Over the next two weeks, Penn will get a taste of Middle Eastern culture.
Penn Arab Student Society is holding Arabian Fortnight — a two-week celebration of games, speaker events and a movie screening aimed at raising awareness of Arab culture and heritage.
The Fortnight began yesterday with a Tourism Fair in Houston Hall where students learned about the Middle East by speaking with international students from various Arab countries, associates from the Study Abroad office and professors from Penn’s Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department.
Upcoming activities include Tarneeb Card Night, a screening of the Israeli film Lemon Tree and an academic discussion with NELC Department Chair Roger Allen.
College freshman and PASS Secretary James Sawyer hopes that Fortnight will encourage students from all ethnic backgrounds to explore Arab heritage and contemporary culture from an objective standpoint.
“We hope [it] foster[s] campus-wide enthusiasm and eventually a more established, much needed intercultural dialogue,” Sawyer wrote in an e-mail.
College sophomore and PASS President Abdul-Hadi Kaakour emphasized a similar need to “demystify” the Arab world.
“Arabian Fortnight is a PASS re-invention of Arab Heritage Week, with the purpose being to allow Penn students a glimpse of a beautiful world and culture that unfortunately has not been shown in the greatest of lights in American media,” Kaakour wrote in an e-mail.
According to Kaakour, the event “aims to underscore the similarities in the lives and even struggles of Americans and Arabs.”
Arabian Fortnight is one of many future activities organized by what Kaakour calls a “reinvented” PASS.
“In the past years, a lot of the events PASS would throw were just parties, and not really too many events of value and quality that appealed to all students in the Penn body. This year, we are holding academic events as well as informal informational and casual social events to reach the biggest possible audience,” Kaakour explained.
College and Wharton sophomore and PASS Vice President Besan Abu-Joudeh hopes the new board will build a stronger sense of community with its new perspective and remodeled objectives.
PASS, however, maintains its traditionally festive nature by ending Arabian Fortnight with an Arab style party, or hafla.
Jointly organized by PASS, Wharton Arabian Gulf Business Association and Wharton Arabia, the party features cuisine catered from Sahara Grill, belly dancing and live performances.
The hafla will be on March 25 at 7 p.m. in the Bodek Lounge.
