Books
The Libyan Paradox
Luis Martinez
London, Hurst and Company, 2007
Since the early 2000s, Libya has been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activities which ultimately led to the lifting of UN sanctions (2003). After settling past contentions, most notably the Lockerbie affair, and voluntarily renouncing its WMD programme, either by opening up the economy, releasing the Bulgarian and Palestinian medics or posing as a peace broker for Darfur, the regime has long been committed to shaping a new -if somewhat uncertain- identity. The January 2008 rotating Presidency of the Security Council represents for the country an important signpost on the road to international rehabilitation
The Enigma of Islamist Violence
Amélie Bloom. Laetitia Bucaille. Luis Martinez
Islamic Violence can be traced all the way back to the Koran, with the Jihad. But since the 9/11 attacks, it has become a real concern. Why have Muslim societies produced terrorist violence these past 30 years? Is the violent protagonist a pathological or a sophisticated strategist?
The Occupation
Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn, The Independents’ correspondent in the Middle East, focuses on another Middle Eastern region on fire: Iraq. Having worked in the country since 1978, Mr Cockburn shares with us his experiences and his vision of events in his book: The Occupation.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Ilan Pappe
Oneworld Publications, 2006
Ilan Pappé. Oneworld Publications. London. 2006.
In his new novel entitled “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine”, Ilan Pappe an Israeli historian and professor at the University of Haifa, pursues his defence of Palestinian rights mission. The author’s courageous positions and his Israeli nationality have attracted him a lot of attention, making him a well listened historian, but he seduced his London audience by his precise and human analysis.
Folktales from Iraq
De C.G. Campbell, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005
It was a long time ago, in winter 1942, that the English near-east historian Charles Grimshaw Campbell (1912-1953) first came upon the great Shiite tribes of Southern Iraq –Muntafiq, Beni Huchaim, al-Fetla. From these encounters arose a collection of folk tales illustrated with xylographs by John Buckland Wright (1897-1954) and initially published in London in 1945 under the title “Tales of Arab Tribes”
Electoral authoritarianism
Rachid Tlemçani
Al Ahram Weekly, 2007
A larger number of present political regimes in the East, Central Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have established a façade of institutional democracy. An irreversible wave of democratic transition -- excluding the MENA -- has been underway for some time. The foundation is fair and free polls. Elections are the lifeblood of democracy, but not all elections are democratic, as is often the case in the Arab world in which electoral authoritarianism and subsequent violence still haunt the scene.
Electoral authoritarianism characterises regimes that present an illusion of multi-party democracy at the local and national levels while effectively stripping elections of efficacy. The result known in advance, elections can be held frequently. In Algeria, for instance, officials have been able, against all odds, to organise more than 12 polls during the civil strife that broke out when the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win the 1991 and subsequently cancelled legislative elections. Under electoral authoritarian regimes, elections are subject to such state manipulation as to strip them of value. Arab officials have become very sophisticated in this. Rulers devise discriminatory electoral rules, exclude opposition forces from entering the electoral arena, and restrict what passes to the public via mass media. Means may change but the ultimate goal remains the same, electoral manipulation becoming the most stable institution upholding authoritarian rule.