Sami Nader is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Lebanon Pulse. He is an economist, Middle Eastern affairs analyst and communications expert with extensive expertise in corporate strategy and risk management. In this article, he argues that...

"...The primary danger facing the Arab world in the wake of successive revolutions is not a wave of political Islam, but rather the state of violent chaos that has resulted from the breakup of former regimes, which had imposed security through repression and violence. This danger comes as a result of the absence of alternative ruling systems to both maintain security and guarantee the participation of various segments of society."

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When Saddam Hussein fell, we Iraqis were disoriented. For all our lives, he had always been there. His image was everywhere,' says photographer Jamal Penjweny, whose series Saddam is Here depicts Iraqis in everyday locations covering their faces with pictures of the former dictator. 'His image was in the cities where we live, on the walls of our schools, on our money, everywhere. Then he vanished. So taking a picture with Saddam was breaking a taboo that was created after the fall of the regime.' Penjweny, a former shepherd, will show his work in the Iraq pavilion at the Venice Biennale (Welcome to Iraq, 1 June to 24 November).

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