In his brand-new book, "Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History" due out in two weeks, University of New England Professor Ali Ahmida meticulously documents the tragic story of a systematic genocide of the Libyan people by Italian colonial authorities a century ago, as well as the methodical cover up that ensued.

Despite a dearth of recorded materials, most of which were classified or destroyed, through painstaking interviews with genocide survivors and their descendants, Professor Ahmida manages to accomplish a seemingly impossible task by reconstructing bit by bit a shameful episode from the brief but devastating history of Italian colonialism in north Africa, thanks to the enduring memory and steadfastness of the martyred people of Libya.

Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).

Renewable, clean sources such as solar and wind energy have become an important part combatting the climate crisis and its impacts, but can we divorce the environmentally friendly technologies from the conditions under which these are developed and implemented? And what happens when renewable energy development becomes synonymous with colonial expansion and political repression?

Israel’s feverish plans to build the largest onshore wind farm in the occupied Golan Heights are a good example of why the conversation about a decarbonized economy may not be abstracted from considering prevailing power structures and systems of oppression including colonialism.

Malihe Razazan spoke with Muna Dajani and Wael Tarabieh, an activist and co-founder of Al-Marsad | The Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan Heights, which is an independent, not-for-profit international human rights organization located in Majdal Shams, in the Occupied Syrian Golan. The center was founded in October 2003 by a group of lawyers and professionals in the fields of law, health, education, journalism and engineering, along with human rights defenders and other interested community members.

Muna Dajani holds a PhD from the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE. Her PhD research aimed to examine the distinctive livelihood practices by which water use and farming acquire political subjectivity in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and Al Battuf Valley in the Galilee. She is now the Research Officer in a collaboration project between Birzeit University and LSE entitled ‘Mapping Memories of Resistance: the untold story of the occupation of the Golan Heights’

Wael Tarabieh, the co-founder of al-Marsad, The Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan Heights is an independent, not-for-profit international human rights organisation located in Majdal Shams, in the Occupied Syrian Golan. The centre was founded in October 2003 by a group of lawyers and professionals in the fields of law, health, education, journalism and engineering, along with human rights defenders and other interested community members.

In recent decades, the six members of the GCC, which includes the Gulf Arab monarchies of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, have lured millions of mostly low skilled and semi-skilled workers from South and Southeast Asia and Africa. For the past few months, the migrant workers in these monarchies have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact.

To understand the plight of these millions of migrant workers and the history of labor migration in this region, Shahram Aghamir spoke to Assistant Professor Andrea Wright, who is in the Department of Anthropology and the Program in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary.

Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).