Building in East Jerusalem
Haaretz today ran an excellent editorial denouncing the eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. It makes the very critical point about how the whole dispute over building in East Jerusalem is an exercise in skillful duplicity on the part of the new Israeli government, and is worth quoting at length:
A Palestinian woman confronted Israeli riot police as she was evicted from her home in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Sunday. Abir Sultan/European Pressphoto Agency.
...The sight of the evicted Palestinian families, who had lived in these houses for decades, paints Israel in the world's eyes as a country that maintains a cruel regime of occupation, oppresses the weak and strives to create political facts in the disputed city under the guise of the "rule of law."
But for all its importance, this international criticism is not what makes the eviction of these families completely unacceptable. A democratic state that strives for peace and justice simply has no right to uproot families who became refugees in 1948. They left homes in West Jerusalem behind them, and were subsequently granted modest accommodations by the Jordanian government. The claim that the houses in Sheikh Jarrah were purchased by Jews in the early 1900s is a double-edged sword that opens a political and legal Pandora's box.
No thinking person will be persuaded that Jews have a sweeping right to return to their homes in East Jerusalem as long as Israeli law not only bars Palestinians from returning to their homes in West Jerusalem, but even evicts them from the houses where they have lived for the last 60 years. The Israel Lands Administration's regulations do not even allow Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to buy land and houses in many parts of the city.
So for all of the Israeli government's complaints about American racism in demanding that Israel stop building housing complexes for Jews in occupied parts of the city, there is the trump card of Israel's own actions in its regulation of housing for Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank. (Stay tuned for my eventual critique of a memo on "talking about Israel," which is relevant to this.)
Anyone who is not totally ignorant knows that while Israeli law doesn't forbid Palestinians from inhabiting West Jerusalem (for they live there), building codes and other smokescreens create a situation where Palestinians essentially cannot buy property there, and Jews can. The situation Netanyahu described is more true in West Jerusalem than in East Jerusalem:
We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem. I can only describe to myself what would happen if someone would propose that Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry. Accordingly, we cannot agree to such a decree in Jerusalem.
There should be little sympathy for Netanyahu's crackpot attempts to smear critics as racist or anti-semitic, when, to quote the New York Times, "[a]s soon as the Palestinians had been forcibly removed from the houses, Jewish nationalists moved in..."
Prisoners of art
Bernard Khoury and Akram Zaatari at Beirut Art Center
by Tim Fitzsimons, NOW Staff
Are Lebanese artists prisoners of war? A provocative new exhibit by renowned Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury posits that they are. In a show at the Beirut Art Center on display through October 3, Khoury uses images from various Lebanese artists, including himself, to suggest that contemporary Lebanese art is trapped in an endless cycle of reference to the 15-year civil war. However, if Khoury illustrates the dilemma facing contemporary Lebanese artists, a divergent – if in final calculation complimentary – exhibit is being shown simultaneously at the center. “Earth of Endless Secrets” by Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari suggests a possible way out.
The architect’s apparatus
Bernard Khoury is perhaps the most internationally acclaimed architect currently working in Lebanon, and he has produced some of the few icons of post-war design in Lebanon. Khoury’s most feted buildings, the Gemmayzeh restaurant Centrale and the Karantina night club BO18, are critiques, with Centrale riffing off quaint notions of preserving Beirut’s architectural heritage, while BO18 confronts the legacy of the civil war directly though its location on the site of a famous massacre and by employing coffins as its central motif. Those buildings made Khoury an international star, but they also helped pigeonhole Lebanese contemporary art in the eyes of foreigners, who seemed to say, “If it’s not about the war, we’re not interested.” In his exhibit at the Beirut Art Center, Khoury attempts to take the ax to that somewhat-debilitating association.
“Prisoner of War”, described in the catalogue as an “apparatus”, is a man-sized sculpture that resembles a miniature version of an iconic and sinister-looking American stealth bomber, without the wings. It sits on the floor bathed in light. Behind it, a video of the sculpture in motion plays on the wall.
The captions for the work, under the faux-militaristic heading “Concept of Operation”, reads: “The POW is a self-propelled apparatus for the use of returning Prisoners of War to enemy lines.” The screen behind the sculpture plays a video of this journey from the two cameras fitted in the front windows of the apparatus. The two feeds, much like two eyes, show a ground-level view as a POW shuffles over rubble to commands of “Straight! Right! Left!” being shouted in Arabic.
The sculpture on the floor at BAC is empty, but the video and the description create for the viewer an understanding that is based on its imagined use. There is no view out, so as “prisoners” return across enemy lines, they are forced to act as an intelligence-collecting tool: the ultimate Trojan Horses. The prisoner always remains blind to, yet protected from, his surroundings.
On their own, Khoury’s apparatus and video – which were designed for a different exhibition in Italy – are perplexing. It is only in the third piece, “Catherine Wants to Know”, which Khoury designed especially for the current exhibit, that the thrust of his message becomes apparent. The photomontage consists of images of the civil war by well-known Lebanese artists. We see the Cedars in snow with skiing soldiers floating down the slopes, the mountains and the city in war, soldiers by the sea, a military jeep, painted colored balloons, Khoury’s own BO18, children by the beach, and, finally, the POW sculpture in use with human arms emerging from under it – a landscape of the war. The cumulative effect is to elucidate and mock the plight of the contemporary Lebanese artist, trapped in a cycle of endless reference to the civil war.
The artist’s answer
At first glance Akram Zaatari would seem to be just the sort of artist Khoury is critiquing in “Catherine Wants to Know”. Indeed, Google Zataari’s name and the first hit describes him as “exploring Lebanon's postwar condition through collecting testimonies and various documents…”
Zaatari’s focus on a Lebanese prisoner of Israel would seem to be subscribing to the dichotomy Khoury mocks; that Lebanese artists must address the war in some manner or another unless they want to be ignored. But by taking an almost microscopic focus to the experiences of a single individual, Zaatari’s “Earth of Endless Secrets: Writing for a Posterior Time” transcends the conflict itself.
The exhibit, the other half of which is featured at Sfeir-Semler Gallery, is a photographed correspondence of a single prisoner, Nabih Awada, a former member of the Communist resistance in Lebanon. Nawada was first imprisoned by Israel when he was 16 and didn’t regain his freedom until a decade later.
“Secrets” consists of two series of photographed documents: “Neruda’s Garden”, which features images of Awada’s letters to his family and theirs to him; and “Untold”, which features Awada’s correspondence with his fellow prisoners and a video.
In one sense the work has a documentary interest independent of its artistic merits. For instance, in the “Untold” video, Awada writes a letter to Samir Kantar, the most infamous of the Lebanese prisoners held by Israel, which he put into a capsule, making reference to the way in which secret messages were passed through furtive prison kisses. Also in “Untold”, 48 photographs of prisoners with notes scribbled on back are displayed, showcasing correspondences from prisoners to Awada, or “Neruda”, his revolutionary nickname.
While many of the messages displayed reflect the emotions we associate with detention, namely boredom and misery, others are unexpectedly comical: “Comrade Nabih… A revolutionary greeting… I offer you this portrait of me… I ask you to accept this one even if it’s ugly… If you like it, then welcome. Otherwise, goodbye… Finally, please accept my cold salutations, kneaded in a mountain of ice. Peace, Ali Balhas, Askalan Prison, July 21, 1995.”
The photo-notes were permitted only after a 1993 hunger strike forced the hand of the Israeli captors, and there is a certain irony in the notion that a decision by a random Israeli bureaucrat is partly responsible for the window into the world of resistance prisoners of Israel that Zaatari has put together.
The most affecting images are in “Neruda’s Garden”. Written on Red Cross stationery—prisoners are warned in bold letters at the top of each page not to discuss anything other than personal family matters—Awada’s letters to his mother are tender and meticulously illustrated.
In addition, Zaatari features two large photos of the collected correspondences, from both sides of the divide. In the photo, his mother’s worn satchel holds his letters from prison, but the viewer notices the care with which the notes are folded and meticulously organized. Like the folder Awada created to hold his mother’s letters, her satchel and the thoughts it contained were the one connection she had to him, and so she cared for it in his absence, endowing it and its contents with his missing personality.
“Secrets” draw attention away from the loud, postwar hysteria to the silent little economy of emotions that persists in spite the best efforts of his jailors. By focusing on unadorned evidence, Zaatari creates a work that is more interested in the human condition in captivity than any broader political argument.
Jethro Tull at Byblos
Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull front man, sings in Byblos. (NOW Lebanon)
I didn’t really know what to expect as I walked into the Byblos amphitheater, hovering as it does on stilts over the calm evening Mediterranean. Lebanon is not the first place one would look to find a thriving Jethro Tull fan base. Ian Anderson, the band’s flutist-front man, is 61 years old and before the Lebanese Civil War was even over, the band was releasing a “20 Years of Jethro Tull” retrospective.
As we sat and waited for the set to begin, a most mysterious omen shot through the overcast sky – too low and bright to be a shooting star, too high and horizontal to be a firework. As I searched for a deeper meaning of this sign, fireworks from countless weddings sparkling here and there over the gorgeous Jbeil hills distracted me. I soaked up the beautiful scene, Crusader castle and ruins behind the stage, Mediterranean Sea behind me. A note on Mr. Anderson’s flute – that famous, unmistakable flute – drew me out of my daydream and triggered memories of childhood I didn’t even know I had. He began to play.
Jethro Tull has always been about Mr. Anderson’s flute playing. As the band progressed through its set, he attacked his little steel tube with his lungs and his voice and his tongue and his whole body, contorting and hurling around with a nymph-like energy that did not betray his old age. The little paunch that protruded from behind his vest reminded the audience that this was 2009, not 1967, but little else did. Anderson’s voice sounded a bit strained, but no music ever sounds like its recorded album – especially forty years on. The sound we know him best for, his flute playing, sounded as energetic and exciting as it did when he first became famous, which is no small feat. The songs in which his flute didn’t feature prominently fell a little flat, but luckily they were infrequent.
“Now for something more recent,” he said, “from...1969.” The crowd laughed appreciatively. He transitioned from one song to another, interspersing his playing with a few jokes, playful like the band’s lyrics. Before beginning his famous jazzy take of Bach’s “Bourée”, Anderson noted that “you can never really kill a completely good piece of music.” Indeed, maybe that is why Jethro Tull still sounds so good: there has always been something strange and uniquely good about Jethro Tull’s music. At times a cross between rock and roll and Medieval court music (literally so, as Anderson pointed out before playing “Pastime with Good Company,” which he attributed to King Henry VII), the band is hard to pigeonhole. Just when you begin to think you know where a song is going, the band switches direction and hits a couple of power chords or a pummeling flute solo and enters a whole new genre of music.
Was the audience at Byblos composed of Jethro Tull diehards? Probably not. Aside from the requisite and electrifying final song, “Aqualung,” Jethro Tull’s most famous single, the crowd was decidedly calm, enjoying the relaxation of being at the concert in beautiful Byblos as much as they were enjoying the music itself. I’d venture a guess that they were more like me: my point of reference of the band comes from my Father, whose cassettes and, later, CDs, sent Anderson’s piping through my childhood home as he hammered nails and fixed things. And so my understanding of their music – learned from childhood proximity, no avid listening – is probably like that of most of the crowd. Jethro Tull is famous because it has made unique music that sticks with you, and this concert was no exception.
(This is the original version of an article that was published on NOW Lebanon on July 20, 2009.)
A plantation to be proud of
This is by far the funniest and most satisfying op-ed I have read in some time. Sarah Vowell writes about the Rhode Island name change ballot proposition (an idiotic idea, by the way) with a tone and style that I wish I could muster:
...On the one hand, as a person who spends a minimum of 20 minutes a week furious with President William McKinley, I feel that these, the historically minded, bleeding-heart hand-wringers leading this movement, are my people.
On the other hand, as New York City’s biggest, or perhaps only, fan of the founding of Providence Plantations, I feel compelled to stick up for its noble legacy of religious freedom.
I strongly recommend that you read the whole article on the Times site.
Tweetup in Gemmayzeh
A few days ago, I went to a Twitter meetup - or "tweetup" - in Gemmayzeh at the invitation of my more Twitter savvy friend, Josie (or, @josiensor on Twitter).
Though I am a Twitter user myself, I was surprised that I found the whole thing to be very fun - I met a bunch of Beirut's bloggers, (Blogging Beirut, Plus 961, others I think), a few AUB students, and others.
She wrote it up for the Daily Star. I am going to copy the article here since it will disappear to the Daily Star's terrible pay-only archives in a day or two, but the link is here.
Growing social phenomenon unites Beirut strangers at Gemmayzeh sushi bar
By Josie Ensor
Daily Star staff
Friday, June 26, 2009
BEIRUT: Have you ever been to a dinner party where you don't know a single person? The scenario sounds terrifying, and frankly not too likely, but it is becoming a regular occurrence in Beirut. I went to my first Lebanese 'tweetup' last night at a sushi bar in Gemmayzeh and found myself in just this situation.
A dispatch from Alice in Baghdad
My very dear friend Alice Fordham is currently in Baghdad working for The Times. I am also currently living in her room in Hamra because my sweaty landlord kicked me out (then tried to un-kick me out).
Alice has been updating the blog and running the bureau temporarily, and her most recent blog post is genius:
Baking in Baghdad - Round One-and-a-half
So, I made an apple crumble. A rudimentary apple crumble, it is true, and not fit for consumption by anyone but me (and certainly not by the baking guru who has challenged me to produce cake), but a crumble nonetheless. It took some persuasion of a microwave whose oven setting nearly burned down the hotel, and there's definitely something a bit odd about the consistency of the crumble. And yet, I felt that achieving crumble at all in the circumstances of a kitchen not designed for crumble, limited resources and a general emphasis around here on things that are not crumble (bombs, endemic political corruption and kebabs, for instance) was in some way a triumph of order over chaos.
Read more at the Inside Iraq Blog.