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Economics
"We Didn't Know It Was Impossible, So We Did It": The Quebec Student Strike Celebrates Its 100th Day
![[Student strikers in Quebec. Image via Occupy Theory.]](/content_images/3/sm_quebec.jpg "[Student strikers in Quebec. Image via Occupy Theory.]")
Origins of an unlimited general strike (“grève générale illimitée”) Students in Quebec are marking their hundredth day of an unlimited general strike on Tuesday, 22 May, the culmination of the most stunning mass protest movement of recent months and North America’s largest student movement in years. In fact, the mobilizations in Quebec might just be Canada's Arab Spring. Students have been organizing against tuition hikes for nearly one and a half years, when the Quebec government first proposed to raise tuition fees by seventy-five percent over five years (amended to eighty-two percent over seven years by the government at the end of April). Before the general ...
Keep Reading »Sanctions Against Iran: A Duplicitous "Alternative" to War
Media reports on Iran oscillate wildly between threats of imminent military action and hopeful reports of diplomatic progress. Amidst this confusing din, there is a constant truth: the United States has not ceased its economic bullying of Iran, nor has the threat of war receded. As Dennis B. Ross, the Obama Administration’s former Iran advisor, told the New York Times, “now you have a focus on the negotiations...It doesn't mean the threat of using force goes away, but it lies behind the diplomacy.” This echoes President Obama’s persistent refrain on Iran: “All options are on the table.” We argue that sanctions against Iran are not designed to work as an actual ...
Keep Reading »Egypt's Presidential Duel an Epic Moment (Video)
![[Egyptians huddled around screens to watch the first ever presidential debate in the country's history. Image from AFP]](/content_images/3/sm_Egypt-debate-via-AFP.jpg "[Egyptians huddled around screens to watch the first ever presidential debate in the country's history. Image from AFP]")
Millions of Egyptians were glued to their TV sets on Thursday evening, 10 May 2012, watching the first-ever televised debate between the two presidential candidates leading opinion polls in recent weeks. The live telecast—two weeks before the country’s first multi-candidate Presidential elections—was an opportunity for Egyptians to learn more about the two expected election front runners‘ visions for “the new Egypt” and hear their stances vis-a-vis issues like security and the relationship between religion and the state. More importantly, Egypt’s independent media broke significant new ground in Arab media election coverage by sponsoring the debut high level ...
Keep Reading »Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States
![[Cover of Arab Studies Journal Vol. XX No. 1 (Spring 2012)]](/content_images/3/sm_asj.jpg "[Cover of Arab Studies Journal Vol. XX No. 1 (Spring 2012)]")
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 collective action? What if they could perfect labor market segmentation to a degree whereby only one social class—capital—reproduces itself, but another—labor—never does? What ...
Keep Reading »Let's Talk About Sex
![[Jordanian police women control a protester, near the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan, June, 4, 2010. Image by Nader Daoud/AP Photo.]](/content_images/3/sm_sex2.jpg "[Jordanian police women control a protester, near the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan, June, 4, 2010. Image by Nader Daoud/AP Photo.]")
This week Foreign Policy published a “Sex Issue.” They explained their decision to feature a special issue with these words Foreign Policy's first-ever Sex Issue…is dedicated…to the consideration of how and why sex—in all the various meanings of the word—matters in shaping the world's politics. Why? In Foreign Policy, the magazine and the subject, sex is too often the missing part of the equation—the part that the policymakers and journalists talk about with each other, but not with their audiences.…Women's bodies are the world's battleground, the contested terrain on which politics is played out. We can keep ignoring it. For this one issue, we ...
Keep Reading »Political Imaginaries in Saudi Arabia: Revolutionaries without A Revolution
![[Graffiti on a main street in Qatif. Image by Rosie Bsheer]](/content_images/3/sm_graffitinimr.jpg "[Graffiti on a main street in Qatif. Image by Rosie Bsheer]")
The contemporary Saudi-led counterrevolution, fierce as it has been throughout the Arab world, is perhaps most relentless inside the Kingdom’s own borders. US-trained and armed security forces have been dispatched more thoroughly throughout the country to thwart any potential signs of public gatherings or protests. In the last year alone, at least eight Saudi nationals have been killed for partaking in public protests. This is in addition to the unrelenting police brutality against unarmed civilians that has injured numerous men and women. Further, hundreds have been illegally detained across the country for supporting calls for reform and protest. Such violence and ...
Keep Reading »How the PA Enriched an Elite and Normalized Occupation
Khalil Nakhleh, Globalized Palestine: The National Sell-Out of a Homeland. Trenton, NJ: The Red Sea Press, Inc., 2011. Globalized Palestine: The National Sell-Out of a Homeland explores the rise of a new Palestinian elite that works together with international organizations against the will of the majority of its compatriots. The book’s author, Khalil Nakhleh, worked in the development sector as director of the Welfare Association (a Palestinian organization) for more than a decade, as well as a consultant on the expenditure of European Union aid. He witnessed first-hand the marriage of the business class and the international aid organizations in Palestine. Thus, the ...
Keep Reading »Call to National and European MPs: For an Audit of Tunisia's Debts to the EU
![[Image from CADTM.org]](/content_images/3/sm_auditoftunisiadebt.png "[Image from CADTM.org]")
[The following statement was issued on 16 March 2012 by a diverse group of European parliamentarians calling for an audit of Tunisia's debt to the European Union.] With dictator Ben Ali ousted from power since 14 January 2011, Tunisia bears the burden of a public external debt amounting to $14.4 bn, which is a major obstacle to the development of the Tunisian people since repayment (capital plus interests) drains on an average an annual sum 6 times larger than the health budget. While Tunisia urgently needs all its financial resources to face the current situation, the present governor of the central bank of Tunisia is considering devoting EU 577 million from the ...
Keep Reading »Syria’s Currency Plunges, Raising Fears of Economic Chaos and Poverty
![[Image from Wikimedia commons]](/content_images/3/sm_500_Syrian_Pounds_-_Banknote.jpg "[Image from Wikimedia commons]")
The exchange rate of the Syrian pound has reportedly plunged to the 103 range against the dollar at mid-day Wednesday, 7 March 2012, in Damascus. This is a loss of over one hundred percent since the beginning of the uprising. Over the last month, the Syrian pound has begun to weaken significantly which has received little attention. The one hundred mark is an important psychological barrier. Syrian businessmen are taking large losses. Most rely on account receivables when they sell their goods. This means that traders who have sold goods over the last half year in Syrian pounds are taking heavy losses when they are paid back. One businessman I spoke to this morning ...
Keep Reading »Sowing the Seeds of Dissent: Economic Grievances and the Syrian Social Contract’s Unraveling
![[Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus. Image from Wikipedia.]](/content_images/3/sm_Al-HamidiyahSouq.jpg "[Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus. Image from Wikipedia.]")
Over the past ten months, the international community has gazed awestruck at how Syria’s uprisings have swept through a nation once viewed as pacified by a repressive regime. An analysis solely focusing on the brutality of the Asad regimes, however, elides some of the economic roots of popular unrest, particularly those stemming from the rural poor. As a result of four years of severe drought, farmers and herders have seen their livelihoods destroyed and their lifestyles transformed, becoming disillusioned with government promises of plentitude in rural areas. In the disjuncture between paternalistic promises of resource redistribution favoring Syria’s ...
Keep Reading »About Last Night
Last night the sound of gunfire punctuated the Beirut soundscape. Supporters of the anti-Syrian and majority Sunni Future Movement clashed with members of the pro-Assad and Sunni Majority Arab Movement. The fighting, which was most intense around the Beirut Arab University, continued until the early hours of the morning. The area around the Beirut Arab University is mixed. For the last several decades, “mixed” used to refer to Christian and Muslim co-habitation in this city, but today it is increasingly ...
Keep Reading »Should Tunisia Pay Ben Ali's Debts?
The journalist, uneasy, risked his question: “Do you have any fears that there is perhaps a far left movement coming through these revolutions that perhaps want more closed economies? I mean, there have been a lot of pictures of Guevara.” At a press conference on the Arab Uprisings held in April last year at International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters, then-Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn gave a reassuring nod in that direction. “It is a good question,” he responded. “A good question. There ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Roger Owen, The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life
Roger Owen, The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Roger Owen (RO): I was intrigued by news reports from Algeria in the spring of 2009 stating that President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika of Algeria was going to amend the constitutional term limits in order to allow him become, in effect, president life, as Ben Ali and other Arab republican presidents had done before him. This led me on to consider the whole ...
Keep Reading »"There Are Marxists in India?" Prabhat Patnaik on the Global Crisis
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 ...
Keep Reading »A Monarchical Affair: From Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula
When protests in North Africa ousted dictators and began spreading elsewhere in the region, decades-old alliances between the Arab monarchies were strengthened with the common interest of staying in power at all costs. While Morocco’s political and economic ties have historically been predominantly directed toward European markets, Morocco has recently oriented its outlook toward the East, finding common ground with the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. Morocco’s relationship with the monarchies in ...
Keep Reading »Migration: The Arabian Gulf story
When I arrived in the Gulf fourteen years ago, my perception of this region was the same as that of millions of other migrants, that this is a place where we can easily earn enough to achieve financial freedom. But over the years, a different gulf has been haunting my thoughts: that between expectations and reality. In other words, the fact that many who come looking for gold are having to satisfy themselves with coal. There are around twenty million migrant workers in the Gulf and many millions had ...
Keep Reading »The Syrian Regime's Business Backbone
Nearly one year into the Syrian uprising, with more than 7,500 Syrians dead, the protracted conflict is not very well understood or reported despite a deluge of writings. Most track fast-moving events without pausing for sober analysis of Syrian politics and society. Early on, the dominant argument was that the regime would quickly collapse; later, it has been that the regime is durable. The long view rarely appears. When it does, alas, it most commonly adduces timeless cultural factors, chiefly ...
Keep Reading »Syrian Pound at 90 per Dollar as Government Intervenes
The Central Bank has managed to bring the Syrian pound back down into a manageable trading range. It had plunged to an exchange rate over 100 pounds to a dollar. It is now below 100 to a dollar. How did it do this? Reports are that the central bank sold only 2 million dollars. Yes, only 2 million dollars in order to calm the market. One friend reported paying 113 pounds for a dollar in Aleppo on Wednesday 7 March. On Thursday morning, the pound had risen to a range between 89 and 91 ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Pascale Ghazaleh, Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World
Pascale Ghazaleh, editor, Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World. Cairo and New York: American University of Cairo Press, 2011. Jadaliyya (J): What made you put together this book? Pascale Ghazaleh (PG): This book brings together articles written by scholars from different countries, working on different aspects of waqf during different periods. These articles were originally papers submitted to the annual seminar organized by Dr. Nelly Hanna of the American University in Cairo's Arab and ...
Keep Reading »Building the New Egypt: Islamic Televangelists, Revolutionary Ethics, and 'Productive' Citizenship
Appearing on state television after the fall of Mubarak for the first time in his career, the famous Egyptian Islamic televangelist Amr Khaled told the program host that he had seen God in Tahrir. “I saw God in Tahrir,” he said. “When you entered Tahrir Square you immediately noticed a different spirit. It is as if God was with all the people there
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View All Entries »- "We Didn't Know It Was Impossible, So We Did It": The Quebec Student Strike Celebrates Its 100th Day
- Post-January 25 Iranian-Egyptian Relations: A New Dawn?
- Egypt's Working Class and the Question of Organization
- لماذا سأقاطع الانتخابات الرئاسية؟
- Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (May 22)
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- Ali from Bahrain: How I Became a Refugee (In both Arabic and English)
- Interview with Egyptian Presidential Candidate Abdel Moneim Abul Fettouh
- About Last Night
- Last Week on Jadaliyya (May 14-20)
- O.I.L. Media Roundup (21 May)
- Egypt Media Roundup (May 21)
- "We are All Palestinian Prisoners": Exclusive Interview with Artist Hafez Omar (VIDEO)
- Al-Jazeera's (R)Evolution?
- Without Principle, There is Nothing: On the Undignified Politics of the American Task Force on Palestine
- The Melancholia of a Generation
- Egypt's Presidential Election: Meet the Contenders
- . . . مرايا تبحث عن محررين
- Iran Will Require Assurances: An Interview with Hossein Mousavian
- Arab Uprisings Symposium: Critically Assessing the Changing Landscape of Power and Players (Beirut, 31 May - 1 June 2012)
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