Stories Archive | Page 67 of 72

Analyses

After surpassing 90 percent approval in the first round of the presidential elections on October 6, incumbent Tunisian leader Kais Saied faces his new term in a political, social, and economic climate vastly different from that of 2019. We discussed this shift with writer and essayist Hatem Nafty, whose latest work, Notre ami Kaïs Saïed. Essai sur la démocrature tunisienne (Our Friend Kais Saied: An Essay on the Tunisian Dictatorship), was presented in late September.

Political Theory
Iraq – Mission Accomplished?
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Antonella Vicini 15 January 2012
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.” It was May 1st 2003 when, speaking these words on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, President George W. Bush declared the end of military operations in Iraq and began to talk about security and reconstruction. So-called reconstruction soon revealed its darker aspects: car bombs and sectarian clashes, Abu Ghraib and a still impassable Green Zone surrounded by a T-wall.
Political Theory
Is the Egyptian Army ready to abandon its political and economic roles?
Francesco Aloisi de Larderel 15 January 2012

From the very first weeks it began to be apparent that the SCAF was increasingly hostile to the reform movement and to the many organisations that occupied Tahrir square and demonstrated in favour of social justice, individual rights and democracy. Confronted with demonstrations, calls for immediate and radical reforms and trials of members of Mubarak’s regime – that certainly worried part of the Egyptian public opinion – the SCAF presented itself as a bastion of stability, taking a leaf from the book of the regime of the now deposed President Mubarak. This growing tension between the SCAF and the Tahrir square demonstrators soon produced ugly results, in terms of a very high number of arrests, trials before military courts, assaults to the demonstrators, and an increasing number of casualties.
Religion
Nilüfer Göle, Islam and the European public sphere
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1 January 2012
By Giancarlo Bosetti Nilüfer Göle, a Turkish intellectual born in Ankara in 1953, is a world-renowned authority on Turkish and Muslim sociology. She began her studies in Turkey and completed them in Paris under Alain Touraine. After completing her doctorate in France, she became a professor at Boğaziçi University, then returned to the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales as the director of studies, dividing her life between Paris and Istanbul, where her husband, economist Asaf Savas Akat, teaches at Bilgi University.
Religion
Mohammad Khatami, Reformism from ‘Within’
10 December 2011

By Nicola Missaglia Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, famous for having been the fifth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran between 1997 and 2005, is an Iranian Shiite intellectual, philosopher and theologian who belongs, without doubt, to the varied world of Islamic reformism.
Human Rights
The Conditions for Peace
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Ferhat Kentel (Sehir University, Istanbul), interviewed by Nicola Mirenzi 30 November 2011
The Kurdish conflict has re-emerged as a key issue in Turkey. On October 19th the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, inflicted an extremely violent attack on the Turkish state, killing 24 soldiers (the highest number of victims in the past few years) in the southeast. The AKP government’s reaction to the event was extremely harsh. Turkish President Abdullah Gül promised to “reduce to the same tears” those who had carried out the attacks. And that is what happened. Ankara launched a massive attack not only in Southeast Turkey but also across the border into northern Iraq, where the Turkish governments says Kurdish separatists take refuge and organize their attacks. To understand the recent flare-up in the conflict and its links to Turkey’s constitutional re-writing process, Resetdoc spoke to Professor Ferhat Kentel, a sociologist at Sehir University in Istanbul.
Political Theory
Situating the Moroccan elections in their global context
Brahim El Guabli 22 November 2011

Civil society has many roles to play in the few months and years to come in order to keep the democratic momentum in the country, and also keep conviction alive among the youth that democracy is a national need. Democracy does not need regimes; regimes need democracy because it is their only way to stay abreast of the legitimate aspirations of their people and be responsive to them. The highly dynamic and active Moroccan civil society can help in implementing the new constitution and protecting this achievement through: playing their role of watchdog, doing more grassroots activism against corruption and political malpractice, spearheading the political cultural change, fighting all forms of abuse of power and advocating for social justice in the country.Photo by Vesna Middelkoop (cc)
Political Theory
Al Jazeera’s Victory and the Shadow of a Counter-revolution
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Akeel Bilgrami 13 October 2011
One television station has transformed the Middle East over the last decade. There has been nothing like this in history. What is remarkable is not just its causal role in laying the ground over many years of what we have seen is a prodigious mobilization but of doing this by creating what are perhaps best called the cognitive conditions that make possible such changes through mobilizations.
Political Theory
Secular State and Civic Reason
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Abdullahi An-Na'im 13 October 2011
Imposing the State to be neutral about religion doesn’t take a position on religion but at the same time it does not necessarily say religion has nothing to do in the public space: I believe religion has a public role, we cannot really exclude it from politics. I simply make a distinction between State and politics: religion and State are to be separate, but religion and politics can’t and shouldn’t be separated. Believers will act politically as believers, and we have to confront with the paradox to keep State and religion separated in a reality where religion and politics are interconnected.
Political Theory
Tunisia’s elections and Ennahda’s moderate vote
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A. V. 10 October 2011
Ennahda. It translates as the reawakening or the rebirth in English. And it is the word upon which the future of the new Tunisia could rest, as it searches for its way after January’s revolution. Ennahda is also the name of the party most likely to have success in the October 23rd elections for the Constituent Assembly. Outlawed until last March, the Mouvement de la tendance islamique, as it was called until 1989, has returned to the political stage in grand style and is based in the financial district of Montplaisir in Tunis.
Political Theory
Tunisia Votes. And the number of parties keeps growing
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Antonella Vicini 30 September 2011
There are over a hundred political parties in Tunisia, a clear contrast to Ben Ali’s single-party rule. There will be 105 political parties in Tunisia’s general election on October 23rd and 1,742 electoral lists of which there are about 1,600 in Tunisia and slightly over a hundred for Tunisians overseas. Slightly more than half, 845, were deposited by real parties and 678 by independent groups or minor and less well-organized formations. All this for 3.8 million potential voters, those who regularly register at the polling stations and who will vote in the 27 voting precincts, added to this are six overseas constituencies.