Islamic militancy in Pakistan appears to be mobilising women suicide bombers as part of its religious trope. This trend unsettles the conservative divide between the public and private roles of women in traditional societies, and also attracts an anthropological defense of Islamist women's agency.
On her return from Tunisia, the author kept in touch with some of the young people in the south, and began a diary recording their ongoing struggle. We publish as in Kasserine, talk is of a general strike and death threats in Tunis.
The author, who travelled to Tunisia last April, recorded her multicultural experiences at a time of revolution to share, as requested, with the outside world. In Part Two, she has kept in touch with some of the young people in the south to update us on the grim realities of their ongoing struggle
An American professor of international relations who is also a documentary film-maker invites us to share in her unique pursuit of answers to the following question: How can we remember September 11, 2001 as fully as we can, including those things about it we would rather forget? For it is this mo
The ascendancy of Martine Aubry as a main Socialist Party candidate for next year’s Presidential elections and the rise of Eva Joly to Presidential candidate for the Green Party tell one story of the success of women on the French left. The response to the DSK arrest and Segolene Royal’s treatment
South Sudan celebrates its independence this week, becoming the world's newest nation. But the festering divisions that are likely to haunt the north and South for the foreseeable future beg the question: will secession succeed in providing stability for the long-oppressed citizens of these two co
With the secession of South Sudan on July 9th, North Sudan returns to a familiar and depressing status quo - one party rule. With the elimination of southern constituency seats in Sudan’s National Assembly, only five women members of parliament remain in the opposition. Sara Abbas spoke to two of
The constitutional debates that took place in the run-up to the formation of the current Iraqi constitution provide a blueprint for the questions Islamic parties must address if they are to be insiders to the process of consolidating democracy.
The result of Turkey's election creates a vital need to put the country's relationship with the European Union at the centre of both partners' concerns. What is at stake is the historic mission of reconciling secularism, democracy and Islam, says Nora Fisher Onar.
History reveals an abundance of democratic paradoxes: cases in which progress on women’s rights regressed in the aftermath of revolution. Coming to terms with the battle between secularism and Islam – a dispute long silenced by Ben Ali’s rabidly secular policies – will require a redefinition of wo
The gang-rape of Mukhtaran Mai launched a nine-year court battle that concluded with a verdict by the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitting all but one of the accused. Her case illustrates how both the formal and informal systems of justice share the same hostility to women who defy social norms an
The ritual slaughter of animals has become the last of many areas of contention that are changing the shape of our public domains. The way in which Islamophobia is becoming a part of our public ‘common sense’ has complex knock-on effects, not least for our Jewish minorities.
