We at Liverpool Arab Arts Festival stand firm in solidarity with those protesting against racism, anti-blackness, white supremacy, and state violence against George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rodney King and all those who have been attacked and murdered before and since. Alongside calling for justice abroad, we must do everything within our power to ensure racial justice and equality within our own communities and workplaces as well.

Our remit is to bring the best of traditional and contemporary Arab arts and culture to diverse audiences here in the UK and internationally. We are proud to collaborate with an incredibly diverse range of artists through our work, which includes black artists who are from or have heritage in the Middle East and North Africa*, who face discrimination at home and abroad. We are asking how we can build upon the work we do to actively fight racism and anti-blackness in the UK, the Arab world, and anywhere our work reaches. We have set up a team within our board whose active role is to ensure our festival is continually thinking about and acting on these questions, not just now but into the future.

*With knowledge that there are numerous ethnic and racial groups in the region, and that there is a lot of complexity around how people describe themselves

Below is a list of articles that we have found interesting both in articulating our own experiences as well as helping us learn and further our understanding:

Anti-Blackness In The Arab World And The Violence That Doesn’t Get A Hashtag

https://scenearabia.com/Life/Arab-Anti-Blackness-Racism-and-the-Violence-that-Doesn-t-Get-A-Hashtag?fbclid=IwAR0ji81ZhOpZlGTI_XfCWrBotTnKrOGU-Cw0g1pqgMGEAnYoq8EFfgihxNI

Putting Afro-Arabs On The Map: The British-Sudanese Artist Reimagining London As An Afrabian Enclave

https://scenearabia.com/Culture/Afro-Arabs-British-Sudanese-Artist-Third-Space-London-Church-Street-Edgware-Road-Magic-Realism

Palestinian Actress Maryam Abu Khaled Slams Arab Racism In Viral Video

https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2020/6/8/palestinian-actress-slams-arab-racism-in-viral-video

Black Iraqis Say George Floyd’s Death Sheds Light On Their Own Centuries-Long Plight

https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/black-iraqis-say-george-floyd-s-death-sheds-light-on-their-own-centuries-long-plight-1.1035137?fbclid=IwAR3yELOdtXjjG93HO-5gQDDYAjHTPCsxeTDPB-Fezow11pisewxE6d4wJr4

Bookmark This: Are Acronyms Like Bame A Nonsense?

https://gal-dem.com/bookmark-this-are-acronyms-like-bame-a-nonsense/

Black Arab women tackle racist beauty ideals and stereotypes: 

https://www.reuters.com/article/mideast-race-women-idUSL8N2DY0B6

Too Black to Be Arab, Too Arab to Be Black: 

https://mediadiversified.org/2016/01/16/too-black-to-be-arab/

Black Lives Matter in the Arab world too

https://www.equaltimes.org/black-lives-matter-in-the-arab?lang=en#.X9oCOS2l10s

How to be an alley

Francesca Leigh, 5 Tips for Being an Ally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dg86g-QlM0

Evelyn from the Internets, How To Be an Ally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjhQTQ-EOyI

The Book of Ramallah
6pm (UK), | 8pm (Palestine) Thursday 25 February 2021
Watch via LAAF Facebook Page / Comma Press Facebook Page

Join Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Comma Press for a journey to Ramallah, as we reflect on the latest title in Comma’s series on ‘Reading the City’.

Edited by Beirut-born, Palestinian novelist, Maya Abu Al-Hayat, who lives in Jerusalem and works in Ramallah, this anthology explores the city in all its countless contradictions. The Book of Ramallah features stories from ten established and emerging Palestinian writers, including Anas Abu Rahma, Liana Badr, Khaled Hourani and Ahmad Jaber.

Ramallah is the cultural, commercial and governmental hub of the West Bank and the stories explore its defiance in resistance against the occupying forces, alongside its frustration and division by its secrets and conservatism. Characters fall in love, have affairs, poke fun at the heavy military presence, but also see their aspirations cut short, their lives eaten into, their morale beaten down by the daily humiliations of the conflict. Through humour, and precious moments of intimacy, however, we glimpse life inside this city of refuge; an image of hope abiding even under the eye of a merciless occupation.

The conversation event will discuss the book and the city, with readings from writers Ameer Hamad and Ibrahim Nasrallah, alongside editor Maya Abu Al-Hayat.

Author Biographies

Ibrahim Nasrallah was born in 1954 to Palestinian parents who were evicted from their land in Palestine in 1948. He spent his childhood and youth in a refugee camp in Jordan, and began his career as a teacher in Saudi Arabia. After returning to Amman, he worked in the media and cultural sector until 2006. To date, he has published 15 poetry collections, 21 novels, and several other books. In 1985, he started writing the Palestinian Comedy covering 250 years of modern Palestinian history in a series of independent novels. His works have been translated into English, Italian, Danish, Turkish, and Persian. Three of his novels have been shortlisted or longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) – sometimes referred to as the ‘Arab Booker’ – and in 2018 his novel The Second Dog War won it. In 2012 he won the inaugural Jerusalem Award for Culture and Creativity, and his novel Prairies of Fever was chosen by The Guardian one of the ten most important novels written about the Arab world.

Maya Abu Al-Hayat is a Beirut-born Palestinian novelist and poet living in Jerusalem. She has published two poetry books, numerous children’s stories and three novels, including her latest No One Knows His Blood Type (Dar Al-Adab, 2013). She is the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop, an institution that seeks to encourage reading in Palestinian communities through creative writing projects and storytelling with children and teachers. She contributed to, and wrote a forward for A Bird is Not a Stone: An Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Poetry.

Ameer Hamad is a poet, short story writer and translator, who has published his work in numerous magazines and websites, including Beirut Literature Magazine and the New Arab website. He was born in Jerusalem in 1992, graduated from Birzeit University, with a major in Computer Science and is currently working on his first collection of short stories.

www.arabartsfestival.com 

www.commapress.co.uk 

Buy the Book of Ramallah: https://commapress.co.uk/books/the-book-of-ramallah/

This event will be streamed on Liverpool Arab Arts Festival Facebook Page

You can also watch on Comma Press Facebook Page 

A social activist and survivor of female genital mutiliation (FGM) will join speakers from Savera UK and Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) for an event ahead of UN’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.

On Thursday 4th February, global gender-based violence activist, Ifrah Ahmed, will join director, Mary McGuckian, Savera UK founder and CEO, Afrah Qassim and LAAF’s volunteer festival programmer, Professor Anahid Kassabian, for a panel discussion based around the Pembridge Pictures film, A Girl From Mogadishu, which was based on Ifrah’s recorded testimony and directed, produced and written by Mary McGuckian.

The ticketed panel event, which will discuss Ifrah’s story and the issues it raises around FGM and gender-based violence, will be chaired by Savera UK Patron and former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England, Nazir Azfal OBE.

Winner of the Cinema for Peace Women’s Empowerment Award at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, A Girl From Mogadishu is a powerful and inspiring film is based on the true story of global gender based violence activist, Ifrah Ahmed, who will join Mary McGuckian, Savera UK’s Afrah Qassim and LAAF’s Professor Anahid Kassabian for the event.

Fleeing war-torn Somalia in 2006 for the United States, Ifrah is trafficked to Dublin, Ireland where she applies for asylum. A traumatic medical examination reveals the extent of her mutilation as a child.

Traumatised by the memory, she channels the experience into a force for change and emerges as a formidable campaigner against female genital mutilation at the highest political echelons in Ireland, Europe and globally.

Starring Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away with Murder) as Ifrah Ahmed and Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) along with Orla Brady (Picard, Rose Plays Julie) and Somali icon, Maryam Mursal the film boasts an original score by Nitin Sawhney and its title track also features Quiet by Milck, the unofficial anthem of the 2017 USA Women’s March.

A screening link to the film will be provided to all registrants ahead of the event – Talking FGM: An afternoon with Ifrah Ahmed the “Girl from Mogadishu” – which will also act as a fundraiser for Savera UK, with fifty percent of all proceeds f rom ticket sales being donated to the charity, which supports survivors and those at risk of harmful practices like FGM, forced marriage and ‘honour’-based abuse.

Speaking ahead of the event, Afrah Qassim said: “A Girl From Mogadishu is a powerful telling of Ifrah’s incredible story. It addresses so many issues faced by those at risk of FGM and other harmful practices, here in the UK and across the globe, while also highlighting the power of speaking out against these practices.”

Professor Anahid Kassabian, from LAAF, added: “Film has the power, almost more than any art form, to help communicate what people are experiencing and the challenges they face in a way that inspires empathy and understanding. This is how we build change. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact this film has, and the conversation that comes from it.”

To buy tickets to the event click here

Listing information

Event: Talking FGM: An afternoon with Ifrah Ahmed the “Girl from Mogadishu”
Description: Online panel event discussing the Pembridge Pictures film A Girl From Mogadishu and wider issues around FGM and gender-based violence. A screening link will be provided to all registrants ahead of the event.
Date: Thursday 4th February, 2021
Time: 2:30pm – 4pm
Location: Online, registration essential
Tickets: £10 (£5 from each ticket sale will be donated to Savera UK)
Booking Link here

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Click here to complete Liverpool Arab Arts Festival survey

Monologue Writing from Lived Experience

Delivered by Laura Hanna and Isley Lynn with Jess Edwards

For Long Acre Arts, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Traverse Theatre

Saturday 12^th December 2020, 11:00 to 19:00

Hosted on Zoom

Free to attend

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/monologue-writing-from-lived-experience-tickets-129347213999

Intended for all curious writers developing their craft in writing theatrical monologues, writer Isley Lynn and actor/writer Laura Hanna share their experience through the development of their current project, REVOLUTIONS.

Isley and Laura are old friends and collaborators, and Isley was inspired by Laura’s stories about her training in pole dance and how that intersected with her Egyptian heritage. The result, many conversations and many years later, is REVOLUTIONS, a play we hope to premiere in 2021. Fictional, but rooted in Laura’s lived experience, the monologue weaves together spoken text, movement, and pole to tell the story of Angele – a mixed heritage Egyptian-British woman who starts to learn pole for her own pleasure.

Hosted on Zoom, the day is structured around three topics. Come to as many as you like, and feel free to dip in and out throughout the day. There will be space in between each session for unstructured, private writing time.

In Session One (11:00 – 12:30) we’ll introduce our ways of working, and do some warm up exercises. We’ll encourage you to work from personal material, but don’t feel limited by that – feel free to weave your experience with your imagination.

In Session Two (14:00 – 15:30) we’ll explore writing exercises to help create distance between you and your subject matter, so it can be told like any other story.

In Session Three (17:00 – 19:00) we’ll be inviting you to share the work you’ve made over the course of the day on a voluntary basis. We’ll also hold a Q&A, hosted by REVOLUTIONS director Jess Edwards.

Now, more than ever, untold stories are important and necessary. It can be both therapeutic and political to tell your own story. Through sharing our craft and our approach to dramatising stories, we hope to enhance your abilities to write and stage your work. We hope to inspire you and we  look forward to being inspired through your collaboration.