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Ben Ashraf

Benjamin Ashraf

Ashraf

Benjamin Ashraf is The New Arab's Deputy Features Editor. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Jordan's Center for Strategic Studies and a member of Red Pepper's Admin Collective.

 

Areas of focus: Critical Theory, Post-Colonialism, Aesthetics, and Sound Studies.  

 

Follow him on Twitter: @ashrafzeneca

Imran Khan's megalomania unveils Pakistan's deep wounds

Imran Khan's desperate attempt to cling to office has plunged Pakistan back into chaos. As the dynastic powers return and Khan's claim of a foreign conspiracy refusing to subside, there's little hope for a better future, writes Benjamin Ashraf.

11 April, 2022

French Muslims are caught between the right and a hard place

As the 2022 election nears, France's Muslims find themselves in the eye of a political, legislative, and psychological storm. Faced with deepening forms of state-sponsored persecution, the future of the French Muslim community is uncertain at best.

22 March, 2022

Review calls for swift dismantlement of UK's Prevent law

People's Review of Prevent have released a report berating the British government over its counter-terrorism policy of Prevent, a policy which has become a highly intrusive, oppressive instrument of surveillance against the British Muslim community.

15 February, 2022

Weapons of Mass Hilarity: Tickling all the right boxes

Starting off as an experiment, Jenan Younis' Weapons of Mass Hilarity has gone on to become the preeminent space for Middle Eastern comics in London and is further proof that the capital's taste is now beyond that of tokenism and stereotypes.

28 January, 2022

Alaa Abdel Fattah's You Have Not Yet Been Defeated

Book Club: 11 years have passed since the January 25th revolution in Egypt sent tremors around the world. In a seminal piece of literature, we learn about the trials and tribulations of one of the revolution's main instigators, Alaa Abdel Fattah.

25 January, 2022

Wizara's ARQAAM: Blockchain's first pan-regional art exhibit

The New Arab speaks with Wizara about their newest exhibition ARQAAM - the first Arab-led, pan-regional NFT exhibition on the blockchain platform that features digital artists from the Global South.

01 December, 2021

Patriot, pariah, Pakistani: The legend of AQ Khan

In-depth: AQ Khan, one of the founders of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, has died at the age of 85. Revered in his home country, if abhorred by much of the international community, he leaves behind a legacy that's synonymous with the Pakistani psyche.

20 October, 2021

Vaccine multilateralism in MENA and open-source data science

The New Arab speaks with the architects of The Vaccines in MENA Data Science Initiative, an open-source programme aimed at promoting regional cooperation in vaccine deployment through interactive maps and community platforms.

02 September, 2021

Revered British-Libyan calligrapher Ali Omar Ermes dies

A pioneer of modern Arab calligraphy, Ali Omar Ermes inspired a generation through his masterful appropriation of the Arabic script, igniting the Arab world's imagination.

14 July, 2021

It's Not Complicated: Ma3azef's sonic protest for Palestine

Ma3azef.com, a Arabic web-magazine dedicated to contemporary Arab music, has released its latest compilation album "It's Not Complicated". An audio-protest dedicated to the Palestinian people, the compilation is a trans-sonic, trans-national triumph.

06 July, 2021