Arab World

Martin Gascoigne writes in a guest essay for Informed Comment The ongoing conflict in Syria, in a year of tremulous conflict across the region and beyond, singularly fails to ignite passions in the West. Oddly, even professional media coverage is relatively lacking, certainly compared to the interest in, say, Egypt. It is not as if […]

Egypt

Egyptian Blogger-Activist Alaa on Democracy Now!

Juan Cole

Amy Goodman interviews Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who was recently released from jail, on Democracy Now! @Alaa is a renowned leftist blogger from a family of longtime Egyptian activists. He was arrested for challenging continued military rule and now supports having the speaker of parliament, who will be chosen in January, assume […]

Egypt

Egyptian Court orders Military to Cease Virginity Tests

Juan Cole

An Egyptian court has ordered the Egyptian military to cease subjecting arrested female protesters to virginity tests. The ruling is a strike for women’s rights, but also is significant as an assertion of civil courts’ rights to tell the military what to do. The tests are administered because Egyptian conservatives in the military maintain that […]

Egypt

2011 Revolutions and the End of Republican Monarchy

Juan Cole

Egyptian reformer Saad Eddin Ibrahim observed in the late 1990s and 2000 that the Arab world was beginning to be characterized by a bizarre gryphon-like form of government, the republican monarchy. In a republic, power is supposed to be vested in the people, who are sovereign, and who can change out their leaders through elections. […]

Egypt

Christians in a Changing Arab World are Making their own Destinies

Juan Cole

The press is full of stories this Christmas season about the negative effects on Middle Eastern Christians of the Arab upheavals of 2011. This “vale of tears” approach does profound injustice to the actual reality of the Arab Christians. The discourse of the persecution of a helpless Christian minority serves Orientalist purposes, intimating that the […]

Syria

Syria Teeters: 25 Dead in Protests, 40 Killed in Bombings

Juan Cole

On Friday afternoon and evening, Friday protests continued in Syria, according to al-Hayat writing in Arabic. The opposition maintains that the Syrian army killed some 25 of the protesters on Friday around the country, who were demanding that the ruling Baath Party relinquish power. The hot spots are by now familiar– Homs, Hama, Deraa, and […]

Iraq

Bombings Roil Iraq as Sunni Arabs Re-arm

Juan Cole

The death toll in Thursday’s bombings and attacks in Baghdad and environs rose to about 67 dead, with hundreds wounded. Most of the attacks honed in on soft targets (schools and markets) in Shiite neighborhoods, though some Sunni areas, considered collaborationist by the guerrillas, were also hit. The Sunni Arab guerrilla groups believe that the […]

Iraq

60 Dead in Baghdad Bombings; Iran and Al-Maliki

Juan Cole

Update: 60 are dead in massive Baghdad bombings, probably by Sunni Arab guerrillas, as PM Nouri al-Maliki attempts to marginalize Sunnis politically Is Iran a consideration in Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq’s attempt to purge high Sunni Arab officals from his government? Al-Maliki has his own reasons for what he is doing. But […]

Egypt

Egyptian Women Rally against Police Brutality

Juan Cole

Thousands of women rallied near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo on Tuesday, protesting the mistreatment meted out to women protesters by security forces. In some instances, the police had pulled up the woman’s dress and stomped on her. Indeed, women rallied all over Egypt, according to the Arabic press. A march was held in Alexandria […]