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Islamism

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    Yemen Wrestles with Revolution Safa Ahmad October 2, 2011

    Editor’s Note: What follows is an account of the unfolding Yemeni revolution by Safa Ahmed, a Middle East based journalist who travelled to Yemen in June and July of 2011. At the time, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh barely survived an assassination attempt and fled to Saudi Arabia for treatment. On September 23, Saleh managed to return to the capitol San’a. The United States and the Saudi governments immediately criticized his return, yet, clearly, he would not have been able to return without their consent. Within only a few days of his return, more than 100 Yemenis, mostly democracy protestors, were dead.

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    The Shi'a Rise Up Rami El-Amine June 1, 2004

    "What is striking is how much has changed in a week. No one can talk about the Sunni Triangle anymore. No one can seriously talk about Sunni-Shia fragmentation or civil war. The occupation cannot talk about small bands of resistance. Now it is a popular rebellion and it has spread."
    -- Wamid Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University

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    Covering Pakistan: How Journalists and Experts Reproduce Empire Madiha R. Tahir December 1, 2010

    The wiry black beard could hoodwink one into believing he’s a seasoned mullah from the forbidding Waziristan mountains, but he’s a young student, and incompetent too, for he’s trying to set a flag on fire—and failing. It’s June, and I’m standing on a road embankment outside the Karachi Press Club watching the protest against the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla. It’s been organized by the student wing of the Jamaat-e- Islami, one of Pakistan’s Islamist political parties.

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    Foreign Intervention in Somalia: Panacea or Poison? Sadia Ali Aden June 1, 2010

    Today, central and southern Somalia are being ravaged by one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Since US-backed Ethiopian troops invaded the country in late 2006, shattering months of peace and stability, the conflict has left more than 1 million people internally displaced and 3.5 million on the brink of starvation. Although armed resistance forced the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in early 2009, Somalia still finds itself contending with the turmoil unleashed by this most recent foreign intervention. 

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    The Meaning of Gaza Bilal El-Amine February 11, 2009

    The Israeli assault on Gaza was a brutal and one-sided onslaught where one of the most powerful armies in the world used its deadliest weapons against a virtually defenseless population. Like the Lebanon war in 2006, Israel's military campaign was little more than a string of war crimes that succeeded only in butchering thousands of civilians (including a frightening number of children) but did little to weaken the resistance, the declared target of the war.

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    Empire's Chessboard Firat Bozcali October 1, 2009

    INSIDE CENTRAL ASIA
    BY DILIP HIRO
    Overlook Press, 2009

    The London-based journalist Dilip Hiro has authored more than thirty books—a number about Iraq and Iran, many about West Asia more generally. With his latest, he explores a region he previously considered in <i>Between Marx and Muhammad</i> (1995). <i>Inside Central Asia</i> provides a political and cultural history of five former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, with Iran and Turkey included as well.

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    Islamism is not Fascism: A Critique of the Three Way Fight Rami El-Amine October 30, 2007

    Author's note: The following article is from Issue #5 of the journal Upping the Anti. Please help support this "Journal of Theory and Action" by ordering hard copies and a subscription at http://www.uppingtheanti.org.

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    Clash of Civilizations? Junaid Ahmad September 14, 2004
      The fashionable idea amongst some Western “experts” of Islam has been that there is an inherent tendency in Western civilization and Islamic civilization to remain on a permanent collision course. Deriving its Islamophobic venom from such establishment apologists as Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis, this particular worldview gained renewed legitimacy after September 11. The fact that it was Muslims who carried out this attack is taken to be a validation of the “clash of civilizations” thesis. Junaid Ahmad from the Center for Progressive Islam begs to differ.

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    Colonial Mentality Rami El-Amine October 01, 2006

    The failure of many in the US antiwar movement to fight anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism is often rooted in conscious or unconscious acceptance of two interconnected racist ideologies—Islamophobia and Zionism. A good example of this is the anti-war movement’s wary response to Hamas’ overwhelming victory in this year’s Palestinian legislative elections.

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    Israel Launches War on Lebanon Various Authors July 7, 2006

    Following the capture of Israeli soldiers by Palestinian and Lebanese militants, Israel has launched a full scale assault on civilian infrastructure in both Gaza and Lebanon.

     

    Good Morning Beirut by Bilal El-Amine

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