The Time for Solidarity is Always Now

As George Galloway said in his unforgettable interview on Sky News, Nasrallah’s reputation has grown exponentially among all Arabs, Muslim and Christian.

This admiration began with the Israeli humiliating defeat and withdrawal from the South (of Lebanon) in May of 2000.

When Japan and Lebanon Go Crazy For Palestine

This article is not about those Japanese Red Army university students fighting for Palestine from their Lebanon base.

It is about a different Japanese hero, who, in the same year of the Deir Yassin Operation, was working on what would become the greatest anime in Arab history.

MSAS with a touch of inRANTation: Knock-off Sooria…and other amusing Shami oddities

“Stars and Bucks Caffee,” Louis Vitton label-designed serving trays, and the copyright infringement-disrespecting use of Disney characters—familiar markers of an arrival to Levant land. Sooria, Syria, in particular stands out for its product-aping attempts, grammar-distressing translations, and ironic circumstances (although a puzzling find at the Amman airport in Jordan raises the highest eyebrow). As part of MSAS, I continue to bring you highlights from my summer trip. Below are some examples of what is meant by “Knock-off Sham”:

A keychain of a car logo that has been close to being banned by heavy import taxes and replaced by the more ubiquitous “CHERY” makes is apparently a hot item to floss in Souk al-Hamidiyeh.

Maytha’s Shami Adventure Series (MSAS)

Through various means of transit-plane, train, new model suburbans, taxi cabs, chartered 50 passenger buses-my family of 5 and I dragged eight full-size pieces of luggage and sleep deprived eyelids along with us as we visited five cities (Amman, Damascus, Latakia, Aleppo, in the region known as “the Levant” or in Arabic, “bilad as-sham” in an abbreviated two weeks time. If you do the math, that’s about 2-3 days in each city. Now, for my mother, who hadn’t returned to the region since her hurried exit at the onset of war in Lebanon, some 35 years ago, and siblings who had never visited the region and can barely string together a sentence in Arabic that doesn’t have to do with food consumption, the trip was especially meaningful.

Lebanese Yogis Send Bohemian Vibes to Gaza – Message Received

Solidarity with Palestinians comes in all sizes, shapes and wackiness, as Facebook is often proof of. But, this latest display from Lebanon takes the cake.

A group of yoga practitioners, or yogis, gathered on the Beirut coast at dawn today. Using their yoga powers, they sent “positive vibes” to Gaza. They were moved to do something by the brutal and deadly Israeli raid on the relief flotilla.

Guest Post: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon Deserve Civil Rights

Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon face a very uncertain future. They deserve better. When Palestinians were kicked out of their homeland at gun point in 1948, some found a safe haven in Lebanon, where they were received with an open arms. Lebanese provided them shelters, food and other life essentials years before the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) took over. For that I am grateful, because I was born in one those 12 refugee camps 59 years ago.

UPDATE on Lebanon’s Negro: Maytha does some investigative reporting

…and pisses off a vexed managing director in the process.

In a story last month on this site, I commented on the wildly inappropriate use of name, slogan, and imagery for a steel wool product sold in Lebanon called “Negro Steel Wool.” After my initial repugnant shock surrounding the no-nonesense marketing of a …product, I calmed down for a second and decided to do some investigative bloggerist work, which included online searches and correspondences, to uncover the answer to my queries.

For Cultural Purposes Only

Update : You may watch “They Do Not Exist” online here. (Tarboush tip: Laurie King) from Sight and Sound Magazine The Palestinian Film Archive vanished during the 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut. Sarah Wood’s ‘For Cultural Purposes Only’ revives the memory of its contents through verbal description and drawings. Palestinian writer Adania Shibli finds her [...]

Caption Contest: “Reflections on the Arab Malady”

To the cover of “Being Arab” by Samir Kassir in the original French I add the first suggested captions: the shib-shib mufakkir and “Oh fuck mum just poured a bucket of poo over her head again having remembered she’s Arab while the earth splits into two.” Other witty captions are welcomed. The best one will [...]

Disturbing Image Series: And the Minstrel Show Lives on in Lebanese Markets

I cannot begin to express all that is wrong with the following image:

But I will try to.

In an attempt to sell “the best of our best” in household cleaning, a product found in a Lebanese grocery market features a caricature of a shirt-less Black man flexing his muscles as his might physique puncturing the “Negro” product’s slogan: “leef al-3bd.” The slogan literally translates to “loofah of the slave.” However “3abd,” a derogatory term equivalent to the West’s “N-word” carries a shameful historical legacy of referring to Black people as “slaves.” But this product and its imagery is proof positive that the history has yet to be exclusively relegated to the past.