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Boston Marathon Catch 22: Reactions, Apologia and Narrating the Blame
On Monday April 15th, two blasts sent ripples of fear, panic and confusion across the faces and minds of thousands of people as the first group of runners approached the finish line at the Boston Marathon, one of the world’s …
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Fajr Ruminations on Ramadan in the Middle of Nowhere
I’m in a weird place this Ramadan. Not just spiritually but geographically as well. Almost exactly a year ago I finished my MA thesis and moved back home: home being wherever so my parents were living, regardless of roots and …
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Asma al-Assad as a hope for peace because she wears Louis Vuitton? Pah
It seems as though the obvious, apparently, needs to be repeated again. Bear with me, it’s painstaking for me too.
When Vogue infamously featured Asma al-Assad during the early period of the Syrian uprising in 2011, most level-headed folks were …
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First Lady Dictators Are Not Sexy Headlines
Exactly a year ago on March 15th, the official day of Syrian uprising, I wrote about the Vogue feature on Syrian first-lady Asma al-Assad, which glamorized the haute couture-clad co-dictator while painting a painful picture of a …
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Selective Shivers in the Islamist Winter
The election of the so-called ‘moderate Islamist’ party, Ennahda, to the head seat of the government, has put Tunisia at the center of the discussion on the rise of Islamist post-Arab Spring. Media coverage has focused primarily on the …
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Repression 2.0
Traditionally, Arab regimes have used a large repertoire of repressive means ranging from massive torture (as it was the case pre-occupation Irak, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, and to a lesser extent Morocco and Jordan), to the complete control of the press,
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The Kill Team and the Culture of Militarism
There is something deeply troubling about the lack of outrage shown when photos of those we’ve entrusted with great responsibility, certainly with much naivete and self-induced delusion, emerge as testament to their complete abuse of power and disregard for human
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AJE’s Future in the United States
The Arab Media & Society Journal recently published a study conducted by William Youmans and Katie Brown, which surveys the perception of Al Jazeera English amongst the American audiences.They found that that “[despite] filling a gap in the global market
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Dictatorships Are No Longer in Vogue
What does one of the world’s premier fashion and culture magazines have in common with one of the world’s most relentlessly brutal dictators?
A love for Asma al-Assad.
In the recent issue of Vogue, writer Joan Juliet Buck profiles …