The popular risings in the Arab world belong to a wider historical process of worldwide democratic advance. But the disastrous events of the post-9/11 decade have made it far slower and more conflictual than was needed, says Martin Shaw
The emancipatory movements in the Arab world represent an inner shift in the self-understanding of Islam - one that promises to overcome an era of false polarities and dogmas, says Arshin Adib-Moghaddam.
The Arab popular awakening is provoking serious concern among state and security elites across the west. But Israel’s stance is the most self-defeating of all.
A hurricane of change is blowing through the Arab world. Even now, many Arab regimes are still in denial. But it also challenges the west to grasp a new political reality, says Nadim Shehadi.
Maybe western leaders are afraid that, having seen what it is like when a people dictate to their government what it should do for them, rather than the reverse, we might start to take our own rights back, wholesale
A filmed interview of Professor Eugene Rogan; the conversation ranges from the echoes of nineteenth century constitutionalism in the Tunisian and Egyptian movements today, to other moments of Egyptian empowerment – 1919, the years after 1952 – through the challenges ahead for Egypt and the credibi
The popular revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the middle east are driven by a profound democratic impulse. This represents both learning and test for international democracy actors, says Vidar Helgesen.
A “palm revolution” in the Gulf? Political upheaval in the desert state of Bahrain: there have been calls for a Day of Rage in Bahrain to replace the celebration of 10 years of constitutional monarchy on February 14th which is set to split the country in two
The uprisings sweeping across the Middle East portend a political transformation as significant as those of 1989. The economic stagnation of the region, the failures of corrupt and repressive autocratic regimes, conjoined with a disenchanted youthful population wired together as never before, have
