Fieldnotes on Humanity

"All politics is local" is a common phrase in U.S. politics and it only makes sense in the context of the United States and some European countries. When it comes to the Middle Eastern politics, this phrase withers away and becomes meaningless. Probably, nowhere is more diverse and tourist-centered with restaurants and foods from around the world than New York City, specifically Times Square. People from different part of the world like Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe have their businesses and street markets. They keep the city clean, civilized, and always do their best to please their customers. Now, imagine New York City in terms of culture, religion and races, but when it comes to voting, and paying taxes, these differences do not matter. What is important to the citizens of New York City is raising taxes, the job market, education, Wall Street, health care, and many other minor issues on an individual level. At this point, candidates knock on the doors o...

In a country like Saudi Arabia in which media is controlled by the Kingdom, blogs have become an alternative source of news and opinion in recent years. Saudi is ranked second in the Arab world for having the most bloggers, trailing only behind Egypt. According to BBC , the number of Saudi bloggers (both male and female) was between 500-600 in both English and Arabic. Like many other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia is restrictive in its blogosphere. In 2008, Fouad Al-Farhan, a well-known blogger was arrested for his criticism of the government’s corruption and his call for political reform. In 2011, in the wake of uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi government enacted stringent new regulations forcing bloggers to register and obtain government licenses in order to publish online. According to this law , all Saudi news blogs and electronic news sites now must be strictly licensed, and are required to “include the call to the religion of Islam”...

-- Here in a program directed by Riz khan on Al Jazeera, young Palestinians and Israelis face off in a debate about their past, present and future. What do they think about their leaders, and do they think that they will see peace in their lifetime? It seems that to Israeli youth, the pain of Palestinians is not quite understandable. What to blame? Their ignorance? State's manufacturing knowledge and history fed to the youth? How do Israelis learn about their country's history? A country that was built from ashes? Ashes of Palestinians? Who lived there before? What happened to the Palestinians who lived there?  (I assume the same questions apply to settlers of the US, Canada, and Australia. What happened to the indigenous population?) Palestinians have suffered from multiple losses, including losses of territories and also human beings since the formation of Israel in 1948. On the other side, Palestinian youth are complaining about the way they are treated by the Israeli soldie...

Daunting news from Egypt in post-mubarakism surprised the world by jailing a blogger for three years . It shocked people because even in the Mubarak era, jailing bloggers was not as common as these last two months after Mubarak was forced to leave the power. The only and the first case during Mubarak was K areem Amir who was sentenced to 4 years in jail because of allegedly insulting Islam and Husni Mubarak. According to BBC , Maikel Nabil was arrested last month for blog posts where he criticized the role of the Egyptian Army during anti-government uprising. Based AFP , a military court sentenced him to three years in prison. The Maikel Nabil case harks back to Mubarak era; it seems the Army is still remaining in its authoritarian nature and it would likely be hard to expect changes in institutions like the military. It clearly tells us that Egyptian Army does not tolerate criticism and it raises lots of unanswered questions about whether people’s efforts would finally succeed to a...

I have been following the Egyptian uprising closely, and besides blogging I have been tweeting constantly. One would ask why I am so curious and care about Egyptian events, which have seemingly nothing to do with my country. Well, the answer can be anything, particularly including the fact that Egypt is influential on regional level and, more importantly, in Muslim world. It is not clear yet whether these upheavals will put Egypt in a crisis or lead to a prosperous situation However, in any case, changes in Egypt will impact the Muslim world in general and Afghanistan in particular. According to the BBC , since the 1950s, Afghanistan and Egypt have had a long cultural relationship; there has been a formal educational exchange contract between the countries. Since that time, thousands of Afghan students have been sent to Al Azhar University to learn religious subjects. The most obvious impact of Egypt is the birth of the Afghan Muslim Brotherhood party, which was founded by those studen...