MENA (the Middle-East & North Africa)
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GCC
Moises Saman/Magnum Photos A campaign event for Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Mansoura, Egypt, April 22, 2012. Morsi was declared the winner of the election on June 24.
This Is Not a Revolution by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
Amnesty, FIDH and the ICG reports are out this week. (Image: Shutterstock ) It has been a big week for the NGO heavy-hitters. Three separate investigations in three different countries indicate an arc of discontent, disturbance and legal failures stretching from the Bosporus to the Gulf of Tunis.
Discontent, disturbance and legal failures in Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey
Western Asia / North Africa- History/Political Economy
The modern geography of the Middle East was carved out by British and French colonialists whose sole interest was in sharing the spoils of war between themselves and in maintaining their supremacy over the region in the early part of the 20th century. The contours of the region, with its immaculately straight lines (see maps of Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Sudan) are much the same today as when they were first drawn up, despite decades of cross-border encroachment and conflict. Never has an imported concept been so jealously guarded by ruling families and political elites in the Middle East as that of the nation state, together with the holy grail of international relations theory, state sovereignty. The artificialness of the borders in question is not in doubt.
A Middle East without borders?
Jordan
Syria
Lebanon
Israel & Palestine
Yemen
Iraq
Egypt
Libya
Morocco
Tunisia
Algeria