MER Article Containment, Counterrevolution and Credibility Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). Gabriel Kolko has been a master guide of modern US history for countless students seeking to go beyond official versions and conformist interpretations. From The Triumph of Conserva irene gendzier • 7 min read
MER Article Reading History Backwards Edmund Burke III and Ira Lapidus, eds., Islam, Politics and Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988). Shireen T. Hunter, ed., The Politics of Islamic Revivalism: Diversity and Unity (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988). Henry Munson, Jr., Islam and Revolut Sami Zubaida • 8 min read
MER Article Human Rights Briefing The bus arrived at Tadmur Prison where the military police awaited us. The warders helped us off the bus, whipping us brutally and mercilessly until we were all out. They removed the handcuffs and blindfolds, and then we were taken into a courtyard overlooked by the prison’s offices, where our names Nabeel Abraham • 4 min read
MER Article Black Hebrews in the Promised Land The Black Hebrews are a group of African-Americans who have settled in Israel, where their controversial presence has fed charges of Israeli racism. Who are these Black Hebrews, and why have they attracted so much attention? Ben-Ami Carter, leader of the Kingdom of God Nation, as the community forma Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi • 3 min read
MER Article Israel, the Contras and the North Trial Oliver North’s trial this spring surprised everyone: It actually produced some new information. But some of its most important revelations -- those touching on Israel’s role in Central America -- received little or no attention in the press. Jonathan Marshall • 8 min read
MER Article Arab Apocalypse As the twentieth century comes to a close, the voice of Etel Adnan continues to speak the prophetic visions of legendary women shut out by men at history’s dawn. In the tradition of Zarqa’ al-Yamama of pre-Islamic Arabia, and of Cassandra in Greek mythology, Adnan’s poetic premonitions and indignant Etel Adnan • 3 min read
MER Article Al Miskin In Israel a new computer game called Intifada -- developed by a Russian-born supporter of Meir Kahane who immigrated to Israel from the US after a stint in the Jewish Defense League -- has become a bestseller. Players score points for successfully using tear gas, plastic bullets, rubber bullets and/ Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article Music, Fate and State In a violent act of vengeance, the kind of crime of honor which fills Turkish jails and the pages of the tabloids, a lorry driver in Istanbul catches his wife and boss in flagrante delicto, shoots them both and flees to his home village. The police surround the village house. The man surrenders and Martin Stokes • 12 min read
MER Article Turkey: A Primer The People Turkey’s population, about 54 million, is growing at a rate of 2.5 percent -- higher than European countries, but lower than most Third World nations. Birth rates vary widely, from no more than two children among middle-class families in western cities to as many as 17 in rural families Martha Wenger • 9 min read
MER Article Constructing a Cinema of the City Turkey’s much vaunted “return to democracy” suffered an embarrassingly visible setback at last year’s Istanbul International Filmdays when censors banned four of the 92 films invited for the foreign section: three on grounds of obscenity and a fourth -- Georgian filmmaker Tenguiz Abouladze’s 1968 cl Miriam Rosen • 8 min read
MER Article Turkey's Other NATO Link Ostensibly multilateral, NATO is often merely the framework for bilateral relations in which the United States is the commanding partner. Nowhere is this more the case than with Turkey, separated geographically from the other NATO allies by its main adversary, Greece, and heavily dependent on the US Diana Johnstone • 4 min read
MER Article A Visit to the Tombs When Nevzat Helvaci, president of the Turkish Human Rights Association, visited New York City in December 1988, he asked to visit a US prison. “There is no reason why these visits should be always one-sided, with foreign monitors visiting Turkish prisons,” he commented. “We also want to visit and ob Sebnem Atiyas • 3 min read
