Vaguely Middle Eastern News Compilation Contemplation 6/30

Speaking of writing things about the Middle East, a paper of mine was selected for the Middle East Studies Association Undergraduate Research Workshop in Denver this November, so inshallah I can find a way to get funding to actually go! I've been researching Tunisian women's political involvement in the context of the Arab Spring, and will hopefully have the opportunity to clean up and revise what I've done so far.

In other news, there's a lot happening in the world, as per usual. I enjoyed this article by the Washington Post because of its graphics and humanizing of Syrian refugees, though the user interface is sort of annoying, and I feel like they could have included a little more detail and research. It stuck out to me because I followed a very similar route over winter break, when I traveled from Austria to Turkey by land. Reading this article reminded me of the privileges that I have, an American passport and a little disposable income sent me to the same places that these people went through, but I have the luxury of doing it for fun. It also reminds me that I got my passport very thoroughly checked on a train between Hungary and Austria, which normally doesn't happen because it's all Schengen - I wondered about it at the time, and I still do. Maybe they thought I was an illegal immigrant or asylum seeker too... It wouldn't be the first time. 

It has also been a sad week, with a fair few terrorist attacks all over the world. I don't even know if people in the U.S. read about these, so here's a link if you hadn't. The New York Times headlines online right now are all about gay pride and parades and marriage. I'm happy that the Supreme Court made the correct decision, but I don't think marriage is quite as important as dozens of people dying. As a side note, it was a little uncomfortable to read about gunmen killing foreigners at a beach resort before heading off to go be a tourist at a beach resort here. 

Finally, a side note related to the above but also not. Just FYI.

Links Links Links (Vaguely Middle Eastern News Compilation Contemplation 19/6)

I try really hard not to spam Facebook with tons of links to things that are mostly relevant to my studies and not my life (because Facebook is ~all about me~), but sometimes I still want other people to read them, so here goes this week's vaguely Middle Eastern news contemplation:

Firstly, I saw these two articles right next to each other on my newsfeed, and I thought the juxtaposition was interesting. I feel like we're told so often that Israel is an oasis of acceptance in a Middle East full of hate that it's important to note these things too.

I thought the pictures in this article, though not from a particularly reputable news source, were a nice glimpse of hope from Syria, something we don't see too often.

This New York Times editorial (sorry for my future overrepresentation of this source, I have to tell myself it's worth paying for a subscription) caught my attention for the comments on the United States. We're such a large, wealthy country that it's hard to believe we take so few refugees and leave it to Europe and other countries to deal with the problem. Props to the State Department for trying though!

I enjoyed this video because it's in Arabic (woo, practice all the time!) and also because it's about women's involvement in politics in Yemen during the Arab Spring. I'm working on a paper on the same thing in Tunisia, and it's interesting to compare the two. I also recently started following Alex Potter, an American photographer in Yemen, on Instagram. I find her inspiring because she's only five or so years older than me and doing war photography in the Middle East, speaks Arabic, and is bringing attention to a situation that the American media tends to overlook. However, I also think I should try harder to find more people to follow and read that are actually from the regions in question. I speak and read (basic) Arabic, and am capable of reading local news sources, the only thing stopping me is laziness - it's so much easier (faster) to just follow Americans and Brits, and read English captions - but it's important to look beyond the Western point of view, especially since I have the capability to do so. I'm sure there are equally good Yemeni photographers, I just have to find them.

Finally, though not really ~Middle Eastern~, in the U.S. some activists are trying to do Ramadan in a more environmentally friendly way, and that makes me happy. The food waste part especially stood out to me, because in Oman it seems like tons of food goes to waste after normal meals, so I can't imagine after Ramadan meals (though I won't have to imagine in like three hours!).