Defying Baghdad’s violence, volunteers are re-opening the city’s historic theatre

by Nazli Tarzi  This article first appeared in Niqash and has been republished here with their permission. In Baghdad’s Salihiya neighbourhood, a group of volunteers are staging a different kind of protest. They have cleaned up a deserted theatre and started performances there again. Rows of empty seats coated in dust are the first thing… Read More

Review: Arab Christmas “Christians have been part of Gaza’s fabric since time immemorial”

by Hamja Ahsan    It is a Friday night and I am inside the Rich Mix, a venue at the foot of East London’s Brick Lane, where three musical acts organised by Arts Canteen transport me into a Byzantine Temple, during Queen Zanubia’s reign of Palmyra in Iraq and Syria (269CE). The venue is where… Read More

Too Black to be Arab, too Arab to be Black

by Leena Habiballa Within every Sudanese diasporan is an unceasing internal dialogue about where we fit in the dominant racial order. Sudan is one of the most ethnically, culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse places on the African continent. It was also home to some of the most ancient civilisations in African memory. But today it… Read More