The competition strives to present the extraordinary narrative of a dispossessed people through a diverse range of expressions that interpret the collective identity, historic struggle, and emotional experience of the Nakba for Palestinians.

Sponsored by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, this online gallery showcases the wining entries from the competition in addition to a wonderful range of selections in the form of visual arts, poetry, essays, music, video and digital media.

Check it out!

And check out the following, too:

I want to be able to travel through out Palestine without having to flash my passport at every checkpoint as I wait hours and hours to get from one city to another.

I want to see children finishing a full academic year free of school closures due to israeli occupation.

I want to see university students graduate on time without having to worry about making up the missed academic years spent in israeli jails.

I want to be able to travel to any part of the so great Arab world without having to go through a long complicated process just because my Passport reads “West Bank” under place of birth.

Palestinians everywhere seem to have common dreams and wishes for themselves and their Palestine, and so here is my version of the same and very similar dreams and wishes anonymous once shared here …

I wish that all our children can have a better childhood and future than ours.
I wish to fly around and know exactly the meaning of being free.
I wish to be able to roam in my own country with no fear or peril and be the one to choose where to go, and not the checkpoints.

I wish to be able to go with to the Mediterranean Sea with friends.
I wish to be able to reach Akka whenever I want
I wish to taste the oranges of Jaffa, and the grapes of Hebron. To watch the sunset over the beaches of Haifa, to see the sunrise over the mountains of Safad .
I wish to taste the fish of Gaza, live the nature of Toolkarm, and walk the old streets of Jerusalem.

To walk the serene streets of Bethlehem

I wish to see children playing hopscotch and marbles rather than israelis and Palestinians.
I wish to see one marrying another for pure love and not because they both have the same identity card.
I wish to see a smile on an old man’s face.
To see smiles replacing frowns.
To see tears dry up, wounds clot and sorrows fade.

I wish to see people in camps, places sweltering with the sun of injustice but cold of tragedy, flourish again.
That all prisoners living under the darkness of torture will be able to see sunlight again and return to their homes, so the pale faces of their mothers would shine again!
The dream to see complete sunrise not blocked by the wall.
To see the wall, a gray gloomy monster filled with hatred and injustice, falling and disappearing like a sandcastle washed away into the undertow.

I wish that Eilat will be Um Rashrash, Tel Aviv will be Tal El Rabi and Shkeim will be Nablus again.
I wish to see all refugees able to put their keys in their locks and get back to their homes.
I wish to see unity, peace, and prosperity in Palestine. To feel that our country does exist.
I wish for and dream of a free Palestine.

“From the silence, let the whispers grow until with one voice we can all find a way to go forward in peace and once again hear the laughter of children ring out in that most ancient land of Palestine…”

Where the sun will rise and continue to shine.

Hi! Would u take on prostitution if it guarantees a free palestine and exclusive return of all refugees?

Minutes later, my phone began to vibrate.

Response 1: No because it wud never happen. I know this is not an answer but that’s not even a valid question

Response 2: No cuz my parents care more about me than palestine, cuz i care about not hurting them more than the fate of others no matter how selfish that sounds. And cuz when i die, God will not take ‘for palestine’ as an excuse for selling myself and ignoring his conditions, right? You cant shut off human nature.

Revised Question sent in round 2 :

Hi! Just thinking about this … just pretend the result is guaranteed… Would u take on prostitution if it guarantees a free palestine and exclusive return of all refugees?

Response 1: I would sell my husband

Response 2: Does the end justify the means?

Response 3: No. God will not bless or free palestine if its women enter prostitution en mass!

Response 4: No Maam. What kind of barakah [blessing] would we have bel watan [in our homeland]

Response 5: Yes. Arent i such a ho. But at least a loyal one

Response 6: Inti Khateera [You are dangerous - fatal]

Response 7: I need time. It’s not easy.

Response 8: why think of something which is just not going to happen??!! Why waste your thoughts on that! and if it can really happen then when the time comes, we can think of it ….depends on the situation we are in reality

So, would you?!

At thirty-four, her live-in boyfriend ran off and cleaned out their joint bank account. She was left destitute. Despite lecturing and teaching at several universities, including Harvard, MIT and the London School of Economics, she saw no way out of her financial crisis until she read an ad for “escorts” in the Boston Phoenix.

This started a three-year dual career of teaching at universities in the daytime, while working as a $200/hour callgirl at night. Callgirl gives insight to a world usually distorted by caricature and stigma with honesty, humour and intelligence.(source)

Sounds very interesting…and what makes it so is that this person is not a random lost person. This is a highly educated person, with degrees from top universities (well. I guess this doesn’t really say much. I mean…George W. Bush went to Yale!)…is an educator. So what really drove her to take prostitution on as a second job while still keeping her daytime teaching job! I am looking forward to reading her confessions!
AND. Though this isn’t/wasn’t about prostitution, I still believe this (and similar) type of job could* be degrading to one’s dignity. But I will reserve my in-depth opinion of this book and prostitution till after I read it.

* (you know, because dignity means different things to different people and is measured differently)

P.S. I’ve always had a secret fetish for fishnet stockings!

This Week In Palestine, May 2008

Some of this month’s In the Limelight:

“Memorial to 418 Palestinian Villages which Were Destroyed, Depopulated and Occupied by Israel in 1948″

Refugee tent and embroidery thread, 8’ X 10’ X 12’, 2001

This piece is a document (or the remains) of a three-month community-based project. More than 140 people came through [Emily Jacir’s] studio to sew, memorialize each village and socialize; oftentimes there was live Arabic music. The people who made this Memorial were bankers, lawyers, filmmakers, dentists, consultants, playwrights, artists, activists, teachers, etc.
(via Picturesque Palestine and Emily Jacir)

(Read more)

What would you have written on this blackboard?

“Put two Steinways head to toe so that they form a square. Draw a circle with a piece of chalk.

The whole turns into a geometric figure, a ying yang only longing to sound. These two surrounded pianos, that’s Pop Art.

Two iron harps, and, sitting at the keyboards like symmetric figures on one playing card, Rami and Francesco, two runaway accomplices.

One is from the Levant, and the deep oriental singing. The other from some kind of North where the heaves curl up at the feet of steel bridges. They face each other. Almost.

One glance and … go! Double play of Pop Art. The union of the olive tree and the sprout, far away from solfege in an age of digital after-piano.

Here, it is all done in a flash on dual mechanic. It’s a system captured in a mirror. A shared reflection for an improvised Sonatine at the crossroads of the preludes. The piano overcame baroque music when architecture was inventing sounding modules and scattered perspectives. There’s something happening today under the song of these ruins. It has become a solitary machine at the center of the world. A self-repeating chromatic belt.

Diptych – multiples – ornamentation – response – 4-had match – loop…

Pop Art sounds and grooves, flows and brews.

The sequence profuses a flow of woody notes. The strings cringe under the fingernail like a scratch board or a boat adrift, pushed around by a lukewarm breeze. The two of them lead to the dance. One from the moon, the other from the sun. One in the clouds, the other on basalt.

One is a winged cat, the other a hidden fox. Heads or Tails, Pop Art or a kind of inventive atmospheric music, arpeggiating on the hills of the Eixample like a musical hide and seek.

A reverse shot filled with eighth-notes and catchy hitches. It is a dream machine of sound transporting us until its extinction under the vaults of profound grottos. The vault itself traces the volutes like an arabesque. A phylactery scrolls on the inner wall of the gypsum like a massive convulsive body.”

I like the crafted connection between the CD description and tracks’ names…

Beautiful melodies evoking mental, emotional and maybe even physical release … maybe I’ll explain more later, but for now get your copy here! and decide which yourself…

and be sure to explore more of Rami Khalife’s and Francesco Tristano’s work

]]> http://iman-a.com/2008/04/30/pop-art-2/feed/ http://iman-a.com/2008/04/29/poets-for-palestine/ http://iman-a.com/2008/04/29/poets-for-palestine/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:34:37 +0000 Iman Uncategorized Palestine Art & Culture Books & Journals What I Love http://iman-a.com/2008/04/29/poets-for-palestine/

“Poets For Palestine was published to unite a diverse range of poets, spoken word artists, and hip-hop artists who have used their words to elevate the consciousness of humanity. Sixty years after the dispossession of the Palestinian people, this anthology presents forty-eight poems alongside original works by Palestinian artists. All proceeds from the sale of this collection will go toward funding future cultural projects that highlight Arab artistry in the New York City area.”

Pre-order yours today!

Mother: Khadra Abu Mu’attaq, and children Ahmad Abu Mu’attaq, three-year-old Hana Abu Mu’attaq, four-year-old Salih Abu Mu’attaq, and six-year-old Rudayna Abu Mu’attaq. (source)

Rest in Peace - for our people back home, it seems the only place to possibly find it is 6 feet under!