MER Article HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa Have the Middle East and North Africa largely escaped the global AIDS epidemic? The available data seems to say so. UNAIDS reports that, at the close of 2003, there were 480,000 adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in the Arab world, Iran, Israel and Turkey. Compared to sub-Saharan Africa, where Sandy Sufian • 10 min read
MER Article Maxime Rodinson on Islamic "Fundamentalism" With the death of Maxime Rodinson at the age of 89 on May 23, 2004, one of the last great figures disappeared in an exceptional lineage of Western scholars of Islam -- including Régis Blachère, Claude Cahen and Jacques Berque, to mention only Rodinson’s fellow Frenchmen. Rodinson belonged to this g Gilbert Achcar • 8 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Winter 2004) One has to wonder what whimsical bard in the bowels of the Pentagon conceived the name Operation Phantom Fury for the second Marine invasion of the Iraqi city of Falluja in early November. Was it a reference to the screams of bloodied, bereaved or homeless Iraqis that have been broadcast The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Fall 2004) Achcar, Gilbert. Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). Amin, Samir. The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). Bass, Warren. Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article Local Conflict, Global Spin Clashes between the followers of a Zaydi Shi‘i religious figure and security forces left hundreds of people dead in a remote area in northern Yemen in the summer of 2004. The precipitating incident was obscure, perhaps unimportant. It is hardly worth mentioning these days when worshippers in Arab countries Iris Glosemeyer • 9 min read
