Category Archives: Countries

The Salafis, Politics and the Revolution in Yemen

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Terrorism Issue, Yemen

The Salafis, Politics and the Revolution in Yemen

Monday, January 23rd; 12:30pm-2pm
208 Knox Hall ~ 606 West 122nd Street, New York, NY

A lecture by Laurent Bonnefoy
Moderated by Brinkley Messick

Since the early 1980s, Salafism in Yemen has developed as a mostly apolitical movement. Yet, the revolutionary process that emerged in 2011 is changing much of its face in the country and fostering deep recompositions in the Islamist field. This lecture will analyze these changes and concentrate on showing why this political movement matters beyond issues of counter-terrorism.

Laurent Bonnefoy (PhD), born in 1980, is a researcher in political science at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) based in Palestine. Building on four years spent in Yemen, his research focuses primarily on contemporary religious identities in the Arabian Peninsula. He is the author of Salafism in Yemen. Transnationalism and Religious Identity (Columbia University Press, 2012).

Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Alliance Program.

Cool as a Camel

Animals, camels, Photography, Yemen

How the camel kept its cool: Dromedary in the desert finds shade under rare tree that does the job of a parasol

By Chris Parsons, Daily Mail, January 4. 2012

When the temperature soars around the sweltering 40C mark, you’ll take anywhere as respite from the scorching rays no matter how unusual it looks.

This camel sought refuge in the baking heat on the Island of Soqotra in Yemen by sheltering in the shade under an unusual tree which looks like a giant mushroom. Continue reading Cool as a Camel →

Tabsir Redux: A Candid[e] View of an Honest Turk

Literature, Orientalism, Ottoman Empire, Scholars, Turkey

[One of the great moral tales of the 18th century is Voltaire’s (1759) Candide, a book well worth reading and rereading from time to time. Here is an excerpt from the end of the book, but it is not Orientalism in the Saidian sense of negative portrayal; indeed it is the honest Turk which stands in contrast to tyrants of all stripes.]

During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were returning to the little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was taking the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately strangled.

“I cannot tell,” answered the good old man; “I never knew the name of any mufti, or vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event you speak of; I presume that in general such as are concerned in public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they deserve it: but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I am contented with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands.” Continue reading Tabsir Redux: A Candid[e] View of an Honest Turk →

A Buick in Kabul

Afghanistan, Journalism and Media, Orientalism, Photography, Travel


One of the most famous round-the-world journalists of the last century (or any century) was Lowell Thomas, most known for his blockbuster show on “Lawrence of Arabia.” In 1922 Thomas traveled to Afghanistan and visited the Emir Amanullah. A digital archive of 73 photographs from that trip is available online at Harvard University. Here are pictures of Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan from 90 years ago. Several of the photographs show the American Buick that Thomas drove for his visit. If you happen to be old car buff and interested in Afghanistan, this will be a visual feast.


Continue reading A Buick in Kabul →

The Islamists are coming, the Islamists are coming

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Terrorism Issue


The Arab Spring has morphed into the pundits’ pandering about Islamism. An example, and there are many to choose from in the current political orgy of right-wing rhetoric, is in a New York Times op-ed by John M. Owen IV. It seems that when Muslims elect representatives who are Muslim they must be a new species called “Islamists.” Yes, throughout the Middle East, where the dominant religion happens to be Islam and there happen to be many forms of Islam, there is a strong interest in electing leaders who espouse religious values. In part this is due to decades of dictators who barely gave lip service to Islam and did all in their power to demonize those Muslims who opposed them. But just look at the current GOP field of candidates and tell me that voting on religious values is somehow unique to Muslims. Do read what Owens writes and then my reasons for being critical of this Islamist hunting…

Why Islamism Is Winning
By JOHN M. OWEN IV, The New York Times, January 6, 2012

EGYPT’S final round of parliamentary elections won’t end until next week, but the outcome is becoming clear. The Muslim Brotherhood will most likely win half the lower house of Parliament, and more extreme Islamists will occupy a quarter. Secular parties will be left with just 25 percent of the seats.

Islamism did not cause the Arab Spring. The region’s authoritarian governments had simply failed to deliver on their promises. Though Arab authoritarianism had a good run from the 1950s until the 1980s, economies eventually stagnated, debts mounted and growing, well-educated populations saw the prosperous egalitarian societies they had been promised receding over the horizon, aggrieving virtually everyone, secularists and Islamists alike.

The last few weeks, however, have confirmed that a revolution’s consequences need not follow from its causes. Rather than bringing secular revolutionaries to power, the Arab Spring is producing flowers of a decidedly Islamist hue. More unsettling to many, Islamists are winning fairly: religious parties are placing first in free, open elections in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. So why are so many Arabs voting for parties that seem politically regressive to Westerners?

The West’s own history furnishes an answer. From 1820 to 1850, Europe resembled today’s Arab world in two ways. Both regions experienced historic and seemingly contagious rebellions that swept from country to country. And in both cases, frustrated people in many nations with relatively little in common rallied around a single ideology — one not of their own making, but inherited from previous generations of radicals. Continue reading The Islamists are coming, the Islamists are coming →

When Yemeni springs stop flowing…

Development, Environment, Yemen


غيول» اليمن تموت استنزافاً

عمر الحيان
المصدر أونلاين – الحياة

January 5, 2012

تعدّ الأنهار، أو الغيول كما يسميها اليمنيون، الشرايين الحيوية للموارد المائية في اليمن، فأرض اليمن هبة الغيول، مثلما مصر هبة النيل. ومنذ آلاف السنين اعتمدت الحضارات اليمنية المتعاقبة على جريان الغيول في الأودية، وعلى ضفافها شيّد الإنسان اليمني حضارته وأقام جنات سبأ ومعين.

ومقارنة بشبه الجزيرة العربية، أضفت الطبيعة الجبلية وكمية المتساقطات والمدرجات الخضراء طوال العام جمالاً وغنى على اليمن، ما جعل الأوروبيين يطلقون عليها لقب الأرض السعيدة. لكن الوضع اليوم مختلف، إذ تربض العاصمة صنعاء فوق حوضها المائي المهدد بالنضوب سنة 2025، وفقاً لدراسة أجراها مشروع إدارة حوض صنعاء، لتصبح أول عاصمة في العالم بلا مياه ربما بحلول سنة 2017.

مدينة صنعاء، الواقعة على ارتفاع 2150 متراً فوق سطح البحر، والمتربعة على قاع منبسط تحيط به الجبال من كل الجهات، كانت قبل أربعين عاماً منبعاً للغيول التي يعتمد عليها السكان في الشرب والزراعة، ولعلّ أشهرها الغيل الأسود الذي ينبع من شمال صنعاء.

تغيّرت ملامح المدينة، واندثرت الأراضي الزراعية تحت مباني الأسمنت المتمددة في كل الاتجاهات، مع ارتفاع عدد سكانها إلى نحو مليون وخمسمائة ألف نسمة، يعتمدون على الآبار الجوفية للحصول على مياه للشرب وللأعمال الإنشائية والصناعية والزراعية. وقد أصبح في سجلات أمانة العاصمة نحو 16 ألف بئر، بعمق بات يتجاوز 1000 متر.

يحكي الحاج حسين علي، من أهالي صنعاء، أنها كانت تعتمد على الغيول والآبار اليدوية التي لا يتجاوز عمقها عشرة أمتار. ويشرح بحسرة كيف جفت آبار صنعاء القديمة بعد «مشروع السائلة»، الذي رصف مجرى السيول وسط العاصمة.

Continue reading When Yemeni springs stop flowing… →