Let’s face it, for most of us 2021 didn’t turn out exactly as we planned. But life isn’t all lockdowns and booster jabs – there have been some amazing news stories from across the Middle East worth celebrating this year, not to mention some that gave us a good giggle! So without further ado, why not end the year on a high with us and look back on some of our favourite good news stories. From women smashing records and making history to botoxed camels, it’s time for the Pink Jinn Happy News Roundup for 2021!
First up, it’s been a mammoth year for these trailblazing women in the Middle East.
In the heavily male-dominated sport of camel-racing, Khawla Al Blooshi and Hakima Ghaith celebrated a historic achievement in 2021. In November they competed in the UAE National Camel Marathon alongside male riders, making them the first women to take part in an official camel race in the Emirates.
It’s not just female Emirati camel-racers that are making history – in 2021 the incredible Amna Al Qubaisi continued to make strides in her career as the first female racing driver from the UAE, taking part in the 2021 Asian F3 Championship in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
But for Nora Al Matrooshi, breaking boundaries on earth wasn’t enough – this year it was announced that she will be taking on the world of space travel! Back in April, NASA announced that Nora had been selected from over 4,000 applicants to join their 2021 intake of astronauts. The mechanical engineer, who has dreamed of going into space since she was a child, will be the first Arab woman in history to become an astronaut.
It was also a good year for women in politics in the region. In October, Tunisia swore in their first female Prime Minister, Professor Najla Bouden Romdhane. It is hoped that her appointment will help steer the country out of the political turmoil of the last few years, although President Saied retains wide-ranging powers.
Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, female participation in the labour market is increasing dramatically. This April 2021 study by the Brookings Institution showed the “spectacular surge” of women working in the Kingdom, with the female labour force participation rate increasing by a huge 64% from 2018 to the end of 2020. Typically, an influx of new entrants to the labour market will also result in a spike in the unemployment rate, but Saudi women bucked this trend. The statistics show that women were very successful in quickly finding jobs – employers snapped up female applicants, with most private sectors seeing an increase in female employees of over 10% across two years!
Next up, with articles about climate change and the shortcomings of COP26 monopolising the headlines in 2021, we thought a couple of good news stories about the environment wouldn’t go amiss!
While other countries are missing target after target, Morocco is leading the charge against climate change in North Africa with ambitious renewable energy initiatives. With over half of the country’s population residing in coastal regions which are under threat from rising sea levels, Morocco hasn’t pulled any punches in its approach to climate change. The country has launched pioneering solar, wind and hydropower projects as well as lifting subsidies on fossil fuels in an attempt to reduce their usage. This combination of strategies could mean that Morocco will meet its target of 52% renewable energy in 2024 – a full six years before the original target of 2030! Not only is Morocco the only state in the MENA region predicted to meet the global warming target of 1.5°C, it’s a world-leading success story.
And for more environmental wins, how about successfully growing a forest in the desert?
The Serapium project in Egypt is doing just that – fighting desertification by planting an entire forest about two hours’ drive north of Cairo. But how do you grow a forest in the desert, we hear you ask? With sewage! This absolutely ingenious scheme uses wastewater from the nearby city of Ismailia to both water and fertilise the forest, and the success of the Serapium forest is now being used to model further projects across Africa, in a project dubbed ‘the Great Green Wall’, which aims to plant 100 million hectares of forest spanning the continent between Senegal and Djibouti!
Meanwhile in Baghdad, one inspirational woman is risking everything to rescue injured and sick animals. Mayssam Dhiaa Dawood, known as Umm Aboodi, first started her animal shelter in her own home, and now rents a space where she takes care of cats and dogs with a huge range of injuries and illnesses. Despite backlash from her neighbours, she now cares for 75 cats and 14 dogs with the help of her son Aboodi.
And now to the red carpet!
It’s been a bumper year for Arab cinema, with two MENA films being shortlisted for the Oscars! The short film The Present, directed by Farah Nabulsi, was nominated for the best short live-action film, making Nabulsi the first female Palestinian director to be nominated for an Academy Award. It was an amazing year for The Present, which won a BAFTA in April! Watch it on Netflix here!
Lift Like A Girl, directed by Mayye Zayed was also nominated this year. Lift Like A Girl follows the incredible story of Zebiba, a teenage weightlifter in Alexandria. Watch it on Netflix here.
For those of us not lucky enough to make it to the red carpet, Netflix made 2021 its year of Arab cinema, releasing a collection of 32 Palestinian films and documentaries in October, followed in December by the release of a vast selection of movies by Arab filmmakers in a collection titled Celebrating Arab Cinema, which features 58 films including Wadjda, Theeb and Bonboné.
Sporting Successes
It was a golden year for Middle Eastern athletes at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics which finally took place in July and August of this year. Not only did Tokyo see 14 Arab female athletes representing their countries at the games, but the region scooped an amazing 42 medals, with 12 golds!
Here are some of our stand out moments from Tokyo:
- The heartwarming moment when Mutaz Barshim from Bahrain and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy elected to share the gold medal in the men’s high jump.
- The stunning victory by Tunisian swimmer Ahmed Hafnaoui in the 400m freestyle, who took the gold after qualifying in last place!
- And last but not least, the incredible Yusra Mardini competing in the 100m butterfly. In 2015, Mardini and her sister Sarah swam for 3 and a half hours to tow a stricken dinghy of refugees to safety after their motor failed. The two teenagers saved the lives of the 18 other people on board by pulling the boat to shore.
And it’s not just at the Olympics where the region’s sportspeople excelled this year. Hundreds of miles from Tokyo, nothing will stop this team of girls in Gaza from practicing skating. Using the privacy of Friday mornings to avoid disapproving onlookers and searching out rare skates and boards imported to the Strip, these twelve girls, aged from three to twelve years old, practice their skills at a skatepark decorated with a huge rainbow. The skate park is only a few miles from Gaza port, where both fishing and imports have been blockaded by Israel since 2007.
And now to Egypt for fireworks, mummies and 22 enormous motorised funerary boats
Who doesn’t love a spot of pageantry to liven up a year full of pandemic stress? In April 2021 Egypt definitely provided, in the form of a huge parade transporting 22 Ancient Egyptian mummies from their old home at the Egyptian Museum to the newly inaugurated National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation. The five kilometre parade saw custom built golden vehicles modelled on Ancient Egyptian funerary boats, complete with nitrogen filled compartments to transport the ancient queens and pharaohs through the streets of Cairo. A 21-gun salute met the parade at the Museum of Egyptian Civilisation and a host of celebrity musicians and performers serenaded viewers with both ancient and modern Egyptian songs.
This wasn’t the only Ancient Egyptian parade this year though! In November, the 3,000 year old Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor was opened in a spectacular ceremony involving a parade of hundreds of dancers, floats and horse drawn carriages accompanied by an orchestra, drummers and an enormous firework display. The ancient avenue, which lay buried under the sand for hundreds of years, runs between the Temple of Luxor and the Temple of Karnak. 600 statues of sphinxes and lions guard the road, which has taken over seven decades to fully excavate.
And finally, a camel beauty pageant gone wrong, robot waiters and dinosaurs stuck in the Suez Canal!
Remember the Ever Given? In an epic saga which provided much needed relief from news about the pandemic, back in March 2021 the 400 metre long container ship Ever Given got wedged in the Suez Canal, blocking the crucial shipping channel and wreaking havoc on global trade. If you need a reminder of the details, here’s the lowdown in sea shanty form by the inimitable Sophia Smith Galer. The calamity-stricken ship finally made it back home to Taiwan in October, but not before a trip to Felixstowe in the UK to unload two very special passengers – an enormous T-Rex and a pterodactyl, which had been stuck on the ship in Egypt for more than 100 days.
@sophiasmithgaler the suez sea shanty you all did not ask for #seashanty #suezcanal
♬ The Suez Sea Shanty – Sophia Smith Galer
Mosul used to make headlines as a stronghold of IS, but this year the city made the news for very different reasons. Four years after Iraqi forces retook the city, regeneration efforts hit a new high with Iraq’s first robot restaurant! A million miles from the days when cafés and entertainment venues were banned under the rule of IS, the White Fox café uses a robot, complete with snazzy uniform, to serve guests.
If you’ve been following Pink Jinn for a while, you’ll know we’ve got a bit of a soft spot for camels, but that’s nothing compared with this story! A few weeks ago, no fewer than 40 camels were disqualified from a beauty contest at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival near Riyadh in Saudi Arabia after allegations that they had been treated with botox. Camel beauty pageants are big business – breeders compete for up to 66 million USD in prize money!
And that’s it from us for this year! Wishing you a wonderful 2022 from everyone at Pink Jinn!
Have we missed any of your favourite uplifting stories of 2021? Share the joy and let us know in the comments!