Kareem Shaheen
Middle East and Newsletters Editor
Kareem Shaheen is Middle East and Newsletters Editor at New Lines magazine. Prior to his work with the magazine he was a Middle East correspondent for the Guardian in Beirut and Istanbul, a reporter for the Daily Star in Lebanon and The National in Abu Dhabi, as well as writing for AlHudood, an Arabic language satirical news site. He has a master’s degree in war studies from King’s College London and is Egyptian by birth. He is currently based in Montreal.
Kareem’s coverage on the ground of the Khan Sheikhun chemical attack in Syria in 2017 was nominated for the Frontline Club print journalism award. Over the past few years, he has spent a lot of time working with independent Arab media outlets to develop their skillsets and train young journalists based in the Middle East.
Latest from Kareem Shaheen
As the World Cup Begins in Doha, I Remember the Rivalries of Egyptian Teams
This chronic failure over such impossibly low stakes necessitates that Arabs following international competitions hedge their bets, since the obsession with football won’t go away simply because their national teams are relegated to watching. This leads to fervent support for international clubs and European and Latin American national teams, with a fanaticism and enthusiasm that make one believe they hail originally from Munich, Sao Paolo or Manchester.
A Lebanese Dance Troupe Wins ‘America’s Got Talent’
It is not a bad faith or cynical reaction most of the time, but it sometimes does make you wonder whether you have agency: if you were given an opportunity because you are talented and hard-working or because you’re a diversity hire, whether your success in an endeavor comes down to your excellence or the pity of an outsider.
In the Middle East, a Yearning for Stability via Monarchy
But there is also a sense of ruefulness at times about such an institution and a bygone era it represents that nobody really remembers but surely must have been an improvement on today’s regional malaise. After all, if we are to be led by absolute rulers, why not also have the prestige and pageantry?
Muslim and Arab Authorities Must Examine Their Blasphemy Claims
There is no shortage of clerics and government officials willing to fan the flames to improve their standing in their societies (as the Rushdie case and countless others before it have shown). It is incumbent upon individuals and conscientious members of the clerical establishment to fight this instinct for bloodlust, to seek outrage as an outlet for life’s challenges. It is also incumbent on them to realize when they are being used in this way to serve the interests of the ruling class. After all, if something as integral to the foundation of your identity as your faith trembles every time someone mocks it, it is perhaps time for some introspection.
In Rushing to Conclusions, the Media Often Misses the Mark
This capacity to shape the public consciousness should give media practitioners pause. Journalists and editors have a penchant, for example, of adding contextual paragraphs explaining the background to breaking news events to their audience that tend to fall back on cliches and accepted conventional wisdom. This has the effect of shaping the overall narrative around an event before all the evidence has come to the fore.
A Magazine’s Broad Brush Demeans All Arabs
In reality, media leads to gradual change through the gradual accumulation of data, anecdotes and imagery that ultimately shapes how society perceives certain actors, whether they are people or nation-states.
Legacy Media Joins the First-Person Movement
Readers will read every word, however long. The reader’s short attention span is a myth, as we found: Their disinterest is in the content they’re being fed, not in the important stories themselves.
Saudi Arabia’s Choice of Imam Sparks Hajj Controversy
The sermon itself was boilerplate and innocuous, urging good deeds and adherence to the pillars of the faith, standard fare for such an occasion. But it was interesting also for other reasons, such as the demonstration of the state’s power over the religious establishment as well as how it exerts influence over it to serve its political goals and shifts positions on what it will tolerate in terms of religious speech.
In the Mideast, Feuds and Friendships Turn Orwellian
The ability of the state, so secure in its hold on power, to impose top-down revolutionary cultural, political and social change that instantly transforms (at least on the surface) attitudes about festering problems that have shaped people’s worldviews for decades, often their whole lives, is extraordinary.
A Simultaneous Wish to Return and to Abandon
Why do we yearn to go back always, even when we’ve had perfectly good reasons to leave? Why is wandering so difficult even when you’ve been welcomed with open arms?
Prayer-on-the-Field Ruling Speaks to Diversity
It is of course difficult to divorce an individual case from the broader context of a resurgent religious right, which can feel like an assault on the liberal way of life and secularism itself as a key pillar of democracy. But I also don’t think it is wise to be outraged and fearful over every expression of the self that veers away from those precepts.
Two Young Women’s Vicious Murders Reveal a Troubling Rot
While the crime is horrific, it is not senseless. It is a perfectly logical outcome when society sees women as mere accessories who serve at the pleasure of the male master race.
Understanding What Drives Men to Mass Murder
The links between violent extremism and domestic violence, and how masculinity and the place of men in general in modern society interacts with these phenomena, is one that is not adequately explored in the mainstream.
In Archaeology, a Shard Isn’t Just a Shard
The tone of gentlemanly shock was fascinating to me — it seemed meant to convey an inoffensive stupefaction at the ways of these Stone Age natives. It also came with the presumption that laws should not apply to their own citizens. It had nothing to do with the actual validity of the law per se but the prospect that citizens of a first-world country should be beholden to laws at all beyond their own shores, especially in “backward” Arab countries.
The Hypocrisy in Policing Bad Words
When words are so powerful, they alone can tell a story of abject loss and desperation. When words are so powerful, they expose the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves.
The Dark Legacy of French Colonialism
A weekly review of news, essays, podcast and more from New Lines. The week of May 02 to May 06, 2022.
Ramadan TV Blurs Fact and Fiction
It is of course difficult to discern truth from fiction in such works of art, particularly given the secretive nature of these dealings, but they all add up to a relentless sort of public framing that primes minds to think about events, groups and people in a certain way.
War Widows and Veneration of Death
A weekly review of news, essays, podcasts and more from New Lines. The week of April 18 to April 22, 2022
Stability for Its Own Sake Is One Step From Chaos
A weekly review of news, essays, podcasts and more from New Lines. The week of April 11 to April 15, 2022
Russia’s Grotesque Intervention in Syria
A weekly review of news, essays, podcast and more from New Lines. The week of April 4 to April 8, 2022
Reading Stories of Courage From a Century Ago
It is gratifying to read about such courage and heroism under duress. Whatever the impetus, odes should be sung for it in celebration. The Turkish officer who protected Armenians from the Ottoman-era genocide is like Schindler, the personification of the better angels of our nature.
The Saudis’ Religious Legacy
It is difficult to glean the actual impetus behind the initial decision to ban the broadcast in the first place. The scenes from the holy mosques are emotive to a lot of observant Muslims and cement Saudi Arabia’s role as the custodian of the holy mosques and an Islamic center. They are also powerful showcases of the state’s organizational prowess in pulling off such seminal events hosting millions of faithful every year.
The Danger of Hagiography as History
A weekly review of news, essays, podcast and more from New Lines. The week of March 21 to March 25, 2022.
Russia’s Long History of Bombing Hospitals
A weekly review of news, essays, podcast and more from New Lines. The week of Monday Mar. 5 - Friday Mar. 11, 2022.
Racism Isn’t a One-Way Street
A weekly review of news, essays, podcast and more from New Lines. The week of Monday Feb. 28-Friday Mar. 4, 2022.
At the Olympics, Arab Unity Remains Elusive
If any cause should inspire Muslim solidarity and empathy it is the plight of the Uyghurs, certainly more so than other ridiculous causes that have prompted widespread outrage like a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad or a film in which an actress removes her underwear offscreen.
Netflix’s Perfect Strangers Has More Truth in It Than Its Critics Allow
It creates a kind of societal schizophrenia in which people are publicly outraged over artists’ failure to adhere to the moral imperatives of their faith and cultural values but Muslim countries lead the world in Google searches for porn.
Egypt Events Draw Focus on Sexual Harassment
A suicide and the circumstances behind an ad call attention to mistreatment of women and girls.
Mo Salah and Aboutrika Spark a Debate About Religion
Two separate incidents involving major Egyptian footballers have sparked a debate online and in the mainstream press on the role of religion in society.
Turjuman: Sudan Edition
Note from the editor: We wrote this news digest in the days before the ongoing coup in Sudan. The military…
The Death of the Palestinian Cause Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
Arabs are of course not of a single mind on any particular issue, nor is it possible to gauge public opinion under tyrannical regimes. But it is indicative of the fact that these authoritarians no longer see the pan-Arab Palestinian cause and supporting it as vital to their survival.
First Among Satans
America does not deserve sole ownership of the Great Satan title. Why do Russia’s and China’s actions not spark similar outrage, a similar, simmering public consciousness that establishes them as foes to be thwarted in the broader culture?