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Occupied Pleasures: diverse Palestinian life
Now, in Occupied Pleasures, a short video edited by Amber Fares and twinned with music from Stormtrap Asifeh, Habjouqa’s images are given even greater scope to display the humor and strange, stereotype-challenging juxtapositions in which she seems to delight.
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Saudi net generation & the authorities
Conservative country boasts world’s highest use of sites per capita, but criticising Islam remains a clear red line
Turki al-Hamad paid a heavy price for a tweet. Last year the novelist told his followers that Islam as practised in Saudi Arabia was not the “message of love” preached by the Prophet Muhammad. The outcome was six months in prison without trial.
Conditions were immeasurably better than when he was detained in the 1970s, but the hazards of speaking out in the digital age were still painfully clear.
Hamad’s case was unusual though not unique. Like Hamza Kashgari, a journalist from Jeddah, he had provoked conservative religious zealots who oppose change in the kingdom – or provide the government with a handy excuse to do so. But Twitter is immensely popular and largely tolerated. According to recent research, Saudi Arabia has the world’s highest Twitter and YouTube use per capita – a staggering 90m views of the latter a day. It also has the highest Facebook use in the Gulf.
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Tunisia’s Islamists I: Ennahda Withdraws
Christopher Alexander is the John and Ruth McGee director of the Dean Rusk International Studies Program at Davidson College. In addition to several articles on politics in North Africa, he is the author of Tunisia: Stability and Reform in the Modern Maghreb (2010).
In this article, he asks: “What is the status of Islamists in Tunisia three years after the Arab uprisings began and two years after the Islamist Ennahda Party’s first electoral victory?”
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Obama To Cut MidEast Democracy Programs
A planned decrease by the Obama administration in funding for democracy promotion and election support in the Middle East is prompting alarm among activists. They say cuts are likely to be more severe than first realized and that the White House appears to be giving up on democracy in the region and downgrading its advancement as a policy priority.
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The Sound of Resistance
The photograph shows Vedran Smailović, known as the cellist of Sarajevo, playing in his country’s largely destroyed National Library at the height of the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, in an act of resilience that has become iconic of the power of music to triumph over the ravages of war.
The Cultures of Resistance Network’s Make Music Not War project area aims to give exposure to music that is created and performed by those immediately affected by political and military oppression who are committed to using their music as a force for justice. The network has done a more in-depth study of musical resistance traditions in four Middle Eastern countries: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine.
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Brain Pickings
Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who has also written for Wired UK, The New York Times, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.
In this post, Maria brings together 8 books which she rates as the year’s best on writing and creativity, quoting masters like Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman and Isabel Allende. With this post’s trove of inspiration, you should be set for 2014.
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Unlocking Your Inner Movie Director
A guide to apps for editing the video shot with your mobile device.
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Stability by Change: New Political Economy?
Issue brief author Faysal Itani, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, argues that King Abdullah ought to move forward transforming Jordan’s institutions and reimagining its relationship with its citizens, despite the associated political risks.
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Whose sarin?
Investigative journalist, Seymour M. Hersh, is writing an alternative history of the war on terror. In this thorough article in the London Review of Books, he argues about Barack Obama’s attempt to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August.
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Year Four of the Arab Awakening
Marwan Muasher is the vice president for studies at Carnegie, where he oversees research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East. Here he writes another important article on the passage of the fourth year of the Arab Awakening and what to expect in the year ahead.
“How will history judge the uprisings that started in many parts of the Arab world in 2011? The label “Arab Spring” proved too simplistic from the beginning. Transformational processes defy black-and-white expectations, but in the end, will the awakenings be more reminiscent of what happened in Europe in 1848, when several uprisings took place within a few weeks only to be followed by counterrevolutions and renewed authoritarian rule? Or will they more closely resemble the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union, after which some countries swiftly democratized while others remained in thrall to dictatorship?”
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The 50 best apps of 2013
From lifestyle and children’s apps to games, social networking and the downright useful, here are the 50 best apps of the year
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US Replies to Terrorists’ Online Lure
Concerned by the attempts of Al Qaeda and its global affiliates to attract more Americans and other Westerners, the State Department is stepping up its online efforts to combat violent extremists’ recruiting of English speakers.
The campaign is starting at a time when intelligence officials say dozens of Americans have traveled or tried to travel to Syria since 2011 to fight with the rebels against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen now puts English subtitles on its website propaganda. The Shabab, the Islamist extremist group in Somalia, publish an English-language online magazine.
State Department officials acknowledge that the new program is a modest trial run that faces a vast array of English-language websites, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos and Facebook pages that violent extremist groups have established largely uncontested in the past few years. But American and European intelligence officials warn that Al Qaeda’s efforts to recruit English-speaking fighters could create new terrorist threats when the battle-hardened militants return home.
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How the internet will save the Indian press
Stepping away from the shallow allegations of ‘paid media’, and above the usual hand-wringing rhetoric peddled by the likes of Vinod Mehta, Jose takes a bird’s eye view of the evolution of the Indian press to answer the thorny questions that preoccupy us all: “Why is our journalism so pliable? What gives external forces the temerity to shape the media to their own ends? What is it in our democratic culture that makes the media subordinate itself to the legislature, executive, judiciary and corporations—making it susceptible to inappropriate influence?”
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Public to back investigative journalism
Uncoverage, a website that will be announced on Monday, will test whether the public cares enough about investigative journalism to pay for it. The site, to be at Uncoverage.com, will allow journalists and nonprofits to seek crowdsourced funding for both articles and topics like, for example, the Syrian war. Money for general topics will be split up among projects by the site’s editors.
The nonprofit investigative group the Center for Public Integrity has signed on as a partner whose projects will be featured on the site.
The commercial site is being founded by Israel Mirsky, an entrepreneur who said that the current model for financing investigative journalism was broken.
“I am passionate about depleted uranium” he said, “but if I want to see more on the topic, my only choice is to buy a paper where reporting on the topic has appeared before and watch for future articles. I can’t imagine a less effective and satisfying way to get journalism on a topic I care about.”
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Rapper challenges veiled women mold
Egyptian Mayam Mahmoud stirred debate in the Middle East when she appeared at Arabs Got Talent’s stage and rapped, defying the expectations of a veiled woman in this part of her world.
“It’s got a lot of people talking about whether it’s possible for a veiled girl, or even a girl, to do this,” says Mahmoud, who says her veil is a personal choice and has little relevance to her music. “If a girl has a dream to work in a field where many girls don’t work, or to do post-graduate study, or to work in a position higher than her husband – all these things often can’t be done.”
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Journey Into Darkness
In her book “A House in the Sky”, Amanda Lindhout recounts the experience of being held captive in Somalia for 460 days.
“In the cleanest prose, she and Corbett allow events both horrific and absurd — like Lindhout’s diligently translating, from a smartphone, a message to jihadis from Osama bin Laden — to unfold on their own. Lindhout’s resilience transforms the story from a litany of horrors into a humbling encounter with the human spirit.”
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Muslim convert behind Marvel’s Pakistani-American superhero
Marvel’s Pakistani-American superhero? Apparently Kamala is not Marvel’s first female Muslim superhero – in 2002 the X-Men-related comic books introduced Sooraya Qadir, a niqab-wearing mutant who could transform herself into a cloud of dust.
“Kamala Khan is not your typical teenage Pakistani-American girl from New Jersey – Marvel Comics’ latest superhero is gifted with special powers that enable her to change shape.”
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The Big Roundtable
“For a story to succeed it doesn’t have to be loved by everyone; it just has to be loved by enough.”
In this post, The Big Roundtable reviews readers’ response to some of the stories published, and ultimately reaches an analysis of what makes a successful story.
The Big Roundtable is a digital publishing platform that aims to connect passionate nonfiction writers with readers who will support their work. This journalism resource engages in experimental methods of gathering, selecting, editing, and distributing ambitious narrative stories, and, eventually, researching the reading and sharing behavior around those stories. And by convening forums—online and in person—where writers can learn and connect for mutual support.
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Audiovisual archive for Palestine refugees
On this website, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) unveils the first images of its newly digitized archive. Over half a million images and hours of film will follow, covering all aspects of the lives and history of Palestine refugees from 1948 to the present day.
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The Future of Syria – a UNHCR report
UNHCR has launched a report, based on research carried out over four months in Lebanon and Jordan, which finds alarming indications of distress among children, with thousands living alone or separated from their parents, many out of school, and extensive child labour. An informative source for journalists interested in the Syrian crisis.
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Founder of Reddit and the Internet’s Own Cheerleader
They are usually referred to as Internet enthusiasts. In this New York Times article, hear it from “The Mayor of the Internet”, as dubbed by Forbes Magazine. Reddit foundation Alexis Ohanian and the Internet.
“When I get a prank call, I don’t blame AT&T,” he said. “I blame the person who prank called me.”
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Path to Political Parties in Arab World
“Dozens of new political parties have emerged in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia since the start of the Arab uprisings. While many of these forces played an active role in overturning old orders, they have struggled to develop coherent identities, establish effective support networks, and build sustainable constituencies.”
In this article, vice president for studies at Carnegie Marwan Muasher, who oversees research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East, writes about what emerging political parties need to participate effectively in the political process.
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Flesh and Blood
Using Skype as a digital rehearsal studio, Sofiane and Selma Ouissi’s experimental choreography is surviving long distance
Selma and Sofiane Ouissi share a body with two heads – at least that’s how Sofiane, the Tunis-based half of this Tunisian brother and sister dance duo, sees it. They do have their differences, he explains. Selma, who is currently based in Paris, is the more pensive of the two, while he is driven by impulse and instinct. When they dance together however, they are bound by a palpable energy, one that allows them to flow through each other’s bodies.
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Rieder: Gearing up for a journalism juggernaut
How Pierre Omidyar’s free-spending, ambitious news start-up is coming together
“Omidyar wants to launch a news organization that is not narrowly focused on, say, investigative reporting, though it will do plenty of that. Instead, he envisions a wide-ranging powerhouse that will cover an array of subjects and attract a broad swath of readers. The idea is to create a mass audience that will magnify the impact of the hard-hitting stories the site aims to produce.”
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Arab socities must build ‘citizen-states’
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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