May 31, 2018
By Elias Ghazal The recent parliamentary elections in Lebanon demonstrated that Lebanese politics is largely predictable, although not impregnable. The last time the Lebanese elected their political representatives was in 2009. Lebanese are overwhelmingly angry about the political corruption, economic stagnation, and social degradation in their country. Sectarian leaders from […]
May 24, 2018
By Wissam al-Saliby In March of this year at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, I saw a man sitting next to me writing in Arabic the statement that he will be reading to the council. Adel was a Tunisian head of a non-profit. I said hello in […]
May 17, 2018
By Brent Hamoud We tend to put faces on unfortunate things. It is not a good practice but we do it anyways. Famine has African faces, terrorism Muslim faces, the drug trade Latino faces, and on it goes. So it is with human displacement where the faces of Syrians, Palestinians […]
May 10, 2018
By Jade Kassis War has become a familiar phenomenon to us Middle Easterners, who have become acquainted with its violent chaos as well as with its sacrificial loss. War has changed us as a people. We have grown accustomed to feelings of unrest and a lack of control. One minute […]
February 8, 2018
By Chaden Hani It was an abiding sense of desperation, frustration and repression which led Lebanese journalist and professor of history Samir Kassir to speak in 2004 of the “Arab malaise.” For as long as I can remember we have barely had a moment of our history lacking in conflict […]
November 30, 2017
By Brent Hamoud Landscapes throughout the MENA region have been transformed by unfolding crises of forced migration. This is especially the case in Lebanon. An estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees reside within its borders adding layers of dimension to long-existing populations of displacement.[i] Many Syrian refugees reside in informal tented settlements. […]
November 23, 2017
By Wissam al-Saliby I am grateful for several recent conversations with American pastor friends, during which we spoke about writing from and on the Middle East, trans-Atlantic (mis)perceptions and political fault lines. One of these friends, who leans toward political conservativism, told me that when reading my posts on the […]