IT
After the Arab Spring
Samir Dilou, interviewed by Francesca Bellino
When I arrived at the entrance of the Barbo Palace in Tunis to meet Samir Dilou, the acting Human Rights and Justice Minister and spokesman for Hamadi Jebali’s government, the building was besieged by groups of people waiting to enter. One man said that every day he goes to the high gates of the Palace (which in the days of Ben Ali’s regime was the headquarters of the Chamber of Councillors) simply to exercise his post-revolution rights. Like all the others, this man is angry, so visibly angry that the guards have placed a table in front of the door to avoid it being knocked down, a sign that tension in Tunisia still runs high although the atmosphere is lighter in the streets of Tunis and there is a new vitality.
IT
France
Nilüfer Göle
The vote for Hollande is not so much as a radical desire for change as a possibly illusory desire to go back to the pre-crisis period. The socialists, however, have also opened up a new alternative approach to the economy. But ‘racism from above’ has led the way on this historic fight over what is normal.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Azzura Meringolo, an interview with Nazeeha Saeed
While Bahrain’s government concentrated last weekend exclusively on organizing the Formula 1 GP, those who for over a year have been the victims of a repression shrouded in silence, took advantage of this event to attract the world’s attention to their cause. The winds of the Arab Spring had reached Manama on February 4th 2011, when protesters decided to take to the streets demanding political reform and the departure of the Al-Khalifas, the Sunni royal family that rules the country where there is a Shiite majority. The harshest repression began on March 14th when the government allowed troops into the country sent by the Cooperation Council for the Arab States in the Gulf. One thousand soldiers sent by Saudi King Abdallah arrived in Bahrain with a specific mandate; stop the protests and save King Hamad.
IT
ALGERIA HOLDS ELECTIONS
Ilaria Romano
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has described the elections as “a crucial bet that we have no choice but to win”, but the entire Algerian political world is looking to these May 10th elections with hope and with fear. What is at stake involves avoiding a new Arab Spring, with which there has only been a brush, for the moment, and the great risk of a low voter turnout.
SAVE THE DATE: Reset-Dialogues Talks in the US
Reset-Dialogues
March 28 2012 - NEW YORK UNIVERSITY - Democracy for Women: the promise and the risk of Arab political change
March 29 2012 - COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - Expanding and Shrinking Areas of Liberty: Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria
April 2 2012 - YALE UNIVERSITY - Arab democracy and women: A Moroccan Perspective on Gender Politics and Law Reform
Words
W. Scott Chahanovich, Freie Universität Berlin
With a rose, Shakespeare best surmised the inimitability of words and meaning for lovers. If only drafting a constitution were so easy and amorous. For Egyptian parliamentarians, the definition and interpretation of a single term – madaniyya – is at the heart of political discord that rivals the animosity of the Montegues and Capulets. Under the dome of Egypt’s parliamentary building, and during closed-door meetings between party committees, madaniyyaa has taken on all shades of meaning.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Azzurra Meringolo
“Libya is experiencing a particularly complex transition period. The road is all uphill and the route is especially difficult because it is full of obstacles,” said Amal Obeidi, a professor of comparative politics at the Garyounis University in Benghazi who talked to ResetDoc at a conference entitled “The EU and North Africa On Energy and Migration: What Prospects after the Arab Spring?” organized in Rome by the Istituto Affari Internazionali, the European Commission, Paralleli and the German Marshall Fund.
Opinion
Gholamali Khoshroo, Senior Editor of the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Islam
Although news about ruthless killing of 16 innocent Afghan women and children by a US soldier in Kandahar has shocked the world, the incident was by no means unexpected. A statement issued by NATO head command in that region noted that the assailant committed the crime in a fit of nervous breakdown. A mother, whose young child was killed in the incident, was crying out asking if her two-year child has been a Taliban fighter to deserve such a death? The bereaved mother knew better than NATO commanders that the attack was not the result of a nervous breakdown, but the result of Islamophobia to which this region, especially Afghanistan, has been a victim during the past 10 years. This process of Islamophobia can be clearly seen in the disastrous events which have befallen Afghanistan in the past few months.
In depth - After the Arab Spring
Andrea Dessì
The political landscape of the Arab world has been dramatically transformed by the events of 2011. After decades of sterile politics and engrained authoritarianism Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria have embarked on a courageous journey aimed at fostering inclusive societies based on the rule of law and accountable governance. While we are only at the beginnings of what will be a long and arduous process, it is hard to believe that things will ever go back to the way they were. From Morocco to Bahrain the Arab public is on the march, and representation through elections is what they demand.
After the Arab Spring - Focus on Egypt
Dina Mansour and Mervat Madkour
The world stood still as countries of the Arab world revolted against the long-standing despotic and undemocratic regimes of the region. In the name of the people, millions have gathered in determination to put an end to corruption and injustice and demand their long-lost human rights and freedom. Human rights activists and enthusiasts were hopeful of a real change unfolding in this part of the world. But now we come to ask ourselves whether such dreams will ever be realized, at least in our lifetime.
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Roberto Toscano
Elections in Iran have always had a contradictory meaning. On one hand, they have always been less than free and fair, even when the polls were basically correct, (meaning not materially rigged), because of the vetting of candidates by the Guardian Council. On the other, they have been a flexible mechanism measuring the relative strength of the different components of the regime. Not a democracy, certainly, but a sort of pluralistic oligarchy.
Syria
Ilaria Romano
The Centre for the Documentation of Violence in Syria has published figures concerning the number of people killed in the repression. Data is updated to January 8th 2012 and indicates 6,062 dead, of which 4,923 were civilians and 1,139 were soldiers and police officers. The civilians are said to include 496 minors and 149 women. According to the international organization Avaaz, which also recently published a report on detention centres in Syria, 6,237 people have been killed. The High Commission for Refugees has reported that about 7,000 Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon and 7,600 to Turkey.
Civil society and activism in Russia
Marzia Cimmino
The rain was pouring down on a crowd of thousands of people who gathered at Chiysty Prudy on December 5th during an unprecedented rally in Russian history for its scope and scale. For the first time since the early 1990s, protesters challenged Putin’s power as his new rule as President could enable him to stay in power until 2024. The number of demonstrators in street rallies has grown approximately to 100,000. Mostly political activists, professionals and intellectuals expressed their dissent as a result of alleged falsifications during latest parliamentary elections, though suspected frauds were only the last trigger. Since he took power in 1999, it seems that Putin has not changed his politics: a Leviathan’s deal of order over democracy. Meanwhile, many Russians have changed.
IT
Bonn 2
Matteo Tacconi
On December 5th, attended by 85 countries and 16 international organizations, the International Conference on Afghanistan was held in Bonn. The summit was held exactly ten years after the Taliban regime was defeated and also a decade after another diplomatic conference was also held in the former western German capital. At the time, the foundations for the transition were established and a road map created that led to the formation of a new government and representational institutions in Kabul, as well as the drafting of a constitution and a judicial system following thirty years of conflict, dictatorships and destabilization, from the 1979 Soviet invasion to the fall of the obscurantist regime instituted by the Koranic scholars. “Bonn II” instead yielded no great results.
IT
General election in Iran
Antonella Vicini
There are over 3400 candidates in the Iranian elections, the ninth in the history of the Islamic Republic. Many consider these elections a test of the presidency’s political health, since they mark the end of a period of extremely intense clashes in the Majles where the conservative front has shown little unity. The March 2nd elections are being held at a rather delicate moment for the country, not only due to the still open debate on the nuclear issue, but also because of threats coming from Israel and the situation faced by Iran’s historical ally, Bashar al Assad’s Syria. Furthermore, these are the first elections held since the 2009 presidential elections and are a test of the people’s involvement in political life, following the Green Wave protests and after the alienation of important reformists.
IT
IRAN
Antonella Vicini
When did the Iranian nuclear issue become a taboo? And why? Since 2003 there has officially been talk of an Iranian nuclear threat, following two reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency published in June and September, both emphasizing that the Islamic Republic of Iran had not provided sufficient information concerning its nuclear programmes.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Francesco Aloisi de Larderel, former Italian ambassador to Egypt
The main issue is the military’s role in Egypt’s future political arrangement, which will not be resolved by the elections. Egypt remains, at least until a new constitution is approved, a presidential and not a parliamentary republic and the new legislative bodies will not be able to choose a government, the third one so far, which is about to be appointed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The new constitution remains burdened with a “constitutional declaration” with which the current military leadership would like to not only guarantee the state’s secular status, but also its own supremacy under the nation’s new constitutional laws.
Some data for Egypt's general election
IT
After the Arab Spring
Elisa Pierandrei
Many Egyptians in the past few days have complained they did not know who to vote for. They were informed neither by the media nor by the same political parties that should have represented them. Some asked for advice from their own families, others from friends. Others arrived at the polling stations and asked party members who were there. Many Muslim Brotherhood members had desks where voters could get information on how to vote.
IT
Human Rights
Ilaria Romano
Death sentences are on the rise in Iran mainly for drug trafficking, but also for moharebeh or enmity to God and even for sodomy. According to Iran Human Rights figures, the number of executions was at their highest in 2011, than for the past decade. They presented their 2011 Report a few days before the March 2 parliamentary elections, which revealed that 675 people were executed and of these, 65 were executed in city squares.
Arab Spring
Andrea Dessì
Nine months after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, and as the Egyptian people continued to express their dissatisfaction with Egypt’s military rulers, celebrated blogger and activist, Hossam el-Hamalawy, spoke about the roots of his country’s spring revolution. During a fresh October evening in Rome, Hossam began by dispelling the notion that Egypt’s was a “social media revolution”. Facebook, twitter and al-Jazeera undoubtedly played a part, but the extent in which many in the west hailed these new technologies was to overshadow the decisive role played by ordinary men and women, activists and factory workers, whose courage and commitment were rarely captured on film.
IT
October 23rd vote in tunisia
Antonella Vicini
The October 23rd election in Tunisia has all the characteristics of a historic event, further heightened by a sense of national pride and mixed with the awareness of a watching world. Tunisians speak freely with the hundreds of journalists gathered here to bear witness to the first free elections in 23 years in the country where the Arab Spring began.
IT
Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt
Massimo Campanini
Relations between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt deteriorated during the 1970s due to the converging of two opposing tendencies, with on the one hand the development of radical or extremist Islamism, which from a Muslim perspective exasperated the differentiation and contrast between believers and non-believers. On the other hand, it is however inappropriate to pose the problem of recent sectarian clashes between opposing religious factions, from the December 31st 2010 attack in Alexandria to the more recent clashes between Coptic Christians and the police, in terms of the Muslim majority’s lack of respect for the Coptic minority’s religious freedom.
IT
october 2001 - october 2011
Antonella Vicini
Ten years have passed since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Reintegration and reconciliation, regionalization, security and the battle against drug trafficking are all issues still far from being resolved. At the same time, preparations are taking place for what is described as the country’s “afghanization,” with Afghanistan being returned to the Afghans. One deadline, 2014, has been established, but this is not, after all, that far off, and for now there are those, such as Malalai Joya, a former member of the Afghan parliament forced to resign after reporting the presence of new War Lords and characters linked to the Taliban inside Afghan institutions, who believe that, “after a decade, Afghanistan is still the most unstable, most corrupt and most war-torn country in the world.”
The opinion
Brahim El Guabli
The Arab media are steering political discourse to a direction totally contradictory to the spirit of the Arab uprisings. Arabs came together, regardless of their religious and ethnic affiliation, to overthrow the dictatorships and establish democratic states where individuals are valued and respected as citizens. They wanted to put an end to the culture of subjecthood. But reality is staggering and disappointing sometimes. What we are witnessing these days is a rhetorical shift from the peaceful revolution, which is a patchwork, made of all Arab social and religious fabric, to the revival of old-fashioned confessional, religious and ethnic discords.
IT
Intercultura conference
Elisa Pierandrei
At the international conference entitled “Recreating Babel; teaching cosmopolitism” organized by the Intercultura Foundation in Milan from April 7th to the 9th, 36 experts (among them Fred Dallmayr, John Lupien, Giancarlo Bosetti, Marco Aime, and Ramin Jahanbegloo) explained how social, political and economic events in the 20th Century, including the very recent events in North Africa and Japan, are almost all of an international nature and allow us to understand well how it is impossible to live within the political and cultural borders of one’s own state or nation.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Azzurra Meringolo
It may surprise some to discover that the vice president of the Freedom and Justice party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s most important political party obliged for decades to exist underground, is a Coptic Christian. And yet it is true. Professor Rafiq Habib, an academic who has for some time been studying Islam, is a Christian who has accepted to work with the new Islamic party, believing that at this time the Freedom and Justice Party represents the main nucleus of Egyptian society. “At the moment the Muslim culture can be a way of finding shared values, capable of strengthening a society pulverised in recent decades by a regime wishing to keep people divided. Its fundamental values are shared by the majority of the Egyptian people,” explains Habib.
IT
Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt
Francesco Aloisi de Larderel, former Italian ambassador to Egypt
Are we seeing a revival of hostilities between Muslims and Christians in Egypt? It is true that tensions between the two religions have deteriorated recently, but this does not appear to be the reason for what took place. In fact, it was not an interdenominational clash but rather a deliberate provocation at a peaceful protest held by Coptic Christians who were then brutally assassinated by army units.
After the Arab Spring
Francesco Aloisi de Larderel, former Italian ambassador to Egypt
Almost nine months after the fall of Mohamed Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the Egyptian political situation is still hostage to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and therefore to the military leaders who have been the real holders and guarantors of political power in Egypt since the 1952 coup d’état by the Free Officers Movement. Under pressure from protesters, the SCAF decided to depose President Mubarak, appoint a new government, and is preparing to call parliamentary and presidential elections on the basis of rules it is drafting, announcing that it will soon promulgate the criteria for drafting a new constitution.
IT
The attacks in Norway
Stefano Allievi, University of Padua
Muslim communities all over Europe sighed with relief when they heard that the Norwegian massacre had not been carried out by one of their own. If that had been the case, the price to pay would have been a terrible one. Many non-Muslims also breathed their own sigh at not having to confirm their prejudice against Muslims. This reaction is disquieting in its triviality and automatism. The press in Muslim-majority countries is pointing out these inconsistancies, asking “Why is this not called Christian terrorism?” "Why are we not creating a plot theory?"
IT
Arab Spring
Silvio Fagiolo
In Egypt, as in Tunisia, democracy is something still to be shaped, but these societies are not voiceless, nor are they without public opinion. The oppositions consist of a broad galaxy of movements, but they are not burning Israeli or American flags in the streets. They are demanding rights, transparency and legality. Resetdoc presents an article by our late and much missed friend Silvio Fagiolo, a scholar and former ambassador to Egypt, who died a few days ago. This article was published in the March-April 2011 issue of our magazine Reset, devoted to the Arab Spring.
In depth
Mohammed Hashas
Unlike the rest of the countries in the Middle East region, Morocco has been quick to pursue constitutional changes, which try to address the aspirations the Moroccans have been calling for. A small minority remains unsatisfied with these changes, a larger minority has shown contentment with some reservations, and the majority supports the changes. This tells me that the referendum scheduled for July 1st is heading toward majority support.
IT
2001-2011: Ten Year Anniversary
Amara Lakhous
The show goes on. In Italy we continue to see “theocons” on TV, improvised experts, not Islamologues but Islam-demagogues, with no knowledge of languages spoken in the Islamic area and who have never attended courses on Islam. They do however publish books with great publishing houses and are invited on television as experts on Islamic subjects.
IT
The attacks in Norway
Interview with Dr. Gholamali Khoshroo, Senior Editor of the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Islam
Following the terrorist incident in Norway, its political and human aspects were more in focus while a correct analysis would be impossible without due attention to its cultural and theoretical root causes. The main factor which claimed the lives of about 100 human beings in a few hours was product of a long process which has been going on for years in Europe. In the following interview with Iranian Diplomacy, Gholamali Khoshroo, Senior Editor of the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Islam, has talked about theoretical and cultural backgrounds of the incident.
Syrian playwright
Brahim El Guabli
Saadallah Wannous is unlike any other playwright or intellectual. He is of a unique type “governed by hope.” He belongs to the brand of intellectuals who relish challenging difficulties and do not surrender despite successive defeats. The defunct invented the most beautiful shelter for anyone who tried to make change and felt overtaken by despair. This wide open, borderless space is hope.
IT
Comment
Giuliano Amato
The original (Italian) version of this article was published on Maroccoggi Newsletter 09.
While the Arab Spring is assuming unclear characteristics that should hopefully lead toward democratic systems in countries led, until very recently, by authoritarian regimes, the Kingdom of Morocco instead is moving along a totally institutional and non-traumatic path toward constitutional organisation, which is progressively resembling parliamentary regimes well-known to Europeans.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Francesco Aloisi de Larderel, former Italian ambassador to Egypt, discusses Dina Zakaria’s interview
The generational renewal is at the same time the “Egyptian Spring’s” tragedy, because the groups of young people that achieved the overturning of the Mubarak presidency, (then carrying along with them workers and the Muslim Brotherhood) are currently not the majority in the country and are experiencing problems in creating a well-structured political movement and it is unlikely they will inherit power when elections are held. However, the Europeans of 1848 did not immediately achieve victory for the ideas they believed in, which did gain momentum a generation later!
After the Arab Spring
Brahim El Guabli
Reforming school curricula in the new Arab world should be undertaken as soon as possible. It is also important to rewrite the Arab people’s history and expurgate all the lies that were elevated to the level of infallible truths bydefunct authoritarian regimes. It goes without saying that students should be taught, at all levels, that free and universal elections should be the only criterion that governs the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. Students should also be taught that the right to withdraw popular legitimacy from the rulers through elections is the best safeguard against the culture of subservience.
IT
General election in Tunisia
Antonella Vicini
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.
A review on «People Reloaded» by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel
Ramin Jahanbegloo
Postel and Hashemi provide us in this book with the most comprehensive coverage of the Iranian Green Movement studied and analyzed in an exceptionally concise and critical manner. Their main concern is to shift our attention from the main issues surrounding Iran's nuclear program, which have dominated the analyses of Iranian politics for the past decade, to a discussion of Iranian civil society and its social, political and cultural potentialities.
Despite the incarceration of Mousavi and Karoubi, the voice of protest has not been silenced in Iran. Once again, pro-democracy demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities have eroded the image of the regime as the vanguard of the resistance against oppressors in the Muslim world.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Azzurra Meringolo talks to Dina Zakaria, spokesperson for the Egyptian Freedom and Justice Party at a conference organized by the European Union for all Egypt’s new political representatives
This interview is discussed by Francesco Aloisi de Larderel, former Italian ambassador to Egypt, in the article "The Muslim Brotherhood's New Challenges".
“Egypt has entered a new phase, one that cannot be managed without us women. All Egyptian women are now asked to work for the good of the country” said Dina Zakaria, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a representative of the Freedom and Justice Party, the newly-created party linked to the conservative Islamic Party. “In my family of origin there were no members of the Muslim Brotherhood. I decided on my own to join this movement while I was at university. I wanted to approach Islam with sincerity. At the time I would never have dreamt that I would become the Freedom and Justice representative in Brussels,” explained Dina in her perfect English. Twenty-seven years old with a degree in Political Science and two children, in July Dina was the spokesperson for the Freedom and Justice conference organised by the European parliament for all Egypt’s new political representatives.
IT
Immigration
A conversation with Laura Boldrini, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR. By Ilaria Romano
In recent days the UNHCR has invited donor countries to provide the necessary financial assistance needed for humanitarian aid in Libya and neighbouring countries. In the meantime it continues to work with local agencies on the shores of the Mediterranean. In some cases work also consists of searching for people who have taken to the sea and for whom all trace has been lost.
Arab elites
Brahim El Guabli
"It was not Islam that bore the responsibility for the political and intellectual weaknesses afflicting Muslim societies—as many a European observer of Islam suggested— but the failure of Muslims to properly interpret their foundational texts in accordance with changing needs" (Mohammad Zaman, p.7)
IT
December 9th: Reset-DoC in New York
DECEMBER 9 at 6 p.m., New York University
New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge has hosted a roundtable discussion, “The Background of Xenophobia: Cultural and Political Roots of Anti-Immigrant Fanaticism in Europe and United States,” on Friday, December 9, 6-8 p.m. at 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor Conference Room (between 5th and 6th Streets). Subways: 6 (Astor Place); N, R (8th Street). The event, part of the Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations Series, is free and open to the public.
Participants: Benjamin Barber, Seyla Benhabib, Ian Buruma, Jytte Klausen, Giancarlo Bosetti
IT
Migrations
Gian Antonio Stella talks to Federica Zoja
During a meeting held with students protesters from the Berchet High School in Milan, ResetDoc interviewed the Corriere della Sera leader-writer and correspondent Gian Antonio Stella, fresh from the success of his recent book Negri, froci, giudei & co. L’eterna lotta contro l’altro, a history of racism in Italy. This subject is currently headline news after recent events in Rosarno, a municipality in the Province of Reggio Calabria, that was the setting for clashes between central-African immigrants and members of the local community.
Philosophy and Religion
Brahim El Guabli
Abu Zayd’s death is a loss for humanity as a whole and a bigger loss for people in the Islamic world, who believe in the importance of freedom of thought as one of the tenets and prerequisites of modernity, democratization, rule of law and human rights. The story of Abu Zayd has many parallels with Averroes’death in Marrakesh. Averroes, himself a rationalist, committed the crime of thinking. His strictly rationalist views on religion collided with the more orthodox views of the political institution established by the Almouahads in Morocco.
IT
Afghanistan
Ilaria Romano
Ten years have passed since the Bonn Conference, and on December 5th the international community will have to address the results of intervention in Afghanistan. But, in view of Bonn II, neither the government in Kabul nor the international community have yet consulted civil society, which a decade later continues to demand to be acknowledged as a subject capable not only of presenting proposals, but also of negotiating them.
IT
Migrations/2
Enzo Bianchi talks to Sara Hejazi
In his most recent book L’altro siamo noi (Einaudi, 2010) Enzo Bianchi, the monk who founded the Bose community and a prolific author, addresses the subject of managing the conflict between oneself and ‘others’ in Christian terms, reflecting on the recovery of Christianity’s founding values so as to face the fear, diffidence and the “cultural autism” that nowadays characterises the relationship between immigrants and native identities.
IT
AR
Arab Spring
Amara Lakhous
The proliferation of totalitarian regimes in the Arab world has certainly not helped the publishing industry. Perhaps the Arab spring, with the emergence of more democratic political systems, will help overcome censorship. However, the reemergence of the book, being not only a cultural but also a commercial product, will also depend on the fate of the markets.
Philosophy
Brahim El Guabli
For people of the Maghreb, or at least for those who are interested in the intellectual life, 2010 will undisputedly be associated with the heaviest harvest of intellectual and political figures of the region. As if death plotted against the region and decided to take away the emblematic figures of a glorious period of intellectual and political life. Mohamed Abid Al Jabiri, Edmond Emran El Maleh and Abraham Serfaty from Morocco; Mohamed Arkoun and Tahar Ouettar from Algeria and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd from Egypt, took their leave in 2010. As much as these intellectuals’ works are widely studied in Western academia, especially in Europe and America, they remain unknown to large sections of the Arab world. Many factors inform this ignorance. First, the objective discontinuities that exist in terms of free circulation of knowledge between the Mashriq (the east of the Arab world) and the Maghreb (the west). Second, the historical jealousies that have always existed between the two sides of the Arab world.
IT
After the Arab Spring
Elisa Pierandrei
The fact that Egypt does not have a president ensures that the army will continue to govern after parliamentary elections, because the current system ensures that the government and prime minister do not respond to parliament, but directly to the president, an appointment currently held by the army. Beyond facile promises, between parliamentary elections and drafting the new constitution, the presidential elections should be held in a year, but in the meantime the army will continue to exercise its power.
IT
Women
Margot Badran
«I thought here we are in a mosque in the United States, and in the nation's capital no less, and the mosque authorities, as self-identified, call in municipal security forces to eject a bunch of women just because they wanted to pray in the main congregational space. Absurd. Is this where our tax dollars should go? To defend gender segregation? I had thought the days of segregation were long gone in this country. I asked myself: Who owns God's house anyway?».
Europe and the Arab world
Mohammed Hashas
The West and the Arab world have for a period of time developed into two civilizations, with two different social classes and hierarchies, different government systems, economy, and urbanism, channeled through technological development. To go for one system of thought and governance immediately without educating the two of their common values and practices will endanger the idea envisaged here. A ‘Common Mediterranean Civilization’ will take more time than a ‘Common Mediterranean Culture’; the latter precedes the former.
AR
Islam and America
Sadik J. Al-Azm
In my estimation, the Ground Zero Muslim construction project shows, at its best, lack of tact, inconsiderate approaches and bad live-and let-live strategies and tactics. This can only be of great disservice to a religious minority, like the Muslims, in a country such as the USA where the disabling backlash phenomenon is pervasive, powerful and so well known. At its worst, the project is open to charges of gratuitous provocation, bad faith, and hypocrisy. So, all in all I am for moving the Center and Mosque to another and more suitable location in New York City to prove good faith and honorable intentions. In any case the organizers and financial backers of the project have already made so many concessions to the opposition as to render the whole idea pointless.
IT
2001-2011: Ten Year Anniversary
Stefano Allievi, University of Padua
For a few years, for far too long, ideas became radicalized, language was militarized, reasoning impoverished, reduced to simplistic and misleading pairs, such as black/white, good/bad, with God pitted against God (with God of course privatized by all parties involved). In this sense al Qaeda’s school of thought won the day and was reflected in the arrogant Bushism of the Iraqi adventure (based on lies and producing more terrorism than it defeated, not to mention the thousands of innocent victims, including the western soldiers sent to die there pointlessly), until recently all dominant and winning paradigms. But, today, something has changed.
IT
Islam in Change: Reformists Speak Out - 2
ResetDoc
After publishing an “intellectual chart” of reformers in Islam in our magazine Reset in Italian, with its last issue ResetDoC.org has offered its English-speaking readers a first compass to navigate those encouraging dialogue in the Muslim world, with a closer examination of three great thinkers: Abdou FIlali-Ansary, Abdolkarim Soroush and Muhammad Talbi. Here two new profiles of thinkers committed to intercultural reflections: Nilüfer Göle and Navid Kermani.
Nilüfer Göle, Islam and the European public sphere
Giancarlo Bosetti
Navid Kermani, Muslim democracy spoiled by the West
Nicola Missaglia
United States
Brahim El Guabli
It is true that Muslim puritan groups have, over the years and by their unnameable actions, overshadowed the diversity that permeates Islam and Islamic values. Yet, this should not serve as an excuse for rapacious politicians and fear-mongering groups to target Muslims in the United States, as a religious group. It is all the more alarming that highly educated people and important politicians are associated with acts of bigotry, fanaticism and hate dissemination discourse. Fortunately, the clamor did not override the voices of wisdom and humanism. Many Americans came out to say “not in my name”.
Interview
Nader Hashemi talks to Lewis Gropp
In his book "Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy", Nader Hashemi looks specifically at 17th century Europe and convincingly argues that secularism on the old continent was not developed against a religious context, but rather out of and along the lines of a religious-reformist agenda. Correspondingly, Hashemi argues, democratic reforms and the separation of religion and politics in the Islamic world will not be possible outside of religion or without religious actors. In this interview with Lewis Gropp, Hashemi accordingly refutes the notion that Islam and the Sharia are non-reformable and in inherently anti-democratic.
IT
Middle East
Ilaria Romano
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s visit to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the countries most affected by the Arab Spring, shows Turkey is closely involving itself in the changing power balance in North Africa and the Middle East. The model the Turkish leader is presenting to states in transition is that of a secular government in a country with an overwhelming Muslim majority, where Islam and democracy are not mutually exclusive. The goal is to show that Turkey is a credible example to emulate, even if the price is the realignment of the “good neighbour” foreign policy, which has already deteriorated with the Syrian crisis.
Middle East
Seyla Benhabib
«I was in Israel as a visiting professor at the Meitar Center of Advanced Legal Studies – writes Seyla Benhabib, philosopher and professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University – and I watched in disbelief and pain as Turkey, the country of my birth threatened at one point to go to war against Israel - a country I feel deep affection for, whose politics I have followed since the 1968 War, where many members of my family, including one sister, lives and where my Father is buried. Israeli social and political forces are at a stalemate: whether one advocates a one-state or a two-state solution certainly matters but there are deeper cultural, economic, and theological forces at work which make it highly unlikely that a viable solution can be found soon to the quagmire in Israel-Palestine.»
Books
Nina zu Fürstenberg
How the Jamaat-e-Islami developed and transformed itself within the boundaries of a modern pluralistic democracy, the Indian democracy, is the subject Irfan Ahmed has devoted his research to. To write this book, Irfan Ahmad conducted extensive fieldwork in several small Muslim towns near Delhi, and he describes the gradual process of change and openness, following in particular the development within Jamaat’s universities and their student organisations SIMI and SIO.
IT
Special Issue of Seminar
A comparison between India and Europe
A special issue of the Indian magazine Seminar for Reset-Doc and an essay by Mujibur Rehman about the Muslim minority in India.
IT
Being Iranian
Roberto Toscano
One is immediately captured by an incredible rhythm, a narration that is apparently broken but is on the contrary coherent and fully unitary. It is almost a script ready for a movie. What came to my mind was Altman’s “Short cuts”, which is not surprising, since Mastur is the Farsi translator of Raymond Carver, the author of the literary work from which that movie was drawn.
Opinion
Mohammed Hashas, Copenhagen University – Denmark
I can understand the frustration of the Arab intellectual if he finds himself being engaged in small matters while he sees foreign intellectuals doing ‘academic tourism’ in the field, to go home and be producers of knowledge about revolutions these home intellectuals take part in but find no time nor funding to sit and compose the fieldwork as written knowledge to be passed on to the coming generations. This frustration is justifiable. At the same time, and hoping that the ‘academic tourists’ do their job as faithfully as they can, there is no harm if knowledge produced about ‘us’ is made ‘there’ as long as ‘we’ at home can access this knowledge, and are able to read it and share it with the masses that need it.
IT
Debates
Nilüfer Göle
Covering and praying, two Islamic prescriptions ,bring religion into public life and debate in Europe. Praying in Europe where Muslims are in minority becomes a public issue. From the perspective of the liberal discourse on religious freedom and the freedom to exercise one’s faith requires a place for worship. The author selects three different practices of praying that have provoked a public debate to illustrate the specificity of contesting religious practices in a European context. Confrontation with Islam carries also European citizens and countries that were considered to be in the periphery of Europe to the Center. Switzerland, a non-EU member, becomes European, enters into the center of European debates by the Islamic door.
IT
Citizenship
A conversation with Renzo Guolo
“Italy has made no choices as far as the issue of cultural integration is concerned, addressing the subject of immigration only from the perspective of public order or the economy.” Renzo Guolo is a professor of Sociology of Islam at Turin University’s Faculty of Political Science and a professor of The Sociology of Cultural Processes at Padua University’s Faculty of Humanities and Philosophy. The subjects of his research include contemporary extremisms, relations between politics and religion, the sociology of Islam and cultural pluralism in contemporary societies. We met with him in Turin at the Conference entitled G2 Muslims: the rights and duties of citizenship of second generation young Muslims.
Interview by Sara Hejazi.
In depth: November 25th elections in Morocco
Brahim El Guabli
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)
IT
AR
Arab Spring
Brahim El Guabli
Now that the dictators’ trials are under way, at least in Egypt, it is important that national reconciliation projects be implemented in order to reconstruct the national collective memory. An important step for Arab people to liberate themselves from the shackles of their painful past. Trying the ousted dictators should be a priority without revenge or gloating. It should be seen as a supreme national duty to preserve the collective memory and commemorate those who gave their lives on the altar of freedom in their fight against dictatorship. Revenge cannot build a modern state, only through a national global dialogue, can a nation come to terms with its own history.
IT
Comment
Amara Lakhous
The young Egyptians have decided to return to Tahrir Square (Liberation) to defend the revolution. The strategy is always the same: to demonstrate peacefully in order to achieve the objectives.
Women
Margot Badran in conversation with Yoginder Sikand
Margot Badran is one of the most widely-known scholars of Islamic feminism. A historian by training, she has authored many books including: Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences (Oneworld Press, Oxford, 2009). She is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC and a Senior Fellow at the Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand she speaks about the trajectory of Islamic feminism some two decades after it surfaced as a named phenomenon and where she sees it now headed.
IT
From our archive
Nouzha Guessous, interviewed by Nina zu Fürstenberg
Casablanca, 2010 – “Every Arab man is a modernist until you talk about his own wife! Nouzha Guessous laughs while she explains that: “traditionalism is spread amongst modernists, not only amongst Fundamentalists”. Aware of that, not purely Arab reality, she and others nevertheless succeeded in creating the most innovative, women friendly family law in the Arab world. Appointed by King Mohamed VIth in 2002, this energetic Moroccan scientist, expert in bioethics and human rights activist, has been one of the driving forces in the Commission that brought to live this courageous law, the new Family Code “Moudawana”[1]. Even opposed by a minority of fundamentalist Islamic women and political organizations, this law found a wide consensus not only amongst secular Moroccans, but was much sustained by Muslims. A kind of “Muslim feminism” emerged in this process. Nouzha Guessous had understood through the interactive, demanding process, that a purely secular system of law would never have been accepted.
This interview was published in Italian in our magazine Reset n.117, January-February 2010.
IT
Philosophy and Religion
After the dossier entitled Remembering Abu Zayd, our tribute to the great Egyptian philospher who died in July continues. These are new contributions from his friends and colleagues.
Nasr my teacher
Navid Kermani
The case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd
Abdou Filali-Ansary
Farewell, Master of critical thought
Sadik Al-Azm
The bitter destiny of a brave man
Paolo Branca
The «evolution» of the Koran
Massimo Campanini
Portrait of an Islamic freethinker
Ramin Jahanbegloo
A pioneer for democracy
Fred Dallmayr
My personal hero
Abdullahi A. An-Na'im
The Arab revolts
Brahim El Guabli
The Tunisian and Egyptian chapters of the Arab freedom spring were mostly non-violent. However, the Libyan, Yemeni and Bahraini chapters are bloody at different degrees, and so will be the Syrian. The stakes are different and when strategy forms an equation with democracy, freedom and human rights; a lot of blood is likely to be shed. Protesters’ blood is the fuel of revolution and we have seen it shed in Egypt and Tunisia and we will continue to see it until the last fortress of dictatorship is liberated. One thing is sure; the prophets of change will devise new ways to change the dictatorial regimes even when the clamor of cannons and the humming of fighter jets – like in Libya – overshadow the peaceful songs of freedom. However long the clamor lasts, it will cease and when the dust of the battlefield dissipates; the nonviolent revolutions will continue.
The Arab revolts
Harith Al-Qarawee
Arab dictatorships have guaranteed their external legitimacy by exploiting the threat of Islamism, securing the backing of Western governments by proclaiming that Islamic fundamentalism would consolidate itself in the event of a free and transparent election. Therefore, the ‘Islamic exceptionality’ has been widely accepted and taken for granted by the Western governments, and gradually, this argument became so entrenched even in research centres. ‘Stability’, rather than democracy, became the main objective when the Middle East is concerned and it was interpreted as the necessity of maintaining the status quo, no matter how harmful and unfair it has been for the majority of population.
IT
Debates
Marco Cesario
On April 2nd in Nantes, a 31-year-old woman wearing the niqab while driving her car was fined by the police for violating traffic laws. According to the policeman who stopped her, her attire did not permit her to ‘drive comfortably.' The result was a very lively debate with an angry exchange between Tariq Ramadan and Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux. The government’s anti-burqa draft law, however, has been welcomed positively by the Association for the Defence of Women’s Rights “Ni putes, Ni soumises” (neither prostitutes nor submissive). Only a few days ago Belgium passed a law forbidding the full veil in all public places.
Wisconsin
Martina Toti
Once it was called class struggle. In the US people are collecting subscriptions to distrust Wisconsin governor. Scott Walker promoted a law that bans collective bargaining for public workers and the Congress approved it without Democrats’ vote. Those tried to avoid its adoption by seeking refuge in the closest States. On the contrary, industrial lobbies definitely appreciated the project. As a matter of fact, it is a hot issue: the public sector is American unions’ last stronghold and the Wisconsin model could be followed by other conservative States, Ohio in the lead. In Wisconsin the opposition appealed and trade unions declared they could also call for a general strike. If we take a close look, it seems a story from today’s Italy: it recalls Brunetta’s reform and Fiat.
«Ideology is not dead»
Michael Kazin, co-editor Dissent Magazine, interviewed by Martina Toti
A convenient scapegoat
Joseph McCartin, director of Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, interviewed by Martina Toti
IT
Religion
Fred Dallmayr
«As we read in Matthew 5:13, religious believers are told: "You are the salt of the earth." The phrase means that religious believers are expected to be neither identical with the "earth", nor to be removed from it. In this sense, they are meant to be neither worldly-secular nor radically anti-worldly or anti-secular (thus perhaps post-secular).»
IT
Economy
Emanuela Scridel
Over the last decade, conflicts arisen from ethnic, religious, political and more purely "economic" reasons - for the possession of natural resources and territories - have shown an escalation of global dimension. Further, recent history demonstrates that armed conflicts originated in a specific part of the world do not remain confined to it, but tend to affect the rest of the world and tend to spread through ways typical of the “globalization of the economy".
IT
Women
Dina Mansour
Inequality is a deplorable reality in the lives of many women in Egypt regardless of their socio-economic status, however it is most visible in poor communities throughout the country. In such communities, domestic violence is considered a right and not a violation.
IT
General election in Tunisia
A. V.
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.
After the Arab Spring
Francesco Aloisi de Larderel
Egypt is generating a continuing stream of news that keeps us worried about its supposed transition to democracy and about its future stability. The latest being the bloody soccer riots in Port Said, the demonstrations that followed across the country, the twelfth bombing of the pipeline to Israel in the Sinai, the abduction of two American tourists between St Catherine's Monastery and Sharm el Sheik, not to speak of its aggression to foreign NGO's, which is endangering its relations with the United States.
IT
Philosophy4freedom.org
On November 9th Unesco’s Secretary General Irina Bokova announced that World Philosophy Day will no longer be held in Teheran, where the 2010 edition had originally been scheduled, and that not even secondary events will be held in the Iranian capital. All recognition from Unesco has been officially withdrawn. The decision at last ended Unesco’s embarrassment and made Tehran’s isolation even more obvious (Click here to read the Iranian regime's outraged reaction.) The merit also goes to the debate that resulted from protests from Resetdoc, which started with the letter we sent to UNESCO’s director. After receiving much support for our appeal, we opened a webpage dedicated to launching an alternative World Philosophy Day (philosophy4freedom.org). As The New York Times wrote when reporting on our initiative, UNESCO risked «turning its “school of freedom” into a propaganda exercise for a brutal regime.» (See also the aricles that The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Il Corriere della Sera, Pbs.org (Hamid Dabashi and Binesh Hass) and Insidehighered have written about our protest.)
Unesco at last cancels the Tehran World Philosophy Day
Our small victory
The Civic Task of Philosophy
Ramin Jahanbegloo
Why The Guardian is wrong
Fred Dallmayr
More articles
Freedom and Democracy
Brahim El Guabli
All the major events in people’s histories, if not the whole of humanity, drew a lot of their vocabulary and seminal expressions from the works of writers and intellectuals. The reverse has also happened, political repression, torture, and all forms injustice inflicted on people, have been a source of inspiration for great literary works and a passage obligé to understand turning points in people’s histories. Since the Arab world is on the fire of revolution, from the coast to the Gulf, the problematic of literature and revolution imposes itself at different and complicated levels.
IT
Migrations/1
Father Antonio Sciortino, editor-in-chief for «Famiglia Cristiana», talks to Federica Zoja
“To promote greater hospitality and integration for foreigners, albeit while respecting the law, Catholics must be bolder, bring ferment among the people, helping them overcome their fear and mistrust of foreigners. The Church should raise its voice on these issues when necessary. It should not hesitate or remain silent, since silence is not in line with the Gospel.” In this interview, Father Antonio Sciortino, editor-in-chief of Famiglia Cristiana and author of “Anche voi foste stranieri” [“You too were strangers”] (Feltrinelli 2010), reflects on immigration seen from a Christian perspective, and on relations between the Church and politics in Italy.
IT
AR
Migrants
Olivier Roy talks to Sara Hejazi
The main problems faced nowadays in Europe by young immigrants are traditional racism, based the colour of a person’s skin, and widespread anti-religious sentiments. This is the opinion expressed by Olivier Roy, professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Scieneces Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His most recent book, “La Sainte Ignorance” (2009), speaks of religious revivalism as the consequence of globalisation and a crisis of cultures.
FR
Panahi's case
Jafar Panahi
My case is a perfect example of being punished before committing a crime. You are putting me on trial for making a film that at the time of our arrest was only thirty per cent shot. I am an Iranian, I am staying in my country and I like to work in my own country. I love my country, I have paid a price for this love too, and I am willing to pay again if necessary. I declare that I believe in the right of “the other” to be different, I believe in mutual understanding and respect, as well as in tolerance; the tolerance that forbid me from judgment and hatred. I don’t hate anybody, not even my interrogators.
Culture
Nasr Abu Zayd talks to Ernesto Pagano
The Egyptian intellectual Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a member of Resetdoc’s Board of Directors, has no doubts; the worst enemy of freedom of thought in the Arab world is “the Catholic marriage between Islam and politics.” It was this marriage that last December induced Kuwaiti authorities, under pressure from Islamist members of parliament, to refuse him entry at the border after previously giving him a visa. “This is the first time it has happened,” said Abu Zayd. On the day he was refused entry, the liberal theologian was obliged to get back on a plane at Kuwait City’s Sheikh Saad Airport, where he had earlier landed to speak at the Women’s Cultural Social Society about the manner in which women are seen in Shari’a and in the Koran and the reform of the Islamic school of thought.
IT
Appeal
In this Europe it makes no sense to close the borders, to play the game of good insiders and bad outsiders, to defend ethnic and cultural purity, to demonise everything alien. We, a group of concerned citizens, invoke the political responsibility of Europe’s opinion-makers and political leaders. We demand the cessation of the politics of fear and engagement in the politics of hope. It is this sense of urgency that prompts this Manifesto - an appeal to all those living in Europe, those concerned for its present and its future, to join us in imagining and implementing an inclusive politics befitting the 21st century. To add your name as a signatory, please email Pep Subirós: pepsubiros at gmail dot com.
IT
Istanbul Seminars: 19-24 May 2011
Istanbul Seminars 2011 - Philosophers bridge the Bosphorus
The topic of Istanbul Seminars 2011 is Overcoming the Trap of Resentment. How to counter the politics of fear in an age of migrations and uncertainty? Islam and the West: the challenge of pluralism as a new political attitude to be opposed to the polarization of cultures and identities. The research of antidotes to radicalism and xenophobia. A special focus of this year will be on the role of Islam in the public sphere of democratic countries and Muslim minorities in Europe, particularly the Turkish minority in Germany. The discussion will also touch upon the changes in progress in several Arab countries and their implications for Europe and all the Mediterranean area. More information by clicking on this link.
IT
Books
Raj Patel talks to Sara Hejazi
In The Value of Nothing. How To Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy (Picador 2010) Raj Patel, an international intellectual working to change the world’s unequal economic asset, links food, the climate and the financial crisis to vast political failure; that of democracy the way it is practiced today.
IT
Iran
A conversation with Karim Mezran
“In Iran we are seeing a back to front revolution with the upper-middle classes protesting against a governing power managed by the poorer and less-educated classes, the main recruitment group for the basiji and for President Ahmedinejad’s base of support.” According to Karim Mezran, director of the Centre for American Studies and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of International Advanced Studies in Bologna, this is however a “leaderless protest” organised by a generation that has only known the Islamic Republic and that sees Moussavi and Karroubi as reference points, “certainly not as leaders.”
Interview by Ernesto Pagano.
IT
Iran
Pietro Marcenaro talks to Ernesto Pagano
A country with an stoppable demand for change and one where not even “state terrorism” has managed to triumph over those opposing it. That is the Iran that PD Senator and President of the Senate’s Human Rights Committee Pietro Marcenaro saw. The Senator has just returned from a private visit to the Islamic Republic. With its mass protests, conflict affecting both the clergy and the ruling classes, as well as international pressure about its nuclear programme, this country seems to be at a crossroads. “It is our great responsibility,” says Marcenaro, “to listen to these people and not abandon those fighting for freedom.”
