MER Article Amazigh Activism and the Moroccan State When primary school students in the major Berber-speaking regions of Morocco returned to class in September 2004, for the first time ever they were required to study Berber (Tamazight) language. The mandatory language classes in the Rif, the Middle Atlas, the High Atlas and the Sous Valley represent David Crawford, Paul Silverstein • 13 min read
MER Article Fatemeh Haqiqatjoo and the Sixth Majles On February 23, 2004, two days after the conservative victory in the elections for the Seventh Majles, for which the Guardian Council banned over 2,000 reformist candidates, including some 80 current deputies, the reformist-dominated Sixth Majles accepted the resignation of Fatemeh Haqiqatjoo. Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 15 min read
MER Article Iran, the Vatican of Shi'ism? The Iranian state, controlled de facto by the conservatives in the government, promotes the idea that Iran is the center of Shi‘ism. It bases its argument on the fact that Iran is a Shi‘i-run state, whereas Shi‘i Muslims in other parts of the world live in states that are dominated by Sunnis, and so Roschanack Shaery • 11 min read
MER Article Abbas's Photographs of Iran My work is visual. It’s immediate. My photographs show the process that is happening in Iran. —Abbas Born in Iran in 1944, Abbas moved to Algeria with his family when he was eight years old. As a young school¬boy at the École de Garcons d’El-Biar, Abbas wrote a short story entitled “A Grand Voyage” Shiva Balaghi • 6 min read
MER Article The New Conservatives Take a Turn The conservative forces that took majority control of Iran’s parliament, or Majles, in the February 2004 elections were not swept into office by a mass movement. Conservative candidates had the help of the Council of Guardians, a body of 12 senior clerics [1] vested by the constitution of the Islami Farhad Khosrokhavar • 9 min read
MER Article The New Landscape of Iranian Politics After seven turbulent years in which a reformist movement transformed Iran’s political landscape as well as its international image, conservatives recaptured two thirds of the parliament in February 2004. “Victory” for the conservatives was achieved, in large part, by the intervention of the unelect Morad Saghafi • 18 min read
MER Article Neo-Conservatives, Hardline Clerics and the Bomb Even as the US military launched a long-rumored offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja in early November 2004, the subject of anxious speculation in Washington was not Iraq, but Iran. President George W. Bush’s victory at the polls on November 2 returned to office the executive who located Iran upon Chris Toensing, Kaveh Ehsani • 14 min read
MER Article HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa Have the Middle East and North Africa largely escaped the global AIDS epidemic? The available data seems to say so. UNAIDS reports that, at the close of 2003, there were 480,000 adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in the Arab world, Iran, Israel and Turkey. Compared to sub-Saharan Africa, where Sandy Sufian • 10 min read
MER Article Maxime Rodinson on Islamic "Fundamentalism" With the death of Maxime Rodinson at the age of 89 on May 23, 2004, one of the last great figures disappeared in an exceptional lineage of Western scholars of Islam -- including Régis Blachère, Claude Cahen and Jacques Berque, to mention only Rodinson’s fellow Frenchmen. Rodinson belonged to this g Gilbert Achcar • 8 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Winter 2004) One has to wonder what whimsical bard in the bowels of the Pentagon conceived the name Operation Phantom Fury for the second Marine invasion of the Iraqi city of Falluja in early November. Was it a reference to the screams of bloodied, bereaved or homeless Iraqis that have been broadcast The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Fall 2004) Achcar, Gilbert. Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). Amin, Samir. The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). Bass, Warren. Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article Local Conflict, Global Spin Clashes between the followers of a Zaydi Shi‘i religious figure and security forces left hundreds of people dead in a remote area in northern Yemen in the summer of 2004. The precipitating incident was obscure, perhaps unimportant. It is hardly worth mentioning these days when worshippers in Arab countries Iris Glosemeyer • 9 min read
