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By providing alternative answers to common questions about the Middle East, this FAQ will help you make sense of this complex region.

Culture Fashion

April 28, 2022January 5, 2024 2 Comments Khaled Diab

Cultural adornments: How clothes fashion identity and mask bigotry

The clothes we wear speak volumes about our individual and collective identities. However, the history of fashion reveals that “western” and “eastern” traditions are not cut from different cloth but are an intricate patchwork foreign and local influences.

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.

Egypt’s other revolution erupts under the radar

A decade after Egyptians rose up against Hosni Mubarak, the counterrevolution appears victorious in the political domain. However, under the radar, a social revolution is in motion.

The 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.

Beyond belief: Arab atheists and their quest for acceptance amid intolerance

Atheists are amongst the most marginalised and persecuted minorities in the Arab world. Despite the risks atheists face from the state and vigilantes, atheism has become more visible and vocal in recent years, leading to greater public understanding and tolerance.

After 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.

The shocking similarities between white supremacists and Islamist extremists

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.

Island of refugee 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.

Down’s Syndrome: When discrimination takes the biscuit… bake cookies

A group of entrepreneurial Egyptian women with Down’s Syndrome have proven that the only handicap they suffer is a financial one as they seek to expand their successful baking business.