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The ‘Limbo’ star will be acting alongside Pierce Brosnan as they follow the story of famed boxer Prince Naseem.
Egyptian actor Amir El Masry is set to star in a biopic of legendary British Yemeni boxer Naseem Hamed, titled ‘Giant’. The movie will tell the story of Hamed’s humble beginnings in the English city of Sheffield, and his meteoric rise to becoming a world champion. Throughout his career, he is coached by former steel worker Brendan Ingle, who is played by Irish actor and ‘James Bond’ star Pierce Brosnan.
Also known as Prince Naseem or ‘Naz’, Hamed also became an icon of showmanship, with his inimitable southpaw boxing style and quick feet, his high rate of knock-out victories, and his elaborate ring entries, arriving on a ‘flying carpet’ suspended from the ceiling and often somersaulting over the ropes.
The casting of El Masry to play Hamed marks his first starring role in a major film production, though he has already landed several major parts in acclaimed series such as ‘The Night Manager’, BAFTA-nominated ‘The State’, and the fifth season of ‘The Crown’, in which he played a young Mohamed Al Fayed. He is also known for his award-winning role in ‘Limbo’, as well as his appearances in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ and Egyptian series ‘El-Brinseesa Beesa’.
Once a migrant worker in a Midwestern car parts factory, the Yemeni healthcare practitioner is now Hamtramck’s first Muslim mayor. His secret? Never giving up on his goals.
mer Ghalib’s third day in an American high school was very nearly his last when he was given consecutive zero grades for not doing the set homework.
With cheeks burning as the maths teacher berated him in front of the other pupils, a despondent Ghalib, then 18, resolved to quit.
Back home in Yemen, he had been top of the class but 10-hour night shifts on the production line of a Midwestern car parts factory left little enough time for sleep and lessons, never mind extra academic work.
“Everyone was looking at me,” Ghalib, now 43, tells The National. “It was embarrassing. I only went to high school to learn English. That was my goal.
“But the Egyptian maths teacher, Abdul Salam, started focusing on me. He must have thought I didn’t care about school so he picked on me.”
There seemed little point in continuing but then Mr Salam wrote a complicated algebraic problem on the blackboard as a challenge for his cohort.
Ghalib volunteered to have a go, rose from his seat, picked up the chalk and solved the problem without uttering a word.
“After class, the teacher said in Arabic: ‘You’re smart and you know your stuff, why don’t you do your homework?’
“When I told him there was no time because I had to work in a factory for $7 an hour, he said: ‘If you finish college, you can make $70 an hour.’
“That was the moment that changed my life because before that I had decided not to come to school any more.”
The intervention put him back on track to achieve his childhood ambition of holding public office, a dream fulfilled when he last year became the first Muslim mayor of Hamtramck in the Great Lakes region of Michigan.
On reflection, though, Ghalib concedes that the route to get there was circuitous with a lengthy diversion by way of the field of medicine.
Born in Yemen, his was an idyllic childhood in the village of Al Awd in Ibb province in the rugged mountains of the country’s south-west.
He excelled in maths and science at the tiny Al Islah school in the neighbouring village of Nashawan, where Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi teachers doubled up on subjects for children of every age from elementary to high school in a handful of classrooms.
In his spare time, young Amer played football in local leagues, becoming an Argentina fan after watching Diego Maradona’s record-breaking five goals and five assists in the 1986 World Cup, and wrote poetry.
So it was apt when he was inaugurated as mayor a year ago that he quoted translated lines about determination and persistence by one of his favourite Yemeni poets, Abdulaziz Al Maqaleh.
“The poem was about never giving up,” he says. “Poetry makes me feel great because I can express my feelings about anything.
“Some people think it’s odd for a healthcare practitioner and politician to write poetry but it’s a way of expressing what’s inside. I still write.”
Career inspiration was to come in the form of his great-uncle, Dahan Najar, on whose every word Amer would hang as the family was regaled with tales of his travels to the then Soviet Union and work as a diplomat.
“They would call him doctor,” Ghalib says, “and I wanted to be just like him. He was my role model.
“He had completed a doctorate in political science in Russia and worked in government — so, at that young age of five or six, I decided I wanted to be a politician.”
Fate, however, seemed to have other plans. As the eldest of 10 siblings, Amer was expected to leave his village to work in the US and send money home.
The path was well-trodden by friends, neighbours and Ghalib antecedents, whose earnings were vital to keep the farming community thriving.
His father, Mahmoud, and grandfather, Ali, had by turns lived in Hamtramck for many years, where work was plentiful and migrant labour in demand.
“They needed me to come here and support the family,” he says, of dutifully taking a job in the American car industry. “I was very upset because I thought my future was over.”
And there, on the industrial floor of the MES corporation, he, too, might have toiled for decades before returning to settle in Yemen but for his overriding desire to make something more of himself.
Unlike those who went before him, Ghalib was to become representative of the modern-day immigrants who see their future as proud Yemeni-Americans.
He is quick to point out, though, that their lives nonetheless have a firm footing in tradition, saying they are not so much the “sandwich generation” of their western counterparts but more like the sabayahpastry. “We support multiple layers of relatives and neighbours,” Ghalib says.
Six months into his job on the factory floor, he applied to enrol on an adult evening class to learn English. The cousin with whom he was living at the time was accepted but Ghalib, deemed to be too young, was not.
On the advice of co-workers, who gave the erroneous assurance that homework was not compulsory, he registered to complete his final year of high school, attending classes from 7.30am until 2.30pm, then catching a lift to the factory with a colleague to work until 1am.
Mr Salam soon encouraged Ghalib to scale back his shift so he could spend two hours in the cafe doing his homework but the pupil often put in even more time afterwards to spare himself any further humiliation.
“That teacher was an inspiration. He told me not to waste my talent.”
His graduation on the school’s football pitch in the summer of 2000 was captured in photographs taken by his cousin that were sent to his father in Yemen.
One of the first people to be consulted about Ghalib’s next step was his revered great-uncle Dr Najar but the response was not what the young man had expected.
“He said: ‘Politics is not going to feed you. You are smart, you can do something professional that will help you survive.’
“So I decided to do medicine because my second favourite thing was science.”
With his English language skills still lacking, Ghalib struggled to obtain entry to medical school after completing a degree in biological science at Henry Ford Community College, transferring to Wayne State University in Michigan after two years.
He returned to Yemen in 2005 to marry Iman, now 36, then enrolled at Ross University School of Medicine in the Caribbean and went on to do two years of clinical rotations at Sinai Grace hospital in Detroit.
These days, as he awaits an opportunity for a residency, the father of three daughters – Mayasm, 15, Ansam, 13, and Balsam, three – juggles work as an assisting physician along with a master’s degree in nursing online in the hope of opening a medical practice.
“I’m a multi-tasker,” he says. “I never give up on anything. If I don’t accomplish my goal one way, I try another.”
Which explains why, when conservative community leaders felt aggrieved at the relaxing of marijuana licensing laws in Hamtramck, Ghalib saw not only an important issue to get behind but a political opportunity.
“The people who used to run in local elections were the same every time and never solved any of the city’s problems,” he says.
“They did not represent us well, especially the Muslim immigrants. The leaders did not listen to the people and we were looking for someone to take over. I said I could do it and serve the people.”
He won an astonishing 68 per cent of the vote — more than double that of the long-time incumbent Karen Majewski, bringing an end to the city’s string of Polish mayors for the past century.
“When I registered, some people were sceptical and said: ‘He will lose, no one knows him.’ But there are a lot of Yemenis here in Hamtramck and they knew me very well.
“They knew I would be a strong candidate and that, even though I didn’t have much experience of public office, I had the skills to succeed.”
It hasn’t all been plain sailing since. Ghalib faces a mountain of woes, including ageing infrastructure, a city council budget deficit and replacing poisonous lead pipes in homes.
But one of the biggest challenges has been trying to unite a city long in the media spotlight for its diversity.
A welcome sign at the border sums up its reputation for being the UN in microcosm: “The world in two square miles.”
Polish shopfronts now sit side by side Yemeni restaurants and Bangladeshi shops, flyers are printed in Arabic, and the adhanis heard on street corners as large numbers of Arabs and Asians continue to make Hamtramck their home.
While some have seen his appointment — and that of fellow Arab American mayors Bill Bazzi in nearby Dearborn Heights and Abdullah Hammoud in Dearborn — as a celebration of growing multiculturalism in the US, there has been a backlash from some quarters.
Critics have scoured posts on Ghalib’s social media platforms to accuse him of bigotry but his response has been: “We try to represent everyone and make them feel this is their home, no matter what religion or background they have. I try to serve people equally.”
His inauguration followed Hamtramck becoming the first US city with a Muslim-majority council in 2015. The councillors are now all Muslim, and, for Ghalib, the ceremony held at the school where he set out to alter his own destiny marked just how far both he and his adopted home had come.
As he looked out over the auditorium, he recalled his school careers adviser saying: “I don’t think you’ll have any future in politics in this country. You’ll always speak English with an accent and your background will not be in your favour.”
With a wry smile, he told the audience: “I still do speak with an accent — but I have decided to come back and embrace my first love, politics.”
Almost a year into the part-time municipal role and nine Fifa World Cups after Argentina last lifted the trophy, Ghalib watched the first half of the 2022 final last month with a local Bangladeshi crowd before moving to another lounge to join fellow Yemenis for the rest of the match.
All assembled were agreeably cheering for the mayor’s favourite side — except for three fans belatedly exposed as France supporters when the second equaliser was scored.
On his Facebook feed once the tense penalty shoot-out was over, he wrote that the win for Lionel Messi’s squad, “after a lot of trouble, is what makes the victory more sweet and deserved”.
Having overcome adversity to hit goal after goal, and making countless assists along the way, Ghalib knows exactly how that feels.
Yemeni-American Amer Ghalib made history last year when he was sworn in alongside three new councillors in Hamtramck, now believed to be the first city in the US with an all-Muslim council. Photo: Amer Ghalib
France has made the Yemeni writer Ali Al-Muqri a knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters.
Al-Muqri recently received a letter from Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, the French minister of culture, telling him that he was among the honorees chosen as members of the order this year.
Al-Muqri has been living in France at the invitation of the Arab World Institute since 2015, after fleeing the war in his home country. He had lived in Sana’a, the capital, which is now controlled by the Houthi rebel movement. People close to Al-Muqri have warned him he risked being pursued by the Houthis if he returned to Yemen.
The Order of Arts and Letters, one of four “ministerial orders” in France, is awarded to people who have distinguished themselves through artistic or literary creation or by contributing to the influence of arts and letters in France and the world. It has three ranks: commander, officer, and knight (chevalier).
Al-Muqri said in a telephone interview with Al-Fanar Media that he had not been aware of his candidacy for this order and was surprised by the letter.
He believes that his being named for the prestigious French order is “a tribute to Arabic literature, and a reward for writing a literary work that has its own narrative and cultural characteristics.”
He said Arabic literature was marginalized because it was rarely translated and he hoped his award would shed more light on it.
Novels and Prize Nominations
Ali Al-Muqri began his literary career as a cultural editor for several Yemeni publications before beginning to write prose, poetry and novels himself. His works have been translated into French, English, Italian, Kurdish and Persian.
“Black Taste, Black Odour” and “The Handsome Jew” were longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009 and 2011, and “Hurma”, in its French translation, won an honourable mention from the Arab World Institute Prize for Fiction and the French prize for Arabic literature. “Adani Incense” was shortlisted for the 2015 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
Between Home and Exile
Despite his years in self-imposed exile in Paris and his freedom to write, “far from the guilt feelings that affected his literary works,” Al-Muqri said he still “experiences the hardships of alienation far from his homeland.”
“I live in double exile, and I miss every detail of my life in Yemen,” he said. “Where is the writing corner in my house in Sana’a, where I used to write my literary works, my books piled around me? I miss my habits and my rituals that were the primary motivator and the inspiration for my writing.”
Al-Muqri said that particular places in Yemen and the way of eating and drinking there gave a feeling of continuity that he misses.
The issues of Yemeni life inspired more than one of his novels, which he attributes to his constant endeavor to “explore the human self and evoke the causes of its anxiety through exposure to the problems facing people, whether they are in freedom of expression or because of discrimination against a person because of his colour, his sexual identity or because he was marginalized by a dictatorial authority.”
Al-Muqri said that he could write more in Yemen than he can in France. The war took him forcefully from his country and made him feel alienated and unable to get hold of the things that inspired and motivated him to write.
But that feeling has not prevented his ability to integrate with French society, he said. Thanks to his personal experience and knowledge of European culture, he has been able to adapt and engage in his new life in the host country.
Yemeni Literature in Wartime
Al-Muqri said most Yemeni writers and authors had lost their jobs because of the war and many of them had resorted to other types of work so they could continue to live.
Most were no longer able to obtain the basic requirements of life, such as electricity, clean water, or a regular salary. Al-Muqri said the absence of these things “makes any writer or author unable to write and think.”
The war has greatly hindered literary life in his country, Al-Muqri said, but it remains active despite the restrictions and censorship imposed by the authorities.
Al-Muqri said he was working on a new novel. He hopes to continue writing “in freedom and safety” and to return to Yemen after the situation stabilizes.
Ali Al-Muqri has lived in France since 2015. He hopes the honour he has won there will draw more attention to Arabic literature in translation. (Photo courtesy of Ali Al-Maqri)
It is in times of crisis and conflict that we reveal our character most clearly. This is true today in Yemen, where even the promise of a truce brokered largely by the UN, the US and Saudi Arabia has yet to cement peace or accelerate reconstruction. To do these things, Yemenis must also rebuild the bonds of faith and community that allow any society to thrive.
Within the context of these challenges, it is all the more remarkable that Yemenis recently started restoring a 160-year-old Jewish cemetery in Aden. What started as a volunteer effort has now garnered the support of local authorities and Yemeni institutions.
It amounts to a project of interfaith tolerance and embrace in a place where such sentiments have been in short supply. In the last couple of years, Yemen’s Jewish community — one of the world’s most ancient — has disappeared. Most of the remaining few fled to nearby countries after facing persecution and even arrest by the Houthi rebels. Just a century ago, they counted in the tens of thousands and could claim a lineage of almost 3,500 years.
Jewish tradition holds that the cemetery in Aden is where the biblical Abel was buried millennia ago. He is part of the tradition of each Abrahamic faith and the collective memory of Yemeni tolerance remains despite the societal havoc of the last decade.
Each of the Abrahamic religions instructs us to act with kindness toward our brothers and sisters of other faiths. It should be inspiring to all of us to see Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the people of Aden acting in this spirit. I hope this renewed focus on a Jewish cemetery can demonstrate how faith and incremental action can help us overcome the tribulations and pitfalls of extremist politics, sects and conflicts of the past — real or imagined.
The Jewish community of Yemen is no longer, but Yemenis are honoring their own shared past and patrimony by preserving its memory. By respecting the role of Jews in Yemen’s long and storied history, Yemeni leaders are showing inclusivity and a will to protect minorities in the nation’s future as it emerges from this tragic conflict.
The contrast with the Houthi rebels and the racist ideology they propagate is stark. The Houthis prey on religious differences of doctrine and ritual to divide once-harmonious communities in Yemen. Children are drilled to hate in schools, while state workers must chant mantras of death for peoples, such as those in the US and Israel, whom they have never met and of whom they have no conception. Their celebration of innocent Yemenis or Saudis killed is reprehensible.
Analysts today speak of the truce in Yemen in terms of money, men and ideology. These things shift and change, but the need for a functioning society to incorporate people of different beliefs holds true.
The Houthis seem to hold a firm grip over large parts of Yemen. But in this land, with its rich and resilient tribal, religious and societal mosaic, intolerance makes any sense of “control” inherently fragile. The history of Yemen shows that cultish indoctrination does not change a people. Some of its most ancient buildings have crumbled and priceless literature has been lost, but the tolerant Yemen of yore remains alive in stories, poetry and prayer, as well as the hearts of its people.
The cemetery restoration effort is a microcosm of what will need to take place to return Yemen to its true form and traditions of tolerance. While some tear down history and desecrate places of worship and commemoration to create a vacuum to fill with hate for their own benefit, reconstruction efforts like the cemetery can remind all Yemenis of the primacy of tolerance in their culture.
We all pray for an end to the war in Yemen, continued peace and rapid reconstruction. Let us add to these prayers that Yemenis remain on the path to rebuild not just brick by brick, but to rebuild and restore the diversity of the Aden of old in the image of tolerance of our Creator.
The structure could remain airborne for years at a time.
Yemeni engineer Hashem Al-Ghaili has unveiled his vision for the future of travel, and it wouldn’t look out of place in a film about the apocalypse.
Al-Ghaili posted a video on YouTube proposing a giant nuclear-powered sky hotel named Sky Cruise, which could accommodate 5,000 passengers. Like an enormous, winged, futuristic-looking cruise liner, it would be fuelled by 20 electric engines, with a small nuclear reactor using “highly controlled fusion reaction to provide the sky hotel with unlimited energy”.
As such, the hotel would never run out of power and could remain suspended in the air for several years, “without ever touching the ground”. Both supplies and passengers would be delivered to the hotel via traditional commercial jets. All maintenance and repairs would also be conducted mid-air.
Suspended high above the clouds, the sky hotel would feature a large “panoramic hall”, offering 360-degree views of the skies. A lift would connect this space to the main entertainment deck, which would be home to shopping malls, sports centres, swimming pools, restaurants, bars, children’s playgrounds, theatres and cinemas. A separate section of the airborne hotel would be dedicated to events and business meetings, as well as wedding halls.
Incorporated into the design are balconies and viewing domes attached to each side of the structure, where guests could indulge in some high-level stargazing. “Its sleek design combines the features of a commercial plane, while offering the epitome of luxury,” Al-Ghaili’s video explains.
Sky Cruise would also eliminate disturbance from turbulence, with its navigation systems featuring a state-of-the-art command deck that uses artificial intelligence to predict turbulence minutes before it happens. The system would respond by creating anti-vibrations.
The hotel would also be home to an advanced medical facility to keep guests “safe, healthy and fit”.
The concept was originally created by Tony Holmsten and then reimagined and animated by Al-Ghaili. But it has been greeted with scepticism by commentators: “If physics and aerodynamics didn’t exist, then this vessel might actually be able to take off,” wrote one YouTube user.“
Hashem Al-Ghaili is a Yemeni molecular biotechnologist, science communicator, director and producer. He is best known for his infographics and videos about scientific breakthroughs.
Britain’s Galal Yafai, born of Yemeni parents, defeated Carlo Paalam to win the flyweight Olympic title , denying the Philippines a first boxing gold medal in the country’s history.
The 28-year-old Yafai, a former factory worker, won on split points in an enthralling contest to earn Britain’s first boxing gold in Tokyo.
