Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Frederic Wehrey
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
State Collapse ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media And Identity

Analysis of the modern Middle East using a sectarian lens is widespread, in academia, the media and in policy circles. A common approach is primordialism, which ascribes conflict in the region to “age-old” tensions within Islam, specifically between Sunnis and Shias. At the other end of the spectrum are the so-called “instrumentalists” who see religious identity as essentially malleable and driven by elite agency and geopolitics. This volume aims for a middle ground: acknowledging the salience of faith and belief while also emphasizing how religious tensions are inflamed through wordly factors like government policies, state collapse, geopolitics, media, and identity entrepreneurs. Furthermore, it situates the ebb and flow of sectarianism within several periods or waves: the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution; the Iraq War of 2003 to 2010 and the period following the 2011 Arab uprisings to the present.

Critical International Relations Theories and the Study of Arab Uprisings: A Critique

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-150
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. Abozaid
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Western Perspective

This study articulates that most of the critical theorists are still strikingly neglecting the study of the Arab Uprising(s) adequately. After almost a decade of the eruption of the so-called Arab Uprisings, the study claims that the volume of scholarly engaging of dominate Western International Relations (IR) theories with such unprecedented events is still substantially unpretentious. Likewise, and most importantly, the study also indicates that most of these theories, including the critical theory of IR (both Frankfurt and Habermasian versions), have discussed, engaged, analysed, and interpreted the Arab Spring (a term usually perceived to be orientalist, troubling, totally inappropriate and passive phenomenon) indicate a strong and durable egoistic Western perspective that emphasis on the preservation of the status quo and ensure the interests of Western and neoliberal elites, and the robustness of counter-revolutionary regimes. On the other hand, the writings and scholarships that reflexively engaged and represent the authentic Arab views, interests, and prospects were clearly demonstrating a strong and durable scarce, if not entirely missing. Keywords: International Relations, Critical Theory, Postcolonial, Arab Uprising(s), Middle East, Revolutions.

Continental Philosophy and Theology

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-105
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Theological Turn ◽  
The Face ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Comparative Nature

AbstractContinental philosophy underwent a ‘return to religion’ or a ‘theological turn’ in the late 20th Century. And yet any conversation between continental philosophy and theology must begin by addressing the perceived distance between them: that one is concerned with destroying all normative, metaphysical order (continental philosophy’s task) and the other with preserving religious identity and community in the face of an increasingly secular society (theology’s task). Colby Dickinson argues inContinental Philosophy and Theologyrather that perhaps such a tension is constitutive of the nature of order, thinking and representation which typically take dualistic forms and which might be rethought, though not necessarily abolished. Such a shift in perspective even allows one to contemplate this distance as not opting for one side over the other or by striking a middle ground, but as calling for a nondualistic theology that measures the complexity and inherently comparative nature of theological inquiry in order to realign theology’s relationship to continental philosophy entirely.

Iraq 2010–2013

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-144
Author(s):  
Lily Hamourtziadou
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Human Security ◽  
President Obama ◽  
American Presidency ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
System A ◽  
Human Terrain System

The chapter narrates the 2010-2013 period, discussing the new American Presidency and the use of drones; the release of the Iraq War Logs by WikiLeaks, which enabled IBC to conduct further research into civilian deaths and add thousands more victims to its database; the Human Terrain System, a strategy to manage the far enemy; finally, it provides the context in which we can understand the emergence of the Awakening Councils, which appeared to change the course of the war, by reducing the casualties and by reflecting the power and the influence of a hegemon. By 2010 British forces had left Iraq and US forces were preparing to do the same. President Obama promised a new direction in domestic and foreign policy, defining the struggle as a battle against terrorist organisations. His rejection of neo-conservatism was a rejection of Bush’s policies in the Middle East, which included the occupation of Iraq. Iraq’s human security would be affected by the Human Terrain System, the Awakening Councils and the Arab Uprisings, all of which demonstrated America’s tactics, power and influence; all of which caused further violence and the spillover of wars fought in the Middle East and North Africa.

The “Dodgy Dossier:” The Academic Implications of the British Government's Plagiarism Incident

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Al-Marashi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Doctoral Student ◽  
British Government ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
News Report ◽  
The Media ◽  
Academic Implications

In September 2002, an article I had authored, “Iraq's Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis,” was published in the September 2002 issue of the journal, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA). On February 6, 2003 a UK news report revealed that entire sections of a British government dossier entitled “Iraq-Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation” were copied from three published sources, with the bulk of the plagiarized material coming from the article I had written. I was a twenty-nine year old doctoral student when the media frenzy that surrounded this incident erupted, six weeks prior to the 2003 Iraq War. I, as an Iraqi-American, had to watch as both sides opposite my hyphen waged a war against each other that I had an indirect role in justifying.

The Mideast: Figures in the Carpet

Worldview ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Author(s):  
Robert K. Olson
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gulf States ◽  
Middle East Politics ◽  
Revolutionary Regime ◽  
The U.S

It is not a joking matter, but the state of Middle East politics is nothing if not absurd. Which is to say that, to the Westerner at least, the most recent rearrangement of alliances, conflicts, and rivalries follows no readily apparent pattern of loyalty or consistency—either religious or political. The Iran-Iraq war seems to have crystalized the fragmented Arab world into two opposing blocs, those siding with non-Arab Iran and those backing Saddam Hussein. But Libya and Syria, the two most pro-Soviet countries, have sided with anti-Communist, anti-Soviet Khomeini. On the other hand the Imam is opposed by the two anti-Soviet monarchies of lordan and Saudi Arabia and the non-Communist Gulf states led by pro-Soviet Iraq. The two monarchies might be expected to oppose Iran's revolutionary regime but hardly to ally themselves with a regime no less revolutionary in its own way than Iran. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was the 1958 Iraq revolution that murder ed King Faisal II, ruler of Iraq and cousin to King Hussein. We find Sunni Libya, which has sought to embarrass Alawite president of Syria Assad by stirring up opposition among the Sunni majority of Syria, united with Assad to give aid and comfort to the Shiite leader of Iran. Syria and Iraq, which are hostile to each other, are ruled by the two extant leaders of thp Baath or Renaissance party dedicated to the unity of the Arab peoples. We find Soviet-client Iraq allied with the most proAmerican states, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, against the most anti-American state, Iran. Soviet weaponry provides the security of the Arab axis against American weaponry provided to the shah. Meanwhile, Iran credits the U.S. with starting the war, even though Iran is being attacked with Soviet weaponry.

scholarly journals Clothing and meaning making: a multimodal approach to women’s abayas

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwen Bouvier
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Multimodal Approach ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

This article takes a multimodal discourse approach to women’s fashion in the Middle East. It places the Islamic abaya in the UAE in the context of the wider literature on fashion and identity, exploring the way in which clothing features and forms can prescribe ideas, values and attitudes, and framing this discussion within newer ideas on globalization. As Roland Barthes argued, it is not so much personal choice or diversity in fashion that is of interest, but the kinds of values and expected behaviours that they imply. The abaya, on the one hand, represents a more newly arrived idea of traditional, local and religious identity, linking to some extent to an imagined sense of a monolithic notion of Islamic clothing. But, on the other hand, this is itself reformulated locally through international representations, ideas and values, and integrated with newer ideas of taste.

Constructing the “self” and the “other” in Bush’s political discourse before and after the Iraq war (2002–2008)

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 710-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raith Zeher Abid ◽  
Shakila Abdul Manan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Group Polarization ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Systemic Functional Grammar ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Active Entity

Abstract The article investigates the construction of the “self” and the “other” in George W. Bush’s political discourse before and after the Iraq war. Van Dijk’s ideological square theory is used to examine the group polarization of Us versus Them dichotomy. Halliday’s systemic functional grammar is utilised to analyse the speeches and to designate the strategies that Bush utilises to differentiate between the protagonist (America) and the antagonist (Iraq). Furthermore, the diachrony in Bush’s discourse regarding Iraq’s WMDs and Saddam Hussein is also examined. The results of the study indicated that before the invasion, Iraq was an active entity in upgrading its WMDs’ program and supporting terrorism. However, after the invasion, Iraq is now perceived as a beacon of hope in the Middle East, thus, justifying America’s illegitimate act of invading Iraq.

Les « printemps arabes » au miroir du Ḥizb Allāh

2014 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Mazzucotelli
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
Binary Logic ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The One ◽  
Opposition Movements ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Arab Spring

This essay analyzes how Ḥizb Allāh frames its reading of the ‘Arab Spring’ and the ongoing Syrian conflict within the lines of a global interpretation of regional politics. The Middle East is seen as the battleground between ‘the American-Zionist axis’ and its local proxies, on the one hand, and the ‘axis of opposition and rejection’ (al-mumānaʿah), on the other hand. According to Ḥizb Allāh’s thought, the Arab uprisings should be assessed according to the role that they can play in the ongoing conflict between the ‘logic of hegemony’ of the American-Israeli policies in the region and the ‘anti-imperialist resistance’. Therefore in this binary logic, the key element of evaluation is not democracy per se but the position of existing regimes and opposition movements vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and theus-Israeli plans in the Region.

Review: Islam and politics in Iranian Kurdistan at a time of revolution: the life of Ahmad Moftizadeh

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Martin Van Bruinessen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Islam And Politics ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Revolutionary Regime

Ali Ezzatyar, The Last Mufti of Iranian Kurdistan: Ethnic and Religious Implications in the Greater Middle East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. xv + 246 pp., (ISBN 978-1-137-56525-9 hardback).For a brief period in 1979, when the Kurds had begun confronting Iran’s new Islamic revolutionary regime and were voicing demands for autonomy and cultural rights, Ahmad Moftizadeh was one of the most powerful men in Iranian Kurdistan. He was the only Kurdish leader who shared the new regime’s conviction that a just social and political order could be established on the basis of Islamic principles. The other Kurdish movements were firmly secular, even though many of their supporters were personally pious Muslims.

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