MER Article Algeria's Crisis Intensifies The military-led regime in Algiers has abruptly terminated its halting year-long effort to initiate a “dialogue” with its Islamist opponents, with no sign of when discussions might be resumed. It appeared for a time that the “reconciliators,” led by President Lamine Zeroual, had won out over hard-line Arun Kapil • 17 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1995) Two years ago, Algeria’s army displaced the ostensibly constitutional regime of Chadli Benjedid to forestall an all-but-certain victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in a second round of elections scheduled for a few weeks later. The chief consequence of that army intervention is a war whose The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (November/December 1994) Afkhami, Mahnaz and Erika Friedl, eds. In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994). Arkoun, Mohammed. Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994). B’tselem and Palestinian Lawyers for Human R The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article Politics in the Middle East Elie Kedourie, Politics in the Middle East (New York: Oxford, 1992). Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East (London: Routledge, 1992). GABRIEL YOUNG • 3 min read
MER Article Islamism and Fundamentalism The Fundamentalism Project, directed by Martin Marty and Scott Appleby of the University of Chicago, has produced a three-volume study of politicized religion in the twentieth century. Fundamentalisms Observed, Fundamentalisms and Society and Fundamentalisms and the State collect articles by interna Saba Mahmood • 7 min read
MER Article Column: Funding Agents During World War II, the British ambassador in Cairo, Lord Killearn, complained about the sudden influx of American experts into the country under the auspices of US Lend-Lease assistance. Inquiries into the exact size of railroad track gauge in the Egyptian countryside, he was convinced, were a thi Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article An Islamic Women's Liberation Movement? Heba Ra’uf ‘Izzat, 29, is a teaching assistant in the Political Science Department at Cairo University. Active in the Islamist movement, she is known for her academic research on women’s political role from the perspective of political Islam and its theory. She edits the women’s page in al-Sha‘b, a Karim El-Gawhary • 4 min read
MER Article Arafat and the Opposition With the return of Yasir Arafat and the installation of a Palestinian Authority (PA) in Gaza and Jericho, domestic political debates within the Occupied Territories are likely to focus less on the textual detail of the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles and more on the political nature of the nas Graham Usher • 12 min read
MER Article "Tilt but Don't Spill" “Kaj dar-o mariz” (the jar is tilted but not spilled) describes how the Islamic Republic came stumbling through its first decade. Unlike Iraq, Iran fought the war between them entirely on its own resources, which enabled the state to maintain a sense of achievement and independence. [1] However, with Kaveh Ehsani • 16 min read
MER Article Squatters and the State The early 1990s saw a period of renewed urban popular uprisings in Iran, unprecedented since the 1979 revolution. From August 1991 to August 1994, six major upheavals took place in Tehran, Shiraz, Arak, Mashhad, Ghazvin and Tabriz, and there were frequent minor clashes in many other urban centers. M Asef Bayat • 14 min read
MER Article An Open Letter to a Jailed Iranian Writer Dear Dr. Saidi Sirjani: For almost 20 years now, I have known and admired you and your writings. Whatever your detractors may say, Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani cannot justly be accused of partisanship. I have known you as a fierce critic of Mohammad Reza Shah’s insufferable pretensions and intolerance o Andrew Whitley • 3 min read
MER Article Iran's Revolutionary Impasse Two quite different images emerge of the current political situation in Iran depending on whether one looks from the perspective of the state or from that of society. From the state perspective, it appears as though the Islamic regime is becoming more and more ideologically rigid, economically unstable, politically repressive Ali Banuazizi • 19 min read
