Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
A long way from elections 2010
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Ironically, one year ago to the day, on Dec. 3, 2010, in this very space, I wrote an editorial titled “Long Live the NDP!” Like then, the results of the first round of parliamentary elections were out and the ruling National Democratic Party had had won a sweeping victory, a testament …
Toward a peaceful pacific
By Malcolm Fraser MELBOURNE: The Western Pacific is currently facing a difficult problem: how to accommodate China’s rising aspirations in a region where the United States has held primacy since the Cold War’s end. Is the US determined to maintain dominance in the Asia/Pacific region? Or is it willing to operate through multilateral forums that allow …
Will religious tolerance in Indonesia continue?
By Franz Magnis-Suseno S.J. JAKARTA: Violence against Christians in Indonesia frequently makes news headlines. However, acts of violence targeting Christians should not obscure the fact that the vast majority of Indonesia’s Christian communities live and worship free from fear and interference in a Muslim majority country, and that religious conversion has never been prohibited. In the …
Egypt’s revolutionary coup
By Shlomo Ben-Ami MADRID: How revolutions unfold depends on many factors, including a country’s socio-economic structure, its particular historical traditions, and sometimes the role of foreign powers. So the Arab Spring was never expected to be a linear process, or a Middle Eastern version of Central Europe’s non-violent democratic revolutions of 1989. Egypt is a case …
A proxy war between Iran and the US
By Sadegh Zibakalam Even before the Americans accused Iran of a plot to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in the United States, relations between Tehran and Riyadh were at a low. Needless to say, the accusation only deepened the animosity between these two staunch Islamic states. Iranian officials as well as the state-run media flatly denied the …
Petticoat progress
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: As Caesar approached the Rubicon at Ravenna returning from Gaul to Rome, he passed thought into legend: iacta alea est — the die is cast. As many as 15 million Egyptians stood on the cusp of history deciding their destiny. Before midnight half of Egypt signaled its intent. The rest will follow. …
Commentary: Egypt fosters false economic expectations
By Una Galani/Reuters Breakingviews DUBAI: Egypt is fostering false economic expectations. In the post-Mubarak era, the moderate Muslim Brotherhood movement’s call for “social justice” is now popular with almost every political force running for election to the country’s new parliament. But the idea is vaguely defined, and delivering the democratic dividend — with high hopes of …
Whodunnit?
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: On Egypt’s political stage, the tragi-comedy continues. When two members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in an international press conference claim, after a belated apology recognizing the martyrs of Nov. 19, that only teargas was used to disperse protesters, 41 of whom have died nationwide, you don’t …
Asia’s month of milestones
By Gareth Evans CANBERRA: For grand strategy buffs, this has been quite a month, with several events looking like the kind of turning points that will consume future historians. Capturing the most media attention has been Europe’s eroding credibility, with its paralyzed institutional response to the ongoing financial crisis making ever more fanciful the notion of …
Seeking real equality for Turkey’s women
By Idil Aybars ANKARA: Turkish women were among the first in Europe to exercise political rights with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1924, but 87 years later Turkey ranks 122nd of the 135 countries in the 2011 Global Gender Gap Index. Women’s rights in Turkey have a complicated track record. Turkish women gained …
Services without tears
By Jeffrey Sachs NEW YORK: A famous claim in economics is that the cost of services (such as health care and education) tends to increase relative to the cost of goods (such as food, oil, and machinery). This seems right: people around the world can barely afford the rising health care and school-tuition costs they currently …
Turkey’s democratic dusk
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: When questioned recently about a constitutional law professor who was arrested for lecturing at an institute run by the country’s main pro-Kurdish political party, Turkey’s interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, couldn’t hide his irritation: “I am having a hard time understanding those saying a professor should not be arrested while thousands of …
Can Italy be saved?
By Michael Spence MILAN: As the economist Mario Monti’s new government takes office in Italy, much is at stake — for the country, for Europe, and for the global economy. If reforms falter, public finances collapse, and anemic growth persists, Italy’s commitment to the euro will diminish as the perceived costs of membership come to outweigh …
Egypt’s headless revolution
By Omar Ashour CAIRO: “The man who taught me to sacrifice my heart for Egypt is dead,” said Vivian Magdi, mourning her fiancé. Michael Mosad was killed in the Maspiro area on October 9, when an armored vehicle hit him during a protest called to condemn an attack on an Egyptian Church in the southern Aswan …
Smoking guns
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: Pause for a moment to wipe away a tear remembering Ben Corson and Roger Stoughton. They bring a teardrop to many an eye — the C and S in their surnames being the CS or, as the brochure puts it, the dispensing irritant agent they invented in a lab at Middlebury College …
COMMENTARY: Egypt threatened by full-blown economic crisis
By Una Galani / Reuters Breakingviews CAIRO: Egypt finds itself without a government at the worst possible economic time. Amid deadly clashes, and with elections likely to be delayed, its financial situation cannot be ignored and requires immediate action. The pound is under pressure, investors are wary. Social spending is beyond the country’s means. Taking action …
Muslims who can lead in multicultural societies
By Shelina Zahra Janmohamed LONDON/DOHA: Multiculturalism has come under increasing attack in the last few years in Europe, as societies struggle to make sense of how to bring together communities of diverse backgrounds. German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared multiculturalism a “failure” and her sentiments were echoed by British, Italian and French leaders. Their comments came following …
Start-up soup
By Esther Dyson NEW YORK: Last month I was in Kyiv, speaking at a conference focused on entrepreneurs. I wanted to give a talk that would be of general interest but also concrete. So I started with one of my favorite parables. It is a familiar folk tale. A confidence man shows up in a village …
Both sides would suffer
By Yossi Beilin The Palestinian Authority was supposed to cease existing on May 4, 1999, the date a final status agreement was to take effect. Of course, that never happened. In the absence of any alternative agreement, the PA could remain in existence until final status is agreed or, indeed, until the end of time (whichever …
Editorial: Revolution Reignited
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: “I’d rather live blind with dignity than live with eyesight, but in humiliation.” The inspiring words of now iconic Ahmad Harara, a young dentist and political activist known for his Arabic calligraphy eye patch emblazoned with “January 28”, a reminder of the “Day of Anger” when he lost his right eye, …
Arab Spring carves out potential role for Arab Israelis
By Natalia Simanovsky TEL AVIV: Pictures of unarmed demonstrators clashing with police and security forces have become the defining images of the Arab Spring. The wave of mass protests and demonstrations has led to the collapse of despotic regimes including those led by Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. In …
Yesterday
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: …all my troubles seemed so far away. I was singing away with the Beatles not far from Tahrir Square when gunfire rang out, sirens wailed and I feared the worst. There’s a shadow hanging over me. Oh, yesterday came suddenly. I’m in awe of the people who are so inspired by the …
The naked truth
By Mirette Mabrouk CAIRO: Apparently, we didn’t have enough on our plates. The economy is trembling under the strain of nine months of uncertainty. Over 12,000 civilians have been subjected to military trials. We have less than two weeks to go before Egypt’s first democratic elections in living memory, burdened with an impossibly complicated and incoherent …
Islamists vs. Military: Turkey’s Recent History and Egypt’s Near Future
By Rahim ElKishky The long over-due confrontation between the political Islamic forces and the military has just started. The events Turkey has seen since its 1980 military coup seem to have reemerged in Egypt today. Turkey’s 1980 constitution written by the military and Egypt’s much debated constitutional principles proposed by the SCAF; the role of Turkey’s …
SCAF’s weapons of mass distraction
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Each mass Friday protest is like déjà vu. As thousands spent Friday in Tahrir Square and other public areas throughout Egypt, the feeling that we have made a massive U-turn back towards square one becomes more palpable. Even though the Nov. 18 protest was planned before the constitutional principles bombshell was …
The Palestinian National Authority or a new strategic direction?
By Sameer Abu Eisheh First, we have to ask ourselves about the role of the Palestinian National Authority. Is the PNA a vehicle for independence and the establishment of a sovereign state, or is it limited to running an autonomous area and, in parallel, relieving the Israelis from the burdens of their occupation? If the answer …
Israel: positive and negative ramifications of the Arab Spring
By Itamar Rabinovich The impact of the “Arab spring” on Israel has so far been mixed. Like other actors observing this series of events and being affected by it, Israel understands that this is just the beginning of a lengthy process whose repercussions for its interests will keep changing over time. Israel’s encounter with the Arab …
Turkey’s Kurdish question demands brave new moves
By Kaya Genç ISTANBUL, Turkey: Who could have imagined that one day pedestrians in Istanbul’s most artistic and liberal neighborhood of Cihangir would stumble upon a massive wall of graffiti that reads, simply and terrifyingly, “Exterminate all Kurds”? That day came earlier this month. Something has happened in Turkey that has made racism, once again, an …
‘Our’ Islamists
By Brahma Chellaney NEW DELHI: Following the death of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Libya’s interim government announced the “liberation” of the country. It also declared that a system based on sharia (Islamic law), including polygamy, would replace the secular dictatorship that Qaddafi ran for 42 years. Swapping one form of authoritarianism for another seems a cruel letdown …
Bringing the informal sector into the fold
By Masood Ahmed Unemployment rates in the Middle East and North Africa have remained above 10 percent over the past decade, the highest in the world. For the young the rates are even more daunting, at a persistent 25 percent: one in four of the region’s young people are without work. Many people who cannot find …