Looking back, it feels as if Salwa Bugaighis embodied not the hopes and aspirations of the majority of her country's people but a dream of revolution, shared by a minority of educated Libyans and nurtured by western journalists and democracy activists, says Lindsey Hilsum
Egypt’s current political scene is marked by ’Sisi-mania’, as the new leader’s supporters scramble to snap up the latest items of Sisi-branded consumer kitsch. A gendered reading of this ‘patriotic consumerism’ reveals its role in negotiating citizenship within Egypt’s refashioned political order.
Jordan appears to have been relatively unaffected by the upheavals of the Arab uprisings, but growing resentment at nepotism, pandemic corruption, and economic deprivation lies just beneath the surface.
Last month a young woman was mob attacked on Cairo University campus. Socially and culturally constructed circles that control our lives seem to be tightening at a time when individuals are trying their hardest to crack them open. Zainab Magdy explores whether women will ever find a space that is
The January 25th uprising offered Egypt the opportunity to become a role model for peaceful transition in the region and beyond. But with the hijack of the will of the people almost completed, Egypt is moving further away from realising democracy.
By ignoring expressions of people power in the Egyptian constitutional referendum, some western political commentators and the media are showing a disconnect with the pulse of the citizenry and engaging in a dangerous politics of omission, argues Mariz Tadros
Reading the 2012 and 2013 Egyptian constitutions together is less a tale of successive steps towards constitutional democracy and more an illustration of how the revolution was lost in two successive jolts – first Morsi’s Islamism without legitimacy, and then the violent militarism that accompanie
When it comes to gender based violence in Arab transition contexts, it is not only state militarism we should be concerned about, but the proliferation of militias and weapons across borders, argues Mariz Tadros
Images of women and the brutal violence against them, whether committed by the Army, Police, Muslim Brotherhood or thugs, are commodities that sell a certain shade of patriarchy to the people, says Zainab Magdy.
Security breakdown has wreaked havoc with women’s lives in Arab transition countries, but it is hardly recognized in international debates on gender based violence, says Mariz Tadros
Clearing sites of mass protest in Cairo and stamping them with symbolic representations of their preferred narrative of order and stability, the military authorities are striving to relegate the revolution to the past. Yet, these new cityscape makeovers continue to be contested.
The recent protests in Sudan were characterized by unprecedented levels of street participation. Dalia Haj-Omar asks why the international community continues to ignore the regime’s long-term governance failures, choosing economic interests over human rights, and failing to offer tangible support
