Iranian Internet Cinema, a Cinema of Embodied Protest : Imperfect, Amateur, Small, Unauthorized, Global

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Naficy
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Green Movement ◽  
Democratic Ideals

This chapter examines the emergence of what I call ‘internet cinema’ by focusing on Iran in the late 2000s, particularly since the 2009 disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, which unleashed the opposition Green Movement undergirded by this cinema. Iran provides an example of the use of the new internet-driven digital global media in support of democratic ideals that, soon after the Green Movement, rocked many authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and North Africa.

China and the Revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 192-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall Peerenboom
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Northern Africa ◽  
Mena Countries ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Potential Sources ◽  
The Government

The 2011 revolutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) led to considerable hope for some people that China would experience a similar political uprising, as well as considerable anxiety for the ruling regime. The government’s immediate response was to downplay the risk of a similar event occurring in China by distinguishing between China and MENA, while at the same time cracking down on activists and other potential sources of instability—including attempts to organize popular revolutionary protests in China. Although the government has so far managed to avoid a similar uprising, neither response has been entirely successful. Despite a number of significant diff erences between China and MENA countries, there are enough commonalities to justify concerns about political instability. Moreover, relying on repression alone is not a long-term solution to the justified demands of Chinese citizens for political reforms and social justice. Whether China will ultimately be able to avoid the fate of authoritarian regimes in MENA countries will turn on its ability to overcome a series of structural challenges while preventing sudden and unpredictable events, like those that gave rise to the Arab revolutions, from spinning out of control.

scholarly journals A Sea of Change in the MENA Region: External Intervention in Libya

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-138
Author(s):  
Talha Köse ◽  
Bilgehan Öztürk
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Regional Transformation ◽  
External Interventions ◽  
External Intervention ◽  
Realist Perspective

External interventions by both regional and global powers in Libya have not been a scarcity after the 2011 revolution. With the turn of 2014, however, the nature of external interventions became more of a military one especially with the imposition of Haftar’s rule in the east by several counter-revolutionary regional and global actors. At the point that the same counter-revolutionary alliance attempted to geopolitically strangulate Turkey both via propping up hostile and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, and also excluding it from the prospect of exploiting the riches of the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkish intervention materialized in early 2020. This study attempts to explain the various motivations of the major intervening actors in Libya, namely France, Russia, Egypt, and the UAE with a special focus on Turkey. Structural realist perspective is used to elucidate the international interventions to the Libyan civil war. The nature of the uncertainty emanating from the regional transformation motivated the key actors to get militarily involved in the Libyan crisis. The actors with defensive motives are more likely to stick to the conflict despite the risks of escalation.

scholarly journals Engendering Democracy

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-387
Author(s):  
Valentine Moghadam
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
East European ◽  
New Institutions

The year 2011 will forever be known as the year of mass protests for regime change and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Opinions on causes and outcomes have focused on the role of young people, the demands of “the Arab street,” and the possible transition to a liberal, Islamist, or coalition type of governance. Middle East specialists have long been aware of the problems of authoritarian regimes, widening inequalities, high rates of youth unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure and public services, and rising prices attenuated only by subsidies. But something has been missing from recent discussions and analyses. Let us pose it in the form of a number of (socialist-feminist) questions. We have seen that “the Arab street” is not exclusively masculine, but what kind of democratic governance can women's rights groups expect? To what extent will Tunisian women shape the democratic transition and the building of new institutions? In Egypt, will an outcome be—to use a phrase coined by East European feminists in the early 1990s—a “male democracy”? How can a democratic transition benefit working women and the poor?

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

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