Turning New Page in Arab-American Affairs

Is it Sunak or Truss who will be Britain’s Next Prime Minister?

Tehran Summit is Attempt to Activate Regional Cooperation Against Washington – Political Analyst

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1914- June- 22/07/2022

Rishi Sunak: The Frontrunner in The Race to Downing Street www.majalla.com

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Issue 1914- July- 22/07/2022

Turning New Page in Arab-American Affairs www.majalla.com

Editorial Biden’s visit to the Middle East last week marked the end of the short pause in the almost century-long relationship between the United States and Middle East allies. Dalia Ziada writes that the pause might have been “necessary for all involved parties to realize and ap-preciate the extent of their interdependence and compatibility.” Addressing the outcome of the visit, she argues that “to compensate for his eighteen months of absence, Biden has successfully sprung open more than one Pandora’s Box on his first Middle East tour to show that the United States is still the most influential partner to the region.”

The tripartite summit of Russia, Turkey, and Iran in Tehran last week discussed the Syrian is-sue, the Russian-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian grain exports and the economy. Jiwan Soz inter-views a political analyst to discuss the outcome of the summit focusing in its impact on the three countries’ role in the Syrian crisis. In addition to their common interests, the three countries have attempted to create a regional cooperation environment in the face of US pressures, especially those imposed by Washington on Russia and Iran.

The bombshell resignations of British cabinet ministers followed by the resignation of Boris Johnson have yielded to the highly competitive rounds to reach the final two contenders who would compete for the post of Tory’s leader and the country’s PM. Suzan Quitaz writes about the process that awaits the final two conservative candidates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, which is the choice of a tiny minority of the population.

In another article, Bryn Ha-worth writes about the dilemma of “Boris” as a populist who lost the support of his party but couldn’t escape his political demise merely with a small populist constituency. In his article, Haworth also refers to the Tories’ habit which resembles a snake that gets rid of its skin and emerges in new shape.

Read these articles and more on our website eng.majalla. com. As always, we welcome and value our readers’ feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your com-ments on our website.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

34 From Linguistic Debate to Cultural Confrontation

Issue 1914- July- 22/07/2022

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Social Media Weakening Democracies ?

22 Tory Blah-blah

50 Bedouin Jerrycan Band

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Hot-Summer Mercato for Arab Players in Europe 5

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The Surprising Ways Technology Can Increase Green Space in Cities

58 Healthy Feet, Happy Life

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Women’s Africa Cup of Nations Moroccans wave the national flag ahead of the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations semi-final football match between Morocco and Nigeria at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat on July 18, 2022. /AFP

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Heatwave in Britain People cool off in the water fountains by the Scoop during a heatwave, in London, Britain, July 18, 2022. /REUTERS

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Lebanese security forces, accompanied by an investigative judge, raided the country’s Central Bank on Tuesday in a divisive investigation against the bank’s embattled governor.

Judge Ghada Aoun had been investigating Gov. Riad Salameh, and in March charged him with illicit enrichment and money laundering. A handful of European countries, including Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein are also investigating Salameh for alleged money laundering and embezzlement.

Egyptian authorities on Wednesday resumed hot air ballooning over the ancient city of Luxor following a two-day hiatus after two tourists were lightly injured during a ride.

A hot air balloon with 28 tourists drifted off course Monday because of a change in the direction and speed of winds. The balloon was at an altitude of 60 meters (197 feet) when it veered off course.

Before landing in an open area, the balloon slightly collided with another one.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation said it decided to resume the rides after reviewing “all safety measures and steps taken” to operate the popular flights.

It said the two firms operating the balloons involved in Monday’s incident were still suspended until investigations completed.

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Russian Pre Crown Prin phone on T importance OPEC+ gro The conver President J Arabia - hig importance at a time w global ener "The curren was consid further coo OPEC+ was "It was note countries p consistentl to maintain in the glob

UDI ARABIA

esident Vladimir Putin and Saudi nce Mohammed bin Salman spoke by Thursday and underlined the e of further cooperation within the oup of oil producers, the Kremlin said. rsation took place six days after U.S. Joe Biden visited the prince in Saudi ghlighting the kingdom's e to both Washington and Moscow when Russia's war in Ukraine is roiling rgy markets. nt situation on the world oil market dered in detail. The importance of ordination within the framework of s emphasized," the Kremlin said. ed with satisfaction that the participating in this format are ly fulfilling their obligations in order n the necessary balance and stability bal energy market."

UAE France and the United Arab Emirates on Monday signed an agreement on energy cooperation to ensure oil and natural gas supplies from the Gulf country as Europe prepares for the possibility of a total gas cutoff from Russia in retaliation for sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

IRAQ Turkish artillery strikes killed at least eight tourists, among them a small child, in northern Iraq and wounded over 20, officials from the Iraqi Kurdish government, a hospital and the army said Wednesday.

At least four artillery shells struck the resort area of Barakh in the Zakho district in the semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region, District Mayor Mushir Mohammed told The Associated Press. All the casualties were Iraqi citizens.

Iraq’s military said eight were killed in the attack. Health workers at the Bidar Hospital in Dohuk province, which received patients, said nine were killed.

IRAN Russian President Vladimir Putin won staunch support from Iran on Tuesday for his country’s military campaign in Ukraine, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei saying the West opposes an “independent and strong” Russia.

Khamenei said that if Russia hadn’t sent troops into Ukraine, it would have faced an attack from NATO later, a statement that echoed Putin’s own rhetoric and reflected increasingly close ties between Moscow and Tehran as they both face crippling Western sanctions.

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A WEEK ACROS CANADA.

U.S. An unrelenting heat wave on Thursday was expected to scorch the U.S. East Coast and South for the third day as dangerously high temperatures had forecasters warning about dehydration and exposure.

Heat warnings and advisories were in effect from South Carolina up into parts of New England as heat index values were expected to reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit (41 C) in Washington D.C. and near 100 degrees in New York City on Thursday, National Weather Service (NWS) said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday blasted Hockey Canada over its handling of an alleged gang rape by eight players, saying it must do much more to regain the country's trust.

"There needs to be real reckoning with the kind of behavior that we saw from that organization and its willful blindness" to sexual misconduct, Trudeau told a news conference.

"Their behavior over these past years and indeed, over these past months, has been not worthy of an organization that embodies so many hopes and dreams for young Canadians," he said.

"Hockey Canada needs to do an awful lot as an organization to gain back the trust of Canadians."

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,

ITALY. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned on Thursday after his national unity government fell apart, setting the country on course for an early election and hitting financial markets.

Draghi, an unelected former central banker who has led a broad coalition for 18 months, tendered his resignation in a meeting with President Sergio Mattarella.

SS THE WORLD UKRAINE CHINA.

Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will sign a deal on Friday to resume Ukraine's Black Sea grain exports, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's office said.

Russia and Ukraine are both major global wheat suppliers, but Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of its neighbor has sent food prices soaring and stoked an international food crisis. The war has stalled Kyiv's exports, leaving dozens of ships stranded and some 20 million tons of grain stuck in silos at Odesa port.

SRI LANKA. A day after Sri Lanka’s president fled, Mohamed Ishad waited outside an immigration office near the capital, clutching a file of documents that he hopes will get his passport renewed so he can leave, too.

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China will take “resolute and strong measures” should the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi proceed with reported plans to visit Taiwan, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency, is due to visit the self-governing island China claims as its own territory in August, according to a report in the Financial Times.

She was originally scheduled to visit in April but had to postpone after she tested positive for COVID-19.

Pelosi would be the highest ranking American lawmaker to visit the close U.S. ally since her predecessor as speaker, Newt Gingrich, traveled there 25 years ago.

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Turning New Page in Arab-American Affairs

The US president’s visit to Saudi Arabia went beyond the normal agenda items

By Dalia Ziada

The short pause in the almost century-long relationship between the United States and Middle East allies was perhaps necessary for all involved parties to realize and appreciate the extent of their interdependence and compatibility. On his first visit as U.S. president to the Middle East in mid-July, Joseph Biden has exhibited wisdom and courage by clearly admitting that his initial policy “to pivot away from the Middle East had been a mistake.” By doing so, Biden did not only rebuild trust with regional leaders, but he also restored, in a heartbeat, the glorious image of the democratic America in hearts and minds of ordinary people in the region.

For the past six years, the absence of the traditional image of

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U.S. President Joe Biden boards a plane following an Arab summit, at King Abdulaziz International Airprot, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16, 2022.

REUTERS

America enabled the rise of the Russian and Chinese influence on the region, and killed the momentum of democratic change that over-swept the region a decade ago. President Biden’s re-commitment to the Middle East, with a fair understanding of the new reality of the region under the reshuffling world order, promises a better future for Middle East countries, as well as for the United States and Western allies.

In his remarks to the GCC+3 Summit in Jeddah, President Biden confirmed that the United States will continue to engage in Middle East affairs as the main partner. “As the world grows more competitive and the challenges we face more complex, it is only becoming clearer to me that – how closely interwoven America’s interests are with the successes of the Middle East,” Biden confirmed to the participants of the GCC+3 Summit. “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran. And we’ll seek to build on this moment with active, principled American leadership.”

Historically, the success of the United States foreign policy, as well as a great deal of its domestic policy, has mostly been dependent on positive engagement by Middle East allies, especially those with geo-political advantage, like Egypt and Israel, or those with economic supremacy, such as the Arab Gulf states. The energy crisis that has been overwhelming our world since the eruption of the Russia-Ukraine war in February is living proof to this. It is not a secret that securing energy resources was one of the main issues that compelled the return of the current American President to the region.

Last month, Egypt and Israel signed a historic agreement of trade, transport, and export of natural gas with the European Union.

In parallel, the angle of Middle East security, either on regional or domestic levels, has always been drawn by the compass of defense policies adopted by consecutive dwellers of the White House. In his meeting with Arab leaders in Jeddah, President Biden asserted that “For the first time since 9/11, an American President is visiting [the Middle East] without American troops being engaged in a combat mission in the region.” Yet, Biden reiterated U.S. continued commitment to fighting against the terrorist organizations that have been wreaking havoc all over the region for years.

“We maintain both the capacity and the absolute determination to suppress the terrorist threat wherever we find it … We’re going to continue our counterterrorism efforts working with a broad coalition of countries, including everyone around this table,” Biden reiterated to Arab leaders. This important statement was one of the early points that Biden successfully scored in his quest to revive the bond of trust with regional leaders. It explains the logic behind the American forces’ hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, only six months after Biden

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Historically, the success of the United States foreign policy, as well as a great deal of its domestic policy, has mostly been dependent on positive engagement by Middle East allies. assumed office, exposing Arab countries in the Gulf and the Levant regions to huge security threats.

Another important issue that motivated Biden’s visit to the region is rescuing the lost popularity of his administration and the Democratic party before the midterm elections for Congress in November. The curve of Biden’s approval ratings has been declining over the recent months, threatening a serious downfall of the Democratic party in the coming house and presidential elections. However, it seems that Biden and his team did not allow their worries about the party’s stance in the elections distract them from focusing on the main goal of the visit, which will serve the American nation for the long term, namely, winning Middle East leaders, and all the good they can offer, to his side, while re-establishing U.S. position as the most influential superpower in the world.

Contrary to the demands of the far leftists, who comprise the majority of Biden’s electoral constituency, Biden chose to do business with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, rather than marginalizing or penalizing them.

In an opinion article, published in the Washington Post, one week before he came to the Middle East, President Biden explained to his critics that it is not possible for the U.S. to progress with its international agenda, without positively engaging with the Middle East.

“As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure … To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes.

Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that’s based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.”

The far leftists, who went as far as describing Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia as a “betrayal to American values,” are even more angry after the completion of Biden’s visit. Their lobbying efforts against particular Arab leaders had gone to waste. President Biden laughed with the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, and called the Egyptian President, El-Sisi, a “valuable friend.” He

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also offered financial aid and strategic support to enhance the performance of the Egyptian state in handling the economic crisis and related regional conflicts.

A large portion of such lobbyists are ridiculously blinded by an idealist rhetoric that is too detached from the reality of the Middle East. Human rights and democratization are extremely important for the Arab people. That is why the Arab Spring revolutions erupted in the first place. Yet, the calls for weakening Arab states and penalizing Arab leaders are not going to serve the purpose of improving human rights conditions in the region at all. On the contrary, it may backfire in a way that hurts the U.S. and the west as much.

Contrary to the claims widely promoted in media by Biden’s critics, the new relationships that he has built with Arab leaders will enable him to work better with them on improving human rights conditions and taking

actual, rather than artificial, steps towards allowing democratization to progress in their countries. Biden is a democratic president, which makes questioning his unconditional commitment to human rights and democratization a silly joke.

In that regard, we should not ignore the fact that, over the past five years, the political Islamist groups operating from the U.S. have deeply infiltrated into the American far leftist groups, under the flag of human rights.

They include many of Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers, who resorted to the U.S. after their purge from Egypt and other Arab countries in 2013.

They are abusing the political power of the far left in America, to take revenge on certain Arab leaders, who

The good news is that President Biden and his team have finally decided to shake off this unprofitable approach towards the countries of the Middle East, and instead focus on re-engaging and recollaborating for the good of all.

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Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz receives U.S. President Joe Biden at Al Salman Palace upon his arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 15, 2022.

REUTERS

U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16, 2022. REUTERS

U.S. President Joe Biden, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and GCC+3 attend the Jeddah Security and Development Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16, 2022.

REUTERS

had been active on smashing the Muslim Brotherhood, in the past few years – particularly, the Egyptian, Saudi, and UAE leaders.

The good news is that President Biden and his team have finally decided to shake off this unprofitable approach towards the countries of the Middle East, and instead focus on re-engaging and re-collaborating for the good of all. “From the start, my aim was to reorient – but not rupture – relations with [Saudi Arabia] that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years,” wrote Biden in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. the Washington Post op-ed.

President Joe Biden give a The biggest achievement that Biden has accomplished statement, in Bethlehem, in the in the Middle East earlier this month was effectively Israeli-occupied West Bank laying a solid foundation for the ‘personal diplomacy’ July 15, 2022. REUTERS

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Over the past five years, the political Islamist groups operating from the U.S. have deeply infiltrated into the American far leftist groups, under the flag of human rights. dynamic that works perfectly with the mindset of the leaders of the region, especially the Arabs. The global energy and food crises, the threat of Iran on Arabs and Israel, and the U.S. rivalry with Russia and China, must have been unavoidable topics on the agenda of the GCC+3 Summit in Jeddah. However, it was clear that Biden’s main goal from the visit was to regain the trust of the regional leaders in his administration, and thus win them to his country’s side, so the West can benefit from what they can offer to solve the current world troubles, especially the soaring energy crisis. That was particularly clear in the friendly one-on-one conversations that Biden convened with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, and even the Palestinians. President Biden has successfully accomplished this goal. To compensate for his eighteen months of absence, Biden has successfully sprung open more than one Pandora’s Box on his first Middle East tour to show that the United States is still the most influential partner to the region

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Tehran Summit is Attempt to Activate Regional Cooperation Against Washington – Political Analyst Khorshid Dali: The three parties dodge a clash inside Syrian territory

By Jiwan Soz - Qamishli

In line with the three way summit, Russia’s energy giant Gazprom signed a new development deal worth $40 million Earlier this week, the Iranian capital Tehran hosted a tripartite with the Iranian state oil company. summit that brought together Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi After Putin’s meeting with Raisi, he said that relations between and his Russian and Turkish, counterparts Vladimir Putin and Iran and Russia are “developing at a good pace,” according to Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This was the first meeting between the Iranian media outlets. convening officials in nearly two years. The three presidents He added that “the two countries are bolstering ties in areas discussed the Syrian issue, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and such as international security, trade and resolving the Syrian Ukrainian grain exports among other issues, most notably the crisis,” according to Russian media.

Moscow and Ankara are two main parties in the Syrian war. economy.

Putin arrived in Tehran on his second foreign visit since the While Ankara supports the armed opposition, Moscow stands start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, where he by the Syrian government, as is the case with Tehran, which met his Iranian and Turkish counterparts last Tuesday. This has prevented the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. was followed by the signing of several economic agreements A political analyst said that “the tripartite summit in Tehran in the energy field between Russia and Iran, on the one hand, reflected the divergence of viewpoints among the three participating parties on the Syrian issue.” and Iran and Turkey, on the other hand.

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Syrian political analyst and researcher Khorshid Dali added that “the three parties expressed their desire to develop economic relations among them despite all the differences.”

Below is the full transcript of Majalla’s telephone interview with Dali: 1- What are the outcomes of the tripartite Tehran summit?

There are two topics to examine in light of the tripartite summit. The first lies in the three leaders’ affirmation of activating the Astana Peace Process on the Syrian crisis.

The second is related to the three parties’ great willingness to develop economic and trade relations among them. This has already been seen in the signing of several agreements in the field of energy between Russia and Iran, on the one hand, and Iran and Turkey, on the other hand, in addition to the extension of Ankara’s deal to purchase Iranian oil.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attend a summit of leaders from the guarantor states of the Astana process, designed to find a peace settlement in the Syrian conflict, in Tehran, Iran July 2022 ,19. President Website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/ Handout via REUTERS

After Putin’s meeting with Raisi, he said that relations between Iran and Russia are “developing at a good pace,” according to Iranian media outlets.

ian issue?

What prompts the three countries to adopt this mechanism is the extent of their common interests. In addition to that, their attempts to create a regional cooperation environment in the face of US pressures, especially those imposed by Washington on Russia and Iran and in light of the sanctions imposed on them, as well as the obstacles facing the 2- How will the agreement of the three parties to activate nuclear agreement. the Astana Process affect the Syrian issue?

So far, it has been clear that the three presidents agree on 4- In your opinion, how will this mechanism be? the need to reassess the Astana Process in light of the new The Syrian matter was certainly the most prominent, espeinternational developments, such as the Ukrainian crisis, the cially since the summit’s title was related to the issue of energy issue, grain export, and the military operation that activating the Astana Process regarding the Syrian crisis.

Turkey seeks to launch in northern Syria. The Syrian probHowever, it was also clear that the agreement of the three lem is thorny, and there is a great difference in the positions parties to activate this Process came in an attempt to push of Turkey and Iran, on one hand, and Iran and Russia, on the the Russian vision for the development of the Syrian crisis, other hand. For example, Moscow and Tehran clearly reject which would apply pressure on the US presence in the eastany new Turkish military operation in northern Syria, but ern Euphrates region.

Ankara sticks to it under the pretext of combating terrorism.

At the same time, the differences in the postures of the three Therefore, despite the three parties’ agreement to advance parties regarding the Syrian issue stem from the keenness the Astana Process, there is still a divergence in stances, of these countries to ensure the balance of power on Syrian which indicates that the three countries tried, through the territory. This matter might be reflected in the imposition Tehran summit, to find a new mechanism for addressing the of a truce that may block the way for the Turkish military crisis, for fear of a clash among them. operation and pave the way for more internal dialogues among the Syrian parties without reaching comprehensive 3- What is the reason behind such a mechanism among the solutions. three parties despite the continuous differences in the Syr5- Who are the parties that will negotiate internally?

Considering the statements issued during the tripartite summit in Tehran, we may witness a great rapprochement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government in the coming period, especially with the recent military understandings between the two sides that have Russia’s blessing.

Syrian political analyst and researcher Khorshid Dali

Talking about an Iranian initiative for dialogue between Damascus and Ankara will stimulate more communications between the SDF and the Syrian government, but all this will not put an end to Turkish threats to invade northern Syria.

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Is it Sunak or Truss who will be Britain’s Next Prime Minister?

%0.3 of the British Public Will Now Get the Final Say

By Suzan Quitaz On 7 July, 2022, Boris Johnson announced he would resign as Conservative Party Leader. The announcement of his resignation followed a string of ministerial resignations and concern over his handling of sexual misconduct allegations

A YouGov poll showed that both Truss and Mordaunt would beat Sunak in the party members’ contest, this despite Sunak consistently performed better and have the backing of most Conservative lawmakers.

against for Deputy Chief Whip, Chris Pincher.

On 12 July, the nominations closed and eight hopeful candidates made the first round. In total there were 5 rounds, in each round a candidate with the fewest votes was to be eliminated. Once whittled down, the candidate list heads to a final runoff between two contenders.

The fifth and final round of voting by Conservative Party MPs took place on 20 of July and the Junior Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt was eliminated. The two candidates who managed to survive the heated up race to replace Johnson is the former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

Throughout all the five rounds of voting, MPs showed a strong backing to Sunak. In the final round Sunak once again was leading and took 137 votes while Truss took 113. Yet polls are suggesting that Truss is more likely to be the next prime minister and that begs to the question, why is it so?

Well, the decision of who will replace Boris Johnson is neither with Conservative MPs nor the British public, but rather it lies with a tiny group who make up about 0.3 per

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This combo of file photos shows the remaining candidates in the Conservative Party leadership race, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. The two candidates to become Britain›s next prime minister have begun a head-to-head battle for the votes of Conservative Party members who will choose the country›s new leader. Former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak is promising fiscal prudence.

(AP Photo, File)

cent of the population – they are the Conservative Party members and they are the ones who will get the final say of who will winner the leadership contest. %0.3 - this tiny minority will choose who led Great Britain The Conservatives are the only major UK party to not routinely release membership figures. According to House of Commons Library research, about 160,000 Tory members were eligible to vote in the 2019 leadership election. The party has gained more members since and observers are putting the number of eligible voters between 160,000 to 180,000.

They will have until September 2 to vote on which one they want to see as the Tory Leader and Britain’s new Prime Minister.

The winner of the membership ballot will be announced on Monday 5 September at 12:30.

Professor Tim Bale, head of Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University Party Members projects, says; “The people who get the choose our next Prime Minister are far from being representative of voters as a whole (…) They are not as diverse ethnically; they are heavily concentrated in the South of England; there are significantly more men than women”.

Professor Bale is correct when he said “they are not as diverse ethnically”, in fact they tend to be older, wealthier and ‘whiter’ than the rest of the British electorate as a whole.

On 19 July, a YouGov poll showed that both Truss and Mordaunt would beat Sunak in the party members’ contest, this despite Sunak consistently performed better and have the backing of most Conservative lawmakers. The results highlight a key issue of disconnection between Conservative lawmakers and their party members: Sample Size: 725 Conservative Party members Fieldwork: 19th July 2022

Imagine that the following were the final two candidates to replace Boris Johnson as leader. Who would you most like to see as the next Leader of the Conservative Party?

Imagine that the following were the final two candidates to replace Boris Johnson as leader. Who would you most like to see as the next Leader of the Conservative Party?

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Throughout all the five rounds of voting, MPs showed a strong backing to Sunak. In the final round Sunak once again was leading and took 137 votes while Truss took 113.

(Source 2022 YouGov plc.)

«In short, what political scientists call ‹the selectorate› looks pretty different to the electorate», says Professor Bale.

According to Professor Bale’s research team – Tory Party membership is a primarily white, and more than half are above the age of 57 and more than %70 are male. And they live predominantly in the South of England.

Most members of political parties in the UK are prominently middle-class, however, according to Prof Bale’s the Tory are the most middle-class party, with more than %40 earn more than the national average.

In the past decade, the Conservative party has led the way in terms of minority representation at the highest levels of the U.K political echelon: with Sajid Javid who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from June 2021 to July 2022, having previously held posts as a Home Secretary and Chancellor of Exchequer; Priti Patel as a Home Secretary since 2019 and Nadhim Zahawi was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 5 July 2002, having previously worked as Secretary of State for Education.

Minority representation was even fairly distributed in the race to replace Johnson. Among the final four candidates for the top job, two were from racial minority backgrounds, Sunak who is of South Asian heritage and the former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, is black. The other two, Truss and Mordaunt are white women.

There are those who would argue that Britain is not ready to have its first ‘ethnic minority’ PM. But that is far from the truth, the Conservative party twice elected Benjamin Disraeli to serve as Prime Minister in the late 19th century and he was Jewish.

Conservative lawmakers chose their two best candidates to replace Boris Johnson, now it’s up to the Conservative members to decide who they think is the most suitable to lead their party and the country. Or are we going to see a new Prime Minister who lacks the backing of most of his MPs?

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Tory Blah-blah

Boozy Boris Imbibes from Bottle Marked ‘Drink Me’ Bryn Haworth I have written far too much about Boris Johnson already, I know.

Everyone has. The country has been through a tumultuous dalliance with him over the past few years and still can’t stop talking about it.

Whether they voted for him or not, people feel the way some of his disappointed wives must have felt. As his ministers began to resign en masse, the Leader of her Majesty’s Opposition asked if this was the first case of a ship leaving the rat. In truth, it was a love rat his ministers were leaving.

There are many ways in which Johnson stood out from other prime ministers, starting with his hair – the style was in flagrante delicto – but also the odd way he combined a posh accent with the air of some random bloke. These traits, either involuntary or carefully honed, persuaded people he was one of them. Why, one wonders, since they so rarely spoke the same way, or left a trail of abandoned offspring? They surely weren’t taken in by the cos-play for which he became notorious, the endless hi-vis jackets and hard hats, the nob impersonating the workers, like Henry V in disguise mingling with his soldiers, or some malign George Orwell (also educated at Eton) down and out in Gateshead. Was that the posh boy’s guilty conscience showing, or an answer to the charge that he never did a hard day’s work in all his puff?

Doubtful. In any case, no one was convinced: the way he turned up after a flood and handled a mop, languidly, as if he was stirring a vodka martini; the distracted way he laid a brick; the absent-minded way he peered through a microscope in a lab coat; the way he gave being a prime minister a go. These were all of a piece: pure Boris.

When the plague was on, our local market experienced a rare hiatus in its five-hundred-year history. One Saturday, though, I remember finding the local market stalls back up. The first lockdown was creeping to a close, apparently. I asked the woman running the grocery stall if she thought they would be back again the following week. “That all depends on whether Boris will let us!” she announced, breezily. The giveaway first name, as if she’d spoken to him that morning.

It seemed like ages before people unlearnt the habit of referring to Boris as ‘Boris’. Even the Guardian’s sketch writer, who clearly despised the man, persisted in calling him that, to the huge chagrin

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of the Guardian readers who left comments beneath the line. For the voters, Boris was one of those rare celebrities graced with a forename.

Cameron had started it, responding to questions about the blond beast with a shrug and ‘that’s just Boris’, as if there were different laws in a parallel universe set aside for the ‘greased piglet’ (the other name Cameron gave him) to inhabit. Cameron’s comments were rueful; the public had never called him ‘Dave,’ however needily he’d invited them 22/07/22

There are many ways in which Johnson stood out from other prime ministers, starting with his hair – the style was in flagrante delicto – but also the odd way he combined a posh accent with the air of some random bloke.

Bestriding it like a colossus

to. But for Boris it was different, people seemed to forget the man had a surname, just as they did with Madonna or Beyoncé. Maggie, there was another one.

Among the Tories the condition was even more serious, especially after the famous victory of 2019. For them, he was something akin to a cult.

You only have to look at the Daily Mail’s depiction of him as Gulliver, the great man fettered in his sleep and pinned down by the Lilliputians, like Aslan in Narnia, like the blond Christ of the nineteenth century illustrations, his innocence cruelly punished by swarthy types with dark hair, or men with combs, or just vindictive hairdressers.

Ah yes, the much-maligned Daily Mail, the paper run by a man in desperate need of a peerage, the same paper accused to this day of wanting to appease Hitler (The Daily Heil is its nickname among the lefties) and shouting hurrah as the fascist black shirts rampaged through the East End. For the Daily Mail, Boris was a sacrificial lambkin, a harmless Just Boris who had brought his charisma to save the Tory party and all it stood for, only to be stabbed in the back, turned upon by his ministers, his erstwhile lackeys, the midgets. I hate to intrude on private grief, but didn’t Gulliver piss on the palace later in the story, in order to put out a fire? That would definitely have been the excuse of a prime minister who dared lie to the Queen.

The fact is, Boris/Gulliver would let no minor setbacks, like being forced out of office, ruffle him. Look at his insouciant ‘resignation’ speech at the lectern. Stiff upper lip, what! Never apologise, never explain. If Boris is vaguely familiar with Gulliver’s story, he knows the best is yet to come. Reduced from towering colossus in Lilliput to the twelve-inch pianist of the old joke in Brobdingnag, he will find everyone’s gigantic there, including the doting Maids of Honour, who will treat him like their doll. Thus, Boris will be cut down to size. His political life will be at an end, but he will promptly go to philanderer’s heaven.

In the British press, the Express is best known for perpetuating the myth of Princess Diana long after her martyrdom at the hands of the paps. It looks likely that the Daily Mail will be perpetuating the myth

of Boris, at least as long as it takes for Paul Dacre to be ennobled; that is to say, until Boris announces his resignation honours list. But sniping aside, the way things are going, the prime minister’s sacred memory may well outlast that of the people’s princess, and his was only the death of a political career. If he ever literally pays his debt to nature – and you can see immediately what an unlikely event that would be – Boris will become a god.

For the rest of us, it was definitely time to put all the idolatry behind us, even the Tories knew that. Fitting in a way that one of the first to strike a blow was the very man to have done it previously, a man skilled, therefore, in administering the coup de grace. Step forward Michael Gove. While the other ministers resigned in their droves, Gove was the only one to get sacked for whispering in the general’s ear that he was only mortal, that the game was up, then letting it be known what he’d whispered. Downing Street rather cutely made it known in their turn that Gove was a ‘snake’. Take a moment to absorb the rich irony of that appellation. It’s odd really, as I’d always had him down for something far less salubrious than a snake, but perhaps we can put it down to Johnson’s lingering affection for his old comrade.

It was Nye Bevan (long before Angela Rayner) who referred to the Tories as ‘lower than vermin,’ but I think one should reserve that term for people like Gove, who stand out even among their fellow Conservatives as exceptionally verminous. The snake is a more fitting symbol for the party as a whole, not least as it symbolises eternity, and what we have just witnessed is the survival trick that the snake pulls off after yet another self-inflicted crisis. It sloughs its old skin. Over the past twelve years of the Tory hegemony, they’ve done this three times. Credit where it’s due, the Labour Party under Gordon Brown also did it, once, but like most things Gordon Brown it didn’t work.

Learn from the masters. The country thinks they blinked and missed a General Election and, oh look, we have an entirely new government!

Snakes look great when they’ve just sloughed; they positively glisten.

So yes, the Tories must have taken heed of Dua Lipa when she sang (in that saccharine tone of hers) “Aren’t you the guy who/ Tried to/ Hurt me with the word/ Goodbye?” Knowing he would hurt them one day, that great big bundle of lovable, charismatic charm they’d cooed over so much, they got their pre-emptive goodbyes in early. Fifty of them and counting were quietly meditating resignations as the fallout continued, this time over a deputy chief whip by the name of Chris Pincher who had been allowing his hands to wander in the Carlton Club.

The prime minister finally admitted he had been informed that ‘Pincher

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by name, Pincher by nature’ (his own quip, strenuously denied) was not an entirely reformed character before recruiting him, and yet claimed he had forgotten the briefing to this effect.

Thereafter, meditations began to crystallise in the form of resignation letters. In the olden days, a flurry of them would have appeared on the door mat of Number Ten. In this enlightened age of social media, Grievously betrayed the letters kept getting tweeted to the media with comical frequency. By sheer coincidence, the Health Secretary announced his resignation just moments before the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his. It looked like a conspiracy. One Tory even tweeted his resignation from a committee room while he was supposed to be grilling the prime minister. Chuntering from a sedentary position (as Mr Speaker used to call it) had never taken such a sly form. If farts were rebels, this one would have been the silent assassin.

The prime minister had been out of the country as the scandal began.

Over in abroad (I believe it’s called Rwanda), the intrepid, massively over-sized Gulliver had been strutting about on the world stage even as the first serious plots, like so many snake eggs, were being hatched.

Asked by bothersome reporters if questions over his leadership were settled yet, he said: “Yes.” He then added: “What’s driving people nuts is this endless churn of stuff about things that I’m meant to have stuffed

up, or whatever, about my colleagues, their view of me, my character, the leadership, Tory blah blah.”

Now the term ‘stuffed up’ was new to me, but we have known for a long time that Boris Johnson has his own private language for special occasions. At the dispatch box, on what turned out to be his last day in office, he rounded on Sir Keir Starmer and denounced his ‘crasheroonie snooze-fest’. There must have been times when Hansard admitted defeat.

What struck me more, though, was that phrase he used in Rwanda, ascribing his woes to ‘Tory blah-blah’. It is well known, and barely ever analysed, that the political grouping which formally describes itself as the Conservative and Unionist Party (stop giggling at the back) is more commonly referred to as the Tory Party. The reasons for this are lost in the mists of time – Irish mists, to be precise – but the term is colloquial and often has a trace element of, let us say, irreverence.

Bevan’s acutely irreverent use of the word is significant. It is often the critics of the party who refer to its members in this way, so its use by an actual Tory prime minister, the incumbent, and the way he dismissed his fellow Tories’ ‘blah-blah,’ tells us a lot about him.

I am old enough to remember the figure Boris Johnson cut when he first reappeared on the Tory back benches. He never struck me as a clubbable type, the sort of MP who would put a lot of effort into winning over potential allies. In fact, he appeared isolated. He would stand up, hair the customary living insult to the hairdressing profession, and mumble “Does the honourable member agree that the good people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip…?” or something equally trite, while a small band of followers that you could number on the fingers of one hand tried to look attentive in a little halo around him. In those days, when he had recently been London mayor but was now an isolated member of parliament, his loyal supporters could barely achieve the quorum for a circle jerk. The rest of the parliamentary party were ostentatiously unmoved. There was never any likelihood that Boris

It seemed like ages before people unlearnt the habit of referring to Boris as ‘Boris’. Even the Guardian’s sketch writer, who clearly despised the man, persisted in calling him that, to the huge chagrin of the Guardian readers who left comments beneath the line.

Snake

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The fact is, Boris/Gulliver would let no minor setbacks, like being forced out of office, ruffle him.

How many cheers for democracy?

was there to represent the interests of the good women of Uxbridge, though he is rumoured to have promised a lot more to the good women of South Ruislip. The membership of the party liked him well enough, but the Tories in parliament didn’t – he was never a party man – and the feeling was mutual. When they decided to make him their leader, they mistook him for a figurehead. He had this inexplicable appeal to the public, you see. From the very start, it was the Tories who bolted Johnson on to the party apparatus, not because they liked him, but because the voters did. And Johnson returned the compliment: he didn’t like ‘the Tories’ one bit.

This was what made it so easy for Rachel Johnson, in her role as radio pundit, to deliver the eulogy on her brother’s political demise. All Boris had tried to do (and for once you could forgive a person for using his first name) was give the party a stonking majority, get Brexit done and become world king. Was that so much to ask, when you were a world-historical genius like Boris? Oh, and win the war against Putin.

And roll out a world-beating vaccine programme, obviously. And write a brilliant book about Winston Churchill. Claims that he and his wife Carrie had overspent on their Downing Street flat were poppycock.

Big Dog at the lectern

In reality, they didn’t even own a salad bowl, and lived like veritable paupers. It was impossible to over-state what her brother had done, not just for a grateful nation, but for the entire world, by hosting international conferences in Cornwall, and did I mention the war in Ukraine? But most importantly of all, he had won a huge mandate from the British people.

Literally millions Daily Mail’s front page of British voters had defied the parliamentary system of government and elected him their president, only for a treacherous bunch of ministers, junior ministers and ineffable minnows to terminate his presidency with unspeakable…

It was a bit like the story of that great Churchill chappie. As Richard J Evans told us in his New Statesman article entitled ‘The Churchill Factor: One man who made history, by another who just makes it up’: ‘Churchill [according to Boris], “spoke in short Anglo-Saxon zingers”.

He was a “rogue elephant” in the Tory party. He made a career as a highly paid journalist. He was definitely not a “lefty-liberal Milquetoast”. “He was no party-pooper.” He was “incorrigibly cheerful” and his verbal style was both “demotic and verbally inventive”. He “incarnated something essential about the British character – and that was his continual and unselfconscious eccentricity”. Now, who is this meant to remind you of?’

Funny how the Tories repeatedly model themselves on dead predecessors, while actually reducing these ghosts to pallid reflections of themselves.

Also, notoriously, Boris concluded that the Germans had managed to capture Stalingrad.

But wait a minute, this pedantic carping aside, let us remind ourselves how great the man was, is, and ever shall be, and how his ignominious end resembles in no way that of Churchill, who was voted out of office by the British people after the war, whereas the far greater tragedy in the case of Boris was that a conspiracy of pusillanimous underlings did for him. His dignified (though not readily comprehensible) words,

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Andrea Jenkyns greets the great British public outside Downing Street

delivered at a lectern that might so easily be mistaken for a pillory, will echo down the ages: “Them’s the breaks!”

Some of his support may have been a little too fulsome: I ought to admit that I have experienced more than my fair share of sleepless nights since Boris came to power, and not for the right reasons.

When he illegally prorogued parliament, for instance, I barely got a wink for three days. When he refused to resign despite the resignations, my sleep began to suffer again. It was the way he kept talking about his stonking mandate and the millions who had elected him as president that worried me. Then, when he emerged to give a resignation speech without actually using the word resign, I lost a week’s sleep, and let me tell you, a week’s a long time in ‘Britain Trump’ politics. That’s the meaning of populism, after all, appealing over the heads of your party to the base that elected you. Sadly for Boris, his base had dwindled to the immediate circle of ‘the member of parliament for the eighteenth century’.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Eton) actually went on the new-fangled television and claimed that his fervent hope was that Boris would outlast Walpole.

Twenty-one years. Of course, Rees-Mogg could confidently predict that the nation’s memory would not stretch to its very first prime minister,

the only one arguably worse than the present one.

How events have moved on. Democracy, no longer in peril, has revived in all its gory, sorry, glory, and the Tory party has returned to its comfort zone, sucked into the vortex of a leadership race with the contenders for Johnson’s job tearing strips off each other in public.

Or at least they were until today, the 18th of July. They were supposed to be tearing strips off each other tonight, on Sky, but the whole thing collapsed when Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss pulled out. What a pity, you might think, if you viewed Tory politics with the same relish as you viewed a heat wave, seeing it as a perfect opportunity to grill flesh in the torrid open air. If the leadership race was an exercise in voyeurism for most of the country, given the tiny numbers of cardcarrying members who would decide who became the next prime minister – some 200,000 of them – then things had been getting distinctly graphic of late. For anyone with the party’s best interests at heart, it was no longer mere blah-blah; it had turned into a full-scale bar-barbecue. Here is Paul Goodman, writing on the Conservative Home website under (I kid you not) a gruesome picture of a bloodsmeared meat cleaver: ‘Why on earth did the Conservative candidates in this contest sign up to be the victims of this political version of The Hunger Games? […] I’m afraid the answer is a) none of the candidates dared stand up to the broadcasters, even if they wanted to, and b) the institutional Party hasn’t the clout to put a stop to it. Did it not occur to any of the candidates and their teams, when they saw the ITV format, that it was the equivalent of the Hunger Games’ cornucopia gambit – in which the contestants bludgeon, knife, shoot and strangle each other to death in order to get at vital supplies? Having the nastiest punchline might floor your opponent. But will it help you form a stable government if you win? Tory MPs and activists will have watched in horror as several of the candidates […] tore into the record of the Government in which all of them bar one have served. Or sought to distance themselves from policies which they have supported, or are committed to support. Or publicly snubbed the leader who all but one of them have served in office...’

While the other ministers resigned in their droves, Gove was the only one to get sacked for whispering in the general’s ear that he was only mortal, that the game was up, then letting it be known what he’d whispered.

Ill-equipped for a march on anywhere

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Amazing what the collective séance of the party faithful can throw up

That, surely, is the rub. Johnson has been thrown out, accused by his treacherous ministers of being a liar and a rogue, yet the contenders for his job must somehow behave with the utmost civility as if nothing has happened. No one can declare themselves the continuity candidate for fear of appearing tainted, and equally no one can declare themselves the change candidate, lest they trash the Ancien Régime. At this vulnerable time, the snake must be left to slough its skin in some quiet corner somewhere. Then, and only then, can it emerge as the new/old, old/new government. ‘“Looking at the papers, in future Conservative Campaign

And he’s a ‘socialist’!

Now the term ‘stuffed up’ was new to me, but we have known for a long time that Boris Johnson has his own private language for special occasions.

Headquarters should negotiate with broadcasters on formats of debates. It is best placed to broker a format which doesn’t disintegrate into a blue-on-blue knife fight,” says one observer.

Amen to that.’

Oh dear, there’s always some spoil-sport. This was a barbecue the whole party had been planning for months, in some cases years. As the Daily Mail demanded, plaintively: Well, either they have defenestrated their greatest electoral asset, OR a buffoon the country had stopped referring to as ‘Boris’ and would never elect again. But for what exactly? For a woman who looks like a poorly executed wax model of Margaret Thatcher melting in the extreme summer heat?

Or a rich smooth-talker who sounds (try closing your eyes while he’s speaking) like Tony Blair in his pomp?

As a willingly voyeuristic outsider, one is bound to ask just how many times the Conservative and Unionist Party can survive itself.

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Rishi Sunak: The Frontrunner in The Race to Downing Street

By Majalla Illustration by Jeannette Khouri A new prime minister will take office in Downing Street in seven weeks.

Former finance minister Rishi Sunak extended his lead in the latest round of Conservative MP voting to determine Britain’s next prime minister.

Rishi Sunak is widely regarded as the frontrunner to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.

The former chancellor has won the first three ballots of MPs, but he is opposed by Boris Johnson supporters, who accuse him of betraying the Prime Minister by announcing his resignation from the cabinet.

His campaign to succeed Mr. Johnson has received strong support from former cabinet members, and he is positioning himself as someone who, unlike most of his opponents, will not cut taxes until inflation is under control.

Mr. Sunak was appointed chancellor in February 2020 where he had to steer the UK economy within weeks as the pandemic and its lockdowns began.

A teetotal millennial – as he was 40 at the time of the first lockdown – many people viewed Sunak as a steady hand on the tiller.

His personal poll ratings skyrocketed after he pledged to do “whatever it takes” to help people survive the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and unveiled £350 billion in support.

Sunak’s parents are both of Indian origin and came to the UK from East Africa. He was born in Southampton in 1980, where his father was a GP and his

mother ran her own pharmacy.

Rishi studied Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Oxford University after attending Winchester College. He also attended Stanford University in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, where he earned his MBA. Mr. Sunak worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004 and later as a partner in two hedge funds.

Since 2015, he has served as the Conservative MP for Richmond in Yorkshire, rising through the ranks of Theresa May’s government before being appointed chief secretary to the Treasury by her successor, Boris Johnson. Also, he supported Theresa May’s Brexit deal three times in parliament.

He was promoted from local government minister to Chief Secretary to the Treasury in July 2019 for his support of Boris Johnson.

Following a power struggle with Number 10, Sajid Javid resigned as chancellor in February 2020, and Mr. Sunak took his place.

Sunak was a key figure in the government’s financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, including the furlough and Eat Out to Help Out programs. In the midst of the Partygate scandal, he became the first Chancellor of the Exchequer in British history to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office, receiving a fixed penalty notice for violating COVID-19 regulations during lockdown.

Sunak announced £330 billion in emergency support for businesses, as well as a furlough scheme for employees, on March 17. This was the first time a British government had implemented such an employee retention program. The scheme was announced on March 20, 2020, and will provide

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grants to employers to pay up to 80% of a staff wage and employment costs each month, up to a total of £2,500 per person per month. The monthly operating cost is estimated to be £14 billion.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme initially ran for three months, beginning on March 1. Sunak extended the scheme until the end of June 2020 after a three-week extension of the countrywide lockdown. Sunak extended the scheme until the end of October 2020 at the end of May. The decision to extend the job retention scheme was made in order to avoid or postpone mass layoffs, company bankruptcies, and potential unemployment levels not seen since the 1930s.

A tax reform agreement was signed in June 2021, at the G7 summit hosted by Sunak at Lancaster House in London, with the goal of establishing a global minimum tax on multinational corporations and online technology companies. The OECD signed an agreement to join the tax reform plan in October 2021.

Sunak privately lobbied as Chancellor to impose a green levy, which would have resulted in higher petrol and diesel prices, to help fund the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

The Treasury’s proposed Fossil Fuels Emissions Trading Scheme sought to levy pollution charges from road transportation, shipping, building heating, and diesel trains, which together account for more than 40% of UK carbon emissions. Boris Johnson ultimately rejected the proposal, telling officials that he did not want to raise consumer costs.

Sunak, as Chancellor, was pushing ahead with a new law that would allow stablecoins to be used

for everyday payments, despite the Bank of England’s concerns about the technology’s financial stability. Sunak directed the Royal Mint in April 2022 to create a UK government-backed non-fungible token (NFT) to be issued by summer 2022.

Sunak married Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Infosys founder and Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy, in August 2009. Murthy owns 0.91 percent of Infosys, which is worth approximately $900 million (£690 million) as of April

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2022, making her one of the wealthiest women in the United Kingdom. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which prompted criticism of Sunak and his family, Infosys announced in April that it was closing its Russian office.

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Iran and Fight against Consciousness

Imprisonment of Intellectuals and Artists is an Example

By Ahmed Taher Creativity is the path of awareness and cinema is one of the most prominent forms of human creativity and the most expressive of intellectual achievement in the cultural field.

The visual image represents the shortest and most effective way to clarify the current reality, explain its challenges, dissect its facts and analyze its dimensions. This would contribute to spreading awareness across a wide timeframe on a wide geographical scope among many people, provided that they have the required freedom in thought and practice.

This is rejected by Tehran which considers that cinema is the most dangerous weapon in the face of its efforts to complete its project aimed at dominating the region and its capabilities.

This project depends in its success on spreading ignorance, eradicating vision and fighting criticism and analysis of all the policies it pursues and the procedures it follows.

TEHRAN AND ITS DUAL VIEW OF CINEMA Tehran views cinema from two angles.

The first angle is the fact that cinema is a tool for political manipulation, as it uses it as a tool to spread its ideas and visions, not only within the interior of Iran, but in continuous attempts to dominate the minds of overseas followers and supporters.

We find many Iranian films that glorify figures who spread extremism and incite terrorism and murder, in an attempt

to create an imaginary enemy of the Iranian state through which it warps the minds of these followers and turns them into puppets who are moved as and when it wants.

Secondly, cinema is a tool to demolish the government’s project of domination and expansion, and therefore hostility ensues if Iranian cinematic films reveal the facts of reality with its crises and problems. Tehran fears that such films will be able to play an educational role in alerting minds, correcting concepts and exposing fallacies, which is what may create conflict.

The pressure is permanent and continuous against the creators of cinema who try to present in their artworks an expressive picture of the painful reality experienced by the Iranian people under the regime of these mullahs.

WORMS OF THE MULLAHS RULE In its battle against cinema and its influence, Tehran relies on the imprisonment and arrest of creators, similar to what happened recently when Tehran arrested both Iranian directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad on July 8, and detained them in an unknown location after they protested against violence against civilians in Iran. Three days later the mullahs completed their crackdown with the arrest of director Jafar Panahi.

These three creators represent cinematic and artistic icons, not simply Iranian, but internationally. Their works have previously won international awards, Rasoulof, for his film “A Man of Integrity” which won Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2017.

After winning this award, the Iranian authorities prevented

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A general view shows the Azadi Cinema in Tehran, Iran, May 2016 ,19. - ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

him from traveling, placed him under house arrest and prevented him from moving and working since that time.

He was even sentenced to one year in prison, similar to what he had previously faced which was a five-year prison sentence in 2009 with a restriction preventing him from producing his films for 20 years. His sentence was later reduced.

Director Panahi›s films have also won many international awards, the most important of which is the film «Taxi» which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival, and his film «Three Faces» which won the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Festival in 2018. The Iranian authorities had prevented him from attending the French festival.

It is reported that the European Parliament had awarded him and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia on December 2012 ,12.

The then-president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, noted that the award “represents recognition of the extraordinary efforts made by Mrs. Sotoudeh and Mr. Panahi in the war for human dignity and basic rights and for political change in Iran,» where he had been sentenced to six years in prison and banned from working for 20 years. Iranian judges consider his films, screenplays, and interviews to be a national security threat.

It is worth noting that the wave of arrests against Iranian creators did not pass without international condemnation,

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Cinema is a tool to demolish the government’s project of domination and expansion, and therefore hostility ensues if Iranian cinematic films reveal the facts of reality with its crises and problems. which happens every time an Iranian creator is arrested.

The US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor condemned Iran’s continued attempts to restrict freedom of expression, and stated in a tweet that: “The recent arrests in Iran of politicians, directors, and brave women demonstrating against the compulsory veil laws are a shameful repression of peaceful opponents.”

It goes without saying that what happened was not the first time that these people were arrested and imprisoned.

Rather, they were among the most prominent cinematic names that were exposed to such illegal practices resulting

in a waste of creative energies, obscuring corrective ideas and preventing enlightened visions that should prevail in Iran. This is a society that is witnessing a real movement among its youth who reject an outdated rule but are no longer able to publish their thoughts and express their ambitions.

Demonstrations have increased, unrest has varied, and protests have multiplied in various parts of the Iranian Republic, signaling the refusal to continue along this path of restrictive policies, economic failures and living crises.

EVERYONE HAS HAD ENOUGH It is a sad joke that criticism of Iran›s record in the field of freedom of expression comes from one of the Iranian leaders who represent the hardline movement.

The «Delta» news website, which is close to former Iranian

It is a sad joke that criticism of Iran›s record in the field of freedom of expression comes from one of the Iranian leaders who represent the hardline movement.

President Ahmadinejad, published the content of the message he submitted to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2018, about what was stated in his speech on the occasion of Nowruz Day on March 2018 ,21.

The message included the topic of freedom of expression which the Supreme Leader spoke about: “Although it is also guaranteed by the constitution, the judiciary does not adhere to your viewpoint in this regard.”

The contention was in criticism of what is clear about the judiciary›s practices and its violations of the provisions of the constitution, as it is not the first time that the judiciary has been criticized.

This comes bearing in mind that the Supreme Leader is the one who chooses the head of the judiciary according to his constitutional powers, and this is why many observers considered that Ahmadinejad›s repeated criticism of the judiciary chief is nothing but veiled criticism of the Supreme Leader›s policies.

Despite the validity of this criticism and even its importance coming from a man from within the corridors of the Iranian regime, he did not express the reality as it is.

This is because whoever looks at the rule of the former president Ahmadinejad finds that freedom of expression was not in a better condition either from the periods of rule of those who preceded him or those who came after him. This confirms that the policy of repression, arrest and imprisonment is part of the vocabulary of Iranian policy in dealing with the issue of freedom of opinion and expression as a broad concept in general, and as a concept related to freedom of creativity cinema in particular.

In summary, if it is true that what Tehran has done in

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Jafar Panahi (R) directed and starred in the film Three Faces, which won the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes.

A cinema closed because of the pandemic in 2020 in Tehran. Iran’s filmmakers have drawn acclaim worldwide. (Str/EPA, via Shutterstock)

terms of arresting its creators, artists and intellectuals, this raises the question about how a country that seeks to have a prominent position in the world can make a chasm for these creators and artists.

It is also true that a careful analysis of Tehran’s vision should not cause any surprise and astonishment in the light of the Iranian State’s view and its stances towards the various countries of the world.

This same vision pushes it to harness all its energies and capabilities in order to possess a nuclear weapon, which it believes will protect its security and maintain its stability at a time when its people suffer from hunger, ignorance, poverty, destitution and the denial of basic and life

The pressure is permanent and continuous against the creators of cinema who try to present in their artworks an expressive picture of the painful reality. supporting services.

The record of history confirms that the state’s demolition, disintegration, loss and overthrow of its systems remain dependent on its ability to serve its citizens who represent the main cohesion in the face of any external interference or aggressive attacks, (without this implying a failure in providing the requirements of its military, security and economic capacity). This is the formula for building a state that is capable of continuity and resilience in the face of challenges and threats. A coherent populace is the main pillar for building a strong state capable of achieving its national security in its internal and external dimensions.

This will not be achieved if the state enters into a battle with its creators and artists, insofar as they are the first line of defense in the face of advanced generation warfare that depends on a mixture of the tools of hard power and soft power, and on top of the latter is cinema. Will Tehran realize this before it is too late?

Iranian film director Jafar Panahi, here seen posing during an interview in Tehran in 2010. / Atta KENARE/ AFP

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From Linguistic Debate to Cultural Confrontation

Al-Azhar in the Face of Gayness, in Other Words, “Homosexuality”!

By Sama Mamdouh Sheikh Around a week ago, in a scene that was seen as an escalation of public rejection of growing efforts to get global recognition of gayness/homosexuality, the Al-Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism (AOCE) praised the stances of religious leaders opposed to the phenomenon. THE AOCE also revealed the convening of meetings between the Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, with leaders and heads of churches and sects in Egypt to discuss the recent wave of advocacy for homosexuality. Al-Azhar Al-Sharif called on the international community to stand up and to preserve moral and religious values. Similarly, a few days ago, the Enactus team of Al-Azhar University announced its withdrawal from Enactus activities, in refusal of its support of homosexuality. A few days ago and also in the same context, Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark (the Coptic Orthodox Church) stressed the dangers of homosexuality.

HISTORICAL, LINGUISTIC, AND IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS

The conflict began at the linguistic level. According to researcher Israa

Mokadem, the French sociologist Michel Foucault says in his book “The History of Homosexuality” that the world’s first acquaintance with the term “homosexual” was in the late nineteenth century. Queen Victoria wanted to have men from the aristocracy then in the British society to stop having sex with males. At that time, the world had not yet come to define this type of relationship. In May 1990, the World Health Organization announced the removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders to become a natural sexual tendency that cannot be encouraged nor suppressed. Today, the world is witnessing a wide cultural clash over the term and the phenomenon.

Legislations, reports and declarations of condemnation and solidarity could be seen around the world, in the spaces of art, human rights work, universities, and traditional and virtual media.

Polish President Andrzej Duda swam against the current two years ago and declared in 2020 (BBC Arabic June 14, 2020) that “homosexuality is an ideology more dangerous than communism.” The Polish president said during his election campaign that his parents’ generation did not fight communist ideology for 40 years “for a new, more destructive ideology to emerge.” Duda signed a family charter as part of his electoral platform, which includes a pledge to prevent homosexuals from marrying

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or adopting children, and to ban the teaching of homosexuality at schools. These statements were preceded by a report by the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex/ILGA, which ranked Poland as the worst-performing EU country on gay/homosexual rights. Meanwhile, the European Commission wrote to the mayors of five Polish provinces expressing its concern over their declarations that their regions were “free from gay ideology.”

MARRIAGE: REGISTRATION PROCESS OR A “FRAMEWORK”?!

This 2012 photo shows Muslims arriving to attend the Friday prayer at Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

The historical origin of the conflict was a continuation of the struggle over marriage between the religious and civil frameworks. Civil registration was adopted in Europe in the nineteenth century (England in 1836, Germany in 1875), and it was a vehicle for modern state policies against the Catholic Church. By the late 19th century, civil registration had been adopted in most parts of Europe. Civil registration at that time was linked to legitimizing what already exists without adopting ideological perceptions that change the meaning and pillars of marriage. This escalated sharply in the twentieth century, and the institutions that handle registration have redefined marriage based on new legislative (parliamentary) or judicial (constitutional) references.

Researcher Dr. Amr Othman attributes one of the most important reasons for the historical inversion in the view of marriage to the so-called “sexual revolution” in the 1960s, during which sex was separated on the one hand from marriage and childbearing on the other. In this way, procreation became an option that could be controlled thanks to contraceptive pills that appeared at that time.

This has led to a staggering increase in the number of people in a relationship living in the same home, an arrangement which previously had been almost exclusively for married couples. After this turn of events, marriage was no longer a means to legalize sexual relations with the aim of having children as much as it has become a mere legalization of an affection that binds two parties with the aim of obtaining benefits from the state through that legalization.

Then there was the burgeoning wave of interest in the West from the United States of America and Europe in legalizing gay/ homosexual marriage which started with second decade of this century. For example, in May 2013 France witnessed the official announcement of the initiation of a full program to combat what was called “homophobia” involving all state administrations, and the entire state’s facilities: the judiciary, the police, and the health and education sectors. In a major move aimed at “internationalizing” the endeavor, the French president even appeared before the United Nations Council to announce that he had made this battle one of his most important global priorities. He then announced the endeavor to organize the International Day against Homophobia, with a French demand to adopt a UN resolution allowing transgender people to obtain “appropriate” civilian status documents! The so-called “law of marriage for all” became the center of a major social and cultural battle in France.

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A few days ago, the Enactus team of Al-Azhar University announced its withdrawal from Enactus activities, in refusal of its support of homosexuality.

In one of the biggest steps in moving from registering marriage to “framing” it, the United States Supreme Court issued on June 26, 2015, a decision obligating all US states to legally recognize the right of homosexuals to marry. The decision marked the end of a two-decade pathway. In 1996, a lawsuit was filed in the US State of Hawaii to compel the state government to recognize same-sex marriage. This was followed by two Republican lawmakers introducing a bill to “defend the family” that would require the federal and state governments to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage.

Then, thanks to the signature of US President Bill Clinton, there was the DOMA Law. According to a study by researcher Dr. Amr Othman, a lawsuit was filed against this law, which deemed it to be forcing the state to violate the rights of its citizens. Then a judge ruled that DOMA law violated the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution. Other suits against the law followed while the number of US states that legalized gay/homosexual marriage increased. In 2011, another federal judge ruled the DOMA law unconstitutional, and on June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional. This means that the federal and state governments are obliged to recognize same-sex marriage, whatever state the marriage took place in, and to enable same-sex couples to enjoy all the rights of other married couples. In 2018, Switzerland enacted legislation strengthening the protection of homosexuality, within the articles of the Anti-Racism Act, by adding a discrimination clause based on sexual orientation.

CONFLICTS OVER STANDARDS In the European Parliament, parties and blocs worked to defend the rights of gays/homosexuals. An evaluation document issued in April 2019 by a group of parliamentarians with an interest in anti-discrimination mentioned the existence of a difference between Western and Eastern Europe. The majority of countries in which homosexuals can live without discrimination are in Western Europe. Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal and Spain score the most points on an index that includes family laws and the fight against hate crimes. The country that ranks first in the list is Malta with 90% of the requirements, and at the bottom come Lithuania and Poland with 17% and 18%.

Within the context of the complex historical relationship between the Vatican and Italy, the battle over the legality of homosexuality was multi-faceted. In November 2016, the Italian parliament

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approved gay/homosexual marriage in a vote described as “historic” due to the opposition of the Catholic Church, making Italy the last Western European country to recognize this type of marriage. The law, which the Italian Parliament had been studying since June 2013, grants gay/homosexual couples rights equal to those of regular couples in all legal aspects. In June 2021, in what was described as “unusual diplomatic meddling,” the Vatican vetoed an Italian anti-homophobia bill. The move aimed to punish discriminatory behavior and incitement to violence against gays and transgender people. The newspaper Corriere della Sera revealed that Bishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States in the Vatican, handed a diplomatic “verbal note” to the Italian embassy in the Holy See. The newspaper stressed that “this is an unprecedented measure in the history of the relations between the two countries.”

In the world of social media, where everyone can produce his own discourse and gather around this discourse as many supporters as one can, a great battle erupted over the criteria for categorizing “acceptable” and “rejected.” At its core was the discourse that deals with gayness/homosexuality whether promoting it or condemning it. By virtue of the predominance of religious standards (along with conservative culture) over the culture of large segments of Arab societies, Arab content was the subject of a battle that saw the disputation by several parties.

The Moroccan newspaper Hespress revealed that July 2020 witnessed the sending of a collective message to the Facebook administration by Arab human rights associations and civil activists expressing their concern about the “increasing hate speech against LGBT people” on the platform. The signatories of the message demanded that site’s management in the Middle East and North Africa region work to “limit the use of its platform in the dissemination of this discourse, especially from Arabic speakers.”

Days earlier, Humboldt University in Berlin canceled a lecture scheduled to be given by biologist Marie-Luise Vollbrecht because she believed there were only two biological sexes “due to security concerns,” Die Welt newspaper reported. According to the newspaper, the biologist sought to talk about “why there are

By virtue of the predominance of religious standards over the culture of large segments of Arab societies, Arab content was the subject of a battle that saw the disputation by several parties.

only two genders in biology in a scientific way,” but left-wing activists protested, describing Vollbrecht’s thesis as “unscientific, inhuman, homophobic and transphobic.”

REMARKABLE DATES • In 1969, US police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York, a gay hotel, which sparked outrage across the country. The incident became a historic moment in the advancement of gay rights, and between 2004 and 2015, same-sex marriage became legal in all states.

• In 1971, the Netherlands is the first country to allow same-sex marriage. Since then, about 30 other countries have joined it. In the two decades since the law on same-sex marriage came into force, thousands have married in the Netherlands, accounting for an average of 1.7 percent of all marriages in the world, according to the Netherlands Statistics Office.

• In 1988, during the era of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the teaching of subjects considered to be a “promotion of homosexuality” was prohibited, and this continued until 2003.

• In May 1990, the World Health Organization announced the removal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. Homosexuality became a natural sexual inclination that cannot be encouraged nor suppressed.

• In May 2013, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, spokeswoman for the French government said: “The Marriage Law for All enhances the rights of citizenship in France, and instructs the government to formulate a full program to combat homophobia involving all state administrations.”

• In June 2015, the US Supreme Court issued a decision obligating all US states to recognize the right of same-sex couples to legal union, with all that it entails in terms of enjoying all the rights of “traditional” married couples. That is to say, the permanent bond between man and woman, through which they aim to create a family that will give birth to children to sustain life.

• In November 2016, the Italian Parliament approved gay/homosexual marriage in Italy in a “historic” vote, despite the opposition of the Catholic Church.

• In September 2017, following a concert in Egypt performed

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Egypt’s Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb delivers a speech during an event in Abu Dhabi. (AFP)

Legislations, reports and declarations of condemnation and solidarity could be seen around the world, in the spaces of art, human rights work, universities, and traditional and virtual media.

Egypt’s Coptic Pope Tawadros II speaks from the historic al-Muharraq Monastery, February 5, 2013. (AP/Khalil Hamra)

by Mashrou’ Leila, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation required that the media in Egypt accompany any statement mentioning homosexuality or “references” denoting it, (such as a rainbow), by statements indicating that homosexuality is an inappropriate behavior.

• In December 2018, Switzerland enacted a law that strengthens the protection of homosexuals, and equates fighting homophobia to fighting racism.

• In August 2019, a new course of study raised the concern of Arab families in Britain and religious people (of different faiths) who consider that teaching homosexuality is contrary to their beliefs.

• In November 2019, the novel “In the Spider’s Room” by the Egyptian novelist Mohamed Abdel Nabi, which revolves around homophobia, won the Arab Literature Prize in France, presented by the Arab World Institute in Paris.

• In June 2020, Polish President Andrzej Duda said: “Homosexuality is an ideology more dangerous than communism.”

• In July 2020, in a letter to the administration of Facebook, human rights associations and civil activists from the Arab world and a group of countries in the world expressed their concern about the “increasing hate speech against the LGBT community” on its platform. They demanded that the site’s administration in the Middle East and North Africa work on “limiting the use of its platform in the dissemination of this discourse, especially from Arabic speakers.”

• In June 2021, in an unusual diplomatic intervention, the Vatican vetoes an Italian bill to combat homophobia.

• In September 2021, two-thirds of Swiss voters support samesex marriage in a referendum. About 64% supported this measure, making Switzerland one of the last countries in Western Europe to legalize same-sex marriage. The new law allows samesex couples to adopt children.

• In 2021, same-sex marriage became legal in 28 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain Sweden, Uruguay, USA. • In October 2021, President of the International Football Asso-

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ciation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino said: “The International Football Association (FIFA) published a report showing an increase in the number of insults that players are subjected to on social media.

More than 50% of players have received some form of discriminatory abuse, comments that discriminate against homosexuals (40%).”

• In October 2021, the Italian Senate canceled the vote for a bill to protect homosexuals due to the objection of the Italian rightwing parties.

• In December 2021, the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Egypt published a statement in which it supported a legal fatwa issued by the Al-Azhar Global Fatwa Center regarding the systematic campaigns led by international forces and organizations with their media, entertainment and singing programs, electronic platforms, recruitment of famous personalities, and other such methods to promote obscene homosexuality, and to legalize its spread in various societies of the world, including Arab and Islamic societies.

• In May 2022, the ILGA organization revealed a list classifying European countries according to their stance on homosexuality.

Malta scored 92 points out of 100, followed by Denmark in second place with 73, according to assessments that included all topics ranging from hate crimes and hate speech to legal regulations.

France ranked seventh at the European level.

• In May 2022, the gay flag propelled the absence of the Senegalese Muslim star of Paris Saint-Germain, Idrissa Gana Gaye.

French President Macron denounced the player, while the Senegalese President Macky Sall publicly supported him. Al-Azhar declared: “We refuse to pressure the player to accept homosexuality.”

• In July 2022, American gay activists demanded that NASA rename the “James Webb” telescope due to accusations of antihomosexuality.

• In July 2022, Al-Azhar University withdraws from all global activities of Enactus due to its support for homosexuality.

• In July 2022, Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark (the Coptic Orthodox Church), stressed the danger of homosexuality and its being a sin and a phenomenon contrary to human nature.

The writer is a researcher in political science – Egypt.

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Social Media Weakening Democracies?

Has the “Marketplace of Ideas” become a curse instead of a blessing?

By Mohammad Ali Salih – Washington Recent events in Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands of demonstrators, helped by their social media, attacked and occupied the Presidential Palace and forced the President to flee the country and resign, came as another example of the power of the world-wide social media that many American experts have been discussing. The discussion has recently been part of the Congressional investigation of the mob attack on the Congress in 2021 that was led by supporters of former President Donald Trump, and the accusation that Trump, in a famous Twitter message, encouraged his supporters. Twitter later suspended Trump’s account.

In Sri Lanka, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country amid a months-long economic crisis that triggered severe shortages, particularly in food, oil and cooking gas. The new president and prime minister would have to oversee a government composed of usually opposing political parties, with the continuation of the mass protests known as the “aragalay,” which was seemingly well-organized, thanks to the social media.

Following are opinions of three Americans (from their tweets, websites and statements to the media) about the dangers that democracies, in the East and in the West, have been facing because

of the power of the social media: First, an example from Spain, by Richard Pildes, professor of constitutional law at New York University School of Law and author of “The Law of Democracy,” among other books.

Second, an example from the US, by Frances Lee, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, and, among other works, the author of “Beyond Ideology.”

Third, an example from Columbia, by David Frum, former speech-writer for President George W. Bush, and author of many books including “The Rise of Populism.”

PILDES: SPAIN “Last month, Spain held another fragmenting election, after being governed by dominant center parties that had won alternating elections since the end of the Franco era. [Francisco Franco, a general who, leading conservative Nationalist forces, defeated moderate Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, then ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator] …

But in 2014, Spanish politics fragmented dramatically. A new party, ‘Podemos’ (We Can) arose out of street protests and social media.

Between 2015 and 2020, Spain held four national elections in an effort to find a stable governing

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Frances Lee

coalition. During those years, the previous twoparty system splintered into a five-party system.

In the last of those elections, Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, with no majority in the parliament, but in order to become prime minister, was forced to form Spain’s first coalition [more than two parties] in order to put together a thin majority in the parliament ...

Last month’s elections revealed more party fractures, discontent and continuing social media anger about the government’s shortcomings.

In Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region and long a stronghold of the Socialist Party, the conservative Popular Party won an outright majority in the regional parliament …

Spain is one example that democracies, throughout the West, are unable to marshal wide-enough support to deliver effective government. The communications revolution is one reason why.

But, worst, we have not yet fully grasped the profound challenge social media poses to democracies. Even if the problems of disinformation, misinformation, incitement, and the like could somehow be solved, that challenge would remain …

Political authority must be accountable, of course, and badly exercised power deserves challenge. But democracies now function in an era in which the challenge to them is constant. Politics and government will be continually turbulent, but less able to deliver effectively …”

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In the US, social media has enabled the emergence of free agent politicians who can find national audiences and raise vast amounts of money through small donations.

LEE: USA “The political turbulence social media has fueled takes many different forms. In the United States, it has enabled the rise of independent, free-agent politicians, whose party’s leaders cannot corral to generate a unified party agenda.

The internet has also spawned the rise of small donors, one effect of which is to fuel the extremes of the parties. In the US, social media has enabled the emergence of free agent politicians who can find national audiences and raise vast amounts of money through small donations, even in their first years in office …

In the US, starting with the Republican capture of the Senate in 1980, not since the Civil War, have we had such an extended period in which a

Richard Pildes

David Frum

In his four years in office, Duque oversaw a record of policy success unmatched in recent South American history: First, the economy expanded at an annual 9 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Second, the massive influx of almost two million refugees from nearby collapsing Venezuela didn’t bring down the government …

But, despite this, Duque left office with an approval rating of only 20 percent. Faced with budget struggles because of the Coronavirus, he had proposed raising taxes, and triggered a months-long street protest. Even after Duque rescinded the proposal, the protests turned into an expression of general anti-government rage.

At least 60 people were killed, many at the hands of the police …

As in other democracies recently, voters turned against the political class as a whole. Anti-establishment politicians trounced the Liberals and Conservatives, and neither party managed to get a candidate into the second and final round of the presidential elections.

Instead, one of the two final candidates was an independent populist and real estate mogul who was not widely known before the election and FRUM: COLUMBIA didn’t hold public rallies; his success in making “Recent Colombia’s presidential elections tell a it to the second round was credited in significant similar tale of churning democratic disaffection. part to his substantial social media following, inBut in a more puzzling context, the two tradition- cluding on Tik Tok. ally dominant parties, the Liberals and the Con- The other candidate, Gustavo Petro, who beservatives, collapsed. The incumbent president, came president, was a former guerrilla fighter Iván Duque, a moderate conservative, was gener- who promised to change Colombia to a socialist economy …” ally accepted, but his term had to end. party’s control of the government has been up for grabs in nearly every election.

We are now governed by ‘insecure majorities.’

Voters continually turn on the party in power.

This constant churn in our politics makes ‘the perpetual campaign’ …

In 2016, an outsider — independent Bernie Sanders — nearly captured the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, while another outsider — Donald Trump — did win the Republican nomination.

The faction-driven conflicts inside the parties are playing out now in the primary elections [before the general elections in November]. During the primaries, some Congress members are seeking to defeat their own party’s nominees who wanted to replace them in the Congress …

Public polls showed that the Americans believe that the two major parties (the Democratic and the Republican) are doing an inadequate job. Not surprising, then, half the country now identifies as independents, the highest share in history …

Last year, a Gallup poll showed that 62 percent of Americans said a third party is needed …”

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Rishi Sunak: The Frontrunner in The Race to Downing Street www.majalla.com

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Arab Cinema Striving to Survive Five Films from Five Brilliant Directors

By Mohammed Rouda Depending on the situation of the Arab market in relation to cinematographic works, the majority of Arab productions do not find their way to Arab screens - or even, in many cases, local ones, that is, those belonging to the country of production itself.

It is an issue that is difficult to accept although the reasons are clear.

In the first place, they are films that are not produced by commercial companies with a purely commercial concept related to the purpose for which the producers work in the “business” of cinema.

On the other hand, Arab cinema lacks distribution companies interested in independent and different cinemas as well as private or commercial institutions that accept the support of this cinema.

We are talking here about films that do not see opportunities for traditional screening after their production. Many of them kick off at a local or international festival and that suffices for their exposure.

There is no showing of these films to the general public outside the festivals, and no opportunities for success, which encourage investors and financiers to connect with the new talents available in every Arabic-speaking country these days.

It is unfortunate for several reasons, including that the talent behind these films is what deserves to be endorsed outside the scope of festival performances.

The biggest prize for a director is when he finds that his film finds the right offers as any commercial film wooed by production, distribution and screening companies.

Some festivals do a wonderful job of encouraging

and protecting artworks. The funds allocated by the Red Sea Festival in Saudi Arabia allows filmmakers to work tirelessly. It gives them financial rewards for future projects that make up for the absence of other opportunities for production.

There are other Arab festivals that do the same, but not with the same rewards, which makes the Red Sea Festival the destination for Arab filmmakers aspiring to work and succeed.

However, this will not change the basic problems of distribution and financing, and the Arab cinema’s lack of a successful mechanism for distributing and

showing films even if they win prizes in Arab or Western festivals. While the victory is supposed to be an incentive for audiences wanting to watch unique films from the mainstream, there is this gap that makes such mainstream distribution and acceptance still a pipedream for Arab film-makers and other movie talent in the Arab world.

-1 Collapsed Walls | Hakim Belabbas (Morocco) This movie is unlike any other. The director, Belabbas, uses an unconstrained imagination, drawing in-

Collapsed Walls Hakim Belabbas (second from left) during the screening of his movie

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spiration from the lived reality and from the present social environment, which enriches it.

Composed of 17 stories that are collected under one umbrella, tales revolve around what the director knows very well because he lived in the environment and grew up in the same society before carrying his memories with him wherever he went.

Each of his tales has a different event, but they converge in their belonging to the fountain of memory that is occupied with the freedom to mix reality and imagination.

The proportions are different.

In the first tale, for example, a young man is not seen by others, but the tale itself is not a fantasy. It is, like the rest of the imaginary tales, drawn to the ground.

Belabbas deals with the individual, the family, relatives, strangers, the village and what happens there.

His tales are replete with ghosts of the past and with memories of some of them, because the film is not the kind that wants to play with memory by extracting the most beautiful memory that it holds.

They are tales of women, men, young men and children in front of life situations that baffle adults and are lived by young people, even on the surface of their other concerns.

There is room for a simple sentimental tale (a schoolteacher recommends one of his students to hand a love letter to the girl he loves) but most deal with thorny issues.

Death comes in the second story, then its presence is repeated in more than one story. Prayers are also present and repeatedly: a woman praying to God to give birth. Prayer list. Funeral. Religious stanzas.

The film carries ambiguous symbols that the director

Mohamed Mamdouh in Abu Saddam

intends to enrich the image, sound and drama that is presented. Much of what we see does not have a complete explanation for its occurrence. What is the meaning of that unseen young man? The absence of whom? Who is that young man in chains in the basement of an old woman’s house? What is the story of the car that flies? What is the difference between fantasy and reality? How do the two fit together seamlessly on one page?

It is a unique film by a director who has made documentaries and fiction before, but nothing like this work. This film showcases the director’s inimitable ability to tell his stories with appropriate ambiguity without alienating one even if the audience cannot

The Saudi movie “Had El Tar”

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grasp the underlying subtle meaning immediately and he manages to hold the audience without losing interest in what they are watching.

There is a brief period when the viewer wonders if the big movie includes what he cannot carry about that weight that accumulates story after story. But with the continuation of the film, that question is overthrown because of the strength of its approach and despite the many stories.

-2 Abu Saddam | Nadine Khan (Egypt) It is the second film by director Nadine Khan (daughter of the late director Mohamed Khan) after “Harag w Marag” which was shown at the Dubai Festival in 2012.

It is a road movie stopping at certain stations, in which it allows the study of the main character and extracts from its social shadows about the position of the traditional man in today’s society and studies the relationship between the strong outer form of man and the inner weakness in him.

It is a tale based on the man who drives a truck with equal strength and dominance. Both are huge and imposing their existence. They both look at the world below. He fights it without knowing it. They are both of their stubborn size. It’s as if the character of Abu Saddam couldn’t drive any other kind of car.

He and the huge truck are cognate symbols.

Abu Saddam (as Mohamed Mamdouh aptly performs) drives his big, empty truck from one remote location to another, with young Hassan (Ahmed Dash) at his side as a paid assistant.

Abu Saddam’s instructions to the boy Hassan are or-

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ders he must carry out: “Your eye is on the road,” he asks him more than once, but the boy’s eye is on the money he discovered in a bag not far from his reach.

Hassan steals the money twice, but his fear of Abu Saddam’s tyranny if he discovers the theft makes him return the money each time. This side of the story comes in a natural course, but it is not more important than what happens to Abu Saddam himself when a woman driving a messy red car overtakes him and he meets her again, makes her feel his danger and who resorts to inform the traffic police who are holding him.

Abu Saddam’s problems are surrounded by his lack of understanding of his status as a man. His problems are with that fragile envelope that surrounds himself.

The heart of the film is that “Macho” relationship.

He is at odds with his wife, threatening her with more violence if she contacts her family, and that she will not return home if she leaves him.

On the road he meets a dancer who responds to his invitation to share the truck in a highly customized cabin behind the driver’s seat.

We do not see what happened, but we conclude that the dancer did not get the orgasm that she expected of him, and when he tries to make love with her again in order to confirm his power, she repels him, hits him, and reproaches him.

He became charged even before the checkpoint stops him and before he sets off after another red car to take revenge, thinking that it was the same car whose owner insulted him by reporting him.

-3 Had Al Tar | Abdulaziz Alshlahei (Saudi Arabia) Had Al Tar is a social drama about a love that did not end with the marriage of the two lovers. Her name is Shama (Adwa Mahd), who was forced by tradition to marry a young man who committed a murder and is soon facing execution. But her heart beats with love for another young man Faisal AlDokhi who wants to propose to her, were it not for obstacles and traditions.

Meanwhile, she and her mother must continue to provide singing and playing at weddings for women.

In a parallel narrative, there is that young man that she loves who was advised by his father to work as a swordsman. The first task assigned to him, after winning the job, is to behead the accused himself!

This leaves him confused even though the girl he loves loves him. That fabric between the task entrusted to him and the act of execution is treated

Elie Khalife

with great skill, and his role remains prominent and influential.

From this foundation, Had Al Tar proceeds as an emotional synthesis with steps that are at the same time confident in managing characters, distributing shots, and directing scenes.

What is remarkable is the director’s research into the social structure of the characters he presents. He does not bother to beautify them because they are originally beautiful in spirit and behavior.

He presents them naturally (although the presentation and the context itself are influenced by the features of television dramas) and places them in situations that each clash with their own desires and problems with their surroundings.

What rises from the rest of the work elements is the general management of the scenes, good photography by Hossam Habib, and a sincere and unconcerned representation of the film’s hero, Adwa Mahd and Faisal Al-Dokhi, as well as the rest of his actors.

-4 Oltelak Khalas (State of Agitation) | Elie Khalife (Lebanon) Elie Khalife’s film is the most distinguished among all the above feature films here. It is a personal story

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performed by the director himself.

In the movie (as in life), we see Khalifa trying to make a new movie, but he seeks perfection in what he writes. Every time a good new script comes out, there is a possibility that there will be another good new one and he starts afresh.

The effect on his girlfriend is catastrophic. She leaves him. The impact of this on his community relations is no less virulent.

When he finishes the script and starts searching for the product, he receives advice that if he had followed them, he would not have been Elie Khalifa.

It’s about Elie Khalife himself. He is the director and he is the hero. He is a man with curly gray hair, bewildered eyes, and an expressionless face that matches his words and feelings. He is similar to the American actor John Turturro, the movements of Jack Tati in his confusion, and the features of Buster Keaton.

Eleven years ago, Khalife presented his first feature film “Yanusk” and it was shown at the Dubai Festival. After that, there was no support for the plot and the subjective issue of the new film as the film talks about a scenario that Khalifa has been writing for years.

He takes it as an excuse for not communicating with life and with the woman he loves. He is still

Al Hara

young and when his girlfriend leaves him in a scene that reveals his preoccupation from the beginning, he remains alone. The scene shows that he drives with her on a mountain road and then stops abruptly, leaving her in the car to see nature.

Khalife faces what every director trying to stand out from his work faces. When Elie meets the producer George Kaadi inside a barber shop in the movie to ask him his opinion on the script, he had previously sent to him, he starts criticizing: “You are the best person who writes unsatisfactory scripts.” Wondering why his female characters don’t speak, Eli replies that the producer, in an earlier version, complained of too much dialogue. Elie steps out and whispers something to the producer.

Another comic scene that aims to reveal the prevailing concept of cinema for some takes place when a school teacher shows the students a film directed

by Khalife.

The professor is full of appreciation, smiles and affection, but he presents the director standing next to him as “Elie Khalouf.” He does not apologize when Khalife corrects him, but rather shakes his head, and here he snatches the conversation from the children even when the question is directed to the director.

A third model is a man (Businessman) who asks Elie Khalife for a business project and tells him that he wants to expand his business. Khalife (looking at him silently) has to manage a group of beautiful young women with job aspirations.

He wants a women’s film, and “you can supervise during filming... but from afar.”

All this and more, Wade Elie is an expert at capturing the same city of cars and buildings in the tumultuous hustle of life versus nature that only a few pays attention to in front of or behind the camera. Khalife’s film is parallel to many Western films about directors’ experiences with their films, but its interesting and thoughtful treatment makes it among some of the best.

-5 El Hara | Basel Ghandour (Jordan) The film warns the viewer through a voiceover that “You should believe half what you see and two-thirds of what you hear,” before launching a story that surprises us on several levels under the sure hand of a professional and thoughtful director.

It is a five-part film that moves seamlessly and contains many characters played by good

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actors in creating the moment in which they live.

Ali (Imad Azmy) is a character who lives in a constant fantasy that he uses to give himself credit in the neighborhood in which he lives (in Amman).

In the first part (under the title “Khalta”) we get to know him pretending to be talking on the phone with no one. He is making this in order to arouse the curiosity of two men whom he thought will respond to him when he invites them to go to the nightclub where he will collect his commission. The club is under the supervision of the head of a gang of thugs run by Abbas (Monther Rayhana) and the girl who works under his direct management (Maysa Abdel Hadi).

Ali sincerely loves Lana (Baraka Rahmani), but her mother Aseel (Nadra Imran) wants to marry her off to another. The film does not enter the usual emotional story here because the mother, the owner of a women’s salon, will go to Abbas to deal with Ali as he does what he needs to do: a hot clash in the middle of the street and without anyone’s interference because Abbas is known for his strength and brutality.

Then all the issues raised within the scope of that preamble are complicated. It is a movie about a young man trying to probe life with lies and illusions, a gang that terrorizes the neighborhood, a mother seeking to protect her son, seeking the help of her ex-husband, and the gang girl (Maysa Abdel Hadi) who will protect her leader so that life can continue in that neighborhood as it used to.

There are many paradoxes and details in the film, and they all fall into place without hesitation or confusion. This is a new movie in all its characteristics and under the direction and execution of a man with whom there is no point in searching for the beginnings. The project itself (the neighborhood, its events, characters, and the consequences of everything that goes on in it) is handled with knowledge.

The film does not place an advertisement saying that the events are real, but the course of the work is true between the director’s relationship with the film and the film’s relationship with what can be real, even if we believe half of what we see and two thirds of what we hear.

A

rt

NEW MOVIES

By Mohammed Rouda

(A weekly roundup of screenings at movie theatres around the world) THE UNSTABLE OBJECT II ★★

◆ Directed by: Daniel Eisenberg ◆ Genre: Documentary [Germany/France] ◆ Performances: Marseille Festival.

This film won the Grand Prize in the International Competition section of the Marseille Film Festival last week. There must be someone who does not mind a 203-minute film that does not contain a topic that deals with its viewers, but only with the director’s choices of issues that he pursues with stubbornness and interest.

This is the second part of the trilogy. The first film was produced in 2011 in which the director follows the situation of the relationship between man and machine.

Here he depicts French, German and Turkish factories with different products (prosthetic hands from Germany, gloves from France, jeans from Turkey). He lets the camera occupy the same shot for long minutes, and even when he cuts short the seconds look like minutes.

There is no art of presenting, showing, or inspiring issues of any kind, but rather keeping up as if we were in a video lesson on how to make a glove or pants. ◆ Final judgement: For amateurs who are into this genre.

stemming from an irresponsible husband who is addicted to drinking and who spends his wife’s money on himself, and if she does not give him the money, he beats her.

The situation declines after a quarter of an hour and continues to decline, and the semi-happy ending does not save the sadness that concludes the film and its story. The director worked with several filmmakers as an assistant but here he has drawn on his previous two films, his own style that still needs some improvement.

◆ Final judgement: For those looking for films that show women’s problems on the screen.

NOPE ★★★★

◆ Directed by: Jordan Peele ◆ Genre: Sci-Fi / Thriller ◆ International Shows.

A FAR SHORE

◆ Directed by: Masaaki Kudo ◆ Genre: Social Drama [Japan] ◆ Shows: Karlovy Vary Festival.

In his third film, young director Kudu shows the story of a young wife who works in bars as a hostess for customers. Her life, since the beginning of the film, is miserable and misery hides behind a smile, laughter and good behavior.

But as soon as she returns to her home, we confront with her various facts

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Directed by Daniel Kaluuya, this film suggests that Earth is still vulnerable to mysterious visitors from space. The actor plays the owner of a horse ranch in parts of California that he runs with his sister. One day, they discover a non-human being and don’t know how to act on it. Is he peaceful or hostile? He has a desire to communicate or just carry out the tasks assigned to him.

Why did he arrive, how and what will happen next? The film is progressing well at an exciting pace that could have had better results if the text did not contain many issues and many narrative elements with different directions. Jordan Peele isalso the director of Get Out (also starring as Kaluya).

◆ Final judgement: The best movies of the week.

THE OUTLAW KING ★★★★

◆ Directed by: David Mackenzie ◆ Genre: Historical Drama [US] ◆ Shows: Netflix. way between the effective suspense established by this introduction and the narrative missteps that follow the first twenty minutes of the film.

◆ Final judgement: For genre enthusiasts.

COLLECTIVE MEASURES ★★★

◆ Directed by: Sean Patrick O’Reilly ◆ Genre: Prison Drama / Action [USA] ◆ Gulf Shows.

We turn here to the fourteenth century. A few Scottish warriors, led by Chris Pine, face the legions of the English army in a battle that is steadily prepared. The beginning of the film is a foundation for events taken from reality.

After that is a solid drama of characters and encounters with scenes that Barry Ackroyd better portrayed across Scotland. Sometimes the film tends to get overly violent, and in some cases, it falters in its narrative, but it is based on the style of classic films with confidence.

◆ Final judgement: for history and adventure movie buffs

GONE IN THE NIGHT ★★

◆ Directed by: Eli Horowitz ◆ Genre: Teaser [US] ◆ Global Shows.

Winona Ryder (recently less in movies) is here, with her boyfriend, for a vacation at a rented house in a remote area. They are surprised that there is a man and a woman living in it. The husband allows them to spend the night before they return to the city.

The next morning, the film’s heroine wakes up alone in her bed. Her boyfriend has disappeared and now she has to look for him. The film is half-

Another movie starring Bruce Lee just before his retirement, but it is the best of the half dozen films he starred in months before his retirement.

A prison drama of the type that sets the conditions for a massive explosion between the jailers and the inmates, with problems falling within each team.

The director writes a good plot and executes it with some of the best genre in mind. The events take place in one of America’s largest and most impregnable prisons, but the director gives the events a critical and in-place reading, which makes the entertainment double.

◆ Final judgement: typical in its genre.

Ratings: ★ Weak or average | ★★: Mediocre with merits| ★★★: Good | ★★★★: Excellent | ★★★★★: A masterpiece 49

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F

eature

Bedouin Jerrycan Band The Desert Sound that Rocks Cairo

By Salwa Samir Audiences are sitting on wooden chairs and their eyes are fixed on the stage waiting for the band members to appear. A few minutes later, members of the band wearing traditional garments show up amid a great applause from the attendees.

They are five men, playing music and singing at the same time.

One holds a frame drum, the next has the simsimiyya, a stringed instrument that has its roots in ancient Egypt, one holds the reed pipe, another has the drum and one holds a jerrycan.

“The five members are from North Sinai’s Al Arish except for two men who are Bedouins living as tribes in the desert,” Zakaria Ibrahim, founder of Bedouin Jerrycan band, told the Majalla.

The poetry and songs they perform tackle many topics related to Sinai heritage such as the moon, camels and coffee. Their songs and poetry recall the exploits of the ancient Arabian Bedouin tribes through stories and fables about trusty camels, warnings of the dastardly deeds of sheep rustlers, and tales of unrequited love for the girl with beautiful eyes.

One song was against women expressing that when they get married their demands are exorbitant to the extent that their husbands go bankrupt. Another ditty tackles the subject of how grumpy women are.

Two women in the audience asked the singer, do you sing this song to your wife? He laughingly replied, no, for fear of not entering his home again.

“The tribal society is different from the urban one regarding customs and traditions. Unfortunately, they deal with women as being at a lower level than them.

It is a masculine society,” Ibrahim said. “But they have

songs about longing for the lover.”

One song is about asking the postman about whether he has a letter from his lover.

The audience interacts with the band performance by clapping on the beat and dancing with the band on stage. After the performance, the audience was keen to thank them for their performance and snapped photos with them.

According to Ibrahim, the story of the band’s formation goes back to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Ibrahim, 70, hailed from Port Said, a city that lies in

Members of Bedouin Jerrycan Band in action. (Credit: Salwa Samir)

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Members of Bedouin Jerrycan Band in action. (Credit: Salwa Samir)

the northeast of Egypt. He was fond of the folk arts there and joined a troupe where he dances and sings.

Because of the Israeli war, he and other Port Said residents and those overlooking the Suez Canal were displaced and had to leave their cities. The war lasted for six years and ended by Egyptian victory in 1973.

Ibrahim, 17 at that time, and his family went to Senbellawein, in Dakahlia governorate, northeast of Cairo. One day, he heard a beautiful tune from a simsimiyya. That sound was played by another displaced person but from Ismailia. Those displaced people formed a band and Ibrahim was its dancer and singer.

He was keen to learn their folklore. He listened to them and transcribed the folklore which is passed down from generation to generation orally, but not written.

Then he went to Cairo in 1971 where he studied agriculture. He was among those who took part in many demonstrations against the Israeli occupation of Sinai.

In 1974, he returned to Port Said, bearing in his mind the charm of Egyptian popular heritage and his dream to find ways to save it from extinction.

Enthusiastically, he toured many towns to hear from its folklore artists, and to listen, collect and record their popular heritage. In the 1980s, Ibrahim formed El Tanbura band in Port Said whose aim was to revive traditional Egyptian music especially the simsimiyya and tanbura instruments. It was followed by forming other bands such as Rango, the Sudanese tribal band.

In 2000, he established El Mastaba Center for Egyptian Folk Music in Cairo, where he hosted the concerts of the bands he had formed.

Ibrahim flew to Al Arish in North Sinai governorate

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The band’s songs recall the exploits of the ancient Arabian Bedouin tribes through stories and fables about trusty camels, warnings of sheep rustlers, and tales of unrequited love for the girl with beautiful eyes. where he searched for musicians to form a band for Sinai heritage.

He formed the band in 2003, blending the simsimiyya and reed pipes in traditional melodies accompanied by rhythms played on the tabla, the frame drum and as well as on instruments fastened from ammunition boxes and jerrycans, which soldiers used to transport petroleum products during war, salvaged from the former battlegrounds of the Six-day War of 1967.

“The band couldn›t bring the ammunition boxes to this concert because of the inspections at security checkpoints on their way to Cairo,” Ibrahim said.

The Bedouin Jerrycan Band has participated in international festivals, including Glastonbury in England and WOMAD in Australia.

In 2007, the band released its first album, “Coffee Time,” in collaboration with Ibrahim and the British production company 30 IPS Ltd. One year later, the band took part in a festival in Manchester City, in addition to festivals in Spain and New Zealand.

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port

Hot-Summer Mercato for Arab Players in Europe Arab players are doing well in the transfer market

By Sarah Gamal With the end of each season of the European leagues, especially the big five, a new excitement of its kind begins, which is the summer transfer market, which starts even before the window opens.

Every year, during the summer Mercato, clubs seek to strengthen their squads with the most prominent names available, and many rumors related to the transfer market, which link some players to specific clubs, come out.

Arab players are doing well in the transfer market, with some receiving long-awaited contract extensions and others facing an unknown “fate” six weeks before the Mercato closes.

This summer saw a number of notable Arab player transfers, including Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui joining Bayern Munich, as well as long-term extensions for Egyptian Mohamed Salah and Algerian Riyad Mahrez with their respective clubs, as well as the “unknown future” for Moroccan star Hakim Ziyech.

LONG-TERM RENEWAL

Mohamed Salah and Riyad Mahrez, two English Premier League stars, have signed new three-year contracts with Premier League giants Liverpool and Manchester City, respectively.

Salah will receive 21 million euros per year in the two new contracts, while Mahrez will receive 8.5 million euros per year.

Salah joined Liverpool from AS Roma in 2017, and he’s made history with the club since then.

During his five years at Anfield, he helped his team win a number of major trophies, including their first Premier League title in 30 years and their first UCL victory in 15 years.

He has also become Liverpool’s ninth all-time leading scorer, with 156 goals in 254 games across all competitions despite

playing on the wing.

Manchester City, on the other hand, have confirmed that Riyad Mahrez will remain at the Etihad Stadium until at least June 2025. The Algerian has extended his contract after being courted by Barcelona and other clubs.

Since joining City from Leicester City in the summer of 2018, the 31-year-old Algerian has been an integral part of the club’s recent success.

Mahrez has since helped City win three Premier League titles, as many League Cups, an FA Cup, and reach the Champions League final.

He has made 189 appearances for the Cityzens, scoring 63 goals and assisting 45 times. “I’m overjoyed to be able to sign this new contract,” Mahrez said after his contract was extended.

A NEW ARAB DEFENDER IN EPL

Moroccan international defender Nayef Aguerd made a “big leap” in his football career this summer when he moved to West Ham, adding his name to the list of Arab players in the English Premier League.

After a successful season with French club Rennes, Aguerd joined West Ham, who are currently seventh in the Premier League, for 35 million euros, making him the third most expensive player in the club’s history.

The Moroccan international, 26, passed his medical at the London club before completing his move to London Stadium after the Hammers paid a large fee for his services.

Aguerd was born on March 30, 1996, in Kenitra, Morocco. He joined the Mohammed VI Academy in 2012 before signing his first professional contract with FUS Rabat two years later, scoring his first goal in the club’s 3-1 win over Wydad AC on February 15, 2015.

He became a first-team regular for Botola Pro and helped them win the league title in 2015-16, a feat that piqued the interest of

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Mo Salah scored for Liverpool. (Photo Credit: AFP)

several European clubs.

Rennes signed Aguerd in 2020, and in the recently concluded season, the Atlas Lion appeared in 31 French elite division matches as the Roazhon Park outfit finished fourth in the table to qualify for next season’s Europa League.

LEAVING THE EPL

While a Moroccan defender was presented to the English Premier League, another international, Romain Saiss, Aguerd’s teammate in the Moroccan national team’s line of defense, left.

The 32-year-old left Wolverhampton Wanderers after six seasons when his contract expired, and moved for free to Süper Lig club Beşiktaş in Turkey.

Saiss has made 206 appearances for Wolves in all competitions since joining from Angers in 2016, and was a key member of the defense that helped Wolves secure their Premier League position after promotion in 2018.

Wolves had offered a new contract to the Moroccan center-back, but his wage demands are said to be higher than what the club is willing to pay. Last year, Saiss also declined a contract extension.

MAZRAOUI TO BAYERN MUNICH

The brilliant Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui, who moved for free to Bayern Munich from Ajax Amsterdam, was the hero of one of the summer’s biggest Arab transfers.

According to German sources, Mazraoui will be paid 10 million euros per year and will primarily play right-back.

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“Every year, during the summer Mercato, clubs seek to strengthen their squads with the most prominent names available, and many rumors related to the transfer market come out.”

Mazraoui was instrumental in Ajax’s success last season, contributing everything from clutch goals to lockdown defence.

Noussair Mazraoui, who was born in Leiderdorp, spent the majority of his career with Ajax. He signed with Jong Ajax in 2016 and was promoted to the senior team two years later. Everything else is history.

He led the Champions League in tackles in 2018-19 and even scored against Bayern Munich en route to a miraculous semifinal appearance.

In 28 Eredivisie games, he scored once and assisted on another, while scoring once and assisting on another in the KNVB Cup.

A CONTINUAL GERMAN ADVENTURE

Moroccan striker Aymen Barkok remained in the German Bundesliga and moved from Eintracht Frankfurt to Mainz for free.

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port

Riyad Mahrez. (Photo Credit: AFP)

Noussair Mazraoui Agrees to Four-Year Contract with Bayern Munich. (Photo Credit: AFP)

Barkok had a “troublesome” season last season, as he was “marginalized” by Frankfurt and only appeared in 5 Bundesliga matches for the Europa League champion. Barkok is considered one of the Bundesliga’s most promising young players.

mund and Brighton, but no official offers have been made, suggesting that the player may stay with Monchengladbach for one more season before his contract expires in 2023.

UNKNOWN FATE

Despite winning the Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain, Achraf Hakimi did not have the season he and observers had hoped for following his big-money move from Inter Milan in the summer of 2021.

PSG unveiled a star-studded lineup of five new players, including Lionel Messi, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos, and Ginel Wijnaldum, ahead of the 2021-22 season, putting the French champions among the favorites to win the Uefa Champions League. However, PSG failed to impress on the continental front, as they were eliminated in the Round of 16 by Real Madrid.

There were rumors of a return to Madrid in May, particularly after he was spotted in the Spanish capital with Mbappe, and Chelsea were also said to be interested.

That is unlikely to happen because Hakimi will remain in Paris under new coach Christophe Galtier, who is expected to take over for Pochettino in the dugout.

Moroccan star Hakim Ziyech, who announced his desire to leave Chelsea, England, due to his lack of participation as a key player, is among the most prominent Arab players seeking a new experience.

AC Milan, Italy’s champion, was the most prominent of those interested in signing Ziyech, but negotiations between the two clubs became very complicated, and differences over transfer value increased, putting his transfer in doubt.

Like Ziyech, the brilliant Algerian defender Ramy Bensebani, the star of Borussia Monchengladbach, may have a new experience.

Bensebani is being tracked by German clubs Borussia Dort-

“Premier League players Mohamed Salah and Riyad Mahrez have signed new three-year contracts with Premier League giants Liverpool and Manchester City, respectively.”

TRANSFER RUMORS

A NEW ADVENTURE IN A “FAMILIAR” COUNTRY

A new adventure in a “familiar” country for Egyptian international Mahmoud Hassan Trézéguet, who has chosen to play for Turkish champion Trabzonspor.

Trézéguet’s time with the Villains has come to an end after the club placed him on the market, with his contract expiring in the summer of 2023.

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Nayef Aguerd. (Photo Credit: AFP)

Achraf Hakimi. (AP Photo)

Aston Villa decided to sell Trézéguet to Trabzonspor, who will compete in the Champions League, for 4 million euros after a 4-month loan period with Istanbul Başakşehir F.K. The Egyptian winger joined Aston Villa in 2019, and he quickly settled in, appearing in 64 games across all competitions.

Trézéguet was a key reason Villa avoided relegation in his debut season, scoring crucial winners against Crystal Palace and Arsenal late in the season.

Trézéguet also led Aston Villa to the EFL Cup final in the same season, scoring a last-minute winner against Leicester City in the semi-finals before losing to Manchester City at Wembley.

ALGERIAN DFENSE ROCK

The heart of the Algerian defense, Ahmed Touba, finished his “Dutch” adventure, and moved from RKC to Istanbul, Turkey’s Istanbul Başakşehir F.K., for 2 million euros.

The central defender spent two seasons in the Eredivisie with RKC and went on to represent Algeria. He signed a three-year contract with Istanbul Başakşehir F.K, with a one-year extension option. He had a year left on his contract with RKC, and the transfer fee was around 2 million euros, making it RKC’s largest transfer since selling Milano Koenders to AZ for 2.25 million euros in 2007.

ALGERIAN GEM

Akim Zedadka is the new star of the Algerian national team and a player for Clermont Foot 63. Zedadka is a right-back and also plays on the left wing.

Algerian fullback Akim Zedadka drew attention with Clermont Foot 63 last season as one of the few players in the L to play

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“The brilliant Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui, who moved for free to Bayern Munich from Ajax Amsterdam, was the hero of one of the summer’s biggest Arab transfers.” every league match without fail.

Zedadka’s brilliance secured him a free transfer to French Lille, one of the league’s strongest clubs and the 2021 champion.

The Algerian player was chosen as the best right-back in the French second division during the first leg, by being in the perfect squad for the half-season in the “Ligue 2”.

The right defender (25 years old) has made a distinguished level since the beginning of the previous season with the French club Clermont Foot, as he finished the first leg in sixth place with 30 points, only 4 points behind leaders Grenoble.

Zedadka participated in 16 matches out of 17 with his team, which highlights his basic position with the club, and contributed to the good results he scored in “League 2” this season, and also caught the attention of followers and scouts.

The promising player is one of the possible options for the coach of the Algerian national team, Djamel Belmadi, who is looking to strengthen the right back of the “Greens” defense.

T

echnology

The Surprising Ways Technology Can Increase Green Space in Cities

Nature in Urban Settings Has a Positive Impact on Mental and Physical Health

By Anthony Larsson and Andreas Hatzigeorgiou Parks, small woodlands, and even simple patches of grass not only keep a city attractive, but also help people find a sense of bliss in an otherwise bustling urban environment. With new technologies, we can plan and monitor these urban “green spaces” better than ever before.

As several studies have highlighted, nature within

urban settings plays a pivotal role in combating many of the global public health challenges commonly associated with urbanization. This includes maladies such as depression and high blood pressure. A 2022 study showed that trees actually have the ability to improve urban air quality as leaves and pine needles capture pollutants from the air.

That cities need green spaces is therefore not a particularly contentious issue. It is, however, an open question as to how much green space a city ought to

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have. Even here, science can provide some guidelines, as research points to at least 9 square meters of green space per individual, with an ideal value of 50 square meters per capita in a city (for comparison, an average UK car parking space takes up about 12 square meters).

GREEN LANDSCAPING

Credit: (TNS)

The big question is therefore what kind of green space do we want? A well-kept but human-made park? Or something more natural and unkempt, such as groves, meadows or field-like areas? As we discuss in our forthcoming book, Designing Smart and Resilient Cities for a Post-Pandemic World: Metropandemic Revolution, this is largely contingent on the geographic preconditions of the city in question. The World Health Organization recommends a diversity of different kinds of green areas if possible, yet it’s an inescapable fact that some cities are blessed with lush vegetation while others are not.

However, all is not lost for cities without much natural green area, as such environments can be constructed in urban settings that have previously been bereft of naturally growing trees and grass. This “green landscaping” can be undertaken even in areas that would otherwise seem unlikely. One prime example is the High Line in New York City, a 1.45 mile long elevated linear park built on an abandoned railway viaduct. Since it opened in stages about a decade ago, the High Line has become an exemplar of green landscape redesign that seeks to turn obsolete infrastructure into green, vibrant public spaces.

While it is known that greenery has positive effects on mankind at large, it is more difficult to prove the exact causal relationship in exactly how green areas affect

Credit: (Michael Lee/Getty Images)

Nature within urban settings plays a pivotal role in combating many of the global public health challenges commonly associated with urbanization. our health. In this regard, digital technology can be an essential tool for urban planners to determine where green landscape redesign is best employed.

SMART TECHNOLOGY One concept that is seeing particularly rapid development is “smart urban forests,” which refers to using tree monitors, 3D-imagery, and other internet of things-linked technologies to help manage the forest.

This “internet of nature” could monitor soil health, measure air pollution, or ensure urban forests are adequately hydrated.

Future technology could also enable the use of open data platforms and more public engagement. Planners could collect various perspectives from the general population using an app, for instance, while also using digital technology to map and boost urban biodiversity and to ensure that green areas are placed where they will achieve maximum efficiency.

One example of this is the Treepedia research initiative, which was launched in 2016 by MIT’s Senseable City Lab. Treepedia aspires to raise awareness of urban forests by the use of digital vision techniques based on Google Street View images.

Treepedia focuses on pedestrian street trees found in multiple cities around the world, as opposed to parks.

The main reason is that pedestrians are more likely to see street trees without planning to, whereas most people in parks made an active choice to be there.

Using an open-source library, Treepedia means the public can calculate the quantities of tree coverage for their own city or region.

If urban planners become more aware of the potential of digital technology, then urban green spaces should have a bright future. However, designing the optimal green space that we want for our cities may also call for a deeper future collaboration between urban planners and engineers.

This article was originally published by Fast Company.

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H

ealth

Healthy Feet, Happy Life Your Feet Always Support You, So Return the Favor

By Matthew Solan Your feet are the foundation of an active lifestyle, but odds are you don’t give them proper attention.

“As you age, healthy feet become essential for being mobile, active, and safe,” says Dr. Kevin Riemer, a podiatrist with Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “You need to give them the required care in order to prevent problems, reduce pain, and avoid injuries.”

HANDLE WITH CARE Foot care should be part of every man’s regular health maintenance. One of the first steps is to practice good regular foot hygiene. Here are some guidelines to follow.

Keep your feet clean. This reduces the risk of harmful bacteria and can ward off fungal infections like athlete’s foot. Wash your feet every day, and dry them thoroughly, especially between the toes. The skin of the feet tends to grow thinner and drier with age, so after washing, apply a liberal amount of moisturizing lotion. However, avoid moisturizing between the toes, as dampness here can lead to fungal growth.

Trim your toenails. Cut your toenails straight across, never at an angle on the sides, which may cause ingrown toenails (a condition in which the nail grows into the adjacent skin). Use a toenail clipper larger and wider than one used for fingernails.

Manage calluses. Deep calluses can crack and bleed, causing pain and risking infection. Use a pumice stone or foot file to remove calluses gently. Follow up with moisturizer.

Look for signs of trouble. Examine your feet regularly, including the tops, soles, under the toenails, and in between toes. Look for any changes, growths, or discolorations. If your foot swells or changes color, it could be a sign of poor circulation or even a fractured bone, and

you should seek medical care. If you have diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis, alert your doctor about red spots, bruises, calluses, and corns. Any mole, freckle, or spot that appears to have changed over the past month could be a sign of skin cancer and should be examined.

STRETCH IT OUT Your feet need regular exercise, just like any other body part. Performing regular stretches can increase foot and ankle flexibility and strengthen foot muscles to improve balance and reduce the risk of injuries like ankle sprains.

Here are three exercises to try.

Bottom-of-foot stretch. Stand with your feet together.

Step back with your left leg, ending with your heel raised and toes pressed against the floor. You should feel a gentle stretch in the muscles on the bottom of your foot.

Credit: (Andrea Piacquadio/ Pexels)

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Credit: (TNS)

Hold for 20 to 30 seconds. Repeat with your right foot.

Top-of-foot stretch. Stand with your feet together.

Working with one foot at a time, raise your heel and curl your toes under, pressing the tops of your toes against the floor. You should feel a gentle stretch in the muscles on the top of your feet and the front of your ankle. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds. Repeat with the other foot.

Calf stretch. Sore feet can often be traced back to tight calves. From a standing position, place one foot directly in front of the other. Keeping your back heel on the ground and your back knee straight, slowly bend forward until you feel a stretch in the calf of your back leg. If needed, hold on to the back of a chair for balance. Hold for 10 seconds, and then reverse your foot position and repeat the stretch on the other calf. Repeat the sequence three to five times.

IF THE SHOE FITS Another means to prevent common foot problems like blisters and heel pain is to invest in quality footwear that can be worn for both exercise and everyday activities.

Visit a specialty running store, as it will offer a variety of styles and hands-on fitting expertise. Here are some other tips for finding the right shoes: Have your arch and gait evaluated for pronation -whether your foot rolls inward, rolls outward, or stays neutral. (Many running stores provide this service.)

This also can help determine your arch height (low,

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Foot care should be part of every man’s regular health maintenance. One of the first steps is to practice good regular foot hygiene. medium, or high) to match you with the right shoe.

Your athletic shoes will usually need to be a half-size larger than your regular shoes to accommodate any swelling during activity.

Bring along orthotics or other shoe inserts you usually use. Many shoe brands do not accommodate them, so you may need to go up a half-size.

Feet naturally widen with age, so make sure new shoes have adequate width: Remove the shoe’s insole and step on it. If your foot goes over the edges, the shoe is too narrow.

There should be some wiggle room in the toe box. You should have about a half-inch from the top of the shoe to your toes.

Walk around in the shoes for several minutes. They should feel right the moment you step into them, and not have to be “broken in.”

This article was originally published by Harvard Health.