Zapatistas ‘invade’ Madrid to mark Spanish conquest anniversary
AL JAZEERA (13/8/2021) In the summer of 1521, Spanish conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes looted and destroyed the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Today, 500 years later, Mexico’s indigenous Zapatistas are holding their own “invasion” of the Spanish capital to mark the anniversary. A delegation of seven Zapatistas set out by boat from Mexico’s most eastern […]
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How the world’s oldest masks tell a story of Palestinian dispossession
MIDDLE EAST EYE (18.5.2021) When a British missionary rode through al-Ram in 1881 asking for antiquities, residents of the Palestinian village tried to stop him from taking the local treasures. Armed with guns, a group of men confronted him and refused to let him take the village’s ancient stone mask. At least, this is how […]
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Inside a new feminist platform that dares to be funny
MIDDLE EAST EYE (5/11/2020) Surrounded by books on feminism and portraits of women’s rights activists, Maria Elayan, the star of a new web-video series, holds up an illustration of human evolution to the camera, where Beyoncé represents the most evolved form of the homo sapiens. “There is not even one image that shows the evolution […]
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Meet Qahera, the Muslim superheroine fighting bigots instead of comic book villains
WASHINGTON POST/THE LILY (22/6/2020) “I can hear it! The sound of … misogynistic trash!” says Qahera. Carrying a sword as sharp as her wit and wearing a veil that is sometimes used to conceal her identity, the Muslim superheroine is out to fight against injustice. Her “super hearing” helps her detect misogynists, but also racists […]
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The Portuguese rediscovering their country’s Muslim past
AL JAZEERA (10/6/2020) When 33-year-old Mustafa Abdulsattar arrived in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, four years ago, something struck him as familiar: many Portuguese words sounded like Arabic. After fleeing war in his native Iraq, Abdulsattar had risked his life on a perilous boat trip from Turkey to Greece. Once in Greece, he was offered resettlement in […]
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Detained in Jordan for disobeying men, girls use art to tell their stories
OPENDEMOCRACY (21/5/2020) Madeleine is seventeen and dreams of being a chef. But her ambitions have been curtailed. She is behind bars in a juvenile detention centre in Jordan, waiting to be released into the care of a male family member. “This is the story of a girl in prison: me,” wrote Shahed, another teenage girl […]
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How a country in lockdown celebrates freedom
CSMONITOR (24/4/2020) For the past four decades, Col. Vasco Lourenço has spent every April 25 on the streets of Lisbon celebrating Freedom Day. This year will be different. There will be no parades, no concerts, no crowds walking down Freedom Avenue carrying red carnations. In 1974, Colonel Lourenço was one of the young Portuguese officers […]
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‘Muslims were not foreigners’: Why don’t Portugal’s restitution laws include everyone?
THE NATIONAL (31/3/2020) Mouraria, a trendy neighbourhood in Lisbon’s city centre, still bears the name of its former inhabitants, the Moors – Muslims who lived in the Iberian Peninsula in modern Spain and Portugal, and once walked its maze of narrow and winding streets and tightly packed alleys. Next to Mouraria stands Alfama – from […]
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Os muçulmanos que Portugal expulsou e esqueceu
EXPRESSO (1/2/2020) Brafame Gordo e o seu irmão Galebo partiram do Alentejo tão contrariados que chegaram mesmo a pedir autorização ao rei para os deixar regressar. Numa petição dirigida à coroa portuguesa (hoje guardada na Torre do Tombo) dão o nome de três cristãos seus vizinhos em Elvas, que poderiam fornecer recomendações, e pedem para […]
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For these Syrian artists, humor is essential to coping with oppression and war
WASHINGTON POST (14/1/2019) When they hear shelling outside their apartment in Damascus, close to the front line, Rand and Hala start to laugh. They were just talking about artillery. “Rand called a bomb and it came immediately,” jokes Hala. “Call God,” she tells her friend. “But God won’t come,” she continues, as they keep laughing. […]
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