Interview with Lebanese poet and journalist Joumana Haddad

With her erotic cultural magazine "Jasad" ("Body"), Lebanese poet and journalist Joumana Haddad deliberately breaks taboos in a society that likes to draw a veil over the human body – both literally and figuratively.

Haddad: In our cultural legacy from the 9th and 10th centuries one finds immense freedom of expression, displaying sensuousness, eroticism and bluntness on a scale that has now disappeared.

Why is that?

Haddad: There are many reasons. One of them is religious extremism. Another is our defensive reaction to anything that could be construed as the invasion of Western values. The Arabs are trying to protect their own values. But the more one tries to protect what one has, the more introverted, close-minded, insular and frustrated one becomes. That is sad.