Cyberactivism and the Arab Revolt: Battles Waged Online and Lessons Learned
The Middle East Institute is proud to host digital media experts Adel Iskandar and Courtney Radsch for a discussion on the nature of the cyberactivism that is fueling the uprisings spreading throughout the Middle East. Iskandar will examine the battle in Egypt between the government and the protesters to control online discourse, analyzing the obstacles and the successes.
A New Paradigm of Educational Borrowing in the Gulf States: The Qatari Example
More than in any other world region, the Arab Gulf states are experiencing a “higher education boom” in terms of the quantity and quality of institutions and programs now available. Over the past two decades, the Gulf states have imported a Western, largely American, model of higher education to address inefficiencies in labor markets and invest in their economic futures, to meet national reform agendas, and in some cases, to function as profit-making ventures.
Introduction to The State of the Arts in the Middle East: Volume VI: Creative Arab Women
Creative Arab Women is the sixth edition of the MEI Viewpoints series on the State of the Arts in the Middle East. The 14 essays in this collection offer a glimpse into the rich and varied cultural output of Arab women in the region and the diaspora. Partly reminiscences and partly calls to action, they are essays of survival and empowerment that add a deeply personal dimension to the subject of the role of Arab women as cultural producers. MEI is grateful to Dr.
Over the past decade, migration to the wealthy states of the Arabian Peninsula has emerged as an increasingly central facet of scholarly attention to the region. This attention has resulted in the exponential expansion of our collective knowledge, and the near future promises even more nuanced and microcosmic analyses as recent and current fieldwork in the region bears fruit. Nevertheless, there has been little discussion of the “labor camps” in which many of the unskilled migrants dwell during their sojourn in the Gulf states.
Liberal Enclaves: A Royal Attempt to Bypass Clerical Power
Within the first months of ‘Abdullah’s term as King, the Saudi government pursued a number of policies to improve the Kingdom’s economic profile. Saudi Arabia became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the limits were raised on foreign stakes in sectors such as banking, telecommunications services, wholesale, retail, and franchising. These reforms were intended to answer the economic priorities of diversifying from dependence on oil revenues, finding jobs for young Saudis, and opening up foreign investment.
Even Saudi film production has revived recently, following the move of Saudi Television empires such as Rotana and ART to cinematic production. This comes after more than two decades of suppression by conservative Islamist groups who prohibited film screenings to Saudi citizens. In 2005, the Kingdom saw the opening of the first movie theatre in Riyadh, followed by the release of a couple of Saudi films with Saudi actors. The first Saudi production was Zelal Assamt (2006), followed by the film Keif al Hal.
It was in the summer of 1979 that Islam in Saudi Arabia became all about women. At the urging of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Baz, then chair of the Department of Religious Guidance, Legal Rulings, and Propagation of the Faith, Interior Minister Prince Nayf sent a letter to government offices asking for cooperation in curbing practices offensive to Islamic principles. At the top of the list of condemnable behaviors were unsuitably dressed foreign women shopping or eating out in public.
Saudi Arabia always has been a tough neighborhood for religious minorities. This has been especially true for the Kingdom’s Shi‘ites, the country’s largest minority, with almost two million of them living in the oil-rich Eastern Province. From early in the 20th century, Shi‘ites have been the targets of scorn and opprobrium, much of it with the official blessing of the Saudi rulers. The origins of anti-Shi‘ite enmity are hardly a mystery.
Though the Saudi royal family still rules the realm, they have initiated a number of reforms over the past 30 years. Some of these reforms have been bolder and more successful than others. Some have been doomed from the very start — a few, perhaps, were intended to be stillborn. Judicial reform is one of the most recent and potentially one of the most important reform initiatives undertaken in the Kingdom.
