“Budrus” documentary on peace activism
Last week I saw a fantastic documentary: “Budrus“, an inspiring look at some of the non-violent activism that is shaping the Israel/Palestine conflict right now. Snip from the site: “Budrus” is an award-winning feature documentary film about a Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in [...]
...read morePeace for women is world peace
The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize today was awarded to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkul Karman “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” These women are three of now 15 women to have won the award in its 110-year history and the [...]
...read moreIt’s Ramadan. How ’bout those Muslim feminists?
In honor of Ramadan (which began this week), and the fact that I have but a little time left with the lovely folks of Feministe, I thought I would aim once again for the overlap in my life’s Venn Diagram. To your right! The circle labelled “reads a lot of books.” To your left! The [...]
...read moreTeta, Mother and Me: Three Generations of Arab Women
I’ve had the Feministe audience at the back of my mind (even when working on material that hasn’t seemed an easy fit for a blog devoted to discussions of feminism) since starting my guest gig here last week — which is to say, even when I wrote my Israel/Palestine-I-was-on-Russian-TV! post, as well as yesterday’s “Norway [...]
...read moreNorway and terrorism as a daily event.
In the West, we seem to have at least a double standard when it comes to violence and mayhem. When violence and mayhem involves People Who Look Like Us (“us” in this case generally translating to: ethnically European/white, not-poor, citizens of a Western-style democracy) — we experience society-wide woe. When it involves People Who Don’t [...]
...read morePalestine, the UN, Israel, the Oslo Accords – & me, on Russian TV.
UPDATE: I’ve added a link with some basic background on the conflict in the comments. When I introduced myself earlier in the week, I said that I write a lot about Israel/Palestine, but that I also write about a lot of other stuff as well. Given the nature of this blog, I led with some [...]
...read moreSyrian blogger Amina Abdallah kidnapped
Horrible news: A blogger whose frank and witty thoughts on Syria’s uprising, politics and being a lesbian in the country shot her to prominence was last night seized by armed men in Damascus. Amina Arraf, who blogged under the name Amina Abdallah, holds dual Syrian and American citizenship and is the author of the blog [...]
...read moreI knew they were going to make it about Lara Logan’s looks
(For more on the “they”, please see Jill’s post below. Trigger warning, etc.) Because that’s what happens when you’re a female foreign journalist in the Middle East. Get hurt? Well, you shouldn’t have been a female foreign journalist in the Middle East, and certainly not a BLOND one! In the immortal words of Eddie Izzard [...]
...read moreWait, is Hosni Mubarak still president of Egypt?
Your answer is here.
...read moreYES.
Good news this morning: Mubarak has stepped down. Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has resigned from his post, handing over power to the armed forces. Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, announced in a televised address that the president was “waiving” his office, and had handed over authority to the Supreme Council of the armed forces. Suleiman’s [...]
...read moreQuotations
Nicholas Kristof isn’t necessarily my favorite person to turn to in times of major human rights crises, but: Mr. Mubarak has disgraced the twilight of his presidency. His government appears to have unleashed a brutal crackdown — hunting down human rights activists, journalists and, of course, demonstrators themselves, all while trying to block citizens from [...]
...read moreReason #645820 why you shouldn’t get your news from Fox
Yeah. I guess it’s convenient to have one country that we can just re-name every time shit goes down? It’ll be cool when next week, Yemen shares a border with Iran and Syria.
...read more
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