News channels are vying for ever-shrinking TV audiences with powerful visuals and aggressive story lines. We can follow breaking stories as they happen on our smartphones but is this intense focus on the moment making us lose our sense of perspective? We are forgetting our priorities and are seemingly unaware that human survival is at stake. Inequality, a lack of opportunities and poverty are triggering social unrest, leading to oppression, wars, genocide and massive migration.
Climate-focused scientists agree that global warming and climate change are issues that should be addressed at the topmost levels of government and in the public forum. Yet most of us believe that the consequences of climate changes are too far off to bear any real impact. Moreover, the countries which govern the planet have been conspicuously ineffective in addressing this looming environmental crisis.
What is the problem? Why is the decision making process so slow? Why is there such an acute lack of environmental awareness? Is it that people have become too self-centered and narcissistic to care about the common good of our planet?
“The science is clear but the politics are decisive,” claims author Benjamin R. Barber in his book “Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming.” He believes that politics — the realm of human will, human interest, human power and human action — is the arena in which we make collective decisions to deal with the public consequences of our private actions.
Our planet has entered a new geological era which environmentalist Bill McKibben has coined as the Anthropocene era. This era began with the industrial revolution and it is characterized by a blatant disregard for nature in the name of private interests. The Anthropocene era refers to Earth’s most recent geologic time period, an era during which man has become the major factor causing planetary change. Chris Rapley, a scientist at University College London explains that since the planet is our life support, “we are essentially the crew of a largish spaceship and interference with its functioning at this level and on this scale is highly significant. The shift into the Anthropocene tells us that we are playing with fire, a potentially reckless mode of behavior which we are likely to come to regret unless we get a grip on the situation.”
Nation states have failed to adequately address the environmental crisis which is threatening the sustainability of Earth. The author convincingly argues that traditional politics must gave way to “a politics of participation that devolves power back to people closer to where they actually live — back to cities. Shift the focus down to municipalities and over to civil society… Hope for the future lies with the politics of the city.”
Mayors are not only pragmatic but they also have the capacity to implement a program of sustainable policies for a world that is getting warmer.
“On a hot planet, cities are cool,” claims Barber and a host of mayors, former mayors and key political figures share his thoughts. Michael Bloomberg, New York’s former mayor, has stated that “cities have played a more important role in shaping the world than empires” and also that “cities can be the engine of social equity and economic opportunity. They can help us reduce our carbon footprint and protect the global environment.”
The world is connected as it never was before. However, globalization has affected sovereign nations. They have become less effective and even dysfunctional when it comes to global governance. People not only aspire to live in sustainable cities but they are also expected to play an increasing role in safeguarding the sustainability of our planet.
Concerned citizens in Beirut have created a powerful urban political movement known as “Beirut Madinati,” which translates to mean Beirut, my city. A group of motivated residents decided to take on Lebanon’s old guard for the control of Beirut’s municipal council. They launched Beirut Madinati, a Western-style political party financed by crowd-funding. Although they did not win local elections, it has sent a powerful message which shows that cities empowered by citizens can act and achieve their goals faster than states.
“When national governments fail to act on crucial issues like climate change, cities have to do so,” Bill de Blasio, the current mayor of New York, said.
Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, demonstrated strong resolve following Britain’s vote to exit the EU. He insisted on sticking to the country’s green commitments, saying: “Leaving the EU should not be the first step of us going back to being known as the dirty man of Europe.”
Prime examples
Oslo, the capital of Norway, is at the forefront of sustainable urban development. Almost all of Norway’s energy is currently provided by hydroelectric power. Almost all of its oil and gas revenues feed into Norway’s sovereign fund.
Oslo is also aiming to be a city of electric vehicles. Visitors coming to Oslo might be surprised to find a fleet of electric taxis ready to ferry them around the city. There are plenty of charging stations all over the city too.
It is not only big cities that deal with climate change effectively. The US town of Bridgeport, with a population of less than 150,000, set up a program of environmental policies under the leadership of former mayor, Bill Finch.
Bridgeport succeeded in removing 600 tons of contaminated soils from an industrial site, invested a million dollars to provide low-income communities with access to waterfront parks and contracted businesses to create vegetated rain gardens to control storm runoff. These measures show that when you combine imagination, resilience and strong resolve, a city can create an environmentally-friendly atmosphere
With a rising global population and states failing to secure sustainability, the world has reached a turning point. Barber argues that cities have a new role to play. They can and they must take the lead in fighting climate change. Empowered by concerned citizens, cities have the energy and the resolve to achieve sustainability. Cities have a crucial role to play in global governance and they are the key to our survival.
Book Review: Why cities, not states, must take the lead in fighting climate change
Book Review: Why cities, not states, must take the lead in fighting climate change
Coldplay lights up chilly Abu Dhabi with visual and auditory spectacle
- Band began 4-day UAE concert series on Thursday
- Show is part of their Music of the Spheres World Tour
DUBAI: Grammy Award-winning band Coldplay lit up a chilly Abu Dhabi with a visual and auditory spectacle on Thursday at Zayed Sports City Stadium, for the first of their four-day concert series that is a part of their Music of the Spheres World Tour.
The setlist featured crowd favorites including “All the Love,” “Yellow,” “Hymn for the Weekend,” “Paradise,” “The Scientist,” “Clocks,” and “A Sky Full of Stars.”
Adoring fans wore glowing wristbands that pulsed in sync with the music. There were bursts of confetti, large illuminated planets suspended throughout the stadium, and balloons floating across the crowd.
Coldplay engaged with the audience, including having a couple reveal their baby’s gender, drawing cheers from the crowd.
Frontman Chris Martin charmed the audience further by speaking in Arabic. “Assalamu alaikum, wa masa’ al khair. Shukran jazeelan,” he said, translating to “Peace to you, and good evening. Thank you very much.”
Before Coldplay’s set, Chilean-Palestinian singer Elyanna warmed up the crowd with a captivating performance, singing hits including “Ganeni” and “Mama Eh.”
Later, she joined Coldplay on stage to perform their collaborative track, “We Pray.”
The concert ended with a breathtaking fireworks display.
Coldplay will perform in the UAE capital on Jan. 11, 12 and 14.
Highlights from the traveling ‘Art of the Kingdom’ exhibition
- The show, which is on display in Rio de Janeiro until Jan. 12, features work by 17 contemporary Saudi-based artists
RIYADH: “Art of the Kingdom” is perhaps the most significant exhibition so far for Saudi contemporary artists. It has already been on show in Brazil’s capital city for three months, and will soon move to Riyadh, before heading to China.
It features works by 17 Saudi, or Saudi-based, artists — Ayman Yossri Daydban, Ahmed Mater, Emy Kat (Mohamed Alkhatib), Ayman Zedani, Shadia Alem, Nasser Al-Salem, Manal AlDowayan, Lina Gazzaz, Muhannad Shono, Sarah Brahim, Daniah Alsaleh, Faisal Samra, Filwa Nazer, Moath Alofi, Ahaad Alamoudi, Sarah Abuabdallah, and Ghada Al-Hassan — and, as the press release states, “offers a unique opportunity to explore the ways in which Saudi contemporary art contributes to shaping new cultural narratives.”
The press release also states: “Two main themes emerge from the exhibition … The first is the desert as a definition of space, infinity, and life; the second is the singularity of cultural tradition, and the evolution of a unique visual culture, shaped by diverse pasts and presents.”
Here are just a few of the artworks that make up the exhibition, the theme of which is “Poetic Illuminations.”
Nasser Al-Salem
‘Arabi/Gharbi’
The Makkah-born artist’s work, according to the exhibition brochure, “challenges the traditional boundaries of Islamic calligraphy by re-contextualizing it through mixed media, minimalist approaches, and architectural methods.” This piece, the title of which translates to ‘Arab/Foreigner’ is made up of neon lighting that presents both words simultaneously: a single illuminated (or not illuminated) dot allows it to switch between the two — when lit, it says ‘Gharbi,’ when unlit it reads “Arabi” — thus highlighting the minor differences that help form our images or ourselves. It is used as both the first and last piece in the exhibition, because, according to curator Diana Wechsler, “it installs a border between the contemporary Saudi world and the cultural horizon of the public. The journey through the exhibition shows, piece by piece … different aspects of this fascinating culture in which past and present, traditions and changes are involved. Arriving at the end of this journey and finding again the twinkling neon of Nasser Al-Salem, I like to imagine that the public will see it differently; that the experience of the journey has been able to broaden their horizons.”
Ahmed Mater
‘X-Ray Illumination Diptych 1’
Mater is one of the most internationally famous Saudi contemporary artists — last summer he was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at Christie’s in London. This work comes from his “Illuminations” series, which, according to the artist’s website, blends “the past, represented by traditional Islamic arts, with the present, through the innovations of modern medicine.”
It continues: “Faith and science are brought together — two subjects that are often treated as essentially separate and full of tense contradictions.” It is perhaps no surprise that the work of Mater — a doctor and an artist — should tackle these contradictions.
In a brief essay about the series, Linda Komaroff, of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, writes: “What could be more intimate than literally to see inside another individual? This is most eloquently expressed in (Mater’s) great diptychs in which a traditional type of richly illuminated double page composition frames two X-rays set face to face; the skeletal images suggest some elemental form of humanity, stripped of the skin, hair, eyes and clothes that differentiate as well as separate us.”
Sarah Brahim
‘Soft Machines/Far Away Engines’
This work by visual and performance artist Sarah Brahim was originally commissioned for the first Diriyah Contemporary Biennale in 2021. The screens show individuals moving and embracing. Small gestures, Brahim told Arab News in July 2022, are “amplified through repetition and layering, conjuring up multifaceted images of beauty.” Her work in general, according to the show brochure, “is a response to and reflection on how we can heal both internally and externally, and how art and culture can serve as a vehicle for this movement.”
Ayman Zedani
‘The Return of the Old Ones’
“The construction and consumption of nature in the Gulf are central” to Zedani’s “exploration process,” the show brochure states. “His projects serve as platforms inviting the public to observe the symbiosis between human and non-human elements.” This experimental film offers “a poetic perspective from a non-human entity,” according to the artist’s website, “weaving factual information with a science fiction narrative to explore the story of oil through the life, death, and resurrection of ancient giant fungi known as Prototaxites,” remnants of which “have only been found in a few places in the world, including Saudi Arabia and the US.” The story, “reminds us that fossil fuels comes from ancient life forms that have been crushed down into raw black energy.”
Shadia Alem
‘Negatives, no more’
Alem’s installation consists of thousands of photo negatives hand-stitched together and covering 20 years of her and her sister’s life from 1985-2005, as well as larger DVD images. It symbolizes the difficulty of being both an artist and a woman in the Kingdom at that time. “In the world’s conscience, we remained indifferently invisible and when accidentally subjected to the media’s light, we were outlined as passive, veiled/ negatives without prints,” Alem writes on her website. “Nonetheless, we were there all along, actively creating, struggling, weaving our lives … Nowadays, we reached a point in our history where all is changed … we rode the tide casting away the darkness overshadowing our identities.”
Saudi-born American author Natasha Burge: ‘I wanted to celebrate autistic linguistic traits’
- The Saudi-born American autistic author on how her condition has influenced her work
DHAHRAN: The first thing you notice when you meet Dhahran-based American author Natasha Burge are her playful eyeglass frames and her focused curiosity.
Burge self-identifies as an “autistic author” — a label she finds neither empowering nor offensive. When she was diagnosed as being on the spectrum in her late thirties, she says she felt relief. And then she decided that she wanted to showcase her autism in her work.
“For much of my life I felt embarrassed about the ways autism impacts me,” she says. “I didn’t feel like I was able to do what was considered ‘normal’ and I hid my struggles because I didn’t think anyone would understand,” she says. “I felt vulnerable sharing things I had kept hidden for so long. But, as a writer, my allegiance is to the story I am telling.
“A defining feature of autism is an extreme focus on specific interests. Three of my most intense interests are autism, transcultural identity, and the culture of the Arabian Gulf,” she continues.
Burge was born in Dhahran in 1982. The Kingdom is not just ‘home’ to her — it’s a living, breathing force in her storytelling.
“My childhood smelled of horses, tack soap, ‘oud, frangipani blossoms and the library,” she says. “My childhood tasted like French fries dipped in hummus, yellow cake topped with chocolate frosting, and late-night shawarmas eaten with friends in my garage.”
Her family’s connections to Saudi Arabia go back well beyond the 1980s, she explains. Her paternal grandfather relocated to the Kingdom from the US for work in 1957. He was joined in 1959 by his wife and children, including Burge’s father, Rodney, who was five at the time. Rodney ended up staying in Saudi Arabia for 60 years. Burge’s mother’s family, also American, arrived in the 1970s.
“Three generations of my family, on both sides, have lived in the Kingdom. It has profoundly shaped my family and we are grateful for that. My grandmother — who is now 99 — says she would have loved to stay here forever,” Burge says.
Having moved away from the Kingdom for school, Burge now lives back in Dhahran with her British-American husband, who also grew-up here.
Burge’s writing — which has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (a US award given to literary works from small publishers) and translated into Arabic, Japanese and Chinese — does not follow conventional storytelling structures. It is highly experimental, packed with sensory imagery and acute attention to detail. Burge coined the term “skoliogeography” (the Greek word skolio can mean ‘twisted’ or ‘divergent’) to describe how she experiences space as an autistic person — blending the physical and emotional.
“Instead of downplaying autistic linguistic traits — repetition, non-linear chronology, echolalia, bricolage, fragmentation — as merely signs of pathology, I wanted to showcase them and celebrate them as exciting artistic interventions,” she says.
She describes her 2024 novel “The Way Out” as “a surreal portrait of a young woman’s psychological journey that could have been set anywhere in the world; I chose the Gulf because that is where I’ve lived all my life. There are a vast array of stories that emerge from this place that do not conform to outsider clichés.”
While there’s an obvious temptation to describe Burge’s work — and life — as ‘a cultural bridge,’ as her previous statement suggests, that’s not her intention. Rather, she sees the central purpose of her work to be about authenticity.
“All we can ever do is speak for ourselves. Individual authors can’t speak on behalf of every single person in an entire culture or place — nor even for the autism community,” she says.
“I hope readers come away from my work with a new appreciation of how much there is to marvel at in the mundane,” she continues. “The streets we walk every day are places of sublime beauty — if we are ready to recognize it.”
Saudi stars shine at Ivana Chubbuck’s Riyadh workshop
DUBAI: Saudi actresses Sumaya Rida, Adwa Bader and Mila Al-Zahrani participated in a workshop hosted by the California-based drama school Ivana Chubbuck Studio in Riyadh.
The workshop is part of the Ministry of Culture and the Film Commission’s Filmmakers Program, which runs until the end of January.
Rida, known for her breakout television roles in “Another Planet” and “Boxing Girls” as well as her big-screen appearances in “Junoon” and “Roll’em” — among the first films to premiere in the Kingdom after cinemas reopened — took to Instagram to share behind-the-scenes moments from the workshop with her colleagues.
She also shared a clip of herself with Zahrani and later posted an Instagram Story featuring both of them, captioning it, “My scene partner.”
Ivana Chubbuck, founder and director of the studio, is a US acting coach and creator of the widely adopted Chubbuck Technique, known for its role in Oscar-winning and nominated performances.
She heads the drama school in Los Angeles and conducts acting workshops worldwide.
Chubbuck has worked with renowned actors such as Charlize Theron, Brad Pitt, Sylvester Stallone, Terrence Howard, James Franco, Jake Gyllenhaal, Elisabeth Shue, Catherine Keener, Halle Berry, and Jared Leto, among others.
She is also the author of the best-selling book “The Power of the Actor,” published by Penguin Books’ Gotham division, which has been translated into 20 languages.
Chubbuck’s Riyadh workshop was also attended by Saudi actor and comedian Fahad Albutairi, who shared a carousel of images from the event on Instagram. Among the pictures was a signed note from Chubbuck that read: “Fahad, you are so talented and (I) look forward to continuing our journey together.”
The attendees received a certificate of participation after the workshop, which Albutairi also posted on his Instagram.
The Filmmakers Program collaborates with several international film universities and institutes to provide training opportunities and workshops for both amateur and professional filmmakers in the Kingdom.
Review: Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha writes against erasure, destruction
JEDDAH: “Every child in Gaza is me,” writes Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha in the creed-like opening of “Forest of Noise,” setting the tone for the poems to come and establishing his profound connection to his people and Palestine.
The poems within the slim but impactful volume by the Palestine Book Award-winning poet blend personal narratives with the broader documentation of life under Israeli occupation, siege, and bombardment in Gaza.
Released amidst one of the most turbulent periods in recent Palestinian history, Abu Toha uses the art form to not only capture personal memory, but to document Israel’s atrocities committed against Palestinians and the resilience of the people living in a continuous state of emergency.
Written in clear, simple language that often evokes visceral, painful imagery, his poetry oscillates between moments of loss, destruction, and survival, and glimpses of peace that seem fantastical in their rarity.
In “Palestinian Village,” Abu Toha imagines a peaceful scene “where a canary never tires of singing” that feels like a distant memory or a dream in stark contrast to the harrowing reality on the ground. The poem, like others in the collection, is a reminder of the cultural and natural heritage that Palestinians are fighting to preserve amid what Amnesty International, as well as some regional states, have termed a genocide.
In “On Your Knees” he powerfully uses repetition of the line “on your knees!” to document the humiliating and horrifying experience of being abducted by Israeli forces as he attempted to cross the Rafah border with his family in November 2023.
Abu Toha resists physical subjugation with poetry as a form of resistance and memory — asserting the Palestinian self and narrative and highlighting the power of art to fight back against erasure.
In “After Allen Ginsberg,” the Palestinian poet draws from the American’s iconic work “Howl,” writing:
“I saw the best brains of my generation
protruding from their slashed heads.”
By adopting Ginsberg's confrontational style, Abu Toha’s unrestrained voice laments and protests Israel's ongoing assault that has claimed the lives of thousands of children, women, and men.
The poet’s unwavering voice in “Forest of Noise” challenges readers to see Gaza not as a distant conflict but as a human tragedy that demands attention.
