YOUSUF JASSEM AL DARWISH
SINDHU NAIR ABIGAIL MATHIAS AYSWARYA MURTHY MARGARET KADIFA
VENKAT REDDY M HANAN ABU SAIAM
SANDEEP SEHGAL ALPANA ROY RAVI RAMAN
FREDRICK ALPHONSO SAKALA A. DEBRASS
MATHEWS CHERIAN HASSAN REKKAB
ADITYA KARKERA
PRATAP CHANDRAN BIKRAM SHRESTHA ARJUN TIMILSINA BHIMAL RAI, BASANTHA
AYUSH INDRAJITH MAHESHWAR REDDY B
MARCH - APRIL 2015 QATAR’S FIRST COLOR RUN WAS HELD OUTSIDE THE QATAR NATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE AND IT EXCEEDED ALL EXPECTATIONS. WE MEET SOME OF THE PARTICIPANTS. IN THIS ISSUE OF CAMPUS WE BRING YOU IMAGES FROM THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED IGN CONVENTION, THE COUNTRY’S FIRST GAMES AND COMIC BOOK EVENT. WE’VE ALSO CAUGHT UP WITH THE COUNTRY’S FIRST SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMERS IN THE MAKING. THERE’S A BEHIND-THE-SCENES PEEK INTO VCU-Q’S CREATIVE WORKSHOPS AT TASMEEN DOHA DESIGN FESTIVAL. FINALLY, DON’T FORGET TO SHARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE LONG EXCITING SUMMER THAT’S AROUND THE CORNER ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE.
Address all correspondence to CAMPUS, Oryx Advertising Co. WLL, P.O. Box 3272 Doha-Qatar. Tel: (+974) 44672139, 44550983, 44671173, 44667584. Fax: (+974) 44550982; Email: campus@omsqatar.com. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The publisher does not accept responsibility for advertising contents. Licensing/Republishing CAMPUS content: To obtain permission for text syndication in books, newsletters, magazines, newspapers and web or to use images/pictures carried in CAMPUS, please contact our syndication and licensing department on the numbers given above. Permission is also required to photocopy a CAMPUS article for classroom use, course packs, business or general use. Custom reprints: Any previously published article/s to be used as stand-alone pieces can be reprinted by us on special request. The reprint cost is based on the length of the article and the quantity ordered. Contact our custom publishing division on the numbers given above for more information.Previous issues (January 2004 onwards) of CAMPUS are available for sale, contact our library department. To subscribe to CAMPUS call our subscription department on the numbers given above.
Published by Oryx Advertising Co. , P.O. Box 3272 Doha-Qatar. Tel: (+974) 44672139, 44550983, 44671173, 44667584. Fax: (+974) 44550982. Email: campus@omsqatar.com website: www.omsqatar.com
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THE EQUALITY IN RED
Aditya Karkare muses on the the vicious circle of intolerance and the inexcusable number of innocent lives that continue to be consumed by it.
08 A DASH OF COLOR
ISSUE 27 MARCH - APRIL 2015
Amid a cloud of powdery orange paint, Margaret Kadifa caught up with some of the students who participated in last month’s Color Run just after they crossed the finish line.
40 DANCING ON WAVES Margaret Kadifa goes underwater to discover how the beginnings of Qatar’s first synchronised swimming team is taking shape.
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ALL PLAY AND A LITTLE WORK Everything at VCU-Q's Tasneem design conference related to the theme of playfulness.
LIVE LONG AND PROSPER Campus salutes science fiction legend, Leonard Nimoy.
“THE MORGAN FREEMAN OF THE GAMING WORLD” We caught up with Dave Fennoy of The Walking Dead fame at the IGN Convention in Doha. He did his instantly recognizable Everett Lee voice for us and we were floored.
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FINDING FRIENDS AMONG STRANGERS During her final weeks in Doha, Margaret Kadifa, reflects on her experience of living and working in Qatar’s capital.
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FOSTERING ARAB KNOWLEDGE Campus finds out how the newly established Doha Institute of Graduate Studies will add value to Doha’s higher education landscape.
CAMPUS NEWS
MILES TO GO
ALUMNI ART
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA UNIVERSITY HOSTED ITS FIRST EDUCATION CITY ALUMNI ART EXHIBITION. With a grand opening on February 23, the initiative brought together the work of six Education City graduates – Sara Al Emadi, Aisha Al Naama, Rana Rwaished, Fatma Al Rumaihi, Noor Al Maadeed and Sahwa El Nakhly. This year’s participat-
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ing alumni were graduates of Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, and came from diverse academic backgrounds including interior design, business administration and graphic design.
Two student teams from Qatar University College of Engineering took part in the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia in Manila, Philippines. It was the fourth time that the college has sent students to participate in this annual energy efficiency competition which was held this year between February 25 and March 1. Students from the College’s departments of mechanical, electrical and industrial engineering competed in the Prototype category in which teams are responsible for various aspects of the vehicle’s design, such as the chassis, body, steering, power transmission and electrical systems. The prototypes must run the 15 km distance on a teaspoonful of fuel and the team that goes the farthest distance using the least amount of energy is declared winner. Qatar University’s GERNASS team came in fourth with their prototype that travelled 127 km per kWh.
CROSS-BORDER CONNECTIONS HBKU hosted a delegation of students from Rice University’s James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy from March 1 to 5 as part of a program that works with students from both America and Qatar to promote cross-cultural understanding and dialogue on public policy and diplomacy issues. Key themes of the 2015 conference included education, energy, health, and gender equality.
THE ROAD AHEAD Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar conducted several programs for school students to help them learn more about the undergraduate courses in biological sciences, business administration, computer science and information systems that are being offered in its campus Initiatives like the Biotechnology Explorer Program, Tajer Investment
for Qatar (a workshop that teaches students how financial markets work) and Ibtikar, an outreach program for information systems, gave prospective students a taste of what lay ahead. The school also hosted several independent school students with an aptitude for computer science at its inaugural ‘Winter Institute: Discovering Computer Science’ program.
TO THE SUMMIT A group of ten Education City students scaled the summit of one of the world’s highest mountain peaks, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, as part of the EBDA (meaning "start" in Arabic) leadership development program. The seven-day climb – known as WALK (We Are Leaders @ Kilimanjaro) – was sponsored by Maersk Oil Qatar to test students’ teamwork, perseverance and adaptability under, at times, extreme pressure and difficult weather conditions.
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Amid a cloud of powdery orange paint, our editorial intern Margaret Kadifa caught up with some of the students who participated in last month’s Color Run just after they crossed the finish line. PHOTOGRAPHY BY: MARGARET KADIFA
“Obviously the best part was the colors. It took a while but they came one after the other really fast. I got [blue] in my mouth.”
VANESSA FAKHOURY Qatar University
“The music was great.”
because they sprayed a lot of it.”
ALIA BASSAM
ARTHUR O’SULLIVAN
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
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“I liked when they sprayed the color, especially the orange
Sherborne Qatar
SPOTLIGHT
“Getting to run with the powder paint was nice. The first one was yellow. I was so ready. Hands up, go for it.”
“I want to do this again next year.”
KIRA ROBINSON
FADHIL ANDZAR
Doha British School
The International School of Choueifat - Doha
“Running through them (the colors) was dusty.” LUCY GAMARRA
Doha British School
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“The music is amazing. The people are amazing. We ran a 5K and we didn’t even feel it.”
“We’re all racers and we think that there should be more racing.”
YASMINA HATEM
American School of Doha
SYLVIA FEGHALI
Lycée Bonaparte
“I liked it especially with the company of professors and students.”
YEHIA ELEBIARY
Texas A&M University at Qatar
“They should do this more often.” KHADIJA MAHSUD
University College London Qatar
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“Basically it was a Color Walk but it was fun.”
TEKLA GAGOSHIDZE
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
“This is the first time that I’ve done anything like this. I didn’t know that you could do events like this.”
AHMED HASHMI
Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar “I’ve done races before but nothing with this amount of paint and music.”
CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS Sherborne Qatar
“Everyone was very cheerful.” ZEENA OJJEH
Northwestern University in Qatar
“We did it last year at school and we wanted to do the real thing ... We’re really tired.”
YARA MANSOUR American School of Doha
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Computer renditions of the finished DI campus
EXPERT TALK
FOSTERING ARAB KNOWLEDGE CAMPUS finds out how the newly established Doha Institute of Graduate Studies will add value to Doha’s higher education landscape.
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arlier this year, Doha Institute of Graduate Studies (DI) announced
that it was ready for its first intake of students. It was the culmination of years of work, the realization of a project which was just an idea in late 2011. The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
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(ACRPS), headed by Dr Azmi Bishara, saw the need to groom a new generation of Arab
inviting academic experts from across the Arab world and beyond to design the
thinkers in the fields of social studies, humanities and public service. After several months of assessing the region’s needs, planning, zeroing in on philosophy, governance and academic structure, and
curriculum, the two schools find themselves ready for their inaugural batch of students for the academic year 2015-2016. The School of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSSH) and the School of Public
DI Faculty and Administration at the press conference announcing admissions
Administration and Development Economics (SPADE) together offer ten different graduate-level courses on public policy, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, comparative literature and more. Dr Hassan Aly, Dean of SPADE, says, “The DI is pan-Arab, thus, we see it as complementing rather than competing with other educational institutions in Qatar and the Gulf. At the graduate levels many of these programs do not exist either in Qatar or in the Gulf, in general. The Doha Institute will add to the depth and horizon of the academic environment in Qatar and the region.” Dr Rasheed El Enany, Dean of SSSH, goes further to say that not only is the selection of courses at this level new to the
“We want to offer these students the chance to continue studying these courses at a higher level and give them the opportunity to become researchers in their different areas.”
give them the opportunity to become researchers in their different areas,” he says. The medium of instruction will be Arabic though knowledge of English is vital. The Institute will also be attached to a language center that will help the students reach the required proficiency level in either of these languages. “The reason for teaching the courses in Arabic is very simple,” Dr El Enany explains. “Arabic is a language of knowledge and research and not just for conversation and shopping in the market place. But still, we expect our students to be good in English so they can remain in touch with international frontier research in their respective disciplines.”
country, but so is the “very philosophy of teaching these courses on the basis of interdisciplinarity, which is unheard of in the current academic milieu locally”. He goes on to say that many of these courses
are taught in Qatar at undergraduate level and their appeal and popularity among students in Qatar is well-known. “We want to offer these students the chance to continue studying them at a higher level and
Additionally, SPADE is aiming at “improving the skills and competencies of the current and/or prospective public employees in order to impact the quality and quantity of the public goods and services
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Dr Hassan Aly, Dean of School of Public Administration and Development Economics
Dr Azmi Bishara, head of Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
Miriam Shaath speaks to prospective students
Dr Rasheed El Enany, Dean of School of Social Sciences and Humanities
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produced by that sector,” Dr Aly elaborates. “One of these specializations is in nongovernmental and non-profit organizations. The career prospects locally are great, especially with the high rate of growth of charities and non-profit organizations that exist in Qatari society today.” Concurrently, Dr El Enany points out that the pursuit of higher education shouldn’t just be to
This home-grown institution will naturally collaborate with the parent organization, the ACRPS. “DI and ACRPS will partner in terms of supporting services to both institutions (library, IT services, etc.) and in terms of research activities, which will be of the utmost importance,” Dr Aly says. “Use of DI expertise in conducting socio, political, and economic research will
having a mutual interest in.” The DI does not fall under the umbrella of any of the local universities; its licensing and validation currently stem from the Council of Higher Education in Qatar. “Soon after graduating its first cohort, which is a pre-requisite, DI will seek regional and international accreditation from highly ranked and well-known international
enhance careers but also to seek knowledge. “Knowledge is an end in itself. The more you ‘know’, the more you understand the world and society you live in, and the more adaptable you are to succeed in it,” he says.
be the protocol. Coordination in research funding, collection of data, organizing regional and international conferences and dissemination of research results are some of the areas that I see both institutions
organizations ,” Dr Aly mentions.
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For more information on courses, applications and the campus, please visit www.dohainstitute.edu.qa.
YOUNG TURKS
ALL PLAY AND A LITTLE WORK WORDS AND PHOTOS BY: MARGARET KADIFA
Everything at VCU-Q's Tasneem design conference related to the theme of playfulness. During the biennial conference’s three-day workshops, VCU-Q students and faculty expressed playfulness through a range of mediums such as animation, face painting and fashion, creating pieces that they displayed at the conference’s Festival Day on March 12. Here’s a peek into this year’s workshops.
FLOATING SCULPTURES The goal of this studio is to create an art installation made of pink inner tubes. “Swim rings are all about play,” Alberto Iacovoni, the leader of the workshop, said. “One of my issues in my work is to learn to make play.”
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ROBOTS WITH PERSONALITY A student constructs her own robot, made from a kit that studio leader Jan De Coster carried with him to Doha all the way from Belgium. “Robots don’t necessarily have to do something functional,” De Coster says. “Mine are more about the creativity, the personality and the character design.”
A NEW FACE Studio participants paint their own and others’ faces in a style inspired by the Peking Opera.
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OPENING NIGHT Legendary fashion designer Valentino with the Chair of the Fashion Design Department Sandra Wilkins, on the opening night of the conference.
Photo by Omer Mohammed on behalf of VCU-Q Photo by Omer Mohammed on behalf of VCU-Q
DIGITAL DRAWINGS The final project from a workshop about drawing and code.
THE LAST HURRAH Closing speaker, filmmaker and social media phenomenon Casey Neistat with VCU-Q students after his presentation.
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MOVING PICTURES In artist Jim Le Fevre’s workshop, participants use modern-day tools such as a digital live-action camera and a record player to bring a traditional form of animation into the 21st century.
A NEW WAY OF KNITTING A student knits using punch cards instead of needles.
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MAKING MONEY The printing on this 10-riyal note symbolizes tradition. “We are questioning what is valuable,” studio leader Giovanni Innella says. “Tradition, for example, is something that you can’t buy.”
TOYS FOR GROWN UPS Participants rip apart and embellish dolls in one studio to create a custom figure.
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Some of the interesting cosplays at the IGN Convention Qatar
Gaming Geeks Converge Doha got the chance to indulge in all things fantastical at the first IGN Convention Qatar, which for two days brought out the best of the latent nerdiness of the local population.
Celebrity guests such as Hafthor Bjornsson, Dave Fennoy, Adam Harrington, Ryan Hart and Nadiask interact with fans
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Although direct selling was not allowed at the venue due to licensing issues, retailers showcased some of their more popular merchendise (to be purchased from them at a later date)
At the Artists Corner, local and international artists wowed visitors with their work.
The cosplay competition on the second day saw a few convincing Walter Whites and Jokers but also some dubious looking Oberyn Martells and Deadpools. Visitors share their love for their favorite games with strangers and fellow fans.
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“THE MORGAN FREEMAN OF THE GAMING WORLD” BY RYA AYSWA HY MURT
We caught up with Dave Fennoy of The Walking Dead fame at the IGN Convention in Doha. He did his instantly recognizable Lee Everett voice for us and we were floored.
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Screenshots from Season 1 of The Walking Dead
“Lee was more pulled back because he was worried about Clementine. And he was hushed because he didn’t want the walkers to find them.”
hank you, anonymous fan at the Qatar National Convention Centre, who couldn’t have put it better when he declared Dave Fennoy to be the Morgan Freeman of the gaming world. His deep calming voice was a comfort not just to Clementine but to us as well, as we made trepid strides into the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead where quick fingers keep you alive and a good, steady heart keeps you sane. “Lee was more pulled back because he was worried about Clementine. And he was hushed because he didn’t want the walkers to find them,” he said in Lee’s voice when we asked him how he zeroed down how it would sound. Of course, we squealed in delight. Though Dave has been a voice actor since the 90s (and a morning radio DJ and stage actor before that), The Walking Dead (T WD) brought him a celebrity status that voice actors are usually not used to. “This interest in Dave Fennoy as a guest in conferences didn’t show up till T WD. I have always been a character voice and people knew the voice but not the name. T WD changed all that. It was like winning the Oscars. Suddenly I was being invited everywhere – to Comic Con, Dragon Con, Walker Stalker...,” he says. He almost didn’t do the part. “I like T WD; I have read the comics and watched the show but I was never really a crazy zombie fan. They had already cast someone else for the first episode but I guess they were not very happy with it so they put out another casting call.
how big the game was going to be. With the third season under development, the first two seasons to date have sold more than 28 million episodes, won several Game of the Year awards and Dave was nominated for a BAFTA for his performance (“It is such an honor to have your peers recognize your talent. It doesn’t happen often in this business... and hey, free trip to London”). Though Dave’s character dies at the end of Season 1, his legacy lives on through Clementine who now has to navigate the new and treacherous world with Lee’s lessons ringing in her ears. “Lee reminded me of myself a lot,” Dave says. “If I wasn’t doing what I do, I’ll probably be teaching history at some college. And Telltale Games has the ability to write deep and compeling characters which makes our job both easier and more rewarding. The first time we were recording, I knew this was something very, very good. It was different from anything I had done before. Lee was a fully developed, three-dimensional character. And when you played him you feel the full impact of the
thinking his life is over and that he has failed as a human being. Then the zombie apocalypse frees him and he meets Clementine. Taking care of her redeems him and gives him a chance to feel like a worthwhile human again.” It’s a story that everyone wants to be able to relate to. The little choices we make in the game are the ones that we find ourselves making in our everyday lives, only the consequences are amplified in the lawless land struck with the zombie apocalypse. Dave is not a gamer himself but he has seen the playthroughs. “I like watching the game like it’s a T V show,” he says. And you could too. That’s why the game was so popular. Because, beyond the zombie-killing action and the guts and gore, it’s still an engaging story of love, relationships and redemption. “The whole gaming culture has grown up since I started in the business,” Dave says nostalgically. “Game acting in its current form started in the 90s and I didn’t realize it at the time but I was one of the first voice actors in games. However, at that time I thought of it as just another form of animation. A few years ago it occurred to me that gaming and animation have started going in different directions, and gaming has matured as an entertainment medium. It started becoming evident to me that the work I was doing was affecting a whole generation in ways that T V and movies affected their parents. Especially after T WD, many people got in touch with me to tell me that the game had touched their heart, that never had they been so emotionally involved
There was a guy in telltale games who had heard me in another video game and decided to bring me in for an audition,” Dave remembers. Of course, no one could have predicted
choices you had to make, and you realize, like everyone else, he is not perfect. He was a professor who found his wife having an affair. Anger takes over and, having killed her and her lover, he is on his way to jail,
with game characters before and that they cried at the end of Season 1. It changed my outlook on what I was doing. I had never really thought of my work as important before,” he says modestly.
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FINDING FRIENDS AMONG STRANGERS DURING HER FINAL WEEKS IN DOHA, OUR EDITORIAL INTERN FROM NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY’S MAIN CAMPUS, MARGARET KADIFA, REFLECTS ON HER EXPERIENCE LIVING AND WORKING IN QATAR’S CAPITAL.
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ven though I come from the United States, a nation of immigrants, Doha feels incredibly diverse. I live in the women’s dorms in Education City with students from countries ranging from India to Denmark to Jordan. I’ve grown to value this diversity. Apart from dune bashing in the desert, seeing flamingos in the mangroves and eating homemade samosas at the MIA Park’s craft fair, what I will remember the most about Doha is how much I have in common with people from
Sometimes this didn’t surprise me. The United States’ habit of exporting brands across the globe means that most people understand (even if they disagree with) my love of Starbucks Frappuccinos. This is especially true among the Northwestern University in Qatar students, with whom I share a love for our snow-covered main campus in Evanston, mutual friends and a passion for journalism. I met a surprising number of Lebanese students at NU-Q. As my father is from Beirut, I bonded with
Education City. I interviewed an Argentinean anthropologist for a story that I wrote for Qatar Today who studied at Stanford University, which is located in my hometown of Palo Alto, California. I grew up about four blocks from the campus, and my high school is across the street. Her husband is from the area and went to one of my high school’s rivals. Several weeks earlier, I interviewed a Qatari for a story I wrote about the biking scene in Doha. To my surprise, he studied at the American
countries that I’ve never visited and barely know anything about (I’ve accepted that, as I am from the United States, I am inherently uninformed about world affairs no matter how hard I try to keep up).
them over our mutual love of knafeh and our conviction that Lebanon is, in fact, the best country in the Middle East. What was more surprising was what I had in common with people I met outside of
University of Beirut, where my father attended university and where I studied for a summer in high school. The most unlikely connection that I made was with a group of journalists at a press
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conference at the British Embassy.The press conference took place during teatime, so naturally we were served a full tea service. Sometimes stereotypes actually are true, right? I sat at a table laden with cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, cookies and tea with several other journalists. All of them happened to be from countries that at one point were under British control: Sri Lanka, India and Egypt. The tea, which the British ambassador said was an example of British expertise, was from the East India Company. The ambassador described the East India Company as “a very key part of Britain establishing a worldwide trading network.” As a member of a former British colony, I (and I’m guessing my fellow journalists would agree with me) would describe the company as a symbol of British colonialism and imperialism. In December of 1773, two and a half years before the United States declared itself independent from England, angry Boston residents dumped East India Company tea into the harbor to protest what they viewed as unfair taxes. It was a night that brewed the world’s largest and saltiest cup of tea, and converted the United States to coffee, at least partially explaining
other journalists and I a moment to figure out why we were all hesitating to pour ourselves a cup until I asked the blunt question, “So, how do you all feel about this tea?” Who would have thought that coming from one of England’s former colonies would have instantly connected me to journalists from around the globe? I have to admit that I did end up drinking the tea and it was some of the best I’ve ever had. But I wasn’t surprised to see the journalist from Sri Lanka decline a cup of Ceylon, Shri Lank's colonial name. Something a lot of people don’t know is how regionally divided the United States is. It’s at least a six-hour drive from my hometown just to leave California. My only experience with many other states is flying over them to get to Northwestern in Illinois. Because of Texas A&M’s satellite campus in Doha, I met students who were both studying abroad from the main campus and students from Egypt and Pakistan studying at the satellite campus. I’ve never been to Texas. My familiarity of it is confined what to I learned in high school United States history lessons and what I read in the news. But through my new friends, I gained a glimpse into College Station, Austin and
my current Frappuccino addiction. The East India Company’s direct influence in both India and Sri Lanka lasted much longer than in the United States, with much more pervasive effects. It took the
Houston. I’m grateful for what I’ve learned. I now actually want to visit Texas, but I didn’t expect to have to travel halfway across the globe only to be taught by Doha’s residents about my own home.
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CELEBRITY TALK
LLAP For years, hardcore trekkies would sign off with this customary Vulcan greeting. Leonard Nimoy himself would suffix all his tweets thus. In his last tweet, five days before his death, he would write – “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP”. CAMPUS salutes this science fiction legend.
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A conversation on WhatsApp, February 28, 10:03 am “Omg... Leonard Nimoy is dead!” “Noooooooooo... When?” “Yesterday... Just found out on Twitter” “Well.... he lived long and prospered” “Amen” “I am going to binge watch Star Trek tonight and cry away” “My plan exactly” Mr Spock, so inimitably portrayed by Nimoy, is a cultural icon who almost always finds himself on the list of the greatest T V characters. The lanky, stony-faced Science Officer aboard the Starship Enterprise was the voice of cold, hard logic that was imperative while one is warp-speeding through the galaxy and going where no man has gone before. You would think a character that more often than not thinks like a computer would be severely one-dimensional, but Spock’s human half kept it interesting, his permanently arched eyebrows leaving him seeming even more quizzical when confronted with the all too human oddities of love, anger, hate and compassion. Nimoy, who had till then been relatively unknown, brought this complex character to life, one who is steadfastly abiding by his Vulcan training as it inevitably collides with the rare surfacing of his human sensibilities.
For all intents and purposes, Nimoy was Spock and Spock was Nimoy
Nimoy as Spock Prime in the new reboot of Star Trek
The "Spocking" of Canadian $5 bills featuring former Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier.
The original series only ran for three years between 1966 and 1969, it spurned a science fiction revolution, fueled by man’s first tentative forays into space and the moon landing. And Spock, more than anyone else from the series, has been the face of this movement. As an actor, Nimoy both loved and hated Spock. On one hand his career is spoken of in terms of “Before Star Trek”, “Star Trek” and “After Star Trek”. For all intents and purposes, Nimoy was Spock and Spock was Nimoy. For an actor, this is both a blessing and a curse and Nimoy’s struggle with trying to distance his character from Spock’s was no less dramatic than Spock’s own battle to keep his all too human instincts at bay. His two autobiographies are titled “I am not Spock” and “I am Spock”. And though he had a rich acting stint that spanned theater, voice acting, television and film and he dabbled in directing, producing, writing and singing, the Star Trek franchise would continue to dominate his professional (and often, personal) life. Nimoy mentioned in several interviews that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his
In tribute, NASA Astronaut Terry W Virts took this picture of the Vulcan salute from the International Space Station, in orbit above Nimoy's home town of Boston
personality in private life; he would behave more like Spock than himself – “more logical, more rational, more thoughtful, less emotional and finding a calm in every situation”. A whole new growing generation of science fiction fans, now a global community, would keep him tethered to his legacy. His final movie role
Trek into Darkness. This time it truly was his final appearance as Spock. And it has never been clearer than it is now that no matter how many reboots there are or new generations of the series there come, in every universe and every timeline Nimoy has immortalised Spock and Spock him.
was in the Star Trek reboot by JJ Abrams, where he played the elderly Ambassador Spock who is sucked back into time into an alternative timeline. Despite declaring in 2010 that he was officially retiring as Spock in order to give Zachary Quinto his own space in the fandom’s conscience as the new Spock, Nimoy reprised his role as Spock Prime in the second of the Star Trek reboot movies, Star
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equality
the
Hundreds of Education City students participate in a march to show solidiarity with the victims of the Chapel Hill murders
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he sun had nearly set; the day was dying, and the quaint town of Chapel Hill was ready to be shrouded in the routines of the night. But on the night of February 10 the quietude and peace of this town was shattered by gunshots and screams that tore through the evening air. By the time authorities reached
of their home, their dreams lying dead next to their bodies. These were three students who were excellent achievers, vigorous community volunteers, and aspiring ideal human beings. Two of them were a newly-wed couple who had just embarked on a life together. What then did these three
contradictions pile on the realities. We live in a world so intricately bonded through trade and information, yet so sharply divided on religion and ethnicity nonetheless. It is a time when militants use fruits of technology such as the internet to purchase Russian guns to use on foreign soil to spill minority blood, and a time when the allure
the scene, it was too late. The innocent blood of three young Muslims — Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu Salha — ebbed out from their lifeless bodies onto the cold floor
Muslims do to be punished with such an abrupt and devastating end to what was just the start of their lives? The answer: they were three Muslims. It’s a comical world we live in today. The
of modernity is being stained by the vulgarities of religious intolerance. Religious intolerance — above climate change and economic collapse — has today enveloped the world in an orgy of violence
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in red and hatred, presenting itself as the chief of mankind’s calamities today. It is religious intolerance that is today birthing the seeds of war and strife across the world. From the bloodcurdling actions of ISIS in Iraq, the barbaric murder of a secular author in Bangladesh, the rise of systemic discrimination of minorities in democracies such as India and Germany, to the tragic murders at Chapel Hill, it is time to shamefully accept that we are a species that can go to the moon, fly faster than the speed of sound, and build kilometer-high skyscrapers, yet cannot set aside the most primeval of our differences. That we must endure a world in which even young children are subjected to the tortures of war and death because of the religion of their birth — whether it be Coptic Christians in Egypt, Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, or Jews in Europe – is a grotesque fact that should be far from acceptable, let alone ubiquitous. But for all the rhetoric and noise against religious intolerance, from Barack Obama’s warning of rising religious intolerance in India, to passion filled speeches against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that echoed through the streets of Paris and Dresden, very little of it means anything if we as a civilisation cannot put our thumb on the roots of intolerance and snuff it out. Therein lies a question which attracts more debate than solutions – how can we fight religious intolerance brewing in our own backyards? Writing in 18th-century France, the philosopher François-Marie Arouet , better
known by his nom de plume,Voltaire, asked himself, “What is tolerance?” to which he wrote, “It is the consequence of humanity.” Religious intolerance is a construct of society; human beings are not born with an innate natural desire to hate one religion or another. People are taught to hate one another. And if they can be taught to hate, they can be convinced to love. Ultimately, it is not the radical, the extremist, or the tyrant who pays for religious intolerance, but everyday people like Deah, Yusor, and Razan. Those three Muslims, who dedicated their lives to being good human beings, were murdered for the actions and words of men (if religions were the domain of women this article wouldn’t exist) who used tools of ignorance and hate to elevate themselves, and endanger others. If we don’t counter those who breed hate, only more innocents will die. It doesn’t take
We are all equal in red, for the bullet is as Godless as the triggerman.
Aditya Karkera muses on the vicious circle of intolerance and the inexcusable number of innocent lives that continue to be consumed by it. a proletarian revolution to achieve this. We don’t need another Arab Spring either. To fight religious intolerance, hit it where it hurts: in the mouth. The words of radicals and extremists should not be allowed to become canon. No matter how loud, the words of hate mongers mustn’t be construed as the sentiments of the religion, nor should it be accepted as a tenet of the religion. It is bewildering why such hate-fueled individuals cannot understand that religion, at its core, is subjective and dependent on individual experience. Religion is not a contract – it doesn’t work the same for everyone who is bound to it. Instead, we must understand that religion is a deeply personal experience. What one follower of a religion says, ten others might disagree with, and vice versa. Understanding this fundamental nature is probably one of the only ways to deepen the integration of religions across the world. If that integration fails to happen, the great pillars of our civilisation – from science, technology, and marvels of engineering, to compassion, culture, and diversity – will all come crashing down, leaving nothing but the ashes of civility in the midst of perpetual violence. Notwithstanding the millennia of cultural differences that haunt the world today, it is time we understood a principle that most politicians and religious leaders can’t seem to wrap their heads around: beneath any skin, white or black, and beneath any flesh, blessed by any God, we are all equal in the crimson blood we shed to feed the engines of intolerance.
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HEALTH & FITNESS
EASY FAT BURNERS PHOTOS BY ROB ALTAMIRANO MODEL: PAULO VARGAS DE FLORIO OF TRINITY TALENT QATAR SHOT ON LOCATION : VITALITY ZONE AND AQUA LOUNGE OF MARRIOT MARQUIS HOTEL DOHA
BURNING FAT IS ALWAYS HARD WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A ROUTINE TO FOLLOW. WITH PROPER EXERCISE AND A GOOD BALANCED DIET, YOU WILL BE ON YOUR WAY TO SHEDDING THOSE POUNDS. HERE’S AN EASY STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE ON LOSING FAT AND GAINING MORE MUSCLE.
2 PULL-UPS
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POOL LAPS (OR OTHER WARM-UP EXERCISES) It is always good to do some pool laps or any warm-up exercises such as running on the treadmill or jumping rope before you start lifting weights.
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Grab the bar using an overhand grip that’s slightly beyond shoulder width. Hang at arm’s length with your knees bent and your ankles crossed behind you. Your body should remain straight from shoulders to knees for the entire movement. Bring your chest to the bar, pulling your upper arms down forcefully and squeezing your shoulder blades (pretend you’re trying to pinch something between them). It helps if you imagine that you’re pulling the bar to your chest instead of your chest to the bar. Pause, and then lower yourself back to a dead hang.
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BENCH PRESS Warm up with presses. Do 5-10 reps of a weight that’s equal to half your body weight. Perform 3 sets, increasing the load 10 to 15% each set, and resting for 1 to 2 minutes between each set. On your fourth set, choose a heavy weight that you can bench for only 3 reps in a row.
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DEAD-LIFTS
Stand holding a barbell – use a 20 with both hands – under the top of the weight and your arms hanging straight down in front of your body. Keep your chin and chest up and your shoulders back. Next, lower your body until the weight touches the floor. Then stand back up. You should get the hang of it within three or four repetitions.
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SHOULDER PRESS Hold a dumbbell in each hand. Plant your feet firmly on the floor, about hip width apart. Bend your elbows and raise your upper arms to shoulder height so the dumbbells are at ear level. Pull your abdominals in so there is a slight gap between the small of your back and the bench. Place the back of your head against the pad. Push the dumbbells up and in until the ends of the dumbbells touch lightly, directly over your head, and then lower the dumbbells back to ear level.
SQUATS
Place your feet flat on the floor. Take a foot stance that feels comfortable for you, usually shoulder width. Make sure your knees remain over your toes at all times. Next, place the bar over your trapezius muscle, not over your neck. Place your hands around the bar and take a grip comfortable for you to help keep the weight balanced and stabilized. Now thrust your hips forward, pull in your abdominals, and keep your lower back in a near neutral position. Slowly lower yourself (hips or butt first) down and back (not forward) to a near or parallel position. The weight should be distributed on your upper thighs and the heels or balls of your feet, not your toes or your knees. From this weight distribution push up off your heels and lift the weight. Throughout the whole movement your back should be between a 90 and 45-degree angle for safe execution. Do 3-5 sets of 12 repetitions each.
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TECH TALK
PHYSICS, COMPUTER CODE AND HOLLYWOOD
The team behind the visual effects of the movie Interstellar has published a paper on some intriguing discoveries they made about the nature of black holes. In developing the movie’s visual effects, the team essentially made the first attempt ever to compute what it would look like to view a black hole from its orbit, a dizzying sight of the singularity “dragging space into a whirling motion and stretching the caustics around itself many times.” Kip Thorne, the astrophysicist who was consulted on the movie, said the new approach to creating images of black holes and other celestial objects will be of great value to his fellow scientists.
DRONE RULES In a move that might set a worldwide precedent, USA’s Federal Aviation Administration released a list of proposed rules concerning drone operations that will come into effect soon after the end of public consultation. Here are some of the important tenets of the proposed regulations + The rules apply to drones that are 55 pounds or less. + A drone operator must be at least 17 years old and pass an aeronautical knowledge test to obtain a drone
THE PEARL IN YOUR PALM THIS NEW ITERATION OF THE APP IS A VAST IMPROVEMENT ON THE OLD ONE AND ENABLES USERS TO ACCESS A RANGE OF DIGITAL SERVICES ON THE ISLAND. Available for free download on Android or iOS operating systems, the app can be used to “apply for services, register complaints or seek information and make reservations”. You can also locate stores, contact them, ascertain opening hours and also make reservations at its many restaurants. Location services are either displayed on an easy-to-read 3D interactive map or through the new technique of “augmented reality”, thus allowing users to identify labels for all restaurants, outlets, facilities, and entertainment locations at The Pearl-Qatar in real time by holding up their smartphones’ built-in cameras.
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operator certificate that would have to be renewed every two years. + Drone operators to keep their devices in sight at all times. + These unmanned aircraft would also have to stay below 500 feet, travel no faster than 100 miles per hour, and not fly over other people. + The rules would ban drone operators from dropping objects from the device, which – for the time being – prohibit delivery drones like Amazon PrimeAir.
THE RACE FOR SELFDRIVING CARS APPLE THREW ITS HAT INTO THE RING AND WILL NOW BE COMPETING WITH GOOGLE AND UBER IN DEVELOPING SELF-DRIVING CARS. News broke last week that Apple has assembled a 1,000-person team and poached high-profile talent from car companies to work on a top-secret self-driving electric vehicle project carrying
the code name “Titan”. Uber is also going head-to-head with one of its primary investors Google in the self-driving space and has teamed up with Carnegie Mellon University to create a new center (“Uber Advanced Technologies Center “) in Pittsburgh. Here it plans to do research and development “primarily in the areas of mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology,” according to the company.
THE SYRIAN CONFLICT ESCALATES INTO CYBERSPACE IN A REPORTED ENTITLED “BEHIND THE SYRIAN CONFLICT’S DIGITAL FRONT LINES”, FIREEYE THREAT INTELLIGENCE HAS DETAILED THE ACTIVITIES OF A CYBER-ESPIONAGE GROUP THAT STOLE SYRIAN OPPOSITION’S STRATEGIES AND BATTLE PLANS. According to the report, while the team was unable to positively identify who was behind these attacks, they were able to ascertain that they “used social media to infiltrate victims’ machines and steal military information that would provide an advantage to President Assad’s
men fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces as well as media activists, humanitarian aid workers, and others within the opposition located in Syria, the region and beyond, the report said. To undertake this operation, the threat group employed a familiar tactic:
forces on the battlefield”. Between at least November 2013 and January 2014, the group stole a cache of critical documents and Skype conversations revealing the Syrian opposition’s strategy, tactical battle plans, supply needs, and troves of personal information, data belonging to the
ensnaring its victims through conversations with seemingly sympathetic and attractive women. As the conversations progressed, the “women” would offer up a personal photo, laden with malware and developed to infiltrate the target’s computer or Android phone.
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WHAT’S COOL
These navy sneakers will bring an urban edge to your workout attire.
Try out Sally Hansen’s new Miracle Gel manicure system to get the look of a gel manicure without the hassle of LED lights and a salon price tag. It's available in 47 shades. For a color pop this summer, we like the teal and tangerine.
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Soft pink is spring’s new neutral, according to Banana Republic. Try wearing the color in the brand’s long, pleated maxi skirt or incorporate it into your outfit with a statement purse.
We love Gap’s slouchy new denim jogging pants. The sporty but trendy look can take you straight from a walk on the Corniche to the souq for dinner.
Make today’s workout trendier with some help from Le Coq Sportif’s new spring-summer collection. This statement women’s sweatshirt applauds you and your friends as you get moving, and these flowered sneakers will get you in the mood to take advantage of this year’s last few weeks of good weather. We also love the style of this men’s color-blocked, pocketed t-shirt.
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GIZMOS
PLAYTIME IS FOREVER
No matter what people say, toys are for everyone. Put aside that book, wake up your inner child and indulge in some guilt-free time pass. ALL ITEMS ARE AVAILABLE ON FIREBOX.COM
MR KNOCKY
ICE CREAM BALL
Remember how your parents dreaded buying you that drum kit? And you had to contend with playing imaginary ones? Well, put those air drumming skills to good use with Mr Knocky which mimics your rhythm as you thump maniacally at the empty air with the two handles. Replace the drums with tin or plastic for fresh new sounds. Let you inner Mike Fleetwood be heard. QR160
This is possibly the most fun way to prepare food that exists. Yes, ice cream is food. So are slushies, sorbets and frozen yogurt. Which are all the things you can make with the ice cream ball. Pop open the chamberss, add the necessary ingredients and the games can begin. Shake it vigorously in the air, roll it leisurely across the floor or pass it around with your friends – play your way to a delicious pint of ice cream in just 20 minutes. QR160
SCREAMING FLYING MONKEY Another awesome creation that will annoy your roommate and bring you joy, all in one go. Simply put two fingers in the little pockets in his paws, catapult him across the room and watch as he flies through the air issuing bloodcurdling monkey screeches from a hidden speaker. It only gets funnier every time. QR32
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WALKING DEAD MONOPOLY In this long overdue edition of Monopoly, we realize that in the post-apocalyptic world capitalism is as alive and kicking as ever. Money is useless so you trade with food, supplies and ammunition. You don’t buy properties; you fortify the hell out of it. You don’t "Get out of Jail" free; you just get a coating of zombie guts that lets you pass unmolested. Even the old game pieces get a makeover – you can now play as Rick’s hat, Michone’s Katana or ‘Lucille’. QR160
ACCENTUATE You know what’s fun when you are surrounded by people from so many different nationalities? Doing accents. Read quotes in an accent, without any verbal or visual clues, whilst your friends try their best to guess it, after a generous round of ridicule. The game has over 30 accents ranging from Cockney to New York to Jamaican. QR110
INSIDE3 LABYRINTH PUZZLE CUBE Put aside your Rubik’s Cube. It isn’t the coolest puzzle on the block anymore. Because until you have steered a small ball from one face of the cube to another through this blind three-dimensional maze, you don’t know what tough is. Available in five different difficulty levels, each cube can be dismantled and reassembled and can give you many hours of sheer frustration. QR100
PANDA/PUPPY/KITTY PILE UP This is one way to level up your chopstick skills. The aim of the game is to use chopsticks to delicately balance the pandas above a precarious tyre (or puppies atop a precarious tower of teacups or miniature felines around a classic domestic scene) without toppling the entire setup. As the pile of small animals mounts, so does the unbearable pressure. It’s Jenga but only better. QR135
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dancing
on waves Margaret Kadifa goes underwater to see how Qatar’s first synchronised swimming team is taking shape. PHOTOGRAPHY BY: MARGARET KADIFA
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primary school girls splashed in an otherwise empty Olympic-size pool in the Aspire Dome on Friday morning. They are part of Doha's first synchronized swimming team. Over the course of an hour and a half, they learned some basics: summersaulting, treading water and flipping upside-down, their pointed toes portruding above the water's surface. By the end of the practice, they were exhausted. And so was the program's founder, synchronized swimming coach and Italian expat Sara Spadoni. “You are working every single muscle of
your body,” says synchronized swimming coach and Italian expat Sara Spadoni. “At the same time you have to look graceful.” Now a venue and event coordinator at Aspire Zone Foundation, Spadoni was a competitive synchronized swimmer for eleven years and continued to coach even after she left the sport to pursue her studies. She has wanted to start Qatar’s first synchronized swimming team since she arrived in Doha about a year ago. Today it’s finally happening. “I love coaching synchro and I figured out that it’s completely missing in Qatar,” Spadoni says. Spadoni's new Aspire-spon-
sored program is called Qatar in Synchro. There is not money allocated yet to pay a coach, so Spadoni is coaching unpaid. But she doesn't mind. “The reason why I’m doing it is to bring awareness about this discipline and to make girls try it because I know once they do, they will love it," Spadoni says. An Olympic sport since 1984, synchronized swimming is also an art form and a source of entertainment, Spadoni says. Swimmers perform alone, in duets and in groups. Similar to dancers or gymnasts, they learn positions that serve as the building blocks for patterns involving multiple
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“It’s a team sport but you’ve got the aesthetic side to it, the dance side.”
swimmers. Add an artistic vision, music and costumes, and a coach can stitch these patterns into a performance routine. “It’s a good mixture between being masculine but still being graceful,” Spadoni says. If you watch a performance, you’ll see what she means. Take Russia, for example. The country has won every synchronized swimming Olympic gold medal since the 2000 games in Sydney. In the 2012 London Olympics, its team of eight swimmers, clad in sequin-encrusted suits, exhibited brute strength when lifting and tossing one of their members out of the water, but also the grace of dancers while spinning upsidedown underwater, with perfectly pointed toes and straight legs that twisted like corkscrews. Synchronized swimming is an established sport in Egypt, but it did not reach the Gulf until 2012 when Egyptian-raised twin
Since Synquatics’ inception, two other sports clubs in the UAE have started offering synchronized swimming classes as well. “Everyone wants to try it,” Sarah says. “It’s a team sport but you’ve got the aesthetic side to it, the dance side.” Creativity is an essential aspect of synchronized swimming, Spadoni says, and the sport is an opportunity for swimmers to
these countries that has never been seen before. From the makeup that women use here, the style that they have, the taste that they have and the music from Arab countries. It’s going to be something new.” After holding four trial sessions, Spadoni now coaches two groups of ten girls twice a week and hopes to have their first routine choreographed and ready to be presented by November. Synchronized swimming is about to change internationally. Federation Internationale de Natation, the global body that governs synchronized swimming, voted at a meeting in Doha last year to add a mixed-gender event to its traditionally female-only international championships. For now, however, Spadoni will be training just girls. At one of her trial sessions on National
sisters Heba and Sarah Abdel Gawad and Sarah's husband started the region’s first synchronized swimming team, Synquatics, in Dubai. It now has over 200 members and a wait list for each of its classes, Sarah says.
express themselves through movements in the water. The creative possibilities that could come from establishing the sport in a new region are exciting, Spadoni says. “There might be something coming from
Sport Day, the girls “loved” synchro, Spadoni says. She adds that after seeing the girls having fun participating in a sport she loves, “the one who enjoyed it the most was me.”
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AROUND TOWN
FOR A GOOD CAUSE Television personality Lojain Omran has been appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador of Reach Out to Asia (ROTA). Lojain is renowned for her philanthropic campaigns supporting young refugees in Syria, and children affected by wars, political conflicts and natural disasters in Somalia and north Kenya. As a Goodwill Ambassador, Lojain will be representing ROTA in a number of local, regional and international events. Lojain will be travelling on volunteers’ educational trips to a
number of Asian and Arab countries where ROTA currently operates. Her inaugural trip as ROTA Goodwill Ambassador was a volunteer trip to Indonesia, her first of many. Lojain joined the volunteers in all the activities that were delivered to the beneficiary children in Indonesia. “I am proud to be part of ROTA and to accompany the charity in its journey towards achieving a common goal. We see hope everywhere we go and this is why we must also provide hope.”
MARVELOUS ACTIVITIES AT MIA
THE MARVELLOUS CREATURES EXHIBITION IS ON AT THE MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART FROM MARCH 4 TO JULY 11. The exhibition focuses on the real and mythical animals that appear in the legends, tales, and fables of the Islamic world. Divided into the natural quadrants of earth, air, fire, and water, the animals are used to introduce timeless stories from well-known classics such as Shahnameh, Kalila wa Dimna and 1001 Nights. A number of activities are to be held alongside the event. For instance, one can explore the historic and artistic development of the ‘Shahnameh’, the epic poem that tells the stories of the heroes and rulers of ancient Persia, at a daytime workshop. There are walk-in workshops where children and parents are invited to make masks. There’s even a silk painting workshop for teens. A number of film screenings are also scheduled in collaboration with the Doha Film Institute.
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SAFE STREETS
The youth-focused interactive Road Safety Initiative “Darb al Salama” is one of the main attractions at the launch of the 31st GCC Traffic Week. From March 8-14, visitors to the GCC Traffic week were able to take part in a series of interactive activities which tested their hazard anticipation skills, defensive driving techniques, and awareness of speed. The activities include life-sized
simulators enabling visitors to experience the impact of a car rollover and a low-speed car crash, highlighting the importance of wearing a seat belt. The program uses a mix of experiential and computer-based driver education software to help change driving and road safety behavior, with the long-term vision of reducing fatalities and serious injuries resulting from road accidents.
SHAKESPEARE IN DOHA ONE OF SHAKESPEARE’S MOST POPULAR PLAYS, MACBETH IS A TALE OF LOVE, AMBITION AND MURDER. The play will be staged in Doha for four days in Education City’s Black Box Theater. The audience will be mere centimeters away
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from the actors during the entire performance. Watching close-up as the wicket witches upon the heath lead aAcbeth into a world of murder and lies. Mione van der Merwe, who was behind the company's production of Les Misérables will be directing this period drama, set in 11th Century Scotland.