MANIFESTO

[...] those who destroyed peoples or exterminated tribes were not crueler to humanity, nor more harmful to the decay of cities, than the authors of vulgar books or the editors of low opinions.  

Sami Joaquim Racy, 1911

In the early 20th century, São Paulo was a city in full economic and cultural expansion. An international metropolis full of contradictions and violence, São Paulo was a mix of languages and communities. Among the working-class neighborhoods, urban marrons, and shacks, Arabs from the Levant filled the surroundings of the city center with imported fabrics or roamed the peripheral streets selling everyday products. But Arab immigration was not built solely by peddlers. Beyond the myth of the self-made man, intellectuals who saw business as a necessity of the times were also producing thought.

Arabic-language periodicals flourished in São Paulo, and in Belle Époque Brazil and the Americas. Among various political currents, the colony was divided between intellectuals and demagogues: some trained in the most liberal traditions of the time, others fixed on the emerging nationalist discourse. Today, this memory is largely unknown, if not deliberately ignored. And if it weren’t for those—many of them non-Arabs—who seek traces of past intellectual existence, we might not have the opportunity today to revive a tradition that, with small steps, is beginning to counter-attack hegemonic narratives that too often do us a disservice.

Among the numerous publications from the early 20th century, Al Jaliah left a modest legacy: not many know it, but those who do, hold it in high esteem. Currently, part of its copies can be found in the Jafet Library of the American University of Beirut. In some way, Al Jaliah seemed different. It wasn’t just a magazine of news and novelties, but rather, a reflective, humorous, and combative publication. Figures like Daoud and Taufic Kurban, Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti, and others contributed to Al Jaliah.

Founded in 1922 by Sami J. Racy, born in 1880 in Saida, Al Jaliah lasted 8 years, ending a year after the death of its founder. In the context of the time, educated at the Syrian College, later the American University of Beirut, Sami and his brothers carried the weight of an elite education, engaging in and being part of the most contemporary debates and references of the time. Likely due to the experiences of Sami and his brothers, marrying outside the community, relinquishing the cultural and communal pressures for marriage and for maintaining certain Arab particularities, the magazine problematized the present issues of the time: the advent of a new society, the relationship and duties of Levantine Arabs from a shared frame of reference, and the demand for a new conception of culture from a diasporic perspective. Between anecdotes about Ruy Barbosa’s near miss by Anis Racy or Sami Racy’s sarcasm directed at Antoun Saade, Al Jaliah positioned itself critically and undoubtedly gathered opponents.

The confrontational spirit of Sami and his brothers is the starting point of this new Al Jaliah. Through it, we will not seek to explain. In today’s connected world, sources and access to a wide variety of information abound. We have something to say to those who wish to read, see, and listen to us. We do not want to reinforce stereotypes, justify particularities, or excuse problems. We want, instead, to expose, whatever it may be, that provides everyone with the potential to approach pressing issues of the contemporary world from a region that, for unfortunate reasons, has become an endless chessboard of international politics. It is clear that the challenge is great. The task alone is not enough; we will fulfill it through complementary perspectives that are often silenced, here or there: the local and the diasporic. By revisiting the foundations of Brazilian-Arab periodicals, we will build Al Jaliah by weaving connections between Arab life and reality, both from the countries that make up the Arab world and from those who, in living memory, have inherited the stories of this world.

We are here to expand references, create connections and networks, and raise questions.

Thus, we assume our commitment, Arabs and Arab-diasporic alike, in the same way and with the same intensity as many of our ancestors. We invite everyone to walk this path with us, along roads we are only just beginning to open. To all, we express our sincere manifesto. Understand it however you wish, but do not say we didn’t warn you:

1- Al Jaliah is an independent initiative aimed at all those who see art and thought as critical forms of expression that position us in the world in a reflective, responsible, and combative manner.  

2 - Nothing—absolutely nothing—justifies authoritarianism, let alone the desire for it. While sociohistorical processes can be understood, they do not require us to excuse the use of coercive power as a necessary evil. We embrace difference, yet we recognize that the complexities of social dynamics must not be naturalized or relativized to the extent that we overlook the real, lived suffering of flesh-and-blood individuals at the hands of the powerful.

3 - We will fight Orientalism as an expression equivalent to any form of discrimination and racism. Exotic representations of Arab peoples will not only be rejected but denounced if their authors do not take the chance to retract.  

4 - We do not align with groups that vie for representative protagonism, stepping over others to ensure their prominence, whether in academia, the cultural milieu, or any other institutional space.  

5 - We understand the Arab world as a region created over the long duration through the diffusion of the language and expressions stemming from the Arabian Peninsula via the conquest of the regions now known as the Middle East and North Africa. This includes the contradictions and problems arising from ethnic, sociocultural, and historical relations that allow the use of the notion of the "Arab world" as a category of thought, which, however, cannot summarize the complexity and meaning of the multiple realities of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, racialization, religion, language, and class in the region.  

6 - Al Jaliah will serve the development and dissemination of knowledge about Arab reality(ies) in three languages, creating networks and aiming for the sufficiency of resources for the continuity and expansion of its production.  

7 - Al Jaliah is open to incorporating individuals ready to assist with editorial tasks, always through open negotiation and according to the material possibilities of the project.  

8 - Finally, Al Jaliah calls on all those, whether Arabs, descendants, members of the diaspora, or none of these categories, who feel ignored, underrepresented, silenced, or exploited, to get in touch and share their experiences, work, and thoughts.

The editors,
São Paulo, Brasil
2024.