Interviews

In a world that is heavily digitised and thriving in the art of cultural acceptance, there has come a generation of creatives that unapologetically express their love for culture...

In ancient mythology it was believed that salamanders are born from fire. No metaphor would be more fitting for the Lebanese artists who need to rise from the ashes...

Our interview with the Director of Seville Mosque Foundation, Ibrahim Hernandez

Art communicates across every border and culture. Visual art is open and ambiguous, and allows imaginations to wander in time and space. Through London-based artist Alaa Alsaraji, they even...

December 1960. In most of Algeria's largest cities, a vast uprising of the "natives" shook the French colonial power. This revolutionary impulse turned the "Algerian people" into a decisive...

The Austrian capital, Vienna, is recovering slowly from the trauma of the deadly gun attack near a synagogue on Monday 2 November by a gunman of Macedonian origin. Kujtim...

Our interview with Roua Naboulsi of the London Palestine Film Festival

China's decades-long abuse of Uyghurs Muslims is now well known, with satellite pictures of detention camps circulating along with the desperate testimonies of former inmates and their families, a...

Our interview with Prof Salman Sayyid

Following the sounds and rhythms of the ney (a flute made out of sugarcane), Cadence of the Valley takes us to Jordan following the journey of Dawood and his...

Our interview with Lebanese journalist Zahra Hankir

The infrastructure of the Israeli occupation of Palestine is designed to have a negative impact on the lives of Palestinians, and it does. The dire situation has been compounded...

Maya Husseini's entire life's work shattered in the Beirut blast which devastated the Lebanese capital on 4 August 2020

In August, a friend of mine with kidney failure delegated me to take his car and represent him before the official authorities at the Palestinian Ministry of Transport and...

Our interview with British journalist and author Victoria Brittain about her book 'Love and Resistance in the Films of Mai Masri'

Watch our interview with Palestinian-American businesswoman, artist and writer Wafa Ghnaim about traditional Palestinian embroidery

Israel's peace deals with Gulf states did not come as a surprise to many, especially not pro-democracy Palestinian activist Iyad El-Baghdadi. "We knew they were going to try to...

Lebanese-British man Eddie El-Lamaa cycled from London to Beirut to raise money for the Lebanese Red Cross after the Beirut blast

On 27 September, Egypt's public prosecution ordered that 79 children detained since the start of the demonstrations be released. All the children were aged between 10 and 15 and...

Although it is quite normal in many places today, Fatima Hussein is the first Palestinian Muslim woman to be nominated as a candidate in a Brazilian municipal council election....

Our interview with UK-based Kurdish writer Dana Nawzar

What did you do in Algeria, Daddy? is the title of a new book by historian Raphaëlle Branche, and the essence of the question runs throughout the text. She...

A lot can be told through people's sense of style, the outfits they wear and how they express themselves through fashion. But in many cultures it is not just...

"It was one humiliation too many," is how artist Nadia Khiari recalls the speech of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on 13 January 2011, following the street...

Our interview with Palestinian-American children's author and Palestine Book Awards nominee for 2020 Rifk Ebeid

On Friday 25 September Amr Abn Hashad went to the Egyptian consulate in Istanbul for his tawkeel, or power of attorney. They gave him a receipt and asked him to...

Turkey's 21st-century geopolitical strategy is called the Blue Homeland. It is the brainchild of retired Rear Admiral Cem Gurdeniz, who talked to MEMO about Turkey's eastern Mediterranean policy, which...

"Just like the seasons of the Earth, there is a time and place for everything," says Lebanese artist Zena El-Khalil. "Winter has the tendency to create the most amount...

Sarah Hunaidi, a Syrian feminist and human rights activist, spoke exclusively to MEMO about the Syrian uprising, revolution and civil war, as well as the politics of the Druze community.

Sudan's struggling economy and healthcare sector, already crippled by the coronavirus pandemic, have been pushed to their limits in recent weeks as devastating floods, the worst in nearly a...

On 25 October, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah will begin his 37th year as a prisoner. This communist activist and resistance hero of the Palestinian cause has been imprisoned in Lannemezan,...

The explosion in Beirut last month could not have come at a worse time for children and families. In a country that is already under enormous economic and social...