The Samir Kassir Blog

Soirée musicale à Paris à la mémoire de Samir Kassir

2007-05-24T22:52:00.000+03:00

A la memoire de
Samir Kassir
journaliste, historien, homme libre
assassiné à Beyrouth le 2 juin 2005

L’ASSOCIATION DES AMIS DE SAMIR KASSIR

LA FONDATION SAMIR KASSIR

Vous invitent à une soirée musicale
avec le groupe

Printemps de Beyrouth
ربيع بيروت

Interventions de

Henry Laurens
Farouk Mardam-Bey
Edwy Plenel
Elias Sanbar
Jad Tabet

Le lundi, 4 juin 2007 à 19H30
à l’auditorium de l’Institut du monde arabe

Entrée libre dans la limite des places disponibles
Veuillez confirmer sur : rdl_france@yahoo.fr

Samir Kassir Concert, March 14, 2007, The Samir Kassir Garden, 8pm

2007-03-10T10:24:00.000+02:00

Conference in USJ to commemorate Samir Kassir (June 8-9)

2006-05-31T05:21:00.000+03:00

The Samir Kassir Blog

BEIRUT: To commemorate the first anniversary of Samir Kassir’s death, the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences and the Institute of Political Science at the Université Saint Joseph (USJ) are holding a two-day conference entitled The Middle East: Conflicts and Issues. The conference will be held on June 8 and 9, 2006 at USJ's Social Sciences campus, Rue Huvelin, Beirut.
The opening session will include words from Samir Kassir’s widow, Gisèle Khoury, the president of USJ, as well as welcome notes from the French embassy in Beirut and the Institute of Political Sciences.
The first session is entitled Which Arab Renaissance in the International Context? Panelists include the VP of Arab and Islamic studies at USJ Ahyaf Sinno, the poet Adonis, professor and journalist Katrin Kneisel, and Director General of Le Monde Diplomatique Samir Aita.
The second day will include three sessions covering a wider range of topics. The morning session will discuss the current religious and political situation in the Middle East. The afternoon session will entertain the Palestinian situation titled The Fate of Palestine and the Future of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The concluding session is titled Testimonies and Experiences in Mass Mobilization in the Arab World.
Participants in this academic conference comprise journalists, academics, poets and politicians including prominent public figures such as the Knesset member Azmi Bechara, former minister Samir Makdissi, and Democratic Left Movement member and writer Elias Khoury.

DLM calls on the Lebanese to remember Kassir

2006-05-30T20:33:00.000+03:00

The DLM issued a statement in which it called on all the Lebanese to remember Samir Kassir on his first annual memorial. Below is the full text. (Arabic Version)
(Picture -- Left: DLM's member of the Excutive Bureau Elias Khoury sobbs as he hugs a weeping Elias Atallah, MP and DLM's Secretary General. The two had arrived at the site of Kassir's assassination on June 2, 2005).

On the first annual memorial of the assassination of comrade Samir Kassir, the Democratic Left Movement (DLM) calls on all the Lebanese to honor this event.
The DLM salute the intellectual, journalist and leftist activist who fought with his pen and made out of his blood a symbol for the Lebanese Independence Intifada. Samir Kassir, a founding member of the DLM and member of its first Executive Bureau, the brilliant journalist with Annahar daily newspaper, Beirut's historian who called for resisting Arab distress with freedom, modernity and activism and the author of The Dream of Change, fell down on June 2, 2005 in a deceptive act of bombing of his car as he boarded it. Through this murder, the Lebanese-Syrian security system tried to kill the Lebanese independence by killing one of its pillars.
On his first memorial, Samir Kassir stands big as he mocks his killers, announces that words are stronger than swords, and calls on his comrades in the Independence Intifada for an uprising within the uprising on way of building a democratic Arab home.
Our beloved comrade represented through his activism and writings what is most noble in the Arab renaissance movement as he reconciled intellect with politics. To him, intellect was a vision for the future and the intellectual was due to resist the oppressive regimes.
To him, intellectuals should listen only to the voice of their conscience.
To him, the politician should be freed form tribal and sectarian loyalties
Through his martyrdom, comrade Samir Kassir has joined a host of freedom martyrs who have defined the meaning of Lebanon and Arabism. Kassir has accordingly inscribed his name next to that of Farajallah Helou, Hussein Mroue and Mahdi Amel and has become a torch that has lit Lebanon along with the other comrade martyrs of the Independence Intifada: Rafik Hariri, Bassel Fuleihan, George Hawi and Gebran Tueni.
The Democratic Left Movement has been hit hard with the assassination of the activist and the noble intellectual Samir Kassir, one of its most prominent leaders. The DLM calls on all the Lebanese to commemorate Samir Kassir's first annual memorial by participating in the rally that will be held on Friday, June 2, at 10:45 am in front of Samir Kassir's Olive Tree in Ashrafieh. It also calls on the Lebanese to join in the evening event at 7:00 pm on the same day at the Samir Kassir Garden next to the Annahar Building.
On his first memorial, the DLM pledges to follow in his path toward freedom because a new dawn will rise no matter how much the darkness tries to kill the light.

Kassir: A Pioneer of the Second Arab Renaissance

2006-05-30T17:39:00.000+03:00

The Samir Kassir Blog
LYON: The thought of Samir Kassir was the subject of a three-session panel held at the University of Lyon on May 11.
The Beirut-based L'Orient Le Jour's Michel Georgio highlighted Kassir's search for another Arab renaissance in line of past prominent Arab intellectuals who led the first Arab renaissance during the mid 19th century.
Also among the commentators on Kassir's thought was Democratic Left Movement's vice president and longtime companion Ziad Majed who said that Samir stood for more than one contradiction being the leftist from Beirut's Ashrafieh Quarter, the secular Greek Orthodox and the Arab Francophone.
Meanwhile University of Lyon's professors Joseph Dichi, Michel Cornaton and Joseph Mirie presented Kassir's thought through his book Glances at Arab Distress saying that Kassir never subscribed to the idea that the Arab failure was their sealed fate but was merely the result of a combination of factors that he believed could be reversed.
In the last session, professor Sharif Farjani talked about secularism in the Arab world saying that such notion does not necessarily contradict the teachings of Islam. (Arabic Version)

Samir Kassir: What Are You Writing?

2006-05-26T20:00:00.000+03:00

The Samir Kassir Blog
WASHINGTON: Alhurra TV's prolific producer/anchor Ephrem Kossaify is in the process of finalizing his documentary on Samir Kassir entitlted Samir Kassir: What Are You Writing?
According to the documentary team, the film took around 35 hours of recording of interviews in New York, Paris, Ramallah and Beirut. Interviews included recordings with Kassir's close ones such as his parents, his widow Gisele, Democratic Left Movement's Elias Khoury and Ziad Majed and Syrian Director Omar Amerilay among many others.
The one-hour documentary will highlight Kassir's "love of life" and will feature the main themes of his life. The show is scheduled to air on Saturday June 3, 2006 at 18:00 GMT.

Samir Kassir on AlHurra's Sunday Question

2006-05-26T19:46:00.000+03:00

The Samir Kassir Blog
WASHINGTON: AlHurra TV's newly launched Sunday Question show will dedicate a special feature segment about Samir Kassir to mark his first annual memorial. The show that is hosted by Nadim Koteish, is due to present two packages. The first is entitled Samir Kassir's Will in which the package higlights statements from Kassir's last TV interview that appeared on AlHurra a couple of days prior to his assassination. The second package recounts the main activities that were held in honor of the late jouranlist.

EU announces the Samir Kassir Prize

2006-04-11T00:10:00.000+03:00

The European Union has announced the Samir Kassir Prize.
Check out their site for further information about this contest. http://www.prixsamirkassir.org/

The Samir Kassir website now updated

2006-03-13T07:19:00.000+02:00

The Arabic section on The Samir Kassir Website has been updated
Check it out on www.samirkassir.net

Celebration-as-tribute honors Kassir

2006-03-13T06:39:00.000+02:00

The Samir Kassir Foundation and the Democratic Left Movement held a tribute to the slain journalist at the old Beirut City Center on Sunday, where they staged an art and photo exhibition that concluded with a musical concert of well-known local artists.
"It's a tribute to the optimism he inspired and proof of that continuous spirit in the people affected by his writings and thought," said Mark Daou, a DLM member and one of the event organizers.
Attendees mingled beneath the bullet-riddled ceiling and bare cables of the center's lobby, which served as a peculiar backdrop for candid family snapshots of Kassir with his daughters and black-and-white prints from his student days.
"I like the idea that they did it in this place, it's not so commercial like freedom square," said Samer Bouali, a student at the American University of Beirut. "It really brings back old Beirut, so the theme works out."
Daou said they chose to make it an edifying celebration rather than a somber political event, in keeping with Kassir's own values. "This is exactly what he is, he's about culture and art as much as he is about politics and teaching," Daou said.
"We put together something we think represents him, and we're sure he would have enjoyed it." The exhibition was well-attended by people of all ages, and well-catered too, with a subway sandwich station and a kaak vendor serving snacks to hungry visitors.
At 8 p.m., the crowd headed upstairs for a series of short films and musical performances dedicated to Kassir. The musical selection was eclectic, ranging from rap to oriental and featuring local favorites Scrambled Eggs, Rayes Bey, and others.

Hundreds commemorate Kassir's legacy of independence at AUB

2005-07-16T17:21:00.000+03:00

By Nada Bakri
Special to The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Hundreds of journalists, politicians, academics and students commemorated the passing of 40 days since the assassination of anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir in an impressive and moving ceremony Friday. The ceremony, held in Issam Fares Hall at the American University of Beirut, featured clips of television interviews with Kassir, Syrian opposition figure Riad Turk, and Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt, as well as a video-taped eulogy delivered by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
Ghassan Tueni, publisher of An-Nahar newspaper and Kassir's colleague, said in the ceremony's opening speech that "Kassir symbolizes the successful journalist: thinker, liberator, inspiration, and academic."
He said: "I convinced him to return to Lebanon from France because I believed his country needed him ... and now I wonder: If he had stayed there, would he have been killed? That is the tragedy and the catastrophe with which I live every day."
Giselle Khoury, widow of Kassir, said that she will continue her work as a journalist to spread the values of democracy, freedom and independence to which her husband dedicated his life.
She said: "I tell him that the love and hope that made up our story will live with me ... will enlighten my path and help me fight for these values."
Palestine Liberation Organization member Yasser Abed Rabbo said the assassination of Kassir turned him into "a liberator and a martyr."
He said: "He united the dreams and aspirations of the Lebanese, the Palestinians and the Arabs ... I came here to deliver a Palestinian message, to tell the Lebanese people that we are certain they will not fail us and carry on in liberating their country."
Syrian opposition figure Riad Turk said in his taped message: "The overwhelming happiness we felt with the rise of independence in Lebanon was disrupted by the series of assassinations, and the worst of them was the one that claimed Kassir's life."
He added: "We hold Syria responsible politically for these assassinations."
He said that the Lebanese parliamentary elections that brought a new class of politicians to power will help accelerate reform in the country, adding that, "the true and most important reform was the renaissance of the Lebanese on March 14," referring to mass demonstrations held on that date.
He added: "Kassir is not only a martyr of Lebanon's democratic movement, but he is a martyr of the Syrian movement as well."
Elias Atallah, Tripoli MP and Secretary General of the Leftist Democratic Party - of which Kassir was a member - expressed his commitment to continuing Kassir's mission.
He said: "To the killers of Samir, we say that we will stay united in defending democracy, freedom, independence and sovereignty."
An-Nahar columnist Elias Khoury announced during the ceremony that a public park located in Martyrs' Square will bear Kassir's name. He also announced the establishment of Samir Kassir's Cultural Foundation. In addition to publishing and translating Kassir's writing, the foundation will work to improve journalism throughout the Arab world. It will also grant annual Samir Kassir awards for journalistic freedom.

Gizelle Khoury: Don't Kill Samir Again!

2005-07-09T20:13:00.000+03:00

Widow of late journalist Samir Kassir Gizelle Khoury appeared in an interview on Future TV with Fares Khashan. Annahar published exerpts of the interview on July 8, 2005. Below is a translation of parts of Annahar's article.

In her first detailed interview about the assassination of her husband historian, journalist and philosopher Samir Kassir, Gizelle tried as much as she could to be -- like he had wanted her -- open, wise and surely courageous. She talked, as we've known her, proud. She talked about the martyr that she adored on the day he loved the most, the day he used to meet her for lunch. She also unveiled the role he had played in the Independence Uprising and the oppression he was exposed to by Lebanese media that blocked his appearance for 4 years.

In response to a question whether she was satissfied about the ongoing investigation, she said: "No. Not at all." She also said that 4 suspects, who were not young, appear clearly on the recorded tape of the surveillence cameras of one of the nearby stores, that they were present at the end of the road where the crime happened. One of them had a scooter bike. They were the only ones who wen the other way when the explosion happened.

Gizelle addressed the friends of Samir saying that she "was a walking ball of pain" and that she "appreciated that they have been touched "but that she doesn't want them to break down. It is not important to visit his grave and drop letters and roses over it. It is much more important that we become active because Samir loved activism. Let them kill all of us. Life is meaningless if we don't follow up and pursue what he had started."

She unveiled how Samir was the architect of the Independence Uprising. “He was the one who designed its red logo with olive leaves and the word Independence 05.”

She remembered his reaction during the night demonstration in Martyrs Square when the Omar Karami cabinet fell. He told her as she expressed concern over his health on the phone: “The people are changing things. This is the first political victory I see in my life. Don’t prohibit me of it.”

She promised to be like him as much as she could. “And even in they kill me, I won’t concede.”

Welcome to the Samir Kassir Blog for Democracy and Development

2005-07-08T19:03:00.000+03:00

We will start publishing pieces here soon. Come back again.