Current Analysis McJihad, the Film The themes of Adam Curtis’ new documentary Bitter Lake [http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake] should be well known to those familiar with his body of work: power, techno-politics, science, managerialism and the media. The film uses the contemporary history of Afghani Jacob Mundy • 13 min read
Current Analysis Seven Questions for Ammar Basha Ammar Basha is a Yemeni filmmaker. His documentary films include Breaking the Silence [http://womensvoicesnow.org/watchfilm/breaking_the_silence1], about the discrimination faced by working women of African descent in Yemen, and a series called Days in the Heart of the Revolution, about the 2011 Yem Sheila Carapico • 6 min read
Current Analysis The First International Yemeni Film and Arts Festival March 18 was the third anniversary of what Yemeni “peaceful youth [http://merip.org/mer/mer269/demonstrators-dialogues-drones-dialectics]” call the Jum‘at al-Karama massacre, the day in 2011 when snipers opened fire on Friday of Dignity protesters in the space they had begun to call Midan al-Taghyir Annelle Sheline • 3 min read
Current Analysis A Darkly Intimate Thriller The first time I watched Omar [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2852406/], the latest Oscar-nominated work [http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/paradise-nows-understated-power] by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009463/?ref_=tt_ov_dr], I nearly leapt out of my seat as Max Weiss • 3 min read
Current Analysis Viral Occupation When Israeli security forces arrived in the middle of the night at the Tamimi house in Nabi Salih, the occupied West Bank, the family was already in bed. The raid was not unexpected, as news had traveled around the village on that day in January 2011: Soldiers were coming to houses at night, demandi Rebecca L. Stein • 13 min read
Current Analysis Argo and the Roots of US-Iranian Tensions The box-office hit Argo brings back long-faded memories of the Iran hostage crisis for many Americans. News in November 1979 that US diplomats had been taken hostage in Tehran shocked the United States. Students stormed the US embassy, blindfolding 52 Americans and threatening them at gunpoint. The Narges Bajoghli • 3 min read
MER Article Culture, State and Revolution The Arab uprisings have brought major challenges, as well as unprecedented opportunities, to the culture industries. According to a flurry of celebratory news articles from the spring of 2011 onward, protest art is proliferating in the region, from graffiti in Egypt to hip-hop in Morocco to massive Sonali Pahwa, Jessica Winegar • 15 min read
Current Analysis Art in Egypt's Revolutionary Square On January 7, under a clear chill sky, the monthly culture festival al-Fann Midan (Art Is a Square) took place in Cairo’s ‘Abdin plaza. In the sunny esplanade facing the shuttered former royal palace, spectators cheered a succession of musical acts, took in a display of cartoons and caricatures, and Ursula Lindsey • 12 min read
Current Analysis The Race Is On “We are so racially profiled now, as a group,” the Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah says in his routine, “that I heard a correspondent on CNN not too long ago say the expression, ‘Arabs are the new blacks.’ That Arabs are the new blacks.” Obeidallah continues: Moustafa Bayoumi • 32 min read
Current Analysis Shooting Film and Crying Waltz with Bashir (2008) opens with a strange and powerful image: a pack of ferocious dogs running headlong through the streets of Tel Aviv, overturning tables and terrifying pedestrians, converging beneath a building’s window to growl at a man standing there. It turns out that this man, Boaz, is an Ursula Lindsey • 12 min read
Current Analysis Reel Casbah To live the East as film is to be in Dubai in mid-December, perched front-row in the outdoor cafés that dot the Madinat Jumeira Oriental theme park. An integrated hotel, shopping and entertainment “experience” sprawled on the city’s booming beachfront rim, the Madina and its whimsy of stucco battlem Jim Quilty, Peter Lagerquist • 25 min read
