AUB's Art Exhibition on "The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener"

Beirut has always been a city that has seemed more cosmopolitan than much of the Arab World, and the American University of Beirut (AUB) has often been in the forefront. As part of AUB's 150th anniversary celebrations, AUB has been hosting an art exhibition called The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener. It closes this week, so I'm a bit late in writing about it. There was a conference held on the subject as well. At a time when puritanical censorship is growing in many Arab countries, the willingness to address artistic nudity, both male and female (though from the photos mostly the latter) is what still makes Beirut distinct.

From the reviews (a few: here and here and here and here) it's clear this is not about the Orientalist fantasy nudes, erotic harem girls who existed only in European sexual imaginings of the exotic East, so prominent in 19th century art (a subject for another post), but nudes in the work of Arab artists, and an attempt to situate their appreciation of the nude in the context of the broader Arabic cultural awakening, the nahda. The reviews emphasize that the exhibit did not minimize the obvious masculine viewpoint of the artists. A summary from the exhibition's Facebook page:

The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener examines the way in which artists and intellectuals of the Mandate era engaging in a double struggle against imperialism, Ottoman and European, resorted to an ideal form or pictorial device to concretize their visions of Arab modernity. For them, to be “Arab” was as much a matter of ambiguity and ambition as was the quest to be an artist. In fact, both labels required leaps of imagination over local conditions and imperial plans. What claims for identity, community, and political society were invested in the divesting of Arab bodies of their clothes? Our exhibition documents the debates that met the genre of the Nude in exhibition halls and newspapers. It situates artistic practices in relation to ongoing, urgent discussions about the meaning of citizenship, urbanity, and internationalism carried out amid movements for women’s rights, pan-Arabism, and various nationalisms, as well as educational reform, militarization, the scouting movement and nudist colonies. Without espousing the role of awakener for artists, our subtitle foregrounds the social, political or cultural motivations for these artists to embrace and adopt the genre of the Nude in their artistic careers.

Or as the last of the reviews linked above says:

More importantly, perhaps, it addresses the idea that these artists used their work to express liberation from Ottoman and European colonisation. As the title suggests, the exhibition, curated by Octavian Esanu and Kirsten Scheid, seeks to establish to what extent these artists used their artistic explorations of the nude as a means of promoting social change in line with the spirit of the nahda – a period of modernisation known in Arabic as the “awakening.” In the context of discussions about the meaning of identity, community, citizenship and internationalism, and of what it meant to be “an Arab,” what was the significance of the Arab form laid bare?

The Ahmad Naji Case: The Offending Text

Amid the many unpleasant things happening to the arts in Egypt, a recent one is the decision a few days ago by the Bulaq criminal court in Cairo to sentence novelist Ahmad Naji to two years in prison for "publishing obscene sexual content" in the publication Akhbar al-Adab.

Now, in a country attempting to sentence  a four-year-old child to life in prison (though they now say that was a mistake), this may seem mild, but the article in question was an excerpt from a previously published novel, by an "experimental" modem novelist. The novel itself was neither banned nor prosecuted. But the state censors seem to feel that novels have more leeway since no one reads them; a periodical available on newsstands might actually be read by someone. The publisher was also fined.

As a publisher, I despise censorship, and this sort of hypocrisy (the words are fine in a book but deserve a jail term in a literary paper) is even more senseless than most.

The best way to deal with censored material is to publish it. Last month the Arabic Literature (in English) blog published the excerpt translated by Ben Koerber, and I link it here so you can read it yourself.

The article notes that

Specifically, the original accuser complained that his “heartbeat fluctuated and blood pressure dropped” while reading the chapter.

The excerpt won't seem strange to anyone familiar with modern literature: the alienated youth of every novel for the last 60 years since Catcher in the Rye, a Sartrean ennui and world weariness, and the sex and drugs of 60s lit. But in today's Cairo.

Again, the book was published; the excerpt produced the problem. Is this so offensive in a
modern novel?:

In this city, you’ll be lucky if you can get over your sexual tension, and appreciate sex as just one of the many facets of a friendship.  Otherwise, your horniness will make you a testy bitch.  Kiko rubs my back, and I feel a heat between my legs.

This is admittedly much more explicit (potentially NSFW):

I gave her knee a parting kiss, and continued my tongue’s journey up her thigh.  I planted a kiss, soft as a butterfly, on her thinly lined underwear and pulled it away with my hands.  I plunged my tongue into her pussy.  I drank a lot that night.  I drank until I felt thirsty.  I gave her a full ride with my tongue before she took me into her room, where we had slow and leisurely sex.  She turned over, and I put my fingers in her mouth.  Wet with her saliva, I stuck them in her pussy.  Slipping and sliding.  I stuck them in from behind.  I grabbed her short hair and pulled it towards me.  I humped her violently and then lay on top of her for a few seconds.  I got out of bed and threw the condom into the trash.  As I gave her a smile, the phone rang.

OK, strong stuff for a Muslim country, but then why was it OK in a book? If you don't like this sort of thing, don't read it, don't buy it, or even ban the book, but why jail the author?

It seems to me the proper response to censorship is to make the censors work harder: so go read the excerpt and oh yes, Fuck Censorship.

Just In Time for "Banned Books Week," Al-Azhar Yanks a Book from Bookstores

This week now ending happens to be the American Library Association's annual "Banned Books Week," when the ALA and numerous anti-censorship groups seek to call attention to efforts to ban books in American schools and public libraries. Of course, it's an American thing, and most Middle Eastern countries ban books not just from schools or libraries but from all distribution. Still, there is some irony that it is during Banned books Week (Hat Tip to M. Lynx Qualey of the Arabic Literature (in English blog, though it wasn't posted there) that Al-Azhar, Egypt's watchdog of Islamic Orthodoxy, and the State's Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) ordered one of Egypt's most prominent bookstore chains to remove the book from its flagship downtown store and elsewhere. The Book is called "Blasphemy in Egypt" (ازدراء الأديان في مصر).

From the statement by The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI):

Middle East Freedom Forum (the book’s publisher) has issued a statement concerning the incident, and it was posted by the forum’s executive director, Magdi Khalil, on his Facebook account. The statement reads: “Some individuals affiliated to religious institutions in Egypt represented in Al-Azhar Institution and Egyptian Endowment Ministry have visited Madbouly Bookstore in Talaat Harb Square, Downtown, and demanded the removal of “Blasphemy in Egypt”- by Hamdi El-Assuiti and Magdi Khalil- with no delay, as it abuses Islam, according to them. They posed threats to the bookstore in case of not removing the copies. Therefore, we had withdrawn the copies from the bookstore upon their request, and in order not to cause any problems for them.”

Hamdi El-Assuiti [Arabic title page suggests this should be Assiuti], a co-writer of the book, in his statements to Tahrir newspaper, said: “The book discloses, in its documentation and introduction, the trespasses are taking place in religious institutions, along with their restrictions on the freedom of thought and expression.” He added: “I was expecting the confiscation transpires immediately upon its publication, but they probably were late to read it.”

 “The incident is not based on the law, whereas Endowment Ministry and Al-Azhar Institution have no power over the book’s removal, or distribution ban. The Constitution, in its Article 67, determined one reason for that is to resort to the public prosecution, which is authorized to investigate the book content. Furthermore, what is consistent with the democratic form is to respond to the different opinion, without resorting to ways of threats and confiscation,” ANHRI said.

So strictly speaking, the move didn't follow the law. As an Editor and Publisher, I oppose censorship on principle and government attempts  to protect its institutions from criticism most of all. The late Lenny Bruce had a well-known aphorism on that subject. (Link Not Safe for Work of course; it's Lenny Bruce.)

Most of us probably can't get hold of a copy of this particular banned book, but it might be an appropriate response to go out and read something from the ALA's banned books list. And F**k censorship. [Asterisks to make the point, not for censorship. The word appears here when appropriate: see below.]

"Memories of Mosul's Libraries"

The Arabic Literature (in English) offers reminiscences: "Memories of Mosul's Libraries."

Of course it can't un-burn the books and irreplaceable manuscripts, but it can help those of us (like me) who never got to Mosul appreciate what is being destroyed.

I notice people keep comparing ISIS to the Visigoths, the Huns, etc. (This is particularly unfair to the Visigoths, IMHO). Are we forgetting that during 1933-1945 the country of Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven embarked on an insane wave of genocide, tyranny, and especially book-burning, not to mention looting the great art of Europe?

I guess we are.

Recycling Old News: Middle East Watches Porn

It seems about once a year someone studies online search traffic and "discovers" that searches for online pornography are extremely high in the Islamic world. It's happening again in this Salon article, "Why Porn is Exploding in the Middle East."

I'm not sure "exploding" is the right term. Yes, "According to data released by Google, six of the top eight porn-searching countries are Muslim states." But in December of 2013, I blogged about a similar study, more limited to the Arab world, and it was old news then. I think writers enjoy the contradictions and seeming hypocrisy implicit in discovering that some of the most repressive and censored parts of the world are watching online pornography; periodically we also read that Utah, the most conservative US state, consumes the most porn per capita.

The Salon article also notes the recent furor in Lebanon, which I hadn't blogged about, over a Lebanese American called Mia Khalifa, who was voted the most popular actress in US porn by some website. I didn't blog about it because she isn't making films in Lebanon, but in the US. I am unfamiliar with Ms. Khalifa's, um, body of work, but I didn't consider it a Middle East story. If she were making films in Lebanon, that would qualify as news.

So, it's old news. The countries in the region routinely condemn it, try to block it, and insist it's a Western plot, but it continues to be popular in a part of the world where there are few socially accepted outlets for sexual curiosity. This is not news; it's human nature.

In Other Lebanese Diva News, Haifa Wehbe Has Had a Busy Week

Having started the day with the news of the death of Sabah at age 87, it seems only appropriate to check in with the current generation of celebrity superstar Lebanese divas. Haifa Wehbe has been in the news at least three different ways in the past week or so.

• Egypt's State Radio announced that  her songs will no longer receive airtime on State Radio because she is "unlicensed," invoking a 1934 law requiring singers to undergo a voice test. Resurrecting  this old rule may be an attempt to provide cover for the banning the day before of the music of Hamza Namira, who is a critic of the regime. The ban applies only to State Radio, not Private stations.

• On the other hand Egypt's Administrative Court reversed a ban on the showing of her movie Halawat Ruh; Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb banned the film last spring without its having even been submitted to the Censorship Board. He argued that it was obscene.

• Haifa also came under fire for wearing a revealing dress on the competition show Arab Star Academy. Parts of the dress appeared see-through under the bright studio lights. In fact, her strategic areas were opaque and she has worn far more revealing outfits in her concerts and movies, but this program is broadcast across the Arab World and so the dress seemed shocking in countries more socially conservative than Lebanon. (American actresses and entertainers routinely appear on television in more revealing outfits, of course.)

But in true diva style, Haifa Wehbe managed to appear in headlines for three different reasons in under two weeks' time. A clip of the Arab Star Academy broadcast is below.

Amnesty: Egypt Planning for Mass Surveillance of Social Media

Amnesty International has issued a statement saying that the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior has issued a tender for a system that would allow mass surveillance of social media:

Under the proposed plans, disclosed in a leaked tender by the Ministry of Interior this week, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and possibly mobile phone applications such as WhatsApp, Viber and Instagram would be systematically monitored.

“The plans by the Egyptian authorities to indiscriminately monitor social media a few months after the adoption of a new constitution guaranteeing the right to privacy shows the little regard they have for human rights or the rule of law. The plans also spark serious fears that systematic monitoring of social media networks will be used by the authorities to further clamp down on the slightest sign of dissent,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director for Amnesty International.

Headline of the Week? "Nude Wife of Saudi Football Coach Sparks Anger."

From Al-Arabiya: "Nude Wife of Saudi Football Coach Sparks Anger."

A grabber of a headline. Did a Saudi coach's wife attend the game stark naked instead of in full abaya? Well, no. The coach isn't himself Saudi, and the wife isn't always nude (I assume) and may not be coming to the KSA. Still, female nudity and Saudi Arabia being the matter and antimatter of the Middle East, an explosion was predictable.

Here's the story. The most prominent and popular Saudi football (soccer to us Yanks) club, Al-Hilal just hired Romanian Laurenţiu Reghecampf as its new coach. His contract is reportedly worth $2.5 million. But it has been learned that his wife (and reportedly his agent), Ana Maria (or Anamaria) Prodan, has a profile not typical of Saudi women. As Al-Arabiya puts it:

Prodan is reportedly the first female FIFA-licensed agent in Romania. A Las Vegas resident, she supplements her income through gambling and modeling. Her latter work includes a photo-shoot for Playboy.

Professional woman who gambles, models, and poses for Playboy? Pretty much a trifecta for the Hay'a, the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, also known as the Religious Police. There is no confirmation she is even planning to relocate, with her husband, to the Kingdom (she lives in Las Vegas, a place somewhat different from Riyadh), but that hasn't prevented an uproar that may jeopardize Reghecampf's brand-new contract. (The fact that many Saudis resent the replacement of the previous Arab coach is also a factor.)

Among other things, tattoos are taboo

As far as I can tell through extensive research (aka looking on Google), she has only appeared in the Romanian edition of Playboy, which I assume does not circulate widely outside Romania and maybe Moldova, and quite certainly is not readily available in Saudi Arabia. The PG-13 photo at right seems to be from this shoot, and the (concealed) nudity is compounded by another no-no to strict Muslims: tattoos.

Whatever the Saudis do, my image of sports agents is changed forever.

First They Came for Twitter . . .

Then they came for YouTube. Turkey has blocked YouTube in the wake of the leaking of another embarrassing audiotape, this one a security meeting about a possible war with Syria.

Banning Twitter BOOSTS Twitter Use in Turkey?

Now, I'm fully aware that Hurriyet Daily News are hardly friendly with Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan and his AKP Party, but they are reporting that after yesterday's ban on Twitter,that
"Twitter usage SOARS in Turkey, let alone succumbing to 'the ban'."

The number of active Twitter users, as well as tweeted messages, has soared since the Turkish government blocked access to the popular social media platform, new statistics have shown.

The access to Twitter was blocked in the first hour of March 21. According to figures published by social media rating agency Somera, over 6 million Turks tweeted from March 20, 23:00, to March 21, 12:00. Only 4.5 million tweets were sent the previous day in the same time slot when there was no blocking. The difference correspondents to a 33 percent rise.

The number of tweeting Turkish users have also risen by 17 percent, from 1.49 million to 1.75 million comparing the same periods. The Turkish activity on Twitter was 16 percent lower than the previous day one hour before midnight. Just after the access was blocked, it quickly rose, hitting 95 percent more than the previous day and remained in record highs even at 03:00 am as seen in the graph:

In last night's post I already talked about one workaround. There are others. The Prime Minister promise that "Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic" seems to have a somewhat hollow echo by now. For one thing the Turkish President, Erdoğan's former colleague and AKP ally, Abdullah Gül, denounced it. How? On Twitter of course:

I don't read Turkish but I understand he's saying that blocking Twitter posts against which there was a court order would have been sufficient and that blocking Twitter altogether violated both privacy and freedom of expression.

So now, Erdoğan's own party is unhappy. Now there are reports that Twitter is negotiating a restoration. Did we see "the power of the Turkish Republic" here, or the power of social media?

Turkey Bans Twitter; Turks Tweet About It Anyway

Turkey banned Twitter today, after Prime Minister Erdoğan threatened to do so at a campaign rally in Bursa. He blames Twitter for spreading links to leaked tapes implicating him and his government to a corruption schedule, and he told the rally, “We now have a court order. We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic.” He also threatened Facebook and other social media.

The power of the Turkish Republic notwithstanding, there was some lag time between the threat and the deed, and before ISPs in Turkey had blocked access to Twitter, Twitter sent this:

So once Twitter went dark online, Turks started messaging their comments, including the cartoons below and lots of denunciation, vociferously tweeting, via SMS, about the shutdown of Twitter. This may not have demonstrated the power of the Turkish Republic quite as effectively as Erdoğan intended. SMS has its limitations of course, but it gave Turks a means to express themselves, at least, to the outside world if not within Turkey.

When the Turkish Parliament passed a new, tough Internet law last month, I noted that "Critics claim that the bill is in response to revelations published on social media pointing to government corruption, and that the intention is to block further revelations." It looks as if those critics might have a point.

Culture Wars Watch: Turkish Deputy PM on Protester in Bikini

What is it about Islamists and bikinis? Well, I mean, I know the answer, basically, but why would the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey (Mediterranean beaches, Aegean beaches, Black Sea beaches, big tourism sector) get tied in knots over a woman protester in Taksim wearing a bikini? They're not unknown on any of those beaches, last I heard.

The Culprit (Hürriyet Daily News)

Oh, I know that beachwear in countries with a big tourist sector is expected to be quite different from daily dress in downtown urban areas. If a tourist in Egypt from the beaches of Sharm al-Sheikh or Hurghada showed up in downtown Cairo, many Salafi heads would explode. (Make up your own minds whether that's a bad thing.) But as Hürriyet Daily News informs us: "Turkish Deputy PM says he could barely “restrain” himself from speaking out on bikini woman.":

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said he was “barely restraining” himself from saying certain things about the recent protests in Taksim where a woman danced around in her bikinis until police forces detained her, slamming the woman for believing “nudity is freedom.”

“We have a misunderstanding of freedom in a way that we see it as letting everyone on to the streets and stripping naked. Like in Taksim, recently, a woman came out eventually, and excuse me for saying this, just stripped off all her clothes, starting to dance in her underwear. Supposedly she came from Switzerland, and supposedly she brought freedom to Turkey. I can barely restrain myself from saying something,”

Either Mr. Arınç or his translator raises some questions here: "danced around in her bikinis": how many was she wearing exactly? She "just stripped off all her clothes, starting to dance in her underwear." Well, it wasn't all her clothes if she was wearing "underwear" or, apparently, a bathing suit. But the biggest question about his phrasing is: "I can barely restrain myself from saying something." Um, you didn't restrain yourself. You just said something to the Turkish national media and I'm blogging it over here in the US, OK?

This is a Bit Scary, and I Don't Even Read Turkish

There has been much criticism of the caution or timidity of much of the Turkish media during the recent demonstrations, including the now-notorious broadcast of a documentary on penguins, leaving the field to social media and even a courageous game show host. But this captures the print media's yes-man approach graphically. I don't read Turkish and you don't need to either, since it's clear that, except for minor grammatical differences, every headline is almost identical. (Something to do with democracy demanding sacrifice, quoting Erdoğan.) (To be fair, not all the papers are here, and Hürriyet is notably absent.) Still, what are the odds?

A hat tip to Dan Brumberg for the link.

Post Mortem Assessments on the Egypt Independent Closure

Last week's decision ti close the weekly print edition of the English-language Egypt Independent (see this piece, with links to the last issue, published online only), and — after an initial statement indicating the online English edition was also being closed — a clarification that the online version would continue, but with an "integrated newsroom" with Al-Masry al-Youm (presumably meaning no independent English-only reporting staff), several commentators have weighed in with post-mortems:

• At the Daily News Egypt, itself an online reincarnation of a paper closed last year, Mahmoud Salem ("Sandmonkey") offers "Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it . . ." a challenge yo English-speaking readers to rally to keeo alive an independent press in English. (The Ahram Online website and the Al-Ahram Weekly in print are, of course, government-run papers.)
• Vivian Salama at the Columbia Journalism Review website has a piece, "In the Egypt Independent's Closure, an End of a Beginning," interviewing the former Editor-in-Chief, Lina Atallah, and citing the growing pressures on the independent press, in Arabic as well as English.
• At the Wall Street Journal's Middle East Real Time, Maria Abi Habib on "Egypt's Independent Press Takes a Hit."
• Mention of Lina Atallah above invites the comment as well that Egypt Independent not only had a female Editor-in-Chief but a reporting and commentary staff that must have been nearly half female, certainly not the norm in the Egyptian press. Sarah Carr, one of those reporters, takes to her own blog to deliver the scathing "A Statement from the Fortress of Evil," satirically purporting to be the "full version" of what was "left out" of the management's official statement. ("Al-Masry Al-Youm Corp. has decided to shut down its one good thing which was called Egypt Independent but which in this statement will be called The Egypt Independent because of our natural aversion to accuracy.") It clearly conveys what she sees as their contempt for their readership. (It's therefore appropriately and colorfully profane: language Not Safe for Work, but funny.)

Morsi Orders Complaints Against Journalists Withdrawn

President Morsi of Egypt has ordered that complaints filed by the Presidency against journalists be withdrawn in the name of freedom of expression. Morsi has been openly criticized by the US over complaints against journalists, threatening Egypt's negotiations with the IMF over its economic situation (somewhat alleviated by a pledge by Qatar to buy $3billion in Egyptian state bonds).

Others have also filed complaints against journalists; Morsi's action presumably only affects those filed by the Presidency. Morsi had sought to deny that he was personally behind the complaints, but his critics noted that they were initiated by the office of the Presidency, which of course he controls.

Jon Stewart on Bassem Youssef; US Embassy Shows Sense of Humor; Egyptian Presidency None

I noted yesterday the Egyptian government's legal harassment of satirist Bassem Youssef for his lampooning of President Morsi, and posted a video of Youssef's interview with CNN. Youssef is often referred to as "Egypt's Jon Stewart," after his nearest American counterpart; yesterday America's John  Stewart came to Youssef's defense:

In fact, the US Embassy in Cairo posted and tweeted this episode, provoking criticism from the Freedom and Justice Party and a rebuke from the Egyptian Presidency:

Wow. The US Embassy has a sense of humor. Who knew? Egypt's Presidency? Not so much. Still the only folks in all of Egypt with no discernible sense of the absurd.

UPDATE: The tweet shown above has now been deleted by the Presidency.

The Plight of Egypt's English-Language Press

An important roundup at Jadaliyya: The Full Story: Silencing English-Language Media in Egypt..

New to Israel's Culture Wars: Hebrew Edition of Playboy

Even as Binyamin Netanyahu continues to struggle to put a coalition together, delayed by the refusal of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid Party to serve in a coalition with the religious parties, Israel's secular/religious culture wars have a new player: Playboy magazine has launched its first Hebrew-language edition, based in Israel. And, according to The Jerusalem Post, 

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner on Tuesday lauded Israel as a country sharing the core values of his magazine in a pre-recorded message at the launch of Playboy Israel, the first Hebrew version of the men's magazine.

My first thought was that Mr. Hefner must never have been in Mea Shearim,where women in shorts are sometimes stoned, and my second was that  perhaps he was referring to the fact that he is as old as a Biblical patriarch, but in fact, he apparently meant that both were devoted to a free press.

Editions of Playboy in English and other languages have been available in Israel, but this is the first locally-produced edition and the first in Hebrew. (For those Hebrew-only readers who really do want to buy it for the articles.)

Ya Sheikh, Those Were the Days ...

As Egypt becomes more Islamist, some of the online Egypt nostalgia sites seem to be remembering fewer monarchs and more cheesecake. With belly-dancing, booze, and bikinis in the gun-sights of the powers that be, who can blame them? Ras al-Bar, a beach near Damietta on the Mediterranean, 1959:

Life Magazine, 1952: Samia Gamal's Contribution to Science

I thought I'd contribute this bit of academic historical research to the ongoing debate between Islamists who want to ban belly-dancing in Egypt, arguably the land that made the art famous, and those who see it as an art. I think we took my daughter to a restaurant with  belly-dancing for the first time when she was about six. As an indication of its mainstream nature, I thought I'd present this piece from Life Magazine from 1952. Older Americans will be aware of the enormous power Life  once had in American life before its weekly existence ended in the 1970s. It was a photo magazine that formed American images of the world before television took over completely. It was as mainstream, white-bread, middle class Middle American as it could be, and never more so than in 1952.

And it ran a photo feature on Egyptian belly-dancer Samia Gamal (1924-1994), considered by many as one of the immortals, second only to Tahia Carioca herself, which not only relates to her dancing but to her important contribution to science, by illustrating via a flashlight how her hips move:















The immediate source of the photo is here; the full article in the issue of March 24, 1952 is here. At the time Samia Gamal appeared in this mainstream American magazine she was also a familiar figure (sorry) in Egyptian magazines as well.

This second photo doesn't have any direct connection to this Life story that I know of, but it is also of Samia Gamal in her prime so I'm sending it out to President Morsi, Supreme Guide Badie, and Muslim Brothers everywhere. If she was OK for Life Magazine in 1952, lighten up.