Iranian Film -- a window into Iranian culture!
This week, we’re excited to feature two videos -- on Iranian film (above) and Syria -- created by our Euphrates Fellows at Principia College. We’ve also snuck in highlights of thoughtful pieces on Middle East issues published this week by CBS and Foreign Policy that we did not want you to miss!
Iranian film. Despite censorship and other strict controls, Iranian filmmakers continue to produce thoughtful and thought-provoking works -- even winning Best Foreign Film at the this year's Academy Awards. Filmmaker Asghar Farhadi said during his acceptance speech: "At the time when talk of war, intimidation, and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country, Iran, is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics." Watch this video, created by Euphrates Fellow Abbie Steckler, for a brief "what's what" in Iranian film -- and then rent one for yourself!
Syria “News in Brief”: To watch this recent video from our Fellows, click here!
We also want to bring your attention to two media pieces from the past week that have garnered considerable attention, (and controversy!): an article on the war on women in the Middle East, and a piece on the plight of Christians in the Holy Land.
• The most recent Foreign Policy
magazine featured Egyptian-American columnist Mona Eltahawy’s article entitled "Why do they hate us? The real war on women is in the Middle East." Sexually assaulted and injured by Egyptian police last fall, she writes, “An entire political and economic system -- one that treats half of humanity like animals -- must be destroyed along with the other more obvious tyrannies choking off the region from its future. Until the rage shifts from the oppressors in our presidential palaces to the oppressors on our streets and in our homes, our revolution has not even begun.” She details the abysmal status of women in the region and the appalling record of Arab countries,
even amidst revolutions calling for greater human rights.
• This past Sunday, CBS 60 minutes aired a segment on "Christians of the Holy Land," which discusses the factors affecting local Palestinian Christians and their exodus from the land. Christians now account for less than two percent of the population in the West Bank, and leaves one imagining what the holy sites of Christendom would be without any local Christians. It is not to discount or detract from the intense pressure and persecution Christians are facing today in neighboring countries, such as Egypt and Syria, but it is to tell a part of the story that is also important -- that of Christians’ fate in the holy land.
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