< PreviousAHMAD SWAID EDITOR-IN- CHIEF AR T DIRE C T OR RICHA KHONDE EDIT OR - AT-L ARGE (INTERNATIONAL) SAMIRA L AROUCI EDIT OR - AT-L ARGE ANDREW NAGY FA SHION EDIT OR KEANOUSH ZARGHAM DIGITAL EDIT OR ARAVIN SANDRAN JUNIOR FA SHION EDIT OR NO OR AL AZ ZAWI EDIT ORIAL ASSISTANT RAND AL HADETHI EDIT ORIAL INTERN MONIQUE SPEARMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER S AHMED ALRAMLY, ALYA SOROUR, CELINE SEMA AN, JAL AL ABUKHATER, MA AN ABU TALEB, NO ORIYAH QAIS, SARAH BEN ROMDANE, THOMAS GORTON, TAOUS DAHMANI CONTRIBUTING AR TISTS A ASIYA JAGADESSH, AUGUSTINE PAREDES, BACHAR SROUR, BIL AL HADJEB, CIESAY (PLUSLIVESTDIO), DEAN MA JD, K AREN MADI, MIKI KIM, MOUS L AMBRABAT, MOHAMAD ABD OUNI, MOHAMED BOUROUSSIA, MOUNIR RA JI, OLESYA ASANOVA, OMAR SHA3, PETER ALUUAN, RA AFAE GHORY, RADIO ALHARA TEAM, SHYAN AD VERTISING Group Brand Direc tor FARRAH TAYLOR + 971 50 151 1575 farrah.taylor@itp.com Key Account Direc tor WIDAD NAAMI +971 52 551 7455 widad.naami@itp.com PHOTOGR APHY Senior Photographer EFRAIM EVID OR Staff Photographers LESTER APUNTAR, GRACE GUINO, FRIT Z ASURO, A JITH NARENDRA PR ODUCTION Group Production and Distribution Director K YLE SMITH Production Manager DENNY KOLL ANNO OR Production Coordinator KESAVAN RASU Image Editors EMMALYN ROBLES, MUHAMMED AKBAR, JEMIMA JOY DIS TRIBUTION AND CIR CUL ATION Distribution and Circulation Manager EVIJIN PATHROSE Distribution Coordinator AVINASH PEREIRA Circulation Executive RA JESH PILL AI ITP GR OUP CEO ALI AK AWI Managing Director MARNE SCHWART Z Head of Revenue ITP Consumer GAVIN DICKINSON CFO TOBY JAY SPENCER-DAVIES The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. 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PO Box 3444, Road Town, BVI. © Condé Nast 2022 GQME_035_xx_Masthead April_11980561.indd 1807/04/2022 09:44:12Untitled-4 117/03/2022 12:17:24What is Representation? WHEN I GO T THE C AL L to say I was going to be the new Editor-In-Chief of GQ Middle East, the fi rst person I knew I wanted to work with was the French-Algerian artist Mohamed Bourouissa. The Deutsche Börse award-winning photographer – whose many accolades include being shortlisted for the Marcel Duchamp prize and lensing the late Virgil Abloh’s fi rst campaign for Louis Vuitton – is best known for document- ing marginalised communities in his seminal 2005-2008 work Peripherique which, as Taous Dahmani says in our featured essay, became “a broader sym- bol of the (mis)representation of Arab, Black and Middle Eastern people.” So here, for the fi rst time, Mohamed Bourouissa has been invited to cre- ate eight exclusive new images for the pages (and offi cial cover) of GQ Middle East to usher in an exciting era that demonstrates our new vision: represent the unrepresented. The making of this issue, in particu- lar, has had its share of challenges, but I hope it acts as a manifesto which sparks debate (What do we call the Cradle of Civilisation? by Celine Semaan), cap- tures curiosity (Maan Abu Taleb’s K-Pop and the Arab World), inspires hope (From Casablanca to the World with Charaf Tajer) and provokes. Most of all, I hope it makes us and our cultures seen; seen in ways that we’ve never been seen before – beautifully and authentically as we really are. For what is the purpose of a magazine if it isn’t to do those very things? Ahmad Swaid EDIT OR -IN -CHIEF PHO TOGRAPHY : P A UL SC AL A 20 APRIL 2022 @ GQMIDDLEE AST GQME_035_20_Eds letter_12029475.indd 2006/04/2022 11:04:12RM 72-01 Untitled-6 128/03/2022 16:56:42WHETHER IN THE RE GION OR DIASP OR A , we live in search of familiarity in the unknown. Whether Arab, Amazigh, Middle Eastern, or North African – or any one of the decolonial terms we feel most comfortable identifying with – in the words of Moroccan novelist *Tahar Ben Jelloun, “Our steps invent the path as we proceed; behind us they leave no trace, only the void. So we shall always look ahead and trust our feet. They will take us as far as our minds will go.” As children of the renaissance, we understand the power we hold and remain fearless in the face of change. Despite the lingering orbit of the West, from the Atlantic to the Arabian Sea, we fi ght through the white noise to have our voices heard. To have our histories considered, and our cultures revered. Our features, gestures and movements, an unavoidable manifestation of our ancestors – the physical essence of a golden age. A nostalgic past that never belonged to us but weighs over our being in every decision we make, and every shame-fi lled attempt to evade and assimilate. With our scope of thought and reason expanding with the internet, we articulate these personal revolutions as they happen. We try to cherish our mother tongue before fl owers are laid for those who taught it to us. FEARLESS IN THE A MANIFEST O F OR A NE W GENER ATION GQME_035_22_23_Manisfesto_12029740.indd 2206/04/2022 12:03:28FACE OF CHANGE Liberation comes in the form of learning to cultivate our cultural idiosyncrasies, while resistance manifests itself in the frenetic vibration of growth. Our identities in chaos and confusion – we master the art of forgiveness. Forgiveness for the misgivings of previous generations. We’re merciful to the strugg les of our fathers, and we celebrate the songs of our mothers. Straddling a life steeped in the wants and desires of contemporary culture, bound by the pressures of tradition, we ritualise a potent new recipe for regeneration. A hypnotic transcendence. A place where critical thinking is tempered with romanticism but not tainted by it. A gesture of boundaryless passion, and an articulation of love, a new creative dawn is cultivated for the youth. One that’s possessed by optimism. An expression of our ancestral blueprints, and a reminder of the often-times urgent bravery we unknowingly carry. Freedom comes in the establishment of pride. In the words of Egyptian author **Naguib Mahfouz, “Home is not where you were born, home is where all your attempts to escape cease.” W ORDS SAMIR A L AROUCI * Tahar Ben Jelloun is an award-winning Moroccan writer living in Paris. He was the fi rst Maghreb author to receive the prestigious Goncourt Prize ** Naguib Mahfouz was regarded as one of the fi rst contemporary writers of Arabic literature. In 1988 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature GQME_035_22_23_Manisfesto_12029740.indd 2306/04/2022 12:03:36Hat, necklace, talent’s own. Jacket, shorts, prices on request, Louis Vuitton Opposite: Hat, necklace, rings, vest, talent’s own. Jacket, trousers, prices on request, Dior Men W ORDS R A N D AL HADE THI PHO T OGR APHY DEAN MA JD ST YLING KEANOUSH Z AR GHAM TALENTS DALL AS SA AD MARIA ALIA, AND ALI SULIMAN A r a b s in N e w Y o rk The Arab dia sp or a ta k e o n N ew Yo rk C it y (a n d fl e x- w o rt h y ja c k e ts ) GQME_035_24_29_Arabs in NYC_11995948.indd 2406/04/2022 12:04:20“Even though I grew up in the US, I had a lot of Arab influence in my family. Egypt is a funny topic for me. It’s bizarre to miss a place that you’ve never actually been.” DALLAS SAAD, MODEL How is it trying to make it globally as an Arab model? If I’m transparent, in the life I come from, I really wasn’t educated on anything to do with modelling and the industry that comes with it. In my experience I haven’t knowingly had issues with people discriminating towards me because of my ethnicity, but with that being said, everything has a spectrum to it, so I have no doubt that it exists in the modelling world, just like it does across all aspects of life. I feel in today’s world, it seems like it is more important than ever to celebrate diversity, and that’s such a beautiful thing to me. But at the same time we do all have to be wary as to whether the intention on the other side is truly genuine, or if you’re being exploited because what makes you who you are is very “marketable” at that moment in time. But honestly, even with negative aspects that exist, you then have opportunities like this, where someone like me can work with an establishment such as GQ Middle East and create something that I am truly proud of, and my family and my people can be proud of, too. I’m coming for that cover next, though. Y’all best believe that! What’s it like to be a Christian Arab, and how do you connect to your Egyptian heritage? Being a Coptic Christian Egyptian is something I take a lot of pride in. It has an amazing history that inspires me because it lets me know that I come from strong people that stand on their values, and my family is a testament to that. When I was younger my whole family worked day and night in the food industry, so the only person that could take care of me was my grandmother. From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, she would cook me milakhoya with pita bread that smelled so good, while the music of Umm Kulthum played though the whole apartment. We would watch Arab TV shows, we would pray, and then play together all day. It was some of the best times I ever had. Even though I was brought up in the US, I had a lot of Arab infl uence growing up within my family. Egypt is a funny topic for me because it’s a very bizarre feeling to miss a place that you’ve never been to – does that makes sense? Finally, I just wanted to say that my beautiful grandmother, Samira Serafeem, may God rest her soul, is my light at the end of every tunnel, and the thought of her inspires me in every way pos- sible. Really, it’s all for her. @ GQMIDDLEE AST APRIL 2022 25@ GQMIDDLEE AST APRIL 2022 25 GQME_035_24_29_Arabs in NYC_11995948.indd 2506/04/2022 12:04:33MARIA ALIA, CREATIVE As a Hijabi creative, what are the challenges you’ve faced working in the West? As a visibly Muslim creative living in the West I have experienced a myriad of challenges in terms of my career. The most prevalent one being the preconceived notions about me based on the way I choose to dress, and just the blatant tokenisation that comes with it. In the beginning, I didn’t fully realise how tokenising a lot of the jobs I was being off ered actually were. I even had an agent at a well-known NY modelling agency continuously call the hijab a “hajeeb”, years after we started working together. I was pitched a lot as just this “hijab-wearing” “modest” “Muslim” model/creative, as if those were the only relevant and noteworthy aspects of my identity and work. One of the most disappointing things I’ve faced in this industry has been the erasure of my Palestinian identity. There are a number of features and press pieces on me that deliber- ately removed “Palestinian” and replaced it with either “Arab”, “Middle Eastern” or the worst of them all, “Muslim”. As if my religion equates my ethnicity. The saddest part is that in all of these instances I clearly stated that I was Palestinian-Puerto Rican, yet they completely dismissed the Palestinian element of that. Thankfully, more recently, I’ve had a lot more publi- cations and brands embrace my Palestinian roots, but it has been a long road to get here. How do you think we can give a platform to people whose voices go unheard globally? At this point, I’ve been working in the industry for about fi ve years and have carved a space for myself in places that I never imagined that I could. I feel proud, but most importantly I feel an obligation to make space for, and amplify, the stories and voices of other people of colour in this industry. I want to see people like myself at all levels in fashion and the creative space. I want to see MENA creative directors, stylists, producers, photographers, designers and more, all fl ourishing in the diaspora. Whenever I have the chance, I always push my people and support their work. A big reason why I started to work on Miilkiina, a creative agency and platform, was in order to sup- port other creative professionals and help tell their stories in a meaningful, real way – the way I wish it had been for me all those years ago. “I feel an obligation to make space for, and amplify, the stories and voices of other people of colour in this industry. I want to see people like myself at all levels in fashion and the creative space, flourishing in the diaspora.” 26 APRIL 2022 @ GQMIDDLEE AST 26 APRIL 2022 @ GQMIDDLEE AST GQME_035_24_29_Arabs in NYC_11995948.indd 2606/04/2022 12:04:46Headscarf, talent’s own. Jacket, $8400, dress, $2895, shoes, price on request, Marc Jacobs Opposite: Jacket, price on request, Valentino. Headscarf, top, talent’s own GQME_035_24_29_Arabs in NYC_11995948.indd 2706/04/2022 12:04:58Next >