TRIPOLI, LEBANON //It is almost eleven o'clock and people in the audience have long since broken their fasts, some have performed their evening prayers and are now sitting back to enjoy the night's entertainment.
But the crowd are not gathered around a television set in a living room or coffee shop to catch the latest instalment of a Ramadan series.
Instead, about 150 people at a cultural centre await the arrival of musicians, dancers and a hakawati, or traditional storyteller.
Once a staple of Ramadan nights in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Arab world, the art of storytelling art has all but died. People would once gather at the local ahweh, or coffee shop, to listen to performers retell fables and discuss life and politics but now they prefer to meet friends and family or converge to watch popular television dramas.
But there are still a small group of hakawatis in Lebanon keeping the tradition alive.
On a recent evening, in a courtyard at Tripoli's Beit Al Fann, or House of Art, a musical troupe from the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo played for guests, while a whirling dervish performed his dizzying dance in front of the stage.
A portly man in a red fez, flowing cream robes, a wide, black belt, and carrying a walking stick, then wove through the audience before taking to the stage.
Nazih Kamareddine, a 52-year-old actor who believes he is one of only a few "real" hakawatis still performing in the Arab world, started acting at school.
Since then, he has not stopped performing. It was in 1989 that he first performed as a hakawati, when a theatre group needed someone to step into the role.
"It was beautiful," Mr Kamareddine said slowly, with a wide smile. "It is a very rare thing to be and to help preserve our culture and folklore. Hakawatis had a big role in society and would talk about everything."
On this occasion, he performs a short rendition of part of his favourite tale - Antara and Abla, an epic love story that can take 30 nights to recite in its entirety. He inserts contemporary references into his performance, speaking of how the main characters would contact each other by messaging on their mobile phones, bringing levity to the ancient tale.
Mr Kamareddine delights in regaling his audience with stories and parables interspersed with song and verse, something that Arab storytellers have been doing for hundreds of years.
Unlike the Levantine hakawatis of past decades, he does not perform every night to packed local coffee houses.
While the tradition has largely disappeared from daily life, it is revived in parts of Lebanon, particularly during Ramadan, when Mr Kamareddine and other hakawatis are commissioned for special performances.
Sara Kassir, a 28-year-old from Beirut, is one of the few female storytellers. She is involved in efforts to revive the tradition in Lebanon, which she said has helped to introduce hakawatis to a new generation.
"But many people still have no idea what it is all about, especially as I am a female performer," she said. "But it is about serving our oral culture, which could die out."
Abdul Nasser Yassin, who runs Beit Al Fann in Tripoli's Al Mina area where Mr Kamareddine's performance was held, believes the last genuine hakawati performed in the city in the 1950s.
"Now the memory is being recreated," he said.
This being Lebanon, Mr Kamareddine's performances and conversations never veer far from politics. One of the stories he incorporates is that of Rafiq Hariri, the late Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in 2005.
"It is a story about his life, but also his death. About one man and four million Lebanese people - the story of a country. Every new political event, I weave into my performances," he said before breaking into verse, singing about how Lebanon bleeds because it is divided by groups whose loyalties lie with foreign powers.
Among his favourite topics is the wave of Arab uprisings and the war in Syria, the border of which is just 35 kilometres away from this north Lebanon city.
"For the last 12 years I have told people to start a revolution," he said. "They were sleeping for way too long. Now they have woken up."
Driving late at night through the streets of Tripoli to the neighbourhood of Abu Samra - where Mr Kamareddine lives and runs a small cafe and electrical repair shop - the city is bustling with people, some seated around television sets at outdoor restaurants smoking shisha pipes.
Mr Kamareddine laments the faded role of the hakawati, but believes the old tales still resonate today.
"Hakawatis give people help and positive messages that go on forever," he said later, seated on a plastic chair under bright fluorescent lights outside Cafe Kamareddine. "Hakawatis will never die out, but it depends on who can continue the tradition."
zconstantine@thenational.ae
NYBL PROFILE
Company name: Nybl
Date started: November 2018
Founder: Noor Alnahhas, Michael LeTan, Hafsa Yazdni, Sufyaan Abdul Haseeb, Waleed Rifaat, Mohammed Shono
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software Technology / Artificial Intelligence
Initial investment: $500,000
Funding round: Series B (raising $5m)
Partners/Incubators: Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 4, Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 6, AI Venture Labs Cohort 1, Microsoft Scale-up
THE%20SWIMMERS
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Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
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It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
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THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
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Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Draw:
Group A: Egypt, DR Congo, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Group B: Nigeria, Guinea, Madagascar, Burundi
Group C: Senegal, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania
Group D: Morocco, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Namibia
Group E: Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania, Angola
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
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Match info
Manchester United 4
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