Art is a medium which materialises theories, conceptualises forms, and engages with the community in a way that is much more efficient than that of traditional forms of academic writing. I have recently written about two popular visual works (al-irhab wa al-kebab & Jocelyne Saab’s Beirut trilogy) in which they tempted to challenge the normative context of Arabic-speaking countries where collective memory is almost all written by formal politics and high-level diplomacy, whereas the subaltern is not even allowed to speak. Hence, this time I wanted to shed light on a voice that has successfully bothered the dominant understanding of cultural reckoning, which tempts never to allow knowledge to be created without reference to tradition, even if that tradition has been biased and imagined. Mashrou‘ Leila is that voice!

Mashrou‘ Leila does not only confuse the dominant gender-biased culture, it also attempts to theorise novel understandings and identities that use implicit and explicit means to open up spaces that address the core of religious and socio-political taboos. The band continues to shape the alternative medium of the Arab art scene through their attempts to change the trajectory of musical culture in the Arab World despite the endless number of times its members faced censorship. The uniqueness of the band’s members lies in how they tempted to remain entirely political in a sea of apolitical Arab pop art. Their lyrics, mixed with their choice of music, negotiate belonging and identity from positions of marginalisation. Their insistence on speaking up in Arabic provokes notions of Arab nationalism, post/colonialism, and the gendered nature of the Arabic language in itself. There have been multiple songs in which the members express non-heterosexual desires; something that forcibly normalises queer identities in the Arabic language and within the Arabic geographical context.