MER Article Graham Usher MERIP mourns Graham Usher, our long-time correspondent and contributing editor. Below are his obituary and two remembrances from our editors. (Author not identified) • 8 min read
MER Article Letter (Fall 2013) In her article, “A Makeover: Baghdad, the 2013 Arab Capital of Culture [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer266/makeover]” (MER 266), Nada Shabout gives a description of arts and culture initiatives being developed in three Iraqi “zones.” There are a few discrepancies regarding the non-profit Sada (Echo) fo (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article The Rerouted Trafficking in Eritrean Refugees When Sheikh Muhammad ‘Ali Hasan ‘Awad learned that nine kidnapped “Africans” -- eight Eritreans and one Ethiopian -- were being beaten, raped and starved in a compound in Sheikh Zuwayd, a Sinai village near the Israeli border, he wasted little time. Firing AK-47s in the air, the sheikh and his Bedou Dan Connell • 13 min read
MER Article Turkey's Woman in the Red Dress On June 1, the day after the brutal police attack to disperse the occupation of Gezi Park, thousands more protesters descended upon Taksim Square in central Istanbul. By the end of the week, demonstrators filled the plaza completely, with those in the park itself behind barricades should the police Neslihan Sen • 7 min read
MER Article Generation Y in Gezi Park Generation Y has figured large in the global pattern of protest beginning at the tail end of the 2000s. In marches against the fraudulent presidential election in Iran, against austerity in southern Europe, against autocracy in places from Morocco to Bahrain, and against greed and corruption in the Marcie J Patton • 16 min read
MER Article Syrian Drama and the Politics of Dignity Undeterred by pleas for mercy, the high-ranking intelligence officer Ra’uf pushes the junior ‘Azzam to his knees. Ra’uf forcibly shaves the young man’s head as other officers look on. He commands ‘Azzam to remove his shirt and pants, do pushups, jump up and down, and slide across the ground on his e Rebecca Joubin • 14 min read
MER Article "This Is Our Square" In June 2013 popular anger, excitement and apprehension rippled through Cairo. Lines at gas stations snaked into major roadways, paralyzing traffic. Artists occupied the Ministry of Culture to oppose a new minister from the Muslim Brothers’ Freedom and Justice Party who had fired respected cultural Vickie Langohr • 21 min read
MER Article Gender and Counterrevolution in Egypt The 18 days of revolution beginning on January 25, 2011 united Egypt. A wide range of citizens, men and women, veiled and unveiled, young and old, middle-class and working-class, stood behind the goals of ending the 30-year rule of Husni Mubarak and stopping the planned succession of his son to the Mervat Hatem • 16 min read
MER Article Glossary Gender is commonly understood to be the analysis of the social construction of categories of identity (feminine and masculine), as opposed to the biological determinism of physiological sex (female and male). “Gender” is nonetheless often uncritically conflated with “women,” and physiological or bio Norma Claire Moruzzi • 1 min read
MER Article Gender and the Revolutions How is gender related to revolutions? What is the connection between “gender” and women or, for that matter, between gender and women and men? If gender is generally understood to be the social construction of sexual difference, what explains the differences in gendered identities across cultures or Norma Claire Moruzzi • 16 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Fall 2013) A major victory for the hawks in the post-Vietnam era was to define “intervention” as military action and its opposite as inaction. Thus, in the recurrent debate over what to do about the civil war in Syria, the options are reduced to some sort of US strike, on the one hand, and nothing, on the oth The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Sojourners and Settlers The United States is a nation of common people from marginal environments. In spite of contemporary America’s preoccupation with coats of arms, few of our ancestors were the children of privilege. Nor did they come from lush plains or fecund valleys. More often it was the mountains and hill country Jon C. Swanson • 15 min read
