In my 32 years of living in the UAE as a Palestinian-Jordanian, I never imagined I would hear words spoken on a stage as big as Etihad Arena like on Friday night when Bassem Youssef came to town.
For thousands of people to be chanting in unison: "Free, free Palestine" – especially at such a painful, gut-wrenching time for anyone inside Gaza and the West Bank, with a heart or just an internet connection – was truly a cathartic experience.
Performing as part of the inaugural Abu Dhabi Comedy Week, Youssef took to the stage at 10pm after fellow comedian Maz Jobrani.
Iranians are famous for their carpets. Israel for carpet bombings
Bassem Youssef
And he was fearless.
Even by his own admission, he didn’t have to change his act to accommodate the sold-out crowd, especially for folks in the UAE. Youssef's set began with a condemnation of Israel. A very, very long applause followed.
“But I’m not here to talk about it,” he said every time he did talk about it.
What Youssef performed was more than a stand-up comedy show. It was an immersive, interactive work of art that left me hopeful and certain that the world sees, hears and feels what's been happening inside Gaza and the West Bank for the past seven months.
It also reassured me that the world has changed, the UAE is part of that change, and that these cultural events are the moments that indicate this as such.
Youssef's show was not entirely focused on Palestine. He had different themes throughout, woven by the same thread of what it’s like to be an Arab in this day and age.
“Crises unify people,” Youssef said.
The coronavirus pandemic unified people’s distrust in the vaccines and the virus’s origins, he added. It kept the Arabs out of the news for once, he said.
But then back to not talking about it, he said, we’re all famous for something.
“Iranians are famous for their carpets. Israel for carpet bombings,” he said as the crowd went wild. “But I’m not talking about it.”
Youssef also spoke of his journey in Egypt and the tough choice he had to make when receiving his acceptance papers from Cleveland Clinic in the US, after working tirelessly to achieve what he thought was his dream to become a surgeon. This happened on the same day he was due to sign a contract for his first show, after making a series of satirical YouTube videos about the political turmoil in Egypt in 2011.
He spoke of being questioned by the Public Prosecutor in Egypt, after being charged with several "crimes", including “disrupting the social fabric, whatever that means”.
His infamous interrogation, that lasted six hours, he said, eventually turned into a “writers room” when the people accusing him of being hateful towards then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak were also inadvertently helping him come up with better material.
“The hardest part was learning that most of my jokes weren’t funny,” he said.
Eventually, he fled Egypt and decided to go to the US. Upon arriving, Youssef remembers seeing Donald Trump’s poll numbers going up as he inched towards the 2016 presidency.
He very intelligently wove a narrative of how certain things sound a lot scarier when spoken by an Arab, just because of their accent. He used the example of how an Arab pilot would pretend he’s “Tom Hanks” (with an accent) just to hide the fact that his real name is "probably Mohammed", so that people on board might feel a little safer.
“We’ve been conditioned,” he said.
The balance between humour, politics, impressions, serious and silly was almost too perfect. Seeing the keffiyeh decorating people’s shoulders throughout the audience was also refreshing.
Regardless of where you come from, one thing was for sure: If you were in the crowd, you were certainly pro-Palestine.
And if there was a shadow of a doubt that that is true, Youssef starting the chant of: “Free, Free.. Palestine” along with thousands of people joining in, would have made all your suspicions disappear.
To say the evening was just “funny” would be an understatement. Youssef’s performance was a cathartic experience and a validating one for anyone who will never stop talking about Palestine.
Abu Dhabi Comedy Weeks runs until Sunday
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THE BIO
Favourite author - Paulo Coelho
Favourite holiday destination - Cuba
New York Times or Jordan Times? NYT is a school and JT was my practice field
Role model - My Grandfather
Dream interviewee - Che Guevara
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
Leading all-time NBA scorers
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The National selections
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5.30pm: Rich And Famous
6pm: Duc De Faust
6.30pm: Al Thoura
7pm: AF Arrab
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Jebel Ali
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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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Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
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