The Arab Uprisings and the United States: The Dichotomy Between Balancing Stability and Upholding Commitment to Democracy

The Arab Spring, a revolutionary movement for democracy that swept across the Arab Middle East in 2010, has contributed to the downfall of several oppressive authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. The movement represented several uprisings that placed the United States in a precarious position. While the uprisings have shaken U.S. policy to the core, they also presented a historic opportunity for American policymakers to craft a new and comprehensive policy that is compatible with the much‐coveted principles of democracy, freedom, and justice in a region that has historically been unable to grasp such principles. This article argues that the American administration under President Barak Obama squandered this opportunity by pursuing an incoherent and inconsistent policy. This policy revealed Obama's support of the uprisings calls for political reforms that aligned with American liberal values. However, the policy also reflected a commitment to ensure security and stability by maintaining autocratic regimes the protesters hoped to overthrow. This article demonstrates that the policy lacked consistency and clarity as it shifted from one uprising to another.     

ICT,Social Media,and the Arab Transition to Democracy: From Venting to Acting

There is widespread use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the Middle East and North African countries. Blogging and social media have played an important role in the recent calls for reform and change. Using these new communication systems and devices, citizens have been venting their anger and frustration with their autocratic governments and rulers. Most recently, the venting has turned into action, as shown by the eradication of the old regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, as well as the ongoing struggle in Syria. The most notable issues include lack of individual freedoms, deteriorating economic conditions, high unemployment, increased corruption, and violent treatment of citizens at the hands of security forces. The Arab Spring, or Awakening, and the events that have since followed have, in part, been promoted by ICT and other means of modern communications. Along with the popular Arab traditions of oral communication as well as Friday and Sunday sermons at mosques and churches, social media were used by organizers of the Arab Spring to call for and coordinate demonstrations against the regimes. Access to this newer media has circumvented the established and government‐controlled media such as printed press, radio, and television—outlets bent on appeasing the rulers and misinforming the masses. Arab authoritarian systems have discovered that they cannot simply flip a big red switch to stop the flow of information that they would rather keep hidden from the masses. Further discussed are digital democracies that are currently emerging because of the growing population of netizens, bloggers, and social media political activists throughout the Arab world and the many attempts to silence them.     

China in Australia: The Discourses of Changst

Abstract

China matters significantly to contemporary Australia in terms of trade relations, capital movements, education and global order. Australian public discourse on China, however, inhabits two conflicting parallel universes, one a narrative of economic complementarity, the other of fear and anxiety. The spectre of the rise of China haunts Australian society in and among these two spheres: one in which China’s economic rise is to be encouraged as a sign of it joining the capitalist world system, and the other in which China’s ascent is regarded as a threat to be contained. The paper examines this problematic discourse, calling it Changst [China angst], arguing that it is permeated with a developmentalist logic (Chakrabarty, 2000) that misreads China through the homogenising history of both capitalism and Eurocentrism. This reading of China as but a copy of Western capitalism evokes anxiety because its distinctive forms of capital flow disrupt the comforting teleology. Equally, when Chinese society, including its education system, is perceived as not-yet modern, this induces fear of cultural contamination from the outpouring of Chinese international students. The exploration of this anxiety is conducted via six Australian case studies, showing how China’s engagement with Australia produces intense but unwarranted angst.     

Genesis 38: The Search for Progeny and Heir

The construction of a second temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem during the early Achaemenid period is usually attributed to the religious fervor of ethnic Yehudite immigrants from Babylon. The general shape of reconstructions of this period most often follows the general outline of the events given in Ezra 1-6. According to this model, there were two attempts to build the temple, a first attempt in the reign of Cyrus and a second attempt in the reign of Darius. This paper proposes an alternative reconstruction, placing the entire construction project in the reign of Darius and attributing the primary motivation for the project to the needs of the Persian imperial administration rather than Yehudite religious sentiments.     

The Balancing Act in a Military‐Dominated Transition to Democracy in Egypt After the Arab Spring

This article genealogically traces the historical development of democracy in Egypt and the military and Islamists’ involvement in politics since the British occupation in Egypt in 1882, following the semi‐independence in 1922, through the 1952 revolution, and up to the revolutionary waves of the Arab Spring of January 25, 2011 and June 30, 2013. In this article, the author provides perceptual and analytical insight into the outcome of the Arab Spring of 2011 within the complicated realities of Egypt's politics during the transition to democracy, where the military and Islamists are competing to retain power in order to shape Egypt's future. The author argues that it is too early to make a judgmental argument that the transition to democracy has failed since the process of democratization is long and not linear, with periods of political trajectories while adapting in response to national, regional, and international events, dynamics, and forces. The research concludes that the coping models of democracy from outside of the Egyptian context may not work. Egypt should develop its own model of democracy based on an all stakeholders consensus accompanied by an incremental process of demilitarizing and desecuritizing the nation.     

The symbolism of the Arab flag in modern Arab states: between commonality and uniqueness*

ABSTRACT. The national flag, anthem and emblem are the three symbols through which an independent country proclaims its identity and sovereignty. Although each state has its distinctive flag, there are similarities in the flags of certain countries, such as in Scandinavia (the cross) and Africa (colours). These symbolise certain propinquity in terms of ideology, culture and history. Similarity is also to be found in the flags of the Arab countries: out of the twenty‐two current members of the Arab League, ten share the same colours on their flags (green, white, black and red), while a certain Islamic symbol (eagle, star) in some flags represents the uniqueness of that country. Of the other twelve countries, most rely on one colour of the four (usually red or green) while nine use Islamic symbols (stars, crescent and sword) on their flags. In spite of the importance of this national symbol, the study of the modern Arab flag is almost non‐existent. This article explores the modern evolution of the Arab flag and the reasons for the similarities in many Arab flags. In particular, it will deal with the pan‐Arab flags of the Hashemites Kingdom of the Hijaz (1916–26), Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Egypt.     

Scientific Discourse and Local Discourses: The Case of African Archaeology

To the extent that knowledge is the product of a complex construction of Nature-Culture facts more or less perpetuated, the challenge, for archaeology as science discovering and explaining the pasts for developees, is to learn how to manage: (1) its scientific “facts” more or less stabilized or hardened in function of precise, reproducible, universal “buildings of facts,” these facts being combined in networks and allied to specific societal facts, according to a dichotomy between Nature and Culture positioned as incommunicable poles of the world, and (2) traditional, ordinary, daily “facts,” local, contextual“facts” encountered during our activities, publications, lectures, and exchanges with everybody. These facts link approximately or unconsciously Nature and Culture, two poles we moderns have created and separated ontologically. How to produce a legitimate cooperation between these two conflicting discourses during the applications and the improvement of the processes which form, even in the case of archaeology, what is currently termed “development.”Pour l’archéologie en tant que science découvrant et expliquant les passés des peuples en voie de développement, le savoir étant le produit, selon les cultures, de fabrications complexes de faits de Nature-Culture plus ou moins pérennisés, le défi consiste à apprendre à gérer ensemble: (1) ses “faits” scientifiques, plus ou moins stabilisés ou durcis selon des “mises en fait” précises, répétables, universelles, ces faits étant établis en réseau et alliés à tel ou tel secteur de la société en question selon une dichotomie établissant la Nature et la Culture comme pôles incommunicants du monde; et (2) les “faits” de savoirs traditionnels, ordinaires, quotidiens, faits locaux, contextuels rencontrés durant nos activités, publications, cours et échanges avec tout le monde. Ces faits lient approximativement ou inconsciemment la Nature et la Culture, ces deux pôles que nous, modernes, avons créés et ontologiquement séparés. Comment légitimement, même en Archéologie, faire collaborer ces deux discours, en conflit lors des applications et améliorations des processus relevant de qu’on appelle couramment le Développement?     

The chance for change in the Arab world: Egypt's uprising

As the largest Arab country, Egypt has always played a crucial role in the politics of the Arab world; however, the internal political dynamics of Egypt have until the January 2011 uprising hardly attracted a glance from international observers. This article gives an overview of the political arena and the various political forces at play in post‐Mubarak Egypt. With many unpredictable variables currently at play in Egyptian politics, the result of the elections scheduled for November 2011 will likely surprise many, both within the country and beyond. The article also looks at what impact the political changes in Egypt may have had on the relationship between Egypt and Israel. There have been increasingly frequent demands within Egypt to revise the Camp David accords—but not at the expense of war with Israel. While Israel is unlikely to accept any calls to revise the peace treaty, Arab public opinion has become newly relevant for policy‐makers and Israel will have to make corresponding adjustments to its regional security strategy.     

The Scientific Contributions of Arab Scientists to the International Research: a Study of the Indicators for Select Arab Countries

Using SCOPUS database, the research productivity of Arab researchers in five countries has been investigated. The analysis included subject, geographical and time range indicators. The relationship between the most published journals and their quality was investigated. The results revealed the leadership of Egypt among the other countries studied and discovered a great gap between scientific contributions of Arab and developed countries.     

The Arab Peace Initiative: Now or Never

It has been almost a year now since President Obama set out for Cairo to deliver what has been seen as one of the largest overtures by the United States to publicly engage the Middle East. Unfortunately, despite the high hopes that this new administration garnered and the continuous efforts of high‐level American officials to put an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict, there is little fruit to bear on the ground. More often than not, the diplomatic breaches and hurdles to even get to the negotiating table have consumed the headlines, and 1 year later the multilateral relations in the region seem tepid at best. The repeated failures of the bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Syria may be attributed to a number of factors, including a deep‐seated mistrust that has not been addressed, concerns over the long‐term security, and domestic political constraints to make the required concessions to reach an agreement. Yet while all of these elements contributed to the despondent current state of affairs, the one critical missing ingredient has been the absence of a comprehensive framework for peace representing the collective will of the Arab states. Now more than ever, the Arab Peace Initiative (API) offers the best possible chance of achieving an inclusive peace, provided that all parties to the conflict understand its significance and historic implications that have eluded all parties for more than six decades. The likelihood that the current lull in violence will continue if no progress is made on the political front is slim. If the Arab states want to show a united front, especially as the Iranian nuclear advances threaten the regional balance of power, they must finally and publically resolve to promote the API in earnest.