Tragedy On The Nile

The divisions in Egypt are deep. Whereas reconciliation had seemed possible, though difficult, until last week, there are now two irreconcilable camps facing off against each other: the military and its secular supporters, on one side, and the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, on the other. The young activists and the liberals no longer play […]

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Why Can’t The West Get The (Middle) East?

Yet again the Western world gazes baffled and powerless at the ever more tragic mess unfolding across the Middle East. The wishful-thinking euphoria that greeted the “Arab Spring” two years ago seems a million miles away as Egypt plunges into bloody chaos… Read Here – The Telegraph, London

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An Ancient War Resurfaces

Throughout the Arab world, a struggle between two major historical forces, religion and secularism, is now unfolding. It is the type of battle between Caesar and God that took Europe centuries to resolve. The future of the Arab Middle East will be decided in the fight between Syria’s Sunni insurgents, supported throughout the region by […]

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Globalisation And Restrictions On Religion

In a report last year, the Pew Research Center noted a marked increase in legal restrictions on the practice of religion around the world. The report found that “The share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose from 31% in the year ending in mid-2009 to 37% in the […]

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Arab Spring: An Economic Protest

Two years ago, the West thought it recognised what was happening in the Arab world: people wanted democracy, and were having revolutions to make that point. Now, recent events in Egypt have left many open-mouthed. Why should the generals be welcomed back? Why should the same crowds who gathered in Tahrir Square to protest against […]

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Egypt Shows No Place For Political Islam

The rejection by Egyptians of their Islamist government marks a turning point — not only for that country, but for the entire Middle East. Over the course of the past couple weeks, the Egyptian people have made a clear and powerful statement that political Islam cannot and should not be allowed to suppress the broader popular […]

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Egypt’s Soft Coup Fraught With Risks

It does not resolve the fierce social and political struggles that have unfolded in Egypt in the two years since the removal of Hosni Mubarak. Instead, this latest turn is likely to further polarise Egyptians, already bitterly divided over the identity of the state and the role of the sacred in the political. And it […]

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Let’s Not Celebrate The Egyptian Coup

Nobody should celebrate a military coup against Egypt’s first freely elected president, no matter how badly he failed or how badly they hate the Muslim Brotherhood. Turfing out Morsy will not come close to addressing the underlying failures that have plagued Egypt’s catastrophic transition over the last two and a half years. Read Here – […]

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