Zeid Hamdan: the Power of Music in Love & Politics
Credits: Zeid Hamdan playing his guitar – Photo Courtesy of Sachyn Mital Foreword: I met Zeid Hamdan by pure coincidence as I was volunteering at a French music festival in Paris. Looking at the line-up, I noticed a Middle Eastern duo called Bedouin Burger and after researching them, discovered that the musician Zeid Hamdan, was […]
The Three Stooges – Escapism, Hedonism, and the Lebanese Nightlife
Credits: Light shining on rock formations during Resonate by The Ballroom Blitz, The first 2 day solo outdoor festival. Feytroun, Lebanon, 2022. Photo Courtesy of Stephani Moukhaiber. Feytroun, Lebanon, Summer 2022. Somewhere in between the region’s most amazing rock formations with mere hours separating us from sunrise, an arm extended itself over the […]
Married Women & Registry Records in Lebanon: A Tale of Forced Submission
Credits: Photo Courtesy of Emma Jowdy I was always seeking love. I followed it the way a sunflower followed the sun. When I found it, I held it tight, the way a toddler hangs to his mother’s skirt. I fought all odds for it and to live a life true to myself. My love […]
Mental Health & Economic Performance in a Crisis-marred Lebanon
I turn on my laptop to write, blank head, I turn it off. Turn it on again, I forget what I want to write about, I turn it off. Third time’s a charm, right? Not in Lebanon. Third time, there’s no electricity, no Wi-Fi, no patience anymore. Deadline is approaching, anxiety kicks in. […]
Escapism in Lebanon: Placing a Band-aid on a Bullet Wound
“It’s only in the loudest moments that we hear the silenced screams of our soul.” Perhaps the best way to silence an intense psychological pain is to surround ourselves with a much louder noise, an external noise. A noise so loud and capable of silencing the bitter reality of what it means to be Lebanese […]
Rasha Hamade: Two Years With Grief
“Since August 4th, 2020, 6:07 pm, no survivor of the Beirut blastperceives life the same way they did before. I find it therapeutic to create and live this continuous grief next to others who share similar yet contrasting experiences. I gathered the experiences of survivors living in Lebanon or part of the diaspora and channeled […]
Fann w Fenjen: Yasmine Darwiche
Gender Equality and Nutrition: Women’s Empowerment as a Tool Against Malnutrition in the Middle East
Preserving Beirut Through Dia Mrad’s Lens
Can Lebanon’s Winds of Change Extend to Prison Reform?: A Discussion with “Second Wind” Directors Nessim Stevenson and Tariq Keblaoui
Foreword: In a fabric of collapsing infrastructures, the daily challenges endured by former prison inmates in Lebanon often go untold. Many inmates charged with nonviolent crimes are indiscriminately housed in overcrowded prisons across the country for durations that far exceed their sentences due to significant delays to the tribunal process. Even after their release, former […]