MER Article Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy Fred Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967-1987 (Cambridge, 1990). Sheila Carapico • 2 min read
MER Article Three Intifada Books F. Robert Hunter, The Palestinian Uprising: A War by Other Means (I. B. Tauris, 1991). Joost Hiltermann, Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women’s Movements in the Occupied Territories (Princeton, 1991). Julie Peteet, Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Columbia, 1991). Lucine Taminian • 4 min read
MER Article Islam and Human Rights Kevin Dwyer, Arab Voices: The Human Rights Debate in the Middle East (Routledge, 1991). Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics (Westview, 1991). Naseer Aruri • 5 min read
MER Article Aspects of Egyptian Civil Resistance Several films with critical political content opened during the 1992 Ramadan season in Egypt. The most popular was al-Irhab wa al-Kabab (Terrorism and Kebab), directed by Sharif ‘Arafa and starring Egypt’s foremost comic actor, ‘Adil Imam. The protagonist repeatedly visits the hub of the central government bureaucracy -- a Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article State and Bourgeoisie in the Persian Gulf It is a widely held myth that Gulf businessmen accumulated their fabulous wealth by using traditional commercial acumen and guile refined over generations. Undoubtedly in a few cases this is true, but most businessmen in the modern, post-oil Gulf made their money less glamorously. For some, the vehicle was land Fareed Mohamedi • 8 min read
MER Article USAID's "Free-Market" Democracy “Two historic transformations are sweeping much of the world today -- the establishment of open market economies and the movement toward more accountable democratic governance.” This assertion, extracted from a US Agency for International Development (USAID) document, reflects a belief widely held among government officials and media pundits alike, who Al Miskin • 6 min read
MER Article The Islamist State and Sudanese Women The Islamist government in Sudan recently celebrated the third anniversary of the military coup that brought it to power by building a huge public park south of the Khartoum airport, featuring hundreds of hurriedly transplanted trees, bushes and flowers. The impressive determination and efficiency t Ellen Gruenbaum • 9 min read
MER Article For Another Kind of Morocco On September 13, 1991, after nearly 17 years in the prisons of His Majesty Hassan II, Moroccan activist Abraham Serfaty was released and expelled to France. This was not, to be sure, out of human rights considerations, or a measure of royal clemency: According to the Ministry of the Interior, an “in Miriam Rosen • 9 min read
MER Article Israel's Ultra-Orthodox The Palestinian delegation to the peace negotiations in Washington has enjoyed the services of an unusual group of advisers and supporters: four men wearing the unmistakable garb of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who were willing to tell anybody ready to listen that they were non-Zionist Jews. Israeli state television was delighted to Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi • 8 min read
MER Article Left In Limbo The late 1970s saw the demise of the organized left as a viable political force in Arab society. Egypt’s socialists were confined to intellectual circles gathered around al-Ahali newspaper and the Tagammu‘ party. The two largest and most vigorous Arab communist parties, in Iraq and Sudan, had been crushed Salim Tamari • 15 min read
MER Article Taking Up Space in Tlemcen: The Islamist Occuation of Urban Algeria Rabia Bekkar, an urban sociologist who has spent more than 12 years doing research in Tlemcen, Algeria, works at the Institut Parisien de Recherche: Architecture Urbanistique et Societe. She first came into contact with the Islamist movement in the form of neighborhood charitable associations. When the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) Hannah Davis • 13 min read
MER Article Islam, the State and Democracy The quest for democratization and human rights in the Middle East has prominently featured the term “civil society.” Oppression and corruption, it is agreed, have followed from an overly intrusive state and its bureaucracies. Democratization must include a withdrawal of the state to allow free spheres of social autonomies and Sami Zubaida • 20 min read
