Contrary to the belief that scandals damage the monarchy, they can be seen as an integral feature. The institution provides a national myth and spectacle, which sometimes involves deifying royals and other times reviling them. This dynamic of public fascination with royal failings is a feature, not a bug, of the system.
The personal and political rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is not contained to the Gulf. It is actively destabilizing other volatile regions as the two nations back opposing sides. This turns countries like Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, and Eritrea into proxy battlegrounds, escalating local conflicts.
In the immediate aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Jesse Jackson strategically positioned himself as the successor. He raced to Chicago and appeared on television, claiming to be the last person to speak with King and wearing a sweater he said was stained with King's blood to symbolically seize the mantle of leadership.
The powerful metaphor behind Jesse Jackson's 'Rainbow Coalition' came from a personal place: his grandmother's quilts. He saw how she could bind together disparate patches of fabric—sacking, cotton, silk—with a strong thread to create a warm, embracing blanket. He applied this concept to politics, aiming to unite diverse and dispossessed groups to find common ground.