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Week 4: UAE's Race in SDG 7 and 16

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  Hi everyone! It’s been a while. Today I will be discussing capacity and autonomy in relation to SDG 7 and SDG 16. So SDG 7 is affordable and clean energy and is an integral goal due to the multitude of effects it has on our world today. Our everyday lives depend on reliable and affordable energy services that operate smoothly. Think about it, many of the everyday activities you engage with require access to energy! Whether it be your alarm waking you up in the morning, your laptop to check emails or even your phone to receive texts, our entire livelihood revolves around our access to energy. SDG 16 on the other hand is peace, justice and strong institutions. This SDG is also integral as it promotes the reduction of violence, improving access to justice and the promotion of effective and inclusive institutions. I believe the country in the region closest to achieve both of these respective goals is the UAE, due to their high capacity and high autonomy. Now many may chalk my choice...
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Week 3: Iranian Elections

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Today I will be discussing a quite controversial topic which is the Iranian Elections of 2021. Iran both in our region and in the West is a difficult nation to discuss due to their actions and their fairly contentious and controversial policies. Nevertheless, the elections in Iran were held on the 18th of June 2021 and despite being unfamiliar with the affair at the time I have done some research and now have a good grasp of the subject and how the elections transpired. There were seven candidates approved by the council: Ghazizadeh, Hemmati, Rezaee, Jalili, Zakani, Mehralizadeh and the eventual winner Ebrahim Raisi. Whilst his win was expected and an overwhelming majority voted for the candidate, I personally had trouble choosing between them.  Overall, I was not particularly impressed by the candidates and having to choose one now was like picking the lesser of all the evils, however I was mainly stuck between both Rezaee and Hemmati. I eventually opted for Rezaee, however what i...
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Week 2: Concepts of Self and Other

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  Hello everyone! Welcome to the second installment in my blog. Whilst last week we mainly dealt with introductory proceedings and discussed the virtual calls. This week we will be tackling our first question. This question revolves around the concept of self and others, delving into issues such as what groups we experience ourselves and what we experience as others. By nature, this would immediately affect the way we thus perceive these groups. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I should first explain what I mean by self and others. This concepts refers to how we perceive ourselves and which groups we belong to and by extension, how our attitudes, behavior, roles and obligations differ based on these circles in which we identify ourselves. To begin, I personally identify as being both Arab and Muslim. I say Arab as I am both Emirati and Omani and therefore by being a member of both groups I increase the scope of my nationality. By identifying as either or I would, as a result, ...
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Week 1: The Worldwide Connection

  Last week we had the pleasure of conducting an online class with students from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. It was a great opportunity to converse and the call was effective at facilitating discourse between us and the students! Half-way through the class, we were divided into several breakout rooms and this provided us with a great chance to be able to get to know the other students. We were given the prompt, “If powerful aliens came to Earth and there was no language the humans and aliens could use to communicate with one another, what in the world would you show them to convince them that our species is worthy of survival?”Shortly after joining, I was greeted by two kind faces and we immediately hit it off. We discussed similarities that we had, from musical tastes to entertainment and for a second we completely forgot about the prompt. It was great to see that despite the different lives we lived and the distance between us, there are certain binding factors that allow ...
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