On Monday 16 November, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of the documentary Yallah! Underground, a vibrant look at a diverse groups of Arab artists and musicians using culture to challenge the status quo. The film is set in the years prior to and during the Arab spring, and focuses on artists from Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. The film was followed by a Q&A with director Farid Eslam, via Skype.

The film puts its soundtrack at the forefront, and uses music to weave its way through different Arab cities, swiftly moving its focus between the individual artists’ discussions over the struggle between individuality and tradition. Freedom of expression and thought are common themes that are mentioned regularly, particularly in relation to the events of Tahrir Square in Egypt.

Eslam had spent a lot of time in the Middle East, mostly filming on commercial projects, and explained that his motivation for this project came from the desire to provide a different presentation of Arabs. He commented that Western perspective often sees Arabs being “closely connected to violence, frustration, aggression, which is only a fraction of the reality.”

“Most people want the same thing all over the world: to live in peace, freedom and to raise their families. It’s important to remind people and ourselves from time to time that we’re talking about just normal people, and it’s sad that we live in a time where we actually have to be reminded of this simple fact and simple truth.”

One audience member was curious about the absence of Syria from the film, considering its presence of underground artists. Eslam explained that he was keen to include Syria, and had tried to feature artists in Damascus and Jeddah. However, due to the escalation of the situation, “it became impossible.” Eslam did manage to film some Syrian artists in the Golan Heights, but this was not included in the film.

Eslam explained that he was able to film such a diverse group of people partly due to limited and sporadic funding, but also due to a large network of artists to draw from. Most of the artists filmed did not make it into the film; the total footage for the project was extensive, and probably enough to “make five more films.”

Will be discovering Egyptian hip hop today after watching Farid Eslam's 'Yallah! Underground' @frontlineclub last night. What a great film!

— Josephine Casserly (@JoCasserly) November 17, 2015

He found it very easy to meet artists: “Basically, you meet one artist and he points you to ten new ones.”

While a lot of his research was carried out on social media, he was also able to spend a lot of time talking directly to artists and people connected with the alternative scene.

Information about Yallah! Underground can be found on the film’s website and Facebook page. Yallah! Underground will have its first screening in an Arab country next month in Dubai.

This evening of tributes, talks, film, food and drinks is open to all. It coincides with a simultaneous celebration at Shakespeare and Company Books, 7 Rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris to be linked by video and live-streamed.

The purpose of this occasion is to show gratitude to Manning, Assange and Snowden for their revelations and the risks they took to bring them to public notice.

Come, bring friends and say thanks.

More about “Anything to say?”:

Speakers:

Vaughan Smith, founder of London’s Frontline Club, award-winning independent cameraman and member of the board of representatives for the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).

Norman Solomon, the coordinator of ExposeFacts.org, a new organisation for whistleblowing and independent journalism and author of many books on media, war and public policy.

Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism and visiting professor at City University London.

David Dormino, a sculptor and visual artist, he works in Rome and teaches sculpture at Rome University of Fine Arts (RUFA).

In Paris, at Shakespeare and Company linked by video, the speakers are William Bourdon, distinguished French human rights advocate and lawyer for Edward Snowden; and Jean Michel Boissier of Reporters Sans Frontieres. Chaired by writer, Adam Biles.

The project is supported by the president of the Human Rights Committee of the Italian parliament, Mario Marazziti and Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF).

Social media. Free speech. Democracy. These were the buzzwords of 2011, where international movements like the Arab Spring were said to have been fuelled by the power to communicate with one another without hindrance. 

The year of unrest has put the spotlight on the role of the internet and social media in challenging power elites and their capacity to control what the outside world sees. But while the West praises ‘pro-democracy’ movements in Arab countries and their use of social media, Westerners face greater surveillance in the name of security, including threats of increased controls in the wake of the London riots. 

“We’re becoming neighbours with each other,” said Timothy Garton Ash, director of the Free Speech Debate, a multi-lingual online platform for discussing freedom of expression which was launched in January 2012:

“The old ways of thinking about free speech – when in Rome, do as the Romans do – breaks down. But China and Iran do try to reassert their control over the internet, over the control of ideas." 

“We have to have a global conversation about what should be the norms for freedom of expression.”

He was joined by Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at The Open University and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change; Khaled Fahmy, professor and chair of the American University in Cairo’s Department of History; Kirsty Hughes, the Chief Executive of freedom of expression NGO Index on Censorship; to discuss what the historian and commentator has set out as the first principle of free speech: That all human beings must be free and able to express themselves, and to receive and impart information and ideas, regardless of frontiers: 

“In this brave new world, private powers are at least as important as public powers. Facebook as a country would be the third largest country in the world. What Google does is more important than what Germany does.

“But they set rules without any democratic process. The internet also allows for new self-governing communities” said Garton Ash.

The highly academic debate – which some members of the audience dubbed “far too academic” and “Western” to be applied in actuality across the world – explored the pros and cons of Garton Ash’s ideal, outlined in ten draft principles supposed to be the ‘rules of thumb’ of free speech.

But Fahmy emphasised that the Egyptian revolution had “open access to information” at its core:

“It definitely isn’t a revolution of the poor and hungry – that might be just one dimension,” he said. “The need to inform was central in the revolution. We are in the middle of it.”

“It is not Islamists that pose the most serious threats to freedom of information. It is the military and all that is attached to it. It is the military we are fighting and the national security we are trying to challenge.” 

But the ideals of equality and freedom of expression were brought into question by Gillespie, whose research suggested that structures of inequality found in reality are replicated in the media:

“Are we really all neighbours? The structure of inequalities that exist in the world are replicated and intensified online. It is important to think about who is talking and who, most importantly, is listening.”

Another blow to Garton Ash’s project was dealt by Hughes, who said that a global code as is outlined in the Free Speech Debate project could open up freedom of expression to government interference and top down control – which would undermine the idea completely:

“Do we need a global code? No, we have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Codes open up government interference and topdown control. It can lead to self-censorship.”

“But we still need to fight for freedom of expression,” she added. “Let’s have a conversation but not a code.”

Diverse voices explored and expressed the pros and cons of working towards such an ideal – and so in a sense, demonstrated Garton Ash’s project in action.

“We have to move from purely western universalism to a more universal universalism,” said Garton Ash:

“The only way to do that is to put your own propositions on the table and be genuinely open to what someone in China, or Egypt, would say in response.”

As he walks to sit at the front of the room one can see Gene Sharp is frail, and at times it’s hard to hear his gravelly voice. But you can’t doubt the passion with which he speaks, or the power in his words.

His ideas on non-violent revolution have been hugely influential in the ‘Arab Spring’ and further afield to Burma and the Ukraine. Sharp founded the Albert Einstein Institution in 1983 to promote ideas of non-violent revolution. These ideas, Sharp says in conversation with journalist/filmmaker Ruaridh Arrow, are “terrifyingly simple”: if you are less obedient then you restrict the sources of authoritarian power.

“When people lose their fear and use their brains and plan skilfully, and act bravely, and maintain non-violent discipline… you have a good chance of succeeding.”

Sharp’s conclusions on how best to organise non-violent action is the result of a long period over which his ideas matured. One of his first significant stands came in reaction to the Vietnam war.

“I had chosen a particular kind of conscientious objection – the most obnoxious kind: civil disobedience… I refused to fill out more applications for conscientious objector status, I refused to carry a draft card, I refused to report for physical examination.”

He researched non-violent action in Oxford, later moving to Oslo University.

“What I discovered is that I didn’t know a damn thing about political power. I learnt that I didn’t know, and that’s a great advantage… because you have a chance of learning if you want to and you’re not arrogant.”

He returned with a 11,000-page manuscript. Notes on different types of non-violent action littered his room until the ‘moment’ came.

“I discovered the mechanism of non-violent coercion – which I once thought was heretical I concluded was absolutely valid… I discovered that the way coercion could be established was identical with the beginning analysis that I’d almost forgot of the sources of power and that this type of [inaudible] takes away the sources of power of even dictatorships… That was the Eureka moment.”

A list of 12 methods to use non-violent action lengthened and he published ‘198 Methods of Non-violent Action’ in 1973.

Perhaps his best-known book,‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’, published 1993 is available in 30 languages.

Sharp says the success of his books is unexpected but can be put down to the fact that;

“People have been quietly desperate, even hungry that something can be done so we don’t suffer these horrible fights that people all these decades have been suffering.”

In the question and answer section, two questions come about how to act to best effect change in Iran. Sharp’s answer is typical in its modesty.

“An outsider like me can’t tell you what to do and if I did you shouldn’t believe me. Trust yourselves, research, investigate it and think – and think and think and think.”

 

 

Join us this evening with veteran war correspondent Martin Bell as he reflects on a career that has seen him report from more than 80 countries and 11 wars since he joined the BBC in 1962. Tomorrow we will be discussing the situation in Somalia, a country caught between political instability, conflict and famine.

Screenings in the week ahead include When China Met Africa, exploring the ever-shrinking world in which we live and a preview screening of Kissinger.

Next week the only free member of the Angola 3, Robert King will be in conversation with director of Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith, and for October’s First Wednesday we will be discussing Afghan perspectives on the past ten years of occupation.

JOB OPPORTUNITY: The Frontline Club Charitable Trust is looking for a documentary and workshop coordinator as, sadly, after two and a half years at the Frontline Club, our documentary programmer Charlotte Cook has left. Details of the job description and how to apply can be found here.