“Try It Once More:” Muscat’s Diplomatic Tightrope Act
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The Sultanate of Oman’s economy is driven by oil, but seafaring has always been the original industry: at its peak, the Omani trade empire spanned the Persian Gulf, southern Iran, Pakistan, and East Africa. Today, Oman is in the process of re-asserting its maritime prowess in the realm of diplomacy, trade, and security, with
A Mysterious Disappearance at Cedros Island
About the Author Living and traveling on a sailboat is often about suffering gracefully and making good decisions in bad situations. I think that’s part of the reason I choose to sail the coasts of Latin America and the Caribbean. My partner Josh and I get to share the challenges of a seabound experience with
Cairo Art Crime: George Bahgory and the Missing Pieces
July 11, 2015 A source in Beirut tipped me off. Somebody had stolen paintings—two hundred paintings—from Egyptian artist George Bahgory. Five months earlier, I attended the opening of Bahgory’s retrospective. Scores of elegant Cairenes crunched toast with black caviar. They roamed through six rooms of paintings, gazing at six decades of work. In the main
How Long is Now? Lagos’ fast-evolving architectural landscape
LAGOS, Nigeria – May 1st, International Labor Day, was a public holiday in Nigeria. In Lagos Island, partying police officers were sprawled in plastic chairs beneath an overpass next to the stadium. Vendors hawking cigarettes and beer lined the curb and called to passengers in the bright orange buses inching past the revelers. Past the
A Parking Garage in the Square
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Based in Cairo, I am examining media and visual culture in Egypt and across the Middle East. I have researched comics and satire in the region since 2012. Spending long evenings with cartoonists grappling with the aftermath of the revolution, I discovered that pop culture captures significant and subversive narratives that are
Burkina Faso’s Gay Rights Debate: What Role for Foreign Voices?
An aide would later say that the whole exchange happened “very quickly.” On the morning of Feb. 23, 2015, Tulinabo S. Mushingi, the American ambassador to Burkina Faso, met with Chérif Sy, who is heading the country’s interim parliament in the run-up to elections following the toppling of President Blaise Compaoré last year. According to
Migration Crisis in Spain: Where are the Xenophobes?
June 2015 Pilar was 24 years old when she and her husband decided to go to France, to work as agricultural laborers on a farm owned by a wealthy Frenchman in 1955. Born in Albuñuelas, a tiny pueblo of 5000 people an hour north of Granada, Pilar knew what it was to live frugally. Both
The Battle Over the Córdoba Mosque-Cathedral and Spanish Identity
May 2015 The first time I saw the Córdoba Mosque-Cathedral was during a vacation to Spain. I remember walking into the building, and feeling a sense of awe as I stared up at the rows of striped arches, dimly lit by elegant brass lamps. Nestled in the heart of the mosque is a cathedral bathed
The Revolutionary Tour Guides of Burkina Faso
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso – On Nov. 1, 2014, the day after Blaise Compaoré resigned as Burkina Faso’s president and fled the capital in a convoy, abruptly ending his nearly three-decade hold on power, a 40-year-old man named Prosper looked on as an opposition lawmaker exulted over the autocrat’s hasty departure while giving a radio interview
Talk That Talk: On Narratives and Elections in Lagos
LAGOS, Nigeria–Election day dawned cloudy and cool in Lagos; an odd tranquility filtered through my window. I heard birds, and the wind, rather than the normal honking and hawking—the ambient sounds that permeate the air here, fueling what seems to be endemic insomnia among its residents. The silence was particularly notable after the clamor