Arwa's Freelance Site » Public Sphere

Girls On Film: Saudi Arabia’s First Female Filmmaker

arwafreelance — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:07:52 +0000

Wadjda Official Trailer from Razor Film on Vimeo.

My interview with the very lovely Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour is now out – see the full article at Aquila. I was lucky enough to meet Haifaa when she was in London promoting her debut film Wadjda about a young Saudi girl’s battle to cycle. See the trailer above. We got talking about the rise of female Middle Eastern filmmakers, the importance of personal victories, filming in Saudi and also cycling (of course!).

Here’s a snippet:

http://www.aquila-style.com/magazine/

Make/Shift Magazine: Leila Khaled’s Revolutionary Life

arwafreelance — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:38:38 +0000

Got my copy of Make/Shift magazine through the post recently with my little article in it. My piece is a Q&A with Sarah Irving who talks about the rise and fall of the Palestinian political left and Leila Khaled’s life after the (in)famous hijackings.

I genuinely love flicking through this mag as I always find something which blows my mind. Love.Love.Love. There’s a snippet of my article below but before that, the article (well, edit of lots of articles) that I really loved in this issue was about activism, burnout and caring for ourselves.

“I feel no different when I read posts like these than I did when I was working as a consultant in corporate america and the boss would send me emails on my “sick days” asking if I’d gotten a chance to review those documents, because, you know, above all, we gotta make sure we think of the company…. Last I checked, activists in the non-profit industry were accusing corporations of being greed, exploitative, blood-sucking a**holes who didn’t care about “people”, just “money.” I’m ashamed to say that after years of working with people in the non-profit industry, there’s not that much difference; just replace money with “self-righteous political agendas.”

To be completely honest, when I think about the times when I’ve been at my lowest and most strained, it’s been due to other activist guilt-tripping me into over-extending myself for some agenda I don’t even remember signing up for.

I’m lucky that I’ve been able to find others like myself, who believe just as much in caring for their communities as they do taking care of themselves, not necessarily as interdependent ideologies, but because — dare I say it — it’s possible to want to improve the world and have other interests that are not necessarily connected, including your own dreams, ambitions, peace of mind. God forbid the word “self” ever finds its way into the mouth of an activist. God forbid we actually practice the “self-love” slogans we slap on so many protest signs.”

- Spectra Speaks

“i often struggle with copious amounts of shame, frustration and confusion over the fact that right now in my life all i have to give is going towards helping raise 2 children. It can feel deeply unradical, ordinary and anonymous. it is adding exponentially to my already intense isolation. While not my intention, my world has become this house, this home. As someone who is disabled and chronically ill, i am tapped…and this is capitalism at work yeah? its a set up. there is not enough. not enough time/money/energy.

and revolution. well…it’s THE thing.
but heres the thing, the front lines aren’t linear. they aren’t always dramatic. they
aren’t -out-there-. they are everywhere, including the kitchen. including the bedtime story and the hands on love of being present for need.

i’m learning to think less in terms of productivity, esp. since framing life that way will certainly end me, and think more in terms of sustaining… sustenance… support. this flies in the face of my lower class life that screams produce, keep the cards close or die. it challenges the ableism in my working class roots, the internalized high stakes drive to succeed. to avoid being trash. or criminal.”

- Ambrose @ The Root Cellar

Erin Aubry Kaplan also has a great piece about communicating (or not) with her mother via email over the years. Great read.

You can buy the mag here.

Aquila Style Magazine: What glides along swiftly and silently while creating commotion and confusion?

arwafreelance — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:53:39 +0000

‘I am trying to give my friends the courage to join me, so we can prove to all those who think bad of us that we’re well educated Muslimahs,’ explains Rola Mohammed. ‘That we wear the hijab and what we do isn’t wrong.’

This young pharmacy student living in the Egyptian city of Mansoura clearly has a battle on her hands. Rola wants to change engrained beliefs and cultural taboos that dictate how a woman is seen, the freedom she is granted and the physical activities she is permitted to do. She wants women in Egypt and all across the region to rise up and try something they’ve probably never done before: She wants them to cycle.

To read the full feature, go to Aquila Style Magazine – The Empower Issue and download it for a couple of dollars. Go on. You know you want to.

Aquila: The Pink Revolution – Overthrowing Sexual Violence (arwafreelance.com)
@FabulousSISTERS – Hymens, Hijabs and Helmets: Muslimahs Who Cycle (arwafreelance.com)

Aquila: The Pink Revolution – Overthrowing Sexual Violence

arwafreelance — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:00:50 +0000

‘Perhaps this is a Rosa Parks moment,’ says street harassment expert Holly Kearl, pondering the global outcry following the rape and subsequent death of the young student in India. ‘If it is, I am sorry it took a woman being tortured to death to cause it, but if wide-scale change is a result, then at least her death will create something positive. Perhaps it will prevent many other women from experiencing what she did.’

That’s a tiny snippet from the article I recently wrote for Aquila Magazine on sexual violence and harassment. As well as talking to activists in India who are reeling from this incident, I spoke to Nihal Zaghloul, a campaigner who co-founded ‘The Imprint Movement’ to tackle sexual harrassment in Egypt after a horrific experience in Tahrir Squar. Holly Kearl who is author of Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women, also offers her practical advice and tips to end harassment. To read this article and seriously loads more, download the latest Aquila magazine for a measly $4. That’s like £2 – nothing basically so no pressure or anything, but you may want to click here and download it….

Spiritual Connection With Nature Is Key – Green Muslim Muaz Nasir

arwafreelance — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 12:08:31 +0000

“The environment is something everyone should be concerned about as climate change, water scarcity and pollution are issues that do not discriminate based on faith.” That’s Muaz Nasir’s response to what he likes to call constructive criticism that the Muslim Ummah focus its energies on ‘bigger issues’ rather than climate change.

Personally, I can’t imagine a ‘bigger issue’ then the future of our planet but I completely accept that this realisation hasn’t quite reached the wider Muslim community. Ground-breaking policies such as the Muslim Seven Year Action Plan on Climate Change were impressive but as Nasir points out, but they failed to “develop the necessary research or resources that would push the climate agenda into the mainstream Muslim community.”

As such, any progress has been slow and the product of hard working individual campaigners rather than national policies. Read on for more about the Muslim-environmental movement in Canada, Nasir’s green Muslim website Khaleafa.com and how he is getting mosques to ‘Ban the Bottle’ among other green ideas he is working to implement in the Muslim community – ideas which can spread around the world.

Here’s a snippet of the interview – to read the full thing go to GreenProphet.com

What do you think are the barriers holding the Muslim community from fully engaging with the climate change agenda?

I think there is a general lack of awareness of the severity of climate change as well as what actions individuals can do to decrease their carbon footprint. The issue is just not on the radar of many Islamic institutions here in North America as it is in Europe. The Muslim community in Canada is fairly young, so there are understandably competing priorities, such as establishing their families and integrating into the broader society; which often takes precedence over the climate change agenda. This is beginning to change as weather patterns shift and the trends in the climate become more visible.

What have been the responses to Khaleafa.com – have you had to face any negative reactions or had to deal with climate sceptics?

The response has been overwhelmingly positive for the most part. I try to keep my articles as neutral as possible, and encourage contributors to base their arguments on facts and to justify their opinions with reference to the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah…

There has been some negative feedback as well, mainly in the form of constructive criticism but also from individuals who feel that Muslims should be investing their resources to deal with bigger issues facing the Ummah. While I understand the direction they are coming from, my response has been that the environment is something everyone should be concerned about as climate change, water scarcity and pollution are issues that do not discriminate based on faith. We all have a collective obligation to ensure that we leave the planet in better condition for future generations and that we do not waste the resources Allah has blessed upon us.

Green Muslim Blogger Muaz Nasir Says Spiritual Connection With Nature Is Key (INTERVIEW) (greenprophet.com)

Mapping Palestine’s Environmental Civil Society – The Good, the Bad and the Uncooperative

arwafreelance — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 10:05:45 +0000

A study mapping the environmental actors in Palestine shows a desperate lack of co-operation between organisations and donors keen to play it safe with ‘practical projects’

The lovely people at Heinrich Böll Stiftung had done something that I have been procrastinating about for almost lifetime (well, not quite a lifetime but a good couple of years at least). They have mapped out the important actors and organisations on the environmental scene in Palestine. Exciting, right!? They have painstakingly gone through all those websites, NGOs and institutes with an environmental focus to bring us a clear image of the state of the environmental movement in Palestine. They found that out of 2,245 NGOs registered in the oPt only 104 were environmentally-focused and of these, just 56 were actually still active. More juicy details after the jump.

The Facts on Green Palestine

- 104 registered environmental civil society organisation in the West Bank and Gaza

- 56 civil society organisations are actually still active

- Over 70% of environmental civil society organisations feel that their relationship with other organisations is competitive rather than co-operative

- Limited funding and efforts to raise their grassroots presence are two main reasons for the competitiveness between organisations

- 8 key organisations in Palestine based on their size, the variety of programmes implemented and geographic range:

Most organisations complained that international donors attempted to remain neutral by focusing in practical action and lacked the political will to enforce real changes by addressing Palestinians’ rights to natural resources. As such many organisations felt their projects were simply ‘coping mechanisms’. Even so, the relationship between NGOs and funders was generally described as co-operative if highly dependent.

: For the full article and to find out the top 9 key green organisations in Palestine go to GreenProphet.com

: Palestine (Photo credit: Squirmelia)

Organic Farming Boom in Palestine (greenprophet.com)
Without A Strong Civil Society, Middle East Environment Has No Chance (Op-Ed) (arwafreelance.com)

Interview with Masdar’s Director of Sustainability – Nawal Al-Hosany

arwafreelance — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:54:14 +0000

In 2010, after eight days of hiking in freezing temperatures Nawal Al-Hosany reached the Uhuru Peak of Kilimanjaro Mountain. She explains that she underwent the challenging climb to highlight the impact of climate change which is melting the mountain’s snow and to encourage greater action in the Middle East. Al-Hosany who joined Masdar in 2008 as the sustainability associate director is now its director of sustainability. She also director of the influential Zayed Future Energy Prize. I caught up with her to talk about Masdar and how you incentivise renewables in a rich, oil-producing country.

Here’s a snippet of the interview which you can read in full at GreenProphet.com.

GreenProphet: A recent report titled “Prospects for Energy Technology Advancements in the Energy Sector,” written by yourself and IRENA highlights the opportunities available to MENA if they embrace renewables. Why is now such a good time to adopt renewable technologies?

Nawal Al-Hosany: The MENA region, and especially the Gulf States, has an opportunity to leverage its expertise in energy and move into new sectors, including wind and solar power. The future energy mix will include renewables, and we should embrace this transition. In addition, the region also has an abundant solar resource – an energy we should tap into to address energy security and our rising demands. Although the region’s renewable resources have been underexploited, technology advances and increased deployment are now making certain forms of clean energy economically viable across the region.

Who are some of the women working in the environmental sector that inspire you?

The lack of women working in the environmental sector, and the opportunity to do more, is what ultimately inspires and motivates me. We only have a handful of women across the globe that are participating in the discussion on renewable energy, sustainability and addressing climate change. These are global issues that impact us all, irrespective of the roles we play or that have been defined [for us] by society.

Interview with Masdar’s Director of Sustainability – Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany (greenprophet.com)

Aquila Style Magazine – Muna AbuSulayman and Andalusia

arwafreelance — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 11:28:09 +0000

Here are some sneaky promos for the articles I’ve been writing for the lovely Aquila Style Magazine. I had the chance to interview media powerhouse Muna AbuSulayman about being a Saudi women, employment, the world of TV and lots more. To read the full article and also lots more juicy stuff, go to their November edition which you can download for just a couple of dollars.

I was also lucky enough to write about my trip to Andalusia back in March and the editors let me use my photos which I think turned out really well (I’m so modest, I know). Seriously have a read and tell me you don’t want to visit – I dare you.

Gulf News: Middle East needs to pitch in for the world

arwafreelance — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 23:52:13 +0000

Arab Youth Climate Movement has demanded that Arab leaders work constructively to achieve GHG emission reduction targets

By Arwa Aburawa Special to Weekend Review

On November 26, Doha is set to get even more international. World leaders, negotiators, campaigners and activists from all corners of the Earth will descend on the city to talk about climate change. Over 20,000 representatives are expected to attend Qatar’s largest conference to date, which also marks the first time the UN climate conference will be hosted in the Middle East. This is clearly a great opportunity for Qatar to enhance its growing role in international diplomacy. Hosting the COP18, however, is also a very risky move, with many predicting the failure of the talks.

International climate change negotiations have been taking place annually for more than 20 years now with the aim of setting national carbon targets to control global warming. Historically, the Arab world has played an obstructive role. Countries such as Saudi Arabia sent negotiators who said climate change was not taking place and insisted that they be compensated for any oil that they would have to stop extracting. Indeed, Qatar itself isn’t exactly a world leader when it comes to action to climate change. The small Gulf state has one of the world’s highest per-capita carbon footprints, with the average Qatari accounting for CO2 that is around 300 times more than an Ethiopian and three times the average American. Not exactly glowing statistics, but Qatar insists that this cause is something they feel passionately about.

“As a coastal dry-land nation, almost 100 per cent dependent on the sea for its water and more than 95 per cent dependent on technology and trade for its food, Qatar is vulnerable to climate change,” Fahad Bin Mohammad Al Attiyah, chairman of COP18, admitted. “Qatar is one of the ten countries predicted to be most affected by a rising sea. So this global issue is critical here at home. It is one that we take seriously. And it is one that we are working diligently to address.” In an effort to spread the message in the country, mosques will be hosting sermons about the climate change and the need to stop water and energy wastage. In fact, back in 2011, the country vowed to only build “eco-mosques”, which would limit the waste of electricity.

Attiyah faces criticism

Qatar has another motive for supporting climate change initiatives: gas. Many commentators have noted that making the transition from fossil fuels to more renewable resources will be quite difficult and gas is a cleaner, less carbon-intensive energy source which should be considered. As a gas-producing nation, Qatar could play a big role in determining the path that nations take towards greater energy independence and reducing emissions. As such, Qatar comes to the conference with its own agenda as well as the hope it will be able to pull off a successful climate summit. Indeed, the chairman of the talks was criticised by the international campaign community for recently fêting 450 senior executives from the fossil-fuel industry and presenting the Petroleum Executive of the Year award.

“As the official conference president, Attiyah should be working tirelessly behind the scenes to shore up a successful outcome of the negotiations, not presenting awards to the top brass of the oil industry,” remarked Avaaz, the international campaigning organisation. “His decision to speak at this week’s Oil & Money conference puts his reputation — and the climate talks — at risk. He needs to change course before it’s too late.”

Will the Kyoto Protocol survive COP18?

So far, the global climate negotiations have failed to secure a deal that legally binds all industrialised countries to reducing their emissions. The closest that the negotiators have come to that is the Kyoto Protocol. This protocol set obligations for industrialised countries who signed up to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent from a 1990 baseline. The deal came into force in 2005 but didn’t include nations such as the United States or set legal targets for nations such as China and India which are considered developing nations and are therefore exempt from targets.

As the protocol ends this year, the talks in Doha will focus on extending this deal and attracting enough signatories to maintain its significance. Japan, Canada and Russia have already decided not to be part of the new commitment although Australia and New Zealand have expressed their interest. At the Doha talks, countries will be also be battling it out on the length of the next commitment period and the greenhouse-gases targets.

Governments are, at present, focused on coming up with a new climate change treaty on the emission cuts after 2020. They hope to have this deal done by 2015. In the meantime, negotiators will look to extend the Kyoto Protocol for at least another five years or even eight years so that it would converge with the 2020 agreement.

The European Union supports an eight-year extension with a mid-term review of the carbon targets. The Alliance of Small Island States, the Africa Group and Least Developed Countries, however, favour a five-year extension with an update of commitments based on the results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which will be out in 2014. Another issue that has been raised is that there isn’t much time between the talks and the end of the Kyoto Protocol (31 December), which means that getting any agreement through national bureaucracies could further delay action. So, it looks like there is everything to play for at the talks and the pressure will be on.

World heading towards catastrophic 6C warming

The lack of progress on a far-reaching and all-inclusive climate deal means that every year, the action needed to avoid serious global warming increases. Targets go up and the chance of getting the big players such as the US and China to agree to them goes down. Recent research by the consultancy group PricewaterCoopers (PwC) found that the low rate of emission cuts in major economies could cause the Earth to warm by 6C by the end of the century. Scientists and campaigners say that a 2C increase is the limit to avoid potentially dangerous climate change.

Jonathan Grant, director of sustainability and climate change at PwC said, “[T]he analysis illustrates the scale of the challenge facing negotiators. The new reality is a much more challenging future in terms of planning, financing and predictability. Even doubling our present annual rates of decarbonisation globally every year to 2050, would still lead to 6C, making governments’ ambitions to limit warming to 2C appear highly unrealistic.”

“There are a lot of important issues that need to be resolved in COP18,” says Wael Hmaidan, director of Climate Action Network. “The most important one is closing the ambition gap in greenhouse gas emission reduction between what science requires us to do to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts and what is offered on the table by governments. At the end of COP18, governments must agree on an action plan to raise their commitments and close this gap.”

‘Arab world must show climate leadership’

One way that the Arab world could contribute, says Hmaidan, who is from Lebanon, is by presenting their own greenhouse gas emission pledges to the international community. “Qatar and other Arab countries should start the conference by presenting a greenhouse gas emission pledge to the international community. This is essential to raise the level of trust among all countries, and will prove that the region takes climate change seriously. Also, the region needs to prove that they will continue taking climate change action after COP18.”

Indeed, what has been particularly interesting during the lead-up to this conference is the emergence of various Arab and Middle Eastern climate change groups and coalitions. One of the newest groups is the Arab Youth Climate Movement (AYCM) which brings together more than twenty national coordinators from 15 Arab countries. During a “Day of Action” on November 10, groups from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Egypt, Qatar, Mauritania and Bahrain took to the streets, radio waves and national TV to demand the Arab world “take the lead against climate change”.

According to a joint statement released by the group, the AYCM was “established to raise the urgency around climate change, and push Arab leaders to fulfil their responsibilities towards future generations, by working constructively and strongly on the national and international level to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction in the region and globally”.

The AYCM added that during the COP18 in Doha, Arab governments, especially Qatar, must put forward emission reduction pledges to the international community and demonstrate the leadership that all Arab youth dream of. “The reputation that the Arab region only cares about protecting the oil trade in the negotiations has to change, and this can only happen if Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, completely change their approach towards climate change,” AYCM said. “We, the youth of the Arab Spring have not freed the land, to only see it taken from us by the catastrophic impacts of climate change.”

The Arab world has certainly come a long way in the last couple of years and the fact that Qatar is hosting these talks has put an important and much-needed spotlight on the issue. For this focus to remain, however, the region must commit to cut its emissions and help secure the success of the climate talks. If it does that, COP18 could mark the start of a political shift in the Middle East that removes climate change from obscurity and places it on the top of the agenda.

Arwa Aburawa is a freelance journalist specialising in environmental issues and the Middle East. She is an editor at GreenProphet.com and also an “Adopt a Negotiator” fellow for the COP18.

: This article was originally published at Gulf News.

2Up 2Down: Liverpool Biennial, Housing and Regeneration

arwafreelance — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:45:28 +0000

Brick by Brick and Loaf by Loaf, we build ourselves

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to be able to contribute to a pretty amazing Liverpool Biennial project working on regeneration in Anfield called Homebaked: 2Up 2Down. It was lead by a unique artist called Jeanne Van Heeswijk whose work focuses on re-imaging social spaces and encouraging greater participation and interaction in public spaces. Although the project – which is working to convert a shutdown space into a community bakery and centre- was launched a couple of weeks ago, for many it was another stage of a much longer process. One which see the homes as well as faith and trust returned to the residents of Anfield.

I was tasked with the rather lovely job of speaking to all those taking part in the project- either as volunteers or providing expert advice. The volunteers were particularly amazing people and I really enjoyed chatting them to about everything from art, houses, gardening to what they felt ‘living well’ was all about. You can check out all the profile interviews on this page.

Bread and houses – Liverpool Biennial pulls off a brilliant mix of art, theatre and social action (guardian.co.uk)

Arwa's Freelance Site » Public Sphere

Girls On Film: Saudi Arabia’s First Female Filmmaker

Make/Shift Magazine: Leila Khaled’s Revolutionary Life

Aquila Style Magazine: What glides along swiftly and silently while creating commotion and confusion?

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Spiritual Connection With Nature Is Key – Green Muslim Muaz Nasir

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Aquila Style Magazine – Muna AbuSulayman and Andalusia

Gulf News: Middle East needs to pitch in for the world

2Up 2Down: Liverpool Biennial, Housing and Regeneration

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