MER Article Gender and Political Change ‘Aziza the Alexandrian is serving a life sentence in her women’s prison in Egypt for the murder of her mother’s husband. ‘Aziza, the main character in Salwa Bakr’s novel The Golden Chariot Won’t Ascend to the Heavens, assassinated this man who had seduced her as well as her mother, and then, followi Barbara Harlow, Julie Peteet • 10 min read
MER Article From the Editors When MERIP came together in 1971, it was with a purpose to integrate the Middle East into the progressive political agenda in the United States. Toward this end we began this magazine to provide information and analysis about the material conditions of Middle Eastern societies and to examine US poli The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Ehrenfeld, Narcoterrorism Rachel Ehrenfeld, Narcoterrorism (Basic Books, 1990). Ever since the Reagan administration elevated “narco-terrorism” to the status of a national security threat, ideologists of left and right have staked out predictable positions. [1] Foes of Cuba, Nicaragua and other leftist regimes or movements Jonathan Marshall • 6 min read
MER Article Feminism or Ventriloquism Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, eds., Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing (Indiana, 1990). Introduced by the editors as “the first collection of Arab women’s feminist writing,” Opening the Gates is both an important and problematic anthology. Following the basic format of two prev Zjaleh Hajibashi • 7 min read
MER Article Egypt from Outside and Inside In May the group of 17 states known as the Paris Club decided to forgive (in stages) half of Egypt’s $20.2 billion government-to-government debt. Earlier, the US had agreed to write off $7.1 billion of Egypt’s military debt, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar canceled $6 bi Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Al Miskin Tikkun editor Michael Lerner’s noisome whining and waffling over whether or not to support US military action against Iraq lasted just about as long as the Gulf crisis itself. But at least Lerner never went all the way and fully endorsed Operation Thyroid Storm. The same cannot be said of a number o Al Miskin • 4 min read
MER Article An Interview with Francis Deng Francis Deng is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School. He served as Sudan’s ambassador to Canada from 1980-1983, to the United States from 1974-1976 and to Scandanavian countries from 1972-1974. He Khalid Mustafa Medani • 9 min read
MER Article Where Famine Is Functional Images of African famine once again scan Western television screens, prompting a renewed search for causes and solutions. In this worried atmosphere it is easy to overlook that international relief operations have now become a widespread and accepted response to this unfolding crisis. While Sudan an Mark Duffield • 13 min read
MER Article The National Islamic Front and the Politics of Education In a country like Sudan, those with access to education become the object of intense competition on the part of political parties of all stripes, especially those with no traditional base of support. Secondary schools and especially universities become the hunting ground -- and sometimes the killing Ali Abdalla Abbas • 12 min read
MER Article "The Regime Has Simply Barricaded Itself in Khartoum" Bona Malwal was elected to the Sudanese parliament in 1968. He was minister for culture and information from 1972 to 1978 and minister of finance and economic planning for the south from 1980 to 1981. His English-language newspaper, the Sudan Times, was banned when the current regime seized power in Joe Stork • 9 min read
MER Article Funding Fundamentalism While Islamic fundamentalism has become a major political force in the Arab world in recent years, particularly in the countries of the Maghrib, it is in Sudan where the Islamist movement has realized its greatest ambition: controlling the levers of state power and setting itself up as a model for s Abbashar Jamal • 12 min read
