The World in a Speck of Dust

by On Barak In the autobiographical novel The Cairo House, the Egyptian-American author Samia Serageldin recalls her desire for the world outside Egypt, “a world in which you did not constantly lose the battle against dust and baksheesh.” In another work, Out of Egypt, André Aciman also expresses disgust with post-1952 Egypt, where “there are too many vagrants, too much [...]

Walking through History: Individual Identity, Directions, and Common Knowledge in Egypt

By Roger Owen Long ago—sometime in the 1970s—I went looking for the Cairo offices of a charity: al-Jeel. Started and run by a charismatic Egyptian student leader, Ahmed Abdulla, whom I had come to know while he was taking political refuge in Britain a few years earlier, it was located in the Ain al-Sira quarter of the city. This quarter [...]

The Criminalization of Hashish Consumption in the Middle East

by Liat Kozma   The debate over the legalization of cannabis refuses to die out. In Israel, as in other countries, individuals, organizations, and political parties are taking action to legalize cannabis. But why is cannabis illegal, while other psychotropic substances such as alcohol, nicotine, and coffee are tolerated? The familiar explanations are drawn from the American historical context. One explanation [...]