Salam Kawakibi

Amman, Jordan – Seventeen countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the League of Arab States convened today to launch an aggressive action plan to combat antiquities looting and the illicit trade in cultural heritage.

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In the days after the attacks of 9/11, Americans asked fundamental questions such as “Who did this?” and “Why do they hate us?” As a nation, we were eager for a fight, for revenge, but some had another question: “How long will this war go on?”

In times of repression, informal networks are useful to keep activism alive as they offer a way to activists for organizing. This short piece examines the background of informal activism in Iran and its possible implications.

Summary

Activism in informal spaces of resistance in Burma took a large variety of forms, which often differed from horizontal, inclusive and democratic modes of mobilization. This essay sketches three of the most relevant examples of such informal activism and shares some of the lessons these examples might hold for the MENA region and beyond.

In this issues of MEI’s weekly briefing, contributors Daniel Serwer, Randa Slim, Eran Etzion, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including discussions between the United States, Russia and Turkey on Syria policy at the G20 Summit, the Syrian opposition’s transition plans, Russian moves on Israel-Palestine, and Iran’s energy policy.

This collection of essays, inspired by Sean Yom’s piece “Arab Civil Society: Weaker but Deeper,” seeks to “peer into hidden spaces of resistance not captured by the formal sector” and is thus intended to complement the MAP series on 

Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian conflict signals a new milestone in the five-year-old Syrian crisis, with its insertion as a new direct player certain to further complicate the dynamics of this already complicated conflict. Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria wasn’t a surprise with respect to the concept—the Turks have been advocating a safe zone for several years—but it was so in terms of timing, just six weeks after the failed coup attempt.

It has come to our attention that unknown fabricators have created and distributed an article in Turkish and Russian outlets concerning the Patriarch of Constantinople and the events of the recent failed coup in Turkey, and they have fraudulently attributed that article to one of our scholars, Arthur H. Hughes.
 

“[Food insecurity has] the potential to amplify destabilization, engender violence, and even accelerate state failure processes in an already geopolitically charged region”

– Andy Spiess in Food Security in the GCC Economies (2012)

I. Introduction

When “Islamic finance” is mentioned, ideas of the latest Gulf mega-projects spring to mind. However, for millions of Muslims throughout the Middle East, Islamic finance is analogous to a credit union in the United States. In places like Jordan and Turkey, the system is witnessing considerable growth, but for quite different reasons.   While Jordanians look to Islamic finance as a route to development, the Turks use it to fight inflation.

While the post-invasion map of Iraq is often conceived as a neatly trisected nation with a Kurdish top end, Sunni middle, and Shiite south, the reality is one of mixed marriages and common humanity.

Although the changes once-mixed and cosmopolitan Iraqi cities have experienced since 2003 are telling (see maps of changes to Baghdad neighborhood demographics since 2003), there are many people and projects that cross the post-invasion sectarian divide.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gonul Tol, Daniel Serwer, and Jean-François Seznec provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the Turkish intervention in Syria, and next month’s OPEC meeting in Algeria.

Turkey-Y.P.G. Fighting a Worry for Washington
Gonul Tol, Director of the Center for Turkish Studies

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Lawfare. Click here for the full article.