The End of Solitude - ChronicleReview.com - 0 views
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if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility
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Reading, as Robinson puts it, "is an act of great inwardness and subjectivity." "The soul encountered itself in response to a text, first Genesis or Matthew and then Paradise Lost or Leaves of Grass." With Protestantism and printing, the quest for the divine voice became available to, even incumbent upon, everyone.
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Mark Edmundson makes a similar argument in "Why Read?" - http://the-ed-rush.blogspot.com/2009/01/book-review-why-read-by-mark-edmundson.html - he believes reading has the potential to be life-changing.
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The world was now understood as an assault on the self, and with good reason.
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Journalism is Not a Crime » More info on Phillip Rizk from KABOBfest - 0 views
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On her blog, a friend of mine recently lambasted Egyptians for their failure to take to the streets like people in Turkey, Morocco, France and dozens of other countries. While I don’t feel the same way she does, I feel her frustration. What is happening to Philip Rizk is just a reminder of the harsh realties of life in Egypt. There is no way Mubarak and his people can maintain their alliances without a crushing iron fist - state of emergency.
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I’m curious to see how much media coverage this whole story will receive… So far, very few news outlets have picked it up.
Forbes.com - Magazine Article - 0 views
Will Saudi women drivers spark a revolution? - Yahoo! News - 0 views
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The royal family probably thought that by taking down al-Sharif's Facebook page they could silence her protest, says Pat Bartels at Gather. But the video is still visible on YouTube. This case "illustrates just how oppressed women are in Saudi Arabia," and now that the word is out that women are standing up for their rights, there is no going back."Saudi woman uses social media and lands in jail"
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Al-Sharif's crime, in the eyes of the government, wasn't driving, says Jane Martinson in Britain's Guardian. It was posting her protest video on Facebook and Twitter — the social networking powerhouses that have helped uprisings spread elsewhere. The government probably won't budge on its longstanding passive support of religious clerics' ban on women driving, but it will be "quick to stamp down" any effort by protesters to harness the power of the internet and use it against the government."A drive for freedom in Saudi Arabia"
Arrested in the Emirates by Ivan Szelenyi and Paula England | The New York Review of Books - 0 views
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All five are detained in al-Wathba prison in Abu Dhabi, publicly accused of “committing crimes of instigation, breaking laws and perpetrating acts that pose threats to state security, undermining the public order, opposing the government system, and insulting the President, the Vice-President and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.”
Tortured and killed: Hamza al-Khateeb, age 13 - Features - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
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"This is a campaign of mass terrorism and intimidation: Horribly tortured people sent back to communities by a regime not trying to cover up its crimes, but to advertise them."
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A week after his body was returned, a Facebook page dedicated to Hamza had more than 60,000 followers, under the title, "We are all Hamza al-Khateeb", a deliberate echo of the online campaign on behalf of Khaled Saeed, the young Egyptian whose death in police custody last year proved a trigger for the revolution in Cairo.
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Rezan Mustapha, spokesman of the opposition Kurdish Future Movement said he and others had also seen the horrifying footage. "This video moved not only every single Syrian, but people worldwide. It is unacceptable and inexcusable. The horrible torture was done to terrify demonstrators and make them stop calling for their demands." But, said Khateeb, protestors would only be spurred on by such barbarity. "More people will now go to the street. We hold the Syrian secret police fully responsible for the torturing and killing of this child, even if they deny it."
Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Egypt quizzes group on Hamas links - 0 views
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Montasser al-Zayat
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Belonging to any external or regional organisation is considered a crime under Egyptian law, which is under a state of emergency - in place since 1981.
Johann Hari: You Are Being Lied to About Pirates - 0 views
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Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
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In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
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Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
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Women told: 'You have dishonoured your family, please kill yourself' - Europe, World - ... - 0 views
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So-called "honour killings" in Turkey have reached record levels. According to government figures, there are more than 200 a year – half of all the murders committed in the country. Now, in a sinister twist, comes the emergence of "honour suicides". The growing phenomenon has been linked to reforms to Turkey's penal code in 2005. That introduced mandatory life sentences for honour killers, whereas in the past, killers could receive a reduced sentence claiming provocation. Soon after the law was passed, the numbers of female suicides started to rocket.
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"I think most of these suicide cases are forced. There are just too many of them, it's too suspicious. But they're almost impossible to investigate," said Mustafa Peker, Batman's chief prosecutor.
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Most honour killings happen in the Kurdish region, a barren land ravaged by years of war and oppression. Rural communities here are ruled under a strict feudal, patriarchal system. But as Kurds have fled the fighting between separatist rebels and Turkey's government, the crime is spreading across the country into its cities and towns. According to a recent government report, there is now one honour killing a week in Istanbul."Families who move here are suddenly faced with modern, secular Turkey," said Vildan Yirmibesoglu, the head of Istanbul's department of human rights. "This clash of cultures is making the situation worse as the pressure on women to behave conservatively is become more acute. And of course there are more temptations."
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Jewish-Arab crime film captures tensions - 1 views
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Next year, the gritty tale about mafia-style murders will become the first Arabic language film to represent Israel at the Oscars.
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Impoverished Israeli Arabs shooting one another in the shadow of the gleaming towers of Tel Aviv is far from Israel's preferred international image.
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dark underside to the ideal of coexistence sometimes touted in mixed Jewish-Arab areas like Jaffa.
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Lebanon's Most Outspoken Politician Wants To Talk To You On Twitter - 0 views
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Joumblatt joined Twitter just three weeks ago and already has more than 25,000 followers, many of whom he answers directly with the same candor and wit that has helped make the 65-year-old an unlikely giant in Lebanese politics
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Lebanon, a small, religiously diverse country, is home to a tense alignment of Christians, Sunnis, Shia Muslims, and Druze — communities mostly represented by an old guard of politicians who keep the majority of political discourse behind closed doors. On social media, used broadly by Lebanese across the country, the political rhetoric is open and fierce, albeit rarely constructive. While most of the country’s political elite hold social media accounts, few directly engage.
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That’s what sets Joumblatt apart. His political flexibility gives him the unique ability as a politician to voice unpopular criticism. Following clashes in Lebanon’s second-largest city of Tripoli last month, Joumblatt called out former Prime Minister Najib Mikati, now a parliamentarian representing the city of Tripoli
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Giulio Regeni: Scattered Facts - 0 views
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Giulio’s first stay in Egypt in 2012 ended after the hysteria about foreign spies. Government television aired public service announcements warning of foreign spies, and as news spread of citizens detaining foreigners they suspected of being spies, “leaving Egypt seemed the most logical next step,”
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the first time he became nervous during his second stay in Egypt was after his photo was taken at the independent union meeting on 11 December 2015
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A week before the anniversary of the revolution, he told me he would not leave his house for a week starting on January 18, except for necessities…He understood that the security situation on the anniversary of the revolution was not good
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In Libya, traditional and social media are used to fuel war | Arab Tyrant Manual - 0 views
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Every Libyan news outlet has obvious and sometimes unabashed biases – Libya24 for example, has given itself a reputation for taking a pro-Gaddafi stance, while others such as al-Nabaa are seen as overly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. The extent to which they allow debate and independent comment varies. As dozens of civilians have been killed since the start of Haftar’s offensive on Tripoli last week, a staunchly pro-Haftar news outlet, Libya Alhadath, broadcasts a steady stream of songs glorifying Haftar and his offensive, in a way reminiscent of Libya’s solitary state TV channel for most of the Gaddafi era.
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most Libyan news outlets and TV channels have dramatically changed their stances over the past number of years as alliances have changed and new actors have emerged in the country
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Libyans don’t trust local media.
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Picking up the pieces - 0 views
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Syrians have shown relentless ingenuity in adapting to every stage of a horrendous conflict, salvaging remnants of dignity, solidarity and vitality amid nightmarish circumstances
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The decimation of Syria’s male population represents, arguably, the most fundamental shift in the country’s social fabric. As a generation of men has been pared down by death, disability, forced displacement and disappearance, those who remain have largely been sucked into a violent and corrupting system centered around armed factions
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80 of the village’s men have been killed and 130 wounded—amounting to a third of the male population aged 18-50. The remaining two-thirds have overwhelmingly been absorbed into the army or militias
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The battle over the memory of Egypt's revolution | openDemocracy - 0 views
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The once-embattled ancien regime is back with full force. Not only to consolidate its power in the present, but also to control the past. Yet, since the outbreak of the January 25 Revolution, besides the Islamists, two distinct communities were – and still are – in conflict, among other things, over the revolution’s nature and principles: the regime and the revolutionary activists. What follows is an exploration of these communities’ strategies to permeate the people’s collective consciousness and to enforce their own narratives of the revolution and its memory, across three different domains: Egypt’s public space; Egypt’s online sphere; and outside Egypt.
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in the revolution’s early years, Egypt’s public space was representative of the young activists’ creativity and rebellion
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Through graffiti on walls, images, texts and structures, the activists created from the country’s streets and squares memorials to keep the memory of the brave martyrs as well as the revolution’s ideals alive. Walls of Freedom, a 2014 book by Hamdy and Stone, offers thorough insights into the revolution and its artistic works. Young Egyptians’ independent cultural activities, including concerts and exhibitions, played a role in enhancing the historical narrative of the pro-revolution community.
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'Diamond Dust,' a poisonous pleasure for Egyptian moviegoers - 0 views
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Tearing down pillars of modern Egyptian history can be lethal, as author and screenwriter Ahmed Mourad and director Marwan Hamed recently discovered with “Diamond Dust,” a political thriller dealing with the Free Officers Movement and the coup that dethroned King Farouk on July 23, 1952
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“Diamond Dust” the book, published six months before the 2011 revolution, became a best-seller that year, but was not a source of controversy. Its adaptation for the stage in 2016 premiered without event. This August, however, when the film adaptation by Hamed, known for the daring drama “The Yacoubian Building” (2006), arrived in Egyptian cinemas, it created a stir.
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“Diamond Dust” is the first Egyptian movie to describe the 1952 change in government as a coup, rather than a revolution, as the state officially recognizes the event. In fact, the film is unapologetically critical of the whole movement. Egyptian cinematic works have criticized the politics of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the leaders of the Free Officers, and of his successors' regimes, but the Free Officers Movement itself had apparently been off-limits.
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Police Arrest Student and Venue Owner Organizing an Egypt Gay Concert - 0 views
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Egyptian police recently arrested a student in the Giza district of Kerdasa for “debauchery” after allegedly organizing a concert for gay people. The Egypt gay concert never happened. Now the student and one other man face legal charges.
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Egypt’s recent and massive anti-LGBT crackdown began by targeting a musical event when police arrested several young people who waved a rainbow flag at a Cairo concert in September 2017. The concert was that of Mashrou’ Leila, a Lebanese band whose name means “A Night Project” in Arabic. Mashrou’ Leila’s lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay.
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Since homosexuality is not criminalized in Egypt, people are often arrested and charged with vague crimes like “debauchery,” “immorality” and “blasphemy.”
Here's Why You Probably Won't Read This Article About Syria - 0 views
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analysis by BuzzFeed News shows the number of shares on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites of the most-read stories about Syria in the past two months were a 10th of what they were just over a year ago
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“I work so hard to try and post videos, but no one cares. I don’t know what to say. They just see the article or report, and just say: ‘Oh, that’s really sad.’ And after that they turn the internet off and go and live their lives.”
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Once the footage is online people like Ethar El-Katatney, executive producer of AJ+, pick it up, and try to work out how they can tell the next story from Syria.“All of the footage I am looking at today looks the same as the footage I saw a year ago and it’s the same dust, and blood, and screaming, and hospital rooms and hospital floors,” El-Katatney told BuzzFeed News. “It has become normalized.”
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