My Identity

I'm an Liberal Arab Nationalist, a Progressive Muslim who supports Secularism in the seek for the good of the countries.

And please don't preach to me about the 'evils' that lie under the self identification as "nationalist" - it shouldn't in no sense mean that it embraces the fabricated concepts of I'm-better-than-you racist undertones,

+ If we can't unite politically, and we care so much about borders and land, then I'm sure we can unite culturally and in different forms of expression (i.e. art).

What is your identity?

The People of Gaza

It's quite hard to find any material, whether documentations or any other form that is concerned to reflect on the people of Gaza rather on the social everyday situations they live in. But here comes a ray of light. Zouheir Alnajjar is a 29-year-old Palestinian Flim-making Journalist that produced short documentaries concerning Gaza and more importantly the people of Gaza.

With extremely interesting approaches, a surprisingly high level of professionalism and a local reporter which means he has a deeper understanding to his own people, come the videos of Zouheir Alnajjar or as he's called journalist_pal on Current TV's profile of his.

I would like to share what I thought were two very interesting short documentaries of his, but you can easily access all his other work through current tv.

I am personally very proud of Zouheir and the amount of effort he's putting into wrapping up these videos. It's very refreshing to see that the he's a Palestinian and he's trying to get the message through in the most sincere way possible. Gelnar Mousa and Najwa Qasem might be of the best Arab journalists out there, but it's also time for ones that need to communicate to the ones across the borders.

مسيحيون العرب

هذا الصباح، طلب من والدي أن اقرأ مقال منشور في صحيفة العرب اليوم عن المسيحيون العرب. فصاحب طلبه عبارة "خذ اقرا عن صدقاك المسحيه!" فوالدي يعرف قدر محبتي وتقديري لهذه الفئة من الناس إذ امضيت كل حياتي الدراسية محاط باصدقاء مسيحيون وحتى هذا اليوم من أعز وأقرب أصدقاء لي هم مسحيون أيضا.

حقا اعجبت في هذا المقال، إذ فيه معلومات قيمة عن دور العرب المسحيون في مساهمتهم لرفع راية العروبة والقومية العربية ومساندتهم لقوات الفتح الإسلامي في بلاد الشام والعراق وطبعا مشاركاتهم الكبيرة في المجال الفني والادبي.

يمكنكم قراءة المقال كاملا على موقع جريدة العرب اليوم

Shakloh keda mush 3agebni

If you haven't heard yet, you're NOT cool. No I'm just kidding, just reading this post will make you cooler.

Ganzeer, is an experimental designs unit located in Umm el Donya, Masr (Egypt). The Unit consists of both Mohammed A. Fahmy and Mohammed El Moatasem. A duo that to me, in few years time will have a huge impact on the future of graphic design and art productions in the Arab World - that is if they haven't already.

a mock-up vintage cassette sleeve, following the theme
of "Gypo is Edible" - done by Haitham Abu Samra

With such a wide portfolio, working on brandings, logos, art directing and implementing creative ads and much more they're now at their 7th issue (8th to come out November 1st) of their free monthly PDF magazine, Shakloh.

The magazine carries a theme every issue, so far themes featured were; "Patience is a virtue", "Arabic looks cool too", "Revolution", "Soul", "Perfect yet flawed" and the latest "Gypo is Edible". All of the artworks featured are created by Arab artists, and they'd either be straight to the point carrying the theme with it's name there or slightly portraying it.

left: the older the shoes, the cooler it is according to Mohammed
right: Hala El Sharouny's contribution to the magazine

To get a thorough look into the magazine, visit Ganzeer's website and open the PDF files. Otherwise, read a better article about it here on Khtt. Oh you don't know Khtt yet? pst you're so uncool. Well, if you read this post you're kinda cool - but still, you should know Khtt!

Omar w Salma review

I really wanted to see that movie, and just because I like the actress Mai Ezzedine. But unfortunately I wasn’t disappointed to this extent ever since “Little Man”. And just to be cautious, if you really like Mai...do NOT go watch the movie because you’ll leave the theatre hating her guts. This is not as much of a professional review as much as it's a rant on my frustration of this movie...

The movie is hugely based on cheap laughs, because it’s known that if you give whatever sorts of sexual hints (and believe me, they weren’t hinted at all – just total bluntness) you’ll get your nice little audience to laugh. The times where actors still act macho and personify themselves as sex gods are way, way over. It seems that Mr. Hosni (who happened to write the story for the movie) thought it should always be his way in if he pulls an Ahmad Al Sa’a stunt on us. Unfortunately, he didn’t realise the fact that it didn’t work for his colleague so why would it work for him? Please button your shirt up and spare us your college kid jokes.

What you’ll greatly notice, this is if you actually give a damn to look into the movie from a different perspective that, the movie is massively packed with disgusting women objectification. It didn’t surprise me, yet I was surprised on how to this age people still accept it in full. Most women recruited on the movie either got their buttocks stared at and filling the movie screen, got their breasts “highlighted” or been a victim of Hosni’s random pseudo-pinch of flirtation.

Some people might ask why it is a big deal, and it’s ‘just a movie’. But seriously, the Arabic media is sure giving women their space at this age and time yet 80% of such representations are either for sexual fantasies or to portray a perfectly good housewife who gets roses when she cooks a good soup. And such movies do plant some sort of twisted perspectives. What do you expect young men to think after seeing hot chicks getting slapped, beaten up, been stared at with wetting or biting lips? “Let’s go do the same and we’ll be as-cool!”

And come to think about it, do you really want to see a movie about a rich kid who always gets what he needs, been raised by his pimp father, have problems with having a garment on, a girl he loved who gets to fame, ditches him, gives autographs, turns out she’s being ‘abused’ by her director, another new victim of his who wears boots in mid day summertime, falls in love with the rich brat because of his perfume, gets slapped and simply jumps back into the car, get married and yay happily ever after in the end?

Rating: 0.5/10

What a waste of my 6 JD’s! I could’ve bought almost 6 packs of Orange juice and at least get some sort of vitamin C instead of this useless crap.