MER Article Gray Money, Corruption and the Post-September 11 Middle East Graft, smuggling and kickbacks in the Middle East create huge sums of money requiring concealment in a secretive banking system. Al-Qaeda has simply used existing mechanisms for hiding cash. Regime and elite corruption, not pervasive regional sympathy with Osama bin Laden, are the main factors inhib John Sfakianakis • 21 min read
MER Article Pakistan Between Afghanistan and India Radical Islam and the activities of jihadi groups have been central to Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan as well as India. But the Pakistani military was already turning against such groups for internal reasons, before the US assault on al-Qaeda and the Taliban and this winter’s confrontation Hamza Alavi • 18 min read
MER Article The Shape of Afghanistan to Come On a cold January morning, Uzbekistan opened its first mission in its battered neighbor to the south with as much ceremony as weary Afghanistan could muster: generals were in uniforms, bureaucrats in Western suits and delegates from the rugged hinterland wore their traditional pakul. Anthony Shadid • 3 min read
MER Article Victims of Circumstance It was 3 am in Qala Niazi when the drone of US bombers rumbling through the night sky awoke villagers sleeping off a night of festivities last December 29. Within half an hour, a storm of sound and fury unleashed by the warplanes had ended, and the hamlet was no Anthony Shadid • 11 min read
MER Article Controllable Democracy in Uzbekistan Few doubt that the prolongation of the presidential term in Uzbekistan’s January referendum paves the way for presidency for life for Islam Karimov. The Uzbek regime is building a controllable democracy, combining the expansion of democratic-looking institutions with restricted civil liberties and h Alisher Ilkhamov • 6 min read
MER Article Opening the Debate on the Right of Return A decade after Oslo, Palestinian negotiators have reached an impasse in the debate concerning refugee return. The discussion should be opened to creative ideas beyond the sacred positions. New ideas, even those that won’t work, can shake loose new possibilities. Sari Hanafi • 12 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Spring 2002) Outside the Pentagon, the smoking rubble left when one wing of the Defense Department wasdestroyed by a hijacked airliner last September 11 is long since cleared. A scoreboard-sized digital clock counts down the days and hours until this coming September 11, when the Pentagon expects to have fully repaired the The Editors • 6 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Winter 2001) Aruri, Naseer, ed. Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return (London: Pluto Press, 2001). Afshari, Reza. Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). B’Tselem. Standard Routine: Beatings and Abuses of Palestinians by Israeli Securit (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article The Paradox of Islamist Politics With the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a group which is argued to represent Islamism is thought to have carried out an action of unprecedented scale against one of its enemies. In light of the September 11 events, those outside the field of Middle East studies Salwa Ismail • 14 min read
MER Article Islam and the Theology of Power Since the early 1980s, commentators have argued that Islam is suffering a crisis of identity, as the crumbling of Islamic civilization in the modern age has left Muslims with a profound sense of alienation and injury. Challenges confronting Muslim nations -- failures of development projects, entrenched authoritarian regimes and the Khaled Abou El Fadl • 16 min read
MER Article Islam and the Politics of Community and Citizenship Islam is in the news again, associated with international terrorism. Popular sentiment in many parts of the Muslim world manifests support for Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States. Ironically, this episode comes at a point when political Islam, in itself, is no Sami Zubaida • 20 min read
MER Article Lucknow Dispatch “The saviors of religion [in Kashmir] ordered all Muslim women to adopt the hijab by September 10, 2001. Women did because they did not want acid to be thrown in their faces.... When Roop Kanwar became a Sati with her husband, the event was glorified by the guardians of Hinduism. When it comes to wo Shalini Mathur, Richa Nagar • 5 min read
