Month: August 2016

If we were to sit back, put aside everything we had learnt, all the ideas that were passed down to us from one generation to another, what would we make of the meaning of marriage? By definition, marriage is the union between a man and a woman as partners in a lifetime-committed relationship. And if we were to add bits and pieces of the meaning of marriage in our society, we would start to understand the cultural lines that bound us and perhaps start to unravel the potentially problematic features…

When I first moved to the Middle East, to Egypt in September 2010, the talk on the street was of despair. The government of Mubarak was presiding over a state of national self-hate and humiliation. No rights. No jobs. No prospects. No transparency. No respect. The politics of the mini-cab driver – naturally, the heartbeat of any society – was one of hopelessness. At least, that’s what they chose to talk to me about, a foreigner in their land. The ridiculousness of the situation in Egypt was emphasised when the…