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661. Competing Islamic Traditions in the Caucasus

Author:
Dobrosława Wiktor-Mach
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Caucasian Review of International Affairs
Institution:
The Caucasian Review of International Affairs
Abstract:
The common dichotomized classification of Islam in the Caucasus ("traditional" versus "fundamentalist") does not take into account all major processes taking place in the region. The Sufi-Wahhabi discourse simplifies the social interactions between Muslims and suggests homogeneity of each of these categories. In this paper I would show how the term "Wahhabi" has been employed by the local community of Muslims who live in the Georgian Pankisi gorge to express their resistance towards new and radical ideas and practices. In this social conflict, Sufi brotherhoods assume the role of the defenders of traditional order, while the reformists attempt at changing not only religious but also social structures.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Caucasus and Georgia

662. Pakistan and the Future of U.S. Policy

Author:
Malou Innocent
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
A spreading Islamic insurgency engulfs the amorphous and ungoverned border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. After initial victories by the United States and the Northern Alliance in autumn 2001, hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters fled Afghanistan to seek refuge across the border in Pakistan's rugged northwest. Since 2007, the number of ambushes, militant offensives, and targeted assassinations has risen sharply across Afghanistan, while suicide bombers and pro-Taliban insurgents sweep through settled areas of Pakistan at an alarming pace. For better and for worse, Pakistan will remain the fulcrum of U.S. policy in the region—its leaders continue to provide vital counterterrorism cooperation and have received close to $20 billion in assistance from the United States, yet elements associated with its national intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, covertly assist militant proxy groups destabilizing the region
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Islam, and War
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, South Asia, and Asia

663. North Africa: The Hidden Risks to Regional Stability

Author:
Claire Spencer
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
North Africa may not be as stable as it looks: socio-economic and political pressures are fracturing the consensus between governments and governed and may overtake terrorism and criminality as the region's main destabilizing forces. With political leadership in the region effectively a lifelong position, the growth of authoritarianism is undermining the prospects for achieving political and economic liberalization. Despite the worsening global economic climate, a window of opportunity exists to accelerate socially sensitive and productive domestic investment and open space for greater autonomous political and economic development. Success depends on renegotiating the social contracts on which North Africa's states are based. A broadening of participation, above all through the extension of legal employment, targeted investment on education, health and skills, and the establishment of independent legal and regulatory frameworks, will go some way towards addressing socio-economic stresses. A change in the political environment, however, requires a re-evaluation of how the region's security climate is seen from outside, with adjustments in the kind of support given to regional governments by its key international partners, the European Union and the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Islam, and International Security
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Arabia

664. Maghreb : vaincre la peur de la démocratie

Author:
Luis Martinez
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Les pays du Maghreb sont confrontés à des problèmes structurels qui menacent leur stabilité. Bien plus que la violence terroriste, les problèmes économiques et sociaux sont susceptibles de favoriser une érosion des États tant les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés nécessitent un investissement important des gouvernants pour y remédier. Et les Etats ont besoin de bâtir la légitimité nécessaire pour mener des réformes structurelles susceptibles de favoriser une alternative à l'évolution actuelle. La lutte contre le terrorisme isla- miste ne doit pas leurrer les dirigeants maghrébins et les partenaires européens sur les vraies menaces qui pèsent sur la région. Le processus d'informalisation en cours au Maghreb laisse craindre à terme une incapacité des équipes dirigeantes à maîtriser une évolu- tion qui sape les possibilités d'instaurer des États modernes.
Topic:
Corruption, Islam, Post Colonialism, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Arabia and North Africa

665. Muslim Democrats in Turkey and Egypt: Participatory Politics as a Catalyst

Author:
İhsan Yılmaz
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Partial and limited opening of authoritarian political systems in Turkey and Egypt created new democratic opportunities for Islamists to participate in public life. It also fostered democratic learning by permitting Islamists to compete for power and popular legitimacy. In the process of democratic opening, Islamists have had to address and represent the interests of a group much larger than their own ideological constituency. They have also had to endure repression and party closures in a semi-democratic political framework. However, the democratic learning process coupled with the establishment's constraints has paved the way for the transformation of Islamists to Muslim democrats. While the process in Turkey is almost complete, in Egypt there are still heated debates on the transformation among the Islamists. This study highlights the importance of the democratic opportunities given to Turkish Islamists and argues that if given similar opportunities, Egyptian Islamism will also transform to a post-Islamist phase.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey and Egypt

666. "Women and the Law in Islamic Societies: Legal Responses to Domestic Violence in Saudi Arabia and Morocco"

Author:
Cybèle Cochran
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
A common misconception pervades in the West that women are all mistreated in Arab societies due to the application of Islamic law (shari‛a). Scanning media articles, we see references to stoning as punishment for adultery in Iran and requiring of the burka for women under the Taliban. In Morocco, however, women are not obligated to wear the veil and stoning is not an acceptable punishment for any crime. All of these countries have Muslim governments, and all claim to base their legal systems on shari‛a principles. What then accounts for the differences in their treatment of women under the law?
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Iran and Morocco

667. "Who is the Real Tariq Ramadan?"

Author:
Christopher DeVito
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Anyone following the debate about Islam in Europe over the last decade has undoubtedly heard of Tariq Ramadan. They have also surely heard the question: 'who is the real Tariq Ramadan?' His detractors have described him as 'a wolf in sheep's clothing.' Those who see promise in the project he has undertaken have called him a Muslim Martin Luther. Popular accounts, portray him as either the head of a fifth column intent on transforming Europe into Eurabia, or someone whose effort to establish an authentically European Islam offers the promise of heading off impending cultural strife. In these respects he has become a symbol for people's hopes and fears. He is a bogeyman for those who see Europe's Muslims as a threat to the continent's enlightenment and Christian heritage. To others he is a symbol of hope; a hope that Muslims can one day fully assume their rightful place in European cultural and civic life without watering down their faith. So the question remains: who is Tariq Ramadan? The purpose of what follows will be to explore the thought of Tariq Ramadan, his status as a symbol of both European Islam and Muslims, and how what he represents may fit within a liberal political order. The exploration of political liberalism aligns closely to the conception of political philosopher John Rawls, along with an interpretation of Rawls offered by Andrew F. March as applied to Ramadan and his project.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Kenya

668. "Notions of Islam and the West in the US-Libyan Relationship: An Historical Perspective"

Author:
Farah Bushashia
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
“Oh my God, they found me, I don't know how, but they found me,” frantically sputters Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown, the eccentric inventor of the time machine car in Robert Zemeckis' highly successful 1985 film Back to the Future, “[It's] the Libyans!” As Alan Silvestri's background music crescendos, the camera cuts to a Volkswagen bus slowly and sinisterly weaving down a well-manicured, deserted backroad toward the empty Twin Pines Mall parking lot where at 1:15 AM the Doctor and his young protégé Marty tinker with the plutonium-powered time machine. Suddenly the hat-covered head of an unnamed, swarthy, machine-gun-wielding Libyan emerges from the roof of the careening bus as unintelligible, crazed Arabic words vaguely including 'Allah' pass between him and the driver, presumably verifying that the white-haired man in the lab coat and yellow rubber gloves is indeed the same Doc Brown who took their plutonium and provided them with an atomic bomb consisting of little more than pinball machine parts! After an inordinate number of shots, Doc Brown is taken for dead and Marty hops into the time machine car under hot pursuit from the Libyans who cannot manage to eliminate the unarmed witness as they screechingly circle around the JC Penney department store, cursing both the “damn Soviet gun” and the “damn German car.” Finally, Marty achieves the critical speed for time travel and in the bright flash of light the Libyans lose control of the Volkswagen and dramatically crash into a Fox Photo booth promising one-hour photograph development to suburban Californian families.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Libya

669. Indonesia: Radicalisation of the "Palembang Group"

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Indonesia has earned well-deserved praise for its handling of home-grown extremism, but the problem has not gone away. In April 2009, ten men involved in a jihadi group in Palembang, South Sumatra, were sent to prison on terrorism charges for killing a Christian teacher and planning more ambitious attacks. Their history provides an unusually detailed case study of radicalisation - the process by which law-abiding individuals become willing to use violence to achieve their goals. The sobering revelation from Palembang is how easy that transformation can be if the right ingredients are present: a core group of individuals, a charismatic leader, motivation and opportunity. Another ingredient, access to weapons, is important but not essential: the Palembang group carried out its first attack with a hammer and only later moved to making bombs.
Topic:
Political Violence and Islam
Political Geography:
Asia

670. Al Jazeera and Qatar: The Muslim Brothers' Dark Empire?

Author:
Zvi Mazel
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
There has been a significant presence of the Muslim Brothers (also known as the Muslim Brotherhood) in Qatar since the second half of the twentieth century. The first wave came from Egypt in 1954 after Nasser had smashed their organization. The next wave came from Syria in 1982 after Hafez el-Assad bombed their stronghold in Hama. The last group arrived after September 11, 2001 - from Saudi Arabia. In 1995, the present Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, deposed his father in a bloodless palace coup. One of his first steps was to establish the Al Jazeera satellite channel in 1996, which is the most viewed station in the Arab world with an estimated audience of some 60 million. There was never any doubt about the network's political orientation. Al Jazeera immediately launched scathing attacks on Israel during the Second Intifada and went on to incendiary broadcasts against the United States at the time of the Afghanistan conflict and over Iraq. It was later revealed to be in contact with bin Laden, and was the medium of choice for the video and audio cassettes of bin Laden and his men. During the U.S. war in Iraq, the Americans accused the station of being pro-Saddam, and after the war, of presenting the terrorist groups active in the country in a positive light. One of its reporters stationed in Baghdad always seemed to arrive suspiciously quickly, with his camera, at the site of terror attacks. During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Al Jazeera behaved as a Hizbullah spokesman. During the Gaza war, a senior Al Jazeera reporter stationed himself at Shifa Hospital, from where he broadcast a stream of carefully selected horror pictures. The Egyptian Maamun Fendi wrote in Asharq Alawsat that some 50 percent of the network's personnel belong to the Muslim Brothers. He believes that Qatar, by embracing the Brothers while hosting American bases, has found the perfect formula against retaliation by Arab leaders and attacks by Islamic extremists. Al Jazeera has become a weapon in the hands of an ambitious emir who may be driven by the Muslim Brothers and who is threatening the stability of the Middle East. With the Muslim Brothers increasingly aligned in recent years with Iran, by repeatedly attacking the Sunni Arab regimes and inciting against them, Al Jazeera is serving as an important instrument for Tehran and its effort to undermine their internal stability.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Islam, and Mass Media
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia