Can Governments Advance Trade in a Fragmented World?
HR Dr Oleksandr Balanutsa, Ambassador of Ukraine to the UAE, discusses the UAE-Ukraine Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
West Asia and North Africa, a geographic region more commonly referred to as the ‘Middle East’, a British colonial term, is witnessing unprecedented waves of change and transformation. International scholarship surrounding West Asia and North Africa has predominantly been shaped by Orientalist frameworks and has overlooked the region’s diverse social, political, economic, religious, and cultural fabric.
Fiker Institute’s West Asia and North Africa Program aims to decolonize narratives surrounding this region, and to advance scholarship that highlights the nuances of its local contexts.
Majid Magazine: Identity & Collective Memory
In 1979, the first issue of Majid Magazine, one of the oldest publications for children in the Arab world, was published in Abu Dhabi. Majid Magazine rapidly spread across the Arab world and contributed to forming a shared pan-Arab identity through its characters and themes.
Ideology & Integration in Inaam Kachachi’s Sayf Siwisri
In Inaam Kachachi’s Sayf Siwisri, a newly developed Swiss medicine, which is referred to as “bonbon”, can cure people from the deadliest disease of all—ideology. Kachachi’s novel is an exploration of forced migration, fundamentalism and its origins, cultural identity, and the lasting effects of colonization on the human psyche. At its essence, Sayf Siwisri asks what it means to be accepted and integrated, and where the blame lies in systemic trauma.
On Afaf Zurayk: The Supremacy of Light & Silence
Afaf Zurayk is one of the last figures of a generation of prominent Lebanese women artists who emerged in the 1960s–70s, when Beirut was an epicenter of art and creativity. Zurayk’s work and the artist’s life is a testament to resilience and the power of art in the face of adversity.
The Allure of the Seas in Kuwaiti Cinema & Literature
In 1938, Australian writer Alan Villiers traveled to the Gulf to document what he believed to be the last days of Arab sailing traditions. The neglect of Villiers’ account in academic research highlights how the Gulf’s cultural isolation is related to a deeper Orientalist structure of thought that overlooks the sea in its portrayal of the Arabian Peninsula. This Essay examines the legacies of Villiers’ work in the early history of Kuwaiti cinema and its preoccupation with the sea, pearl-diving, and pre-oil economic class distinctions to show what gives the seas such an allure in Kuwaiti film and literature.
Reading Edward Said Today: Syria & the Orientalist Rhetoric
Forty-seven years have passed since Edward Said published his masterpiece Orientalism in 1978, and his ideas remain pertinent to the understanding of the contemporary regional context and how it is both perceived and portrayed. This Essay aims to contextualize Orientalism within the current political moments, focusing on the case of contemporary Syria, as a striking example of Orientalist imperial and colonial legacies, totalitarian history, and post-conflict dynamics, and the continued manipulation of Orientalist discourses as tools of control.