A review of 66 Minutes in Damascus, first published in The Arab Review The hood smells like cigarettes and old sweat, its blackness tempered by the sliver of light coming through its frayed seams. I can hear my heart thumping in my chest and feel the cold, rough surface of the wall in front of … Continue reading »
An interview on the role of social media in the Syrian protests. Continue reading »
How the unexpected taste of a sweet lemon opened my eyes to the richness and opportunities of London life. Continue reading »
In October 2011, seven months into the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, President Bashar al-Assad warned western powers that they risked provoking an “earthquake” that would “burn” the entire Middle East region if they attempted an intervention in Syria. His words were widely dismissed by critics as scare-mongering, and activist groups accused the … Continue reading »
This is a post I wrote for the New Statesman’s Staggers blog On Monday evening last week, Tom MacMasters, a 40-year-old Middle East activist studying for a masters at Edinburgh University wrote a post on the homepage of the fictional blog about a lesbian Syrian woman he had been maintaining since February claiming that “Amina … Continue reading »
