Body Talk
by Joumana Haddad

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
 Einstein

J is for Jasad, the Arabic word for Body. In Arabic, every word in the following sentence also starts with a j: the wounded, bold, beautiful, deviant, defiant, universal and collective core.

What else does j stand for, in Arabic?
J stands for new. For daring newness. For serious daring. For resolute seriousness. For thunderous resolution. For abundant thunder. For attractive abundance. For obvious attraction. For sturdy obviousness.

J stands for the answer. For the stem, for red-hot embers, and for hellfire. J is for the bridge, the wing, and the soul. The mountain, the precipice, the forehead, and the frontline. J is for every hunger in the belly, and for the greed within every hunger.

And j is also for:
The embryo, which creates its own light when it is seen by the light.

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So:
Just like an embryo which creates its own light when it is seen by the light, the first issue of Body (JASAD) is born today: A cultural, intellectual, literary, artistic, scientific, and sociological project, with no visible limit to its aspirations; with a passion that is boundless, unrestrained, impossible to curb. A body which has just been born to us, and to you all. Born of us, and of you all. Born from us, and from you all. A body which is constantly growing, continuously evolving. A living body, which eats and drinks and breathes, which researches, questions and grows; which transforms, reproduces, learns and reflects. A body that reflects most of all. It reflects about the life’s body, the mind’s body, the heart’s body, the sexuality’s body and the language’s body. About literature’s body, art’s body, science’s body, geography’s body, and society’s body. It reflects, too, about the body’s body: about its consciousness, and its unconscious. About its past, its present and its future. It reflects about everything that is dispossessed, disenfranchised, forbidden, or repressed in it; everything trapped in the prison of taboos, clichés and prejudices. The body’s thinking is done through meditation, rumination, elucidation, enquiry, delving deep, experimenting, challenging and rebelling. It is done through being awake, sleeping, dreaming, having visions, hallucinating, writing, sculpting, drawing, and dancing. And all of this takes place within the adventure of freedom; an adventure which our body stays always at the very beginning of, just like its languages and manifestations do.

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Why?
Because any gap must be filled, and any yearning met. And because the body is the truth of us all: our individual truth, and our collective truth. And it’s our identity, and our distinguishing feature, and our language, and our compass, and the path which leads to each and every one of us. And, of course, because this body of ours is stolen away from our Arabic life, culture, and language; if it is ever present, it is as a despised, distorted, condemned or degraded entity. At the same time, though, it is every single thing, and it is represented in every single thing. That’s why we want this magazine to reconsider the body - the human body and the linguistic body - and to put them both under the microscope. We want to make the two of them be friends, and lovers, to each and every one of us: for we consider them to be our principle, and ultimate, mirrors.

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And then:
Let’s move on from theory to practice. In the first issue you’re holding in your hands, there are a whole variety of sections. The magazine sets off on its journey from the three-fold set of dossiers which will inaugurate each issue - the body’s erotic dimension, its social dimension, and its ethical/ anti-aesthetic dimension. It passes through literary and artistic discussions, studies, and translations, stopping off for book reviews and exhibition reviews along the way, taking in creative writing, all the while keeping its antennae tuned to relevant news signals from the wider world. It then takes a set route through a whole series of artistic and literary stations, such as cinema. But don’t rush yourselves: never be so hasty as to lean on something which, although set, is also flexible and shifting. Like I told you, Body is a living breathing being - alive and breathing, I said, transforming and changing and growing: so that list of categories and sections is neither set in stone nor exhaustive. Rather it will be added to, in forthcoming issues of the magazine, and extended. New sections will be developed covering health, science, religion, sport, psychology, traditional culture and heritage, and indeed anything and everything that Body sees as befitting, enriching and supporting the concept and aims of the project.

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Furthermore:
Body is proud to contain not a single pseudonym. Body is proud to reject the principle of pseudonyms, both generally and specifically, because it clashes with the very essence and spirit of the project. And Body is especially proud of all the writers and artists who have embarked on its adventure with such enthusiasm, and have offered it their trust, and their confidence, with such profuse generosity. They have shown the utmost magnanimity in honouring Body with their participation; they have not held back at all in their contributions to this, the first issue, despite the complete lack of any history or precedent that might have reassured them. Body is, therefore, truly and gratefully indebted to nearly fifty female and male writers and artists, who have shared in the first harvest reaped from the experiments, and the challenges, of this cultural magazine. What Body longs to be, humbly but resolutely, and with utter determination, is a permanent, spacious and unconfined venue for literary, artistic, intellectual, scientific, cutting-edge, and creative writers and experiments. So that they, in turn, can liberate our Arab body from its restricted and prohibited state, and turn its languages, its explorations and its manifestations into a doorway, opening out into freedom.

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In conclusion, then, allow me to repeat:
This Body’s house is not made of glass.

joumana@jasadmag.com