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Region
Gays, islamistas y la primavera arabe; Que haria un revolucionario?
[This article was written in English by Maya Mikdashi and R.M. and translated/published in Spanish by www.rebelion.org] Gays, islamistas y la primavera árabe ¿Qué haría un revolucionario? [Traducción para Rebelión de Loles Oliván] El pasado mes de mayo el blog Una lesbiana en Damasco respondía a un alarmista artículo de primera plana en la BBC International sobre el futuro de los derechos de Lesbianas, Gays, Bisexuales y Transexuales (LGBT) en el despertar de la primavera árabe. El quid de la respuesta de la blogger se centraba en las formas en que la retórica de los derechos de los gays se ...
Keep Reading »Call for Papers: Covering the Arab Spring (September 1-2, 2011)
![[The University of Copenhagen. Image from unknown archive.]](/content_images/3/sm_Uni-Uni.jpg "[The University of Copenhagen. Image from unknown archive.]")
The University of Copenhagen invites proposals for the two day conference: COVERING THE ARAB SPRING. The MIDDLE EAST IN THE MEDIA – THE MEDIA IN THE MIDDLE EAST (Copenhagen, September 1-2, 2011) This conference seeks to bring together scholars from various disciplines to exchange their descriptions and analyses of different national perspectives in the coverage of events in Arab countries throughout the first half of the year 2011 that have been referred to as the Arab Spring. Media coverage and international visibility played a big role not only for the sake of being informed about events in another city, nation or region but it was a major catalyst and tool ...
Keep Reading »The Year of the Citizen
![[From Google Images.]](/content_images/3/sm_egypt-victory.jpg "[From Google Images.]")
During the Spring of the so-called Arab Spring, the euphoria that characterized the Winter of 2010/2011 has increasingly given way to more somber attitudes associated with Winter. For those who were expecting a linear progression towards freedom, in which vain autocrats and sclerotic regimes would fall with growing ease and rapidity, despondency is an appropriate response to the increasing ferocity with which ruling elites seek to remain in power. Yet in the life of peoples, as in life itself, linear does not exist. There are no victories without defeat, hope is constantly shadowed by despair, the future consistently threatened by the combined weight of present and past. ...
Keep Reading »Arab Uprisings and Middle East Studies: Roundtable with Beshara Doumani, Charles Hirschkind, Saba Mahmood, and Stefania Pandolfo
![[Image from unknown source.]](/content_images/3/sm_ucbroundtable.jpg "[Image from unknown source.]")
This is an audio recording of an informal roundtable on how the recent popular uprisings in the Arab world have impacted research and teaching on the Middle East in the various disciplines. The roundtable was held on May 2 at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) as part of the Luncheon Seminar, a monthly gathering of faculty and graduate students at UCB who work on the Middle East and North Africa and Islam-related topics. This roundtable capped five meetings of the Luncheon Seminar during the Spring 2011 Semester, all of which were focused on the impact of the Arab Uprisings on our work and understanding of this region. Beshara Doumani, Stefania ...
Keep Reading »First Jadaliyya Co-Sponsored Conference on "Teaching the Middle East After the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions"
![[This conference is NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC]](/content_images/3/sm_TME.jpg "[This conference is NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC]")
As part of the Arab Studies Institute, Jadaliyya is fortunate to be co-sponsoring this 40-participant (closed) conference on "Teaching the Middle East After the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions: Beyond Orientalism, Islamophobia, and Neoliberalism" (see list of co-sponsors and participants/presentations below). In due time, the conference proceedings will be made public, including a video, potentially. The material will be part of Jadaliyya's new Pedagogy Section which will be announced shortly (sneak peak here). The conference, co-sponsored by George Mason University's Middle East Studies Program and Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, is ...
Keep Reading »Deposed Tyrants Retirement Home
![[Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_tumblr_lhhisoidGb1qctm4mo1_500.gif "[Image from unknown archive]")
What is to become of already-deposed dictators? And who will follow? Khalil Bendib portrays some of the issues implicated in these questions and more.
Keep Reading »Conference: “Tunisia and Egypt's Revolutions and Transitions to Democracy”
![[Image from unknown archive.]](/content_images/3/sm_EgyptTunisiaPinConference.jpg "[Image from unknown archive.]")
The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) will hold its 12th Annual conference, this coming Friday, in Washington DC. The main theme for this year’s conference is “Tunisia's and Egypt's Revolution and Transitions to Democracy”. The last few months have been momentous in the history of the Middle East and North Africa. The whole thing started when Mohamed Bouazizi, immolated himself on Dec. 17th in Sidi Bouzid, a small town in Southern Tunisia. Within days, demonstrations spread to all cities and towns, and in less than 4 weeks on Jan. 14th, President Ben Ali who ruled Tunisia for the past 23 years with an iron fist, fled to Saudi Arabia. ...
Keep Reading »Securing the People (or State?): Efforts in Governing Through Fear
![[Image courtesy of 2011 Universal Press Syndicate.]](/content_images/3/sm_Mideast-Protests.jpg "[Image courtesy of 2011 Universal Press Syndicate.]")
Traditionally conceptualised as pertaining to the state and achieved through its safeguarding against the interests (territorial or otherwise) of other states, security has become an increasingly and intensely contested concept. Two assumptions that structured the field of security studies – grounding the meaning of security and determining the mechanisms and strategies for its attainment – have been fundamentally challenged. The widening and deepening of the security agenda[1] has called into question both the privileging of the state as the primary object of security, and the narrow definition of what constitutes a threat. A multiplicity of sub- and trans-national ...
Keep Reading »How to Lose Friends and Alienate Your People
![[Image from the author's upcoming book, Image Politics in the Middle East]]](/content_images/3/sm_aynama.jpg "[Image from the author's upcoming book, Image Politics in the Middle East]]")
The extraordinary events that have been gripping the Arab world since December 2010 have demonstrated the steadfastness of Arab citizens across the region in the face of despotic regimes. But they have also demonstrated that Arab despots indeed engage in authoritarian learning. From Tunisia to Egypt to Bahrain to Libya to Morocco to Yemen to Syria (and the list goes on), Arab rulers have followed a peculiarly familiar pattern in the way they have—and are—responding to the protests calling for regime change. 1. Ignore the protests One of the first reactions to budding protests is simply to ignore them and their potential. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ...
Keep Reading »Regional "Contagion" in the Arab World: For "Good" or "Worse?"
![[Image from mahjoob.com]](/content_images/3/sm_contagioncontagion.jpg "[Image from mahjoob.com]")
Although predicted by few, the current upheavals in several Arab countries reinvigorate commonplace perceptions of the countries and peoples in the Arab world and the Middle East at large as constituting a densely intertwined, interconnected and bounded region. When Tunisian protestors expelled their dictator, parallels were quickly drawn with Mubarak’s rule in Egypt, prompting mass mobilization there and causing a similar exit of this country’s long-standing ruler. In their wake, anti-regime protestors in other Middle Eastern countries equally felt a rare momentum for change. With varying results, they scrambled to get rid of their own rulers’ deeply engrained ...
Keep Reading »The Voice Is Obama's; The Hands are Bush's
President Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo was widely received as a sincere expression of his desire for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” He acknowledged the historic injuries of colonialism, quoted the Qur’anic injunction to “speak always the truth,” recognized the plight of the Palestinian refugees, allowed for the possibility of Hamas participating in realizing the aspirations of the Palestinian people, and clearly called for a halt to Israeli settlement, even ...
Keep Reading »UCLA Uncut Interview with James Gelvin on Obama's May 19 Speech
This is an 11-minute edited video of an interview conducted with James L. Gelvin after President Barack Obama's "Middle East Speech" that was delivered on May 19, 2011. In it, Gelvin discusses the lukewarm reaction throughout the Middle East to Obama's speech, outlining the ways in which the stated objectives and policies of the United States fell short of both the needs and expectations of the people of the Arab world.
Keep Reading »Schedule from Conference on "Teaching the Middle East After the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions."
On May 13 and May 14, more than forty scholars gathered as part of Jadaliyya's first co-sponsored conference on "Teaching the Middle East After the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions." The conference announcement and description can be found here. Presenters' abstracts, panel summaries, and more are forthcoming on the Pedagogy Page. FRIDAY, MAY 13 9:30am - 10:00am Introduction by Bassam Haddad and Cemil Aydin, and Welcome by Provost Peter Stearns 10:00am - 11:30pm Panel 1: ...
Keep Reading »Awakening, Cataclysm, or Just a Series of Events? Reflections on the Current Wave of Protest in the Arab World
Perhaps the best starting point for understanding the current remarkable wave of protest spreading across the Arab world, would be to examine the nomenclature used to describe or frame it. To some observers it is seen as a ‘cataclysm.’ Others speak of the ‘contagion effect’. Still others might see it as simply a series of (fortunate or unfortunate) events not significantly related to each other. The terminology we use influences the conclusions we draw. We can see this if ...
Keep Reading »The Securitisation of Political Rule: Security Domination of Arab Regimes and the Prospects for Democratisation
Among the more interesting features of the current wave of uprisings and protests sweeping the Arab world is the general absence of the armed forces from regime efforts to defeat popular challenges to autocratic rule. Even in Libya, where the revolt has taken an unambiguously military character and the Qaddafi regime is additionally confronted with foreign intervention, the regular army has not emerged as a prominent actor. Where senior officers have played a significant role, such as in Egypt, Tunisia ...
Keep Reading »Two Mundasseen Bidoun Banadoura
After several botched attempts at jumpstarting a revolt against their respective regimes, would-be protesters in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Oman put out a call to hire mundasseen (مندسّين infiltrators) to help saw strife and ignite protests. Currently, there are 173 such calls/ads roaming the web and social media. After witnessing the success of the mundasseen in wreaking havoc in Libya and Syria, protesters started forming a special task force in their respective country to import, enlist, and ...
Keep Reading »New MERIP Issue on People Power: A Must-Read!
[Below is MERIP's press release introducing the new issue titled "People Power." Jadaliyya Reports presents it as a "Must-Read" issue!] Revolution is a weighty word, one as freighted with past disappointments as with hope for the future. The fate of the midwinter political revolutions in the Arab world is far from determined, as forces of counter-revolution have rallied. But, along with army officers and lords of finance, any balance sheet must also account for another actor—the ...
Keep Reading »The Arab Spring: Two Dictators Down, Twenty To Go
Dictators in Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Syria and other Arab countries have resorted to increasingly repressive and brutal tactics to hold on to power. Khalil Bendib's two cartoons succinctly portray the current state of the 'Arab Spring' as well as its future prospects.
Keep Reading »Preliminary Historical Observations on the Arab Revolutions of 2011
Towards the end of his long, eventful life, in 1402, the renowned Arab historian Ibn Khaldun was in Damascus. He left us a description of Taymur’s siege of the city and of his meeting with the world conqueror. None of us is Ibn Khaldun, but any Arab historian today watching the Arab revolutions of 2011 has the sense of awe that our forbear must have had as we witness a great turning in world affairs. This juncture may be unprecedented in modern Arab history. Suddenly, despotic regimes that have been ...
Keep Reading »Abduh al-Fallah: Elite Myths and Popular Uprisings
The refrain “al-sha‘b/yu-rîd/is-qât/al-ni-zâm” has proven resiliently mobile: it rang out in Tunisia, echoed in Tahrir, traveled west to Libya and Algeria, and east to Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. A central part of this poetic and exhilarating refrain is al-sha’b: the people. How do we understand the people today when the term has come to be at best a glorified, naïve idea and at worst a stale concept? As we witness popular mass mobilization overthrow some of the most entrenched and ostensibly stable ...
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