Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2005, pages 60-61
Southern California Chronicle
Visiting Academic Discusses “Palestinian Girls Facing the Wall”
By Pat and Samir Twair
AUDIENCE REACTION ranged from an angry shouted protest to an enthusiastic standing ovation at an April 16 talk on “Palestinian Girls Facing the Wall” at the Huntington Library in San Marino. The speaker was Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a visiting professor at UCLA Law School and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.
The occasion was a seminar entitled “History, Culture and Politics: Gendering International Human Rights,” sponsored by UCLA Women’s Studies and moderated by UCLA law professor Dr. Christine Littleton. Dr. Ellen DuBois provided a history of international women’s rights, while anthropologist Sondra Hale summarized her paper on “Women and Genocide with Special References to Sudan.”
Kevorkian based much of her talk on discussions she has conducted with Palestinian girls in her capacity as project and research director of the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in Jerusalem. She oversees a women’s studies center in Nablus in addition to being a professor at Hebrew University.
The Palestinian academic briefly informed the audience of more than 200 about Israel’s apartheid wall that has put 16 percent of West Bank Palestinian land on the Israeli side of a barrier that is three times higher and twice as long as the Berlin Wall.
“Any Palestinian over the age of 12 must have a permit to cross gates in the wall that are only open 55 minutes of the day,” Kevorkian explained. “This puts a special burden on young girls who must line up every day to go through the wall to their schools and who often are subjected to harassment by [Israeli] soldiers.
“Fathers are humiliated to stand by helplessly as their daughters are searched,” she noted. “So they keep their daughters at home to avoid the searches, and they force them to marry early.
“It makes me furious when these girls are referred to as drop-outs,” Kevorkian said. “I call this deprivation of education.”
One young girl told Kevorkian that the Wall has turned her into a robot who sneaks along back roads to avoid checkpoints. Living behind the wall, the girl lamented, is being in a collective grave awaiting a slow death.
At this point, an elderly woman in the front row stood up and shouted: “I’m leaving. I won’t listen to this.”
Kevorkian responded to the outburst by saying how sad it is that she had to endure daily strip searches, while the American objector could not tolerate hearing the facts.
“The wall makes us revise our way of looking at space and power,” she continued. “This system of dominating space embraces race, class, oppression and gender violence. The wall enables the Israelis to see every movement of the Palestinians, depriving them of any privacy. When the Palestinian man’s space is violated, he translates this into committing violence on women and preventing them from going to school.”
The first question from the audience was hostile: “You teach at Hebrew University, are there any Israeli Jews who teach in Arab universities?”
“Indeed there are,” Kevorkian replied. “I believe two Israeli Jews teach at the Birzeit campus and others teach at Bethlehem University.”
Many questions were directed to Professor Hale, whose talk focused on the domestic genocide of Nuba Mountain groups and tribes in Darfur.
“In Darfur, the destruction of the culture has been by targeting women,” she said. “By raping the women of the Other, men commit ethnocide. When women are forced to bear children of the enemy, to marry the enemy and no longer be allowed to speak their language or practice their religion, a culture is destroyed.”
The Western press, Hale said, portrays the tragedy in Sudan as one of Arab militias destroying Christian victims. However, she explained, “Everyone is killing everyone in Sudan, it’s difficult to prove who is acting on behalf of the state.”
Arab-American Caucus at Work
Ed Tawil was elected chair of the Arab American California Caucus as more than 2,000 activists convened April 15 to 17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the state Democratic Party Convention. A hospitality room with Arab food was provided convention-goers on April 16.
Rima Nashashibi, vice chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County, was a member of the resolutions committee that lobbied to pass a resolution calling for an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. Only a handful of the 2,000 delegates dissented on the landmark decision, which was one of the top 10 priority resolutions passed. Passed by the nation’s largest gathering of state Democrats, it sent a powerful message not only to their own party but to the Republican Party as well.
The resolution reads in part:
“WHEREAS: The Bush Administration, using false intelligence estimates, misled the country into an illegal, unnecessary and unwise invasion and occupation of Iraq, against a country that had neither attacked nor posed an immediate threat to the U.S., thus jeopardizing our national security, and
“Whereas: As a result of that action more than 1,500 American troops have been killed and 10,000 other brave Americans have been maimed or injured, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, many innocent civilians, have also lost their lives...
“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the California Democratic Party calls for the termination of the occupation at the earliest possible time with the withdrawal of American troops, coupled with the creation of an international body that can assist the Iraqi people in freely and peacefully determining their own future, and that we participate in multi-lateral reconstruction.”
Ammar Hasan on U.S. Tour
Those who don’t watch Arab TV via satellite stations probably are not aware of Palestinian singer Ammar Hasan, who placed second in the Super Star 2 finals last August in Beirut. The show—an Arab version of “American Idol”—is watched by millions, and even though Libyan singer Ayman al-Attar garnered first place for the most votes called and e-mailed to the show, it is Ammar who has been on a world tour ever since.
He sang to a sold-out audience May 7 at the Pasadena Hilton, just one stop on a 10-city U.S. tour. Romantic songs are his forte, and he is cutting a CD featuring songs of composers Samir Sfeir, Elias Rahabani, Yasser Jalal, Nihad Najjar and Haithem Assa’di.
Ammar was born Nov. 13, 1976 in Kuwait, where his father had immigrated in 1963. When the first Gulf war was approaching, Ammar and his parents and five siblings returned to Slefiet in Palestine. He holds a degree in music from Al Najah University, and has been singing professionally at Dubai’s Marine Hotel since 2001.
After placing second in the wildly popular Super Star competition, offers came in for concerts in the Gulf, Europe, Canada and the U.S. He is looking forward to a concert tour of the West Bank in July.
Avaz Performs Golden Mask of Guran
Aficionados of Middle Eastern and modern dance genres always have looked forward to performances of the Avaz International Dance Theater since it was founded in Los Angeles in 1977 by Dr. Anthony Shay. Its latest production by choreographer Jamal is “The Golden Mask of Guran,” based loosely on elements of the Shah-nameh, an epic history of Persian King Bahram V (420-438 A.D.).
The costumes, original score by Ahmad Pejman, and talent of the performers deserved more than three performances—April 16 and 17 at the Los Angeles Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, and April 30 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.
Artistic director Jamal has created a fusion of contemporary and classical folk dance traditions in this story of a Roman slave girl, Azadeh, who tries to save wild zebras from King Bahram and his hunters.
The beautiful Azadeh (Karen Ocha) spins, dervish style, as she dreams of the wild zebras. As she falls into a trance, the striped beasts dance with her until the Golden Zebra (Carolyn Melson), who can only be seen through the aid of a gold mask, gives the precious mask to the slave girl. In order to claim the throne of his father, Bahram (Genaro Caamal-Diaz) must kill two lions, but when he takes the golden mask from Azadeh and beholds the Golden Gur (zebra ), he wants to possess her.
The stated mission of Avaz is to preserve and perform contemporary folk and classical dances of the Middle East and educate the public about these traditions. It has received a MAP fund grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and an “exemplary” grant from the California Arts Council, which also bestowed a lifetime achievement award on Dr. Shay in 2002. The company also is the recipient of the Lester Horton award for outstanding achievement in staging.
For more information, visit <www.avazinternationaldance.org>.
Avaz International Dance Theatre: “The Golden Mask of Guran,” (L-r) Bita Sharif, Carla Levin, Ixchel Reglado, Elian Quesada, Florence Lee, Joy Ann Martin, Melonie Grasty-Vazquez, Andrew Williams.
Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.
