's 2005 PBS documentary Bob Dylan: No Direction Home. And if you really want to be obsessive, read, as I did, David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina (2002).

Cate Blanchett, of course, is utterly fabulous as the mythical Dylan ("Jude Quinn") on tour in '65-'66. The photo above, which I shot, is from Haynes' hilarious fictional rendering of the Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and its effect on the folk crowd. What I don't like about the depiction is that it erases the African-American dimension of this era-changing act. Dylan's backing band at Newport 1965 was composed mostly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which included African-Americans Sam Lay on drums and Jerome Arnold on bass. How cool would it have been if the film showed Dylan and a band that included two black Americans firing machine guns at the folk crowd! (The photo below shows Jerome Arnold on bass; Sam Lay is mostly obscured.)


The first time I saw the film, I preferred the Christian Bale role to the Heath Ledger role. Bale plays "Jack Rollins," who is both the political folky Bob Dylan of the Village days, as well as the born-again Christian Bob Dylan. Heath Ledger is Robbie Clark, who plays Jack Rollins in a biopic. I came to appreciate his role much better when I watched the film again, this time with Todd Haynes' very smart and informative commentary. Then I "got" that much of the Robbie Clark footage is shot in the style of Godard's sixties films. And that it attempts to pay tribute to Godard's mixing of love/romance and politics in those films. The Robbie Clark scenes are very effectively punctuated by t.v. news footage of the Vietnam war. Finally Todd Haynes refunctions both Godard and Dylan in that he uses Claire (Robbie's wife, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) as an active female agent--in contrast with the ways in which men were typically the agents in Godard's films and Dylan's lyrics. As Haynes comments, this was entirely typical of the sixties counterculture and revolutionaries--males who wanted to remake the world but go home to a cooked meal and sex on demand.

Haynes' commentary, I repeat, is invaluable. I didn't know, for instance, that the Coco Rivington character (who Jude Quinn insults cruelly) is based on Edie Sedgwick, with whom Dylan reportedly had a significant fling. And I didn't catch the references to Fellini's 8 1/2 in the Jude Quinn "castle" sequence. I did make the connection of the Richard Gere/Billy the Kidd sequence in Riddle to Bob Dylan's Woodstock and "Basement Tapes" era. (Mainly because the Basement Tapes song, "Going to Acapulco," is playing.) It helps in this regard to have read Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes (1998), as Haynes notes in his commentary.

With regard to the Richard Gere sequence, Steven Shaviro, in his very incisive review of the film, mentions Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which he considers "the most beautiful Western ever made." I did catch this reference, but I saw this film, ages ago, when it first came out (1973), and I didn't have the same impression as Shaviro at the time. It's now in my netflix queue, and hopefully I'll appreciate it more the second time around. (There's much more to the Shaviro review, check it out.)

Palestinian rap: interview with Jackie Salloum

From the Daily Star's inimitable Jim Quilty (a Razorback alum), this piece on Palestinian hip-hop:

Chronicling the story of Greater Palestine's rappers

Jackie Salloum discusses 'Slingshot Hip Hop,' pop culture and art

Beirut: [Yet another] blackout has descended upon Bourj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp this night. It makes your efforts to find the Palestinian Arab Center that much more atmospheric and inspires vague hopes that perhaps you won't miss the first minutes of Jackie Salloum's "Slingshot Hip hop" after all.

You find the hall's exterior bathed in generator-driven light. The interior is dim but for the concert footage projected on a screen and reflected back upon the white plastic chair-mounted eyeballs fixed before it.

Salloum's first feature-length film, "Slingshot" chronicles the rise of the Palestinian hip-hop scene - starting in '48 Palestine (sometimes called "Israel") and the other occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

Salloum's central protagonists are DAM - who had a region-wide hit with their tune "Mean Irhabi" ("Who's a Terrorist") - especially the group's Tamer Nafar, from Al-Lid near Tel Aviv. Other profiled artists include the Gaza Strip's PR (Palestinian Rapperz), West Bank girl-MC duo Arapeyat (aka Safa and Nahwa), Abeer Zinati ("the first lady of Palestinian R&B," and Mahmoud Shalabi, veteran of the Palestinian hip-hop group MWR.

Considerable buzz accrued to "Slingshot" since early 2008, when the Sundance film festival nominated it for its grand jury prize.

The Palestinian-American multi-media artist screened her film in Bedawi and Shatilla camps as well as Bourj al-Barajneh. This tour came just after a series of screenings around Palestine, and Salloum was still radiating a high from the experience.

"Until we screened in Palestine, it didn't feel like we were finished yet," she said. "Over 4000 people came out to Nablus to see the show. I couldn't get the Gaza rappers out for the screening and I couldn't get into Gaza myself ... The shows in Ramallah and Jenin were awesome."

"Slingshot" took some time to ferment and, like so many independent films, it has an eccentric production history.

"By chance," she says, "I was in Gaza [in 2003] for the first hip-hop show there ever ... We just decided to make a movie."

"I didn't know anything about filmmaking and there were lots of production problems ... I didn't even bother reading the manual before I picked up the camera. We were working on graphics and the sound right up to Sundance."

"I have a great support group," she continues, "but basically I paid for the film on my credit cards." Though she's long since maxed-out her cards, Salloum is less interested in discussing her spectacular indebtedness than the artists at the center of the work.

"The project was a huge collaboration," she smiles, "even in the production. I left cameras with DAM and Abeer and PR. I wanted the film to speak with their voices as much as possible.

"They did start getting impatient after a couple of years. It was hard to convince them that taking a bit of extra time would make it that much better.

"But they were very loyal to me. Plenty of other filmmakers approached them in those years, but they told them, 'No. Jackie will make the first movie.' They even turned down Al-Jazeera. That's a big sacrifice."

Western audiences will be interested in the film's portrayal of how Palestinian rappers have found echoes of their own lives in some American hip-hop, but the form occupies an ambivalent space in occupied Palestine.

"DAM began as an Israeli act," Salloum says, and they appeared on Israeli TV. The most popular [Jewish] Israeli rapper is an ultra right-wing Zionist [named Subliminal--TS]. [Israeli filmmaker Anat Halachmi made a 2003 film] about him and [DAM's front man] Tamer, called "Channels of Rage."

"What really changed DAM's music was the second Intifada. That's when they released 'Meen Irhabi.' The Intifada made the Zionist rapper worse. He sings 'Death to Arabs.' You never hear Palestinian rappers singing 'Death to Jews.' [Incorrect! see comments--TS.]

"I have so much respect for their integrity. Coca Cola is a big player in Israel and they approached DAM about doing an ad for them. They offered them a lot of money but the guys told them no. You hear about that and you realize these guys really have principals, even though they're broke.

"The hip-hop is different in different parts of Palestine. In Gaza, it's harder to have shows because it's more religious, even though all the rappers believe in god. Yet it took off there more than anywhere else."

Salloum blinks in recollection. "You ask someone 'Do you like hip-hop?' and they'll say 'What's hip-hop?' If you say 'Meen Irhabi,' they'll say 'Oh I love "Meen Irhabi!"'"

"Slingshot Hip Hop" marked Salloum's second appearance at Sundance. Her first experience with America's most-loved independent film festival came in 2005, when her nine-minute short "Planet of the Arabs" caught the festival's attention.



“Reel Bad Arabs,” Jack Shaheen's 2001 study of Hollywood's cliched representations of Arabs and Muslims, inspired the short, which draws upon clips from some of the movies Shaheen discusses. A bravura work of editing, "Planet" emulates the cutting and splicing techniques used to produce feature film trailers to make a work that's funny (if you know this stuff already) and thought-provoking (if you don't).

"Editing," Salloum recalls, "taking images and placing them next to each other and setting them to music, that all comes pretty naturally to me. When I heard Sundance wanted to screen it and I had no idea what it meant.”

Salloum's filmmaking insouciance may stem from her coming to film from multimedia art. She graduated with a masters degree in fine arts from New York University in 2003.

Her work occupies the interstices between pop culture and political activism and she's proven adept in a number of media - politically inflected collages, gumball machines and flashcards as well as video.

"People have told me that 'Slingshot' is the first 'Palestine film' they've seen that doesn't make them depressed," she says. "... That's why pop culture works so well.

"When I first started, ... I didn't want to start with the Middle East because it was too close to me. My first collages worked with Latin American pop art themes. Some people hated it. 'Art's not supposed to be didactic,'" she rolls her eyes. "'We're all on the left here, so you're just preaching to the choir.'"

Salloum has an agenda but she isn't naive - being interested in how her artistic intentions are received, regardless how they're refracted through the public's consciousness.

Her gumball machines, for instance, offer art consumers plastic capsules with objects and written profiles inside. In one version, "Each comes with a magnet, sticker, or ring of your favorite revolutionary." In another, "Each capsule comes with a Palestinian refugee: Collect all 5 million!"

"A woman walked into an exhibition that had one of my gumball machines," Salloum recalls. "She put in a quarter and one of my rings dropped out. She came back with a roll of quarters and kept feeding them in one after the other.

"I asked her, 'What are you doing?' I was a little irritated, I guess, because a lot of time and energy goes into each one of those items. She told me 'I just liked to collect rings.'

"Hip-hop is like that," she smiles again.

"I don't think my work is going to change the world, that people will want to overthrow Israel after seeing my film. But if I'm going to work, it has to be meaningful. With 'Slingshot,' I also want to help the artists.

"One of the problems Palestinians face is how they're represented in the media. That means we have to make different media. Media is our strongest weapon, I think."

Having spent the better part of five years working on a feature-length documentary, Salloum says she has no plans for her next long film.

Rather, she's thinking about the possibilities of Arabic-language music videos.

"Right now," she says, "I don't want to make anything longer than three minutes."

Jackie Salloum's "Slingshot Hip Hop" will next screen in Beirut at one of the city's October film festivals. For more information see www.jSalloum.org

I live in US's Pakistan...

according to this map....

If you check the ranks, you will note that Arkansas is not at the bottom...due no doubt to the fact that Walmart, Tysons and JB Hunt are headquartered in the state. Given that Arkansas is usually #49 or #50 in most other important economic and social indicators, it shows that not very much trickles down from our esteemed "local" businesses.

Akshay Kumar and Snoop Dogg kufiya turban footnote

Rachel, who alerted me to the "Singh is Kinng" video, has now put up her own post on the vid on The Elephants Child. Props to her alert kufiyaspotting abilities. The post is also very worth checking out for the video of a kiswahili version of Lebanese pop star Nancy Ajram's "Yay." And check out the video of the original, featuring the seemingly timeless theme of cross-class eroticism, the middle class girl entranced by the hunk in the wifebeater....

what else? a couple more kufiyaspottings (plus turbans)

People keep sending me this stuff. So here goes...

#1. The Akshay Kumar and Snoop Dogg video, "Singh Is Kinng." Kumar can be spotted sporting the kufiya, draped around his neck like a scarf, several times throughout the video. (Thanks, Rachel.)



Why in the world is a Bollywood movie star wearing a kufiya?--particularly when he is also wearing a turban, since he's playing the part of Lakhan Singh, a Sikh, which he plays in the film, Singh is Kinng. Is it because Singh is the king of the gangstas in Australia? Is it just international style? Or, since he's on screen with Snoop Dogg, is Kumar trying to look more hip-hop? Who knows?

"Singh Is Kinng" is a bhangra song, composed by the UK bhangra band RDB, but it's not terribly clever. Such hip-hop/bhangra collaborations seem to be getting more and more common, and there are lots of better ones. Jay-Z's collabo with Punjabi MC on "Beware" seems to have started the trend. Go here for more hip-hop/bhangra downloads.

#2. I found this video on the page of the band, Rainbow Arabia. It's one of their "influences," and it's a video that goes along with the performance of "Palmitos Park" by El Guincho. The kufiya shows up right away, as kind of table cloth, with colored feathers on it. The kufiya and the feathers show up several times, each time looking more psychedelic. It's a very "conceptual" video, by Will Bryant. Who knows why the kufiya is there. El Guincho is a Spanish musician whose music has been described as "space-age exotica."



As for Rainbow Arabia, it is a kind of exoticizing experimental band. Their press packet describes them as combining Middle Eastern flavors with American experimental dance music, according to a review of their first release by Pitchfork. (Thanks to Dave for turning me on to them.)

And catch this, the Pitchfork review actually says that the band has a "keffiyeh-fied aesthetic"!

I've not heard Basta, the EP in question. (It doesn't seem to be available for download on any sites I know.) But if you check out the band's webpage, you can listen to three of their songs. Only one of them, "Tiny Tiny Man," has a hint of "Middle Eastern" influence--the sound of the derbouka.

Not really sure how "keffiyeh-fied" their aesthetic is. It's definitely exotica. I'll let you know if/when I find out.

(Oh, and be sure to check out the 4th video of their "influences"--the completely amazing Syrian singer, Omar Souleyman.)

Hiking Palestine

Raja Shehadeh's new book, Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape, was recently published in the US. I bought it, but haven't yet read it (toooo much summer school teaching). But I'm amazed to see how much good publicity it is getting, and I'm glad. I found Shehadeh's previous books to be very incisive. I used to go on some hikes with Raja (and others) when I lived near him, in Ramallah, in summer and fall of 1985. And I saw him again, recently, when I was in the West Bank. (But we didn't get to take a hike.)

Check out this wonderful slide show, from today's New York Times, with photos taken by members of Shehadeh's walking group; this video which features Shehadeh talking about his walks; and the article about Shehadeh and his book, from the Books section.

The land of Palestine is beautiful but endangered, by checkpoints, settlements, the apartheid wall, tunnels, and bypass roads/highways, built by the Israeli occupiers. Hiking the land, as the original Zionist settlers knew, is a way of taking control. Will Palestinian walks become mass activities? One can hope.

Postscript on Mahmoud Darwish: His death was covered by the US media, at least by the Times, which published this quite decent obit. (Somehow I missed it on Sunday--see previous post.)

RIP Mahmoud Darwish

The great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish passed away yesterday, in Houston, Texas, of all places. Read about him here and here. (Will the US media cover this story at all?!)

The fact that this man never received a Nobel Prize is a cultural crime. (Arab artists can only receive Nobels if they have come out publicly and uncritically for "peace" with Israel. If they are in any way critical of Israeli policies, no chance.)

Olympian Kufiyas

(Reuters)

4 Palestinians are competing in the Beijing Olympics. They wore kufiya shirts in today's opening ceremony parade. The flag carrier is 5000 meter runner Nader Al-Masri, who hails from Beit Hanoun refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, and who needed the help of human rights organizations in order to secure an exit visa, so he could train in...Jericho. (Thanks, Joel.)

(AP)

Wal-Mart Hall of Shame, Cont'd

Update from Wal-Mart Nation (NW Arkansas). The Wall Street Journal reported on August 1:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

Read the rest of the article here.

If you support human rights and unions, try to avoid Wal-Mart. And avoid supporting musical acts that play at Wal-Mart's annual shareholders meeting, held right here in Fayetteville. Previous posts commented on artists that performed at the '06 and '07 events (here and here). They include Beyoncé, J-Lo, and Kool and the Gang. In '05, acts included Jimmy Buffett and Shakira. (damn!) I wasn't in town during this year's events, and I think there were no Against the Wal actions, unlike previous years. In May '08, performers included Journey (!), Taylor Swift, Lifehouse, Latin Grammy award-winning Juan Luis Guerra, Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood. And this year, for the first time, the Wal reached out to local residents, making the events open to everyone, not just for Walmart shareholders.

Journey

Thanks, Wal-Mart, for bringing Journey to NW Arkansas, and for helping stomp out evil trade unions....

Kufiyaspotting #40: "Born in Flames"

I was tipped off to this kufiyaspotting by a post on Feral Scholar. Filmmaker Lizzie Borden's film Born in Flames was much discussed at the time of its release (1983) but as I remember, it was widely panned. I remember (I think) being somewhat underwhelmed and disappointed when I saw it (in London, in either 1984 or 85). Watching it again last night, I appreciated it much more. Please read Feral Scholar's post, which provides a very good and detailed summary of the plot, and a fine analysis and appreciation.

The reason that the kufiya comes up in Feral Scholar's account has to do with her irritation with the character of Isabel, played by Adele Bertei (former keyboardist with the no-wave band The Contortions, and the solo vocalist on a truly classic '80s dance hit, "Build Me A Bridge," produced by Thomas Dolby, at the height of his powers. Listen to it, here, and see if it doesn't lodge in your head for days.

Feral scholar likes the other characters of the film, and finds them believable, but is embarassed by the “'wannabe urban Black' act and other bits of identity theft” engaged in by the "Anglo" Isabel character. To wit, cornrows, putting on a kufiya, and some Gil Scott-Heron style rap poetry. I take a rather more charitable view of this "identity theft," and would rather regard it as a kind of "interculturation" peculiar to New York that was going on at the time. This was precisely when hip-hop was getting hip in downtown trendy New York. And the very wonderful soundtrack of the film is quite representative of the kinds of cultural interchanges going on then--it's got funk, rap, punk and post-punk, early 80s disco, and so on. Moreover, the Women's Army--the protagonist of the film, the revolutionary movement that expresses lesbian-feminist dissatisfaction with the democratic-socialist revolution that occurred in the US ten years before the (fictional) time of the film--is a multi-racial coalition. Black women play a leading role, but white and Puerto Rican women play a strong part.

As for the Isabel kufiya, it is in fact neither a "hipster" kufiya or a "political" kufiya, but is worn in a theatrical scene where Isabel is reading feminist poetry, backed by funk music. Presumably the event is in solidarity with the imprisoned Adelaide Norris character. The kufiya is worn over the head, with an 'iqal (the black cord used to secure it as it's traditonally worn), and it is NOT the typical Palestinian kufiya pattern. This then is a "performative" kufiya, not a political solidarity or hipster kufiya as it would have been seen routinely in the early '80s.


But there are a couple of "solidarity" kufiyas to be seen in the film. One is in the scene where two women--Zella (played by black activist Florynce Kennedy) and an unidentified, older white woman go to inquire about the imprisoned Adelaide Norris at the police station. The older white woman is wearing a black-and-white kufiya around her neck--a very typical "accessory" item worn by activists at the time. (You would see them all the time at Central America solidarity events and at anti-nuke events.)

It is curious, isn't it, that Feral Scholar condemns Isabel's "identity theft," but not this kufiya wearing.


There's also a scene earlier in the film, featuring Zella (Flo Kennedy), who serves as a kind of guru/godmother for the Women's Army. Or maybe better to say, "ideological guide." Zella is making the argument that violence is sometimes necessary to employ in the revolutionary movement. And she is wearing a red kufiya, draped loosely over her head, but without an 'iqal. Worn this way, it looks even more "Arab" and definitely not hipster and not accessorized.


And that's not the end of it. When the Women's Army decides to undertake armed struggle, Adelaide Norris goes to the Western Sahara (former Spanish Sahara) to observe the struggle of the Saharans against Moroccan occupation, and to obtain weapons from them. (At the time of filming, the Polisario Front was actively engaged in a liberation struggle to free the Western Sahara.) Interestingly, the only fighters we see in the Sahara are women, who wear military uniforms, carry weapons, and whose heads are garbed with what look like kufiyas. (Just as Palestinian women who fought as guerillas wore kufiyas.) I imagine this is actual newsreel footage, but I don't know.




Born in Flames, then, is very useful for kufiyaspotters, as a kind of register of the ubiquity of kufiyas in progressive circles (including, significantly, African-American) in the US in the early '80s. It is also rather daring in its assertion of solidarity with Middle Eastern women (who at the same time happen to be "Africans" fighting against Moroccan colonialism.

Rent it from netflix.

(Additional fun fact: filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow plays one of the three female editors of the Socialist Youth newspaper, who eventually assert their solidarity with the Women's Army. Kathryn Bigelow directed two of my favorite movies, Near Dark--maybe the best vampire movie ever--and Blue Steel. And two I like a lot, Point Break and Strange Days. She's far superior to ex-husband James Cameron.)

I shot the photos myself...

random kufiya notes #2432

1. Thanks to Julia, I've learned that back in June, the Jewish Defense League (ultra-right, homophobic, fascist) organized a demonstration in LA against Freshjive and its owner Rick Klotz, to protest Freshjive's recent t-shirt production. Specifically, it's "Victimized" t, with Palestinian children, and its Arafat "The Good Ol' Days!" t. (Below is a photo of a friend who purchased the latter.)


Read my earlier post about these t-shirts here, and about the JDL protest here. You will learn that the leader of the JDL and of demo, Shelley Rubin is the wife of the late Irv Rubin, who died in prison in 2002 while awaiting trial on charges of plotting to kill US congressman Darrell Issa. And you learn that Eazy-E (ex-NWA) once used Irv Rubin and the JDL for protection.

2. Another mundane, non-political kufiyaspotting (thanks to John). "Cool." "African-American." But Northcarolinian and Baptist...


The caption for this photo reads: "Quayshaun Hall, 16, a student at Parkland High, rehearses a number with fellow students at the Winston-Salem Youth Arts Institute. The program they’re preparing will be presented next weekend at First Baptist Church on Fifth Street."

Read more about it here.

3. Today's New York Times Sunday Style section has a wonderful "On the Street" report by Bill Cunningham called "Muffled." If you read the print edition, it's the usual set of colored photos and Cunningham's written report, but if you go online, it's a slideshow with Cunningham's delightful narration. He reports that many women (and some men) are wearing scarves on NYC streets this summer, despite the heat. It's to combat air-conditioning, and it's also a matter of style. If you watch closely, you will see a hint of red kufiya pattern on the third slide. (Update, April 6, 2010: I've now added the slide, below).



Cunningham says that at first, he thought this spate of "muffling" was related to what people do in the "desert" countries of the Middle East, where they wear wool gossamer scarves to keep the heat out. Maybe he was thinking of kufiyas? Actually, such scarves are more a matter of keeping dust and sun off you. (And in the case of women, it's a matter of either/and/or custom or piety.)

Kufiyaspotting #39: Rage Against the Machine

You might imagine that I would have noticed this kufiya earlier. After all, I have had this t-shirt for years. But maybe it's just that I haven't worn it for a long time. Who knows?

The progressive political inclinations of Rage Against the Machine are, of course, very well known. And Rage are one of the few music groups to have mentioned the Palestinian struggle in a positive light. On their song, "Within A Breath," from their terrific third album, The Battle of Los Angeles, Zach de la Rocha sings:

A rising sun looming over Los Angeles
Cause for Raza livin in La La
Is like Gaza on tha dawn of Intifada
Reach for the lessons the masked pass on
And seize the metropolis
It's you it's built on

"The masked" refers first and foremost to the Zapatista rebels, the EZLN, the political movement with which Rage were most identified. But also, given the reference to Gaza, it refers to what are known in Palestine as the "mulaththamin," the "masked men," who confronted the Israeli occupiers with their faces wrapped in kufiyas, so as to evade identification by Israeli security.

Here's a video of them performing the song live in Mexico City in 1999:


Trivia note: RATM guitarist Tom Morello, like Barack Obama, is Kenyan-American.

R.I.P. Youssef ("Jo") Chahine

Allah yarhamu.

Egypt's great filmmaker, Youssef Chahine, passed away this morning in Cairo, at the age of 82. I was no great fan of most of the films he produced over the past two decades, but his production of the fifties and sixties puts him in the class of one of the world's great filmmakers. Cairo Station (Bab al-Hadid) in particular is quite simply, an almost perfect film. (See my earlier, brief, comments on it here.)

The photo shows Chahine in his role as Qinawi, in Cairo Station, holding a knife to Hanuma (played by Hind Rustum).

Note that the AFP story on Chahine's death linked to above includes a statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy praising the director. In France, even a right-wing politician who is elected on an anti-immigrant platform is expected to have something favorable to say about an Arab artist with a global reputation. There would be no such expectation of Obama, if he is elected president, especially when it comes to Arab artists. Unless they have been approved as "moderate," i.e., in favor of peace with (read: surrender to) Israel. Which means no Nobel prizes, or favorable statements, about any for Arab artists, post-Naguib Mahfouz (d. 2006). Chahine was not "moderate."

Check out this smart obit in The Guardian. As of this moment, the New York Times has not seen fit to mention his death.

Battle of Algiers Soundtrack

I've been a big fan of the film The Battle of Algiers ever since I first saw it in winter 1968-69. For the last few years I've been in the habit of screening it for my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class in the summer, for the unit on violence. Unlike other movies I show in this class, I'm always keen to watch this one again. One of the things about the film that I've become more and more interested in is the amazing soundtrack. (Unfortunately, and despite all the continued interest in The Battle of Algiers and in the soundtrack composer, Ennio Morricone, the recording is no longer in print.)

Two things in particular intrigue me, in part because I seek more information. The first has to do with the famous "milk bar" scene, the site of one of the three terrorist bombings, carried out by women militants of the FLN who are dressed up to look French. It's the milk bar that gets to me in particular, in part because I used to go to similar milk bars in Beirut when I was a teenager, in 1964 and after. Not that long after the bombings in Algiers (which took place in 1956). And not that different a setting. (Lebanon is a former colony of France, and if Lebanon wasn't a colony in the sixties, it was certainly a neo-colony).

In the milk bar the young French colons are dancing to the song, "Hasta Mañana." I've hunted around for the version that plays on screen, and can't track it down. There are lots of versions of the song available, but I can't find the one. (You can watch the segment on youtube here--the song starts about 10 seconds in.)

[See the comments, which informed me that the song in question is "Rebecca," by The Chakachas.]


The other bit of the soundtrack that I've thought a lot about is the use of gnawa music, and in particular the thunderous sound produced by the playing of qraqeb, metal castanets, backed by the pounding of the tabl, a large frame drum hit by wooden sticks. You hear these sounds at two key moments, first, when the three women are preparing to plant their bombs in the European quarter of Algiers, as they take off their veils and cut and dye their hair and put on European clothing. Knowing that the women are preparing to plant bombs, the intensity of the percussive track serves to rachet up your tension. (Watch the segment here, about 1:20 minutes in.)


The other key moment where you hear the Gnawa qraqeb and tabl is at the end of the film, when demonstrations break out in Algiers in 1962. Right at the end, when you hear the sounds of the demonstrators yelling and in particular the sounds of women ululating, the percussion starts up and the camera focuses in particular on two Algerian women who are waving flags and confronting the police. It is significant, of course, that the film ends with shots of militant women. (In the supplementary material that comes with the 2004 Criterion DVD release, the director Pontecorvo states that this was a comment on the fact that whereas women played an important role in the Algerian war of independence, by the time he shot the film in Algiers, only 2-3 years after the end of the war, women were already being marginalized.) As the narrator comes on, states that Algeria finally won its independence, and as the credits begin to roll, the Gnawa percussion merges with a piano, playing classical-style chords. You can watch this segment on youtube--go here and start watching about 4 minutes into the clip.

According to what I learned from the supplementary material on the DVD, what is being played in both instances is a traditional Algerian song, "Baba Salem." Gnawa Diffusion recorded a song called "Baba Salem," which you can here. I don't know what relation the Gnawa Diffusion song has to what we see and hear in the film. And here is a "Baba Salem" from contemporary Algeria. Since I know very little about Gnawa in Algeria, I know nothing about the meaning of the song. (But I will try to find out.)

Cliché

Cli Che Free Palestine
Originally uploaded by tsweden

This says it all. I found these items at a shop in East Jerusalem in June. People hang small t-shirts like this on their rearview mirror or stick them to their car windows.

Kufiya Notes #6341

Here are some random kufiya notes that I've been collecting for awhile, and haven't managed to post previously.

#1: Quiqui (pronounced Kiki) from Kabobfest speaks to Riz Khan about the kufiya, in particular about Kabobfest's efforts to try to invest the kufiya with positive meanings. Riz Khan is a major figure on Aljazeera English. (I had never watched Aljazeera English before I went to Israel, and found it to be quite professional. And more informative, on international affairs, than CNN (the US version). It's curious that Aljazeera can be seen on satellite television in Israel, while the network is virtually banned in the US.)



#2: A report from Ynet on conflicts in Israel last November over kufiyas at Haifa University and Hebrew University (Jerusalem). Palestinian students at both universities organized "kufiya days" in response to an attack on a Palestinian student garbed in kufiya. On both campuses the kufiya day events were met with counter-protests.

#3. This one is a scream. Back in April, the British anti-aviation eco-activist group Plane Stupid uncovered a corporate spy who had been sent to infiltrate them, who went by the name, Ken Tobias (real name: Toby Kendall). What gave him away? In particular, his incongruous dress habits: (corporate) Armani jeans and designer shirts along with an (activist) kufiya! Read the report in the London Times. Here's his photo--not looking so corporate, but he doesn't really know how to wear that kufiya, does he? No activist worth their salt would wear it like that!


#4: A footnote to my earlier post (kufiyaspotting #22) on Israeli fashion designer Nili Lotan and her use of the kufiya. This photo is taken from an article entitled "Battle dress" that appeared in Monocle. (I'm trying to get hold of the complete article.)

gothic bellydance

I've been meaning to investigate this phenom further ever since I saw a Goth Bellydance troupe from St. Louis perform at "Goth Night" at the now, alas, defunct Dart Room in Fayetteville. Check out this vid:


It all goes back to Theda Bara, no?



Here, for the perplexed, is a guide to gothic bellydance.

And--although I've not read it yet--a link, courtesy wayneandwax, to what I am sure is a great article by Sunaina Mair on bellydance orientalism ("arabface"). And check out wayneandwax's recent post on bellydance here.

(I hope, inshallah, to think about these things a bit more systematically in future.)

Patti Smith Plays in Lebanon, at the Byblos Music Festival, July 8

Patti in Byblos (Joseph Barrak/AFP/Getty Images)

Patti Smith is simply da bomb. She practically invented punk. She continues to be a model for women in the rock music scene. And she continues to write and release essential music.

And...she is one of a handful of popular US artists to manifest sympathy for Arab victims of Israeli militarism. During the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon in summer 2006, she wrote the song "Qana," about the Israeli airstrike on that village in Southern Lebanon on July 30 (you can download it here).

I've never, ever, had the pleasure of seeing her in concert. But I'm very excited that her fans in Lebanon got to see her perform at the Byblos Music Festival, on July 8.

The following is from a Reuters report on her visit:

Smith said performing in Lebanon was one of her big dreams and that she felt a bond with the Lebanese because of the tragedies and trials both have gone through.

"We're very very proud to be with you tonight in Lebanon. It is a great dreams of ours to be here," Smith told fans.

Smith, an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and a published poet, said she felt kinship to Lebanese who have witnessed much turbulence in the past few years, from war with Israel to internal fighting.

"My first impression was the hospitality and generosity of the people, not looking at me funny, not thinking who is she, what is she dressed like. Everyone has been completely unjudgemental and I find, you know the city [Beirut] is vibrant and interesting and you know you were talking about me facing tragedy but the city and also people have also undergone all kinds of trials and tribulations and I know about trials and tribulations," Smith, told a reporters a day before the concert.

Here's a link to an NPR report on the concert by Zena Barakat. Zena doesn't mention it, but Patti did perform "Qana" at Byblos, as reported in The Daily Star.

And listen to Patti performing the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter." I feel fairly confident that the Rolling Stones couldn't do the song so much justice if they were performing it live these days.

R.I.P. Salah Ragab

Allah yarhamu. I just got word (via the Sun Ra list), of the death of Salah Ragab. Here's what Ragab's collaborator Hartmut Geerken wrote:

Salah Ragab, drummer and founder - together with Hartmut Geerken and Edu Vizvari - of the first Egyptian jazz-bigband, died beginning of July in Cairo, aged 72.

Since his introduction to Jazz by Malik Osman Karim Yaqoub alias Mac X Spears in the early 1960, Salah Ragab performed with many important American and European jazz musicians. His collaboration with Sun Ra in the 1980 marked a significant time in his artistic life. As composer and bigband leader he introduced Arabic harmonies and rhythms to jazz.

Discography:
(The Sun Ra Arkestra meets Salah Ragab in Egypt, Leo Records GY.
Salah Ragab and the Cairo Jazz Band present Egyptian Jazz, Art Yard LP 006. (For a good review, go here. Hopefully this album will soon be out on CD as well.)


Sun Rise in Egypt. Sun Ra & Salah Ragab, the Historic Nights & Concerts of the Arkestra in Cairo Egypt 1984, Vol. I - III, Sphinx Records ECD 25735)

I only own The Sun Ra Arkestra meets Salah Ragab in Egypt, which is a great album, and the tracks featuring Salah Ragab and the Cairo Jazz Band really swing. Salah Ragab was one of the few non-USers to perform with the Sun Ra Arkestra. If memory serves, I believe that the only other was Talvin Singh.

Check out this video (composed of stills) of Salah Ragab and Sun Ra, set to the tune, "Egypt Strut":


And this one, with black-and-white footage of Sun Ra and his Arkestra, fully costumed, frolicking at the site of the Great Pyramids, Giza, Egypt:



Addendum, July 11: Here's a good bio of Salah Ragab by Joslyn Layne, on allmusic.com.

Saudi Arabia: Awash in Cash...and Meth

In an earlier post, I quoted from an article by Mike Davis, and I reproduce one bit again:

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors, whose total gross domestic product has almost doubled in just three years, are awash in liquidity: $2.4 trillion in banks and investment funds...

Does the fact that Saudi Arabia is loaded with cash have anything to do with the fact that, according to the latest report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), "Saudi Arabia accounted for 28 per cent of all global amphetamine seizures in 2006"? (Financial Times, June 27).

The report in the Financial Times continues:

The quantities impounded in the kingdom started to rise sharply in 2004 and reached 12.3 tonnes in 2006. "This is equivalent to the sum of all UK seizures - the biggest amphetamine market in Europe - from 2000 to 2006," the report said. A further two tonnes of amphetamines destined for Saudi Arabia were seized in neighbouring Oman.

Antonio Maria Costa, the UN agency's executive director, said his organisation was talking to the Saudi government about the trend, which appeared to have continued into last year.

"If you are asking me for an explanation, I don't have it. I'm very perplexed," Mr Costa said.

"Assuming that the efficiency of law enforcement doesn't change very much over a short time, it suggests that this had been mostly for local consumption."

You can check out the UNODC's World Drug Report for 2008 here. It provides these additional details: "Amphetamine tablets for the Near and Middle East have typically been produced in Southeast Europe (Bulgaria and Turkey) and trafficked and marketed as Captagon to Near and Middle East countries. Saudi Arabia is the largest such market in the region. Captagon typically transits over land through Turkey, Syria, and Jordan before arriving in Saudi Arabia."

Meanwhile, this report from Syria, courtesy daylife.com. The caption accompanying this AP photo by Ola al-Rifai reads as follows:


Syrians are seen chanting at a rally in downtown Damascus,Syria, Monday, April 21, 2008, to protest Saudi Arabia's beheading of two Syrians on Friday after being charged on drug trafficking and called for handing over the prisoners to Syria. Hundreds of Syrians are being held in Saudi Arabia on charges of drug trafficking and their families and relatives in Damascus complained that most of them were initially sentenced to 20 years in prison, but the verdicts were abruptly changed to death. They hold banners which read: Our sons in Saudi Arabian prisons are subject to oppression and exaggerated verdicts. Their heads are being cut off without justice.