In a few weeks’ time, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Saudi Arabia with an avowed objective of fostering the cordial relationship between the two countries. That is exactly where the relationship has always been — cordial and businesslike without cultivating strategic opportunities. The relationship between the two countries has been dominated by trade except for […]
The Arab world has to listen to the voice of its youth. This is the generation that will determine the future of the region as much in how it will be attained. The Arab youth is a factor that cannot be ignored or sidelined as their strength is in their numbers, aspirations and voice. A […]
Earlier this month, Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid was shot dead outside his home. Belaid’s death has shaken Tunisia, but it also illuminates larger trends in the post-revolution Arab world. Belaid was an intrepid critic of the authoritarian ancien regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali, which ruled Tunisia for nearly a quarter century until it […]
In 2011, when Algeria’s Religious Affairs Minister Bouabdallah Ghlamallah awarded the contract to build the Grand Mosque of Algiers, the third-largest such structure in the world, it did not go to a homegrown Algerian bidder nor to one based in a fellow Muslim-majority Arab nation like Lebanon, nor even to one in a nearby non-Muslim […]
The Middle East faces even bigger challenges in 2013 than it did during the first two years of the so-called Arab Spring. So far—a pivotal caveat—the Arab uprisings have deepened the political divide, worsened economic woes and produced greater insecurity. Solutions are not imminent either. More than 120 million people in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and […]
If there is one fundamental relationship that is central to stable statehood and the wellbeing of entire populations in modern states, it is the relationship between the citizen and the state. These highest and the lowest, and biggest and smallest, levels of statehood need to be reasonably in sync with one another for relatively normal […]
A casual observer of the Arab world will most likely have concluded that the experiment in adapting political Islam to democracy has already failed. Almost two years ago, as the Arab revolutions began in Tunisia, it seemed a foregone conclusion that political pluralism on a western model would take the place of the ageing autocrats […]
Despite the visible role played by some Arab countries — particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia — in the Syrian crisis, the key players in Syria’s ongoing conflict, one must admit, are not Arabs. Even when the Arab countries try to expand their role, and by extension their sway on the course of events in Syria, […]
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when the Arab (and Persian) world was set to reach a new age of political modernity, discussions erupted mostly between the factions backing “Arabism” and “Islamism,” respectively. Sati al-Husri (1880-1967), the father of Arabist ideology, believed that Islamism was not able to guarantee national unity because of the […]
Who runs the Internet? For now, the answer remains no one, or at least no government, which explains the Web‘s success as a new technology. But as of next week, unless the U.S. gets serious, the answer could be the United Nations. Many of the U.N.’s 193 member states oppose the open, uncontrolled nature of […]
looking beyond borders 