MER Article
Global Aspirations and Local Realities of Solar Energy in Morocco
Morocco's massive Noor solar power installation in Ouarzazate is celebrated as an important step in the transition to renewable energy. But the benefits are not flowing to all citizens. Rural unrest and other demonstrations of discontent in recent years are piercing the government's techno-optimism.
On Blaming Climate Change for the Syrian Civil War
The idea that the Syrian civil war was partly caused by climate change induced drought is widely repeated and yet deeply flawed. Jan Selby excavates the sources of misleading information and dismantles the simplistic cause and effect argument. Most importantly, he explains the real political and eco
Big Village Interactive Documentary Tells Small Stories of a Rebel Kurdish Village
After the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iranian Kurds fighting for autonomy moved to the village Gewredê in Iraq. The online, interactive documentary Big Village reconstructs life in Gewredê in the mid-1980s, as remembered by the residents. The viewer can click on interviews, pictures, videos and texts,
Securitizing Citizenship and Politicizing Security in Iraqi Kurdistan
It was 8 am on a scorching hot summer day. I was sitting inside a public notary office in a Kurdish border town, two kilometers away from the no-fly zone declared by the US-led coalition in 1991, and which separated the Kurdish autonomous zone from the rest of Iraq. In
The Gains and Risks of Kurdish Civic Activism in Iran
On July 13, 2020, two young Kurdish men, Diako Rasoulzadeh and Saber Sheikh-Abdollah, were executed by the Iranian government on fabricated charges of involvement in bombing a military parade in Mahabad in 2010. They were also members of Komala, a banned Kurdish political party. Amnesty International notes that, “There has
The New Wave of Politics in the Struggle for Self-Determination in Rojhelat
In an attempt to decolonize Kurdistan, at least discursively, Kurds refer to the Kurdish region of Iran as Rojhelat, instead of Iranian Kurdistan. Rojhelat, meaning “the place where the sun rises,” refers to the eastern portion of Kurdistan—the Kurdish homeland that stretches across four countries. This terminology has been
The Kurdish Movement’s Disparate Goals and the Collapse of the Peace Process with Turkey
The Kurdish movement in Turkey has three stated objectives: to achieve a resolution of the Kurdish issue, to democratize Turkey and to establish a decentralized political system formulated as Democratic Confederalism by Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).[1] Although the PKK is at the