Google Doodle celebrates female Emirati poet Ousha Al Suwaidi
Updated 28 November 2022
Arab News
DUBAI: Google Doodle celebrated on Monday Emirati poet Ousha Al Suwaidi, who inspired female poets across the region, with an illustration featuring her in traditional attire, including a face covering.
Nicknamed ‘Fatat Al Khaleej’ (The Girl of the Gulf), Al Suwaidi was known for writing Nabati poems, or traditional poetry originating within the nomadic Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula.
Al Suwaidi was born on Jan. 1, 1920 in Al Ain. When she was 15, she rose to fame nationally in what was commonly a male-dominated field of literature.
Many of her poems were inspired by the Arabian Gulf and desert landscapes, as well as her own experiences in the UAE, touching on themes such as love, wisdom, patriotism, and nostalgia.
She is regarded as one of the finest Arabic Nabati poets with many of her poems sung by popular Emirati and Arab artists.
On this day in 2011, a prestigious event recognized her contributions to literature and many of Al Suwaidi’s poetry and poems written in her honor were recited at the venue.
The poetry community in the UAE also established an annual award for female Emirati poets in Ousha Al Suwaidi’s name in 2011. A library at the Emirates International School, and a section of the Women's Museum in Dubai, was also dedicated in her honor, according to a website citing her biography.
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. (Supplied)
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
While the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East. (Supplied)
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. (Supplied)
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
