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Last updated: 14 May 2013
Latest items
Italy: why flags and crowds can corrupt the view
Would you buy a used car from this man? Photo: Lorenza and Vincenzo Iaconianni
May 2013 – The least you’d expect of a disgraced politician is to bow out of the limelight. Not Silvio Berlusconi with his grandstanding and rent-a-crowd.
May 2013 – If we can have gay and interfaith marriages in the West, then why not polygamous ones?
Ugly discrimination in the face of beauty
May 2013 – The curious case of Arab men reportedly deported for being “too handsome” demonstrates that the beautiful can also be the victims of discrimination.
America and Europe’s real “homegrown terrorism” threat
The Boston marathon bombings have refocused attention on the threat of “homegrown terrorism”. But there is a much more dangerous domestic threat.
Intimate strangers in a splintering world
You don’t need to belong to a place to have a sense of belonging and you can be a foreigner in your own land. Image: ©Khaled Diab
April 2013 – Multiculturalism is enriching and as easy as child’s play. But as the winds of intolerance blow harder, it may become a liability for my son and his generation.
A brief history of Western ‘jihadists’
Does this dandy Englishman qualify as a European “jihadist”?
April 2013 – From Guy Fawkes and Lord Byron to Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, Westerners have an ancient tradition of doing ‘jihad’ in foreign lands.
De paradox van de Egyptische revolutie
April 2013 – De Egyptische revolutie was een geval van collectieve en spontane genialiteit. Maar dit succes in het verkopen van de opstand kwam op een prijs.
An unknown German defies the tyranny of Nazism and the mass psychosis of the time. From Topography of Terror collection.
April 2013 – On the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power, Germany provides an inspiring role model for how societies can come to terms with their ugly past.
The reel story of Egyptian Jews
March 2013 – In telling the story of Egypt’s vanished Jewish community, a new documentary sheds light on a forgotten chapter of history.
The clash within civilisations
March 2013 – This year marks the 20th anniversary of the clash of civilizations theory, but Samuel P Huntington was wrong.
كيف يمكن لنجاح الثورة المصرية أن يُفشِلها؟
Photo: ©Harry Gruyaert
Photo: © Zaza Bertrand
مارس ٢٠١٣ – استطاعت الثورة المصرية من خلال قوة الصورة إلغاء الصور النمطية التي كانت قد ترسخت في الأذهان وتكونت عنا، و لكن هناك ثمن لا بد أن يدفع في المقابل
De Europese Unie en de ‘Viktator’ van Hongarije
March 2013 – De EU krijgt een keiharde middelvinger van de ‘Viktator’ van Hongarije. De Unie moet nu resolute actie ondernemen om haar legitimiteit te redden.
Obama, enough listening, it’s time to act
Official White House photo by Pete Souza. www.whitehouse.gov
March 2013 – Barack Obama’s plan to “listen” when he visits Israel and Palestine is not enough, the US president must act to launch a people’s peace process.
Gay pride (and prejudice) through the ages
Were the Christian martyrs Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus involved in a medieval “same-sex union”?
February 2013 – Historic examples of homosexuality being tolerated by Judaism, Christianity and Islam can help overcome homophobia and reinvent these faiths.
Tahrir Square: For the sake of the forsaken
Tahrir has become a black hole for ordinary Egyptians but a space of liberty for the marginalised. photo: ©Khaled Diab
February 2013 – For ordinary Egyptians, Tahrir is now a terrifying black hole, but for its marginalised occupiers, it is a liberator from political and social tyranny.
Reading between the lines of the Middle Eastern media
February 2013- Despite its bottom ranking in the Press Freedom Index, the Middle Eastern media is freer than it appears at first sight.
Egypt’s women of mass destruction
February 2013 – Does a gaff about rural women’s breasts belie the belief among Egypt’s new Islamist leadership that women are the source of all society’s ills?
The human wrongs of the Holocaust
©Khaled Diab
February 2013 – A new museum in Belgium seeks to make the Holocaust relevant for contemporary visitors by placing it in the wider context of human rights.
Palestinian liberation through the Israeli ballot box
January 2013 – Despite their marginalisation or disenfranchisement in Israeli politics, Palestinians can use Israel’s democratic tools to their advantage.
Russia takes a “grown up” beating
January 2013 [Update February 2013] – The acid attack on the Bolshoi ballet’s director highlights the worrying spread of crime, corruption and intimidation to all facets of life in Russia. Update: reports coming out indicate that long-running internal strife at the Bolshoi may be connected to this attack.
Half-baked rules that take the biscuit
January 2013 – Half-baked rules about homemade biscuits say a lot about the sort of society we live in and undermine community spirit.
A careless killer on the loose…
January 2013 – Gun and knife violence gets a lot of public attention but one killer prowling our streets goes largely unnoticed… apathy.
Israeli elections: When there’s nothing left to lose
January 2013 – With Israel expected to elect its most right-wing government ever, what can progressive Arab and Jewish voters do to challenge the status quo?
January 2013 – Despite its bonding potential, a trip to the hairdresser’s can inflict trauma on soap-phobic pre-adolescent boys and their mullet-phobic fathers.
The naked truth about Egypt’s body politic
January 2013 – One young woman’s daring nude protests are unlikely to emancipate Egyptian women, but will they actually hurt the cause of freedom and equality?
Egypt’s rebels without a pause
December 2012 – The failure of Egypt’s new leaders to address the needs and aspirations of young people means the revolution will not stop until there is real change.
In any normal context, a toddler’s third birthday party should be a simple, even mundane affair. Photo:©Katleen Maes
December 2012 – My time in Israel and Palestine, where everything is politics, has taught me that it is the human that is holy, not the land.
Occupational hazards in the West Bank
Bedouin children in the northern West Bank face a precarious future. Photo: ©Khaled Diab
December 2012 – While the world’s attention was turned to Gaza, stealthier military manoeuvres in the West Bank were pushing more Palestinians off their land.
Zwarte Piet and Sinterklaas on parade. Photo: ©Hans Splinter
December 2012 – Sinterklaas (Santa Claus) brings joy to millions in the Low Countries. But his dark-faced helpers, Zwarte Pieten, are racist and a colonial throwback.
The art of Palestinian resistance
December 2012 – Can art help the Palestinian struggle or is it a preoccupation those living under occupation can ill-afford?
