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It Is What It Is
![[Car bombing in Baghdad in 2007. Image by Jim Gordon]](/content_images/3/sm_Carbomb.jpg "[Car bombing in Baghdad in 2007. Image by Jim Gordon]")
A call by the Hayward gallery has been circulating regarding a second installment of the Jeremy Deller piece, It Is What It Is. The call, an excerpt of which follows, was sent out to look for participants in the gallery show opening this month (February 22) in London: “I work as Assistant Curator at the Hayward Gallery and am currently carrying out research for our forthcoming exhibition on Turner prize-winner Jeremy Deller which takes place at the Hayward Gallery from 22 February - 13 May 2012. The exhibition will feature a number of works, including an installation of ‘It Is What It Is’ - a work which explores the recent history and current circumstances of Iraq ...
Keep Reading »Anthony Shadid Is No Longer with Us
![[Anthony Shadid in the On Point studios of WBUR. Photograph by Nicholas Dynan for WBUR]](/content_images/3/sm_shadid-outside.jpg "[Anthony Shadid in the On Point studios of WBUR. Photograph by Nicholas Dynan for WBUR]")
Anthony was a dear friend and colleague to so many of us at Jadaliyya. We are shocked and devastated by this loss. We have very little to say at this point, except to offer our deepest condolences to his family. Jadaliyya Editors From the New York Times (Thursday Evening): At Work in Syria, Times Correspondent Dies Anthony Shadid, a prize-winning newspaper correspondent whose graceful dispatches for both The New York Times and The Washington Post covered nearly two decades of Middle East conflict and turmoil, died, apparently of an asthma attack, on Thursday while on a reporting assignment in eastern Syria. Tyler Hicks, a Times photographer who was with Mr. ...
Keep Reading »Is It Time to Intervene in Syria? NPR Discussion with Bassam Haddad and Others
![[Syrian flag with freedom silhouette.]](/content_images/3/sm_syria-flag_1.jpg "[Syrian flag with freedom silhouette.]")
[Discussion on "military intervention" starts at 24:40] Syria's civilian death toll is now estimated at over 6000 people, as tanks and machine guns continue to bombard residential neighborhoods. Some 25,000 civilians have managed to flee to destinations including Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Meanwhile, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has announced a referendum in ten days to amend the constitution, limit his term in office, and set up elections. As France calls on the UN to set up humanitarian corridors and Russia responds by claim that such actions might "legitimize regime change," NPR's To the Point hosted Jadaliyya Co-Editor Bassam Haddad in ...
Keep Reading »Egypt's Other Revolution: Modernizing the Military-Industrial Complex
![[Heliopolis Workshop, said to be part of the Mubarak Complex II. Image from Ferrometalco.]](/content_images/3/sm_HeliopolisWorkshop.png "[Heliopolis Workshop, said to be part of the Mubarak Complex II. Image from Ferrometalco.]")
The Egyptian military produces a staggering array of manufactured goods: kitchen cutlery, flat-screen televisions, agricultural and household chemicals, refrigerators, industrial machinery, railway cars, and election booths. And while many of the military’s factory webpages make a concerted attempt to promote their wares, the careful observer gets the feeling that the production of air conditioners and gas stoves has superseded the production of guns and ammo. Although the military has been co-producing weapons systems in its factories under license from Western arms manufacturers for decades, the production lines and maintenance facilities constructing and modifying ...
Keep Reading »A Changing American Context? Reflections on Two Books on Egyptian History from Cairo
Nelly Hanna, Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early Modern Capitalism (1600–1800). Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011. Raouf `Abbas Hamid and `Asim el-Dessouky, The Large Landowning Class and the Peasantry in Egypt, 1837-1952. Translated from the Arabic by Amer Mohsen with Mona Zikri. Edited by Peter Gran. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011. The publication of Nelly Hanna’s Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early Modern Capitalism (1600–1800) and Raouf `Abbas Hamid’s and `Asim el-Dessouky’s The Large Landowning Class and the Peasantry in Egypt, 1837-1952 marks something of a departure from the norm for the field of modern Egypt in the United States, ...
Keep Reading »US on UN Veto: "Disgusting", "Shameful", "Deplorable", "a Travesty" . . . Really?
![[Collage by author from web postings: UN.org and CNN.com]](/content_images/3/sm_gpbpfinalpostimage.jpg "[Collage by author from web postings: UN.org and CNN.com]")
A Quick Listing of The United States' Record of Veto Use at the United Nations (UN): 1972–2011* [Including Resolutions against Decades of Atrocities and Violations, Often Supported and/or Bankrolled by the United States] Year Resolution Vetoed by the United States 1972 Condemns Israel for killing hundreds of people in Syria and Lebanon in air raids. 1973 Affirms the rights of the Palestinians and calls on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. 1976 Condemns Israel for attacking Lebanese civilians. 1976 Condemns Israel for building settlements in the occupied territories. 1976 Calls for self ...
Keep Reading »Adalah on Jadaliyya!
![[Adalah logo. Image from Adalah.org]](/content_images/3/sm_eng.gif "[Adalah logo. Image from Adalah.org]")
Adalah has been at the forefront of promoting and defending the rights of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) for over fifteen years. Its work includes challenging discriminatory and racist laws against Palestinian citizens of Israel, advocating for basic services and against home demolitions and evictions in the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab (Negev), and pursuing accountability for victims of Israeli military operations in the OPT. Adalah’s lawyers submit cases before Israeli courts, and its international advocacy team files reports to international bodies such as the United Nations and the European Union on issues ...
Keep Reading »Uproar at PENN over a BDS Conference
![[Upenn BDS logo. Image from pennbds.org]](/content_images/3/sm_CONFERENCE-SQUARE1.jpg "[Upenn BDS logo. Image from pennbds.org]")
A Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) conference is set to take place next week at the University of Pennsylvania (PENN). As one would expect, the fact that the conference is taking place has created a furor. The President of the University, Amy Gutmann, released an anodyne statement disavowing any connection with the conference. She released no such statement, however, last year when the faculty and students were incensed about a talk to be delivered on campus by Eric Cantor on the theme of income inequality (Congressman Cantor eventually cancelled his appearance). The goose and gander do not get the same treatment from President Gutmann. People on campus and in the ...
Keep Reading »Job Announcement: MENA Regional Program Director (Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO)
![[Solidarity Center logo. Image from job announcement.]](/content_images/3/sm_solidaritycenterjob.jpg "[Solidarity Center logo. Image from job announcement.]")
The Solidarity Center, founded in 1997 by the AFL-CIO to tackle the enormous challenges workers face in the global economy, now works with union and community group partners in more than 60 countries through a network of 26 field offices. This not-for-profit organization offers education, training, research, legal support, and organizing assistance to help build strong and effective trade unions and other worker organizations and more just and equitable societies. Its programs promote democratic rights and respect for workers; raise public awareness about abuses of the world’s most vulnerable workers; and, above all, help the world’s workers secure a voice in their ...
Keep Reading »The Foibles of Thomas Friedman
Belén Fernández, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work. London and New York: Verso, 2011. A researcher once carried out an informal study to try to find out whether or not people actually read the books on bestseller lists. To find out, he put envelopes in the reputedly high-selling books. In each envelope was a note saying that if those who found the envelopes were to send them to a designated address, the researcher would send them five dollars. According to the story, the response rate was zero. After reading The Imperial Messenger, Belén Fernández’s treatment of the life’s work of Thomas Friedman, one can only hope for the sake of American ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Betty S. Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education
Betty S. Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Betty S. Anderson (BSA): I always joke that I conceived the project in the pool of the Carlton Hotel in Beirut. In June 2000, I visited Beirut for the first time so I could attend an Arab American University Graduate (AAUG) conference. One day, I walked with some friends all along the Corniche and up through the ...
Keep Reading »Patent for an Invented People
This cartoon is a response to the dangerous and perplexing position stated, and reiterated, by US Republican party 2012 presidential nomination candidate, Newt Gingrich, that the Palestinians are an invented people. Specifically, he claims that they were invented in the 1970s. In such a strange and an unfounded claim, Mr. Gingrich, is echoing a statement made by Ms. Golda Meir. She was one of the founders of the State of Israel and the fourth Israeli Prime Minister who was quoted by The Sunday ...
Keep Reading »What Is Cultural Terrorism?
As a well disciplined anthropologist I have learned to be weary of the word “culture.” In fact, it is difficult for me to write the word without using scare quotes. But after Lebanese boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists scored an important victory last month, the word has been everywhere in my online universe. Following BDS actions that highlighted Lara Fabian's recent Israeli Independence Day (which marks the Palestinian naqba) performance, Fabian cancelled her planned concert at the ...
Keep Reading »Beyond Mullahs and Persian Party People: The Invisibility of Being Iranian on TV
At first glance, the impending premiere of Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset would seem to herald that Iranian Americans have finally achieved melting pot bliss in the cauldron of American multiculturalism. After three decades of villainy, cultural essentialism, and protagonistic invisibility in American media, six youngish southern Californian (SoCal) adults—who party, shop, and date(!)—are poised to catapult Iranians into the American mainstream as ethnic bon vivants. A short while ago, such an about-face would ...
Keep Reading »Ayaan Hirsi Ali's War
For a couple of centuries now, we have had to make due with Samuel Johnson’s famous phrase: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Thanks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we can now revise this phrase for the twenty-first century. Tthe last last refuge of a scoundrel, it appears, lies in taking up the battle against something called “Christophobia.” Hirsi Ali coins this term as part of her alarmist and deeply hateful cover story for Newsweek. “The War on Christians” is splashed across the cover, but the ...
Keep Reading »Prophetic Politics: Charting a Healthy Role for Religion in Public Life
Walter Brueggemann, The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipatory Word. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. Does God take sides in the elections? Is there a voters’ guide hiding in our holy books? Should we pray for electoral inspiration? Secular people tend to answer an emphatic “NO” to those questions, as do most progressive religious folk. Because religious fundamentalists so often present an easy-to-caricature version of faith-based politics—even to the point of implying that God ...
Keep Reading »War Talk: The Obama Administration and Iran
“Let there be no doubt,” President Obama declared in his 2012 State of the Union address. “America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.” The comment drew a rousing and sustained standing ovation from the US Congress. “But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible,” the President continued to a smattering of applause that tumbled awkwardly across the silent chamber. The spectacle would suggest war on Iran ...
Keep Reading »Murdoch's Homeland
Terrorists have backstories, and American politicians play dirty in the “war on terror”. These revelations are what propel the Showtime’s hit series, Homeland, seemingly setting it apart from other pop culture representations of post-9/11 America. “How do you tell a thriller in the post-9/11, post-Abu Ghraib, and post-Guantanamo world?” asks Howard Gordon, one of the show’s creators. “Homeland will challenge people’s notions of what a hero and a villain are. The show lives in that complexity and lives in ...
Keep Reading »Lawfare and Targeted Killing: Developments in the Israeli and US Contexts
Over the last decade, the term lawfare, an amalgamation of “law” and “warfare,” has been adopted and popularized among people engaged in monitoring, judging and debating the legality of a state’s wartime behavior vis-à-vis enemies on and off the battlefield. Today, the dominant theme in debates about lawfare turns on the contested legitimacy of litigation to challenge military and security policies and practices; and efforts to sue or prosecute state agents, government-funded contractors, and ...
Keep Reading »“Have a Nice Day, Buddy:” What The Actions of a Few US Marines Say About Us All
Golden, like a shower, said one of the US marines as he urinated, along with three of his fellow officers, on three dead Afghans. Over the last forty-eight hours this grizzly spectacle has resuscitated the horrific images of US soldiers’ torturing and sexually humiliating men from Abu Ghraib prison to Guantanamo Bay. Then as now, brown bodies are the raw material through and upon which US soldiers realize their darkest fantasies and their deepest secrets. The pornography that popularized the “golden ...
Keep Reading »Jadaliyya Launches Syria Page
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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
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