Looking Back: My Experience in the West Bank

Regarding those meetings with other organizations, quite often I would head to a meeting and find a foreigner, usually from a Western nation who had just arrived in the West Bank, but would be the “knowledgeable” resource person I was supposed to look for to gain insight into the current situation. I sat with one expert lauded by a previous team for her knowledge on local communities only to be told by those in said local communities that she barely interacted with them and kept a ‘healthy’ distance when it came to village visits. Yet these “gatekeepers” are deemed better resource persons than the people they supposedly represent.

AnthropologyRobin AsburyOctober 29, 2017english, palestine, Palestine

Afghanistan: A Personal History

We're Afghans - we've been killing colonizers since our history began. Not only that, we've been taking down their empires with them.

History, PoliticsMohammed Harun ArsalaiOctober 1, 2017Afghanistan

Harbingers of Conformity: Jinn in Anecdotes

Stories of jinn and especially possession by jinn serve to quell spiritual and social aberration amongst believers by reinforcing authority of religious doctrine.

Anthropology, ReligionRobin AsburyJuly 30, 2017Phillipines

Meranao Women Speak: Islam as Resistance to Forced Marriage

Although major media outlets tend to portray Islam as a hindrance to women’s emancipation, to these women, Islam offers them agency that their local culture denies.

Anthropology, ReligionRobin AsburyJune 4, 2017Islam, Phillipines

Temer is Fora: Corruption and Memes More Effective in Bringing Down Regimes than Slogans and Protest?

The grim reality is that it wasn’t #ForaTemer or popular action which took down a corrupt president, but the greed of a businessman. Some question why the media empire Globo, which had supported Temer’s presidency and ignored all opposition, took a major political U-turn on May 17th, with the National News’ main newscaster and editor William Bonner (pronounced ‘Bó-ner’) already calling him the ‘ex’-president. Some just call it a political bet, but some say that it’s a great scheme to keep the Temer’s right-wing policies in place with a new face.

Politics Maïra Al-ManzaliMay 23, 2017Brazil

Notes from an Anarchist About the Iranian Election

Just like in the recent French elections, it is irresponsible to abstain from voting when faced with a choice between a predictably non-ideological technocratic candidate and a vociferously belligerent conservatism. Those at the receiving end of state violence do not have the luxury to hold their breath until bohemian intellectuals establish their global mutualist anarcho-syndicalist ecotopia.

PoliticsAshegh AshayeriMay 18, 2017iran

Between Ignorance and Malice: ‘Anti-Establishment’ Journalism on Afghanistan

After four decades of violence and 16 years into the current US led War on Terror - Afghans are used to being sidelined and ignored while their homeland continues to be used as a testing ground by the world's super powers and terrorist organizations alike.

PoliticsMohammed Harun ArsalaiMay 10, 2017Journalism, Afghanistan

#ForaTemer: Some Anthropological Notes on Credos and Carnaval

To the exclusion of the unconvinced, the lefty heil serves as a way of ensuring everyone in the room is on the same page. I say Fora Temer, you say Fora Temer: we thus recognize our mutual cool leftiness and can be friends.

Politics Maïra Al-ManzaliMarch 5, 2017Brazil

You Seen That Post-Truth They Have Now? Or Why I Don't Laugh at ‘Alternative Fact’ Jokes

We can thank enterprising Dutchman Peter Minuit who ‘bought’ the isle of Manhattan from its inhabitants in 1626, for setting the going rate for white folks’ truth: a few bales of cloth and a handful of beads.

Politics, HistoryEfe LeventFebruary 24, 2017post-truth, alternative facts, brexit, trum, erdogan, ataturk

Orientalism and the Iranian Nuclear Negotiations

What we need are forms of organizing which exceed and override the nation-state, state-violence, warfare, imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, colonialism and so forth. These are the issues that the nuclear negotiation cannot, nor desires, to take into consideration.

PoliticsGoogie ZweigFebruary 7, 2017Iran, Trump, Nuclear Disarmement

They who did not participate have no honour

At 7:30PM it was already getting dark. Since we lived in the area, we just had to leave our houses. We had hidden the masks on the route on the side of a church and we had written slogans on the wall like, “May the regime fall,” “Freedom,” and “Free Syria.”

Politics, Arab Spring-January 15, 2017Syria, Aleppo

On the possibility of a Rainbow

The location was beyond gorgeous: purple turquoise mountains, enormous dragonflies, caterpillar-scorpions, and not a village in sight. Yet from the start, Lioness knew something was wrong: the ground was covered in bullet shells.

Culture, Music Maïra Al-ManzaliJanuary 6, 2017Jordan