Middle East | ST McNeil

Pollution in Gabes, Tunisia’s shore of death

16 June 2013 by ST McNeil

Coproduced with Radhouane Addala, this piece was oiginally published on Al-Jazeera English. Native species are dying, illness is commonplace, and the people of this Tunisian coastal town are demanding a change. Gabes, Tunisia - “Al-sha’b yureed al-bi’a esselima,” or “The people want a clean environment,” the protesters chanted as they marched around this city, the most polluted and cancerous in Tunisia, perched halfway between Tunis and the Libyan border. Adapting the Arab Spring slogan invented in Tunisia to local environmental justice, they shouted: [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Climate, Clips, Middle East, Tunisia

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Shock Doctrine Tunisia

16 June 2013 by ST McNeil

LOST, IDEOLOGICAL, AND IMPORTED EXTREMITIES As Tunisia’s post-dictatorship constitution is being forged through a democratic and messy process in a former palace of the Ottoman bey, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate might be planting explosive mines near the Algerian border—and the press is aflame with coverage of culture clashes between extremists of stringy beards and perky breasts. The story of Amina Tyler, a 19-year old Tunisian whose provocative nude political statements aroused liturgical lusts, has expanded beyond just one woman and her critics. [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Middle East, SISMEC, Tunisia

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Assembly politics and green Orientalism

13 June 2013 by ST McNeil

The National Constituent Assembly of Tunisia is an old Ottoman-era building. Soldiers in jungle green uniforms check visitors to the main gate behind nests of barbed wire below blooming bougainvillea. Last year, I was on the outside of this building covering a protest to specific wording in the constitution regarding women—this, as any student of the Philadelphia Congress knows well, is a time of fierce ideological debates. The foundational document of Tunisia’s new experiment is democracy is being forged right [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Middle East, Tunisia, Uncategorized

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A gulf between paradise and hell

10 June 2013 by ST McNeil

After a week bouncing around different ministries seeking authorization to film in “secure” locations, Rad and I left Tunis headed south on June 2 in order to shoot a travel magazine feature for the next issue of the Dubai-based Brownbook. Making a little bit of money on the side never hurt, no? Our overnight train was packed and tense. The train attendant looked like Moammar Gaddafi’s short cousin—and he acted that way. Yelling at everyone, slapping his conductor’s hat into [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Climate, Middle East, Tunisia • Tags: climate change, climate chaos, Djerba, documentary, Gabes, Kerkennah, pollution, Sfax, Tunisia, tunisie

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Tunisie, 2013

24 May 2013 by ST McNeil

In Africa. The journey here was long and I am exhausted. Be careful what you wish for: in May of this year I’ve flown nine times for work, a funeral, a graduation, and now work again. A blessing, to be sure, to be part of an engaging and important project, see both sides of my family in celebration of a well-lived life and higher education, and to be able to afford to realize my dreams here at the northern edge [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Climate, Middle East, Research, Tunisia

Burning jasmine for the revolution’s ghosts

10 April 2013 by ST McNeil

Adel Khedhri climbed the white marble steps of the Municipal Theater in downtown Tunis covered in gasoline. Blaming an economy wracked by the legacies of neoliberal authoritarianism and post-revolutionary instability, the 27-year-old fruit vendor came to follow the fiery example of Mohamed Bouazizi. “This is a young man who sells cigarettes because of unemployment—this is Tunisia, this is unemployment,” he shouted March 13 before igniting himself. Police rushed to his engulfed body on the steps of the enormous white marble Francophone building in the middle [...]

Categories: Africa North, Clips, Middle East, SISMEC, Tunisia • Tags: Adel Khedhri, Chokri Belaid, Ennahdha, Hamadi Jabali, Jasmine Revolution, Mohamed Bouazizi, Tunisia

Reporting on repressive regimes in Gulf countries

10 April 2013 by ST McNeil

As part of the SISMEC Presents interview series, I sat down with Mariwan Hama as he shares his experience investigating human rights abuses in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, touching on nation’s security complex, geopolitical context, changing ethnic configuration, and current political events. Hama spent five days earlier in the year visiting Bahrain for HRW, documenting the ongoing struggle for democracy in a repressive regime successfully tempering their Arab Spring. For more information, read the report from the HWR team’s investigations including [...]

Categories: Middle East, SISMEC, Video • Tags: Bahrain, Human Rights Watch, interview, Mariwan Hama, The Gulf

VICE magazine contribution

24 March 2013 by ST McNeil

My friends Muhammed Al-Khudair, Charlie Mink and I did some work for VICE magazine in the fall, crafting a survey of Free Syrian Army and translating some video and audio interviews. The result was basically fact-checking, quote-grabbing and contextualizing for a feature about the legendary war photographer Robert King’s second foray into Syria’s conflict. At the end of the article there are a series of vignettes that Muhammad and I put together of FSA members.

Categories: Clips, Middle East • Tags: Robert King, Syria, VICE magazine

The ties that bind Obama to Bush run across the Middle East

21 March 2013 by ST McNeil

In early 2003, Saddam Hussein’s regional and international allies were all warning him that an American invasion was imminent. Hussein’s reply was basically, “I know Washington’s tone is getting aggressive, but they aren’t going to try to remove me. I’m the only one in the region who is really taking the fight to the terrorists and fundamentalists. I’m the only one in the region putting real pressure on Iran. Despite our differences, they aren’t crazy! There is no way the United States [...]

Categories: Africa North, Clips, Middle East • Tags: Arab Spring, Bush, contrarian, Gaddafi, Iraq, Middle East, mubarak, Obama, saddam

Watch the thrones: the Arab Spring’s third wave

5 December 2012 by ST McNeil

Originally published on YourMiddleEast By Musa al-Gharbi & ST McNeil We are seeing a new phase of the Arab Spring uprisings, where protesters target monarchs instead of dictators. The dynamics in the region are against the kings and emirs, write Musa al-Gharbi and ST McNeil in this analysis. Insofar as it is helpful or accurate to understand the “Arab Spring” as a meta-movement which began with the December 17, 2010 self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi, we can break it into a [...]

Categories: Africa North, Clips, Middle East, SISMEC • Tags: Amman, Arab kingdoms, Arab Spring, Jasmine Revolution, King Abudllah al-Thani, Manama, Rabat, regicide, Riyadh

ST McNeil

Environmental Convergence Journalist

Category Archives: Middle East