MER Article "The Workers as a Class Were Defeated" Metin Kara (a pseudonym) worked on the staff of DISK, the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions. He now lives in exile in Brussels, and he works with the DISK liaison bureau there. His trade union work dates back to 1967, when he was a member of a DISK-affiliated union. From 1975 to 1978, he wor (Author not identified) • 13 min read
MER Article Trade Unions and Turkey's Working Class The emergence of the working class as a force on Turkey’s political scene is essentially a phenomenon of the years since World War II. The organized expression of this class, trade unions, also made their appearance in these years. Both these developments were closely related to the process of rapid Ronnie Margulies, Ergin Yildizoğlu • 16 min read
MER Article Western Silence on Turkey About July 20, 1983, a BBC television news crew filming outside Istanbul’s Metris prison found itself confronted by difficulties which, one of the crew said, he had never experienced even in the Soviet Union. During a subsequent flurry of messages between the crew, the British Embassy in Ankara, and David Barchard • 10 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1984) It has become quite the rage in Washington lately to declaim “state terrorism” as the new scourge of humanity. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post recently featured extensive inquiries into the attacks against US and Israeli targets in Lebanon, and US and Kuwaiti targets in the Gulf. Bef The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Visualizing History Sarah Graham-Brown, The Palestinians and Their Society, 1880-1946 (New York: Quartet Books, 1980). Miriam Rosen • 12 min read
MER Article Mortimer, Faith and Power Edward Mortimer, Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam (New York: Random House, 1982). Bassam Tibi • 6 min read
MER Article The Hammamat Declaration In early April 1983, a group of 35 Arab intellectuals, academicians, professionals and political activists met at the Hammamat cultural center in Tunis to discuss the crisis of human rights and democratic freedoms in the Arab world. No officials or representatives of any Arab government attended, an (Author not identified) • 3 min read
MER Article Recession Hits Saudi Oil Sector A visitor to the kingdom might be startled to hear Saudis speak of a “recession” here. Non-oil growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) is proceeding at a 6 percent clip. Unemployment is nil and construction sites still appear to be eating up the desert around every major city. It hardly looks lik A Special Correspondent • 5 min read
MER Article Marxism, the Third World and the Middle East It has become common in the West to question the relevance of Marxism to advanced capitalism, and to suggest that, as a theory, it is in “crisis” and requires substantial revision. Paradoxically, more orthodox versions of Marxist theory and politics seem to retain an appeal in the Third World. Since Maxine Molyneux, Fred Halliday • 12 min read
MER Article Restructuring the World Energy Industry A decade ago, the states that make up the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) took a number of important steps to alter the structure of the world oil industry by encroaching on the prerogatives of the international oil companies. The producers unilaterally increased the “posted pri Michael Renner • 21 min read
MER Article OPEC's Decade No one can deny that the past ten years have witnessed great changes in the international oil industry. A decade ago, the seven largest international oil companies -- Exxon, Shell, British Petroleum, Texaco, Standard of California, Mobil and Gulf -- still dominated the industry in virtually every re Stephen Zorn, Michael Tanzer • 10 min read
MER Article Ten Years After It is still possible, even likely, that history will take note of the remarkable events of late 1973 and early 1974: Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal and penetrated the supposedly impregnable Bar Lev line in a matter of hours; the kings and presidents of the Arab oil producing states, led by F Joe Stork • 13 min read
