by ANDREW HAMMOND for OPEN DEMOCRACY on APRIL 25, 2013: Tension with its Gulf neighbours began to rise from 2006 when Qatar and Al Jazeera stood with Lebanese Shi’ite group Hizbullah during its war with Israel, while western allied states clearly hoped to see the Iranian-backed militia wiped out. Secular activists and politicians in Egypt [...]
compiled by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary on APRIL 17, 2013: On April 11, 2013, Roger Owen, Professor Emeritus of Middle East History at Harvard University, gave a talk on his most recent publication, The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life (Harvard University Press, May 2012). It is is a political history of an era [...]
by OMAR KARMI for THE NATIONAL on MARCH 29, 2013: Not long ago, it would have prompted an avalanche of commentary – angry, worried or exculpatory. But the conviction last month of three Muslims from Birmingham for plotting a terrorist attack the prosecution said would have been more devastating than the 2005 London bombings that [...]
via WILSON CENTER on MARCH 7, 2013: Five women activists and practitioners from the Middle East and North Africa discussed the challenges to women’s security in MENA countries in the post-Arab Spring period. The panelists were part of a larger delegation from the region brought together by Karama, a regional NGO working on capacity building [...]
by I-WEI JENNIFER CHANG for MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE on FEBRUARY 18, 2013: The Arab Spring in 2011 posed a number of foreign policy challenges to the Chinese government. First, the Arab uprisings created an unprecedented level of regional uncertainty and instability that took Chinese policymakers by surprise: the initial uprisings and discontent with autocratic regimes in Tunisia [...]
Frances Hasso: Alternative Worlds at the 2013 World Social Forum (Tunis)
by FRANCES S. HASSO for ISLAMiCommentary on APRIL 23, 2013: Last month I attended the World Social Forum (WSF) – my first – in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. I study social movements and teach about the WSF and the very different and more established annual scrum of the powerful in Davos — [...]
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