Kefah Ali Deeb (Arabic: كفاح علي ديب; born 1982 in Latakia, Syria), is a Syrian activist for human rights, graphic artist and writer. She left Syria after persecution during the Syrian war and has been living in exile in Berlin, Germany, since 2014. In Germany, she has been interviewed and published her own opinion columns about the life of migrants in German newsmedia and online projects. Since 2015, she has also been active as a museum guide for the Multaka project, an initiative of Berlin museums to convey art historical contexts to Arabic-speaking visitors. As writer and translator she also has published several books for children in Arabic.
Kefah Ali Deeb | |
|---|---|
كفاح علي ديب | |
 Kefah Ali Deeb in 2019 | |
| Born | Latakia, Syria |
| Alma mater | Damascus University |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, visual artist, museum guide |
| Years active | 2012-present |
| Known for | Human rights activism, Multaka museum guide |
| Awards | Sharjah Arab Creativity Award 2012 |
| Website | kefahalideeb |
Life and career
Having grown up in the district of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, Ali Deeb graduated from the Department of Fine Art at the University of Damascus in 2012.[1] Having taken part in protests against human rights violations in the context of the Arab Spring in Syria, she was arrested four times and finally fled to Germany in 2014.[2][3]
In January 2014, Ali Deeb and three other Syrian women were invited by UN Women to a conference ahead of the United Nations international peace conference for Syria in Geneva (Geneva II). As a spokesperson for the Syrian Women's Initiative for Peace and Democracy, she called for Syrian women to be included in peace talks and for equality between women and men to be respected by future Syrian governments. In addition, her delegation demanded that the Syrian authorities as well as the opposition allow the unhindered access of humanitarian and medical aid to all areas, under the supervision of an independent international commission.[4][5]
In 2015, her interviews and opinion columns about the difficulties of life as a refugee were published in the German weekly Die Zeit.[6][7] From 2016 to 2019, Ali Deeb also wrote a series for the daily newspaper die tageszeitung about negative stereotypes towards migrants and her own difficulties in finding accommodation and learning the German language.[8] In 2016, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an interview with her, writer Antje Rávic Strubel and German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier about questions relating to the future of Syria and the role of writers in shaping public opinions about migrants.[9]
Further, Ali Deeb was editor for the Arabic version of the Handbook Germany, a multilingual information platform for migrants.[10] The online platform We Refugees, funded by the Federal German Agency for Civic Education, published Ali Deeb’s descriptions of her escape from Syria, the loss of her home and her experiences in a refugee accommodation.[11]
As part of the award-winning project "Multaka - Museum as Meeting Point",[12] Ali Deeb and other Syrian and Iraqi migrants have been conducting guided tours in Arabic since 2015 in various historical museums in Berlin. One of the archaeological exhibits that she found a personal relation with is a statue of the Syro-Phoenician deity Hadad. For Ali Deeb, this is an example of the origins of her homeland's religions in ancient myths.[13][14]
In Syria, Ali Deeb's paintings were shown in several collective exhibitions at the Center for Fine Arts in Latakia.[1] In 2016, she exhibited her paintings and graphic art at the Institut français in Bonn, Germany, along fellow Syrian artists Darin Ahmad, Fouad El-Auwad, Akram Hamza and Adnan Sharbaji. These works included a painting of an empty chair, created while she was still living in Syria, and represented her artistic vision of Syrian victims and refugees.[15]
As a freelance writer, artist and workshop moderator, Ali Deeb continues to run art and writing workshops for children and women. During her early years in Syria, she had written stories and articles for the children's magazine “Osama”, published by the Ministry of Culture. Also, she was editor-in-chief of the Syrian children's magazine “Rainbow”, funded by Save the Children. In Germany she wrote the Arabic version of a teachers' guide for the multilingual children's book Wir Kinder aus dem FlüchtlingsHeim (We children from the refugee shelter).[16] In addition to her own books for Arabic children, Ali Deeb has translated several German children's books into Arabic, promoted by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Center in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).[17][18]
Awards
- Sharjah Arab Creativity Award 2012[19]
Selected publications
Books in Arabic for children, titles given in English translation
- The Adventures of Kepritah, Sharjah (UAE) 2018, ISBN 9789948393962.
- Turtle Picnic, Sharjah (UAE) 2012, ISBN 9789948049050
Translations from German to Arabic
- Julia Boehme and Julia Ginsbach, Tiger fragt: Warum?, Kalima, VAE
- Karen Christine Angermeyer and Elke Broska, Rubinia Wunderherz, Kalima, VAE
- Wolfdietrich Schnurre and Rotraut Susanne Berner, Die Prinzessin kommt um vier, Kalima, VAE
Anthology of writings on exile
- Three essays by Ali Deeb in Harald Roth, ed. (2022). Kein Land, nirgends? (in German). Bonn: Dietz. ISBN 978-3-8012-0644-4.