MERIP Media Resource List, November 9, 2005

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topics:
- Bomb blasts hit three Amman, Jordan hotels, November 9
- Unrest in France continues  

WALEED HAZBUN
Waleed Hazbun is assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. His recent publications include "Mapping the Landscape of the 'New Middle East': The Politics of Tourism Development and the Peace Process in Jordan" in George Joffé, ed. Jordan in Transition, 1990-2000 (Palgrave, 2002). He is currently researching the impact of terrorism on American tourists abroad. He commented today: "Since the late 1980s the tourism sector in Jordan has been limited by the ongoing violence, war and instability in Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as from the militant Islamist attacks on the tourism economy in Egypt. Despite this, the tourism sector in Jordan over the last decade has seen large investments in luxury hotel construction. Ironically, over the past few years the luxury hotels that dot Amman have been filled not by tourists but by Americans and other foreigners working in Iraq -- the press corps, UN and US government officials and contractors working on reconstruction."

PAUL SILVERSTEIN
Paul Silverstein is associate professor of anthropology at Reed College and member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report . His research interests include North African immigration, religion and politics in France. He is author of Algeria in France: Islam, Berberity and the French Nation-State (Indiana University Press, 2004). He commented today: "The recent violence across France points to the ongoing socio-economic marginalization and everyday low-intensity violence and racism that young residents of public housing projects (les cités) face. What is at issue is rampant unemployment (upwards of 25 percent), physical dilapidation and racist policing that affect all residents, but are particularly poignant for young men of African and North African background. While cultural and religious difference (i.e., Islam) are not directly involved in the current conflict, France's war on terror -- which has closed down local prayer rooms, targeted North African and Muslim youth for police harassment and identity checks and resulted in countless detentions and deportations of suspected terrorists -- has been taken as a further sign of a lack of respect from the state."

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