Group items tagged

So much of the strife afflicting Europe and the Middle East today has its roots in the Bosnian conflict, yet scant attention has been paid to the country in the years following the war.

Up to 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnia conflict between 1992 and 1995 when, following a referendum to secede from Yugoslavia, the country was plunged into an inter-ethnic war between Serbs, Croats and Muslims (or Bosniaks).

Karadzic and his Serb forces have long been considered the worst perpetrators of the violence - which nevertheless saw atrocities on all sides - and culminated in the brutal Srebrenica massacre in which over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995 in full view of the UN peacekeeping forces. 

n forging notions of global Muslim solidarity and identity which has played such a major role in the conflicts of the Middle East.

Much as in Syria today, hundreds - potentially thousands - of foreigners travelled to Bosnia to join the mujahideen and protect Bosnian Muslims from the Bosnian Serb forces

It's hard not to draw parallels between such language and the language of anti-Muslim demagogues in Europe, India, Myanmar and America today.

When the dust settles in Syria, and should the war criminals survive long enough to be put on trial, the long-term work of reconstruction and reconciliation will begin

he prayed for refugees “suffering a brutal persecution” in Iraq and Syria, as Islamic State militants took over swaths of territory in the two countries

On Sunday Francis went beyond Syria and Iraq, referring also to the worsening situation in Libya. As rival militias vie for power, the pope spoke of his hopes “that the present absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence may cease”.

The pope’s speech was preceded by a multilingual mass, which included prayers in Arabic and Chinese, attended by thousands of followers.

Syria

there is hope

intellectual women today stand in solidarity

woman's marital status is mutually exclusive from her value and right to lead a healthy, fulfilling life of her own.

suffering economy

women

society

spinsterhood

marriage in Egypt really means.

trapped

declining marriage rate in Egypt,

“transforming her into a commodity for the highest bidder.”

family to be the pillar of one's success

pros and cons,

codependence is highly favorable in the Middle Eas

typical Egyptian female's life, is to pursue an auspicious college degree

regarded as a supporter or sidekick,

“...an archaic notion that defines a woman's value by her husband's status”

improve her chances of finding a proper suitor

lifelong purpose of securing a husband.

he standard sequence of events for a typical Egyptian female's life, is to pursue an auspicious college degree (to improve her chances of finding a proper suitor, and assist her future children with their studies), possibly add to her assets by acquiring a mediocre job for a year or two (under the pretext of killing time and elevating her practical wisdom), and eventually fulfill her lifelong purpose of securing a

ones who suffer are those who can't find a “star.”

pressure from three distinctive sources

their rights and full potential, desperately seeking approval before they reach their “expiration date.

“Stepford wife model”,

incompatible matc

transforming her identity, s

driven towards more extreme measures.

parents employing psychological abuse

subject to such scrutiny

generation of women

oblivious t

conforming comes naturally to a lot of women,

On one hand

(parents-peers-society

quoting religious commandments promoting marriage,

coerce their daughters

into submission

threat of eternal damnation

(should she fail to perform this role and still wishes to enjoy her life then she will have indeed committed sacrilege and is a covertly regarded as a disgrace regardless of any other achievement)

peer-pressure;

still under the impression that exceptions do not exist .

25-40

“business marriages”

Egyptians have a problem with evolution

persecute anomalies

educated middle class that crowns the highest rate of unmarried wome

women can hardly take care of themselves and that is the norm.

The IS fighters were able to lodge so easily in the Sunni Arab heartlands because the people there had been largely alienated by the sectarian policies and practices of the Shia Arab-dominated Baghdad government under Nouri al-Maliki, who was finally prised out of the prime minister's office in August 2014.

gislation to empower the Sunnis by devolving security and financial responsibilities to the provinces has not happened.

Nor have measures to reverse the persecution of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, or the random arrests, detentions, and to assuage other Sunni grievances.

he US, who have about 3,500 military personnel training and advising Iraqi government forces on the ground, also seems to be aware that military muscle is not enough.

If that process continues and the militants are defeated, the way Iraq fits together - if it does - will be decided by who pushes them out, and how the resulting vacuum is filled.

osul is an almost wholly Sunni city with a population of about two million.

Some residents may still see IS - about 85% of whose fighters in Iraq are believed to be Iraqi - as their protectors against an Iranian-backed, Shia-dominated Baghdad government.

When the Iraqi army collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the IS eruption in June 2014, it was a motley array of hastily-assembled Shia irregulars, loosely banded into the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) that prevented the militants reaching Baghda

Ramadi gave a boost to the embattled Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi.He has scant support even from his own Shia Daawa party, and is seen across the board by Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians as weak, hesitant, lacking in leadership and unable to stand up to the militias.But there was a down-side to the Ramadi victory too: heavy destruction, and the displacement of the entire population.

Nor can the formula that finally and slowly worked in Ramadi simply be applied at Mosul. It took government forces with coalition backing seven months to regain Ramadi. Mosul is 10 times bigger.

He omitted to mention coalition air support, which would also clearly be crucial to the campaign.Some Iraqi analysts believe outside ground forces would also be needed. US military leaders, while reticent, clearly want to up the pace and have not ruled out more boots on the ground. In the absence of serious moves towards national reconciliation, one senior government figure also saw a campaign to retake Mosul as a vital way of forging national unity.