Event Details

Date/Time: 

Mar 7 2013 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

$8 general, $6 members/students
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90035
Between La Cienega & Pico
ample street parking or in the CVS lot (til 10 pm only)

Join us for a special interactive installation by digital artist VJ Um Amel followed by an evening of world music synchronized to a remix of Egyptian cinema and media emerging from across the Middle East. VJ Um Amel is an Egyptian-American digital artist, USC Ph.D. candidate, and the creator of R-Shief.org. R-Shief is an Arab media system that has one of the most rare archives of social media content from Arab revolutions. This event provides the audience with an interactive installation followed by an for an evening of world music synchronized to a remix of Egyptian cinema and media emerging from the revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. Drawn from the databases of the R-Shief initiative, this installation pays tribute to the vision of the people. http://vjumamel.com. VJ Um Amel will be joined by writer/editor/researcher Maytha Alhassen with readings from the new anthology Demanding Dignity, Young Voices from the Arab Revolutions.

"In all, it appears that whatever the future holds in store for Egypt, the legacy of Tahrir Square—not the legacy of operation Iraqi Freedom—will provide the beacon of democracy in the region." —James Gelvin

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 23 2012 3:30pm - 6:00pm

Price: 

General seating $20
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

IMAN Cultural Center
3376 Motor Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90034

Join Levantine Cultural Center and MPAC in Los Angeles on Sat, June 23, for an afternoon of comedy with Egyptian TV host and political satirist Bassem Youssef, the "Egyptian Jon Stewart" (note that a portion of the program will be in Arabic). Hosted by the IMAN Cultural Center in Los Angeles, this special event will feature a performance and Q&A with Youssef, as well as local Arab comedian Mike Batayeh of the Sultans of Satire.
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Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jan 29 2012 11:30am - 2:30pm

Price: 

$45 general with lunch, $20 students, $15 no lunch (standing room only)
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

UCLA
Faculty Center
480 Charles Young Drive East
Los Angeles CA 90095

Join us for an afternoon of celebrating the vision of the Egyptian Revolution. The program will include an exclusive keynote via phone from Cairo by prominent blogger and activist, Alaa Abd El-Fattah. VJ Um Amel joins DJ Ma'at for an afternoon of world music synchronized to a remix of Egyptian cinema and media emerging from the revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. Drawn from the databases of the R-Shief initiative, this performance pays tribute to the vision of the people. Lunch will be served.

By Youssef Ait Benasser

The other day, a big wig in the Moroccan blogosphere asked in one of his articles: what has changed in our lives? This question reflects the preoccupation of Moroccan society as a whole with the adoption of the new constitution, which passed on July 2nd, 2011 with a 98% approval rate. The referendum woke up the whole country from an era of political quietism, thus raising people's hopes and expectations for a better tomorrow. Two months have passed since then, and for many, it is now time for assessment, following the popular saying "a good dinner frees its scent as of the early afternoon."

Specters by Radwa Ashour, translated by Barbara Romaine (Interlink Books 2010)

Reviewed by Rebecca Dill

Though the recent events in Tahrir Square are fresh in the minds of Americans, Egyptians have long fought for their rights in and around Cairo. Radwa Ashour explores the Egyptian political movements of her generation as well as the Palestinian fight for a homeland in her unconventional novel, Specters.

Known in the Arab world as both a radical and a contemplative figure, Radwa Ashour has been an important public intellectual and artist in Egypt since participating in the founding of the Higher National Committee for Writers and Artists in Cairo in 1973.

By Eduardo Navas

A peaceful revolution against a regime that had been in power for 29 years sounds impossible until one evaluates the events that led to the fleeing of former President Hosni Mubarak out of Egypt on Friday, February 11. The Egyptian people were able to organize with the use of social media; it was Facebook that rose to the occasion. Needless to say that what happened in Egypt is undoubtedly of historical importance.

Protestors in Alexandria on January 25 hold up an image of Khalid SaidAbout a year ago Wael Ghonim, a thirty-something Google executive decided to create a Facebook group “We Are All Khalid Said,” named after a young man who was killed by the Egyptian police. The Facebook group reached hundreds of thousands, and Ghonim used it to educate people about their rights as citizens. More recently, a youth group known as April 6 was inspired by the events in Tunisia; along with supporters of Mohamed ElBaradei (a nobel prize winner who is active in revitalizing the politics of Egypt), with whom Ghonim also collaborates, they decided to turn the Police Day Protest (which previously was linked to British suppression), scheduled for January 25, into something much bigger. Ghonim announced the event on Facebook, and about 100,000 people signed up. The rest, needless to say, is history—Tahrir Square was filled with thousands of people, and they never left until Mubarak stepped down from office.

By Yousef Munayyer The Palestine Center

Thirty years ago the Soviet Union was at the beginning of a long campaign in Afghanistan, the average person was lucky to have an advanced recording technology called a "VHS tape," and Mohammad Hosni Mubarak took control of Egypt, the most populous nation in the Arab Middle East. This week, the last of these beginnings came to an end when millions of Egyptian protestors succeeded in toppling one of the longest standing rulers in the 5,000-year history of Egypt.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Mar 2 2011 7:30pm - 10:00pm

Price: 

Suggested donation $10-$20/up on behalf of Free Tunisia

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
between La Cienega and Fairfax
ample street parking

Tunisian crowd, the Facebook RevolutionThe Levantine Cultural Center and FreeTunisia.org present a culture jam devoted to exploring the Jasmine Revolution.

The so-called Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, which ousted Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, lasted 28 days. Mubarak's regime crashed in just 18 days after thousands of Egyptians connected on Facebook began their vigil to oust him.