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The Current Impasse in Syria: Jadaliyya Interview with Haytham Manna` (Part 1)
![[haytham Manna`. Image by Bassam Haddad]](/content_images/3/sm_HaythamManna`-imagebybh.jpg "[haytham Manna`. Image by Bassam Haddad]")
On April 27th, around the Jadaliyya Co-Sponsored Conference at Lund University ("Contesting Narratives, Location Power"), I sat down for an extensive interview with Haytham Manna`, one of the icons of the independent Syrian opposition and a leading founder of the National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change (in Syria). The interview was long and candid, and addressed several topics, including the current impasse in Syria, the stages and transformation of the uprising, the questions of international intervention and of resistance, the Syrian National Council and its relations with other opposition groups and the Arab Gulf States and beyond, and the ...
Keep Reading »تحولات السلفيين: التسييس مفكك الأيديولوجيا
يمر الخطاب السلفي في مصر بمرحلة تحولات مهمة في الخطاب والممارسة في أعقاب ثورة يناير 2011، وهذا يرجع لعمليات التسييس الجذرية التي تحدث لقواعده وقياداته في وقت لم يستكمل فيه السلفيون بعد الشروط المطلوبة للعمل السياسي، لا بمعناها البراجماتي إجرائياً، ولا بمعناها التمثيلي والتفاوضي للمصالح المختلفة موضوعياً. في مجمل تقييمها، تعاني السلفية من التضحية بالاستراتيجية لصالح التكتيك، وخواء المحتوى البرامجي، وعدم القدرة على التحرر من علاقة التبعية والاستلحاق بمشروع إعادة إنتاج النظام القديم، وهي صفات تتشارك فيها مع الإخوان المسلمين ولكنها بالتأكيد تعاني من ضعف الخبرات التنظيمية والحزبية نظراً لحداثة عهدها بالسياسة مقارنة بالإخوان المسلمين. والجدير بالذكر هنا أن نجاح ...
Keep Reading »Birds of Darkness In The Egyptian Sky
![[Image from Alakhbar English]](/content_images/3/sm_Adel_Imam_MB_pic_1.jpg "[Image from Alakhbar English]")
The Misdemeanor Court in al-Haram, Cairo held up a three-month prison sentence on Tuesday against Adel Imam, one of the most popular comedians in the region. He was accused by Islamists of insulting religion in his films, some dating back 30 years. The Birds of Darkness, from the title of one of Adel Imam’s most famous movies critical of Islamists, have not only set their sights on Imam. They have the potential to lay their dark shadows on freedom of thought in all of Egypt. This realization comes after a legal campaign against the infamous actor which has prompted the first solidarity campaign with Imam in many years, especially since he had sided with Hosni Mubarak ...
Keep Reading »Egypt Media Roundup (April 30)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Egypt and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Egypt Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to egypt@jadaliyya.com by Sunday night of every week.] “Tantawi vows Cabinet reshuffle within 48 hours, says ...
Keep Reading »April Culture
![[Art by Yasser Safi (b. 1975) Qamishli, Syria. Image from Artist]](/content_images/3/sm_yasirsafi.jpg "[Art by Yasser Safi (b. 1975) Qamishli, Syria. Image from Artist]")
This month's batch includes new translations of fiction from Lebanon and an essay on Syrian art. * An Excerpt from Elias Khoury's As Though She Were Sleeping, tr. Marilyn Booth. * Maymana Farhat, After Daraa; Syrian Art Today * An Excerpt from Venus Khoury-Ghata's The House of Nettles, tr. Marilyn Hacker. All previous culture posts can be accessed here. Read and forward our Call for Posts. Tell us what you think. For questions, comments, or submissions, email us at culture@jadaliyya.com
Keep Reading »After Daraa; Syrian Art Today
In less than a year, much of the Damascus art scene has been brought to a standstill by events surrounding the Syrian uprising. Some artists continue to reside in Syria and are producing with apparent impetus—others mirror their efforts but have relocated to neighboring Arab states. Although limited, recent activity among the city’s commercial and non-profit art spaces includes impromptu organizing, as a few remaining galleries support a small network of artists and cultural practitioners through makeshift residencies. With several prominent gallerists having already fled the country, the local art scene has been severely fractured, amplifying yet another instance in ...
Keep Reading »"There Are Marxists in India?" Prabhat Patnaik on the Global Crisis
![[Prabhat Patnaik speaking at the CESP farwell party in JNU, New Delhi, 2006. Image by SubinDennis, via Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_pp.jpg "[Prabhat Patnaik speaking at the CESP farwell party in JNU, New Delhi, 2006. Image by SubinDennis, via Wikimedia Commons.]")
After an engaging half-hour interview with India’s pre-eminent Marxist economist during a conference at New York University, I told a friend about my one-on-one time with Prabhat Patnaik. “There are Marxists in India?” came the bemused response. “I thought India was the heart of the new capitalism.” Indeed, we hear about India mostly as a rising economic power that is challenging the United States. While there certainly are no shortages of capitalists, there are still lots of Marxists in India, as well as communist parties that have won state elections. Patnaik represents the best thinking and practice of those left traditions—both the academic Marxism that provides a ...
Keep Reading »الأزهر يريد تحرير أفغانستان
![[جامع الأزهر. تصوير ناصر رباط. المصدر فلكر]](/content_images/3/sm_alazhar.jpg "[جامع الأزهر. تصوير ناصر رباط. المصدر فلكر]")
قصة لابد منها: منذ عقد أو يزيد كانت المواقف السياسية للأزهر الشريف تتسم بكونها بطيئة وهادئة مهما كانت جسامة الحدث وخطورته، وقتها كان يروج للجماهير عبر وسائل الإعلام أن تلك هي وسطية الإسلام وأن عليهم آلا ينصرفوا إلى الآخرين المتعصبين، كما أن الأزهر كمؤسسة دينية لا دخل لها بالشؤون السياسية التي يتولاها أهلها من ذوى الخبرة والحكمة. وحينما تولى شيخ الأزهر الحالي الدكتور/ أحمد الطيب منصبه، صُدمت الجماهير، ذلك أن رجل الدين هو نفسه عضو لجنة السياسات التابعة للحزب الوطني والتي كان يرأسها آنذاك نجل الرئيس مبارك، ولحل هذا التداخل طُلب من الشيخ أن يتقدم باستقالته من عضوية لجنة السياسات، وبدا لوهلة أن الشيخ متردد يود لو يجمع بين الحسنيين، فتعلل بأن الرئيس مبارك فى رحلة علاجية ...
Keep Reading »Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja: "Free Bird"
![[Abdulhadi Alkhawaja taking part in a pro-democracy march in February 2011. Image by Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.]](/content_images/3/sm_Abdulhadi_Alkhawaja.jpg "[Abdulhadi Alkhawaja taking part in a pro-democracy march in February 2011. Image by Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.]")
[The following is an animation narrated by Zainab Al-Khawaja after a phone call with her dad and before she was arrested on 21 April 2012 for protesting the Formula One Grand Prix in Bahrain. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja enters his 80th day on hunger strike today, as his status and whereabouts remain unknown. The Bahraini regime continues to deny his family and lawyer their visitation rights.]
Keep Reading »US-Based Professors Respond to NYT Ad Accusing Professors and BDS Movement of Inciting Murder of Jewish Children
![[New York Times building in New York City. Image by wallyg from Flickr.]](/content_images/3/sm_nytbuilding.jpg "[New York Times building in New York City. Image by wallyg from Flickr.]")
[The following letter to the editor was submitted on 28 April, 2012 to the New York Times in response to an advertisement paid for by the David Horowtiz Freedom Center that appeared in the Op Ed section of the 24 April, 2012 edition of the NYT. It was also reproduced here. The advertisement is posted below, after the list of signatories to the letter.] To the Editor: We are professors who teach in universities across this country. We are appalled at the advertisement by the David Horowitz Freedom Center (Op-Ed page, April 24, 2012) which compares the international movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS) to the Holocaust and ...
Keep Reading »"No Trust" Regarding US Role in the Syrian Uprising: Bassam Haddad on Al-Jazeera's "Min Washington"
Al-Jazeera's "Min Washington" (من واشنطن) show featured a discussion on the role of the United States in the Syrian Uprising. Jadaliyya's Co-Editor, Bassam Haddad, rejects the emphasis on the United States' role as being pivotal in promoting democracy in the region. He also addressed the downward spiral of the Syrian uprising and the role of the Syrian National Council in it. Other guests included a Syrian National Council member, Marah Buqa`i, and political analyst Shibli Talhami. [Click here if the video below does not show up. The Arabic transcript can be found on the same link]
Keep Reading »Press Release: Front Line Defenders Demand "Proof of Life" as Abdulhadi al-Khawaja Enters 79th Day of Hunger Strike
![[Abdulhadi al-Khawaja in hospital, April 6. Image from Frontline Defenders]](/content_images/3/sm_abdulhadi_in_hospital_april_6_2.jpg "[Abdulhadi al-Khawaja in hospital, April 6. Image from Frontline Defenders]")
[The following press release was issued by Front Line Defenders on Thursday, 26 April 2012, as Abdulhadi al-Khawaja’s status and whereabouts remain unverified. Today marks the 79th day of his hunger strike.] PRESS RELEASE—for immediate release On the 78th Day of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s hunger strike in Bahrain, Front Line Defenders calls upon the Bahraini Minister of Interior, Lieutenant-General Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, to provide a ‘proof of life’ to confirm that Abdulhadi is still alive. Furthermore Front Line Defenders calls on the Minister to allow family visits, restore daily phone calls and update his family on his medical condition. Since ...
Keep Reading »Degrees of Incarceration
When I started shooting for what would become Degrees of Incarceration in 2003, I had no idea that it would entail anything more than a day’s work. I showed up with a camera because a dear friend and colleague asked if I had a day to document a youth play about prisons. I ended up spending the night (leaving Bethlehem by public transportation after 4pm was impractical, my new friends told me) and then regularly returning to the youth center that organized the play. As I got to know the activists who ...
Keep Reading »The Egyptian Revolution and Neo-Liberal Economics (Video)
The following video report on the demands and struggles surrounding redistributive justice in Egypt before and after the 2011 uprosing was produced by The Real News Network.
Keep Reading »Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States
Adam Hanieh, Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. [This review was originally published in the most recent issue of Arab Studies Journal. For more information on the issue, or to subscribe to ASJ, click here.] What if capitalists in a particular country could draw on a reserve army of semi-skilled labor that includes hundreds of millions of noncitizens whom they could import, hire, fire and expel at will, without worrying about laws, regulations, and ...
Keep Reading »Crossroads in Iranian Cinema: Interview with Hamid Naficy
Hamid Naficy of Northwestern University is a leading authority of Iranian cinema His most recent four-volume series, A Social History of Iranian Cinema. Covers the Iranian cinema from late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first cinema. Hamid Naficy has published extensively about theories of exile and displacement, exilic and diaspora cinema and media, and Iranian and Third World cinemas. His many publications include such well-known titles as An Accented Cinema, The Making of Exile Cultures, ...
Keep Reading »As Though She Were Sleeping
[This excerpt is from Elias Khoury’s As Though She Were Sleeping (Ka’annaha Na’ima) which was translated by Marilyn Booth and published by Archipelago Books this month. Marilyn Booth holds the Iraq Chair in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Her publications include Harem Histories: Envisioning Places and Living Spaces and May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt. She has translated ...
Keep Reading »Marcel Khalife: An Interview
Marcel Khalife is one of the Arab world's most revered and celebrated cultural icons. Composer, singer, and oud player, he is best known as the musical voice of students, intellectuals, laborers, and all those committed to social justice, freedom, and human dignity. His arrangements, especially those inspired by the poems of Mahmud Darwish and performed by his band, the Mayadine Ensemble founded in 1976, became part of the daily cultural life of two generations. Since the early 1990s, Khalife ...
Keep Reading »و. س. ميروين: قصيدتان
[و. س. ميروين من كبار شعراء أمريكا الأحياء. ولد في نيويورك عام ١٩٢٧. ترجم الشعر عن الفرنسية والإسبانية واللاتينية والبرتغالية. حاز على العديد من الجوائز منها جائزة البولتزر وجائزة والاس ستيفنز. يعيش منذ ثلاثين عاماً في هاواي.] قصيدتان و. س. ميروين ملاحظة تذكّرْ كيف تجيء الروح العارية إلى اللغة وتشعر لحظتها بالخسران والبعد والإيمان ولحين بعدها لن تركض مع حريتها القديمة كضوء برئ لم يقِسْه أحد بل ستحاول أن تصغي لتعرف كيف تتحول كل حكاية إلى حكاية ...
Keep Reading »Vénus Khoury-Ghata: The House of Nettles
Tireless mother, worthy descendant of a line of peasant women working as long as daylight lasted, as long as night permitted them to tell a lentil from a pebble. Only sleep could still the hands that washed, sewed, cut, peeled, kneaded, cradled. Sleep vertiginous as a stone hurled into a well. Hands that resisted winter, pain, even snakebites from the serpents they trod upon barefoot. Peasant women and ladies at once, taking control of everything, except their fear of the bus, a devilish ...
Keep Reading »The Free University of New York City (1 May 2012)
Free University in Solidarity with May 1 General Strike New York, NY (27 April 2012): This May Day, a coalition of students and faculty from Brooklyn College, Columbia University, the CUNY Graduate Center, Eugene Lang College, Hunter College, New School for Social Research, New York University, the Occupy University, and Princeton University are collaborating to produce a “collective educational experiment” to be held on Tuesday, 1 May from 10am to 3pm. The action is in solidarity with Occupy ...
Keep Reading »Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature
Mara Naaman, Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. [This review was originally published in the most recent issue of Arab Studies Journal. For more information on the issue, or to subscribe to ASJ, click here.] In January and February of 2011, Egyptians descended upon public squares throughout the country to bring an end to the thirty-year regime of Husni Mubarak. For those eighteen days—and on many other occasions throughout the ...
Keep Reading »اليسار في الزمن الثوري
تحمل الثورات العربية إلى اليسار مزيجاً من التحدي الوجودي والفرصة التاريخية. والفيصل بين الإثنين هو قدرة اليسار على التعلّم من الدروس البليغة التي تحملها العملية الثورية، وبلورة مشروعه ودوره فيها، وتدبّر كيفية الرد على تحدياتها. فلعل في ذلك ما يدفع اليسار إلى مغادرة مندبة النقد الذاتي، كفارة ذنوبه التي لا تنتهي، والاستعاضة عنها بمراجعة للماضي تسهم في فهم أفضل للموقع والدور في الحاضر وتساعد في صياغة إطلالة جديدة على المستقبل. هذا اذا كان بين اليساريين من يريد تجاوز تيارين في أوساطهم: يسار دعم الاستبداد ...
Keep Reading »نعم لمقاطعة الانتخابات الرئاسية
حتى تاريخ كتابة هذه السطور، نعد نحن المواطنون المصريون الذين ننوي مقاطعة الانتخابات الرئاسية الوشيكة أقلية. يتهمنا الكثيرون بالسلبية وأرى أن قرارنا هو عين الإيجابية بلا شك. بل إنني أرى أن من كانوا معنا على نفس الدرب ثم تركوه، من هتفوا معنا «لا انتخابات تحت حكم العسكر» فى يناير وفبراير، ثم تراجعوا وتنازلوا عن المبدأ، واستمر حكم العسكر، هم السلبيون باستسلامهم لوضع يتسم بالخلل. لطالما حلمت بأن تجري فى مصر انتخابات رئاسية يختار من خلالها الشعب رئيسه، لكن حلمي كان، ولا يزال، أكبر من مجرد مسرحية تتم فى إطار ...
Keep Reading »Hot on Facebook
I’m sorry I didn’t do more or speak up more. I’m sorry I left you behind, alone, bare-chested, to wage this war for the rest of us. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And we drown in Syria, a sea of sorriness.click | email | tweet
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