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The renaissance of Islam is above all the task of young Afghan people, who make up nearly 70 percent of the country's population. Such a renaissance is not historically alien to Afghan culture: Avicena's rationalism and Rumi's mystic philosophy are, after all, part of this tradition, much more so than the practice of suicide bombing.

the relative freedom of the media in Afghanistan

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was the first elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran after the 1979 revolution. He has lived in exile outside Paris since 1981, when he fell out with his former ally Ayatollah Khomeini. In exile, he has continued to develop his idea of Islam as a "discourse of freedom."

because of the rising influence of orthodox interpretations of the faith, stambeli artists are careful to stress the monotheistic, Islamic essence of their practice

The origins of stambeli music resemble those of American jazz (even though the two genres don’t sound alike). In both cases, the musical traditions of former slaves combined with the diverse cultural influences of their new environments to create something radically new. Whereas slaves arriving in Louisiana mixed their music and practices with European, Caribbean, and American ingredients, slaves arriving in Tunis during the same period fused their animist practices with North African versions of mystical Sufism and orthodox Islam. Mounir Argui, a theater director and music producer who works with Bidali, says that the metal castanets that play such a prominent role in stambeli performances evoke “the sounds of chains and shackles” that the slaves once wore, while the chanting recalls the “moaning.”

the Tunisian state never prioritized the preservation of stambeli, focusing instead on the art and culture it considered highbrow

Many Tunisians see stambeli as an alien phenomenon associated with blacks, who are already widely viewed as not quite Tunisian. In post-revolutionary Tunisia, where asserting the Islamic character of the country has become an important political symbol for some, the pagan origins of stambeli also cause suspicion

As long as some Tunisians continue to see freedom of religion and freedom of art as mutually exclusive, the rare traditions like stambeli that manage to straddle both will find little space

Twitter and other social media sites must take action to protect journalists such as myself and ensure that its platform is no longer misused by authoritarian regimes.