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TTHISHIS ISSUEISSUE: PPALESTINEALESTINE ● PPalestinealestine StudiesStudies atat SOASSOAS ● CConsequencesonsequences ofof ddeclineecline ● RReinforcingeinforcing thethe structuresstructures ofof occupationoccupation ● GGradationsradations ofof pacificationpacification ● UUrgentlyrgently sseekingeeking a solutionsolution ● RRightight toto rights,rights, aandnd rightright toto returnreturn ● A ppioneeringioneering anthropologistanthropologist inin PPalestinealestine ● PPalestinealestine onon fi llmm ● EEdwarddward SaidSaid andand MahmoudMahmoud DarwishDarwish ● PPLUSLUS RReviewseviews aandnd eventsevents inin LondonLondon Patchwork on a woman's coat, Galilee, Palestine, late 19th century © British Museum About the London Middle East Institute (LMEI)

Volume 8 - Number 4 Th e London Middle East Institute (LMEI) draws upon the resources of London and SOAS to provide April – May 2012 teaching, training, research, publication, consultancy, outreach and other services related to the Middle East. It serves as a neutral forum for Middle East studies broadly defi ned and helps to create links between Editorial Board individuals and institutions with academic, commercial, diplomatic, media or other specialisations. Nadje Al-Ali With its own professional staff of Middle East experts, the LMEI is further strengthened by its academic SOAS membership – the largest concentration of Middle East expertise in any institution in Europe. Th e LMEI also Narguess Farzad has access to the SOAS Library, which houses over 150,000 volumes dealing with all aspects of the Middle SOAS East. LMEI’s Advisory Council is the driving force behind the Institute’s fundraising programme, for which Nevsal Hughes Association of European Journalists it takes primary responsibility. It seeks support for the LMEI generally and for specifi c components of its Najm Jarrah programme of activities. George Joff é Cambridge University Max Scott Mission Statement: Gilgamesh Publishing Sarah Searight British Foundation for the Study Th e aim of the LMEI, through education and research, is to promote knowledge of all aspects of the Middle of Arabia East including its complexities, problems, achievements and assets, both among the general public and with Kathryn Spellman Poots those who have a special interest in the region. In this task it builds on two essential assets. First, it is based in AKU and LMEI London, a city which has unrivalled contemporary and historical connections and communications with the Sarah Stewart LMEI Middle East including political, social, cultural, commercial and educational aspects. Secondly, the LMEI is Ionis Th ompson at SOAS, the only tertiary educational institution in the world whose explicit purpose is to provide education British Foundation for the Study and scholarship on the whole Middle East from prehistory until today. of Arabia Shelagh Weir SOAS LMEI Staff: Co-ordinating Editor Rhiannon Edwards Director Dr Hassan Hakimian Listings Deputy Director and Company Secretary Dr Sarah Stewart Vincenzo Paci-Delton Executive Offi cer Louise Hosking Designer Events and Magazine Coordinator Vincenzo Paci-Delton Shahla Geramipour

Th e Middle East in London is published six times a year by the London Middle Disclaimer: Letters to the Editor: East Institute at SOAS

Publisher and Opinions and views expressed in the Middle East Please send your letters to the editor at Editorial Offi ce in London are, unless otherwise stated, personal the LMEI address provided (see left panel) views of authors and do not refl ect the views of their or email [email protected] Th e London Middle East Institute School of Oriental and African Studies organisations nor those of the LMEI or the Editorial University of London Th ornaugh Street, Russell Square Board. Although all advertising in the magazine is London WC1H 0XG carefully vetted prior to publication, the LMEI does United Kingdom not accept responsibility for the accuracy of claims T: +44 (0)20 7898 4490 made by advertisers. F: +44 (0)20 7898 4329 E: [email protected] www.lmei.soas.ac.uk SSubscriptions:ubscriptions: ISSN 1743-7598 To subscribe to Th e Middle East in London, please email [email protected] to request subscription information and a form. Contents

4 16 LMEI Board of Trustees EDITORIAL A pioneering anthropologist in Professor Paul Webley (Chairman) Palestine Director, SOAS 5 Th e life and work of Hilma Dr John Curtis British Museum PALESTINE Granqvist H E Sir Vincent Fean KCVO Consul General to Jerusalem INSIGHT Shelagh Weir

Professor Ben Fortna, SOAS Palestine Studies at SOAS: Not a

Professor Graham Furniss, SOAS moment too soon 18

Mr Alan Jenkins Haim Bresheeth Palestine on fi lm: toward a

Dr Karima Laachir, SOAS research agenda Professor Annabelle Sreberny, SOAS 7 Questions about Palestine and Dr Barbara Zollner Consequences of decline the moving image Birkbeck College US Middle East policy and Nick Denes LMEI Advisory Council Palestine today Lady Barbara Judge (Chair) Gilbert Achcar 20 Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem Near and Middle East Department, SOAS Reading walls H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait 8 Graffi ti in West Jerusalem Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani Reinforcing the structures of Hanan Toukan Arab International Women’s Forum Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa occupation President, University College of Bahrain Th e Palestinian Authority’s 21 Professor Tony Allan King’s College and SOAS economic development strategy Bringing Palestine and the Dr Alanoud Alsharekh Adam Hanieh world together; in poetry and LMEI and Fellow, St Antony’s College prose Mr Farad Azima Iran Heritage Foundation 10 Edward Said and Mahmoud Professor Doris Behrens-Abouseif Art and Archaeology Department, SOAS Gradations of pacifi cation Darwish Dr Noel Brehony Israel’s suppression of Atef Alshaer MENAS Associates Ltd. Mr Charles L. O. Buderi Palestinians and the US defence Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP strategy REVIEWS Dr Elham Danish Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia Laleh Khalili Mr Kasim Kutay 23 Moelis & Company Mr Rod Sampson 12 RESTAURANT Barclays Wealth, Dubai Urgently seeking a solution Ottolenghi Founding Sponsor and A British view from Jerusalem Nadje Al Ali and Mark Douglas Member of the Vincent Fean Advisory Council 24 Sheikh Mohamed bin Issa al Jaber MBI Al Jaber Foundation 14 BOOKS Right to rights, and right to Books in brief return Rethinking Palestinian 26 refugeehood EVENTS IN LONDON Ruba Salih

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 3 EEDITORIALDITORIAL © Kyle Taylor

DDearear RReadereader

The skyline of Hebron, 2011

Najm Jarrah, MEL Editorial Board

his issue of the magazine marks complexity and impact on countries Iran. And it is by no means immune to the launch of LMEI’s new Centre throughout the region. the dynamics of change in the Arab world. Tfor Palestine Studies (CPS). Th e It has become something of a fad over Th ese have only just begun to make their Centre was inaugurated on March 1 as an the past year – in political and media if eff ect felt on the Palestinians’ politics, and institutional home for the broad range of not academic circles – to talk down the to open up new possibilities and choices work on Palestine and the Palestinians that relevance of Palestine and the confl ict to them as a people – whether currently has long been done at SOAS, and brings with Israel to the politics and societies of categorised as West Bank or Gaza Strip together scholars from a variety of academic the Middle East. Pundits assert that the residents, Jerusalem ID-holders, citizens of disciplines. Arab uprisings show that these issues no Israel, refugees in the neighbouring states, Most of the articles published here have longer matter to the Arab peoples, and if or members of the Arab and worldwide been contributed by members of the CPS, they ever did it was because dictators and diaspora. addressing topics related to their areas of demagogues invoked them. expertise, including Politics, International Clearly, this assertion has more to do Relations, History, Development Studies, with wishful thinking than realities on the Economics, Media and Film Studies, ground. Th e wish that the Palestinians and Anthropology and Art. their cause would simply go away is hardly Th e establishment of the CPS has been new. Disengagement from the politics of widely welcomed. Some of the reasons the region has long been seen as key to why are touched on by Haim Bresheeth compelling the Palestinians to accept their in his historical refl ections opposite. ordained fate. Speakers at the inaugural event also Yet even when not in the headlines, Information about the Centre for Palestine noted the importance of Palestine Studies Palestine continues to impose itself on the Studies can be obtained at http://www.soas. to understanding the contemporary issues that are – the ongoing crisis in Syria, ac.uk/lmei-cps/ or by contacting LMEI on Middle East, given the Palestine question’s for example, or the West’s showdown with Tel:20 7898 4330 or E-mail: [email protected]

4 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 IINSIGHTNSIGHT

Haim Bresheeth refl ects on the opening of the new Centre for Palestine Studies PPalestinealestine SStudiestudies aatt SSOAS:OAS: nnotot a mmomentoment ttoooo ssoonoon © Ottoman Palestine

he History of SOAS, as we know, denoting almost anything east of Gibraltar. later famous as Lawrence of Arabia, and his is quite fascinating. Th e School of Th at ‘Orient’ was, of course, the fl ip-side of partner C L Wooley – was a cover. Hiding TOriental Studies was set up in 1916,* the ‘Occident’, the ‘other’ to the British ‘self’, behind the learned society of the Palestine before the decline and fall of the British the contour of not just Britishness, but of Exploration Fund, the War Offi ce’s real Empire, and interestingly, just when British European identity, and the occidental set of task was to accurately map the Naqab so as designs on the future of Palestine were ‘grand narratives’. to enable its conquest during the widely- fi nally materialising into a practical plan. 1916 was also the year that saw Zionist expected war which began later that year. Th e word ‘Oriental’ still carried the baggage aims adopted by the British political Six army surveyors, pretending to partake of orientalism, a concept for which we are leadership – especially by Lloyd George, in the archaeological survey, prepared the indebted to the most famous of Palestinian Churchill and Balfour, the main fi gures amazingly detailed map that was used in scholars, the late Edward Said. While directing the empire’s political plans. Just General Allenby’s campaign. Th e British many ‘Oriental Studies’ were motivated two years earlier, in mid-1914, the British army in Egypt had to cross Palestine to by scholarly curiosity, some were indeed War Offi ce successfully tricked the Ottoman reach the rest of the Arab world, and took studies of ways and means of maintaining Empire into agreeing to an archeological Gaza a week aft er the Balfour Declaration British control over the most vast and survey of southern Palestine, a supposedly was released. powerful empire the world had known. Th e scholarly examination of the Naqab and Th us Palestine, as so oft en before, became students would be colonial administrators parts of Eastern Sinai. Actually, the survey a gateway for another imperial project. In of the ‘Orient’, that somewhat abstract term – conducted by an unknown archaeologist, 1917, with the military conquest in-mid swing, the empire concluded its political Housed amid the rich tapestry of area studies plans by publishing the Balfour Declaration at SOAS, the new Centre injects a new element – one of the shortest political documents ever, and one of the most explosive. into the academic and political scene Th e empire declared its commitment to

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 5 Th e new Centre recognises the need to address a long century allowing a voice to those who have been silenced for too long. of denial, redressing imbalances of empire and colonialism If Jewish Studies are partly justifi ed by long centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe, establishing ‘a national home for the Jews’ and Israel Studies all over the Anglophone periods when Jews had no social voice, in Palestine, with only a passing reference world. An enormous amount of funding then the introduction of the discipline to the country’s inhabitants, who were not supports this network of academic centres. of Palestine Studies addresses a similar credited with an identity, but referred to Journals, anthologies and monographs imbalance, a more recent one, imposed merely as ‘non-Jewish inhabitants’. continue to further the Zionist perspective and supported by the machinery of British Some years later, with the Mandate in and ensure its dissemination, making it the colonial and imperial control. While the preparation, Churchill displayed the same default version of academic analysis. Arab world is rising against Western- level of objectivity when speaking of plans Palestine, like the rest of the Arab world, installed dictators and non-democratic for Palestine: ‘We think it is good for the stayed invisible, as invisible as its indigenous regimes, with thousands dying for long- world, good for the Jews, and good for the people were to Balfour and Churchill. denied rights, we should also remember that British Empire. And it is also good for the Th is meant that the Palestinian narrative the non-violent popular direct action which Arabs dwelling in Palestine, and we intend of the colonised, occupied, brutalised and provided inspiration for the Arab Spring it to be so. Th ey shall share in the benefi ts oppressed stayed submerged, marginalised was introduced by the Palestinians, during and progress of Zionism.’ Revealingly, the and denied. Like the disappearance of the fi rst intifada. three entities for which Churchill claimed the refugees, and the way the land was Th e new centre will add an independent, the Mandate was good -- the ‘world’, increasingly snatched from the Palestinians, democratising and analytical voice to the Jews and the British Empire -- excluded the academic narrative was denied to the discourse on Palestine, the Middle East, the indigenous population. Th ey were colonised. and the troubled relationship between the added as an aft erthought, not as citizens How can this continuous eff ort of West and the Arab and Muslim East. It or inhabitants, but as ‘Arabs dwelling in denial, erasure and displacement ever be may contribute to changing the dominant, Palestine’, not really belonging there. reversed? Can there be any hope for a just hegemonic narrative on Palestine and Th e ‘Arabs dwelling in Palestine’ were resolution of the Palestine atrocity without Zionism. It could not have a better home. mere ciphers to the colonial politician: fi rst addressing the denial of the Palestinian numbers to be moved or decimated, to narrative? Haim Bresheeth is a fi lmmaker, photographer make way for the colon that was to support For SOAS to open a centre of Palestine and a fi lm studies scholar at the University of British interests in the Middle East. Studies in 2012 is almost a century too East London Th e Balfour Declaration was a bizarre late. But we should welcome it as a most document by any standard. Britain was necessary development. Housed amid the * It became known as SOAS in 1938, when gift ing a territory it did not own or control, rich tapestry of area studies supported by Africa was added to the school's name and to a people which wasn’t there, disregarding the university, it injects a new academic and remit the rightful owners. While the declaration discursive element into the academic and is meaningless as a legal document, it has, political scene – recognising the need to of course, proven most useful as a political address a long century of denial, redressing tool for Zionism. Th at such a colonial imbalances of empire and colonialism, scheme emerged in the second decade of © Ottoman Palestine the 20th century is quite unbelievable – what would have been ‘normal’ in the 17th or 18th centuries, was no longer so in 1917. We all know what it led to. Was the Balfour Declaration studied at the young School of Oriental Studies at 2, Finsbury Circus? We have no records, but no doubt the topic came up in the classrooms at some point. How was it presented and understood? Probably very diff erently than it would be today. Since its early days as a school for colonial administrators, SOAS has developed into one of the world’s leading universities of area studies, part of a postcolonial understanding and critical analysis of recent history. As we know, a topic can be presented and analysed from a variety of perspectives, and in many cases the viewpoint tends to underwrite the conclusions. Israel and its supporters have built a large and infl uential system of Jewish

6 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Gilbert Achcar on US Middle East policy and Palestine today CConsequencesonsequences ooff ddeclineecline

he Arab upheaval came at the worst © Moshe Milner moment for the United States – at Ta time when its infl uence in the Middle East was in sharp decline. Th e primary reason for this was, of course, the Iraqi defeat, presaged by the likes of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as a ‘catastrophe’ worse than Vietnam. Th e oil-related strategic importance of the Gulf is indeed far greater than whatever was at stake in Indochina. Despite the Obama administration’s eff ort to cast the withdrawal from Iraq as a ‘mission accomplished’, it escaped nobody’s notice that the US was unable to retain a single military base in that country. It is quite obvious that Tehran’s clout in Iraq is much greater today than Washington’s. Th us a massive and very costly war eff ort – costly for the US in both human and budgetary terms, not to mention the immense human and material cost incurred by the Iraqis – ended up severely weakening US hegemony Barack Obama is fi nding Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel increasingly diffi cult to infl uence and ‘credibility’, which only emboldened Tehran in its defi ance of Washington. Th e Arab upheaval led at its early stage collaborated with Egypt’s military. Th ough there was nothing to be gained from to the fall of Washington’s best Arab friend, marred by occasional tensions, this continuing to defer to Washington’s wishes, Egypt’s former autocrat Hosni Mubarak. collaboration has been the main feature of as it was clearly and increasingly unable to Even though the Egyptian military – the the situation in Egypt since the Supreme obtain any Israeli concessions. Th is explains world’s second biggest recipient of US Council of the Armed Forces took over the PA’s unusual boldness in pressing military aid aft er Israel – stepped in to try from Mubarak. ahead with its quest for state recognition to limit the damage, it quickly became clear A direct consequence of this turn of at the United Nations despite Washington’s that its control over the country was shaky events was to put the Palestinian Authority irritation with that move, and returning at best. Th e main force to benefi t from the (PA) in Ramallah and the Palestinian to the Palestinian reconciliation track upheaval so far – at the level of the entire government in Gaza on the reconciliation to Washington’s dismay – as the US still region – has been the Muslim Brotherhood, track. Progress was achieved in this regard, regards Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ group. whose most important constituent is its starting with the Cairo agreement last April, Given the fact that Hamas is now original, Egyptian, branch. and culminating in the Qatari-sponsored backed by an increasing number of Arab Faced with adversity, Washington decided Doha agreement in February. Egypt’s governments dominated by fellow branches to reorient its regional policy and revive its infl uence on Fatah and Qatar’s infl uence of the Muslim Brotherhood, Washington’s once friendly ties with the Brotherhood. on the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole, Palestinian predicament will only grow – Th e two sides collaborated closely in the including its Palestinian branch Hamas, adding to the overall image of decline it is 1950s and 1960s against Nasserism, left - played a decisive role. projecting regionally and internationally. wing nationalism, and Soviet infl uence. Th e decline in Washington’s regional Th eir divorce came in the early 1990s when infl uence had two other closely connected Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development the US deployed its troops on Arab soil consequences. On the one hand, Benyamin Studies and International Relations, Chair of to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq aft er its Netanyahu’s Israeli government felt it had the Centre for Palestine Studies and author invasion of Kuwait. an even freer hand than before in dealing of many books including Th e Arabs and In tandem with the renewal of its ties with the Palestinians. On the other, the PA the Holocaust: Th e Arab-Israeli War of with Washington, the Muslim Brotherhood understood that under such circumstances Narratives (2010)

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 7 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Adam Hanieh takes a critical look at the Palestinian Authority’s economic development strategy RReinforcingeinforcing tthehe sstructurestructures ooff ooccupationccupation © Tristram Sparks © Tristram he devastating impact of Israel’s Much less attention has been devoted adoption of the PRDP, it has come under military occupation on social and by journalists, activists, and scholars to increasing scrutiny and criticism from Teconomic life in the West Bank analysing the economic strategy advocated those living in PA-controlled areas. Critics and Gaza Strip has been thoroughly by the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself. Th is contend that it is too reliant on the types of documented. Israel’s restrictions on the is summarised in a 2007 document known neoliberal policies – based upon private- use of water and other natural resources, as the Palestinian Reform and Development sector growth, reduced public sector uprooting of trees and destruction of Program (PRDP), which drew heavily on spending, liberalisation of trade, and market property, impediments to movement detailed proposals written by the World de-regulation – that have proven disastrous of goods and people, and ongoing Bank and other international fi nancial in other areas of the world. Moreover, expropriation of land, have wrought an institutions. External donor funding to some have argued that as well as increasing immense cost to Palestinian society. In the PA has been made contingent on poverty levels and the polarisation of wealth 2010 alone, according to a report from the implementation of the PRDP, and control within Palestinian society, this model of Palestinian Ministry of National Economy over this aid is maintained by channelling development reinforces the structures of and the Applied Research Institute in it through a Trust Fund headquartered military occupation. Jerusalem, the Palestinian economy lost in Washington DC and managed by the Th e PRDP committed the PA to a an estimated US$6.9 billion (equivalent to World Bank. As a consequence, the PRDP series of fi scal reforms aimed at achieving around 85 per cent of Palestinian GDP) has become the guiding framework for a ‘diversifi ed and thriving free market as a result of such measures. Most of these Palestinian economic policy since 2007, economy led by a pioneering private losses stem from the removal of natural particularly in the West Bank. sector that is in harmony with the Arab resources such as water, stone, minerals, While international fi nancial institutions world, [and] is open to regional and global and salts by Israeli companies operating in and donors have applauded the PA’s markets’. Th e reform component includes the West Bank. As a consequence of these familiar patterns of colonial rule, Palestinian development has been perpetually stymied Palestinian development has been perpetually under the exigencies of Israel’s occupation. stymied under the exigencies of Israel’s occupation

8 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 a sharp reduction in the size of the public sector (the PA committed itself to a 21 per Much of the development that appears cent reduction in jobs by 2010), a promise to be taking place across the West Bank, most not to increase public sector salaries (which in eff ect means a sharp decrease in real notably in the city of Ramallah, is debt-fuelled wages due to high infl ation), and an end to subsidisation of electricity and water bills on residential real estate, automobile equality and social justice in fashioning (by requiring citizens to present a ‘certifi cate purchases or consumption such as credit their society, and not leaving it to the of payment’ in order to receive any cards – the amount of credit extended whims of the colonial power, the donors, municipal or government services). Th is for these three sectors increased by a or the market.’ He went on to propose latter measure has a dramatic impact on the remarkable 245 per cent from 2008 to measures such as ‘legislation to establish a poor, as continued access to electricity and 2011 (reaching US$466 million in the decent minimum wage, to provide formal water despite the non-payment of bills was fi rst quarter, 2011). Th e expansion of the protection to the unemployed, and to a central means of survival for thousands of fi nancial markets underscores the fact that re-activate the social insurance law... with families. much of the development that appears special attention to those with special For its development component, the to be taking place across the West Bank needs. A strategy of widening the free PRDP envisages utilising low-wage (most notably in the city of Ramallah) is provision of health care and education to Palestinian labour in industrial zones and debt-fuelled. It is refl ected in the striking cover all citizens would be an empowering parks, located at the edges of the patchwork spatial transformation of the Ramallah strategy. Such a strategy should be based of Palestinian territories in the West Bank. landscape over the past few years, and the on an appreciation of women's role in the Th ese zones would bring together Israeli, proliferation of billboards promoting banks provision of care and right to participate in Palestinian and regional investors in sectors and the ability to purchase items such as the paid labour force’. such as traditional low value-added goods houses, cars and other merchandise through Th ese demands echo the same sorts of (eg textiles and garments) as well as high- taking on debt. Th e growth in debt also concerns that innervated the mass struggles tech sectors that could complement the needs to be placed alongside the widespread across the Middle East and North Africa in Israeli economy. Local non-government poverty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip 2011. Addressing these fundamental issues organisations and activists have criticised – unemployment in 2010 was close to one- requires an eff ective struggle that can both this development model for ‘normalising’ quarter of the workforce (23.7 per cent) and tackle the structures of military occupation and legitimising the Israeli occupation. per capita GDP was only US$1,847. and chart a development strategy premised Land for the Jenin Industrial Estate, for Many Palestinians are concerned that upon meeting popular needs. Th e outcome example, has twice been confi scated from one outcome of these processes is a growing of these debates will be an important Palestinian farmers: in 1998 when the PA inequality within Palestinian society element in shaping the future course of fi rst mooted the idea for the industrial zone, itself, which weakens the capacity to resist Palestinian society. and again in 2003, when the Israeli military occupation and colonisation. Palestinian confi scated part of the land for construction development expert Jamil Hilal recently Adam Hanieh is a lecturer in the of the separation wall’s ‘buff er-zone’. Th e emphasised precisely this point, noting Development Studies Department, SOAS, a confi scation of land – a key element of that: ‘the empowering of Palestinians in the member of the Centre for Palestine Studies, Israel’s colonisation strategy in the West WBGS to organise themselves to defy and SOAS and author of Capitalism and Class in Bank – has thus been integrated into the challenge the colonizing apartheid state, the Gulf Arab States (2011) ‘development’ component of the PRDP. Th e requires being guided by the principles of likely outcome of this model – particularly © Yazid Anani in the context of an extreme dependence upon foreign aid – has been described by Palestinian economists Raja Khalidi and Sobhi Samour as one that serves to ‘perpetuate Palestinian dependence on Israel and allow personal prosperity for some but communal impoverishment for all.’ In this environment, many Palestinians are turning to debt to survive. According to the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the amount of bank credit almost doubled from 2008 to May 2010 (from US$1.72 billion to US$3.37 billion). Much of this involves consumer-based spending

(Opposite) A Ramallah shopping mall. Most of the shops were empty above the fi rst few fl oors, 2006 (Right) View of apartment blocks in Ramallah, 2012

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 9 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Laleh Khalili fi nds echoes of Israel’s approach to suppressing Palestinians in the US’ new global military strategy GGradationsradations ooff ppaciacifi ccationation © Mr Kris

n January 5 2012, the government punitive excursions, and campaigns of another eff ective disciplinary means. For of the United States released the US assassination as its primary modus operandi Palestinians to be able to come and go to ODefense Strategic Guidance, which in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. their homes, they require these residency re-orientated US defence policy for the Perhaps what is most noteworthy are the cards, which can oft en be revoked on the decades to come. Th e document reiterated slight gradations in operative force used in basis of the most arcane set of procedures or the US’ commitment to its strategic partners these diff erent locales. regulations. – the oil sheikhdoms – in the Gulf, and In occupied East Jerusalem, which was On the other end of the spectrum from began to re-direct its conventional forces illegally annexed in 1967, Palestinian East Jerusalem is the Gaza Strip, which has eastward, towards an increasingly assertive residents have a between-and-betwixt more or less become an enclosed enclave, China. But also signifi cantly, the document status. Here, overt military activity where –until the sporadic openings of the claimed that ‘large-scale, prolonged is limited, and the primary means of Rafah gate to Egypt aft er the fall of Hosni stability operations’ were to be replaced pacifi cation depend on legalism and Mubarak– entry and exit has been fully with ‘counterterrorism’ which was to be proceduralism. While Palestinian residences monitored by the Israeli military. Control ‘characterized by a mix of direct action and are continually expropriated, the basis of of the fl ow of goods, including especially security force assistance.’ If one is to employ expropriation is always some appeal to ‘law’ foodstuff s, is another crucial mechanism of the brilliant and still-relevant terminology –whatever body of law may be convenient. pacifi cation. As the Israeli activists of Gisha coined by the late Eqbal Ahmad, this Th e legalism includes Israeli settler or state have shown, the Israeli state has maintained moment marks a US military shift from a claims of ownership based on spurious secret lists of allowed foodstuff s and horrifi c ‘liberal-reformist’ style of pacifi cation to a documentation, ‘absentee laws’, or appeal to calculations of the precise caloric needs of ‘punitive-militarist’ one. Both are violent, regulatory building codes –which inevitably Gaza residents according to age and gender, but the latter has shed all the niceties of militate against Palestinian interests– which which are then used to modulate how much reform and developmentalism which adorn lead to expulsion of Palestinian residents food can be allowed into the Strip. the structures of violence in the former. from their homes, and destruction of their To intimidate the population, and For a student of Israel/Palestine, this less buildings. Jerusalem residency cards are particularly any militants among them, ‘developmental’ and more kinetic (ie using higher fi re-power) form of pacifi cation is already very familiar. Th e Israeli military Th e Israeli military has long used a combination of intelligence- has long used a combination of intelligence- gathering missions (sometimes by special gathering missions, punitive excursions, and campaigns of operations soldiers dressed in Arab gear), assassination as its primary modus operandi

10 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 the Israeli military uses Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (or drones) to collect intelligence Th e state of Israel is profoundly sensitive to charges and engage in assassinations. Th e ‘buff er of illegality and withers at any criticism that its violent zones’ which creep into Gazan land some distance from the Israel/Gaza border are assaults on civilian targets may be intentional essentially free-fi re zones for the Israeli military. Th e buff er zone also extends into forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA) tune of more than US$3 billion per year the sea, not only aff ecting the livelihoods whose main function is to ensure the in military aid and some billions more in of fi sherman by the severe constraints on ‘security’ of Israel. Th is dependence on annual loan guarantees – the EU provides the fi shing zones, but also establishing a proxy force has long been a feature the necessary humanitarian aid that oft en another fact on the ground vis-à-vis the of counterinsurgency fi ghting, and is prevents Gazans from starvation, or which reserves of natural gas now discovered in an eff ective means of not only keeping props up the PA’s institutions in the West Gazan waters and claimed by Israel. When the costs of pacifi cation down, but also Bank. Both authorise the Israeli siege of the everyday modes of control fail in Gaza, reinforcing processes of divide-and-rule Gaza, and in most instances, support it Israel unleashes the kind of indiscriminate among Palestinians. Perhaps the most explicitly or through abstention at the UN violence we saw in December/January useful function of proxies, however, is the Security Council or General Assembly. of 2008/2009, a devastating assault that provision of plausible deniability to the Th e second persistent feature is the Israeli resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Israeli military, where violations of ordinary appeal to ‘law’ and its insistence that its civilians and the destruction of the physical Palestinians’ civil rights, and brutality and counterinsurgency measures adhere both infrastructure of Gaza. violence against them, can be attributed to ‘international laws’ (even if Israel is not Somewhere between the poles of to the supposed barbarity of the ‘native’ signatory to a number of its most signifi cant disciplinary/coercive and highly kinetic powers. treaties), and to domestic legal procedure. styles of counterinsurgency in East Of course there are overlaps in all Th e state of Israel is indeed profoundly Jerusalem and Gaza respectively stands cases between the diff erent styles used to sensitive to charges of illegality, and withers the West Bank, where the Israeli military suppress Palestinians. However, certain at any criticism that its violent assaults presence is still intensely felt –especially characteristics are worthy of note. First is on civilian targets may be intentional or at checkpoints and in protecting the the profound dependence of Israel in its ‘disproportionate’. Th is partially accounts ever-proliferating settlements. However, conduct of pacifi cation on both the tacit and for the campaign of intimidation, pressure, here, the Israeli military can rely on overt support of world powers of Europe and slander targeted at the members of the subcontracting a substantial portion of its and North America. While the US aids the United Nations ‘Goldstone Commission’ counterinsurgency work to the security Israeli military and state directly – to the mandated with investigating the possibilities of war crimes in Gaza 2008/2009. Th is appeal to law is not surprising. Like the US (and other liberal empires before them), Israel considers itself a state that adheres to lawfulness and liberality in warfare. Th us even the most violent suppression of insurgencies has to be cloaked in bromides about legitimacy and certain pieties about democracy and rule of law. In the last instance, and when the hollowness of these discourses becomes apparent in moments of crisis, an appeal to ‘security’ and an invocation of existential threats ultimately facilitate the violence of counterinsurgency.

Laleh Khalili is Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, a member of the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS and author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: Th e Politics of National Commemoration (2007)

(Opposite) An Israeli soldier at a checkpoint, 2009 (Left) Israeli soldier arresting a Palestinian youth

© Severine Laville at Nablus checkpoint, 2006

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 11 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Sir Vincent Fean, British Consul General to Jerusalem, off ers the government's view UUrgentlyrgently sseekingeeking a ssolutionolution © Jill Granberg

he work of the British Consulate- We analyse and report on Palestinian Hague; a chance to refresh the bilateral General in Jerusalem is unusual. policies, domestic and international – the relationship, and discuss prospects for TIt has consular responsibility for fundamental issue being the Israeli- resolving the Middle East confl ict. Th ey British people in Jerusalem, the West Bank Palestinian confl ict and the Occupation, agreed that bilateral ties are in good shape. and Gaza, and political responsibility for on which our colleagues in HM Embassy On the confl ict, UK ministers underlined UK relations with the Palestine Liberation in Tel Aviv bring to bear their analysis of our full commitment to a just and lasting Organisation and the Palestinian Authority Israel’s intentions and policies. We pool resolution, ending the Occupation through (PA). Our job is also to strengthen ties with our analysis, aiming to give colleagues in direct negotiations, entailing an agreement the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West the Foreign and Commonwealth Offi ce in on the borders of the two states, based on Bank and Gaza – which form the Occupied London our considered view. 1967 lines with equivalent, agreed land Palestinian Territories (OPTs). We share this We relay the British Government’s swaps; security arrangements which respect work locally with our colleagues from the views to President Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian sovereignty, while protecting Department for International Development advisers, and to PA Prime Minister Salam the security of Israel; a just, fair and agreed and the British Council. Fayyad. In January 2012 President Abbas solution to the refugee question, and visited London, meeting Prime Minister a negotiated resolution of the status of What do we do, why, and why does it David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Jerusalem as the future capital of both states. matter? Nick Clegg and Foreign Secretary William Mr Clegg also reiterated our views on Israeli settlements in the OPTs, including East Jerusalem: they are illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace, Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, an and a threat to the two-state solution. obstacle to peace, and a threat to the two-state solution All settlement activity should cease

12 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 immediately. We continue to encourage We support free and fair elections across the OPTs in 2012, both sides to return now to the negotiating table. We believe that Israeli security and leading to reunifi cation. And we seek an end to the closure of the realisation of the Palestinians’ right to Gaza – it is against the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians statehood are inseparable objectives. Th ere is urgency: systematic settlement expansion risks making the two-state solution reunifi cation under President Abbas of Gaza offi cial UK player in the OPTs. It is the UK’s impossible. and the West Bank We support free and fair international organisation for educational Aft er President Abbas’ visit, Mr Cameron elections across the OPTs in 2012, leading and cultural relations, building engagement said: ‘In the end, the only way you can to reunifi cation. And we seek an end to and trust through the exchange of resolve the fi nal-status issues - whether the Israeli closure of Gaza – it is against the knowledge and ideas between people. For about Jerusalem, the right to return, or interests of both Israelis and Palestinians. 70 years now, the British Council has been swaps – is by the Palestinians and the Th e Department for International working to build stronger ties and greater Israelis sitting down and talking to each Development (DFID) is very active in the mutual understanding between Palestinians other. All the rest of us can do is try to help OPTs, in support of our aims to help resolve and people in the UK through its activities bring that about. Th at is the commitment the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict. DFID works in english, arts, education and society. Th e from Britain: a good friend of Israel, a to help build Palestinian institutions and Council excels at creating people – to – good friend of the Palestinian people, and promote economic growth, so that a future people links between universities, schools, a supporter of the two-state solution. But Palestinian state will be stable, prosperous, cultural institutions, local community we want you (Israel and the Palestinians) to well-run and an eff ective partner for peace groups and business. It also excels at English talk this year, because every year that goes with Israel. DFID support to the OPTs is language teaching and training of English by is a year in which we miss the chance of focussed on three areas: helping the PA to teachers with the Palestinian Ministry of a solution that would drain so much poison build strong institutions and enable them to Education and Higher Education. Th e from our world and give the Palestinian deliver essential services; promoting private next step is face-to-face English language people the homeland they deserve’. sector growth to stimulate the Palestinian teaching in Ramallah and East Jerusalem Th e Consulate-General covers Gaza, so economy, and providing humanitarian this year, with a view to expanding into my team and I go there. (FCO travel advice assistance and support to the vulnerable. other cities. We are really glad that SOAS is against travel to Gaza, and bears very Together, we seek to uphold the rule of is participating in the Higher Education careful study by anyone contemplating law, and to challenge human rights abuses Scholarships Programme for Palestinians travel.) We have no contact with the de facto wherever they occur. On average, DFID will (HESPAL) administered by the British power in the Gaza Strip (Hamas). We are provide £87 million annually in support Council, enabling Palestinian postgraduates deeply concerned by the recent escalation of Palestinian development over the next to study for a Master’s at SOAS.. We hope of violence in Gaza and southern Israel, three years. DFID funding to the OPTs will that SOAS will send some of its Arabic and condemn attacks targeting civilians. help put 35,000 children through school, language students to Nablus or Jerusalem We seek an end to all violence there. immunise nearly 30,000 children against this autumn. Th e Secretary of State for International measles, and help create 8,000 jobs. Prime Why does all this matter? Because we Development, Andrew Mitchell, visited Minister Fayyad rightly regards DFID as an want to accompany the Palestinian people Gaza in December, following FCO Minister exemplary donor partner. in their development; and respond to their Alistair Burt in June. We support the Th e British Council is the other main expressed needs, fi rst and foremost for an end to the 45-year Occupation – as Mr Cameron put it, help ‘give the Palestinian people the homeland they deserve’. Israel’s security must be assured. Th e two-state solution is the only way forward: no other solution will work. Th e United Kingdom will continue to seek it, urgently.

Sir Vincent Fean KCVO is HM Consul General to Jerusalem and a member of the LMEI Board of Trustees

(Opposite) An East Jerusalem settlement with the Jordan River Valley in the background, 2009 (Left) The abundant amount of graffi ti that has gathered on the wall separating Israel and the

© No Lands Too Foreign Too © No Lands West Bank, 2010

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 13 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Ruba Salih on rethinking Palestinian refugeehood RRightight ttoo rrights,ights, aandnd rrightight ttoo rreturneturn

y name is Jamila. I want this ‘Camps are essentially like ghettos, and fallacies of the modern nation-state. message to reach all. It is about ghettos are where the creativity starts. You Th e refugee is excluded from rights and ‘Mthe right of the original refugees. know, the creativity comes from the minority. sovereignty and confi ned to a zone of Th ese people are paying the price for their Being a minority is not about numbers, but indistinction, or humanitarianism. national cause. Th eir houses are not healthy about (not) having access to power...’ (Firas, Agamben’s analysis is pertinent to and nobody takes care of them, neither the community worker, Sabra camp, Lebanon, some of the less explored strands of the state nor UNRWA... Where is the PLO and September 2011) Palestinian refugee issue. Th e ‘permanent all those people who visited us? Where are temporariness’ that characterises their lives the rich Palestinians who go around talking Refugees and displaced people have been is a powerful reminder of Agamben’s zone about the Palestinian cause? Where is the absent from recent analyses of the Arab of indistinction. Th eir status is, at best, right of the poorest Palestinian people and Springs. Not surprisingly, debates on rights, that of precarious citizens with an invisible the fi rst generation who had the burden of democracy, dignity and pluralism seem national identity (Jordan), and, at worse, of carrying the Palestinian cause? Th ey come to suff er from a chronic methodological stateless subjects because of their national and take pictures of us and then say ‘we’re nationalism. Th is perpetuates the idea that identity (Lebanon). glad we’ve seen them, now let’s leave and people seek and fi ght for rights exclusively Refugees, however – and especially forget about them’. I want the message to in their national territory, the natural and Palestinian refugees by virtue of the reach the rich: What about these poor old main place for self-determination. Th ose enduring character of their displacement people who... are saying ‘we want to go who are at the margins of nation-states or – have a lot to say about the lack of back’? It is they who carried the cause and excluded from their own territorial nations democratisation, the precarious nature your homeland’s name for you. But you do come to be twice marginalised, and their of rights and the need for state/society nothing. Let your power and your abilities plight made even more invisible. reconfi gurations in the region. reach those who need them.’ (Jamila , Gaza In his infl uential work Homo Sacer Over the past six decades, they have been camp, Jordan, June 2011). (1998), political philosopher Giorgio held hostage and victim to two infl exible Agamben, drawing from Hannah Arendt, standpoints. On the one hand, Israel ‘We only want to exercise rights, not to argued that the fi gure of the refugee has adamantly refused to be considered be Lebanese. But they say off ering rights is represents one of the most potent and accountable for the Nakba and only tawteen. Both the Lebanese and Palestinian dramatic embodiments of the constitutive been willing to accommodate a symbolic factions say that. Th e Palestinian factions’ existence depends on the diffi cult situation of the Palestinians. So they use this in a clever Refugees have to make new sense of their 63 years way. If you want to make the camp look of dispossession and exile. Th is starts with rejecting nice: that’s tawteen. If you want to change the sewage system: that’s tawteen...’ (Raed, the offi cial narrative, which held that their lack of Chatila camp, Lebanon, September 2011) rights was a pre-condition for their return

14 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 number of fi rst-generation refugees in historic Palestine. On the other, many host Palestinians live under diff erent predicaments and countries and the Palestinian leadership regimes of sovereignty in their countries of exile, and have endorsed the claim that tawteen (naturalization) and access to full rights, these are oft en crucial in shaping their political cultures and even development, would constitute de- facto assimilation of the refugee populations history. In Lebanon and Jordan, they refer to which confi nes them. Furthermore, and undermine their right of return. how Palestinianness has decisively shaped they contest the old ‘political space’ as a With their progressive abandonment (and has been shaped by) nation-building terrain through which scarce resources are by the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the processes and identities. In Jordan – a distributed and affi liations and loyalties marginalisation of the Palestine Liberation country with a large majority of Palestinians controlled and managed. Organisation (PLO) as a site for the national – what it means to be (or not) a ‘Jordanian’ Refugees’ narratives carry the seeds claims of all Palestinians, refugees have is inextricably linked with the selective of a new space of the ‘political’ which, to make new sense of their 63 years of incorporation and exclusion of Palestinians though saturated with contradictions and dispossession and exile. Th is starts with in the economic, political and socio-cultural uncertainties, echoes the disillusion with rejecting the offi cial narrative, which held structures. In Lebanon, much of the past forms of mobilisation and organisation that their lack of rights was a pre-condition country’s recent history revolves around the recurrent in the contemporary Middle East. for their return. Th ird- even fourth- presence of Palestinians. Palestinians are Th e urge to reconcile integration, rights generation Palestinian refugees still lack fully aware of the fact that their exclusion and dignity with ‘return’ is an arena where basic rights, yet the prospect of their return from any entitlements in fact aims at we can see Palestinian refugees turning has never been more distant. preserving a precarious sectarian ‘balance’. into a political avant-garde, positing new Jamila, Raed and Firas’ words give a In the West Bank, the legitimacy and democratic state/society reconfi gurations. sense of this profound disenchantment existence of the PA depend paradoxically on with the old political rhetoric. Th e political upholding a rhetoric of return (symbolically * Th ese refl ections draw from a project that marginalisation of refugeehood has freed and politically the core of the Palestine involved over a hundred interviews across narratives and criticism that were previously national question), while progressively Lebanon, the West Bank and Jordan, carried considered taboo, with refugees increasingly marginalising refugees and return from the out with Sophie Richter-Devroe, University partaking in two discourses simultaneously: negotiation agenda. of Exeter between 2009 and 2011. that of return and that of participation And yet, far from being just passive here and now, where the right to rights victims, Palestinian refugees articulate a Ruba Salih is Reader in Gender Studies is integrated with an inalienable ‘right to powerful critique, from below, of sectarian & Chair of the Centre for Gender Studies, return’. neo-patrimonial regimes where resources SOAS, a member of the Centre for Palestine Th ese brief refl ections do not claim to and entitlements are hierarchically Studies, SOAS and author of Gender in homogenize Palestinians’ varied experiences distributed according to ethnicity, religious Transnationalism. Home, Longing and of exile in their diverse locations of affi liation, nationality, class, gender and Belonging Among Moroccan Migrant displacement. Palestinians live under family status. Th ey voice their frustration Women (2003) diff erent predicaments and regimes of with the lack of accountability and sovereignty in their countries of exile, and corruption of their local leaderships, and these are oft en crucial in shaping their decry the dehumanising humanitarianism political cultures. Moreover, refugees off er nuanced accounts of their identities as © TanyaHabjouqa refugees, quasi-citizens, economic migrants, poor, rich, left -wing, religious or secular, women, young or men. Th ese standpoints are crucial in informing their political views and their sense of self. However, research sheds light on a continuum of narratives and concerns emerging from refugees across Jordan, the West Bank and Lebanon over the right to rights and the right to return. A recurrent narrative is that the Palestine question and Palestinians have been pawns and scapegoats throughout much of recent

(Opposite) Ruba Salih with Rashida Hassan in the Bak'a refugee camp in Jordan, 2011 (Right) A young boy sits on the back 'porch' looking at the very sea that took his family from their homes in Palestine, 2011

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 15 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Shelagh Weir on the life and work of Hilma Granqvist (1890-1972) A pioneeringpioneering © PEF aanthropologistnthropologist iinn PPalestinealestine

ilma Granqvist was the fi rst decided to research contemporary women’s with Granqvist. Sitt Louisa recruited two anthropologist to do intensive, long- lives in the little village of Artas near local widows, Alya Ibrahim and Hamdiyeh Hterm fi eldwork in one Palestinian Bethlehem. Th is choice was infl uenced by Sanad, as research assistants, and Granqvist village, and her books remain unique in the presence there of Louise Baldensperger, worked with these three women - her Palestine studies for their rich content, and the daughter of missionaries from Alsace `scientifi c committee’ as she called them – in the absence of comparable studies from who was an accomplished amateur ethno- several days a week recording and checking the pre-Nakbah period or since. botanist, and whose brothers were noted information. Th e rest of the time she Granqvist was a Swedish-speaking Finn beekeepers and folklorists. engaged in, observed and photographed who was drawn to anthropology from a ‘Sitt Louisa’, as she was known, was an everyday village life and special events. background in Biblical Studies in Finland ideal collaborator for Granqvist. She had Th is combination of systematic data and Germany, and a particular interest in lived in Artas for over 30 years so was fl uent collection with `participant observation’ the women of the Old Testament. Aft er in the village dialect, and intimately familiar over an extended period within one small fi rst visiting Palestine in 1921, however, her with the people and their customs; and community later became the ideal method primary focus shift ed to the present, and she she shared a common language (German) of anthropological fi eldwork, but was then path-breaking and controversial. Granqvist mainly concentrated on Granqvist mainly concentrated on studying studying women’s lives, and particularly the women’s lives, and particularly the events, rituals events, rituals and beliefs surrounding birth, marriage and death. In this gender focus and beliefs surrounding birth, marriage and death she was also ahead of her time. Her main

16 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 Granqvist vividly depicted people’s lives Paris. And a small but steady stream of anthropologists, linguists and other and village events, enlivening her accounts with scholars have consulted the Granqvist their sayings and songs, and with verbatim quotations archives at the PEF and the Åbo Akademi. A number of scholarly articles have also fi eldwork totalling three years took place about one village’, and she had to switch to been published by Scandinavians and between 1925 and 1931. Th is provided the the Åbo Akademi to obtain her doctorate. others evaluating her achievements and material for the two volumes of Marriage Her subsequent application for a fi rst describing her tribulations in the context Conditions in a Palestinian Village (1931 and academic post was blocked by the male of her background and times. An exciting 1935); Birth and Childhood among the Arabs establishment. Th is included the Finnish prospect was the intellectual biography of (1947); and Child Problems among the Arabs professor of Arabic, Aapeli Saarisalo, Granqvist being prepared by the Finnish (1950). Granqvist was unable to return to who attacked her books on the grounds feminist anthropologist, Professor Ulla Artas until 1959. Aft er a 28-year absence, that they were all Baldensperger’s work, Vuorela. Sadly Ulla died suddenly in it must have been a bitter-sweet experience. she hadn’t lived in the village, and her December 2011 with the work unfi nished. Sitt Louisa and other friends were now transcriptions of local dialect were replete One hopes another scholar can take on dead. And huge changes had taken place, with classical Arabic faults. She passionately this worthwhile project, but few possess including an infl ux of refugees from western defended herself against his false and unjust the necessary combination of linguistic Palestine following the establishment of the accusations, but such attacks successfully and scholarly skills. Perhaps another little State of Israel. Th is fi nal four-month visit blighted her career. Although she pursued `scientifi c committee’ could be formed to resulted in her last book, Muslim Death and her scholarly interests as an independent tackle the task. Burial (1965). researcher and writer all her life, she Granqvist also defi ed contemporary remained on the margins. Shelagh Weir is a member of the MEL scholarly conventions in the modes of Although Granqvist’s books were well- Editorial Board and author of Palestinian description and analysis she adopted in reviewed in academic journals at her time, Costume (1989) her books. Employing what she called and remain highly valued among specialists, the `statistical method’, she rigorously they are still not widely known and are long documented kinship relations and marriage out of print. Th is is probably partly because, patterns, making the important distinction although their contents are fascinating, their between proclaimed ideals and actual language is stilted, and some are heavily practice. She was thus able to demonstrate, freighted with code numbers, footnotes for example, that only a minority of people and tables so look rather indigestible. (Opp0site) Hilma Granqvist in Artas wearing a married their paternal cousins, the stated Were they edited and reprinted with better Palestinian bridal veil preference. reproductions of her photographs, they (Below) Granqvist's `scientifi c committee' (Louise Granqvist vividly depicted people’s would undoubtedly gain a larger and Baldensperger, Alya Ibrahim and Hamdiye lives and village events, enlivening her appreciative audience. Sanad) © PEF accounts with their sayings and songs, Soon aft er Granqvist died in 1972, I and with verbatim quotations from her visited Helsinki to see her papers. Her small main informants, whom she named. She living room was lined with fi les and books; was determined to portray the diversity of she had obviously spent years sorting, local views and customs, and acknowledge annotating and labelling her precious her human sources. Th is respectful, research materials. At my suggestion, her transparent and nuanced approach also family decided to donate much of this presaged current narrative ideals, but was matter to the Palestine Exploration Fund in almost unknown at her time. Most other London, where it would be more accessible anthropologists at that early stage in the to international scholars. Th is part of the discipline described customs divorced from Granqvist archive comprises about 95 fi les, their social context, and over-generalised and includes fi eld notes, working notes, about peoples and cultures which they oft en photographs and correspondence with also exoticised. Granqvist was aware that other scholars. Th is material is mainly her methodology resembled that which later in English, German and phonetically- dominated British anthropology under the transcribed village Arabic. Th e remainder aegis of Bronislaw Malinowski, but insisted of her papers, which are mainly in Swedish, that she developed it independently of went to the Åbo Akademi in Finland. Th ese Malinowski’s infl uence. include her fi eld note-books, journals and In part because of her innovative research personal letters from the fi eld. methods and writings, in part because of Since Granqvist’s death the great value of her Swedish-Finnish identity in an era of her work has increasingly been recognised growing Finnish nationalism, Granqvist and discussed in academic circles. A never had the professional academic life selection of her unique photographs she deserved. Her fi rst book (Marriage of Artas has been published. Th ree Conditions I) was rejected for a PhD by international conferences have been held Helsinki University because it was `only in her memory in Finland, Palestine and

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 17 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Nick Denes raises questions scholars need to address about Palestine and the moving image PPalestinealestine oonn fi lm:lm: ttowardoward a rresearchesearch aagendagenda

or 15 years, the London Palestine Film Festival has invited audiences to Fexplore moving images of Palestine drawn from the widest possible range of genres, eras, and places. Over this time, fi lm events focusing on Palestine have proliferated. Kuala Lumpur, Caracas, and Nairobi are just a few of the new festivals to have appeared in the last 18 months alone. Today, festivals of varying scale and nuance map a widespread appetite for engaging with Palestine on and through fi lm. Th eir origins and ambitions diff er, with academic, campaigning, religious, or community- driven projects oft en exhibiting a distinctive ethos, and with curatorial leanings hued by local settings. Cumulatively, these multiplying events announce an unprecedented degree of interest in Palestine and the moving image. Much can be welcomed in this. But just as many questions need to be asked about these initiatives as appear to be raised by them. Th e same blurring of political representation that have lent moving images in a 2008 audience survey reacted concisely sympathy with critical sensibility that has of Palestine their distinctive qualities and to the inclusion of Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre seen (too) much Palestinian fi lmmaking eff ects over time and place. Musique: ‘this fi lm does not belong in a uncritically applauded (elevated, indulged, Th e extent to which such critical inquiries Palestine fi lm festival’. By contrast, last year’s patronised), seems to allow a commensurate might be advanced in the framework of screening of the radical 1968 portmanteau superfi ciality to obtain over questions a fi lm festival is unclear. Th e Palestine Far From Vietnam led reviewer Naira of curatorial practice and audience Film Foundation (PFF) was formed as a Antoun to hail a selection that ‘prompts us engagement. research structure in 2005 and has managed ... to recalibrate and expand on what our Most opportunities to engage with the London festival since. In doing so expectations of a Palestine fi lm festival are.’ Palestine on fi lm today remain tiresome it has aimed, with uneven results, at a Th is year’s programme will press anew at and predictable, marred by conservative curatorial balance between the enquiring the limits of those expectations. Alongside programming and sledgehammer ethos mooted above, and more mundane Palestinian premieres and cutting-edge messaging. What is lacking is not a turn to exigencies of festival design (marketing, documentaries are works that will surprise political ambivalence or critical antipathy venue partnerships, donor requirements). and perhaps unsettle: neither Susan (toward fi lms, artists, or cultures); far from Th is tightrope walk can disrupt Sontag’s Promised Lands, Mike Hoolboom’s it. Rather, there appears to be little readiness expectations in ways that are welcome as Lacan Palestine, nor Ella Shohat’s talk on by programmers to engage audiences well as resisted. A memorable comment left Israeli cinema will conform universally with fi lm histories and practices in a spirit of inquiry before celebration. Instead of asking fi lm to furnish shallow affi rmations, Most opportunities to engage with Palestine on fi lm today we might embark on more rewarding remain tiresome and predictable, marred by conservative investigations into the far less certain political economies of production and programming and sledgehammer messaging

18 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 with understandings of what ‘belongs’ in a Palestine fi lm festival. Audiences may More searching questions need to be asked about Palestine rightly query not just their contents, but also and the moving image; questions that are today inadequately their inclusion. However, these experiments at the addressed by scholars as well as curators margins of expectations fall short of the type of critical engagement alluded to what remain low levels of cinema access, ‘fi rst person Jewish American identity fi lm’; above. Balancing curatorial adventurism inadequate training opportunities, and a and it should surely address the seemingly with marketing or audience development scarcity of fi lm criticism. Th e impact of insatiable market for testimonial/absolution is ungainly. However stretched, the festival NGOised economies of opportunity and fi lms involving generation aft er generation format is a confi ning one. More searching production under such conditions is yet of Israeli perpetrators. questions need to be asked about Palestine to be soberly assessed – whether in terms Th e advent of the Centre for Palestine and the moving image; questions that are of the qualities of resulting output, the Studies at SOAS represents a great today inadequately addressed by scholars as ambitions infl uencing fi lm funding, or opportunity to develop research capacities well as curators. Th is can only meaningfully the structural eff ect on industry-building allowing these and many more urgent be done outside the festival framework processes. questions to be posed, and ensure that the – once the pressures of attendances, critical study of Palestine and the moving reviews, and sales are shed along with the Co-option, leverage, resistance image acquires the institutional home and invocations of celebration and solidarity Eff orts have been made to co-opt interdisciplinary rigour it requires. with which they too comfortably coalesce. Palestinian fi lmmakers to ideological What is called for is a broad research projects by conditioning fi nance, training, Nick Denes is a founder and co-director of the agenda for the interdisciplinary study of or distribution on their legitimising Palestine Film Foundation Palestine and the moving image – one collaborative mechanisms with Jewish alert to, and engaged with, economies Israeli ‘counterparts’. A corollary to the Th e London Palestine Film Festival runs at of production and consumption, yet ‘coexistence’ agendas that fl ooded the the Barbican Cinema, SOAS, and UCL from suffi ciently independent of those economies later Oslo years, Palestinian resistance April 20 to May 3. Th e 2012 pre-festival to reach beyond them, and to engage thwarted the more aggressive of these season opened on March 29. Full details: critically with them. By way of illustration, initiatives, forcing international agencies palestinefi lm.org and listings we might consider just three contemporary to consider alternatives. But the strategies examples of fi lm-based research areas that and discourses (polemical, institutional, are as clearly ill-suited to a fi lm festival artistic) orbiting the attempt to leverage format as they are demanding of in-depth an ideologically compliant Palestinian critical investigation: fi lmmaking fraternity are still to be given the sort of in-depth research and analysis Economies of surveillance and privilege: they warrant. Of over 1,200 works held in the PFF’s collections, more than 100 are ‘campaign’ Th e examples above suggest just a videos shot at checkpoints or barriers. little of the scope that presently exists for Invariably submitted by Israeli or critical research, while focusing on recent international activists, this questionable dynamics inside Palestine. A far fuller oeuvre is stalked by problems, not least research agenda, reaching historically and of which is: What kinds of aesthetic- geographically further afi eld, ought to now political circuitry are generated once Israeli be developed in a manner that similarly campaigners seek evidence of Palestinian addresses tactics of cooption, structural and pain by mobilising colonising privilege industrial politics, or the co-implication to fi lm alongside the military, adding a of military and fi lm practices. Such a further layer to larger invasive-surveillant research agenda could include comparative systems? Sibling sub-genres inviting this work on the roles played by festivals and type of critical research include fi lms curatorial practitioners; it ought to also made in, and in forms of complicity with, deconstruct some of Palestine’s more Israeli institutions of torture and illegal insistent (and dispiriting) fi lmic signifi ers, detainment. whether donkeys, oranges, checkpoints, olive trees, or Kalashnikovs; it might ask Consequences of cultural NGOisation: what work images of Palestine are tasked West Bank fi lm output has increased with in such provisional sub-genres as the in the past decade. Much of this increase has been supported by INGOs or/and philanthropic bodies, directly or indirectly. (Opp0site) Waiting, 2005, director: Rashid Yet these fi nancing structures, few of Masharawi which claim not to have underlying socio- (Right) Tilda Swinton in Friendship's Death, political agendas, cannot compensate for 1987, director: Peter Wollen

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 19 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Hanan Toukan refl ects on a recent graffi ti ‘attack’ in West Jerusalem RReadingeading wwallsalls © electronicintifada.com

…Ninety nine red balloons fl oating in the summer sky Panic bells it’s red alert Th ere’s something here from somewhere else… (Nena, 99 Red Balloons)

est Bank cities are known for their graffi ti. Before Winternationally recognised street artists like Banksy and Blu visited Palestine, Palestinians had already been making their plight visible to each other and the rest of the world through graffi ti. When it fi rst appeared widely during the fi rst intifada, it was for political reasons and served explicitly communicative purposes. Transgressing the boundaries set by Israeli army surveillance, resistance groups employed encoded graffi ti to mobilise for strikes and rallies and identify suspected collaborators as well as generally expressing defi ance. Spraying messages Graffi ti that has of resistance in public space was a defi ant recently appeared subversion of Israeli control. Th e collective in West Jerusalem, anonymously taken consciousness was materialised, circulated 2012 and perpetuated through graffi ti, the most overtly political of art forms. the old man said. ‘But we don't want it to nor the international donor community’s Fast-forward a decade to the Israeli- be beautiful. We hate this wall. Go home’. investment in Ramallah as an undeclared imposed Segregation Barrier. Also dubbed Refl ecting this, imagining a Palestine future Palestinian capital, have succeeded the Apartheid Wall, its surface has become beyond the dominant discourse on in shift ing the dynamics and focus of the latest and arguably boldest site of the international legality and the accepted two- resistance away from Jerusalem for the ‘fi nal struggle between Palestinians’ assertion of state solution promulgated by the doomed status’ negotiations. their identity and Israel’s ongoing attempt ‘peace process’, becomes nearly impossible, If anything, these transgressive aesthetical to suppress it. In many ways, the trajectory relegated to the margins of acceptability. acts are proof of a rising tide that is part and of graffi ti in Palestine – like other forms Yet in a single act that occurred overnight parcel of a larger wave of discontent, protest of cultural production such as cinema recently a few weeks ago, the aesthetics and change in the Arab region that relies and visual art – tells the story not only of of resistance moved beyond their usual on public space – and specifi cally the street Palestinian resistance against Israel, but West Bank sites and into the soul of the – to express its sentiments and demands. also the progression of this resistance’s confl ict, Jerusalem. Transgressing heavily Th e 650km long and 8m high concrete choice of self-representation, and the world fortifi ed West Jerusalem, one evening in Segregation Barrier, with its watchtowers community’s growing recognition that it is late February 2012, several artists painted every few hundred metres reminiscent of valid, genuine and justifi ed. images bearing vows of continued resistance the Berlin Wall’s, is unable to locate either Yet in the framework of the on walls, doors, construction sites and other the source of subversion or its manifestation transnationalisation of the confl ict, making surfaces in populated and busy touristic when it emerges from within what Israel and mediating resistance through the areas. One of their images, depicting defi nes as its own borders. Th at is the poetic act can also risk subsuming local a woman donning a kefi yyeh and the greatest irony of all. Palestinian eff orts to do away with the Wall inscription ‘intifada’, is shown above. Th e altogether. For to aestheticise the confl ict artists reportedly struck in two areas, the Hanan Toukan is a Teaching Fellow in the in ‘universal’ terms – as the well-known West Jerusalem city centre and the German Department of Politics and International story of Banksy’s conversation with an Colony/Talbiyye district. Neither Israel’s Studies, SOAS, and a member of the Centre elderly man in Palestine indicates –may gradual sealing off of Jerusalem from the for Palestine Studies, SOAS also be to accommodate aspects of it. ‘You rest of the West Bank through an elaborate paint the wall, you make it look beautiful’, web of closures, permits and bypass roads,

20 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 PPALESTINEALESTINE

Atef Alshaer examines the legacy of Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish

BBringingringing PPalestinealestine aandnd tthehe wworldorld ttogether;ogether; iinn ppoetryoetry aandnd pproserose

ll peoples of the world have icons, interactions and tensions, and involved this sense, Palestine is not an isolated case who are oft en associated with the diverse interests, discourses, dialogues, of occupation, but interlinked with colonial Amaking and refi ning of perceptions. local identities and priorities. Any genuine exploitations and misrepresentations, and as Th e philosopher Edward Said (1935-2003) intellectual would be equally moved and such deserving of a humane solution. and the poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941- perplexed by these issues; themes that Unlike the stubborn ideologue, both Said 2008) are such icons for the Palestinians. resonate in the battleground for and over and Darwish believed in a tomorrow, a Th ey not only contributed decisively to Palestine. future, in which justice would be available putting Palestine on the world’s map, but Edward Said was born in the Talibiyeh for all, and in a yesterday, a past, which also brought the world to Palestine. Th eir district of Jerusalem, and grew up in Cairo could serve as a wellspring from which all secret, if they ever had one, was the power and Lebanon before settling in the United could learn – rather than one which would of language – painstakingly craft ed, with States. He worked in the literary, political stultify with its claims to authenticity and visions of justice, freedom and humanity at and musical fi elds with the overriding exclusivity. To this end, their views on its heart. ideal of human reconciliation and co- Israel and Palestine evolved, though their Said and Darwish’s contributions are existence, while exposing the injustices of premises remained constant. too plentiful to enumerate fully here. Said colonialism, its political, economic and At the centre of their shared view was the brought the plight of the oppressed to world cultural exploitation, and its demeaning understanding that Palestinians have been attention, and to where it matters –the very intellectual representation. As his colleague victims of Zionism’s colonial mindset and centres of power that for so long acted as Joseph Massad wrote, Said’s intellectual practices. Th ese entailed both land theft and disinterested sources of knowledge and life ‘was guided by his radical opposition displacement of the native population, and governance. He did this with scrupulous to ignorance and by his unwavering attempts to eradicate Palestinian culture – and passionate scholarship, examining the commitment to fi ghting injustice. all aimed at undermining the viability of the makeup of the colonial ventures in the east Everything he wrote revolved around Palestinians’ continued existence in their and the oft en dubious representations that these two axes.’ In his book, Orientalism, homeland. buttressed and objectifi ed them. Darwish for which Said is best known, he poses Nevertheless, alongside their rejection wrote what amounts to the Song of Songs a question which sums up the spirit that of all forms of orthodoxy and extremism, for Palestinians, illuminating the sites of guided his writings: ‘Can one divide human Said and Darwish retained a belief in their wounds and the vistas of their human reality, as indeed human reality seems to the possibility of coexistence between condition in the context of the Israeli be genuinely divided, into clearly diff erent Palestinians and Israelis on the basis occupation. cultures, histories, traditions, societies, of equality. Th ey also opposed unjust Said and Darwish’s beginnings were even races and survive the consequences of agreements such as the 1993 Oslo accords rooted in the traumatic experience of the humanity?’ and other lopsided negotiations and bogus 1948 Nakba, when Israel founded a state for Said’s entire work attests to a search for deals, however dressed up they were as itself at the expense of the native population the genuine commonalities and connections promoting national aspirations. Th ese could of Palestine, their own families included. underpinning humanity, transcending the not restore even a modicum of the rights Both drew their visions, in prose and poetry mediocrity of provincial scholarship. In the Palestinians had struggled and longed respectively, from and for the Palestinian question. Both struggled with painful questions of identity and exile in an age Both drew their visions, in prose and poetry respectively, when confl icts acquired global dimensions. Th ese confl icts were born of longstanding from and for the Palestinian question

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 21 for. Th e relevance of the past for Darwish At the centre of their shared view was the and Said lay in the way the consequences of the Nakba were continuing to unfold in the understanding that Palestinians have been victims form of ever-increasing Israeli aggression of Zionism’s colonial mindset and practices and extremism. In Darwish’s elegiac poem to Said Tibāq, Counterpoint, he highlights their shared I became a metaphor of a swallow scholarly fi elds. We hear and feel it in the approach: Floating over my debris poetry of Darwish, acclaimed all over the In the spring, in the autumn Arab world and beyond. Darwish seemed And we each said: if your past is experience Baptizing my feathers with the clouds of to have spoken of himself, when he wrote Make your tomorrow meaning and vision. the lake of Said: Prolonging my greeting Darwish was born in the village of Unto the Nasserite who never dies He loves a land then departs from it. el-Birweh in Galilee, he left Palestine to Because in him is the spirit of God (Is the impossible far?) Moscow in 1970 and a year later, moved And God is the prophets’ luck He loves departure to anything. between several places, including Cairo, In free travel between cultures, the Beirut, Tunisia and Paris before fi nally Along the revolutionary journey, researchers returning to Ramallah in 1996 and stayed which Darwish and Said both chronicled, of human essence might fi nd enough there until his passing on August 2008. He Darwish’s poetry acquired new dimensions. seats launched his poetic vocation with poems In one interview, he approvingly quoted the for everyone. Here is a periphery that reclaim identity and – sharing the same Mexican poet Octavio Paz as stating that advancing. path as fi ghters, martyrs and peasants – ‘words in prose are to inform, but in poetry, Or a centre receding. Th e East is not assert steadfastness and solidarity. to be’. Th e Palestinian condition is one of completely East It is fair to describe him as the swallow a struggle for viable existence and survival and the West is not completely West. of Palestine, a bird he loved evoking in his and another of informing and educating Because identity is open to plurality, poems. Its longings and spirited fl ights the world on its predicament, as Darwish It isn’t a citadel or a trench. served the purpose of transcendence, did in vivid poetry and Said in luminous freedom and beauty: prose. Increasingly, Darwish’s expanded In such words resides worldly hope vision resorted to the ordinary, mystic, epic for which Darwish and Said planted ripe I could have not been a swallow and musical, giving a worldly voice to the seeds. Th e Arab revolutions, with all their Had the wind wished it so voiceless, while at the same time celebrating complexities, seem to testify to this in a way Th e wind is the traveller’s luck the world for its small gift s and hopes. that can only mean their hope for justice I went north, east, west Darwish and Said gave the Palestinians, and humanity lives on. Said was fond of But the south was too hard for me and indeed the world, their genuine gift of quoting the Martinique-French Poet Aimé Too far from me vision and humanity. We touch the grace Césaire, whose words best illuminate Because the south is my country of this gift in the words of Said, in several Darwish’s sentiments above: ‘No race has a monopoly on beauty, on intelligence, on strength, and there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory.’

Atef Alshaer is a post-doctoral and teaching fellow in the Near and Middle Eastern Department as well as the Media and Film Studies Centre at SOAS

© mahmouddarwish.com Mahmoud Darwish (R) and Edward Said

22 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: RESTAURANTRESTAURANT OOttolenghittolenghi

41 Connaught Street, London W2 2BB

t’s the night before Valentine’s and we’re Yotam Ottolenghi grew up in Israel. He’s dish presents a long list of ingredients. being seated in Ottolenghi in Islington. lived in the UK for over a decade and has Th roughout, the choreography of the IWe thought we’d combine our review become internationally renowned as a chef elements, of the tastes and textures, is for you, our readers, with an intimate meal and restaurateur. His partner and head exceptionally deft - everything works! without the mad crush of the Big Night. chef, Sami Tamimi, is a Palestinian from You can fi nd a sample menu by clicking As we step off the fashionable Upper East Jerusalem. Th is is a Middle Eastern on ‘Sample Dinner Menu’ on the website Street pavement and through Ottolenghi’s story. Yet the food - as seen in the popular ottolenghi.co.uk/catering/ limpid glass frontage, we both know this cookbooks, internet appearances, and Our abridged choice: Roasted Aubergine doesn’t look like our usual gig. Everywhere the menu we’re now perusing - resolutely with Yoghurt; Chilli infused Beetroot; Pan- is dazzling white. All the lines are clean. refuses any categorisation. Ottolenghi Fried Prawns with Pomelo; Seared Scallops Th e colourful cornucopia of food on has stressed in interviews the infl uence of with Butternut Squash; and fi nally (let’s the counters gives the place a deli feel. If Palestinian cooking and, more broadly, of a write this one in full) Tea Smoked Lamb you’re an old romantic (Mark, obviously), Mediterranean outlook. Th at’s evident in the Cutlets with Miso Burnt Aubergine, Pickled this isn’t necessarily a Good Th ing. Th ey glistening salads on the counter. Familiar Jerusalem Artichoke and Jalapeno Sauce. seat us at a communal table next to four menu items catch the eye – yoghurt, lamb, Jalapeno Sauce? Pale green, fruity and garrulous gents in suits. We look longingly aubergine, pumpkin seeds, beetroot, and truly wicked! at some smaller tables, but these need to pomegranate. But combinations are less We fi nish with White Chocolate be requested when booking. Well… OK familiar. So there’s turmeric in the yoghurt? Cheesecake and Lemon and Mascarpone then… Have you heard of Tea-Smoked Lamb? Tart. He’s curried the pumpkin seeds? Clearly, What strikes us both, as we politely fi ght currents from India and the Pacifi c Rim over last morsels, is that there are no easy aren’t strangers to these shores. We know clichés at this table. Th e handmade attention too that, in some cases, re-imaginings to detail makes for a very particular off ering. may lead to an uncomfortable déjà vu Eating here is akin to reading a book that disconnect. In a recent interview in the simultaneously pleases you and prods States, Ottolenghi showcased his Burnt the soft underbelly of your assumptions. Eggplant with Tahini and Pomegranate. Occasionally you might need to grab Some outrage followed. One article was your dictionary. Pomelo is apparently a sardonically titled Israeli Chef Invents Baba grapefruit-like fruit from South East Asia Ghannouj. (OK, we can hear some of you saying Dishes are all smallish, modelled on ‘What? You didn’t know about Pomelo?’) the idea of a mezza meant for sharing and sampling. Th e seven cold dishes are Dinner for two with aperitifs, wine and spectacularly displayed on the counter. desert came to £115 Hot dishes waft by on the way from the kitchen. We choose – two cold dishes and Nadje Al-Ali is a member of the MEL three hot ones. A complimentary selection Editorial Board and Mark Douglas is her of breads arrives. All are fl avourful; one is eating partner unspeakably delicious. Th e dishes start coming… Normally we’d begin a deconstruction, focusing on successful dishes, and touching on the not so successful. But we’ve only 165 words left of our allotted 600 and each

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 23 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS ININ BRIEFBRIEF TThehe IIdeadea ooff IIsrael:srael: A HistoryHistory ooff PPowerower aandnd KKnowledgenowledge Ilan Pappé With Th e Idea of Israel, Ilan Pappé – Professor of History at the University of Exeter and author of Th e Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine – delivers a new history of Israel and Zionism. Pappé examines the function of ideology in Israel’s history, with particular attention to the role of the country’s academic and media institutions: he looks at their production of knowledge and information, and the way these have been used to provide an ideological scaff olding for the state. Pappé also describes how the all-time guiding idea of the country’s actions and identity came under question for the fi rst time during the Oslo years, and wonders if that episode could be the premise of a new direction for Israel.

Verso, July 2012, £16.99 IIslamistslamist RRadicalisationadicalisation iinn EEuropeurope aandnd tthehe MMiddleiddle EEast:ast: RReassessingeassessing tthehe CCausesauses ooff TTerrorismerrorism Edited by George Joff é In this book, George Joff é looks beyond the recurring assumption that adherents to Islamism are necessarily extremist and violent. Th e book seeks to examine the processes by which people become radicalised; in other words what framing is adopted by social movements that contend the hegemonic discourse of the state, particularly in the case of Islamic movements. Th ere are two articles on each country in the Maghrib, one by a scholar from within the country concerned and the other by an outside commentator, with a separate stand-alone article on Mauritania. Th e contributors include Zaki Mogherbi from Libya who was instrumental in setting up the constitution for the country proposed by Saif al-Islam and Mehdi Mabrouk, the current minister of culture in Tunisia. One of the contributions on Morocco deals with the Salafi movement in Marrakesh and has an introduction by Mohammed Tozy, a well-known Moroccan sociologist. Th ere is also an article looking at the al-Djaza'ira movement within the FIS in Algeria in the 1980s and 1990s.

IB Tauris, July 2012, £59.50 SSherbetherbet aandnd SSpice:pice: TThehe CCompleteomplete SStorytory ooff TTurkishurkish CConfectioneryonfectionery Mary Isin

Mary Isin started researching Ottoman cuisine in the 1980s and learnt Ottoman Turkish in order to be able to read old cookery books. With her new book she sets out to deliver a study of the multiple dimensions and evolution of Turkish sweets. In Sherbet and Spice, she carries the reader on a journey through the land of Turkish confectionery. She explores the history of Turkish sweets from the Middle Ages to the present day and examines their cultural role, taking the reader from Turkey to Persia, Arabia, Egypt, Central Asia and the Levant.

IB Tauris, April 2012, £19.95

24 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 LLebanonebanon AAdrift:drift: FFromrom BBattlegroundattleground ttoo PPlaygroundlayground

Samir Khalaf Samir Khalaf is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Behavioural Research at the American University of Beirut. He has also held academic appointments at Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New York University. In this book, he describes Lebanon’s post-war malaise and argues that today the country is adrift . Burdened by the consequences of an unfi nished confl ict and by mounting economic diffi culties, Lebanese society has lost its moorings. According to Khalaf, while lethargy and indiff erence prevail, nowadays Lebanese people tend to seek refuge in religiosity, communalism and cloistered spatial identities, or to fi nd temporary relief in mass consumerism.

Saqi Books, May 2012, £18.99

TThehe AArabrab AAwakening:wakening: IIslamslam aandnd tthehe nnewew MMiddleiddle EEastast Tariq Ramadan

Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, examines the current opportunities and challenges across North Africa and the Middle East. He argues that the debate over the future of this region cannot be reduced to a confrontation between two distinct approaches, the modern and secular versus the traditional and Islamic. Ramadan sets out to demonstrate that both of these approaches are in crisis, and that the Arab world has the historic opportunity to stop blaming the West and to create a truly new dynamic. He then discusses what enduring legacy the Middle East will generate from the historic moment of the Arab Spring.

Allen Lane – Penguin, April 2012, £20

TThehe JourneyJourney ttoo TTahrir:ahrir: RRevolution,evolution, PProtestrotest aandnd SSocialocial CChangehange iinn EEgypt,gypt, 11999-2011999-2011 Edited by Jeannie Sowers Jeannie Sowers, an editor of the Middle East Report journal, brings together updated essays which analyse Egypt’s political and social transformation up to the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak. Starting from the 18 days of street protest that compelled Mubarak's resignation, the volume goes back in time to examine the state's strategies of repression and the rising dissent of workers, democracy advocates, and anti-war, social and environmental campaigners. Th e book also describes the demographic and economic trends that produced wealth for the few and impoverishment for many in the most populous country of the Arab world. Contributors include Hossam Bahgat, Asef Bayat, Joel Beinin, Timothy Mitchell and Ted Swedenburg.

Verso, May 2012, £19.99

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 25 LISTINGS EEventsvents iinn LLondonondon

HE EVENTS and SOAS – School of Oriental and 0207 3776606 E [email protected]. info@palestinefi lm.org W www. organisations listed African Studies, Th ornhaugh Street, uk W www.dasharts.org.uk palestinefi lm.org Tbelow are not necessarily Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG endorsed or supported by The LSE – London School of Economics 8:30 pm | Th e Reluctant Middle East in London. The and Political Science, Houghton Th ursday 5 April Revolutionary (Film) Organised accompanying texts and images Street, London WC2 2AE by: DocHouse. Sean McAllister's are based primarily on information 6:15 pm | Adalah/Amnesty intimate portrait of Yemen as the provided by the organisers and do International Screen Talk: revolution unfolds, fi lmed during not necessarily reflect the views APRIL EVENTS Palestinian Citizens of Israel: an exceptional year of struggle, of the compilers or publishers. current challenges & priorities hardship and hope, in a country While every possible effort is Wednesday 4 April (Film & Discussion) Organised by: where no other foreign camera crews made to ascertain the accuracy of Palestine Film Foundation. Part were allowed to remain. Followed these listings, readers are advised 7:30 pm | Art & Confl ict - the Case of the 2012 London Palestine Film by a Q&A with the director. Tickets: to seek confirmation of all events of Syria Organised by: Dash Arts. Festival pre-Festival screenings £10 T 020 7494 3654 Prince Charles using the contact details provided Dash Arabic Series Café. What is the and talks. Screening of three short Cinema, 7 Leicester Place, London for each event. role of art in situations of confl ict? fi lms followed by a discussion with WC2H 7BY. T 020 8237 1220 Submitting entries and updates: Th e Independent columnist Yasmin Adalah (body dedicated to the E [email protected] W www. please send all updates and Alibhai-Brown in conversation with rights of the Palestinian population dochouse.org submissions for entries related the author Robin Yassin-Kassab, Al- in Israel) advocate Suhad Bishara to future events via e-mail to Hayat journalist and prose writer; and Amnesty UK campaign [email protected] or by fax to Ghalia Kabbani, cultural activist and manager Kristyan Benedict. Tickets: Friday 6 April 020 7898 4329. director of Reel Syria; Dan Gorman £6 (advance booking required). and others. Tickets: E henrietta@ Amnesty International UK, Human 8:30 pm | A Separation (Film) BM – British Museum, Great dasharts.org.uk Rich Mix, Bethnal Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Organised by: UKIFF. Dir Asghar Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG Green Road, London E1 6LA. T Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA. E Farhadi (2011), Iran, 123 min.

Urban Violence in the Middle East: New Histories of Place and Event

International Conference, SOAS, 13th-15th February 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS As part of an AHRC/DFG Anglo-German research project on the history of urban violence in the modern Middle East this international conference seeks to generate new discussions on the relationship between urban politics, societies and cultures and public violence. Th e aim is to foster innovative understandings of urban violence informed by comparative and interdisciplinary approaches. Th e conference is open to papers dealing with cities and towns in the Arab world, Iran, Ottoman Empire/Turkey in the early modern and modern periods, approximately from the late 18th century to the 1960s. Proposed contributions relate to one or more of the following themes: 1) public violence as event and calendars of violence, 2) order and disorder, multiple logics of violence and 3) urban violence as a form of spatial politics.

Deadline for the submission of abstracts, 1 June 2012. For further information contact Dr Nelida Fuccaro, [email protected] or Dr Rasmus Elling, [email protected].

26 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 When his wife leaves him, Nader of state-formation to the Graeco- hires a young woman to take care Roman period. Tickets: £28/£23 of his suff ering father. But he doesn’t (EES members)/£20 (Student know his new maid is not only non-members)/£16 (Student EES pregnant, but also working without members). Th e Egypt Exploration her unstable husband's permission. Society, 3 Doughty Mews, London In Persian with English subtitles. WC1N 2PG. T 020 7242 1880 E Various ticket prices T 0871 220 [email protected] W www.ees. 6000. Apollo Cinema, 19 Lower ac.uk Regent Street, London SW1Y 4LR. W http://ukiff .org.uk 2:00 pm | Discover Mesopotamia through Storytelling (Lecture) Organised by: Th e Enheduanna Th ursday 12 April Society. Guided tour led by Fran Hazelton. Admission free. Meet at 8:30 pm | Premiere: Last Days in the seats beside the Information Jerusalem (Lecture) Organised by: Desk in the Great Court, BM at Khartoum University (see Exhibitions, page 31) Palestine Film Foundation. Part 1:45 pm. T 020 7278 3624 E esoc@ of the 2012 London Palestine Film zipang.org.uk W www.zipang.org. Festival pre-Festival screenings and uk talks. Dir Tawfi k Abu Wael's Last members and guests. 2 Belgrave struggle against an Israeli cell phone Days in Jerusalem followed by a Square, London SW1X 8PJ. T 020 mast he believes is poisoning the Q&A with the director. Nour and Wednesday 18 April 7235 5122 E [email protected] villagers with radiation. Followed Iyad, a Palestinian couple in East W www.iransociety.org by Q&A with the director. Various Jerusalem, are preparing to move 7:00 pm | Seeing in Isfahan: ticket prices. Barbican Cinema, to Paris. When a terrible accident Expanding Gaze for an Early Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. E sees Iyad return to his hospital and Modern Capital (Lecture) Renata Friday 20 April info@palestinefi lm.org W www. delay their departure, Nour starts Holod, College for Women palestinefi lm.org to question their move... Tickets: Class of 1963 Term Professor in 6:30 pm | Pitching for Palestine – £13.50/£11.50 conc. Ciné lumière, the Humanities, History of Art New Th inking for an Old Confl ict 8:30 pm | A Separation (Film) See 17 Queensberry Place, London Department; Curator, Near East (Panel Discussion) Rushanara listing for Friday 6 April for details. SW7 2DT. E info@palestinefi lm.org Section, PENN Museum, University Ali MP, Shadow Development W www.palestinefi lm.org of Pennsylvania, USA. Organised Minister; Filippo Grandi, UNRWA by: Islamic Art Circle at SOAS. Commissioner-General; Rosemary Saturday 21 April Th e Bahari Foundation Lecture Hollis, City University; Richard Friday 13 April in Iranian Art and Culture. Part Horton, Editor, Th e Lancet; 3:30 pm | Man Without a Cell of the Islamic Art Circle at SOAS Ahmad Khalidi, St Anthony's Phone + Yala to the Moon (Lecture) 9:15 am | Th e Idea of Chivalry in Lecture Programme. Chaired by College, Oxford; Illan Pappe, Exeter Part of the 2012 London Palestine the Persianate World (Workshop) Doris Behrens-Abouseif, SOAS. University. Organised by: Caabu Film Festival. Man Without a Cell Organised by: British Institute of Admission free. Khalili Lecture in association with Medical Aid Phone, see listing for Friday 20 Persian Studies (BIPS). Admission Th eatre, SOAS. T 0771 408 7480 for Palestinians. Event which aims April for fi lm, venue and contact free - Pre-registration required. E [email protected] W to bring together critical thinking details + Yala to the Moon, Dirs British Academy, 10 Carlton House www.soas.ac.uk/art/islac/ on practical steps forward in the Suhel Nafar & Jacqueline Reem Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. E occupied Palestinian territory. Salloum (2011), 7 min. Aseel, a [email protected] W www.bips. Chaired by Jon Snow, Channel young girl who peddles CDs on the ac.uk Th ursday 19 April Four. Tickets: £10. Harvey Goodwin streets of the West Bank, uses her Suite, Church House, Westminster, vivid imagination to remake the 5:00 pm | Nights at the Brunei London SW1P 3NZ. T 020 7832 world around her... Saturday 14 April (Lecture) Henna/Mehendi 1321 E [email protected] W www. Workshop and Live Sudanese caabu.org/events 6:15 pm | Politics as Art: Triple 11:00 am | Inside the Mind of the Music. Admission free. Brunei Bill (Film) Part of the 2012 London Scribe: writing surfaces in ancient Gallery, SOAS. T 020 7898 4046 E 7:30 pm | Man Without a Cell Palestine Film Festival. Sand Creek Egypt (Seminar) Kathryn E Piquette, [email protected] W www.soas. Phone (Film) Opening Night Gala Equation, Dir Travis Wilkerson 3D Encounters, Petrie Museum of ac.uk/nightsatthebrunei/ of the 2012 London Palestine Film (2011), 25 min. Wilkerson suggests Egyptian Archaeology; John Tait, Festival (Friday 20 April-Th ursday some terrible parallels link the UCL Institute of Archaeology; 7:00 pm | Amidst Shadow and 3 May). Dir Sameh Zoabi (2011), 2008/9 war on the Gaza Strip to the Dirk Obbink, University of Oxford Light: Challenges and New Waves 78 min. Palestinian Israeli slacker 1864 massacre of Native Americans and Director of the Imaging Papyri in Iranian Art Now (Lecture) Jawdat wants to have fun with his at Sand Creek, Colorado. + X Project. Organised by: Th e Egypt Hamid Keshmirshekan, Editor in friends, chat on his mobile and Mission, Dir Ursula Biemann Exploration Society. A look at Chief, Art Tomorrow. Organised fi nd love whilst his father, Salem, (2008), 40 min. Film essay exploring inscribed objects of a wide variety by: Th e Iran Society. 6:30pm for is determined to draw Jawdat the logic of the refugee camp as of types from the earliest period 7:00pm. Admission free for Society and his whole community into a a form of extraterritoriality ruled

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 27 Monday 23 April cutup counternarratives around the notion of Palestine as “a land that is 6:00 pm | Material Aspects of not a land”. Followed by Q&A with Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls the director. See listing for Friday 20 (Lecture) Daniel K Falk, University April for venue and contact details. of Oregon. Organised by: Anglo- Israel Archaeological Society. Tuesday 24 April Admission free. King’s College London, 2nd Floor, Strand Building, 5:30 pm | Areta - Th e Lost London WC2R 2LS. T 020 8349 Civilization of Southern Persia 5754 E [email protected] W (Talk) Mahmoud Kavir. Organised www.aias.org.uk by: Centre for Iranian Studies, LMEI, SOAS. Areta is a lost 6:15 pm | Beyond Palestine # civilization of the southeast of Iran 1: Syria (Film) Part of the 2012 going some 5000 years back in © Xavier Pick history. Th is mysterious civilization Ziggurat: Diary of a Modern Day War Artist (See April Events, page 30) London Palestine Film Festival. Th e Long Night, Dir Hatem Ali is referred to in the Sumerian text as (2009), 94 min. Four prisoners are one of the powerful and greatest about to be released aft er serving civilizations of the time. Dr Kavir's by International Law. + End of 2012 London Palestine Film Festival. 20 years as political detainees. With talk introduces this civilisation and September, Dirs Sama Alshaibi & Flower Seller, Ihab Jadallah (2011), an introduction by Wassim Al Adel. examines its chequered history. Ala Younis (2010), 16 min. Realist 18 min. Th riller about collaboration See listing for Friday 20 April for Please note that this talk is delivered drama in which Dalal, a Palestinian and betrayal in a Palestinian refugee venue and contact details. in Persian. Admission free. Room fedai (fi ghter) returns to her camp. + Th e Well, Ahmad Habash B102, SOAS. E [email protected] W liberated homeland where she faces (2011), 15 min. During the 1948 war, 7:00 pm | In Your Eyes a Sandstorm: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/ a series of mysterious occurrences. an elderly man meets a young father Ways of Being a Palestinian (Book See listing for Friday 20 April for and son running for their lives, Launch) Organised by: Jews for 6:15 pm | My Land + Eid (Film) Part venue and contact details. they take shelter in an abandoned Justice for Palestinians (JFJP) in of the 2012 London Palestine Film well, one held in folklore to possess association with the London Middle Festival. My Land, Dir Nabil Ayouch 8:00 pm | 30 Years on from the Seige magical powers... + Haneen, East Institute (LMEI), SOAS. Who (2010), 85 min. Aft er recording of Beirut (Film) Part of the 2012 Ossama Bawardi (2011), 18 min. are the Palestinians? In his book testimonies from Palestinians in London Palestine Film Festival. Gaza Haneen, a woman in her mid 60s Arthur Neslen reaches beyond the camps of the region, Ayouch Hospital, Marco Pasquini (2009), 84 lives alone in a Palestinian city, on journalistic clichés to let a wide visits their homes in present day min. Documentary that chronicles befriending Salem, a boy whom she variety of Palestinians answer the Israel, testing the attitudes of Beirut’s Gaza Hospital's history, fi nds stealing fruit in her garden, she question for themselves. Introduced today’s inhabitants toward the land’s from the Hospital's foundation as appears to develop a new spark of by Gilbert Achcar, SOAS. Palestinian past and owners. + a cornerstone of a revolutionary life. + First Lesson, Areen Omarai Admission free. Room G50, SOAS. Eid, Dir Saaheb Collective (2011), social welfare programme begun by (2010), 15 min. Having moved to E jfj fp@jfj fp.org W www.jfj fp.org 9 min. Using found materials the PLO, to its transformation into Paris in order to fi nd a new life, Eid, a Palestinian Bedouin from a vertical refugee camp. Followed actress Areen Omari’s directorial 7:00 pm | Bonjour Monsieur the village of Um el Kheir, makes by a panel discussion. See listing debut refl ects her own experience Ghaff ari (Film) Organised by: miniature models of the machinery for Friday 20 April for venue and on fi rst leaving Palestine. + Birth, Centre for Iranian Studies, LMEI, of occupation, including bulldozers contact details. Dima Abu Ghoush (2011), 9 min. SOAS. Centre for Iranian Studies and helicopters. See listing for Seven year old Farah lives with her Monthly Film Evening. A portrait of Friday 20 April for venue and Sunday 22 April mother who is pregnant, as Farah’s the life and experiences of Farrokh contact details. father is absent, it falls upon her to Ghaff ari, veteran Iranian fi lm critic, 4:00 pm | Ashkenaz (Film) Part of set out into the dark to seek help founder of the Iranian Film Archive 8:30 pm | Beyond Palestine # 2: the 2012 London Palestine Film when her mother begins to give and one of the forerunners of the Western Sahara (Film) Part of Festival. Dir Rachel Leah Jones, birth. See listing for Friday 20 April Iranian New Wave cinema in the the 2012 London Palestine Film (2007), 72 min. Filmessay on for venue and contact details. early 60s. Followed by Q&A with the Festival. Th e Problem, Dir Jordi Zionism’s (and Israel’s) historically director, Parviz Jahed, fi lmmaker, Ferrer & Pablo Vidal (2010), 82 hegemonic European ethnic elite. 8:00 pm | British Colonial Film in fi lm critic and scholar. Chaired by min. Morocco’s occupation of the Ashkenaz looks at whiteness in Palestine, 1917 to 1947 (Film) Part Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad, SOAS. Western Sahara, and the Saharawi Israel and wonders: How did the of the 2012 London Palestine Film Tickets: £2 on the door. Khalili people’s resistance to it, continues “Others” of Europe become the Festival. Britain’s colonial rule in Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 to this day. While the Polisaro “Europe” of the others?” With an Palestine was closely recorded on 4490 E [email protected] W www. Front heads the political and armed introduction by Rachel Shabi. See fi lm. Th is is a unique opportunity soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/ struggle from without, those living listing for Friday 20 April for venue to explore amateur, newsreel and under occupation face draconian and contact details. offi cial fi lm from the Mandate era. 8:30 pm | Lacan Palestine (Film) suppression of their cultural identity. Followed by a panel discussion. See Part of the 2012 London Palestine Followed by a panel discussion. See 6:15 pm | Five Short Dramas from listing for Friday 20 April for venue Film Festival. Dir Mike Hoolboom listing for Friday 20 April for venue the West Bank (Film) Part of the and contact details. (2012), 70 min. Visual allegories and and contact details.

28 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 Wednesday 25 April portrait on Brian Clarke, renowned and scientifi c racisms critiqued 8:45 pm | Last Days in Jerusalem + for his stained glass work for the in François Truff aut's 1970 fi lm, Diary of a Male Whore (Film) Part 4:30 pm | Sunni identity and King Khaled International Airport L'Enfant Sauvage, questioning their of the 2012 London Palestine Film sectarian relations in post- Mosque. Tickets: £3 donation on place in contemporary societies. See Festival. Last Days in Jerusalem, civil war Iraq (Seminar) Fanar the door. AKU-ISMC London, listing for Friday 20 April for venue Dir Tawfi k Abu Wael (2011), 85 Haddad, Queen Mary, University of Multipurpose Room (1st Floor), 210 and contact details. min. See listing for Th ursday 12 London. Organised by: LSE Kuwait Euston Road, London NW1 2DA. T April for fi lm details. + Diary of Programme on Development, 020 7380 3865 E Anne.Czambor@ 6:30 pm | Life During Wartime: a Male Whore, Dir Tawfi k Abu Governance and Globalisation in the aku.edu W www.aku.edu Eşref Bey and the End of the Wael,(2001), 15 min. Essam, a Gulf States. Seminar examining the Ottoman Empire (Inaugural young Arab refugee who lives in dynamics of sectarian relations and 6:15 pm | Promised Lands + Th e Lecture) Benjamin Fortna, SOAS. Tel Aviv, makes his living as a male 'sectarianism' in Iraq. Admission Beautiful Language (Film) Part Organised by: SOAS Events Team. prostitute. See listing for Friday 20 free. Graham Wallas Room, 5th of the 2012 London Palestine Film In his lecture Professor Benjamin April for venue and contact details. Floor, Old Building, LSE. T 0207 Festival. Promised Lands, Dir Fortna will present the traumatic 955 6639 E [email protected] Susan Sontag (1974) 87 min. Filmed fi nal years of the Ottoman Empire W www2.lse.ac.uk/government/ in the aft ermath of the October through the life of Eşref Bey, a Th ursday 26 April research/resgroups/kuwait/home. 1973 war Sontag’s documentary fi eld offi cer close to the Unionist aspx traces fault lines in a militarised leadership who was involved in each 11:00 am | Art of the Islamic society, combining observational of the empire’s last wars: in Libya, & Indian Worlds (Auction) 5:00 pm | Colouring Light: Brian meditations (landscapes, military in the Balkans, in the Great War Organised by: Christie’s London. Clarke – An Artist Apart by patrols, cinemas, cemeteries, and in the fi ghting that eventually Also at 2:30pm. Th e sale includes Mark Kidel (Film) Th e Aga Khan psychiatric wards, national produced the Turkish Republic. a group of Iznik pottery dating University (International)- Institute museums) with interviews. With Admission free. Brunei Gallery from the mid to late 16th century for the Study of Muslim Civilisations an introduction by Ella Shohat. Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 and some early glass from across (AKU-ISMC). 5:00pm for 5:30pm. + Th e Beautiful Language, Dir 4013 E [email protected] W www. the Islamic world. Public Viewing Part of the AKU-ISMC Film Series: Mounir Fatmi (2010), 17 min. Fatmi soas.ac.uk/about/events/ Days: Friday 20 April - Wednesday Spaces Between. Documentary revisits the imperial brutalities 25 April (except Saturday 21 April). NEW QATAR A MODERN HISTORY ALLEN J. FROMHERZ ‘Allen J. Fromherz has written an excellent book on Qatar based on a thorough knowledge of historical sources and enriched by his own experience in the country. This book will be essential reading to anyone interested in Qatar and useful to anyone interested more broadly in the dynamics of the Arab Gulf states.’ – Jill Crystal, Professor of Political Science, Auburn University, and author of Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants of Kuwait and Qatar

‘Qatar: A Modern History ÀOOVDPDMRUJDSDVLWSURYLGHVIRU WKHÀUVWWLPHWKHQHFHVVDU\KLVWRULFDOEDVLVIRUXQGHUVWDQGLQJ this Gulf state in all of its contradictions and importance.’ – G. R. Garthwaite, Jane & Raphael Bernstein Professor Emeritus in Asian Studies and Professor Emeritus of History, Dartmouth College 224 pages 234 x 156mm 9781848851672 HB £29.95 www.ibtauris.com

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 29 Admission free. Christie’s London, orientalrugandtextilesociety. 8 King Street, St James's, London org.uk W www. SW1Y 6QT. E amorand@christies. orientalrugandtextilesociety.org.uk com W www.christies.com

6:00 pm | Some thoughts about Friday 27 April Young Avestan polytheism (Lecture) Jean Kellens, Collège 6:15 pm | Palestinian Refugees de France, Paris. Organised by: aft er the Iraq War: Screen Talk Department of the Study of (Film) Part of the 2012 London Religions, SOAS. 2012 Kutar Palestine Film Festival. Palestine in Memorial Lecture. Admission free. the South, Dir Ana Maria Hurtado Brunei Gallery Lecture Th eatre, (2011), 52 min. Following the fall SOAS. T 020 7898 4598 E ah69@ of Saddam Hussein, thousands of soas.ac.uk W www.soas.ac.uk/ Palestinian refugees living in Iraq religions/events/ were displaced into a no man's land on the Syrian border. Some 6:30 pm | Ziggurat: Diary of a ultimately journeyed to Chile, Modern Day War Artist (Lecture) where they were off ered residence Organised by: British Institute for and welcomed to a small town with the Study of Iraq (BISI). Audio- a Palestinian population descended visual presentation by Xavier Pick, from migrants arriving a century 0SRHSR´WPIEHMRK peace artist and war artist, about earlier. + Displaced Lives, Dir João 'SRXIQTSVEV]%VEF his journey to Ur, with drawings, Marcelo Gomes (2010), 14 min. photographs, and extracts from Gomes’s portrait of Faez Abbas and ERH-VERMER+EPPIV] the fi lm he is currently working Salha Nasser, an elderly couple and on, Ziggurat: Diary of a Modern two of some 4,000 Palestinians in Day War Artist. Tickets: £15/£10 all, for whom the 2003 Iraq war led ,SNEX%QERM%RKIP BISI members/£5 Students. British to further displacement and Brazil 8IP   -RNIX4VMRXSR'ERZEW Academy, 10 Carlton House where Abbas and Nasser must now )QEMPNERIX$NERIXVEH]½RIEVXGSQ \GQ Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. T adapt to a new language and culture. 020 7969 5274 E [email protected] Followed by a talk by Abbas Shiblak / [email protected] W www. on the impact of the Iraq war on [email protected] / www.xavierpick. Palestinian refugees. See listing for co.uk Th ursday 26 April for venue and contact ticket details. Cannito & Luca Cusani (2008), 54 series. Jacques Rouyer Guillet on 7:00 pm | Ella Shohat: Israeli min. A candid portrait of the athletes ‘Household Consumer Culture Cinema (Talk and Reception) of the Palestinian squad who depart in Jaff a, 1920-1967: Newspaper Organised by: Palestine Film Saturday 28 April Jericho in July 2008 to take part in Advertising as a Case Study’ and Foundation. Part of the 2012 London the Beijing Olympic games and Ümit Eser on ‘Gradual Intimidation Palestine Film Festival. Ella Shohat 7:00 pm | Abbas Kiarostami Film their dreams as they leave their as a Form of Demographic joins dissident Israeli fi lmmaker Screening (Film) Organised by: homes for the fi rst time to prepare Engineering Policy: Asia Minor Eyal Sivan to discuss the recent new RACE. Omid Cultural Centre, 45 at training facilities thousands of on the Eve of the First World War’. edition of her seminal work Israeli Queens Walk, Ealing, London W5 miles away in unfamiliar surrounds. Admission free. Room G3, SOAS. E Cinema: East/West and the Politics 1TL. Tickets: TBC. T 0781 884 0824 + Free Running, Gaza, Dirs George [email protected] W www.soas.ac.uk/ of Representation. Donation on the E [email protected] Azar & Mariam Shahin (2011), about/events/ door. Khalili Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. W www.omidculturalsociety.com 25 min. Th e thoughts and dreams E info@palestinefi lm.org W www. behind the fi rst Gaza Parkour Team, 6:15 pm | Th e Druze in Israel: palestinefi lm.org an initiative of two 22–year–old Screen Talk (Film) Part of the 2012 Sunday 29 April friends, Mohammed al–Jakhbeer London Palestine Film Festival. Back 7:00 pm | Persian Tribal Rugs and Abdallah Enshsi. See listing for to One's Roots, Dir Bilal Yousef (Talk) Organised by: Oriental 3:00 pm | Sports Sunday: An Th ursday 26 April for venue and (2009), 47 min. Documentary that Rug and Textile Society. Arash Olympic Year Triple Bill (Film) contact details. works to demystify and challenge Karamzadeh of the Pars Rug Gallery Part of the 2012 London Palestine perceptions of Druze political life will talk about Persian Tribal Rugs Film Festival. Women in the in Israel, it tells the story of Yaman, and invites you to bring your Stadium, Dir Sawsan Qaoud (2011), Monday 30 April a Druze citizen who grew up in the tribal bags and rugs for discussion. 52 min. the stories of four members north of Israel. Followed by a talk Tickets: £6 non-members (includes of the Palestinian Women’s National 5:15 pm | First-Year Research by Kais Firro on Druze politics and refreshments). Swedenborg Hall, Football Team as they navigate Student Presentations (Seminar) society in Israel. Darwin Th eatre, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London the physical and societal obstacles Organised by: Department of UCL. See listing for Th ursday 26 WC1A 2TH (entrance on Barter placed in the way of success. + History, SOAS. Part of the Near April for ticket and contact details. Street). T 020 8886 3910 E penny@ Inshallah Beijing, Dirs Francesco & Middle East History Seminar

30 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 6:00 pm | Ain Zubaida: Th e Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies. Featuring artists from van Dyck, Foundation, 29 Catherine Place, Symbol of a Magnifi cent Legacy Organised by: Oxford Centre for Whistler and Mondrian to Steve London SW1E 6DY. T 020 7233 (Lecture) Omar Abu Rezaiza, King Islamic Studies. Part of the Islamic McQueen and Francis Alÿs. Tickets: 5344 E info@delfi nafoundation. Abdul-Aziz University. Organised Ethics: Classical and Contemporary £6/£5 conc. or £6.60/£5.50 conc. com W www.delfi nafoundation. by: London Midddle East Institute, Perspectives seminar series. including Gift Aid W www.tate.org. com SOAS (LMEI). A talk by Professor Admission free. Oxford Centre uk/tickets Tate Britain, Gallery 2, Abu Rezaiza on Zubaida Al-Abbasi, for Islamic Studies, George Street, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. T who lived in Baghdad from AD Oxford OX1 2AR. T 01865 278730 020 7887 8888 E visiting.britain@ Friday 6 April 760 to 820, and her extraordinary E academic.offi [email protected] W tate.org.uk W www.tate.org.uk/ contribution to the ancient www.oxcis.ac.uk britain/ Until 26 April | Navigations: engineering heritage of the region Palestinian Video Art, 1988 to through her support of the Qanat Until 7 April | Raeda Saadeh: True 2011 2012 London Palestine Film (ain) system where groundwater EXHIBITIONS Tales, Fairy Tales Raeda Saadeh's Festival Exhibition. A celebration of from upstream Wadi Naaman was images portray the Palestinian the creative practices developed by transferred through a network of experience in the most visually artists working in Palestine and the stonegalleries (qanats) to the City Sunday 1 April striking way, they convey the diaspora over nearly a quarter of a of Mecca and other Holy Places. atmosphere of living with curfews, century. Admission free. Mezzanine, Admission free. Room B102, SOAS. Until 15 April | Hajj: journey to under occupation and surrounded Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London E [email protected] W www.soas. the heart of Islam Examining the by destroyed Palestinian houses. EC2Y 8DS. E info@palestinefi lm. ac.uk/lmei/events/ logistics involved, the exhibition Admission free. Rose Issa Projects, org W www.palestinefi lm.org compares how pilgrims over 269 Kensington High Street, London the centuries negotiated this W8 6NA. T 020 7602 7700 E info@ EVENTS OUTSIDE undertaking and how it continues roseissa.com W www.roseissa.com Tuesday 17 April LONDON to be experienced today. Various ticket prices. BM. T 020 7323 8181 Until 20 May | Social States Duo- Until 23 June | Disappearing W www.britishmuseum.org exhibition of new works by resident heritage of Sudan 1820 - 1956: Wednesday 25 April artists Baptist Coelho and Nadia A photographic and fi lmic Until 12 August | Migrations: Kaabi-Linke which investigates research exhibition by Frederique 5:00 pm | Th e Relationship Journeys into British Art how we communicate individual Cifuentes A unique collection between Islamic Ethics and Exhibition exploring how British and historic experiences of social of photographs and videos that Islamic Law (Seminar) Jasser Auda. art has been shaped by migration. confl ict. Admission free. Th e Delfi na document the remnants of the

The Reluctant Revolutionary (See April Events, page 26)

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 31 venue details and Th ursday 26 April for ticket and contact details.

Saturday 5 May

10:30 am | A seminar day on martyrdom in the Iraqi Church: MIDDLE EAST BRIEFINGS historic and modern perspectives (Seminar) Cornelia Horn, St Louis, Missouri; Desmond Durkin- The London Middle East Institute offers tailored briefings Meisternst, Berlin; François de on the politics, economics, cultures and languages of the Middle East. Blois, Cambridge; Richard Payne, Mt Holyoke, Massachusetts; Suha Previous clients include UK and foreign governmental bodies Rassam, ICIN; and representatives and private entities. of the Iraqi communities. Contact us for details. Centre of Eastern and Orthodox Christianity, Department of the Study of Religions, SOAS, British Tel: 020 7898 4330 E-mail: [email protected] Institute for the Study of Iraq and Jerusalem and Middle Eastern Churches Association. Christianity in Iraq IX. Seminar exploring the colonial experience in Sudan from with handfuls of semi-itinerant Palestine Film Festival. Dir Omar historic aspects of martyrdom the Ottoman, Egyptian, and British fi shermen, led to the pharaoh Shargawi (2009), 52 min. Th e and martyrdom in the modern periods. Admission free. Brunei Khufu building the Great Pyramid. personal story of Danish-Palestinian communities of Iraqi churches. Gallery, SOAS. T 020 7898 4046 E Followed by a reception. Tickets: director, Omar Al Shargawi’s Tickets: £30/£25 Members of [email protected] W www.soas. £12.50/£10 (EES members)/£8.50 search for understanding and BISI or JMECA/£12 students. ac.uk/gallery (Student non-members)/£6.50 reconciliation with his father Munir, Brunei Gallery Lecture Th eatre, (Student EES members). Th e Egypt who fl ed Palestine as a child in 1948. SOAS. E [email protected] W www. Exploration Society, Swedenborg See listing for Monday 30 April for easternchristianity.com MAY EVENTS Hall, Swedenborg Society, 20-21 venue details and Th ursday 26 April Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A for ticket and contact details. 2TH. T 020 7242 1880 E contact@ Tuesday 8 May Tuesday 1 May ees.ac.uk W www.ees.ac.uk Th ursday 3 May 5:30 pm | Th e Rock Carvings of 6:15 pm | Subversive Film Presents: the Messak: a story of pastoral L'Olivier (Film) Part of the 2012 Wednesday 2 May 6:15 pm | Short Films Guest adaptation (Lecture) Maria London Palestine Film Festival. Dir Curated by Shashat: 'Th e Spring Guagnin, Member of the Society Collectif Vincennes (1976), 82 min. 5:00 pm | Our Feelings Took the of Young Palestinian Women for Libyan Studies Fezzan Rock Cannily structured to convey the Pictures - Open Shutters Iraq by Filmmakers' (Film) Part of the 2012 Art Project. Organised by: Society Palestinian story and to highlight Maysoon Pachachi (Film) Th e Aga London Palestine Film Festival. for Libyan Studies. Admission free. the (then) present state of the Khan University (International)- Showcase of short fi lms produced Lecture Th eatre, British Academy, struggle, L’Olivier is a rousing call Institute for the Study of Muslim by young women during Shashat 10 Carlton House Terrace, London for global revolutionary solidarities Civilisations (AKU-ISMC). 5:00pm training programmes between 2008 SW1Y 5AH. E shirleystrong@ and, particularly, for European for 5:30pm. Part of the AKU- and 2011, introduced by Shashat btconnect.com W www. political engagements. See listing for ISMC Film Series: Spaces Between. director Alia Arasoughly and societyforlibyanstudies.org Monday 30 April for venue details Photography project during which followed by a panel discussion. If U and Th ursday 26 April for ticket and a group of women came from Say Yes or If U Say No, Dir Layali 6:30 pm | Fuel on the Fire: Oil contact details. fi ve cities in Iraq to live and work Kilani (2008), 3 min. + Jerusalem and Politics in Iraq (Lecture) Greg together in Damascus where they on the Messenger, Dir Amani Al Muttitt, Campaigns and Policy 6:30 pm | John Romer Book presented their ‘life maps’ to each Sarahnah (2009), 3 min. + Th e Sister Director at War on Want and Launch (Book Launch) Organised other, unearthing memories and and her Brother, Dirs O Hamouri author. Organised by: LSE Kuwait by: Th e Egypt Exploration Society. telling stories. £3 donation on & M Krotkiewski(2008), 8 min. + Programme on Development, Event to mark the publication of the door. AKU-ISMC London, Girls and the Sea, Dir Taghreed Governance and Globalisation in Romer's new book A History of Multipurpose Room (1st Floor), 210 El Azza (2010), 7 min. + Just the Gulf States. Admission free. Egypt: From the First Farmers to Euston Road, London NW1 2DA. T Forbidden, Dir Fadya Salah Aldeen New Th eatre, East Building, LSE. T the Great Pyramid. Drawing on 020 7380 3865 E Anne.Czambor@ (2011), 5 min. + Kamkamah, Dirs 0207 955 6639 E [email protected] a lifetime of research, this fi rst aku.edu W www.aku.edu Areej Abu Eid & Eslam Alayan W www2.lse.ac.uk/government/ volume (of two) is designed to (2011), 6 min. + Th e Clothesline, research/resgroups/kuwait/home. recreate the previously untold story 6:15 pm | My Father from Haifa Dir Alia Arasoughly (2006), 16 min. aspx of how a civilisation, which began (Film) Part of the 2012 London See listing for Monday 30 April for

32 The Middle East in London April-May 2012 Wednesday 9 May Turkey series. Convened by Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Lecture) Doris Behrens-Abouseif, SOAS. Benjamin Fortna, SOAS. Admission Nicole Watts, San Francisco State Admission free. Khalili Lecture 6:30 pm | Politics and Power in the free. Room 116, SOAS. T 020 7898 University. Organised by: LSE Th eatre, SOAS. T 0771 408 7480 Maghreb (Lecture) Michael Willis, 4431 E [email protected] W www.soas. Middle East Centre. Watts, who E [email protected] W University of Oxford. Organised by: ac.uk/lmei/events/ was in Sulaymaniyah last spring for www.soas.ac.uk/art/islac/ Society for Algerian Studies and the the 'Kurdish Spring', will discuss LSE Middle East Centre. Lecture on her on-going research on dissent the modern history of the Maghreb, Monday 14 May and campaigns for social and Th ursday 17 May the area where the Arab uprisings political change in Iraqi Kurdistan. began. Admission free. Th ai Th eatre, 7:30 pm | FRENEMIES + Jigsaw Admission free. Alumni Th eatre, 5:00 pm | Suad Amiry and LSE. E [email protected]. (Performance) Stand-up comedy LSE. E [email protected] W Palestinian Life Writing (Lecture) uk / [email protected] W www. evening hosted by the Centre for www2.lse.ac.uk/middleEastCentre/ Bart Moore-Gilbert, Goldsmiths algerianstudies.org.uk / www2.lse. Iranian Studies, LMEI, SOAS. With home.aspx College, University of London. ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx Miss D (aka Daphna Baram) and Organised by: Bloomsbury Gender Peyvand Khorsandi + Jigsaw. "She’s Wednesday 16 May Network and the Centre for Gender Israeli. He’s Iranian. Can they sweep Studies, SOAS. Part of the Centre Friday 11 May their diff erences under the carpet?” Time TBC | Musical Geographies for Gender Studies Seminar Series. Tickets: £7/£3 Students advance of Central Asia (Th ree-Day Seminar on Suad Amiry's Sharon 12:00 pm | Divided Spaces, booking online or £10/£5 Students Conference: Wednesday 16 - Friday and my Mother-in-Law (2005), Contested Pasts: the Formation of on the door. Brunei Gallery Lecture 18 May) Keynote speaker: Th eodore focusing on the author's articulation the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical Th eatre, SOAS. E [email protected] Levin, Dartmouth College. of the genre of life-writing in the National Park (Seminar) Lucienne W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/ Organised by: Th e Middle East and Palestinian context from a gendered Th ys-Şenocak, Koç University. Central Asia Music Forum (Institute perspective. Admission free. Room Organised by: SOAS Modern of Musical Research, School of 4421, SOAS. E [email protected] W Turkish Studies Programme Tuesday 15 May Advanced Study) in association with www.soas.ac.uk/about/events/ (London Middle East Institute, SOAS. International Conference SOAS) and sponsored by Nurol 6:30 pm | Th e Kurdish Spring: State- convened by Saida Daukeyeva, IMR 7:00 pm | A Popular Hero: Colonel Bank. Part of the Seminars on society relations and dissent in the and Rachel Harris, SOAS. Tickets: Pesyan and his Rebellion of TBC. Senate House and SOAS. T 1921 (Lecture) Stephanie Cronin, 0207 664 4865 E [email protected] University of Oxford. Organised by: Th e Iran Society. 6:30pm for 4:30 pm | Religion, ideology, and 7:00pm. Admission free for Society strategic calculation: Th e Arab members and guests. 2 Belgrave Gulf monarchies and the Arab- Square, London SW1X 8PJ. T 020 Israeli confl ict (Seminar) Rene 7235 5122 E [email protected] Informing Rieger, Institute of Arab and Islamic W www.iransociety.org Studies, University of Exeter and and inspiring Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. Organised by: LSE Kuwait Sunday 20 May humanitarian policy Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in Time TBC | Th e Ruling of Zaman at international the Gulf States. Seminar on the Khan (Performance) Production of Arab Gulf monarchies' policies SAAM Th eatre Company’s Drama and country level towards the Arab-Israeli confl ict in Workshops. Directed by Soussan the period 1967 to 1991. Admission Farrokhnia. Tickets: £5. Unitarian free. KSW 1.04, 20 Kingsway, LSE. T Church, 311/5 Hoop Lane, ODI’s Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) are seeking a Research 0207 955 6639 E [email protected] Golders Green, London NW11 Fellow to develop and undertake research, policy advisory and W www2.lse.ac.uk/government/ 8BS. T 0781 396 00 31 W www. research/resgroups/kuwait/home. omidculturalsociety.com public affairs work, and supporting HPG’s integrated research aspx programme. With a particular focus on the Global History of Modern Humanitarian Action project you’ll lead HPG’s 7:00 pm | A lecture to celebrate Monday 21 May engagement in the Middle East and North Africa. the life and work of Ernst J Grube: 1932–2011: Th e Edmund de 6:00 pm | Coin Circulation in Unger Ewer: an Early Fatimid Hellenistic and Early Roman Research Fellow – Rock Crystal Ewer in Context Galilee: politics, economy and International Humanitarian System (Lecture) Jeremy Johns, Khalili ethnicity (Lecture) Danny Syon, Research Centre for the Art and Israel Antiquities Authority. For more information on this ODI staff appointment see Material Culture of the Middle Organised by: Anglo-Israel www.odi.org.uk/jobs East, University of Oxford. Part Archaeological Society. Admission of the Islamic Art Circle at SOAS free. King’s College London, 2nd Lecture Programme. Chaired by Floor, Strand Building, London

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 33 WC2R 2LS. T 020 8349 5754 E on Development, Governance and Forms and Political Contexts [email protected] W www. [email protected] W www.aias. Globalisation in the Gulf States in (Conference) Organised by: Centre ibnarabisociety.org org.uk association with the London Middle for Media and Film Studies and East Institute, SOAS (LMEI). the London Middle East Institute Sunday 6 May Wednesday 23 May Lecture following the Foundation’s (LMEI), SOAS. Admission free. Annual General Meeting. V111, SOAS. E [email protected] Time TBC | Spiritual Realisation – 5:30 pm | New fi eld work at Admission free. Room G3, SOAS. W www.soas.ac.uk/about/events/ Knowledge and Practice (Two-Day Kadhima (Kuwait) and the E [email protected] W Symposium: Saturday 5 - Sunday 6 archaeology of the Early Islamic www.thebfsa.org May) See listing for Saturday 5 May period in Eastern Arabia (Lecture) Monday 28 May for details. Derek Kennet, Durham University. Friday 25 May Organised by: British Foundation 7:00 pm | Centre for Iranian for the Study of Arabia and the Time TBC | Th e Messages of Studies Monthly Film Evening Wednesday 9 May LSE Kuwait Research Programme Hizbullah: Communication (Film) Organised by: Centre for Iranian Studies, LMEI, SOAS. Film 5:00 pm | Indeterminacy and Rasheed Araeen ‘Rang Beranga’,1969, Tate (Migrations: Journeys into TBC. Tickets: £2 on the door. G2, Islamic Ethics: Th e Primacy of the British Art, see Exhibitions, page 31) SOAS. T 020 7898 4490 E vp6@ Political (Seminar) Mohammad soas.ac.uk W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei- Fadel, University of Toronto. Part cis/events/ of the Islamic Ethics: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives seminar series. See listing for Th ursday 31 May Wednesday 25 April for details.

6:30 pm | Th e Egyptian Revolution: Where From, and Where To? Wednesday 16 May (Lecture) Organised by: LSE Middle East Centre. An evening 5:00 pm | Islam and Medical Ethics with Egyptian writer and political (Seminar) Mohammed Ghaly, and cultural commentator Ahdaf Leiden University. Organised by: Soueif, in conversation and reading Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. from her body of works. Admission Part of the Islamic Ethics: Classical free. Sheikh Zayed Th eatre, LSE. E and Contemporary Perspectives [email protected] W www2.lse. seminar series. See listing for ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx Wednesday 25 April for details.

Wednesday 23 May EVENTS OUTSIDE LONDON 5:00 pm | Th e Development of Ethics and Spirituality through Wednesday 2 May Islamic Law (Seminar) Musharraf Hussain, Karimia Institute, 5:00 pm | Th eories of Ethical Value Nottingham. Organised by: Oxford in Medieval Islamic Th ought: A Centre for Islamic Studies. Part New Interpretation (Seminar) of the Islamic Ethics: Classical Ayman Shihadeh, SOAS. Organised and Contemporary Perspectives by: Oxford Centre for Islamic seminar series. See listing for Studies. Part of the Islamic Ethics: Wednesday 25 April for details. Classical and Contemporary Perspectives seminar series. See Wednesday 30 May listing for Wednesday 25 April for details. 5:00 pm | Refl ections on Friendship in Islamic and Western Saturday 5 May Th ought (Seminar) Mona Siddiqui, Edinburgh University. Organised Time TBC | Spiritual Realisation – by: Oxford Centre for Islamic Knowledge and Practice (Two-Day Studies. Part of the Islamic Ethics: Symposium: Saturday 5 - Sunday 6 Classical and Contemporary May) Th e 29th annual symposium Perspectives seminar series. See of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi listing for Wednesday 25 April for Society in the UK. Various ticket details. prices. Worcester College, Walton

© Rasheed Araeen © Rasheed Street, Oxford OX1 2HB. E mias.

34 The Middle East in London April-May 2012

PRESS RELEASE 17 APRIL – 23 JUNE 2012 Disappearing heritage of Sudan 1820 - 1956: A photographic and filmic research exhibition By Frederique Cifuentes

Khartoum University Frederique Cifuentes undertook photographic and filmic research in Sudan from 2004 to 2010. One of the most important outcomes of this journey was to build up a new and unique collection of photographs and videos that documents the remnants of the colonial experience in Sudan from the Ottoman, Egyptian, and British periods. All the materials taken during these journeys will be used for the exhibition. It will offer a different way of looking at imperial history. This photographic and video project is an exploration of the mechanics of empires through its official buildings, private residencies, cinema houses, railways, irrigation canals, and bridges. This research, the only one of its kind, will highlight colonial architecture, design and construction and the impact they had on Sudanese society before and after Independence in 1956. It will help us understand the ways in which people appropriated and used the buildings. The exhibition will be comprised of materials created by Frederique Cifuentes and from Durham University’s Sudan Archive. Many of the country’s old buildings have fallen victim to wider economic development or lack of a preservation campaign. This study will show different aspects and forms of the rich colonial architectural heritage in Sudan before it vanishes completely. This is an illustrated history of a unique cultural landscape. The exhibition will also be shown at the Dunelm Gallery, Durham University, October - December 2013, after which the photographic collection will be donated to the University of Khartoum, Sudan.

Abu Gharban railroad station, Bayuda Desert BRUNEI GALLERY, SOAS OPEN: Tuesday – Saturday 10.30 – 17.00 (Thurs late night opening until 20.00) THORNHAUGH STREET CLOSED: Sunday, Monday, and Bank Holidays RUSSELL SQUARE T. 020 7898 4046 (recorded information) LONDON, WC1H 0XG E. [email protected] ADMISSION FREE For more information visit: www.soas.ac.uk/gallery or follow us on Face Book https://www.facebook.com/Soas.Brunei.Gallery

April-May 2012 The Middle East in London 35 20TH AP RIL-3 RD Y MA G Y .OR ILM EF IN ST ON LE D A N P O L

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36 The Middle East in London April-May 2012