Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 April 2002 Issue No.582
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Opera's big night

IN THE main hall of the Cairo Opera House on Tuesday, the National Ensemble for Arabic Music, conducted by Selim Sahab, celebrated the achievement of poet-cartoonist-writer Salah Jahin and musician Sayed Mekkawi on the anniversary of their deaths.
The Ensemble presented many of the two figures' collaborations as well as the recently conceived ballet version of their phenomenally popular operetta El-Leila El-Kebira (Big Night of the Moulid), originally intended for children.

Arabs in Washington
THE FOUR-DAY Arabic Novel Conference at Georgetown University, Washington, ended on Sunday.
Participants included novelists Gamal El-Ghitani (Egypt), Hoda Barakat and Elias Khouri (Lebanon), Fouad El- Takarli (Iraq), Ahmed Tawfik, Mubarak Rabie and Moulai Al-Madini (Morocco), as well as academics Ferial Ghazoul and Roger Allen.
The conference included an evening presided over by Egyptian ambassador to the US, Nabil Fahmi, in which participants and Congress members discussed Egyptian culture and its various political declensions.

Vernacular censure
ON SATURDAY the Abu-Dhabi satellite channel broadcast a day-long fund- raising programme supporting the Palestinian cause. Participating along with artistic and literary figures from across the Arab world, Egyptian colloquial poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudi recited patriotic poems of his including "Death on the Asphalt."

Librarian archaeologists
THE MINISTRY of Culture has provided finishing touches to the Library of Alexandria Museum, opening in the course of the Library's inaugural ceremony which was initially planned for the end of this month, but has been indefinitely postponed.
Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, announced this week that the museum will display 1,200 pieces representing all of Alexandria's historical periods. The museum, Hawass added, has its own LEfive million security apparatus, separate from the Library's, which was completed in collaboration with National Security.

Charity in Dubai
ON 29 APRIL, the Lebanese singing icon Fairuz will preside over a charity performance to take place at the American University in Dubai Theatre.
Organised by the Dubai Medical Centre, the event is dedicated to autistic children, to provide their parents with material and moral support and increase awareness of autism's symptoms and treatment. It is part of a campaign undertaken by the centre and targeting the entire Arab World in an attempt to address this increasingly prevalent disease.

Narrating Yemen
FROM 4 TO 9 MAY the Third Yemeni Festival for Short Stories and Novels is to take place in Sanaa. Activities include a book exhibition and seminars on the Yemeni literary scene and on the works of authors including Gamal El-Ghitani, Laila Al-Osman, Nabil Soliman and Khaled Al-Youssef.

London solidarity
ON 23 JULY, a Palestinian-solidarity performance is to take place at the London Palladium. Revenues will go towards Palestinian children. Participating are Egyptian singers Mohamed Mounir, Angham, Iman El-Bahr Darwish and Helmi Abdel-Baqi, Kuwaiti singer Nabil Shu'ail, and Egyptian actors Hussein Fahmi, Mohamed Sobhi, Laila Elwi, Mohamed Heniedi and Alaa Waleyeddin.
Organised by Essam Abdel-Samad, a professor of medicine in Britain, directed by Amr Zahran and presided over by Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian minister of planning, as well Arab ambassadors to London, the performance will be broadcast live on ART satellite television channel, which will collect donations.

Taher condemns
LAST WEEK the American University in Cairo Press launched the English translations of Bahaa Taher's Al-Hobb fil- Manfa (Love in Exile) and Sonaala Ibrahim's Al-Lagna (The Committee) at the newly opened Diwan Bookshop.
Present were Mark Linz, AUC Press director, critics, academics and news agency representatives.
In his speech, delivered in English, Taher made a point of criticising the position of the American administration which condones "the collective extermination of the Palestinian people," reading out extracts from Portuguese writer Jose Saramago's report on his visit to Ramallah, in which he testified that what was happening in the occupied territories resembled the Nazis' treatment of Jews.

Intifada history
LAST WEEK Dar Al-Kutub hosted a seminar organised by the Egyptian Contemporary History Centre entitled "The Intifada Among Palestinian Revolutions," reports Mustafa El- Minshawy. Of the participants, Adel Ghoneim, Ain Shams history professor, provided the most comprehensive account of the history of Palestinian revolt, tracing the Al-Aqsa Intifada back to the earliest uprisings in 1920, 1929, during the inter-war period and in 1987. Noting that no academic attention has been paid to the Palestinian struggle in the post-1948 period, Ghoneim argued that the current uprising is in fact the continuation of an 80-year- old struggle. The mass murder of Palestinian civilians, he said, is a form of racial cleansing intended to end the struggle once and for all. Ghoneim also criticised the Arab stance, noting that while the Intifada intensified during 2001, economic cooperation between Arab states and Israel increased.
Compiled by Youssef Rakha

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