Follow Us
From the Editors
Jadaliyya launches its new Syria page . . . Click here.
The Culture Page Returns . . . . click here
Want to find out about new books? Visit our expanding NEWTON page. Click here.
Call for Photos: Become a Contributing Photographer at Jadaliyya
Internship Opportunities at ASI (Jadaliyya, Arab Studies Journal, FAMA). Click here!
The Jadaliyya Egypt Elections Watch page archives! Click here for comprehensive coverage.
Egypt Election Results: Of 427 seats settled, MB got 193, Nour 108, Wafd 38, Bloc 30, RDP 11, Rev. Cont. 10, Wasat 8 (Click Here)
Interested in writing a Review for Jadaliyya? Visit our Call for Reviews here.
Tunisia
Legal Agenda on Jadaliyya!
![[Legal Agenda logo. Image from legal-agenda.com]](/content_images/3/sm_mufakkira1.jpg "[Legal Agenda logo. Image from legal-agenda.com]")
The Legal Agenda is a critical and multidisciplinary non-governmental organization, based in Lebanon, that monitors and analyzes law and public policy in Lebanon, specifically, and the Arab region, generally. The Legal Agenda publishes a quarterly magazine, organizes regional conferences, commissions studies, and hosts panel and open discussions. In doing so, the organization provides a forum for citizens, experts, and researchers to analyze, critique, and debate local and regional legal developments with an emphasis on public accountability. The Legal Agenda explores the law’s influence on and capacity to empower, marginalized groups, including refugees, prisoners, ...
Keep Reading »Le Kef Is Still on Fire: A Mountaintop View of the Anniversary of the Tunisian Revolution
![[Burnt car on the streets of Le Kef. Image by Laryssa Chomiak and Jillian Schwedler.]](/content_images/3/sm_Chomaik2.jpg "[Burnt car on the streets of Le Kef. Image by Laryssa Chomiak and Jillian Schwedler.]")
Le Kef, Tunisia: On the first anniversary of the Tunisian revolution, international attention largely focused on Avenue Bourguiba in downtown Tunis and on Sidi Bouzid, where the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi on 17 December 2010 is said to have ignited the Arab Spring. But before the revolution ever reached Tunis, it unfolded in smaller towns throughout the country—spreading from Sidi Bouzid to Bou Zayen, Kassrine, Thala, Ghafsa, Le Kef, and Jendouba—well before the first large scale protest was held in the capital on 8 January 2011. Kasserine and Thala were the first towns to suffer from violent police crackdowns that fueled subsequent protest movements. In ...
Keep Reading »هوَجٌ يخدم الصهيونية
حين دعا نائب رئيس حكومة إسرائيل لهجرة اليهود التوانسة أجابه رئيسهم: لا دخل لأيّ أجنبي في الشؤون التونسية، نحن نحب بلادنا وسنبقى فيها.. أما النّفر الغبي الذي هتف قبل أيام في تونس "قتل اليهود فرض واجب"، فهو يقدّم هديّة مجانية لحكّام إسرائيل. لدى وصول الزعيم في حماس اسماعيل هنية الى تونس، قبل أيام، إختار نفرٌ قليل الخروج عن هتافات التوانسة الثورية الصادقة. فقد ارتفع وعلا هتاف “الشعب يريد تحرير فلسطين” في الاستقبال الشعبي لهنيّة، لكن ذلك النفر السّلفي كما يبدو اختار إعلان جهله من خلال الهتاف العنصريّ “قتل اليهود فرض عين”! في تونس، التي تضم يهودًا بين مواطنيها، أثار هذا الهتاف الغبي قلقًا واستنكارًا. فقال بيرس طرابلسي احد ممثلي الطائفة اليهودية التونسية: “لا ...
Keep Reading »Dog Hunting
![Police dogs [image from www.owni.eu]](/content_images/3/sm_1-chien-police-defense-www.owni.eu.jpg "Police dogs [image from www.owni.eu]")
Many years ago on a day like today, a hard-faced young man sits reading the newspaper in a café in some small alley. He opens the page and a small headline catches his eye: Campaign to Round Up 15,000 Strays in Capital. The young man smiles and reads on: As part of a plan to improve the quality of life for residents of the capital city, and to bolster Tunis’ image as a premiere tourist destination, the City Council has embarked on a campaign to catch fifteen thousand stray dogs. Headed by the Mayor, the council seeks to rid the city of approximately seven-hundred thousand dogs annually so as to ensure the safety and well-being of pedestrians throughout the municipality. ...
Keep Reading »Sidi Bouzid One Year On: Dignity, Stagnation
![[A car drives past a road sign in Sidi Bouzid. Photo Credit: Getty Images.]](/content_images/3/sm_610x.jpg "[A car drives past a road sign in Sidi Bouzid. Photo Credit: Getty Images.]")
One year has passed since Mohammed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Sidi Bouzid. His act had inspired the revolutions throughout the region, most of which have subsequently been rolled back by military authorities, co-opted by religious conservatives, and overtaken by bitter violence. But in Sidi Bouzid on Saturday, the one-year anniversary of Bouazizi’s self-immolation, residents were able to finally demonstrate their joy and pride at the magnitude of the events their native son unleashed. A building-sized tableau of Bouazizi’s beatific face was unfurled over an advertisement for a national telecom company. The sign read: “Revolution of Freedom and Dignity.” “Dignity” is ...
Keep Reading »Tunisia's Election Results and the Question of Minorities
![[Attendees at an Ennahda political rally pause for prayer. Image by Emily Parker.]](/content_images/3/sm_ennahdarally.jpg "[Attendees at an Ennahda political rally pause for prayer. Image by Emily Parker.]")
Now that the votes have been tallied and the victors of Tunisia’s 23 October elections have been announced, the country’s Constituent Assembly is finally beginning to take shape. With the blue ink still fading from Tunisian voters’ index fingers, all eyes are fixed on the composition of Tunisia’s first independent governing body, and speculation is rife – especially since the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party has secured slightly more than forty percent of the Assembly’s seats. After decades of official secularism imposed by Tunisia’s first president Habib Bourguiba, understandably, the election of a clearly Islamist party has raised the alarm of national and ...
Keep Reading »Flowering of the Arab Spring: Understanding Tunisia’s Elections Results
![[Tunisian election workers count ballots at the end of voting for the election in Tunis. Image by Louafi Larbi of Reuters.]](/content_images/3/sm_tunisia_elections_ballot_vote_count.jpg "[Tunisian election workers count ballots at the end of voting for the election in Tunis. Image by Louafi Larbi of Reuters.]")
In early 1994 a small Islamic think tank affiliated with the University of South Florida (USF) planned an academic forum to host Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of the main opposition party in Tunisia, Ennahdha. The objective of this annual event was to give Western academics and intellectuals a rare opportunity to engage an Islamically-oriented intellectual or political leader at a time when the political discourse was dominated by Samuel Huntington’s much hyped clash of civilizations thesis. Shortly after the public announcement of the event, pro-Israeli groups and advocates led by Martin Kramer, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, the head of the local B’nai B’rith, and a ...
Keep Reading »De Blogueros a Redactores de la Constitucion
![[Amira Yahyaoui (image via her website) and Riadh Guerfali (image via Flickr)]](/content_images/3/sm_YahyaouiGuerfali.jpg "[Amira Yahyaoui (image via her website) and Riadh Guerfali (image via Flickr)]")
[This article was written in English by Mischa Benoit-Lavelle and translated/published in Spanish by www.rebelion.org] De Blogueros a Redactores de la Constitución [Traducción para Rebelión de Loles Oliván] En Túnez, el único país de las revoluciones de la primavera árabe con fecha fijada definitivamente para [celebrar] elecciones libres —el 23 de octubre de 2011— el consenso entre muchos activistas es que la revolución se ha estancado. El Ministerio de Interior, donde los manifestantes exigieron drásticamente la salida de Ben Ali, está rodeado en la actualidad de alambre de espino y vigilado por una fuerza policial a la que la prensa local ...
Keep Reading »From Blogging to Writing the Constitution
In Tunisia, the only country of the Arab Spring revolutions with a definite date set for free elections—October 23, 2011—the consensus among many activists is that the revolution has stalled. The interior ministry, where protestors dramatically demanded the exit of Ben Ali, is now surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by a police force that the local press has accused of returning to its old ways of torture and intimidation. And recently, concern has been growing that popular sentiment has been taking a turn towards the Islamist. So where are the bloggers who risked everything to send sparks of change through the Internet? At least seven of them are attempting to ...
Keep Reading »Rap Rage Revolt
![[Slogans against the interim government and graffiti, Tunisia, May 2011. Photo by Nouri Gana.]](/content_images/3/sm_raptunis.jpg "[Slogans against the interim government and graffiti, Tunisia, May 2011. Photo by Nouri Gana.]")
Two months ago the private radio station Mosaïque FM asked Rachid Ghannouchi whether he preferred rap music or mizwid (Tunisia’s most popular sha‘bi or folk music, whose name derives from the main instrument that accompanies the singing, i.e., the goatskin bagpipe). Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahda (Renaissance), the previously banned Islamic party and now one of the major players in Tunisia’s postrevolutionary political scene, did not hesitate to say “rap.” This is, perhaps, an ironic reaction for the Islamic party leader whose detractors have consistently portrayed as regressive, “salafist,” and “integrist” (or, as in the Tunisian dialect, khwanji, a derogative, if not ...
Keep Reading »القيمة الأخلاقية للثورة العربية
عام ٢٠١١ كان عام الثورات العربية بدون أدنى شك. ويبدو أن عام ٢٠١٢ سيكون هو الآخر عام الثورات العربية، جديدها وقديمها. فالعديد من الثورات التي تفجرت في العام المنصرم مازالت متقدة تشتعل، والبعض منها هدأ قليلاً ثم عاد للانتفاض أو هو موشكٌ على الثوران مجدداً إما لإدراك ثواره أن ثورتهم لم تكتمل أو لاكتشافهم أن ثورتهم قد سرقت منهم وأن السارقين هم أنفسهم من كانوا قد ادعوا بأنهم حماة الوطن أودعاة الثورة أو مؤججيها الأصليين. والبعض مازال في المخاض الأول ويمكن له أن يفجر ثورته في أية لحظة ضد أي من الأنظمة ...
Keep Reading »A Postcard from Tunis: One Year Later
Tunis - Saturday, 14 January 2012. This morning I woke up at 8:00 in the Majestic Hotel on Avenue de Paris just off Avenue Bourguiba in the center of Tunis. It was quiet from the time I awoke until the time I left the hotel after breakfast at 10:30. I thought how unusual it was, given that today is the first anniversary of the Tunisian revolution and the day President Zin al-Abdin Ben Ali fled the country, "like a coward," as a few of my skeptical Tunisian friends like to put it. I ...
Keep Reading »Tunisian Film Festival in Hollywood, 10-12 January 2012
Today is the opening of the first Tunisian Film Festival in Hollywood. It is first and foremost a commemoration of the Tunisian revolution, which surprised and shook the world, ushering in insurrections and revolts whose reverberations were heard from Cairo to New York. Secondly, it is also an opportunity to bring together Tunisians in the United States and Tunisia around a common project of exchange and dialogue with American audiences in the mecca of the film industry, Hollywood. The festival opens on ...
Keep Reading »The Tunisian South: Regionalism, Marginalization, and Unfulfilled Revolutionary Expectations
Approximately a year after the outbreak of Tunisia’s revolution, the proliferation of graffiti with slogans such as “Live free or die trying,” “Don’t give up,” and “Stand up for your rights” are poignant reminders of the struggle Tunisians embarked upon last December and January. Although Tunisians succeeded in ousting Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, most citizens’ expectations of improved livelihoods have yet to be fulfilled. This reality is most evident in the country’s south, where unemployment, poor social ...
Keep Reading »Global Dimensions of the Arab Spring and the Potential for Anti-Hegemonic Politics
I remember a journalist asking a few weeks ago: has the world become a better place because of the Arab spring? I think what he meant was: are we living today in a better world because the Arab peoples have gotten rid of, or are getting rid of, some of the worst authoritarian leaders in the world? The question implicitly referred to the matter of democratization. Of course, the issue of democratization has dominated the study of political change in the Arab world over the last twenty years. However, a ...
Keep Reading »Films for the Classroom: Silences of the Palace
Silences of the Palace [Samt al-Qusur], directed by Moufida Tlatli. France/Tunisia, 1994. As a lover of film, I am often asked about my favorites. And as a lover of Arab film in particular, I am usually expected by friends and colleagues to begin with a paean to the Egyptian cinema. Growing up in the home of an Egyptian immigrant to Canada, I was weaned on a steady diet of Fatin Hamama, Rushdy Abaza, and Samia Gamal, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the cinema of the 1950s and the 1960s became a ...
Keep Reading »The New Hybridities of Arab Musical Intifadas
"My music may be soft, but I'm a warrior on stage." So declared Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi as she explained how a girl who started off playing covers for melodic death metal bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility, and The Gathering wound up electrifying her fellow protesters in front of the Municipal Theatre during the Jasmine Revolution with a folk song. Mathlouthi’s haunting voice inspired the crowd but folk music is not generally thought of as the music of Arab “youth” who, ...
Keep Reading »The Battle for Tunisia
Only days prior to the 23 October elections for a national constituent assembly, Tunisia continues to be an embattled and profoundly polarized terrain. Since the ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January, peaceful and less than peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins have routinely taken place throughout the country, particularly in the capital, Tunis. The most memorable of these remains the second sit-in protest in the Qasbah Government Square (Feb. 20th to March 3rd), which led to the resignation of ...
Keep Reading »Manoubia and Her Son
Yesterday the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women–two Liberians and a Yemeni–for, in the words of the selection committee, “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work.” While I have no doubt about the merit of these courageous women, I greeted the news with a hint of sadness. I must confess that I had hoped for a different winner–not a head of state or human rights campaigner, but an ordinary, ...
Keep Reading »Promises and Challenges: The Tunisian Revolution of 2010-2011
[Below is the latest from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) on Tunisia.] Promises and Challenges: The Tunisian Revolution of 2010-2011 The Report of the March 2011 Delegation of Attorneys to Tunisia from National Lawyers Guild (US), Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (UK), and Mazlumder (Turkey). PART I: Preface A. Introduction Had you stood on any street corner in the U.S. before December 2010 and asked passersby what they knew about Tunisia, you'd likely have been met with blank stares. In Europe ...
Keep Reading »Jadaliyya Launches Syria Page
.jpg){kind=small}
Jadaliyya Launches O.M.A.R.
Egypt Page
.jpg){kind=small}
Hot on Facebook
.كثيرا ما تفرض مثل هذه الظروف أسئلة ملحة حول الجناة والاهداف التي من أجلها ضحى الشهداء بأرواحهمclick me | أنقرني email quote to a friend
From Jadaliyya Reports
Top Jadaliyya Tags
Jadalicious / جدلشس
Noteworthy
Twitter Updates
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
Latest Entries
View All Entries »- It Is What It Is
- New Texts Out Now: Betty S. Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education
- Plundering the Past: Scholarly Treasures
- A Year After: The February 20 Protest Movement in Morocco
- حين يكون الكوكب بأسره ضد الثورة
- The Real Me and the Hypothetical Syrian Revolution - Part 1
- Searching for the Arab Spring in Ramallah
- Remembering Anthony Shadid
- Saving Khader Adnan's Life Saves Our Own Soul
- نداء الأسير خضـر عدنـان إلى العالم
- الإخوان في البرلمان؛ محاولة للفهم
- "Violating Sacred Values" in Morocco: Free Speech with an Exception
- Our Friend Anthony Shadid's Stories
- Statement on Hunger Strike of Khader Adnan by Palestinian Human Rights Organizations
- Struggles That Fueled a Revolution
- Immunity, Accountability, and the Arab Uprisings: Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat Discusses the Role of the Human Rights Community
- Anthony Shadid Is No Longer with Us
- Patent for an Invented People
- The Insha'at Exodus
- New Texts Out Now: Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao, Women's Rights, Muslim Family Law, and the Politics of Consent
Archive
©2010-2012 by the Arab Studies Institute. All Rights Reserved. info@jadaliyya.com
site by concepcion design