Iraqi Artist Displays Watercolors in San Francisco

By Elaine Pasquini

Iraqi artist and surgeon Dr. Khalid Al-Qassab presented an exhibit of his watercolors at the Arab Cultural Center of San Francisco on July 24 and 25. The two-day showing was a unique opportunity for Bay Area residents to meet personally the world-renowned artist and view his magnificent landscapes. The watercolors on display included scenes of old Baghdad, life along the Tigris, beautiful gardens, and two paintings of the Nile in Cairo bathed in a dusky glow.

Khalid Al-Qassab was born in Baghdad in 1924, three years after the coronation of Faisal I, the first king of modern Iraq. Al-Qassab became interested in architecture as a teenager when his parents hired an architect to design a new home for them in Baghdad. However, upon graduation from high school, he acceded to his parents’ wishes that he become a doctor.

He graduated from medical school in 1946; was granted a fellowship by the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1954; and obtained a fellowship at the Memorial Hospital in New York to study cancer surgery in 1958. Until recently, he served as professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery at Baghdad University.

While studying medicine in Baghdad, he started painting and began his association with a group of friends who shared his interest in music, theater and art. In the early 1940s he founded “Société Primitive” or “S.P.” Another prominent member of the small group of 7 to 10 artists was Faik Hassan, one of Iraq’s most famous modern artists, who died in 1993.

Dr. Al-Qassab fondly recalls how members of the group were passionate about their artistic endeavors and would escape to the countryside every weekend to paint, regardless of the heat or sandstorms, traveling the country to capture its diverse natural beauty. The Société held its first exhibit in 1950 in Al-Qassab’s parents’ home in Baghdad. In 1956 Al-Qassab co-founded the Iraqi Artists Society, which was very active, with the government’s encouragement and support, up until the Gulf war.

Al-Qassab has shown his paintings annually for the past five years in Amman, Jordan and has held exhibitions of his work in major European capitals, Asia, and the United States. He recently received an award from the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California, for one of his watercolors, which was part of an exhibit of more than 100 artists. Despite the many awards and honors he has received over the years for his paintings, including a Gold Medal in Iraq, for Al-Qassab “the pleasure of painting is to do it. The most important thing in life is to love something.”

Al-Qassab has lived through many changes in Baghdad over the past 75 years, from the Hashemite monarchy which ended in 1958, the rise of the Ba’ath Party and subsequent emergence of Saddam Hussain as president in 1979, the war with Iran from 1980 to 1988, and the Gulf war of 1990 and 1991, followed by the crippling U.N.-imposed sanctions.

Still a practicing surgeon devoted to the people of Iraq, Al-Qassab recently performed surgery by candlelight as a result of power failures tracing back to the damage sustained by Iraq during the Gulf war and the subsequent U.N. sanctions that hamper purchase of replacement equipment. But he and others of his generation still living in Baghdad, the ancient city of the caliphs that they love, represent the strength and dignity of the Iraqi people who are suffering under inhumane conditions no one should have to endure.

Arab Businesswomen Visit San Francisco

The Arab Cultural Center of San Francisco hosted 13 visiting businesswomen from the Middle East and North Africa at the center facility on July 29, 1999. The evening reception was sponsored by the International Diplomacy Council as a part of its international visitors program to bring Arabic-speaking women from a variety of professions to visit their counterparts in the United States.

Many ACC members attended the reception in addition to members of the diplomatic community, including Mohammed Agami, consul and director of Egypt’s Press and Information Bureau, and Kamel Ayoub, honorary consul of Jordan. The International Diplomacy Council’s project, titled “The Role of Women in Business and Professions,” aimed at examining issues affecting the development of women in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as the United States. The project’s goals also included providing participants with an understanding of U.S. values and the variety and complexity of American women’s involvement in government, business and education.

During the trip the group met with governmental and business representatives, professors, journalists, and local leaders from the cities they visited. Many discussions centered on health care, self-help programs and volunteerism. These discussions provided the groundwork for long-term communication between the participants.

In addition to San Francisco, the group’s 21-day itinerary included New York, Washington, DC, and Rapid City, South Dakota. Each city developed its own agenda of topics and activities. The International Diplomacy Council works with embassies abroad to identify and bring to the U.S. outstanding women in government, education and private business as part of its international visitors program.

For many of the participants this was their first visit to the United States. Participants in the project who attended the reception included: Fatma-Zohra Mansouri, member of the Algerian parliament; Zahira Faris, counselor on mental health and family violence in Jerusalem; Mona Awni Abu-Ramadan, Gaza Bank manager; Ghada A. M. Ageel, deputy director, Palestinian Abraham Center for Languages; Fayza Mohammed Al-Awadhi, director of human resources, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research; F. Ikbal Doughan, Lebanese lawyer and businesswoman; Khaddouj Gharbi, professor at French Teacher Training College, Fez, Morocco; Najat Simou, labor union delegate, Moroccan Social Security Organization; Moza Nassir Al-Kaabi, educational researcher, Department of Curricula, Qatar Ministry of Education; Maha Kanout, Syrian member of parliament and director of the General Union of Syrian Women; Jamila Salem Al-Muhairi, deputy director, Ministry of Education, UAE; Rokhsana Abdulrahman, Ph.D. in petrochemical studies and director of Women’s Research and Training Center, Aden University, Yemen; and Faiza Abdulrakib Salam, Information Center director, Aden Free Zone, Yemen. In addition to their professions, many of the women are wives and mothers who share the same problems as working mothers in the U.S.

Sleep Safe Project Sends Sleeping Bags to Kosovars

“I don’t know why, but the situation really touched me,” exclaims Steven Falk of Mill Valley, California, of his desire to raise money to send sleeping bags to Kosovo refugees. Speaking outside The Depot Bookstore in Mill Valley, California, on July 31, 1999, where he was talking to passersby about the Kosovo crisis, and accepting donations, he explained, “Watching a CNN report from Kosovo on April 18th changed my life.”

CNN’s report from an Albanian refugee camp stressed the desperate need for sleeping bags as the camp had only 500 sleeping bags for 12,000 refugees, The next day Falk made phone calls, searched the Web, and created the Kosovo Sleep Safe Project. On May 27, 1999, the first shipment of 36 bags was on its way to Kosovo. To date Kosovo Sleep Safe has raised $5,000 and has sent 220 sleeping bags to the refugees, but Falk’s ultimate goal is 50,000 sleeping bags. He sends the money he raises to Slumberjack, a St. Louis-based manufacturer which agreed to make the bags at cost, which is approximately $25 per bag. Falk’s earlier attempts to interest local manufacturers of sleeping bags to participate failed as corporate bureaucracy and economics intervened.

Through the Internet he contacted AmeriCares, an international relief agency founded in 1982, which agreed to deliver the sleeping bags to their destination free of charge. AmeriCares has sent millions of dollars worth of aid since hundreds of thousands of Kosovars were forced from their homes by the Serbs last March. Falk is trying to team up with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to have six sleeping bags included in each “Do It Yourself Building Kit” the U.N. distributes.

“It’s not over yet, actually the worst part is yet to come,” Falk says. “Winter is coming soon and they’re not ready.” The energetic Falk has spoken about the Kosovo Sleep Safe Project at schools in the Marin County area and matches equally any donations made by the children. He also is hoping to tap into the wealth of the high-tech Silicon Valley area to raise more funds. He is in the process of obtaining official non-profit status for the project. For information or donations contact Kosovo Sleep Safe Project: telephone: (415) 458-8200 or (888) 816-5050; e-mail: <kosovosleepsafe@hotmail.com>; or visit the Web site at <www.kosovosleepsafe.com>.

Children’s Theater Group Raises Money for Refugees

Pied Piper Productions, a children’s theater group located in Marin County, California, recently raised approximately $1,600 for the UNICEF Fund for Kosovo Refugees.

The benefit performance of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the award-winning Broadway musical, took place at the Marin County Civic Center Theatre on July 25, 1999. Children from ages 8 to 18 appeared in the production. Pied Piper Artistic Director Sharon Boucher of San Rafael, California, was so struck with the similarities between the story of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which ends with the Jewish inhabitants of Anatevka, a small village in 1905 Czarist Russia, being evicted from their ancient homeland, to the recent events in Kosovo, that she wanted to do something to help the refugees. She then came up with the idea to have one of the group’s six performances be a benefit for Kosovo refugees. The children performers were delighted with the idea.

Boucher contacted UNICEF and, thanks to individuals underwriting the show’s final performance on July 25th, all proceeds of that performance have been donated to UNICEF. Also, the performance inspired individuals to leave donations, in addition to the ticket prices of $15 to $25, for the Kosovo Refugee Fund.

UNICEF is still accepting donations, which may be made to the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, Kosovo Refugee Fund, 601 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. The organization also hopes to raise more funds through its “Trick or Treat” for UNICEF project on Halloween this year.

Iranian-American Writers Discuss First Anthology

Iranian-American author Persis M. Karim, co-editor with Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami of A World Between, an anthology of works of Iranian immigrants and first-generation Iranian Americans, spoke at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California on Aug. 10, 1999. Katayoon Zandvakili, a contributing author to the book, also appeared.

Both authors spoke about their experiences while living within two diverse cultures and read selections from the book, a stunning collection published this year of 50 poems, 12 short stories, and 4 essays, all by Iranian Americans.

Karim’s inspiration for this collection came while she was attending the University of Texas, Austin, where she received a Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1998. As a result of an announcement she sent out on the Internet, 600 people submitted works for consideration, of which the works of 34 writers were chosen for inclusion in the book. Seventy-five percent of the works included are by women, which Karim attributes to the fact that women are finding unprecedented opportunities to express themselves. She described the book as “a chorus of voices of immigrants.” Karim, whose father is Iranian and mother is French, refers to herself as “a half-breed.” Born and raised in the United States, she said she felt “a disjointed sense of what it means to be Iranian” and “sometimes felt a big part of me was missing.” As a child she learned about Iranian culture through literature.

“Poetry was a big part of Iranian culture,” she said. “My father dropped interesting proverbs.” Karim read to her largely Iranian-American audience a poem inspired by her father, whom she described as a “strong-willed Iranian, very charismatic and interesting.”

Karim believes the book offers something of which Iranians can feel proud, and an opportunity for people to speak and be heard. She feels that most Americans have negative images of Iranians because of the hostage crisis which occurred on Nov. 4, 1979, when 52 Americans were seized at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students and held for 444 days until their release on Jan. 20, 1981. The radical students who carried out the attack believed it was a continuation of the revolution that had overthrown Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on Jan. 16, 1979, and installed an Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Following the revolution one of the largest migrations in Iran’s history occurred. Many fled to the United States. Others left Iran during the war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988. Karim hopes the book will create an opening for discussion and “people-to-people diplomacy.” With respect to the pro-democracy student demonstrations which occurred in Tehran in early July of this year, she is hopeful for change, but believes that Mohammad Khatami, elected president on May 23, 1997, is “rooted in the institutions of the Islamic Republic.”

For Karim, the Internet has connected the vast Iranian global diaspora, and she has received positive feedback from many Iranians around the world. Although the book has not been published in Iran, a few of her relatives living there have been able to read it. It has brought many people together because of the question of what it means to be Iranian, especially when living in a different culture.

Katayoon Zandvakili, one of the contributing authors to AWorld Between, also spoke and read one of her four poems included in the book. Zandvakili was born in Tehran, but moved to the United States when she was nine. She last visited Iran in 1994 and was disturbed by its stratified society, which was defined by money, class and education. Even though she grew up in the United States, she reads, writes, and speaks Farsi, but says her emotions are in English.

Her philosophy is that “people must have respect for the past, but not be burdened by it.” Zandvakili holds a B.A. in social sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, New York. Her book, Deer Table Legs, was awarded the University of Georgia’s Contemporary Poetry Prize.

Palestine Cultural Evening

A Palestine Cultural Evening was held on Aug. 13 at the Arab Cultural Center of San Francisco. Many members of the local Arab community attended, including photographer Said Nuseibeh and Fay Afaf Kanafani, author of Nadia, Captive of Hope.

After a sumptuous Palestinian feast prepared by ACC members, ACC President Alice Nashashibi gave a brief introduction to the video “People and the Land” (available from the AET Book Club). The one-hour documentary by Ohio filmmaker Tom Hayes shows the journey Hayes and his team made to Israel and the occupied territories in 1996. The film focuses on the human rights abuses, discrimination and humiliation Palestinians endure under Israeli occupation.

Footage showed life from the perspective of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, and highlighted the difficulties Palestinians encounter trying simply to visit Jerusalem to pray at the holy sites of either Christians or Muslims.

The filmmakers crossed frequently through military checkpoints and, at one point, rented a car in the West Bank with its distinctive blue license plates (as opposed to Israeli yellow license plates) in order to experience the same difficulties as Palestinians when crossing from the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas into Israel.

The audience could see Israeli settlers’ cars passing through checkpoints without being stopped. Hayes pointed out many of the settlements are supported through U.S. aid to Israel, although housing discrimination is illegal in the United States.

Palestinian journalists were interviewed and described how difficult it is to report from the area due to Israeli censorship. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem discussed problems getting to their jobs because the municipality would close streets with no announcement and only allow residents with special permits to enter.

Interspersed throughout the film were segments of interviews with Israeli military and police officials denying that abuse or discrimination was being carried out against Palestinians. Subsequent footage (frequently obtained by hidden cameras) demonstrated the contrary.

Scenes of Hebrew graffiti on the walls of a Bethlehem refugee camp reading, “It’s cheaper to kill them” were particularly disturbing to the audience. The film ended with the showing of individual photos of some of the many children killed and maimed since the intifada, the uprising, which began in December of 1987. During an informal discussion after the film, the audience unanimously agreed upon the importance of the film and several ACC members expressed interest in exploring other venues for showing it.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in Ignacio, California.