Last email of 2011 to friends

I visited The Netherlands on a Dutch government funded tour (we visited the UNDU prison cells and saw a number of war lords, really) I met the Moroccan-born Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, this is my article on that fascinating gentleman.

This is an article that bascially sums up my talk at the American University of Beirut last autumn on the Pioneer Bloggers in the Gulf Arab States. Funny enough, the Emirati atheist blogger mentioned was on this mailing list until his account was closed a few months ago.

Here are my comments on Egypt (where I am off to now for ten days) to the German Press Agency.

Check out this awesome pagespread done by Gulf News on our current show in Barjeel in Sharjah, this is the text of the interview. Here's an interview on the role of social media in the Arab Uprisings the London based Al Majallah

Finally, here is a short blog I wrote called Is there such a thing as a Gulf public intellectual?

In honour of the holiday spirits here are two brilliant articles by Emirati writers: Mishaal Al Gergawi's UAE: A forty-year-old minority and Muath Al Wari's The Arab revolutions and “sitting on the fence” on Palestine.

Sultan Al Qassemi

P.S. Don't buy Lacoste anymore.