Big Tech’s Partnership with Authoritarianism

A perspective on the role of major tech corporations in fueling repression.

Marc Owen Jones • 7 min read

Current Analysis

Major Labels

Rethinking Egyptian history through sound.

Christopher Silver • 9 min read

MER Article

Masdar City 2020

In February 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 lockdowns, I visited Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I had not been there in five years.

Gökçe Günel • 4 min read

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