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Maya Mikdashi
The Day Hafez al-Assad Died
![[Father and Sons. Image by amerune/Flickr]](/content_images/3/sm_assads.jpg "[Father and Sons. Image by amerune/Flickr]")
The day Hazfez al Assad died, I was having lunch with a friend. We were eating pasta at a family owned Italian restaurant in Ras Beirut when the news was announced. With everyone else, we stared at the small television. The owner kept changing the channel, and each time the news was confirmed. I don't remember if we finished lunch. But I do remember that when we went outside the streets seemed deserted. Beirut is not a quiet city, but that day it seemed as if sound had ...
Keep Reading »Essential Readings: Reading Lebanon
![[Fifty Lebanese Pounds. Image from Flickr]](/content_images/3/sm_3316203986_c1b590f977_z.jpg "[Fifty Lebanese Pounds. Image from Flickr]")
My dissertation studies intersections and impasses between law and citizenship in Lebanon. I do so through examining two phenomena, activism for a secular personal status and/or civil marriage law, and conversion between sects and/or religions in order to make use of different personal status laws—a practice I call “strategic conversion.” Because of this emphasis on law and citizenship, my project is in conversation with literature on secularism and religion, the ...
Keep Reading »How Not to Study Gender in the Middle East
![[Changes in traditional Sudanese dress. Image by Khaled Albaih]](/content_images/3/sm_large.jpg "[Changes in traditional Sudanese dress. Image by Khaled Albaih]")
One: Gender is not the study of what is evident, it is an analysis of how what is evident came to be. Two: Before resolving to write about gender, sexuality, or any other practice or aspect of subjectivity in the Middle East, one must first define what exactly the object of study is. Be specific. What country, region, and time period forms the background picture of your study? Furthermore, the terms “Middle East,” “the Islamic World” and the “Arab world” do not refer to the ...
Keep Reading »The Uprisings Will be Gendered
![[Protestors in Bahrain; Image From UPI]](/content_images/3/sm_Female-protesters-of-The-Arab-Spring_20.jpg "[Protestors in Bahrain; Image From UPI]")
Women's rights and the regulation of gender and sex norms in the Arab world have long been put under the spotlight by local and international activists in addition to local and international politicians and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This year, the ongoing uprisings in the Arab world have brought into focus some dominant ways that sexual and bodily rights are framed, gendered, and politicized. These can be grouped under three loose themes, each of which deserves ...
Keep Reading »What Is Cultural Terrorism?
![[Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon. Image from the group's Facebook page.]](/content_images/3/sm_Screenshot2012-02-11at5.26.57PM.png "[Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon. Image from the group's Facebook page.]")
As a well disciplined anthropologist I have learned to be weary of the word “culture.” In fact, it is difficult for me to write the word without using scare quotes. But after Lebanese boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists scored an important victory last month, the word has been everywhere in my online universe. Following BDS actions that highlighted Lara Fabian's recent Israeli Independence Day (which marks the Palestinian naqba) performance, Fabian cancelled ...
Keep Reading »Sexual Violence Is A Crime, Sometimes
![[Protest Against Rape Posters; Images by nasawiya.org]](/content_images/3/sm_articlerape.jpg "[Protest Against Rape Posters; Images by nasawiya.org]")
I am against rape. I don't think this is a very controversial position to take. People should not be forced physically or coerced emotionally into having sex. I don't care what the gender makeup of the people in question are, and I don't care what their relationship is. Not everyone agrees with this position. In many countries, sexual consent is an implied provision of a marriage contract. The idea is that when two people get married, they are granted rights to each other's ...
Keep Reading »American Elections Watch 1: Rick Santorum and The Dangers of Theocracy
![[GOP Candidates at New Hampshire Debate; Image from NYTimes.com]](/content_images/3/sm_GOP2.jpg "[GOP Candidates at New Hampshire Debate; Image from NYTimes.com]")
One day after returning to the United States after a trip to Lebanon, I watched the latest Republican Presidential Primary Debate. Unsurprisingly, Iran loomed large in questions related to foreign policy. One by one (with the exception of Ron Paul) the candidates repeated President Obama's demand that Iran not block access to the Strait of Hormuz and allow the shipping of oil across this strategic waterway. Watching them, I was reminded of Israel's demand that Lebanon not ...
Keep Reading »2011, A Memory From Lebanon
![[Children Displaced by War in 2006. Image from electronicintifada.net]](/content_images/3/sm_lebanon-children.jpg "[Children Displaced by War in 2006. Image from electronicintifada.net]")
When the revolutions began in March of 2011, I was envious. It is not easy to admit this. Back then, before the revolutions turned bloody, before Libya and Bahrain and Syria and before the continuation of a military state in Egypt, the possibilities seemed contagious. But even then, while in the fever of January, beneath a desire for revolution, I understood that I would not see a similarly broad based and successful uprising in Lebanon. Watching the swell of people in ...
Keep Reading »Gay Rights as Human Rights: Pinkwashing Homonationalism
![[Tel Aviv Gay Pride. Image From Unknown Archive. Queers Against Apartheid Poster]](/content_images/3/sm_Screenshot2011-12-15at1.48.00PM.png "[Tel Aviv Gay Pride. Image From Unknown Archive. Queers Against Apartheid Poster]")
It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the news that the United States has come out as the global defender of LGBTQ rights. This confusion is not only due to the United States' own record on gay rights, but perhaps more importantly, it is due to the United States' role as the premier imperial power in the world today. After all, while Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged that the United States has an imperfect record of defending and legislating gay ...
Keep Reading »بانتظار علياء
[المقال نشر على موقع جدلية باللغة الإنجليزية وترجمه إلى العربية يوسف حداد] من السهل مشاهدة صور لنساء عاريات أينما نظرنا من حولنا. فصورهن موجودة في كل مكان على مواقع الإنترنت وفي المعارض الفنية وعلى شاشات التلفزة وفي الأفلام السينمائية طبعاً. أما صور النساء ”شبه العاريات“ فهي الأكثر رواجاً. إذ نراها تنتشر على لوحات الإعلانات، في الأغاني المصورة، وفي الدعايات التلفزيونية، حيث تدعونا بجسدها وبنظرات "الإغراء" لشراء المزيد والمزيد. إن صور المرأة العارية و ...
Keep Reading »Bio
Maya Mikdashi is a PhD candidate at Columbia University's Department of Anthropology and Co-Director of the documentary film About Baghdad. She is co-founder of Jadaliyya Ezine.
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