Politics
Politics
Fair Observer's analysis of political issues, events and trends and their national, regional and international consequences.
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Robert D. Crane, former adviser to the late President Richard Nixon, discusses the role of shari'a and secularism, and the issue of whether the “Arab Spring” winds up as an “Arab Winter”. The following is an executive summary from the essay, originally featured in the Arches Quarterly. The issue is human rights. The Qatar Foundation created a Center for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, of which I became the first Director in January 2012, to explore where and how the Arab Spring and any Global Awakening have originated and the extent to which the theories behind them have been translated into practice. What these two phenomena are or might become will...
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360° Analysis / Egypt / Islam / Islamism / Politics / Salaf / Salafism / Middle East / AfricaBy Omar FarahatOmar Farahat examines the origins of Salafis, and argues that the question of shari’a has to be resolved before Egypt can witness any kind of durable stability. The following is an executive summary from the essay, originally featured in the Arches Quarterly. Prior to the outbreak of the popular revolution against Mubarak’s regime in January and February of 2011, and the subsequent developments, talk within political and intellectual circles about Islamist presence and potential in Egyptian politics was almost exclusively centered on the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, it was the Brotherhood that consistently competed for parliamentary seats, organized massive student protests,...
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Kenya has gone to the polls, but the the new president's victory is contested and might affect relations with the US. Kenya's election commission on Saturday announced that last week the deeply ethnically divided nation had elected Uhuru Kenyatta to be the new president by a narrow margin. Everyone's mind is focus on the fear of new violence similar to what happened after the December 27, 2007, elections, when inter-ethnic killings, rapes and amputations triggered by dissatisfaction with election results killed thousands of people. In his acceptance speech, Kenyatta said: "I would especially like to acknowledge the Kenyans who lost their lives on the eve of the elections....
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360° Analysis / Drones / India / Occidental / Oriental / Pakistan / Politics / Sectarianism / Sovereignty / Taliban / Global Security / AsiaNeo-orientalist narratives representing Pakistan through the paradigm of security and geo-strategy neglect the struggles of the people on the ground. This is the first of a three part series. Just before his untimely death and in the aftermath of the US raid in Pakistan that resulted in Osama bin Laden's killing, renowned intellectual Christopher Hitchens described Pakistan as a country “completely humorless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offense, and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred.” Referring to abuses of women’s rights, Hitchens declared Pakistan a society where 'the most elemental of human instincts become warped.' He then...
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360° Analysis / India / Pakistan / Politics / Sectarianism / Sovereignty / AsiaBy Anwar AkhtarOver the past few years, minorities have faced increasing discrimination and even persecution in Pakistan. Pakistan is full of regional divides. Since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, power has been held mainly by the feudal and military elites of Punjab. Shockingly in the past few decades, prejudice predicated on caste, tribe and religion has escalated. This is an attempt to decipher what is behind some of the hatred against Pakistan’s minority communities. Shias Pakistan has a very significant Shia community, about 20 million - almost 10% of the total population, which is majority Sunni. Given the fierce rivalry between Saudi Arabia (Sunni dictatorship) and Iran (Shia...
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360° Analysis / International Women of Courage Award / Novaya Gazeta / Politics / State Department / United States / Yelena Milashina / Europe / BRIC / Arts & CultureYelena Milashina, who covered some of Russia’s most controversial subjects for Novaya Gazeta, is awarded the International Women of Courage Award. A top Russian investigative journalist who has covered extrajudicial kidnappings in the North Caucasus and the killings of fellow journalists will be awarded a prestigious human rights prize by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a ceremony in Washington on Friday, International Women's Day. Yelena Milashina, a reporter for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, will be one of 10 recipients of the secretary's International Women of Courage Award, which...
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Ethnic Sectarianism / India / Pakistan / Politics / Sovereignty / 360° Context / AsiaAn exploration of the many contesting narratives of what or “who“ defines the meaning of Pakistan Background “I know the minefields of personal sorrow and betrayals that don’t make it to newspapers. I also know of a Pakistan beneath these images that is rich with extraordinary possibilities.” Taymiya Zaman, “Not Talking About Pakistan.“ Sixty six years after the creation of an independent state, the idea of Pakistan remains deeply contested. The notion of a separate state for Muslims in India, later coined as Pakistan (or Land of the Pure), was first put forth by the poet-philosopher, Muhammed Iqbal in 1930 in the form of the two-nation theory....
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360° Analysis / AKP / Ayşenur Arslan / Erdoğan / Politics / Turkey / Arts & Culture / Middle EastBy Murat OnurTurkey’s poor press freedom record contradicts its main strategic goal to establish the country as a regional power and the leader of the Muslim world, contests Murat Onur. The state of press freedom in Turkey has recently been in the spotlight, particularly after Reporters Without Borders declared the country as “the world’s biggest prison for journalists” last December. While concerns about press freedom in Turkey are not new, a series of recent reports reveal a rather disturbing declining trend in the country's press freedom. In the last two years, a number of advocacy groups and international organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ...
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360° Analysis / Israel / Miko Peled / Palestine / Politics / Middle EastBy Miko PeledMiko Peled, a peace activist and the son of an Israeli general, discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Miko Peled is a peace activist who dares to say in public what many choose to deny. Miko was born in Jerusalem in 1961 into a well-known Zionist family. His grandfather, Dr. Avraham Katsnelson was a Zionist leader and signer on Israel's Declaration of Independence. His father, Matti Peled was a young officer in the war of 1948 and a general in the war of 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, and Sinai. The political became personal for Miko , when on September 4, 1997, his niece Smadar, 13, was killed in a suicide attack in Jerusalem. He was driven...