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November 2023: A Smaller World

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November 2023: A Smaller World

And my short, Words of the South

Farrah Berrou
Nov 20, 2023
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November 2023: A Smaller World

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Untitled by Mustafa Al Hallaj, 1977

Over the course of the last +44 days of massacres and callous words, my world has felt smaller. The same world I was curious about, that I thought cared about me and others like me. That world has shrunk. The rooms we can feel welcomed and safe in may not be found within every arbitrary yet increasingly visible border.

“I keep going back to that phone call, to a voice on the phone, hailing from the far and distant land of humanity, where I am a guest until proven otherwise.” - Karim Kattan in At the Threshold of Humanity ← read this!

In the midst of this hallway of closed doors, I was searching for something to disrupt the stream of rage. I wanted to find something that challenged the imaginings of an undeserved, limited existence and I found Edward Said’s commencement speech of AUB’s class of 2000. In it, Said proposes another way to approach the world as Arabs with American education, an alternative reaction from the subjugation/rejection binary.

Excerpt from Edward Said’s AUB Commencement Speech, 2000

You don’t need to be an AUB grad to be part of the audience he’s addressing. Take a moment to read the whole thing. It gave me a needed boost to keep going, to keep fighting for a whole world for us all.


THE LAST MONTH OF AANAB NEWS

  • October 2023: From Grapes to Olives

  • +10 Links on Palestine

  • Food, Wine, and Palestine


The Crown S6 Part 1 was so wrong, especially when it comes to the Al Fayeds’ storylines. I need to discuss this with someone.

AT LEAST 10 LITTLE LINKS

  • The Story of Palestine’s Colonization, and Resistance, Is Embodied in the Trees by Taya Amit

  • Scroll down to the interview with Reem Assil in The Restaurant Industry Professionals Organizing for a Cease-fire in Gaza by Jaya Saxena. Interview with illustrator & writer Aya Ghanameh in #14: 'We talk about Palestine as an abstract idea, not about Palestinian people' by

    Parisa Hashempour
    and an interview with comedian, Mo Amer, in the LA Times. A somewhat related interview with Soha Bechara for Al Hayya Magazine.

  • Also in Al Hayya, Vee Badaan deconstructs the Israeli army’s vegan boots.

“Today, we should be aware of how the trope of “womenandchildren” is circulating in relation to Gaza and to Palestine more broadly. This trope accomplishes many discursive feats, two of which are most prominent: The massifying of women and children into an undistinguishable group brought together by the “sameness” of gender and sex, and the reproduction of the male Palestinian body (and the male Arab body more generally) as always already dangerous.” - from 2014’s Can Palestinian Men be Victims? Gendering Israel's War on Gaza by Maya Mikdashi

  • This amazing interactive map from Beirut Urban Lab of Israeli escalation on the Lebanese Southern border. Here’s an infographic of strikes on either side of the border from Oct 7 till Nov 9.

  • Sarah E. Parkinson writes The Ghosts of Lebanon: To See What Lies Ahead in Gaza, Look Back to Israel’s 1982 Invasion and Huda al-Marashi asks, Israel-Palestine war: Did we learn nothing from Iraq?

“What we are not allowed to say, as Palestinians speaking to the Western media, is that all life is equally valuable.” - Saree Makdisi’s No Human Being Can Exist from October 25, 2023

  • And if you haven’t yet, read Hating It Lush by Kaleem Hawa


AT LEAST 5 LITTLE JOYS IN DARK TIMES

My family is from Venezuela 💃 | Post Malone’s Something Real (listen to it with headphones) and my feelings exactly | Wild Geese by Mary Oliver | A printable Gratitude Zine by Austin Kleon | The tomb of Queen Meret-Neith


PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS


COMING UP NEXT

My editorial calendar for the last three months of 2023 has been scrapped as Palestine and Lebanon teeter on the edge. The extra Whole Bunch dispatch and The Wine Down are on hold until further notice. The B for Bacchus Shop has been shut down. Maybe I’ll be back to publishing weekly in January but for now, I will do my best to stick to twice a month and, as always, FREE PALESTINE.

Aanab News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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November 2023: A Smaller World

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November 2023: A Smaller World

aanab.news
Lara Guest
Writes The Curious Ones
Nov 20

At the risk of sounding shallow after reading your very thoughtful newsletter.... I would love a post with your thoughts on the al Fayed storyline in The Crown. ;)

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