Protest and Regime Resilience in Iran
The Upcoming Elections in Israel
On November 19, 2002, Amram Mitzna, a former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general who now serves as mayor of Haifa, soundly defeated another retired general, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the incumbent Labor party leader and former Defense Minister, in the Labor party primaries. Mitzna will face yet another general, his old nemesis Ariel Sharon, when Israel holds general elections for the Knesset on January 28, 2003.
Occupied Maan
The Fight for Iran’s Democratic Ideals
Over the weekend thousands of Iranian students continued their protests to demand political reform. Their voices were raised in support of Hashem Aghajari, the college professor who has been sentenced to death for blasphemy. But the student movement is broader than dissent over one injustice.
Ground Shifting Under Mullahs
After a court in Iran sentenced dissident academic Hashem Aghajari to death for challenging clerical rule, several thousand university students took to the streets in Tehran. They protested for about two weeks before the government threatened to crack down and declare a state of emergency. No one has forgotten the government’s hard-line response, in July 1999, to crowds rallying against the closure of a liberal newspaper. Most of the student protesters rounded up then remain in jail.
Broadcast Ruse
“Word got around the department that I was a good Arabic translator who did a great Saddam imitation,” recalls the Harvard grad student. “Eventually, someone phoned me asking if I wanted to help change the course of Iraq policy.” So twice a week, for $3000 a month, the Iraqi student tells the Voice on condition of anonymity, he took a taxi from his campus apartment to a Boston-area recording studio rented by the Rendon Group, a DC-based public relations firm with close ties to the US government. His job: Translate and dub spoofed Saddam Hussein speeches and tongue-in-cheek newscasts for broadcast throughout Iraq.
Up in Arms
JERUSALEM — Unemployment and inflation are skyrocketing in Israel, but fear and paranoia are also soaring, and so business is booming for gun dealers and security companies. Israeli society is becoming so militarized that hosts of weddings and bar mitzvahs sometimes can’t attract guests unless they reveal the number of armed guards that will be on hand and even what firm they’re from.
Is the US Ready for Democracy in the Mideast?
Those in favor of an Iraq invasion argue that a regime change will be the first step in bringing democracy to the Middle East. But unnoticed in all the recent national focus on Iraq, recent elections in Morocco, Bahrain, Turkey and Pakistan indicate that democracy, albeit in small increments, has already begun arriving in that region and parts of Islamic South Asia.
The question is whether we are prepared for what those elections may bring. In many cases, these elections were precedent-setting. Morocco held its first transparent vote last month, and set aside 30 seats in the lower house expressly for women. Bahrain, with its first democratic elections in 30 years, included eight female candidates in the final round for parliament.
Snipers and the Panic Over Five Percent Islamic Hip-Hop
Poetic Injustice
In its war against terrorism, the United States has trumpeted its intentions to spread democracy in a region where there is little. Many around the globe remain skeptical about whether toppling leaders is an effective method for cultivating a respect for the rule of law and a liberalization of the political process. However, there is one place where, with minimal diplomatic pressure, the United States could radically bolster prospects for democracy. To the scandal of its own people as well as the international community, longtime US ally Turkey rigged its November elections. But the real scandal is that the United States had nothing to say about it.
Letter from France
Elections in Pakistan
Palestinian Uprising Cannot be Ended by Force
Israel needs to halt its use of force that has claimed more than 60 Palestinian lives in the past few days. And unless an international investigation is launched into Israel’s brutal attacks on Palestinian demonstrators, more blood will be shed.
So far, the United States has blocked U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning the killing of Palestinians. That is not a moral position to take. Nor does it advance the peace process.
Heightened Israeli-Lebanese Tensions Over Jordan’s Headwaters
Building a Wall, Sealing the Occupation
Editor’s Picks (Fall 2002)
Abdo, Nahla and Ronit Lentin, eds. Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002).
Amin, Camron M. The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy and Popular Culture, 1865-1946 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2002).
B’Tselem. Policy of Destruction: House Demolition and Destruction of Agricultural Land in the Gaza Strip (Jerusalem, February 2002).
The Post-September 11 Arab Wave in World Music
Music from the Arab world has traditionally been a minor player within world music, the marketing category encompassing a wide variety of international music that emerged in the late 1980s. Aimed at an NPR listening “adult” audience, world music has a small market share of roughly 2-3 percent (comparable to classical music and jazz), but its audibility increased during the 1990s. Rai music from Algeria and Algerians in France — the most important Arab presence in world music — opened the way for other Arab artists to enter the scene during the 1990s.
Jihadis in the Hood
A Part of US or Apart from US?
Is the American public willing to accept suspended freedoms, if not for everyone, then for a select few disfavored groups, such as Muslims and Arab-Americans? Much press reporting has said yes, but a survey conducted directly after the September 11 attacks says no.
American Justice, Ashcroft-Style
The Bush administration's large-scale detentions of Arab and Muslim men — without charge — and draconian immigration restrictions are only two of its initiatives to erode civil liberties, civil rights and norms of procedural justice under cover of the "war on terrorism." Many initiatives were enabled by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, after little public debate and no public hearing. The USA PATRIOT Act, approaching its first anniversary on the books, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 356 to 66. Only one senator, Russell Feingold (D-WI), voted to stop it.
