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Politics
"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 »Egypt's Working Class and the Question of Organization
![[Public transport workers on strike. Image by Hossam el-Hamalawy.]](/content_images/3/sm_5446308928_688e5671fb_b.jpg "[Public transport workers on strike. Image by Hossam el-Hamalawy.]")
“Who is the labor candidate in this presidential election?” This is a question I have been asked frequently in the past few days. My answer is “no one.” Despite the presence of left wing candidates in the race, including labor lawyer Khaled Ali, who by all accounts is the most experienced in labor organizing among his counterparts (even when he repeatedly denies the accusation of being a “socialist,” and advocates a “strong private sector” working hand in hand with a state-run public sector), neither Ali nor any other candidates can claim to speak for Egypt’s working class, simply because the working class does not have yet formal entities, organizations, parties, ...
Keep Reading »About Last Night
![[Students at Beirut Arab University Participate in International Day of Climate Action; Image From 350.org]](/content_images/3/sm_students.png "[Students at Beirut Arab University Participate in International Day of Climate Action; Image From 350.org]")
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 used to describe areas where Sunni and Shiite Muslims live side by side. This shift, or more accurately this proliferation in categorizing self and other encompassed in ...
Keep Reading »Al-Jazeera's (R)Evolution?
![[Screenshot of Al-Jazeera host Faisal Al-Kassem reporting on Syria.]](/content_images/3/sm_Aljazeera.jpg "[Screenshot of Al-Jazeera host Faisal Al-Kassem reporting on Syria.]")
In March of 2011, an unusually forthright editorial by an anonymous writer made its way into The Peninsula Qatar, an English language daily bankrolled by a member of the emirate’s ruling family. At the time of publication, protesters had already toppled the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, uprisings were in full swing in Libya and Yemen, and in the Persian Gulf, Bahrainis were gearing up for what would prove to be a bloody battle, only days after the op-ed ran. “Businesses and institutions are treated as ‘holy cows,’” the author wrote in the editorial, entitled “Why are we so timid?” “What essentially ails the Qatari media (English and Arabic-language newspapers) is ...
Keep Reading »Egypt's Presidential Election: Meet the Contenders
![[Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, left, and Amr Moussa stand at their podiums on Egypt's first televised presidential debate. Cairo, May 11, 2012. Image by Mahmoud Khaled, Al Masry Al Youm/AP Photo.]](/content_images/3/sm_AP120511013605.jpg "[Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, left, and Amr Moussa stand at their podiums on Egypt's first televised presidential debate. Cairo, May 11, 2012. Image by Mahmoud Khaled, Al Masry Al Youm/AP Photo.]")
Egypt’s first presidential election after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak is scheduled to take place on 23 and 24 May 2012, with a possible run-off race on 16 and 17 June 2012. The following guide to the presidential candidates is based on a series of articles published by Egypt Independent. For more information on prominent presidential candidates, click on any of the names below. Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh Khaled Ali Selim al-Awa Hesham al-Bastawisi Abul Ezz al-Hariry Mohamed Morsy Amr Moussa Hamdeen Sabbahi Ahmed Shafiq Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh was the leader of the Cairo University Student Union when he rose ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Past Is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine
Omar Jabary Salamanca, Mezna Qato, Kareem Rabie, and Sobhi Samour, editors. Past Is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine. Special Issue of settler colonial studies 2.1 (2012). Jadaliyya (J): What made you put together this special issue? Editors (E): This open-access (and therefore freely accessible) special issue emerges out of a conference we organized in early March 2011, convened by the SOAS Palestine Society. The impetus for the conference came from two main directions. First, we all work on one aspect of Palestine or another, and each of us has grown distressed by the tendency to treat Palestine as a series of temporal and spatial set pieces. Second, we were ...
Keep Reading »Shock-and-Awe Nation Building: Iraq's Neo-Liberal Reconstruction
![[View of Sadr City in the days preceding the December 2005 Iraqi legislative election. Image from Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_SadrCity.jpg "[View of Sadr City in the days preceding the December 2005 Iraqi legislative election. Image from Wikimedia Commons.]")
The Iraqi government’s contractual delivery of Iraqi oil fields to foreign multinationals is perhaps the most consequential long-term economic consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Contracts have been signed, production rights to massive oil fields sold, and a steady stream of propaganda disseminated about Iraqi oil production eventually rivaling that of Saudi Arabia and Iran. The celebratory narrative of Iraq’s expanding oil production has been marketed as an essential component of Iraq’s re-integration into a world economic system that will, we are told, become increasingly dependent on Iraqi oil, much of it waiting to be tapped. The ...
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 »Palestinian Hunger Strikers: Fighting Ingrained Duplicity
![[Palestinians hold photographs of their relatives jailed in Israel during a support rally for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 5, 2012. Image by Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo.]](/content_images/3/sm_LadiesStriking.jpg "[Palestinians hold photographs of their relatives jailed in Israel during a support rally for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 5, 2012. Image by Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo.]")
On his seventy-third day of hunger strike, Thaer Halahleh was vomiting blood and bleeding from his lips and gums, while his body weighs in at 121 pounds—a fraction of its pre-hunger strike size. The thirty-three-year-old Palestinian follows the still-palpable footsteps of Adnan Khader and Hana Shalabi, whose hunger strikes resulted in release. He also stands alongside Bilal Diab, who is also entering his seventy-third day of visceral protest. Together, they inspired nearly 2,500 Palestinian political prisoners to go on hunger strike in protest of Israel's policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial. Administrative detention has constituted a core of Israel's ...
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 »Post-January 25 Iranian-Egyptian Relations: A New Dawn?
Iranian-Egyptian relations have been an often-overlooked aspect of Middle Eastern and international politics over the last thirty years, due in no small part to the almost complete lack of ties between the two states following Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. Whilst these two great Middle Eastern powers have been linked over thousands of years of history, the last thirty years have been characterized by a distinct lack of inter-state relations, and considerable enmity and distrust. However, with ...
Keep Reading »Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (May 22)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.] Regional and International Perspectives Saudi Arabia and Iran: Is trouble brewing? Inside Story on Al-Jazeera English examines the implications of a union ...
Keep Reading »"We are All Palestinian Prisoners": Exclusive Interview with Artist Hafez Omar (VIDEO)
Hafez Omar, the young Tulkarm-based artist and activist, is the man behind many of the images we have come to associate with online Palestinian and Arab revolutionary campaigns--from the hunger striker Khader Adnan's stencil with a lock for a mouth to the late Egyptian Azharite Sheikh Emad Effat killed by the military police in Cairo in December. His most recent design, that of a faceless, blindfolded Palestinian prisoner became a Facebook sensation as thousands adopted it and other variations of the ...
Keep Reading »The Melancholia of a Generation
Mohammed Achaari, al-Qaws wa-al-farashah. al-Dar al-Bayda’: al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-ʻArabi, 2010. Mohammed Achaari is not new to Morocco’s literary scene; though The Arch and the Butterfly (al-Qaws wa-al-farashah) is only his second novel, he is the author of nine collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, and has served as both Minister of Culture and president of the Moroccan Writer’s Union. The brief synopses that accompanied the announcement of his selection as one of two recipients of ...
Keep Reading »Beating the Drums of Orientalism
The US occupation of Iraq, coupled with its attendant deployment of sectarianism as a political technology, has foreclosed the possibility of non-sectarian modes of seeing, or critiquing political life in Iraq. In "Shiites and Sunnis in post-US Iraq: separate and unequal; some predict dissolution of country," the five contributors, four of whom are writing from Iraq, adopt this lens in reflecting on the contentious relationship between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. In the article, originally ...
Keep Reading »Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (May 15)
Saudi-Bahrain Proposed Unity "Gulf states 'need time to study' union plan," an article on the vague proposal of a union among the Gulf states to replace the Gulf Cooperation Council, by Elizabeth Dickinson in The National. "Gulf unity plan on hold amid Iranian warning," a news report on the proposal of unity among the Gulf states, by Ian Black in The Guardian. "Saudi-Bahrain unity deal draws fierce criticism," an article on the protests against the proposed unity ...
Keep Reading »Saudi Feminism: Between Mama Amreeka and Baba Abdullah
On 9 May 2012, Manal al-Sharif was awarded the Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway. This came shortly after al-Sharif was honored as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World at a Gala in New York City. Such events have given rise to a pattern: just as numerous pictures and videos of activists attending various conferences and receiving numerous awards surface, waves of criticism pour in. Their motives are viewed with suspicion, worthiness is questioned, and ...
Keep Reading »Algeria's 10 May 2012 Elections: Preliminary Analysis
The results of the 10 May 2012 Algerian legislative elections ran against conventional wisdom, and at least two points will certainly provoke much commentary. First, despite widespread disgruntlement, Algerian voter turnout proved to be significantly higher than predicted by most observers. 42.91 percent of registered Algerians participated – seven percent more than in 2007. Second, and possibly with region-wide ramifications, Algerian voters bucked a major trend of the so-called "Arab Spring": ...
Keep Reading »The MOD Sit-in: Sometimes with the Islamists, Never with the State...
During the Monday march in solidarity with the Abbassiya detainees, a young comrade I know from Cairo University, a medical student who was among the field hospital doctors during the MOD sit-in, approached me, and told me the story of a Salafi woman in niqab, who kept on kissing the Revolutionary Socialists red flag during the sit-in, while shouting: “Forgive me I didn’t know about you before!” I replied back with the story of another comrade, who was entering the MOD sit-in and was being searched by a ...
Keep Reading »Iranian Cyber-Struggles
From the Green Movement in Iran in 2009 through the Arab revolts that began in 2011, social media have held center stage in coverage of popular protest in the Middle East. Though the first flush of overwrought enthusiasm is long past, there is consensus that Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 applications, particularly on handheld devices, have been an effective organizing tool against the slower-moving security apparatuses of authoritarian states. The new technology has also helped social movements to ...
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Latest Entries
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)
- سنان أنطون: العراق تعمق فيه تشويه التاريخ
- 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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