I seem to operate on a multiple levels of contradictions. But what can I do? My heart is one place, my mind is in another, and my mouth has to play an intricate game of brinkmanship all the time just to keep me balanced. I am after all an activist more by necessity than by choice, and always against my better judgment and my natural inclinations. Continue reading “Heretical Haggling!”
Tag: Development
Letter from Damascus: Superhighway to Damascus
BookForum – Jan/Dec 2005
One of the most significant deficits in the Arab world today—and one which the highly publicized United Nations Arab Human Development Reports have so far failed to mention—is the staggering absence of young voices on the intellectual scene and in the public debate concerning societal and political reform. This is perhaps the starkest manifestation of the “knowledge gap or deficit” referred to in the reports, issued annually by the United Nations Development Program to monitor socioeconomic and political conditions in the Arab states. Arab countries, it seems, have somehow ceased to produce intellectuals—artists, novelists, poets, and political and social analysts—who could navigate new courses and harness popular sentiment to help lift their countries out of the morass in which they are mired. Continue reading “Letter from Damascus: Superhighway to Damascus”
Arab Liberals: the last hope for reform
Special to The Daily Star
An interesting phenomenon has been taking place of late: coverage in the international media of the activities of Arab and Muslim terrorists has given way, for a short while at least, to a consideration of Arab liberal intellectuals and activists and their potential role in the longed-for reform process in the Arab world. Continue reading “Arab Liberals: the last hope for reform”
Stuck in the Bottleneck
Tharwa Editorial / Also published in the Daily Star under the title: “Prepare for when the Arab bottle breaks.”
When you are stuck in the neck of a bottle, it doesn’t matter how far you are from the bottom, or how close you come to the edge of freedom. There are no points of no return. As you struggle to free yourself, you can as easily fail and fall as succeed and climb out of the top. For those stuck in the neck, though, the option of not doing anything, of accepting their bondage, seems like the safest bet. But what happens when they realize that an overwhelming force may threaten to break the bottle? What is the safest bet then? Continue reading “Stuck in the Bottleneck”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 