Peace Building Lessons From the Civilian Survival Strategy of Flight in Syria, 2011-2016

2019 ◽  
pp. 679-696
Author(s):  
Darlington Mutanda
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Survival Strategy ◽  
Valuable Property ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
Local Solutions ◽  
To Come ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Arab Spring

Syria is in a devastating war brought by the Arab Spring. The country witnessed perhaps the bulk of the brutalities of the Arab Spring evidenced by the massacre of civilians and obliteration of historical and valuable property. In view of the brutal and global nature of the Syrian conflict, this chapter examines the significance of flight as a survival strategy developed by the Syrians in the wake of the Syrian conflict which began in 2011. This approach is not only significant in appreciating the fact that civilians are not necessarily passive recipients of violence but also gives us an opportunity to reflect on how superpower involvement deprived Syrians of the chance to come up with home-grown solutions before the conflict degenerated into an all-out war. The civilian strategy of flight thus shows the vulnerability of civilians in conflict and the significance of local solutions and ownership of peacebuilding programmes.

Peace Building Lessons from the Civilian Survival Strategy of Flight in Syria, 2011-2016

2018 ◽  
pp. 154-177
Author(s):  
Darlington Mutanda
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Survival Strategy ◽  
Valuable Property ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
Local Solutions ◽  
To Come ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Arab Spring

Syria is in a devastating war brought by the Arab Spring. The country witnessed perhaps the bulk of the brutalities of the Arab Spring evidenced by the massacre of civilians and obliteration of historical and valuable property. In view of the brutal and global nature of the Syrian conflict, this chapter examines the significance of flight as a survival strategy developed by the Syrians in the wake of the Syrian conflict which began in 2011. This approach is not only significant in appreciating the fact that civilians are not necessarily passive recipients of violence but also gives us an opportunity to reflect on how superpower involvement deprived Syrians of the chance to come up with home-grown solutions before the conflict degenerated into an all-out war. The civilian strategy of flight thus shows the vulnerability of civilians in conflict and the significance of local solutions and ownership of peacebuilding programmes.

The “Arab Spring” as Seen through the Prism of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negin Nabavi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
New Order ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
The Past ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Arab Middle East

Revolutions are by nature unpredictable and unsettling. That the wave of revolutions in North Africa and the Arab Middle East began so unexpectedly and spread with such speed, leading to the fall of the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, has added to the concern regarding the “new order” that is to come after the initial euphoria. From the outset, the fear has been that these revolutions will follow the same trajectory as Iran did in 1979—in other words, that they will marginalize those who launched the revolutions and provide the grounds for the rise to power of the most savvy, purposeful, and best organized of the opposition groups, namely, the Islamists. Yet when one considers the recent uprisings in the Arab world through the prism of Iran's experiences in 1979, the parallels are not so evident. Mindful of the variations and distinctions between each of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, it would appear that in broad terms, and beyond superficial similarities, there is little in common between the events of Iran in 1979 and what has happened in the past year in the Arab world.

scholarly journals Islamic Reform Movements after the Arab Spring

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-172
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Special Lecture ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Algerian Civil War ◽  
Annual Summer

On June 24-July 3, 2013, the International Institute of Islamic Thought held its annual Summer Institute for Scholars. Given the number of presentations, only a few of them will be mentioned here. In his welcoming remarks, Abdul Aziz Sachedina (George Mason University) spoke eloquently about how change has to come from within, how politics still dominates values, and how the Qur’an and Sunnah are being read not for inspiration, but for putting down opposition and dissenters. The Arab Spring represents a challenge to undertake such an internal reform. Unfortunately, he said, cyberspace contains no serious conversation in this regard, just hostility and animosity, which only damages Muslims. He called for leaders to “moralize” the entire issue in order to achieve co-existence, mainly between Shi‘is and Sunnis, and wondered if the reformers could deal with this and other issues. John Voll (Georgetown University), who delivered the keynote address, “Pop-politics and Elections: Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring,” raised the question as to whether the Arab Spring makes any difference, given that reform movements have been going on in the Muslim world since 1880. Are we, he asked, “looking at something moving forward/different, or just rehashing the same old arguments?” He opined that a new vocabulary is needed and that people have to move beyond “interfaith,” “tolerance,” and interreligious dialogue and speak to each other about “shared interests.” He then discussed earlier Muslim reform movements and how their goals have changed over the years. Yahya Michot (Hartford University) presented a special lecture entitled “Taymiyyan Thoughts for a Temperate Arab Summer.” He pointed out how different groups (e.g., those groups responsible for assassinating Sadat, the Algerian civil war, and 9/11) took Ibn Taymiyyah’s anti-Mongol fatwas out of context to justify their actions. Thus they ignored the underlying issues: The supposedly “Muslim” Mongols were still massacring Muslims; ...

scholarly journals Prospects and Dimensions of Conflict Resolution Programs in the Islamic Context

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-152
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
International Institute ◽  
San Jose ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Muslim Scholars

Amr Abdalla (professor and vice rector, University for Peace, San Jose, CostaRica) visited the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) on February1, 2013, to discuss the challenges of conflict resolution and peace that hascaught the attention of so many Muslim and non-Muslim scholars and policymakersfor several decades. As the Muslim world remains plagued with violentconfrontations between states and non-state actors, regional and nationalsectarian conflicts, and domestic conflicts with gender and family elements,such a discussion is very timely.The outbreak of the Arab Spring, which has resulted in several Islamistgroups taking power, has raised various questions: Why is it important to talk about conflict resolution and peace building in an Islamic context? How canthe theoretical be combined with the practical? How does Islam fit into thedemonstrations that occurred during the Arab Spring as well as into modernity?This is, according to Abdalla, the first opportunity that contemporaryMuslims have had to answer these questions for themselves ...

scholarly journals “Arab Spring” in the Context of Contemporary Transformation Process in the Near and Middle East

2016 ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
V. Shved
Keyword(s):  
Model Transformation ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arab Country ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Revolutionary Period

The article analyses the role of the “Arab Spring” as the beginning of long time process of deep transformation changes in the Arab World. Special attention is paid to understanding of particularities of contemporary stage of the above-mentioned post-revolutionary period. The article also studies such actual problems as internal and external aspects of defeat of the first wave of the contemporary Arab revolutions, content and direction of contemporary change of format of the Arab Spring and results of acute sharpening of the Sunni-Shiite confrontation. It also studies reasons and purposes of the direct Russian intervention in the Syrian conflict. The analysis values of the Tunisian development model transformation prospects for democratic renewal of Arab society and identified the reasons why after the "Arab Spring" Tunisia became virtually the only Arab country which has been extended and deepened the democratic process.

scholarly journals Islamister i åpnere landskap: Hvilken rolle i det nye Midtøsten?

Politik ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjørn Olav Utvik
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
The Political ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Arab Spring

The political successes of Islamists following the Arab uprisings of 2011 makes understanding Islamism more important than ever. ey have long been central to oppositional politics in the Arab world. Now they may well become a dominant factor in the emerging new regimes. A necessary starting point is to recognise that the Islamists played a pivotal role in the Arab spring from the start. Furthermore, to grasp the possible ways in which the Islamists may in uence developments to come, research must turn away from essentialising their Islamic ideology and discover the contradictory impulses driving these complex and dynamic social movements. 

Does realism explain the Arab Spring? Neorealist alliance formation theories and the Syrian civil war

2021 ◽  
pp. 002070202110215
Author(s):  
Mohammed Nuruzzaman
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Alliance Formation ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
The Arab Spring

Dominant International Relations theories—realism/neorealism, liberalism/neoliberalism, and constructivism—have so far developed no rigorous theoretical attempts to interpret the Arab Spring, though some marginal efforts have been made to critique the failure of realism to interpret this historical development. This article presents a neorealist interpretation of the Arab Spring focusing on the Syrian civil war, where conflicts between the pro- and anti-status quo forces have unfolded in alignments and counter-alignments centering around rival domestic and external groups. To explain the involvements of rival alliances in the post-2011 Syrian conflict, namely, the United States–Saudi Arabia–Israel alliance and the Russia–Iran–Syria alliance, this analysis employs neorealist theories of alliance formation—the balance of power and balance of threat theories—as articulated by Kenneth Waltz and Stephen Walt, respectively. The dynamics of these formations in Syria lend more support to Walt’s theory that states balance against threats rather than against power. The complex nature and dynamics of the Syrian war, however, calls for refinements of Walt’s balance of threat theory. Accordingly, the article also explores various refinements of Walt’s theory to better explain future complex civil wars involving highly polarized domestic and external parties.

“I Do Not Forgive!”

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-221
Author(s):  
Alyssa Miller
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Second Wave

Abstract Reconciliation is a central goal of transitional justice. Yet, its importance for democratization can give reconciliation a coercive edge, pressuring victims to abandon legitimate grievances for the good of the nation to come. This article considers struggles over popular sovereignty in Tunisia's democratic transition, by examining the anticorruption campaign Manish Msamah (“I do not forgive”). Manish Msamah was formed in 2015 to defeat the Project Law on Economic and Financial Reconciliation, legislation that proposed amnesty for crony capitalists who profited from the Ben Ali dictatorship. Drawing on participant observation, media analysis, and activist interviews, the author shows how Manish Msamah debunks the ruse of consent at the heart of reconciliation, and in doing so maintains fidelity to the ideals of the 2011 Revolution. The campaign is revealed as an early participant in the “second wave” of the Arab Spring, which has refused the lure of procedural democracy in favor of deeper structural change.

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