Ian Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands Ian Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza (Cornell, 1993). Barbara Harlow • 3 min read
MER Article The Saudis, the French and the Embargo The successful maintenance of a near total embargo on Iraq owes to a number of factors, ranging from geography to post-Cold War global economies. Iraq’s limited access to the sea can be easily monitored, while its record of regional aggression has deprived Baghdad of local friends. Despite some brea Roger Diwan, Fareed Mohamedi • 6 min read
MER Article Paris, Washington, Algiers The prospect of an Islamist victory in Algeria has alarmed French policymakers and politicians across the political spectrum. The French right, from the National Front's Jean Le Pen to Gaullist Interior Minister Charles Pasqua have, in varying degrees, raised the specter of Algerian “boat people” sw Roger Diwan, Fareed Mohamedi • 4 min read
MER Article "Images from Elsewhere" “You chase colonialism out the door, it comes back through the sky,” observed the Algerian Press Service several years ago, alluding to the phenomenon of satellite broadcasting that has literally brought European television into the living rooms of North Africa. [1] More than 95 percent of urban hou Miriam Rosen • 7 min read
MER Article Rai, Rap and Ramadan Nights The collapse of the Berlin Wall has forced Western Europe to rethink its identity. In the past its conception of itself as a haven of democracy and civilization depended in part on a contrast to the evils of the Communist bloc. Today there is a revived notion of Europe as David McMurray, Joan Gross, Ted Swedenburg • 18 min read
MER Article Sacrilegious Discourse More than a quarter of a century after independence, the Maghrib’s Francophone literary output is flourishing. If one adds to this the Beur literature produced by second and third generation immigrants of North African heritage, Maghribi literature in French appears to be the single most important l Hedi Abdel-Jaouad • 8 min read
MER Article Toward a World Literature? The Prix Goncourt, always the biggest literary event of the year in France, became even more so in 1987, when the venerable Goncourt Academy named Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun as its eightieth laureate. In French literary circles, reaction to the selection of Ben Jelloun’s novel, La Nuit saerde Miriam Rosen • 12 min read
MER Article Apprehensions of Islam Bruno Etienne, L’islamisme radical (Paris: Hachette, 1987.) Gilles Kepel, Les banlieues de l’islam: naissance d’une religion en France (Paris: Seuil, 1987.) Michael Gilsenan • 14 min read
MER Article "Little Satan" Stuck in Arms Export Trap France is finding out that being a “Little Satan” can be more uncomfortable than being a big one. Whatever the outcome, the Gulf war threatens to end in political and economic disaster for France, which has become number two demon in the eyes of the ayatollahs by selling Iraq more arms than it can p Diana Johnstone • 5 min read
MER Article Document: "American Reactions Are a Little Primitive" In early November 1986, just as the Iran arms story was breaking, Washington Times editor Arnaud de Borchgrave interviewed French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. On November 7, de Borchgrave published a front-page story based on the interview highlighting Chirac’s suspicion, which the prime minister (Author not identified) • 17 min read
MER Article Algerian Migration Today Richard Lawless and Allan and Anne Findlay, Return Migration to the Maghreb: People and Policies, Arab Papers 10 (London: Arab Research Centre, 1982). Philippe Adair, “Retrospective de la Reforme Agraire en Algerie,” Revue Tiers-Monde 14 (1983). Jean Bisson, “L’industrie, la ville, la palmeraie au David McMurray • 4 min read
