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Virginia Community Welcomes Palestinian Al-Quds Festival

Culture A recent Al Quds Festival and Palestine Trade Show highlighted the importance of events that promote cross-cultural understanding.
BY staff writer -
Virginia Community Welcomes Palestinian Al-Quds Festival

Passport

Arab Youth is Changing Tattoo Culture in the Middle East

Culture The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have a long history of tattoo art. Once considered a sign of beauty, its popularity declined in many regions because of negative social stigma and the fact that Islam prohibits tattoos. Recently, young Arabs have begun to embrace tattooing once again, and they are changing people’s perception of tattoos.
BY Selena Rincon -
Frankincense, a Gift to the Newborn Jesus, Still Does Wonders

Frankincense, a Gift to the Newborn Jesus, Still Does Wonders

Culture Frankincense, one of the gifts bestowed upon the newborn baby Jesus by the biblical Magi (the Three Wise Men), has been ...

Curtailing Conflict Across the Arab World: Former Yemeni Human Rights Minister Calls for Dialogue

Human Rights With the Arab world seemingly in constant conflict with no imminent prospects for peace, one world leader outlines her vision of the road to peace in the MENA region.

Coffee: The Lost Treasure of Yemen

Culture Yemenis played a significant role in introducing coffee -- the second most traded commodity in the world after oil -- to countries throughout the world. The government's disinterest, however, in preserving the coffee tree and promoting its cultivation has deprived the country of significant revenue.

Culture

Théâtre Nomade in neighborhood of Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca.

In the Balance:  The Circus Comes to Town

Photo Essay Meet circus collective Théâtre Nomade, one of the troupes at the heart of Morocco’s contemporary and vibrant circus culture.
BY Irene Jiang -

May Ziade: Arab Romantic Poet and Feminist Pioneer

Profile Founder of one of the most famous literary salons in the Arab world during the twenties and thirties of the last century, she was one of the leading female figures of al-Nahda and one of the forerunners in revolutionizing Arabic poetry and prose.
BY Abdelaziz Elkhalfaoui -

Halabi Bookshop Provides a Unique Space for Beirut’s Booklovers

Booklovers Like many young people in the Arab world, Lana Halabi followed the traditional path to success. She pursed both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in business marketing and worked in a prominent retail company in the Middle East. There, she gained experience in fashion ...
BY Soukaina Rachidi -

Tunisia’s LGBTQ Community Looks Forward to Limited Legal Gains

Rights Tunisia seems poised to shake off the anti-LGBTQ legacy of its French-imposed 1913 Penal Code after a presidential committee proposed decriminalizing same-sex relations.
BY staff writer -

Opinion

ARABIA THAT WAS

BY Youssef El Kaidi -

When Bigotry and Intolerance Reigned: The Expulsion of Moriscos from Renaissance Spain

Culture Muslim Moriscos converted to Christianity under duress, faced racial discrimination and systematic marginalization by mainstream Catholic Spaniards in Renaissance Spain. They were eventually exiled from their Iberian homeland, but their legacy remains.

Book Review

Amin Malouf’s Les Désorientés: The Unresolved Legacy of the Lebanese Civil War

BY Julia Schwartz -
Book Review An insurmountable grudge between friends stands in for the unresolved trauma of political violence in the story of an expatriate visiting his native Lebanon.

ARABIA THAT IS

Learning Between the Lines Protecting Immigrant Children’s Right to Education In Morocco
BY Sebastian Bouknight -

Learning Between the Lines: Protecting Immigrant Children’s Right to Education In Morocco

Immigration As more sub-Saharan immigrants settle in Morocco, advocacy groups urge the government to ensure education access with comprehensive new immigration laws. Under the Constitution, Morocco guarantees everyone living in the country the right to education. In practice, many immigrant children are left out of the classroom.

IN-DEPTH

Muslim Hajj: From Religious Ritual to Lucrative Business. Mecca

Muslim Hajj: From Religious Ritual to Lucrative Business

The Hajj Attended annually by two to three million people from all over the world, the Hajj ritual is the fifth pillar of Islam required of Muslims who are able physically and financially to perform it at least once in their lifetime.
BY Youssef El Kaidi -

Tunisia’s Political Crisis: Domestic Power Dynamics Threaten National Stability

In Depth Domestic power dynamics in Tunisia threaten to destabilize the country by weakening governance within North Africa’s fledgling democracy. The political crisis in Tunisia that began earlier this year over whether Prime Minister Youssef Chahed should resign has revealed a ...
BY Diana Partridge -

Iranian Women Dance on Social Media to Resist Government’s Attempts to Stifle Freedoms

In Depth When 19-year old Iranian teenager Maedeh Hojabri filmed videos of herself happily dancing in her bedroom to American and Iranian pop music and posted them on Instagram, she didn’t think she would end up in prison. Iranian authorities clamped down and arrested her without...
BY Sebastian Bouknight -

UAE Punishes Somalia for Its Stance on Ongoing Gulf Crisis

In Depth In June 2017, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) persuaded Bahrain, Egypt, Mauritania, the Maldives, the Comoros, Mauritius, the Yemeni government of Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi, and the Libyan Tobruk regime to break off diplomatic relations with Qatar.
BY Abdelfatah Bourouies -

VOICES

Habka Libya's First Manga Initiative Seeks to Promote Creativity

Habka: Libya’s First “Manga Magazine” Overcomes Challenges to Promote Unity Through Creativity...

Art After civil unrest, it can be hard for people to imagine life going back to “normal.” Normalcy not only implies people returning to living their lives in relative peace and restoring a country’s functioning social, economic, and political institutions again (even if they do so ineffectively), but resurrecting an environment that is conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship that allows creatives to explore their imagination and produce artistic work.   In Libya, a country that continues to suffer from, among many other things, high levels of insecurity, constant power outages, and a currency crisis, it seems that restoring any sense of normalcy is a slow and painful crawl. However, 26-year-old Libyan artist Nouralddeen Alhouni has not let these challenges stand in the way of his creative endeavors. Alhouni is the CEO, editor-in-chief,...
BY Soukaina Rachidi -
Maya Terro young activist, Fights Hunger in Lebanon.

Appetite for Change: One Young Food Activist’s Fight for Responsible Consumption in Lebanon

BY Soukaina Rachidi -

Young Libyan Activist Fights for Positive Change in his Country

BY Soukaina Rachidi -
Illustrator Zainab Fasiki Takes on Taboos and Patriarchy with Art

Illustrator Zainab Fasiki Takes on Taboos and Patriarchy with Art

BY Sebastian Bouknight -

Analysis

Kuwait Looks to Turkey, But Hedges its Bets

International politics Despite intense frictions stemming from conflicting views on the role of political Islam in the post-2011 Arab world, allegations of Emirati involvement in the ...

Yemen: A Saudi-UAE Political Minefield in the Making

Politics The war in Yemen continues, sustained by senseless conflicts, external support, and international interests. Promoting sectarian identities, and a variety of other identities, at the expense of a unifying national identity, is exacerbating the political quagmire — and will have lasting impact even after the Saudi-led intervention in the country ends.

Algerian Presidential Election: Abdelaziz Bouteflika To Run for Fifth Term

Politics After four consecutive terms as president of Algeria, at the age of 81, Abdelaziz Bouteflika is apparently poised to run for a fifth term in Spring 2019. Chronically ill and possibly not even in control of his own faculties, how will Bouteflika manage the affairs of the largest country in Africa for the next five years?
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© 2018 Inside Arabia. All Rights Reserved