Cultural adornments: How clothes fashion identity and mask bigotry
By Khaled Diab The clothes we wear speak volumes about our individual and collective identities. However, the history of fashion
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women
The thin green line of environmental activism
The environmental movement has scored remarkable recent successes, but the situation for the climate and nature remains fragile and vulnerable. Overcoming the damaging inertia of business as usual requires the thin green line of activists to be reinforced by the swelling ranks of concerned citizens.
Read moreEgypt’s other revolution
By Khaled Diab A decade after Egyptians rose up against Hosni Mubarak, the counterrevolution appears victorious in the political domain.
Read moreThe mediocrity of evil
Many of the leaders held up as representing the epitome of evil were extraordinarily and spectacularly untalented, incapable and incompetent. With this mediocrity of evil, it is almost a wonder that they managed to rise to the top at all.
Read moreBeyond belief: Arab atheists and their quest for acceptance amid intolerance
By Khaled Diab Atheists are amongst the most marginalised and persecuted minorities in the Arab world. Despite the risks atheists
Read moreAfter ISIS, former Yazidi sex slaves are caught between trauma and taboo
Safia, a Yazidi teenager from Iraq, was captured by the Islamic State, sold into sexual slavery, raped, tortured and made pregnant, leaving deep psychological scars. Her ability to come to terms with the trauma are thwarted by taboo, shame and her forced separation from her daughter.
Read moreThe shocking similarities between white supremacy and Islamist extremism
Despite their conviction that they are polar opposites, white supremacists and Islamist extremists share much in common, including a hatred for minorities and the enemies within, a persecution complex, and nostalgia for past glories.
Read moreIsland of despair
While the outrage of Europeans has been turned to Donald Trump’s wall and the handling of migrants at the border with Mexico, they ignore a humanitarian disaster closer to home. The EU has left Greece to handle the influx of refugees on its own and those stuck on Lesbos are living in abysmal conditions.
Read morePodcast: Baladi – from bread to dance
Baladi is one of those elusive Arabic words that can mean different things to different people at different times.
Read moreFor drinkers, Ramadan brings a special kind of thirst
Ramadan is the time of year when hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world abstain from food or drink. But one group of fasters suffers a special variety of thirst this time of year: Muslims who drink alcohol.
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