In January, 'Inside the Middle East' travels to Tunisia, the nation where the Arab Spring protest movement was born in 2011.

Two years ago, the self-immolation death of a Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, upset by a lack of opportunities for employment, sparked a wave of popular anger that quickly swept across the tiny North African nation, and eventually much of the Middle East.

Two years later, what has changed?  Not much in terms of the economy, many young Tunisians say.  The country is, however, becoming much more conservative - especially in the arts and culture scene.  The program interviews several artists whose work has recently been deemed "un-Islamic", as well as a conservative Salafist sheikh who explains why some forms of expression should be contained.

We also visit the north coast of Egypt, where millions of World War II landmines and other unexploded ordnance left buried in the desert sands are still - seven decades after the crucial Allied victory at the Egyptian town of El Alamein – creating problems for Bedouins living in the area.

'Inside the Middle East' also brings one of the world's most popular writers, Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran, to life, through a new play in Abu Dhabi that explores the heroic, and sometimes dark,
history of Gibran.

You can find all of the January showtimes here.

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Posted by: Jon Jensen
Filed under: Inside The Middle East •Tunisia