Current Analysis A Web Smaller Than a Divide At first glance, there’s a clear need for expanding the Web beyond the Latin alphabet, including in the Arabic-speaking world. According to the Madar Research Group, about 56 million Arabs, or 17 percent of the Arab world, use the Internet, and those numbers are expected to grow 50 percent over the Sinan Antoon • 2 min read
MER Article Young Brothers in Cyberspace In September 2007, the Society of Muslim Brothers, Egypt’s largest organized political force, released a draft political party platform to a select group of around 50 Egyptian intellectuals. The response was scathing. Planks such as those advocating formation of a “higher council” of religious scholars with what looked like Marc Lynch • 24 min read
MER Article Bedouins, Cassettes and Technologies of Public Culture Discotheques and taxicabs all over Egypt last January were playing the songs of a new pop star. No one knew exactly where “the Earthquake of ’88” (his biographer’s term) had come from, but everyone seemed to think Ali Hemida was a Bedouin. Some said he came from Sinai; others said Libya. His music w Lila Abu-Lughod • 16 min read
