MER Article Editor's Picks (Spring 2003) Ahmad, Aisha and Roger Boase. Pashtun Tales: From the Pakistan-Afghan Frontier (London: Saqi Books, 2003). Alem, Raja. Fatma: A Novel of Arabia (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002). Alnasrawi, Abbas. Iraq’s Burdens: Oil, Sanctions and Underdevelopment (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002). B (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Letters (Spring 2003) PALESTINIAN DEBATE Lori Allen is to be congratulated for tackling head on the thorny issue of uses and abuses of violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict (“Palestinians Debate ‘Polite’ Resistance to Occupation,” MER 225). But she has missed the mark in crucial areas. (Author not identified) • 7 min read
MER Article Last Efforts of Iran's Reformers Student demonstrations in December 2002 revealed yet again the depth of public sentiment favoring political and economic reform in Iran. But the loose coalition of reformists under the leadership of President Mohammad Khatami has been unable to harness this “reserve power of revolution” to push its Ali Rezaei • 17 min read
MER Article Advice and Dissent in Kuwait In sharp contrast to the diplomatic ineptitude that has characterized the Anglo-American march to war against Iraq, military preparations have been systematic, extensive and inexorable. As the military buildup has progressed through the autumn and winter of 2002 and into the succeeding spring, the f Mary Ann Tétreault • 10 min read
MER Article Unsettling the Authorities Nowhere has the belittling designation “the Arab street” been more overused than in descriptions of Egypt, the most populous and politically central Arab state. Egypt’s richly textured history of political opposition, one of the lon¬gest in the region, is inevitably reduced to images of livid young men brandishing Mona El-Ghobashy • 18 min read
MER Article Boycott Fever in Jordan Sipping coffee in downtown Amman, a friend just returned from a three-week stay on a scholarship in the United States surprised me by saying, “I don’t know if I should smoke.” Had she fallen victim to the American anti-smoking frenzy? Not exactly, she continued: “You know, I’m boycotting American pr Sa'eda Kilani • 10 min read
MER Article More Than a Mob Tens of thousands of Jordanians took to the streets in support of Palestinians during the March and April 2002 Israeli invasions of seven of eight major towns in the West Bank. Remarkable enough for their sheer size (Jordan’s population is just over five million), most of these marches and Jillian Schwedler • 16 min read
MER Article The "Street" and the Politics of Dissent in the Arab World In the tense weeks between the September 11 attacks and the first US bombing raids over Afghanistan, and continuing until the fall of the Taliban, commentators raised serious concerns about what the Wall Street Journal later called the "irrational Arab street." [1] If the US attacked a Muslim Asef Bayat • 18 min read
MER Article Groundswell The day after many hundreds of thousands of Americans joined millions in hundreds of cities across the world to protest a war which had not even started, the day after what was perhaps the largest mass action in history, George W. Bush shrugged. "First of all, size of protest, Bilal El-Amine, Chris Toensing • 17 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Spring 2003) Yes, Thomas Friedman admitted in early March of 2003, the costs of George W. Bush's increasingly unilateral Iraq adventure are beginning to mount. Friedman, along with ex-National Security Council man Kenneth Pollack, has been a reassuring voice of reason coaxing fellow Establishment liberals into what another New York The Editors • 8 min read
