Original essays, research notes, and reports
by Ahmed E. Souaiaia* The mainstream media, analysts, and the so-called experts are struggling to make sense out of the emerging global protest movements. Recent articles published in major papers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and almost all cable television websites contained an assertion that the protesters are leaderless, goal-less, and fragmented. Apparently, Read more
Continue ReadingWill people’s encampments emerge in financial districts around the world? by Micah White and Kalle Lasn On Saturday, September 17th, many of us watched in awe as 5,000 Americans descended on the financial district of Lower Manhattan, waved signs, unfurled banners, beat drums, chanted slogans and proceeded to walk toward the “financial Gomorrah” of the Read more
Continue Readingby Ahmed E. Souaiaia* The horrors of war and war crimes cannot be diminished by engaging in semantics especially when it comes to state sanctioned mass killings. It is criminal, it is genocidal, and states that engaged in such acts must be held to account. It is not a revenge mentality and it should not Read more
Continue Readingby PETER BERGER Society is the social science journal superbly edited by Jonathan Imber. In its fall issue it carries an article by Philippe Portier (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris), entitled “Religion and Democracy in the Thought of Juergen Habermas”. Coincidentally, in a recent issue of the German news magazine Der Spiegel, Habermas Read more
Continue Readingby WALTER RUSSELL MEAD The Arab Spring has reached its first autumn, and it is still not clear whether Egypt will have a revolution. In my view, it hasn’t had one yet. The Mubarak family attempted a revolution of its own early in the year, replacing the military-business regime that has ruled the country since Read more
Continue Readingby Noam Chomsky Since we often cannot see what is happening before our eyes, it is perhaps not too surprising that what is at a slight distance removed is utterly invisible. We have just witnessed an instructive example: President Obama’s dispatch of 79 commandos into Pakistan on May 1 to carry out what was evidently Read more
Continue Readingby Maximilian C. Forte…The U.S. Embassy cables published by WikiLeaks present numerous very interesting stories about how Al Jazeera was brought to heel by the U.S. Government. The U.S. Embassy in Doha, and officials from Washington, used a variety of direct and indirect methods of ensuring a greater degree of compliance on the part of Read more
Continue ReadingOutside Tunis one afternoon last week I visited the Tunisian American Association for Management Studies, which offers vocational training and literacy courses to working-class women. A sewing class had just ended, and the participants—a dozen girls and women between the ages of fifteen and fifty, most of them wearing headscarves—agreed to talk about the country’s Read more
Continue Readingby Henry Siegman Over the past few days, much has been written about the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of its statehood and Washington’s opposition to it. But the real importance of last week’s events at the UN does not lie with the US response itself, but with the effect that response has had on Read more
Continue Readingby Ahmed E. SOUAIAIA* It is not quite clear if the Egyptian military rulers are miser politicians or experts in brinkmanship. Whatever the case may be, the slow transition to civilian rule is frustrating many Egyptians. After months of delays, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the de facto rulers since the ouster Read more
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