MER Article Taking Out the Trash On February 12, 2011, thousands of Egyptians flooded Tahrir Square to celebrate the previous night’s ouster of Husni Mubarak, their country’s dictator of 30 years. It was an unusually bright and clear-skied Cairo Saturday, full of promise of a new Egypt. From atop the October 6 bridge that spans the Jessica Winegar • 8 min read
Current Analysis Algeria's Midwinter Uproar Soon after the onset of protests which eventually toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, a wave of riots swept through Algeria as well, with many neighborhoods in the capital of Algiers and dozens of smaller cities overwhelmed by thousands of angry young men who closed down streets with burning Jack Brown • 10 min read
MER Article Paradise Lost, Gone Shopping Shahram Khosravi, Young and Defiant in Tehran (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Norma Claire Moruzzi • 6 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 Sanctioned Pleasures Beirut is known internationally for a youthful jet set that likes to be identified with the world clubbing circuit, including such stops as B018, an underground nocturnal haunt reminiscent of a coffin built by Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury upon the remains of a war crime. Lara Deeb, Mona Harb • 23 min read
MER Article Imagined Youths Youth -- what is it? The notion tends to be taken for granted, as a natural stage in human development. But, in fact, “youth” is a socially and culturally determined category, a transitional phase between childhood and adulthood that, in its contemporary form, is a product of modernity. In the Ted Swedenburg • 15 min read
MER Article Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire In evaluating women’s position in the contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran, it is important to look at the social, as opposed to the legal, aspects of citizenship. In the decades following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranian society has become resolutely more modern, despite the public face of Norma Claire Moruzzi, Fatemeh Sadeghi • 12 min read
MER Article Doing Time in the Theater of Occupation The photograph fetched from a back room in the narrow two-story house on the edge of Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp shows a precociously handsome adolescent, posing in a baseball cap and sports jacket against a faux backdrop of the Versailles palace gardens. A kaffiyya is tucked around his neck; his Peter Lagerquist • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Fight for Iran's Democratic Ideals Over the weekend thousands of Iranian students continued their protests to demand political reform. Their voices were raised in support of Hashem Aghajari, the college professor who has been sentenced to death for blasphemy. But the student movement is broader than dissent over one injustice. Saeed Razavi-Faqih, Ian Urbina • 2 min read
MER Article Liberating Arnoun This interview with student activist Hassan Marwany was conducted, transcribed and translated by Marlin Dick of The Daily Star in May 1999. The initial spark for the liberation of Arnoun was a candlelight vigil and march from St. Joseph’s University to UN House in central Beirut, organized by the T Marlin Dick • 3 min read
MER Article Moroccan Youth, Sex and Islam According to official statistics from Morocco’s Ministry of Public Health, from the beginning of the AlDS pandemic to 1997, 450 cases of HIV infection had been recorded in the country. At the same time, a minimum of 100,000 new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as syphilis, gonorrhe Abdessamad Dialmy • 7 min read
MER Article The Romance of Tahliyya Street For middle and upper class elite, entertainment in Jidda is overwhelmingly centered around commodities. In particular, the city’s Tahliyya Street is a monument to commercialization in Saudi Arabia: a string of shops and fast food restaurants such as Benetton, Esprit, McDonald’s and Sbarro, mixed in Lisa Wynn • 6 min read
