Tunisia is well known for its moderate interpretation of Islam. However during the last couple of years, a more conservative interpretation of Islam, or Salafism, has spread widely throughout Tunisian society.
On January 21, 2013, the largest bombing of its kind shook the centre of Salamiyeh, leaving more than 50 people dead and dozens wounded.
From now on, we will remain alert and aware.
The political players (the ones in government and the opposition) should accelerate their efforts today towards reaching consensus and putting Tunisia above everything else.
The risk of violence coming from the radical right in the US is high, and increasing. But it is only the logical consequence of a culture that promotes polarization and overreaction over finding consensus in political and public discourse.
Anyone familiar with the story of language in Elizabethan Ireland can only feel impatience – if not despair – at the latter-day triumphalism of works like Melvyn Bragg’s best-selling The Adventure of English.
Bookshops are places where the rhizome of culture breaks ground, connected beneath the earth but apparently separate on the surface. But in Morocco at least, something dreadful is happening to girls between the age of ten and 20, and leaching away their early literacy.
Is national citizenship still a valid organizational factor in the context of the crisis? A radical re-thinking of political citizenship, based on smaller entities such as Catalonia, Scotland or Flanders, may emerge as a reaction to growing imbalances.
Just as Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been continuously accused of hijacking and jumping on the coattails of the revolution, now the finger is being pointed by activists towards other activists who disagree on what the next course of action should be.
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week: It’s not me, it’s you: a bad Egyptian break-up
Perhaps someone forgot that Rothschild blvd used to be Rehov Ha'Am: The People's Street, before it was renamed after the tycoon, an irony that seemed to come full circle in that humid summer.
Jordan’s parliamentary elections were far from perfect, but a process has commenced that places an important first building block in the reform process.
