The past few months have seen the world engulfed in a global pandemic unlike any seen in the last century, followed by economic collapse, and unprecedented political tension in the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. 2020 was the year where a horrific blast devastated Beirut, where George Floyd was murdered, where Australian bushfires burned an estimated 18.6 million hectares, where red-hot lava gushed out of a volcano in the Philippines, and where locust swarms invaded Africa.
To say that 2020 was a difficult year would be an understatement.
While this past year brought much tragedy and despair, it was also the year that saw SpaceX launched two astronauts into space for the first time, the rise of work from home, wide-scale protests demanding police reforms, and a coronavirus vaccine developed in record time. Personally, 2020 was one of the best years of my professional career. I became a published fiction writer, translated several works from Arabic by authors I admire, and published a string of investigative reporting that I am extremely proud of.
Here are the highlights:
Journalism
The Guardian
Tinfoil gloves: why has MMA become a breeding ground for QAnon?
How the UFC became the sports arm of Donald Trump’s Maga regime
Khabib Nurmagomedov’s dominance was straightforward. His legacy is anything but
The UFC’s defiance of the coronavirus outbreak is reckless and irresponsible
What UFC can learn from mistakes boxing made during Spanish flu outbreak
Covid-19 livestreams prove athletes are not automatic role models
Right Wing Watch
Kyle Rittenhouse, Kenosha, and the New Far-Right Battleground
Parler and the Free Speech Red Herring
The QAnon General: Tracing the Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Michael Flynn
Trump Superfan Tito Ortiz and the Far-Right Political Cagefight
BloodyElbow
Democrat Andrew Yang on UFC’s ‘systematic exploitation’ of fighters
Kinahan in the Kingdom: How Irish mafia infiltrated combat sports in Bahrain
Renzo Gracie: A history of hate
Building Castles: Neo-Nazi fight clubs on the rise in Athens
PFL partners with Russian promotion linked to fight fixing & assaulting peaceful protestors
Arabian Fights: How UFC Fight Island became a sales pitch for Abu Dhabi
The Political Punch: Manny Pacquiao’s rise to power
How U.S. sanctions will impact Ramzan Kadyrov’s MMA aspirations
The American Prospect
‘It’s Going to Be an Incredible Fight’
Art Writing
Engraved on the Heart: Remembering Menhat Helmy, Egypt’s forgotten pioneer
Menhat Helmy: Reclaiming the Legacy of an Egyptian Modernist
When Art Rejects Propaganda: The case of the Aswan High Dam
Art & Diplomacy: Making sense of Macron’s meeting with Fairuz
Saudi Arabia establishes Art Biennale despite derailed Vision 2030 projects
Grief, Anger & Regret: The Six-Day War that changed modern Egyptian art
Fiction
A Blue Pill Night (for Bull’s Men Fiction)
Long Live the Storm (for Rusted Radishes)
Translation
Naguib Mahfouz – The Man in the Picture (for Arablit Quarterly)
I joined the short list of privileged translators who have had the opportunity to translate works by Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. This was easily one of the great achievements of my professional career.
Essay
In the wake of the Beirut blast that devastated Lebanon, I reflected on what it means to be an Arab left to the whim of incompetent governments that allow their citizens to perish.