With
war on its eastern borders,
and renewed turmoil inside
them, Turkey is transfixed
by something else entirely:
the desire of university-age
women to wear the Muslim
headscarf on campus, a seemingly
innocent sartorial choice
that has been forbidden by
the courts, off and on, since
1980. At public meetings
and street demonstrations,
in art exhibits, TV ads,
and dance and music performances,
headscarf opponents argue
vociferously that removing
the ban will be the first
step backward to the musty
old days of the Ottoman Empire.
A quieter majority of 70
percent, according to a recent
poll, thinks that pious students
should be allowed to cover
their heads, perhaps because
approximately 64 percent
of Turkish women do so in
daily life. There is almost
no middle ground between
the two poles: Even completely
apolitical Turks have gravitated
one way or another. Full
Story>>
It
was business as usual for
Orascom, a gigantic Egyptian
conglomerate with major interests
in everything from Cairene
highway construction to Red
Sea luxury resorts to cell
phones in Iraq.
On
February 26 Orascom Construction
Industries, one of the Orascom
family of enterprises, proudly
announced that it had acquired
the International Company
for Manufacturing Boilers
and Steel Fabrication (IBSF)
for $13.6 million. The corporate
press release trumpeted the
doubling of Orascom’s
steel capacity, but mentioned
nothing about the fate of
the firm’s workers
or its recent history. Those
stories, as told by a group
of skilled IBSF workers --
a lathe operator, a machinery
fitter, a welder and a storeroom
supervisor, each with at
least 20 years’ experience
in the factory -- are the
underbelly of the advancing
neoliberal agenda in Egypt.
Fearing reprisals from the
firm, they asked that their
names not be used and spoke
in the name of their trade
union committee and its president,
Husayn Abu Dahab. Full
Story>>
In
early August 2007, Jalal
al-Din al-Saghir, a Shi‘i
preacher affiliated with
the Islamic Supreme Council
of Iraq, made headlines with
striking comments to a reporter
for the Christian Science
Monitor. The cleric revealed
in an interview with Sam
Dagher that “a massive
operation” was underway
to secure the establishment
of a Shi‘i super-province
in Iraq, to be named the “South
of Baghdad Region,”
and projected to encompass
all nine majority-Shi‘i
governorates south of the Iraqi
capital. Saghir claimed that
his party had already drafted
detailed plans for how such
a super-province would be governed
-- plans of such importance
to Iraq and the region that
there was “no room for
misadventures.” While
Saghir did not mention a timeline
for this remarkable undertaking,
other Supreme Council supporters
of the idea were less reticent: “The
Shiite federal region will
be announced in April 2008,” wrote
one enthusiastic proponent. Full
Story>>
In
mid-January, when Israel
further tightened its blockade
of the Gaza Strip, it hurriedly
assured the world that a “humanitarian
crisis” would not be
allowed to occur. Case in
point: Days after the intensified
siege prompted Hamas to breach
the Gaza-Egypt border and
Palestinians to pour into
Egypt in search of supplies,
Israel announced plans to
send in thousands of animal
vaccines to prevent possible
outbreaks of avian flu and
other epidemics due to livestock
and birds entering Gaza from
Egypt. Medicines
for human beings, on the
other hand, are among the
supplies that are barely
trickling in to Gaza now
that the border has been
resealed. Full
Story>>
At
an intersection in front
of Nablus city hall, a pair
of women threaded a knot
of waiting pedestrians, glanced
left, then dashed across
the street. “What’s
this?” an onlooker
chastised them. “Can’t
you see the red light?” Not
long after, his patience
exhausted, the self-appointed
traffic cop himself stepped
off the curb and made his
way to the other side of
the boulevard. Such is life
in the West Bank on the eve
of the meeting in Annapolis,
Maryland, where the Bush
administration intends to
create the semblance of a
“peace process” between
Israel and the Palestinians
for the first time since it
assumed office. There is excitement
in Palestinian towns about
the urban order newly emerging
from years of chaos; there
is a willingness to play by
the rules even as many remain
convinced that doing so will
not get them very far; and,
lastly, there is the reality
that when the waiting grows
tiresome, people will again
take matters into their own
hands. As for the Annapolis
meeting itself, it is being
greeted with indifference,
with few believing it will
lead to either meaningful change
in their daily lives or substantive
progress toward the end of
an Israeli occupation now in
its fifth decade. Full
Story>>
MERIP
OP-EDS
A Country at a Crossroads The Austin-American Statesman (Austin, Texas) November 9, 2007
Kamran Asdar Ali
"A
very frank discussion"— so President Bush described
his Nov. 7 telephone
conversation with Pervez Musharraf, four days after the Pakistani
general
imposed a state of emergency and dissolved the high court expected
to rule
his continued presidency unconstitutional. And frank the discussion
probably
was: In the face of spirited protest in Pakistan, and a querulous
press in
Washington, back-channel pressure succeeded in persuading Musharraf
to
promise parliamentary elections. Yet the generous U.S. aid earmarked
for
Pakistan — on top of nearly $10 billion since 2001 — is
quite evidently not
at risk.
What may be at risk is Musharraf's tenure as head
of the military government. Full
story>>
The
war debate in Washington is bogged down. Partisan rancor is one
reason why, and bipartisan desire for US hegemony in the oil-rich
Persian Gulf is
another. But many Americans are vexed by a nobler concern: that
a
“precipitous” US departure from Iraq would leave intensified
civil war,
ethnic-sectarian cleansing and massive refugee flows in its wake.
This
concern is legitimate. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that Iraq’s
civil war
and humanitarian emergency have grown steadily worse as the US
military
deployment there wears on. Full
Story>>
Should
the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between
security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate
Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees? That is the position
that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler
of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S.
custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges,
and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of
confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace.
It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law. Full
Story>>
There
is an oft-told Palestinian allegory about a family who complained
their house was small and cramped. In response, the father brought
the farm
animals inside -- the goat, the sheep and the chickens all crowded
into the
house. Then, one by one, he moved the animals back outside. By
the time the
last chicken left, the family felt such relief they never complained
of the
lack of elbow room again. Full
Story>>
