The Bazaar is an initiative that was begun 4 years ago by the Dutch development organization HIVOS, in collaboration with the Green Left party ‘Groen Links,’ the Peace movement IKV Pax Christi, and the office for social engineering Partizan Publik. The festival is a platform and breeding ground for alternative voices from—and about—the Middle East, mixing art, culture and politics. In previous years, the Bazaar organized an Afghan peace talk simulation for politicians, a satellite interview with Hezbollah, a Palestinian Hip Hop concert, displayed the wreckages of the Baghdad book market bombing on the Amsterdam Leidseplein, published a magazine on cultural politics and the Middle East, and facilitated countless debates, interviews, talks.
Hosting the ME$EX are Petra Stienen, a diplomat and writer, and writer/ journalist Bahram Sadeghi. On the ticket:
Rani Rajji (Activist, Architect, Journalist Beirut/Dubai)
Matthijs Bouw (Director of One Architecture)
Max Rodenbeck (Chief Middle East Correspondent for The Economist)
Leo Kwarten (Middle East Consultant for Shell)
Mariko Peters (MP Green Left Party)
Egbert Wesselink (IKV PAX Christi)
Marcel van der Heijden (Hivos)
Following the speakers will be a mini documentary film fest: Rising Gulf, on this rapid modernization process which is taking place in this part of the Arab World, Satellite Queens, or, Behind the Scenes of a Prime Time Arab Talk Show, and A Way Out of the War on Terror, a portrait of Alistair Crooke, the founder of Conflicts Forum – an international movement which engages with Islamist movements broadly.
Bustler
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