To Jaime . . .

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [  ]

[  ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
[ Killing Time | Aissa Deebi 2006 ]

An exhibition of a new work commissioned by

the Queens Museum of Art
and Mizna, a forum for Arab American art.

California Building Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota

May 19-June 19, 2006

Queens International, 2004

Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York
November 7, 2004-February 6, 2005

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [  ]

 Introduction
Mizna is an organization devoted to promoting Arab American culture, providing a forum for
its expression. Mizna values diversity in our community and is committed to giving voice to
Arab Americans through literature and art.

What is the experience of the world's displaced
who are forced to find a new homeland? Those who
are disconnected from all that is familiar—memory,
place, and community—find themselves navigating
new cultural terrains with the vivid awareness of
their un-belonging and alienation. They are caught
between who they are and who they willl become in
this new place. While this is the perhaps the reality
that afflicts all exilic people, for the Arab immigrant
in the US at this juncture of time, the struggle is
more formidable. In this country and at this time,
the figure of the Arab as the metaphorical cultural
other, we are told, threatens our very way of life.
And the latest incarnation of the Arab in the West
is something wholly incomprehensible and strange,
a person who does not share even our basic human
desire to live in peace and freedom. In attempting to
negotiate this cultural and political climate, Arabs are
forced to prove themselves to be harmless, nothing
more than benign cultural curiosities.
It is the force of this historical and cultural
experience that formed the principal narratives
behind Aissa Deebi's exhibit, Killing Time. Deebi
found himself newly arrived in New York and
needing something familiar when he came across the

[  ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006

coffeehouse that would become the stage for the
luminous photographs in this exhibit. What we see
reflected in these photographs is the search for a
community and the desire to create a familiar space.
The men depicted in this exhibit are attempting to
recreate the sense of community they have left beh-
hind. The images profoundly point to this commun-
nity that is clearly out of place, haunted by distance,
separation, and displacement.
The artist holds a prism to this world and sees a
culture that is refracted by the ambient American
setting. The attempt to recreate the coffeehouse of
memory is impossible—the circumstance of their
experiences in America has fundamentally changed
these exiles, and the act of being photographed
changes them still. This exhibit's photographs and
accompanying sounds draw the viewer into this
world. In the various images, the viewer is up-close,
overhead, looking through a mirror—observing the
men in the café from different vantages. And make
no mistake, this is a man's space. Cast in a soft,
yellow light, the men and their gestures are
ponderous, questioning, caught momentarily
between here and there.
The title of the exhibit speaks to the ritualized
monotony of the coffeehouse culture. In the
context of its American setting, this lethargy can be
viewed as revolt against the glorification of notions
of productivity and efficiency. Or perhaps killing time
reflects something else—a perpetual
mourning for a lost past that continually haunts but
cannot be resurrected. Memories torment the exile,
who would prefer, on some level, to kill the past for
a bit of reprieve.
We are proud and honored to debut Aissa Deebi's
work in Minnesota. He serves as Mizna's adroit
visual arts curator, and is an accomplished artist in
his own right.
Arab American arts are thriving at this moment, with
the creation of literature, cinema, music, and visual
art that tells the artists' stories or reflects the world
as they see it. Aissa Deebi's work is foremost in this
groundswell—often focused on the intersection of
the Arab and the West, and the power relations and
mutual effects each has on the other.
Lana Salah Barkawi,
Associate Editor, Mizna
2006
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[  ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
Killing Time, an idea . . .
The exile knows that in a secular and contingent world, homes are always provisional.
Borders and barriers, which enclose us within the safety of familiar territory, can also
become prisons, and are often defended beyond reason or necessity, exiles cross borders,
barriers of thought and experience.
—Edward Said, Reflections on Exile

As I moved to Queens from rural New Hampshire,
I wanted to search my new location for places that
reminded me of home. Walking north past 28th
Avenue I was welcomed home: the street is lined
with Arabic grocery stores, sweets shops, Islamic
fashion boutiques, cafés full of surly-looking men,
halal meat shops, and more. I found that my
homesickness was easily soothed with a plate of
labaneh with olive oil and pita bread.
After a few months I started to regularly attend the
shisha (water pipe) cafés on Steinway Street, which
incidentally are the types of places I never actually
go to at home. I had always had serious discomfort
with the inert, manly atmosphere of such places:
spots where tea and coffee are sipped, water pipes
smoked, and cards, dominoes, and shesh besh (backg-
gammon) are played for hours at a time.
One small café in particular caught my attention
with its large sign topped with an American flag and
emblazoned with the message: The Arab American
Community Center of Queens. The first time I went
inside and sat down for a cup of tea, I made the

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [  ]

 acquaintance of a waiter who, I learned, holds a
degree in law from one of the best-known
universities in the Arab world. He explained to me
that the average income in his home country is
$50–$70 a month, but that he makes $210 a week
working in the café, a job in which he uses none of
his academic qualifications. This was to be the first
of many sobering stories that I heard during my daily
visits to the café.
After a few weeks of visiting the café, I began
positioning myself in a particular corner where I
could observe the events, dialogues, and monologues
of all visitors. Of particular interest for me were
the regulars who come on a daily basis, occupy the
same seat and table, and order the same thing: all
they have to do is catch the waiter’s eye, and with an
incline of their head, the waiter knows they will be
having the usual. I began following the same practice:
every night around 7 P.M. I would arrive, take my
place and listen to the conversations around me.
At this time of the evening, the activity and
conversation hinges on the wide-screen TV that
dominates the café floor: every night at 8 P.M., a
mustachioed and bespectacled man changes the
channel from the Egyptian movie station to the Al
Jazeera news channel and turns up the volume.
Immediately all the patrons turn their heads in the
direction of the TV to watch the news. If, after a few
minutes have passed, there is “nothing happening” in
the world, they all shift back to their original
positions to continue the daily routine. If there is
[  ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
serious news being shown, everyone becomes a
professional political analyst and lively debate
ensues. The comments and conversation revolve
around international politics, Arab politics, and
especially the wars in Iraq and Palestine. The level of
the conversation ranges from the most imaginary of
conspiracy theories to a sophisticated discussion of
American politics.
After attending this ritual for some time, I became
friendly with the café owner and many of his
patrons. I asked for permission to photograph the
place, telling the owner that I’m an artist and want
to do a project about the café. The owner was happy
to oblige, thinking I was a sophisticated client who
would make his establishment famous and help bring
in extra money. And so began my practice of taking
the R or V train each evening to Steinway Street,
walking the few blocks to the café, and taking my
seat near the television. From there I had an
excellent shot of table #1: a small, 3-foot-square
table encircled by a faux-leather couch and several
chairs. On the wall behind the table hung a framed
poster of Mecca, and near it, a fire extinguisher.
I had deduced over the period of my time at the
café that this was the most popular table, and that
there were always interactions to be observed in
this spot. What really intrigued me about this place
is that from my vantage point, I was able to observe
the practice of boredom. I found that when I varied
my routine to go to the café at a different time, the
faces I saw were different, but the practices were
still the same: a crowd dominated by regulars, sitting
in their usual spots, with their usual orders,
rehashing the same themes in their conversation
(or in the case of some, sitting stoically for hours
with water pipes hanging from the corners of their
mouths, pausing only to call the waiter for fresh
coals or to sip at tiny cups of thick, aromatic Arabic
coffee). I found that this routine was profoundly
expressed in the photographs I took: even though
they were taken over a period of a few weeks, the
photos look as if they could have been taken in a
single night, so invariable is the setting. I found that
when a regular failed to show up as usual, none of
the other clients registered any surprise, for the
regulars were always sure to update the others on
their planned deviations from schedule: “Ahmad has
a dentist appointment,” or, “Imad is off for business.”
After a little over two weeks of photographing the
café, I myself got bored with the routine. Work got
busy, and it made a convenient excuse to take awhile
off from the café. When I started going back a few
weeks later, I found that the clients were surprised
and full of questions: I had become part of their
routine, and my unexplained absence was suspicious.
Speculations had been raised that the guy with the
camera was with the INS, the insurance company, or
the IRS. One guy asked me (perhaps a bit suspiciousl-
ly) where my photos were. I told him that I was still
working on the project and that it would take awhile
to finish, and he asked me to make sure to give him
a copy of his photo as I had earlier promised to do.
Visiting the shisha cafés on Steinway Street gave me
a different perspective on the impact of such cafés
among the exilic Arab community in Queens.
The role played by this café in the patrons’ lives is
extraordinary and powerful. It is a place where you
can step out of time and place: as you come through
the door, you are immediately in a different world,
where only Arabic is spoken, the décor and furnit-
ture looks like it was lifted directly from an Egyptian
movie set, and the daily actors are always the same.
There is little to suggest that you are not in Cairo.
I realized how the endless conversations, the
deadening routine, the long hours spent at the pipe
or sipping inky Egyptian tea provided a welcome
piece of home for these men, a place utterly
familiar and predictable in a world that is otherwise
so precarious and uncertain, in a city so foreign to
even the patrons who are long-term residents.
Edward Said’s writings on exile and the role of
familiar places suddenly had new meaning, and I
found myself wondering whether we should think of
these places as escapes or cultural prisons.
Aissa Deebi
New York
2006
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[ 10 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
[ Diary ]

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 11 ]

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Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 13 ]
 Monday

I took the V train to Steinway Street and walked to the

café. After taking my place, an Egyptian acting student
named Fadi approached me, introduced himself, and
asked me if I do headshots, offering to act in my movie
for free in return. ‘What movie?’ I asked, then realized
that he was referring to my photography project. I took
some of photos of him in the café and we agreed to set
a time later to take the headshots. In the meantime eve-
eryone else was absorbed in the soccer game between
the Egyptian teams of Ahli and Zamalak.

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Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 15 ]
 Tuesday

Today was one of my longest days in the café. The day

started with a long discussion over lemonade with a
friend. As the hours passed by, I met with several group
of friends and other acquaintances. One of the people I
spoke with was a Tunisian man, who had an interesting
explanation for his visits to the café: “I come here to rem-
mind myself of the depression in Tunisia. All cafés there
are the same—they all have a heavy, depressing envir-
ronment.” Another man sitting closeby shared a related
view with me, saying, “I’m here because I miss home and
this place takes me back.” After 10 hours at the café I’ve
gathered a wealth of photos and stories from the café’s
patrons.

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Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 17 ]
 Wednesday

Most of the day crept by with the same uneventfuln-

ness and sense of routine that normally dominates the
café. But as evening came on, a fight erupted among
four middle-aged men who were playing shesh besh.
One of them had cheated, resulting in a vocal exchange
of shouting and threats. I enjoyed the spectacle until
one of them remembered my presence and warned me
there would be no photos. I left immediately.

[ 18 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 19 ]
 Thursday

I came by the café at the same time as usual, but today

I met someone new, a young Iraqi man named Hussein.
He told me that he came to the United States as a refug-
gee, and discovered the café as a place where he can
come when he’s homesick. We spoke at length about
Iraq and everything that is happening there, and he said
several times that if he was in Iraq he would be dead by
now.

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Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 21 ]
 Friday

Today I came early to meet with my Syrian Kurdish

friend. We stopped first at the nearby Morrocan sandw-
wich shop to get kofta sandwiches to bring with us back
to the café. As we sat eating among the café regulars,
Abu Somer, in his usual gregarious manner, provoked
many of the customers to conversation. This time
one of the topics of discussion was what is going on
in the Sudan and what we think of the atrocities bei-
ing committed in Darfur. The discussion was lively and
even heated, so I took shots from table level in order
to avoid disturbing the participants or interfering with
their body language.

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Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 23 ]
 Saturday

With the end of the week comes the most busy day in
the café. The place floods with young adults who come
to smoke shisha pipes in the backyard of the café, which
has been converted into a tent. Many of them are young
Arab men romancing foreign girlfriends: American, Chin-
nese, even Pakistani, but Arab women are very few and
far between in the café.Tonight, as I watched this weekly
ritual, Gamal, the café owner, came to me with a busin-
ness proposition. He asked me to take some shots of the
backyard to put in the front window to show everyone
what a nice tent he has to offer. “Let’s do some business,
Mr. Photographer!” he insisted. “I need the photos to be
as large as possible.”

[ 24 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 25 ]
 Sunday

I came in the evening with my wife, who is American, to

observe the reaction of the regulars. Everyone looked
at us normally although none of them who have wives
would bring them to the café. This is male territory, but
there is some sort of unspoken concession to the occ-
casional presence of foreign women. I take shots over
shared rice pudding and tea with my wife.

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Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 27 ]
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[ 30 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
Killing Time / Killing Time
Those who find their homeland sweet are still tender beginners; those to whom every soil is
as their native one are already strong; but those who are perfect are the ones to whom the
entire world is as a foreign land.
— Hugo of St.Victor

I tried to make good use of an excruciatingly

I inadvertently started to write this text while
prolonged wait for my number “A148” to be called
sitting through a few hours of waiting time at a
by reading through assorted fragments of Edward
Social Security Administration Office in Rego Park,
Said’s texts on the life of exiles. The ambience of
Queens, in New York City, where I found myself in
the place started to fuse with the phrases and
search of a replacement for a lost Social Security
passages: “You can never fully arrive, be at once in
card. Like any other government office, this room
your new home or situation . . .”1 “They belong
was blandly furnished with linoleum tiles, fluorescent
in their surroundings, you feel, whereas an exile
lights, and rows of folding chairs, and run by the
is always out of place. What is it like to be born
typically indifferent and dispassionate—if not simply
in a place, to stay and live there, to know that
rude—employees at the windows.
you are of it, more or less forever?”2 It was an

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 31 ]

 almost hallucinatory experience of reading about
the conditions that describe the very people
with whom I was sharing the business of waiting.
Against the bleak bureaucratic backdrop was this
dazzling array of age, race, color, shape, and tongue.
Many spoke in different languages; some brought
their younger relatives or friends to assist with
translation. And when English was heard, the various
accents betrayed or gave clues to the origins of the
speakers. Finally, the predominant clothing style—
ethnic or not—punctuated the whole scene as if to
collectively ratify the human conditions recurrent in
Said’s texts: refugees, expatriates, émigrés, and the
self-exiled.
Then a bemused (or confused) curiosity crept
in my thoughts: are Social Security and Medicare
exclusive concerns to immigrants in particular? Of
course, I instantly reminded myself of the location
of the office itself. Queens County is the most
ethnically diverse locale in the most ethnically
diverse region in the United States. What seems to
be a group made up exclusively of “immigrants” is
just a standard profile of the local population among
whom some 168 different languages and dialects are
spoken. As a Japanese national having lived in this
country for nearly 16 years on a series of visas, I am
one of them.
Taking its stage in a café in the area called “Little
Egypt” located in Astoria, Queens, Aissa Deebi’s
Killing Time portrays fellow Arab Americans,
fragments of a diasporic reality of Arab America
that hardly appear in mainstream media. It is not
[ 32 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
about a present-day Café Voltaire where artistic,
intellectual, and political left wings assemble and
plot a new society, and it is certainly not about an
exotic version of Starbucks where ideologically
unencumbered souls congregate with shared
membership of the mega-corporate–driven,
consumer society.
Killing Time is an audio/visual installation consisting
of seven large-format photographs (30 x 49 inches),
texts, and sound set in an enclosed space that
simulates the original site, the El Khaiam Café. Each
photographic image is accompanied by Deebi’s
diary-style text. As the viewer steps into the
installation, recorded ambient sound is triggered,
and one becomes awash in indistinct layers of low
voices conversing in Arabic, the hypnotic bubbling
of shisha pipes, and the sound from Egyptian movies
constantly playing on a large-screen TV in the corner
of the café. The installation dramatizes what the
artist calls “the practice of boredom,” a relatively
short menu of everyday rituals performed by the
predominantly male clients of the café. Regulars
occupy their tables at the same time each day, and
smoke their shisha pipes, and sip thick Arabian
coffees to fritter their time away.
El Khaiam has been run by the same owner for
over 20 years in this location. Blue neon signs lit on
its glass façade read “cappuccino” and “espresso,”
and a pair of cheap home-use ceiling fans hang
from the ceiling that has more than a few panels
punched out for better ventilation in the smoke-
filled café’s interior. Each element of its interior
could use some facelift, if not a total renovation.
Furthermore, the café’s aging state is not the kind
that could be poetically read as charm. There is no
notable characteristic in either the café’s appearance
or the customers. One could only imagine that its
remarkably unremarkable condition evokes cafés in
Cairo that may just look like this one and perhaps
that’s what matters most to its habitués, many of
whom claim that they gravitate towards this café as
a salve to their homesick blues.
Two weeks into his mission of observation, this
spectacle of boredom bored even Deebi himself.
Despite the fact that photos were taken over the
period of a few weeks, they appear as if taken on
a single visit to the place. From the more than 50
pictures taken, the artist finally selected seven, all in
a horizontal format. All but one depicts the café’s
customers, captured alone in each image, seemingly
absorbed in their respective solitary routines. Hints
of interaction among them are only given to the
two cropped images of gesturing hands that do not
identify the “gesturers.”
While these photos were taken with the permission
of the café owner and the vast majority of the
individual customers, Deebi exercised careful
discretion by quietly pressing down the shutter of
his camera, which was nonchalantly placed on the
corner table that became his own regular spot.
This coffee table is the vantage point of most of
the photographs. None of his subjects seemed
to be aware of their being photographed in the
resulting images. And the two images depicting only
subject’s hands are the most expressive element
in the prevailing antisocial behavior in the café.
They suggest a form of verbal communication
taking place, far more expressive than any other
inert gesture displayed by people in the other
photographs: reading a newspaper, lost in the haze of
tobacco smoke, talking on a cell-phone with a pipe
hanging from the edge of the mouth. This is not to
say that there is no shared camaraderie and social
interaction among them. But it is the introverted
solitary acts of boredom that were the single
most remarkable characteristic of the place that
impressed Deebi.
Deebi’s depiction is deliberately uneventful. It is as
if to counter a particular media hype around Arab
communities in this country in the recent years.
As an Haifa -born Palestinian who has lived away
from home for over a dozen years, the artist’s initial
selection of El Khaiam to satisfy his need of a place
that reminded him of home is an honest one. But
as an artist whose “non-romantic inquisitiveness”
equipped him with an effectively operative distance
in structuring this project, Deebi maintained a
neutral position—both emotional and political.
Deebi’s distance from his subjects is further
demonstrated in the photo of a shisha-smoking
young man that was shot from a higher vantage
point. While the close-up of hands suggests a notion
of voyeurism, this work’s dominant vantage point—
ruled by the camera on the table—and the absolute
absence of eye contact between the subjects and
the artist/camera generate an oblique tension
Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 33 ]
[ 34 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
Simon Cafe, Wadi Al Nisnas, Haifa, Alkhyam Cafe, Queens New York, 2006

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 35 ]

 akin to that of tacit surveillance. The way these
photographs were shot and the notions they achieve
help to navigate the viewers in their own inquiries.
While it seems paradoxical that the elaborate effort
of monitoring reveals in the end an image unlikely to
be found in mass media regarding present day Arab-
Americans, boredom, neither does it aggressively
challenge the public notion of “Arabs” or “Arab
Americans.” Here in “Little Egypt” (merely a
10-munite subway ride from mid-town Manhattan),
however, prevails an atmosphere of lethargy, induced
in part by the types of customers who are willing
to indulge themselves in it, and in part by the café
owner’s renowned policy prohibiting political
discussions in his café (including a restriction on
watching CNN or Al-Jazeera3). For the El Khaiam
regulars, the café is first and foremost a place that is
just like what they had back home in Egypt, Syria, or
Iraq. Deebi’s investigation isn’t about each individual
with a story to tell, but is about illuminating a sense
of group solidarity immersed in the practice of
boredom, and the café that is a willing accomplice.
But what brings about a management policy like this?
The café’s owner started to impose his mandate
amid the post-9/11 paranoia after many suspicious
visits from the police and fire department officials.4)
The party line toed by the café owner seems to
have been a response to the unmistakable injunction
levied by President Bush, “Either you’re with us or
against us.” While it may very well be understood as
simple as a business owner setting out to protect
the interests of his enterprise and the safety of his
customers, the “political silence” within the walls of
[ 36 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
this café could serve as a searing metaphor for the
present-day triangulated complexities of
immigration,
anti-Arab sentiment, and the Patriot Act. There is
some irony here. The most predominant theme
among immigrants coming to the US is seeking the
fat of the land—the American Dream. But there are
also immigrants who come to seek political asylum,
those who had to flee their respective countries
not in pursuit of the proverbial greener pastures
but to escape the repression of the governments of
the countries they fled. An aspect of the American
Dream is the power and allure of self-determination
that is not just licensed but supposedly celebrated
by the ideals of religious, political, and economic
freedom. In a word: democracy. Is the self
determination that the owner of the café exercised
self-censure in the midst of an increasingly anti-Arab
milieu? In his desire to protect his own American
Dream, he seems to have elected to impose
suppression of political talk. Whether it is fear-driven
self-censure or indifference as a result of paralysis,
the “boredom” of the café customers in Deebi’s
Killing Time can be seen as an innocuous façade
that has been constructed within the community in
order to protect themselves and their safe-harbor,
El Khaiam.
In the end, this silence—the practice of boredom—
in Killing Time can be interpreted in various ways.
Where is the line between boredom indulged
and boredom foisted? Are the motivations of
either equally rooted in a sense of helplessness?
Is boredom apathy? Is its “practice” resignation
and its “policy” capitulation? And in the refusal to
engage the most glaring discourse begging to be
debated and in the denial of any formulated political
viewpoint as one “kills time,” does it then somehow
in fact impact—from one’s quiet table in a café in
Queens—the wars elsewhere?

“Killing Time” is an expression for the practice of

boredom. But “killing time” also has the ravenous
ring of hunters run amok in the wild, at a corporate
merger negotiation table, over a game of poker,
in the deserts, mountains, or caves abroad. The
fundamentalist jihad calls for the utter and complete
demolition of American civilization. Meanwhile,
what’s a chilling war cry amongst some of young US
soldiers? “I’m gonna kill me some raghead.” It’s chow
time. It’s sleeping time. Hands clamped over one’s
own mouth, eyes, and ears. It’s too grim out there.
It’s killing time.
And thus the aching poignancy in Deebi’s
photographs of the gesturing hands. Their flutter
pregnant with the unspoken, they are hands
unclamped.

Hitomi Iwasaki
Associate Curator
Queens Museum of Art

End notes:
1 & 2: Excerpts taken from Edward Said, “Reflection on Exile”
in Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, The
New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press. 1990.
3 & 4: Abeer Allam, “Astoria Jounal; Where Tea Doesn’t Mix With
Political Sympathies,” The New York Times, August 28, 2005.

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 37 ]

 From inside the Main Gate of the American University of Beirut, one can look out onto the red sign that
marks McDonald’s fast food restaurant on Bliss Street. This franchise of the multinational chain now
occupies the space once filled by Faisal’s Café, a favorite haunt of PLO leaders and the University’s politically
active students.

Photo, Jaime-Faye Bean © 2004

[ 38 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006

The Arabic Cafe and the Performance of Arab Masculinity
‫ مثل شعبي فلسطيني‬- ‫ال تسدق شب تغرب وال ختيار راحت ايامه‬
“Never trust a young man who has been in exile, or an old man who longs for his
younger days.”
— Arabic proverb

At first glance the idle passerby might assume the
typical Arabic café to be a place of inertia where
men aimlessly wile away the hours over coffee and
shisha. In fact, since its first appearance in Aleppo,
Syria in the 16th century, the Arabic café has been
essential to the exchange of intellectual ideas and
transmission of culture throughout the Middle
East. By the mid-20th century, the perception of
cafés as meeting places where writers, artists and
filmmakers gathered to discuss matters of intellect,
art and philosophy was firmly cemented in the
Arab world. When modern times brought political
foment to the region, cafés also became regular
haunts for revolutionaries, ultimately becoming
fertile ground for the formation of contemporary
Middle Eastern politics and history. The Parliament
Café in Cairo played host to leaders of the Arab
nihda (renaissance), including Jamaluddin Afghani
and Muhammad Abduh, while decades later Faisal’s
Café in Beirut became the favored meeting place for
exiled PLO leaders and their protegés. Today, the
beloved Egyptian author Nagib Mahfuz still frequents

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 39 ]

 his favorite table at the Ali Baba Café in Cairo,
where he can read his newspaper in relative peace
as various admirers and acolytes pay their regards
or watch from a respectful distance.
To discuss the café in its context as an intellectual
arena, however, is not to suggest that cafés in the
Arab world are elitist establishments. On the
contrary, the Arabic café is a place where any man
who can afford the price of a cup of coffee can sit
for hours, debating politics, negotiating business,
playing backgammon, reading his newspaper while
enjoying a shisha—in other words, engaging in a
man’s business, for one of the quintessential features
of the Arabic café is its atmosphere of complete
masculinity. It provides a space for a man to
express his freedom from domestic responsibilities,
regardless of whether he is a successful
businessmen or among of the region’s many un- or
underemployed. When a man is at a café, his control
over his life and his time is asserted: his absence
from home implies not only his non-involvement
in duties like childcare, housework, and meal
preparation, but also demonstrates his confidence
that he has managed his household to run smoothly
without his constant intervention. Those who
frequent a given café most often are regarded with
a special status of sorts—they are often called
upon to give their advice, mediate arguments, or,
in the case of the surliest grandmasters, are given
wide berth and shown extraordinary deference.
In a region where being male comes with an extra
measure of authority, these patrons are quite simply
the manliest of men.
[ 40 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
In the typical exilic context, the Arabic café’s role as
a staging ground for the performance of masculinity
seems to intensify in proportion to the outside
threat to their traditional male role or identity.
Some contemporary residents of Tel Aviv remember
that with the arrival of large numbers of Jews from
Arab countries in the 1950s and ‘60s came the
appearance of shisha cafés like those the arrivals
had known in Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus. It
was in these cafés that the new transplants found
respite from the realities of living as Israeli Mizrahim,
including treatment as second-class citizens by
Ashkenazi Jews and the constant exposure to
social mores significantly more liberal than those to
which they were accustomed. Contemporary artist
Aissa Deebi highlights a similar phenomenon in his
installation Killing Time, in which Deebi documents
day-to-day life in an Arabic shisha café, Al Khayam, in
Astoria, Queens. A day spent at the café reveals a
clientele that consists disproportionately of middle-
aged Arab men, most of whom are new immigrants
to the United States. Many of them work on the
lower end of the wage scale as taxi drivers, street
vendors, grocers, and the like. Most of them have
wives and children (whom are rarely discussed
directly), but they are as likely to be back in Cairo,
Beirut, or Fez as they are to be in the United States.
The patrons are almost all religiously observant,
and would unequivocally describe themselves as
traditional (taqlidi) in their values and relationships.
Nevertheless, in exile, many of Al Khayam Café’s
patrons have been stripped of the essential
responsibilities, privileges, and influence that so
essentially define manhood in the Middle East. For these men, the Al Khayam Café is a slice of
Those who are geographically separated from most home and a place for the aggressive assertion of
of their families are functioning as financial providers their masculinity. Once within the walls of the
to their wives, children, and even extended families, café, the men know that they will be greeted by
but distance renders them useless as providers of name, served with the familiar Arabic coffee, tea,
protection, guardians of honor, and primary decision and shisha, and welcomed with televised news
makers. Those with families in the United States from Al Jazeera. The café provides a place like no
face an inverse problem: they may maintain wide- other, where conspiracy theories can be discussed
ranging authority over their family within the home, freely, politics debated heatedly and business deals
but are all but ineffectual in controlling their family’s struck. Inside the café, patrons can forget about the
exposure to American culture, particularly the messiness of life in exile for a while and pretend
aggressive sexuality and promiscuity of pop culture. that their potency still extends beyond the paycheck
they are able to send home. In short, the café
In their working lives, many of the men who provides a stage for the performance of traditional
frequent Al Khayam are also stripped of much of Arab masculinity, a rare place where the façade of
their (non-financial) power and authority. For the male competency and control can be comfortably
most educated among these men, like Naji, the maintained in the midst of chaos.
Egyptian lawyer-turned-waiter, the irony is clear:
while their jobs in the United States allow them to
support their families much more adequately, their
relative social and economic status has declined Jaime - Faye Bean
dramatically in their new environment. For the New York
significant number of men who are out of status 2006
or undocumented workers, they have also traded
their former jobs, which were often extremely
low-paid but also extremely stable, for the constant
uncertainty and instability faced by illegal immigrants
in the United States. Swarthy complexions, thick
accents, foreign names, and the veil of suspicion
surrounding anyone even vaguely Middle Eastern
also make the men targets for racism, ridicule, and
surveillance once outside the café walls, robbing
them of the dignity and individual identity that
defines them when they are “home.”

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 41 ]

 From inside the Alkyam Cafe, New York, (detail).

[ 42 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006

Astoria Journal; Where Tea
Doesn’t Mix With Political
Sympathies
At El Khaiam cafe on Steinway Street in the middle
of what is known as Little Egypt in Astoria, Queens,
Arab immigrants sit around imitation marble tables
and chat animatedly as they play backgammon or
cards.They sip ink-black Egyptian tea or tart lemona-
ade and smoke fruit-flavored tobacco from stained-
glass water pipes.
The décor evokes a tourist knock-off of Egypt
replete with murals of the pyramids, the Nile and a
smiling King Tut, and the bustling cafe recreates the
friendly ambience of similar establishments in the
Arab world. If the cafe owner, Gamal Dewidar, had
been there, the conversations would not have been
about international
politics. But Mr. Dewidar is not there on this day
nd some customers hijack the television remote to
watch Al Jazeera Arab satellite TV news. All conversat-
tion ceases.The news anchor relates stories about
sectarian violence in Iraq and strife in the Palestinian
territories as the water pipes bubble and the swirli-
ing smoke condenses into a sweet fog.When the
broadcast ends, patrons break off into small groups
and heatedly discuss in Arabic events in the Middle
East and criticize governments back home.
‘’He said it was a crusade,’’ said Farid El Baghdadi
Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 43 ]
 a 47-year-old Egyptian immigrant, referring to President
Bush’s war on terror. ‘’And he turned it into a religious
war.’’
Others nodded in approval.
‘’He says he is bringing democracy to Iraq, but he supp-
ports the Egyptian and Saudi regimes that suppress demo-
onstrators,’’ added Farzat Souliman, a 34-year-old Kurdish
immigrant from Syria.There were also conspiracy theories
about American plans to occupy Saudi oil fields and to
detain young Arab-Americans at the military prison in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
It is the kind of conversation that most patrons would not
dare have if Mr. Dewidar, the owner of El Khaiam, had been
at the cafe.
For him, tea and politics do not mix. Mr. Dewidar does not
allow customers to watch Al Jazeera or CNN, and permits
only Egyptian movies or Arab music videos on the huge
television set up on a dark brown table in a corner of the
cafe. Mr. Dewidar strictly enforces his rule against political
discussions. If he suspects customers are whispering about
politics, he turns up the volume on the TV to drown them
out. If they retreat into the back patio to continue their
discussions, Mr. Dewidar sends his brother outside to turn
up the volume on the stereo out there.
If customers still do not get the message, Mr. Dewidar will
scold them. Sometimes, he will kick them out.
‘’They talk nonsense,’’ said Mr. Dewidar, a 45-year-old
Egyptian with a salt-and-pepper goatee and short-cropped
hair who moved to New York from Cairo 26 years ago.
‘’They say the same thing we hear on Al Jazeera or CNN.
America is good. America is bad. People come here to
relax, not to hear the political views of jobless, miserable
[ 44 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
men with no wives, no girlfriends, and no money.’’
If such brusque customer treatment seems unorthodox,
Mr. Dewidar doesn’t care. He sees it as the best way to
protect his cafe. He started censoring patrons after what
he described as a ‘’mysterious’’ surge in visits by health
and fire inspectors from the city. He worried that with
anti-Arab sentiment aroused after the Sept. 11 attacks, his
patrons’ conversations might attract too much attention
from city authorities.
‘’This country is not the same,’’ he said. ‘’Before, we were
all equal. Now we are not equal.’’
The Fire Department and the city health department
denied deliberately singling out any establishments because
of their clientele. Sid Dinsay, a spokesman for the city
health department, said that a few months ago ‘’the
department responded to a complaint of tobacco smoke
entering a residence from various establishments in the
area’’ where El Khaiam is located.
Maria Lamberti, a spokeswoman for the Fire Department,
said that Mr. Dewidar had received a summons in 2003, but
according to department records, the problem had been
corrected. She said the records did not specify the nature
of the summons.
Despite his prohibition on news and political talk,
Mr. Dewidar has attempted to create a little slice of Egypt
in his cafe, importing tea, sugar, tobacco and water pipes.
While other cafes in Little Egypt cater to a younger crowd
of men and women, El Khaiam attracts older men seeking
the camaraderie of the cafes they remember from their
homelands.
To clarify his loyalties to his customers, Mr. Dewidar
designed an unlikely montage. Mounted on a gaudy pink
background and hanging prominently on a wall are smiling per younger residents who have moved to the neighborh-
photographs of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt; Gamal hood. ‘’Managing an Egyptian cafe is an art,’’ he said.
Mubarak, his son and likely successor; and President Bush.
Mr. Dewidar said he designed the display.
‘’These are my presidents,’’ he said. ‘’It is as if your mother
married twice. One is your biological father and the other
Abeer Allam
is your stepfather.You have to love them both.’’
August 28, 2005

As guests in his cafe, most patrons refused to talk about Reprinted with permission from the New York Times
Mr. Dewidar’s policies.When asked, some patrons looked
over their shoulders and joked that Mr. Dewidar might be
recording their conversations.

But one of the men who had watched the news on Al

Jazeera, Mr. Souliman, did express his distaste for
Mr. Dewidar’s montage because it reminded him of Middle
Eastern dictators back home. ‘’I was very disappointed
in him,’’ Mr. Souliman said. ‘’I could not believe Egyptians
think this way. Here he is in America and he thinks this
way?’’ Though he governs his cafe with an iron fist and
has a mercurial temper, Mr. Dewidar still enjoys chatting
and swapping amusing stories with customers. He even
talks politics sometimes, but only as long as patrons agree
with his opinions. He also helps newly arrived immigrants
find jobs and a place to stay, and will lend them money. He
attributes the frustration many recent Arab immigrants feel
to unrealistic expectations.

‘’They think of America as a fancy dream,’’ he said. ‘’But not

every American is a millionaire, has a house, a car and 10
girlfriends like they see on television. America will be good
to their children, but not to them.’’

He has lost some regular customers, but Mr. Dewidar

blames competition from about a half-dozen other
Egyptian cafes in the area rather than his rules. And
anyway, he said, he actually wouldn’t mind driving away all
his Arab customers if he could replace them with the hipp-

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 45 ]

[ 46 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006
Artist Acknowledgements

Killing Time and this publication would not have been possible without the support of
many friends and colleagues. In particular, I wish to thank Hitomi Iwasaki, Associate
Curator of the Queens Museum of Art, who supported this project from the early
stages through its original showing as part of Queens International 2004. I also thank
Hitomi for taking the time and effort to contribute to this publication. Mizna’s staff and
board, particularly editor Lana Barkawi, were instrumental in expanding Killing Time’s
audience by bringing the exhibition to Minneapolis and supporting the publication of
this catalogue. My wife, Jaime, has given me her support, encouragement, time, and
help from day one of this project. Finally, I wish to thank my dear friends Dr. Bashir
Makhoul, Farzat Suleiman,Wael Wakeem, Ibrahim Zabalawi all of whom contributed
significantly to the conceptualization and production of this project through their
expertise. Moukhtar Kocache has my everlasting gratitude for having introduced me
to the folks at Mizna.

Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006 [ 47 ]

 Published by: Mizna’s Board of Directors Acknowledgements:

Mizna, Inc. Nassim Agah Abeer Allam

2205 California Street NE, Suite 109A Mazher Al-Zo’by Mazher Al-Zo’by
Minneapolis, MN 55418 Mohammed Bamyeh Jaime-Faye Bean
USA Lana Barkawi Bassem Elborani
Mizna@mizna.org Kristin Dooley Kathryn Haddad
www.mizna.org Mohannad Ghawanmeh Mazen Halabi
(612) 788-6920 Rebecca Haddad Hitomi Iwasaki
Mazen Halabi Dr. Bashir Makhoul
Nahid Khan Fadi Mobadar
Taous Khazem Aldo Moroni
Rabi’h Nahas Fouzi Slisli
Nadia Boufous Phelps Scott Smith
Khaldoun Samman Farzat Suliman
Copyright © Mizna, Inc, the artist, and Fouzi Slisli Wael Wakeem
the authors. Jennifer Young
Article by Abeer Allam is copyrighted Mizna’s Executive Director Abdullah Ouchagour
to the New York Times. Kathryn Haddad Alkhyam Café
California Building Café
New York Times
Queens Museum of Art
Pyramids Café
Designer: Aissa Deebi
Design Assistant: Wael Wakeem
Editors: Lana Barkawi, Jaime Faye Bean,
and Carina Evangelista

California Building Gallery

2205 California Street NE
Suite 103
Minneapolis, MN 55418

ISBN 1-4243-0268-4
ISBN 978-1-4243-0268-0
(Beginning 2007)

This exhibit is made possible by the support of the General Mills Foundation and generous donations from individual supporters of Mizna.
[ 48 ] Aissa Deebi | Killing Time 2006