A minority of the population -- 26 percent of Tunisians and 28 percent of Egyptians -- believes that Islam should play a large role in government.
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Islamists Aren't the Obstacle | Foreign Affairs - 0 views
www.foreignaffairs.com/...islamists-arent-the-obstacle
middle east democracy Islamists institutions egypt politics tunisia
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Islamist parties received considerable support in both countries' recent elections -- not only because there is a broad ideological affinity for Islamism among the population but also because of Islamist parties' effective campaigning.
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When asked about the most important feature of a democracy, 69 percent of Egyptians and 32 percent of Tunisians put providing people with basic necessities or narrowing the gap between rich and poor at the top of their lists.
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Tunisia has fared better than Egypt so far in the post-Arab Spring transition, with less violence, fewer demonstrations, and greater political stability. This is in part because challenges are easier to confront in a country of only 11 million, 98 percent of whom are Sunni Muslim, compared to the more diverse and populous Egypt. But Tunisia's success is primarily a result of its stronger institutions, which provide a conduit for political debate.
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Egypt's institutions are weak and have been routinely undermined by entrenched interests. The countries' different geopolitical situations play a role here. Tunisia's minimal strategic importance means that foreign countries have less reason to intervene. But Egypt's proximity to Israel and the Palestinian territories, its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and its role as an intermediary between Israel and Hamas make its political developments important to Israel and the United States. Consequently, Egypt is vulnerable to foreign interference, particularly to attempts to prop up its military. Furthermore, beyond serving as a pillar to Egypt's authoritarian regimes, the Egyptian military has significant business interests and accounts for ten to 30 percent of Egypt's gross domestic product.
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Many onlookers claim that Egypt's more tumultuous post-revolution trajectory is because of the country's legacy of religiosity and Islamism.
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Egypt's judicial branch, which is also more powerful than Tunisia's, has at times undermined democratic processes.
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Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the Islamist-dominated parliament and the Constituent Assembly it elected were unconstitutional, because Islamist parties contested seats intended for independent candidates. The move polarized the country and pushed the executive branch to take extreme measures.
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Egyptian democracy is undermined by the inability of institutions to address citizens' demands and the impulse of powerful actors to interfere, not by the divide between Islamists and secularists. Institutions in Egypt fail to provide a meaningful forum for debate. As a result, violent street protesters and extremist sheiks are gaining power.
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U.S. policy must support institutions rather than actors, and processes rather than outcomes, in order to help Egypt and Tunisia achieve their democratic potential.
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The Council on Foreign Relations published an article about democratization in the middle east and the major obstacles that are present in the process. While most assume Islamists and Islamic embedded institutions are the root of the delayed democratic transition, the problems are much bigger than that. While Islamist regimes do indeed stunt the growth of democratic progress in terms of creating a stable government, Arab countries struggle with economic and social factors as well. The Arab Spring Revolutions have caused economic and social degradation across the region, resulting in a road block of political leadership. Without a reliable and capable government structure, the states are unable to progress economically. However, in order to have a stable government, social and economic institutions must be in place to create this capitalist economy that they strive for. Because most wealth resides in oil, the revenue that the states bring in isn't distributed properly throughout society and is concentrated within few business elites. The article stresses that instead of foreign aid going into the hands of an unstable leader or regime, it should be invested in institutions in order to spur economic growth and eliminate corruption. Rather than focusing on the Islamist-secularist divide, the world should be working towards the strengthening of institutions to create a stable foundation for governance.
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Efua Dorkenoo fought against female genital cutting - The Globe and Mail - 0 views
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Dorkenoo started organizations to battle genital cutting and co-ordinated the effort more broadly as acting director of women’s health at the World Health Organization in the late 1990s.
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“She inspired a generation of feminists across the world to take up the cause of banning the procedure,
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Last year, the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to recognize female genital cutting as a human-rights violation.
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African-led organization she helped found, The Girl Generation: Together to End FGM, began work this month.
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teenage girls were less likely to have been cut than older women in half of the 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where the practice is concentrated.
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In Egypt, where more women have been cut than in any other country, surveys showed that 81 per cent of 15- to 19-year-olds had undergone the practice, compared with 96 per cent of women in their late 40s.
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Female genital cutting involves pricking, piercing or amputating some or all of the external genitalia
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The World Health Organization says female genital cutting has no health benefits and can cause severe bleeding, problems urinating and, later in life, cysts, infections and infertility.
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125 million women living today in the countries where it is concentrated have experienced such cutting.
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The mother was so badly scarred, she said, that she could not deliver her baby through natural childbirth.
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Foundation for Women’s Health and Development to promote the health of African women and girls, with a focus on abolishing female genital cutting
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co-ordinated national action plans against female genital cutting in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan.
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In 1994, Queen Elizabeth II named Ms. Dorkenoo an honorary officer in the Order of the British Empire.
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The kingdom is king | The Economist - 0 views
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But Saudi Arabia is gaining an unlikely reputation for learning in the Middle East. Earlier this year it gained three of the top four spots in an annual ranking of Arab universities by Times Higher Education (THE), a British weekly magazine. Topping the chart was King Abdulaziz University in the western city of Jeddah, which was founded only in 1967.
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The kingdom rarely pulls things off as well as, let alone better than, its more savvy fellow Gulf states.
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ut by world standards, Arab universities do not offer students a very good deal. King Abdulaziz only just made it into the global top 300. Teaching in the Arab world tends to emphasise rote learning rather than developing analytical skills.
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who are assigned to subjects according not to their own choice, but to their school grades. Medicine, engineering and political science require high results. Low-scorers are concentrated in arts, business and education courses.
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The very wealthy send their sons and daughters abroad. Many never come back, contributing to a brain drain in the Arab world.
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In Egypt there is a university which has been promoted as the ebst school in the Middle East. Except, it is very limited. It does not offer a reason to develop analytical skills, so often their students do poorly in the job world. in Egypt students are assigned a major and classes based off of their grades, they do not get to pursue what they want.
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BBC News - Battle for Iraq and Syria in maps - 0 views
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The US with Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched 14 strikes against IS in Syria, hitting a number of targets, including Raqqa, a stronghold in eastern Syria captured by the group in 2013.
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These refineries are believed to be producing "between 300-500 barrels of refined petrolium per day", generating as much as $2 million (£1.2m) per day for the militants, a key source of revenue for IS.
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foreign recruits - the number of whom has surged since IS declared itself a caliphate in the summer, international investigators say.
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This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.
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This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.
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The U.S. Needs to Rethink Its Anti-ISIS Approach in Syria | TIME - 0 views
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ISIS remains essentially unchallenged in its heartland in northern Syria, despite repeated U.S. air strikes
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In the south, nationalists have fared better at keeping ISIS out and Jabhat al Nusra in check, partly due to a coherent, rational U.S.-led support program operating covertly out of Jordan
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A strategy to beat the jihadists and make sure they stay beaten must be locally-driven, led by nationalist forces supported by the Sunni population that forms the insurgency’s social base.
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The U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has scored some points in Syria, weakening ISIS’s oil infrastructure and revenues and keeping the group out of Kobane
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ISIS offers conquered populations the choice between submission – which brings a sense of order and some protection from regime violence – or futile resistance and death
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air strikes alone, and treating nationalist groups as agents rather than partners, violates this principle
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, the U.S. has helped nationalists in the south avoid the fragmentation, infighting, and lawlessness that weakened them and benefited the jihadists in northern Syria
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the promised U.S. train-and-equip program is unlikely to reverse the nationalists’ losses or jihadists’ gains in northern Syria
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Jabhat al Nusra has driven nationalist forces out of much of their core territory in northern Syria, and ISIS continues to threaten those that remain
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Even if the coalition wants to avoid confronting regime forces, it can and should concentrate air strikes closer to ISIS’s front lines with the nationalist insurgency, helping the latter block ISIS advances in cooperation with local Kurdish forces when possible
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, U.S. interests would be better served by a two-pronged approach in northern and southern Syria, helping nationalist rebels contain ISIS and compete with Jabhat al Nusra for control of the insurgency.
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U.S. airstrikes on jihadists have spared the regime’s forces and inadvertently killed Syrian civilians
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that Sunni Muslims are under siege by oppressive regional minorities, Iran, and even the United States itself
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Ironically, the coalition campaign has contributed to the near-collapse of nationalist forces in northern Syria who, despite their imperfections, were ISIS’s most effective rivals and competed with Jabhat al Nusra for leadership of the insurgency
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campaign has had serious local side effects that have undermined the broader, long-term objective of degrading and destroying ISIS in Syria and preventing the Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al Nusra, from replacing or thriving alongside ISIS
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Education Has Never Been Deadlier for Syria's Children - Save the Children - 0 views
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Education is now one of the deadliest pursuits for children and teachers inside Syria, as the country's schools are increasingly being damaged and destroyed in the conflict.
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Syria has now descended to the second worst rate of school attendance in the world with 2.8 million children out of schoo
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t is absolutely shameful that the obligation to protect schools is not being respected in this conflict
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Syrian refugee children in neighbouring countries are facing disturbing rates of abuse, bullying, corporal punishment and marginalization
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p to half of children surveyed by the agency in Syria reported they were 'rarely' or 'never' able to concentrate in class
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Syrian children are dropping out of school by the day, and the international community has to step up its response to ensure that we do not lose an entire generation of children."
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Four years into the Syria crisis, overall enrolment in Syrian schools has halved from near 100% pre-crisis levels, while enrolment in the hardest hit areas such as Aleppo has plummeted to just 6%
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And those children who have managed to escape the conflict in Syria are also missing out on education with devastating consequences. One in 10 Syrian refugee children across the region are estimated to be working, and the figure is likely to be much higher. In Jordan, 47% of refugee families reported relying partly or entirely on their children's income in a recent assessment.
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We have heard from children being cursed and ridiculed by teachers in host countries, being told that they have ruined their country or to go back to Syria," Hearn said. "Others face corporal punishment at school. In Egypt alone, 30% of children we interviewed told us they were being hit by teachers and 70% are being verbally abused
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Refugee children are also faced with learning an unfamiliar curriculum or even a teacher speaking a language they cannot understand.