Muslims and Citizens

Author(s):  
Ian Coller

From the beginning, French revolutionaries imagined their transformation as a universal one that must include Muslims, Europe's most immediate neighbors. They believed in a world in which Muslims could and would be French citizens, but they disagreed violently about how to implement their visions of universalism and accommodate religious and social difference. Muslims, too, saw an opportunity, particularly as European powers turned against the new French Republic, leaving the Muslim polities of the Middle East and North Africa as France's only friends in the region. This book examines how Muslims came to participate in the political struggles of the revolution and how revolutionaries used Muslims in France and beyond as a test case for their ideals. The final chapter reveals how the French Revolution's fascination with the Muslim world paved the way to Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Egypt in 1798.

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Somerville

In Pensée 1, “Africa on My Mind,” Mervat Hatem questions the perceived wisdom of creating the African Studies Association (focused on sub-Saharan Africa) and the Middle East Studies Association a decade later, which “institutionalized the political bifurcation of the African continent into two academic fields.” The cleaving of Africa into separate and distinct parts—a North Africa/Middle East and a sub-Saharan Africa—rendered a great disservice to all Africans: it has fractured dialogue, research, and policy while preventing students and scholars of Africa from articulating a coherent understanding of the continent.


2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Cavatorta

The positive role that an active civil society plays in processes of democratisation is often highlighted in the literature. However, when it comes to the Middle East and North Africa, such activism is considered to be detrimental to democratisation because the predominant role is played by Islamist groups. The explanation for this rests with the perceived ‘uncivil’ and undemocratic Islamist ethos of such groups. This paper challenges this assumption and argues that Islamist associations can be a potential force for democratisation for three reasons. First, they are capable of political learning; secondly, they generate secular civil society activism as a response to their activities, increasing the number of actors in the political and social system; and finally, they can cooperate with other civil society groups on a number of issues, given that they are all subject to the same authoritarian constraints. The paper focuses in particular on the case of Morocco and the Islamist group Jamiat al-Adl wal-Ihsan.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Craig Jenkins ◽  
Katherine Meyer ◽  
Matthew Costello ◽  
Hassan Aly

What is the trend in rentierism in the Middle East and North Africa? Defining a rentier state as one that extracts a significant share of its revenues from rents extracted from international transactions, we examine a range of such transactions that together constitute a third or more of the Middle East/North Africa economies. Outlining a rentierism index that is based on the share of GDP stemming from oil/mineral exports, foreign military and economic aid, worker remittances, and international tourism, we show that rentierism is growing and that 18 of the 22 Middle East/North Africa states depend for over a third of their GDP on these international transactions. Some depend on direct rents stemming from oil/mineral exports and foreign aid, while others rely increasingly on indirect rents from remittances and tourism. This split between direct and indirect rents has implications for the political stability of these states, because it creates states that are more or less able to maintain control in the face of popular resistance and insurgency.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Melodena Stephens Balakrishnan

Subject area Entrepreneurship and strategy. Study level/applicability Undergraduate and graduates. Case overview This is a case that can be used to teach advanced undergraduate classes or lower-level master's level classes in the areas of strategy, leadership and entrepreneurship. The case will appeal to SMEs, policymakers in the area of entrepreneurship funding, incubators and other funding firms associated with entrepreneurs. Expected learning outcomes As the case is specific to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – it can be used to study UAE or the Middle East North Africa region. Ideally, students should be encouraged to read up on the region/country prior to studies. They should also understand the need and state of entrepreneurship in the region. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email [email protected] to request teaching notes.


Author(s):  
Brenda Deen Schildgen

This chapter addresses four aspects of Dante’s use of the concept of oriens or the East: First, scientific, his geographical knowledge and orientation, that is the orbis terrarum model that underlies the Commedia and the Monarchia and the role of the East in it; second, political geography whereby he renders the theory of a tripartite single-landmass Earth in service to his historical theory that puts Rome in the center of the political world; third, his use of Arabic learning and philosophy; fourth, the fictive ‘orient’ or East, which poses political Islam as a danger and threat (and includes North Africa and the Middle East); imagines India as a revered East; finally, presents the ‘East’ as the source for ‘wonders’ that reveal God’s creative grandeur and incommensurability. Dante, thus, represents many Easts, including a political East and a geographical East, a learned East, as well as an imaginary East.


Author(s):  
Anna Clayfield

This chapter investigates the on-going legacy of the guerrilla struggle between 2006 and 2018, the period of Raúl Castro’s tenure as Cuban President. It argues that, while many foreign commentators viewed the political, social, and economic change of these years as evidence that the Revolution and its socialist model were on the way out, the discursive phenomenon of guerrillerismo still very much anchored it in the past. Such an anchor remained of high importance to the leadership at a time of not only domestic upheaval but also shifting relations with its long-standing enemy to the north: the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-70
Author(s):  
Luca Falciola

This article examines the transnational ties between the Italian revolutionary left and Palestinian militants from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s. Some observers have cited these connections to explain the magnitude of Italian terrorism in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, in the absence of empirical research, the issue has remained murky. The archival sources and detailed interviews with protagonists used in the article shed light on this phenomenon by addressing four questions: first, the reception of the Palestinian cause within the Italian revolutionary left; second, the way Palestinian terrorist groups established roots in Italy and how the political context facilitated those efforts; third, the interactions between Italian and Palestinian militants both in Italy and in the Middle East; and fourth, the factors that strengthened or weakened the relationships between these entities. The evidence indicates that although Italian revolutionaries forged concrete ties with Palestinian militants and terrorists, these ties were not as extensively developed as some of the Italian leftists had hoped. The interactions encouraged radicalization but did not significantly foster violent escalation and terrorism in Italy.


1993 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Joffe

There can be little doubt that the conflict between the UN-authorized and US-led Multinational Coalition and Iraq at the start of 1991, as a result of the Iraqi Ba'athist regime's decision in August 1990 to invade and annex Kuwait, has produced profound changes in the political and diplomatic environment of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Mashriqi and Maghribi political attitudes. The new atmosphere of confidence amongst the governments and peoples of the Arab states of the Gulf is clear evidence of these changes, as is the dejection felt in capitals such as Amman, Sanaa and Tunis where government support for the Coalition was less than wholehearted.


1987 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Pennell

This article attempts to investigate the role of women in rural society in Morocco, and by extension in the Muslim world of the Near and Middle East. It does so by examining the evidence thrown up by a major crisis, the Rif war of the 1920s. The mobilization and organization of tribal society by Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Karī;m (Abdelkrim) to fight the war against the Spanish and the French extended to women as well as men, involving them in new tasks under new laws. In the end, however, the evidence points not so much to a revolution in women's lives as to the activation for the purposes of war of a traditional ‘female space’. In so doing, it points to the real importance of the women's sphere in a society which was sexually strongly segregated, confirming the impression derived from studies of more literate, urban and aristocratic Muslim societies of North Africa and the Middle East.


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