Abdullah’s Jordan: New King, Old Problems
Change and Stasis in Syria
The Fate of Small Nations
Glinting off the black Caucasus Mountains, the morning sun gives Stephanakert the gleam of a town freshly scrubbed. Everywhere roads are being laid and houses restored. Women wrapped in blue nylon overcoats and woolen leggings sweep away litter from the town square. And on Stephanakert's main Azatamartikneri (Partisans) Street, stores display fresh fruit and cheeses alongside refurbished restaurants and a new discotheque.
NATO’s Future in the Middle East
Although US interventionism is part of the collective Arab experience, NATO interventionism isn’t – at least not yet. According to NATO’s “New Strategic Concept,” however, this could change soon, with European forces being propelled into global military engagements – even in the Middle East.
No Jubilee for the Middle East?
The website of Jubilee 2000-United Kingdom lists 57 countries that have Jubilee 2000 campaigns for the cancellation of the unpayable debt of the poorest countries by the year 2000. [1] No country from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) appears on this list. [2]
Water and Women
As the year 2000 approaches, humanity has passed an important milestone, one that has nothing to do with the new Millennium, but which may have many more consequences than the Y2K bug. On October 12, the world’s population officially passed six billion. While pundits debated whether this was cause for concern or celebration, it is worth noting how we got here and where we’re headed. Population issues are particularly relevant in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where the population has more than doubled in size since the mid-1960s and will likely increase by another 50 percent by the year 2025. [1]
The Middle East at the Millennial Turn
Any attempt to summarize the direction of the Middle East at the cusp of the Millennium is hazardous indeed: We should long ago have resisted the temptation to see the region as a single, integrated political or socio-economic whole, or to reduce what are, perhaps now more than ever, contradictory regional trends. One of the besetting distortions of the region, replicated by Western stereotyping and local ideology alike, is that the region's politics and history can be explained by timeless cultural features, a Middle Eastern "essence" or an "Islamic mindset."
An Open Letter to Abu Jerry
From the Editor (Winter 1999)
Although the Middle East's role as the cradle of Judeo-Christian-Islamic civilization figures prominently in the West's sense of historical time and its perceptions of the impending millennial transition, most people in the region, being Muslims and Jews, attach no significance to the current year. The Middle East nonetheless confronts several profound and far-reaching transitions–succession crises, economic realignments, demographic shifts, resource scarcity, ecological threats, new technologies and a changing geostrategic balance.
Editor’s Picks (Fall 1999)
Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999).
Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999).
Batatu, Hanna. Syria’s Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables and Their Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
Behbehani, Simin. A Cup of Sin: Poems Translated from the Persian by Farzaneh Milani and Kaveh Safa (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999).
B'tselem/Hamoked. Captive Corpses (Jersualem, March 1999).
Clipped Wings, Sharp Claws
Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999).
Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
Scott Ritter, Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem Once and For All (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999).
Tim Trevan, Saddam’s Secrets: The Hunt for Iraq’s Hidden Weapons (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
Women’s Space/Cinema Space
Post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema has attracted critical attention abroad while constituting a vibrant focus of cultural, narrative and technical experimentation at home. In the politically restrictive context of the Islamic Republic, film has become one of the key ways that sensitive topics are broached in civil society. One of the most important topics is the social and juridical situation of women, including the enforcement of legislation over women’s hejab, which refers to modest dress but can also mean modest decorum.
“The Temptation of Democracy”
Launched in 1992, Goft-o-Gu (Dialogue) aimed to open channels of constructive dialogue between Iran’s disparate political and intellectual currents. Given the highly polarized and repressive atmosphere at the time, Goft-o-Gu’s publication was a strikingly bold move. The journal discussed issues that have since become the mainstay of the reform movement in Iran: civil society, reformism, regional and ethnic aspirations, the role of the media, Occidentalism, women, youth, modernity, democracy and the city, among others.
Iran and the United States
While visiting the desert city of Yazd during my most recent trip to Iran, a young female physician confronted me in the living room of her family home. The intense, chadored Iranian sharply demanded my answers to four questions: Why did the US oppose the Iranian revolution? Why did the US support Saddam Hussein in his invasion and war against Iran? Why did the United States shoot down the civilian Iranian airbus on July 3, 1988, killing 290 innocent men, women and children? And why did the US lie about this massacre and then proceed to award the captain and the chief weapons officer of the warship medals of commendation?
“Existing Political Vessels Cannot Contain the Reform Movement”
Sai’id Hajjarian, a leading theorist of the democratic Islamist new left, is one of President Khatami’s closest political advisers. In 1998 he ran for the Tehran City Council, receiving the second largest number of votes. Hajjarian is also the official permit holder for the daily Sobh-e Emrooz and serves on the central committee of the Participation Front, the main left-wing Islamic democratic party. In the early 1980s he was a vice minister in the Intelligence Ministry, and later headed the political bureau of the president’s Strategic Research Center. This interview was conducted on May 19, 1999 and translated from Persian by Kaveh Ehsani.
Iranian Press Update
The press has played a crucial role in advancing Iran’s emerging reformist agenda. Following the initial wave of attacks on the reformist press, which culminated in the closure of Jame’eh and Tous in the summer of 1998, a second crop of independent dailies appeared in late 1998. These papers exposed Intelligence Ministry agents’ involvement in the political assassinations of reformist intellectuals and activists in late 1998.
“The Conservatives Have Misjudged”
During his brief tenure as vice minister of Islamic guidance and culture, Ahmad Bourghani oversaw the issuance of hundreds of press permits and the flowering of an independent Iranian press for the first time since 1979.
Pushing Back the Limits of the Possible
“God Hasn’t Died in This Society Yet”
Municipal Matters
Although the 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran is widely considered a political watershed, an intriguing question remains unanswered: Why did such a grassroots intervention not occur earlier? What had changed to unite Iran’s heterogeneous interests and constituencies at this particular historic moment? [1]
