When Alia Ibrahim writes about...culture and literature

I am certain that Anthony Shadid would not have written such a fluff and silly piece in the paper. It is about the culture editor for An-Nahar (the right-wing, sectarian Christian, anti-Syrian (people), anti-Palestinian (people) newspaper. I had written about Jumana Haddad before and this piece is yet another example of some journalist who knows nothing about contemporary Arabic culture and literature being duped by a highly skilled self-promoting media personality. As usual, Haddad bragged to an unsuspecting journalist (who clearly knows nothing of Arabic literature) about her command of seven languages (she claims she is learning an eightth one). Personally, I wish that she works to improve her command of her first language. Her journal caused no ripples except amongs the sleazy websites and the sleazy Arab oil media barons: and that alone explains what she says about the sales of her journal. When it comes to daring and subversive journals and magazines, this is insignificant. I mean, Al-Adab in Beirut or even the poetic journal Al-Ghawun (which attacked me in an editorial two issues ago) are far more important and daring and original. The culture section of An-Nahar which Haddad ostensibly edits is the weakest and least significant of Lebanese newspapers: the culture section of As-Saffir and Al-Akhbar are quite important in culture standards of the region. And while Haddad claimed in an interview with a British journalist in the Guardian who knew nothing of what he was writing about clearly that her journal was attacked by Hizbullah officials (and after I said that she was lying and that she provided no evidence to her claim), one notices that she does not repeat her claim here but resorts to complaining about someone criticizing her silly journal in a message left on some website of some Arab TV station. Oh, poor her. How awful. Somebody criticizing her journal on some message board on the internet: wow. How daring. Anything to make herself a heroine. And it is easy to titillate in any cutlure: and no one can claim that the person in question is taken seriously by Arab writers, poets, or literary critics. And only Alia Ibrahim who does not know what she is talking about would call Haddad a pioneer: a pioneer? In what? Lebanese novelist, Layla Ba`albaki who wrote the novel Ana Ahya went farther than Haddad back in the 1960s, and she even had literary talent. (thanks Olivia)