Sectarianism

The Balkanisation of Syria: Myth or Reality?

In recent weeks, as the number of casualties in the Syrian civil war has been soaring exponentially, so have comparisons of the situation in the country with the wars that ravaged and, ultimately, resulted in the break up of the Yugoslav federation into several smaller and purportedly ethnically more homogeneous states in the 1990s – a process commonly referred to as Balkanisation. Such comparisons vary greatly in degree and are often little articulated: from drawing parallels with an ill-defined ...

Lebanon, the Sectarianization of Politics, and Genderalizing the Arab Uprisings: Interview with Maya Mikdashi

The following interview with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Maya Mikdashi was conducted by Eugenio Dacrema for the Istituto per gli studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI), on whose website it was originally published on 21 June 2012. In the interview, Maya discusses developments in Lebanon as they related to the uprising in Syria. She also discusses Lebanese politics more generally as well the workings of gender politics in the Middle East. Eugenio Dacrema (ED): A Few days ago a new session of the National ...

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 ...

2011, A Memory From Lebanon

When the revolutions began in March of 2011, I was envious. It is not easy to admit this. Back then, before the revolutions turned bloody, before Libya and Bahrain and Syria and before the continuation of a military state in Egypt, the possibilities seemed contagious. But even then, while in the fever of January, beneath a desire for revolution, I understood that I would not see a similarly broad based and successful uprising in Lebanon. Watching the swell of people in Tahrir Square on television, I was ...

Three Versions of Copt

Not quite a day later, a secular Muslim employee at one of Egypt’s largest media institutions begins to unpack the events of 9 October at his office, not far from the site of blood in downtown Cairo -I- Yesterday evening, while I sat at this desk dreaming up cultural content for the pages I am in charge of, Twitter began turning up news of protesters being fired at and pelted with stones – but not run over by combat armored vehicles, not beaten repeatedly after they were dead, nor thrown into the Nile ...

The Maspero Massacre: The Military, the Media, and the 1952 Cairo Fire as Historical Blueprint

The Maspero Massacre and the official media policy that emerged in its wake can only be understood in the context of the ongoing struggle between the national security state and forces working to achieve a fledgling democracy in Egypt. The January Revolution was a transformative moment in the country’s history: a moment of transition from a security regime that had grown rotten to the core after sixty years in power towards a nascent democratic state. Freedom of speech and the personal dignity and ...

Sectarianism and the Revolution

There is a great deal of discussion in media circles of the attacks on Coptic protesters that took place this past Sunday. Much of this discussion has framed the attacks as sectarian and, specifically, as anti-Christian. Indeed, the language used in the headlines of various op-ed pieces is extremely evocative, if not verging on the hyperbolic. The religion blog in the Canadian National Post has featured a "question and answer" discussion under the title “Are Coptic Christians ...

Cartoons: Carlos Latuff on Egypt

Hate Speech Finds a Mainstream Platform

It is not often that major international publications respond to crackpot opinion pieces in other newspapers. Yet Robert L. Bernstein’s latest tantrum against the Palestinians, which the Washington Post published instead of steering the author to an extremist website, was so far beyond the pale that The Economist felt compelled to issue a ...

Statement of Syrian Christians in Support of the Revolution

[The following statement was issued in English, French, and Arabic by a group of Syrian Christians on July 10, 2011.] Statement of Syrian Christians in Support of the Revolution I. Christianity being a religion of truth, justice, equality and love, Syrian Christians can not but be with their fellow citizens in their peaceful movement toward freedom, justice, and equality. II. We, as Syrian nationals and an active part of Syrian society, declare our early participation in this blessed revolution which ...