MIDDLE EAST HIST FINAL

8. The uprisings that took place across the MENA region in 2011, i.e. the "Arab Spring," had very different outcomes in different countries. Gelvin (as well as other MENA scholars) have grouped the following pairs together: Egypt & Tunisia, Libya & Yemen, and Syria & Bahrain. Why? And do you agree with these groupings?

Egypt and Tunisia: Dictators are toppled by massive popular protests (Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt), but the governments that follow aren't much better and don't fix underlying issues (Kais Saied in Tunisia, Morsi, Sisi in Egypt). In Tunisia and Egypt militaries stepped in to depose autocrats-Hosni Mubarak who had ruled for thirty years in the case of Egypt, Zine al-Abidine bin'Ali who had ruled for twenty-three in Tunisia - who faced widespread disaffection. The militaries thus cut the revolutionary process short, which, in turn, prevented a thorough house cleaning in both states. In Egypt—The military stepped in once again, dissolved the brotherhood, had a constitution drafted that enhanced the power of the deep state, and established a regime far more repressive than Hosni Mubarak's. Things in Tunisia did not end up as badly. Unlike the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda did not overplay its hand. As a matter of fact, from the beginning Ennahda reached out to opposition parties and brought them into the government. And when faced with the same crises and oppositional forces faced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, as well as its opponents, stepped away from the precipice. Ennahda not only dissolved the government it dominated and called for new elections (which it lost), it signed on to the most liberal constitution in the Arab world. If any of the uprisings is to have a happy ending, the Tunisian uprising is the most likely candidate. Libya and Yemen: Unrest after Arab Spring protests weakens states, allowing extremists like Al Qaeda to take power in both countries, causing civil wars that involved foreign air-based intervention (Saudis in Yemen, UN/NATO in Libya). In both states, the regimes fragmented, pitting officers and soldiers, cabinet ministers, politicians, and diplomats who stood with the regime against those who joined the opposition. Because regimes in both states fragmented, there was no unified military to step in to end the uprisings, as had happened in Tunisia and Egypt. As a result, uprisings in both states were both violent and prolonged. Syria and Bahrain: Repressive minority governments (Sunnis in Bahrain, Alawite Shi'a in Syria) hold onto power despite massive protests by using extensive violence. Invoke sectarianism to stay in power, allying themselves with their respective religious communities, blaming dissent on sectarian opponents. —Legitimacy by blackmail, idea that the religious communities in power forced those who identified as the same to support the regime, as if the regime toppled the anger from the 'ruled' group would spill over and affect those who weren't in power, just guilty by association In Syria and Bahrain, regimes maintained cohesion against the uprisings. Thus, once uprisings broke out in these states there was little likelihood that one part of the ruling institution would turn on another, as happened in Tunisia or Egypt, or that the ruling institution would splinter, as happened in Libya and Yemen. The rulers of Syria and Bahrain had effectively "coup-proofed" their regimes. They did this by, among other things, exploiting ties of sect and kinship to build a close-knit, interdependent ruling group. Foreign intervention played a critical role in determining the course of the uprisings in both Bahrain and Syria.

Hanieh; Capital, Labor, and State: Rethinking the Political Economy of Oil in the Gulf

Hanieh argues that the Rentier State Theory needs to reconsider the ways that class and the broader global capitalist economy influence the societies and economies of the Gulf states. The Rentier State Theory posits that oil revenues or "rent" coming from foreign sources have produced an autonomy of state apparatuses from society, which will lead to large disparities between industries connected to oil and other sectors of the economy as well as the state having a dominating influence on all social processes. Hanieh critiques these assumptions by arguing that an emphasis on the intertwined processes of state and class formation reveals the way that the state can be understood as an institutionalized form of capitalist class relations, in which state actions are designed to perpetuate these inequities. Hanieh argues that scholarship must use a holistic view of Gulf capitalism, in which the rise of an exploitable migrant labor force and other phenomena are understood as parts of institutions that reflect class and power dynamics in the Middle East. The Middle East's pivotal position in a hydrocarbon-based global capitalism carries enormous ramifications for the region and the Gulf Arab states in particular. This chapter aims to present key debates associated with this transformation. It begins with an overview of the Rentier State Theory (RST). RST theorists foreground the impact of oil rents on Gulf states, drawing causal relationships between these rents and the characteristics of the Gulf's political economy. The chapter turns to a critique of some of its core assumptions, notably its theorization of state and class. It argues that a more satisfactory understanding of the political economy of oil in the Gulf can be found through a return to the categories of class and capitalism, and a deeper appreciation of the ways in which the Gulf is located in the wider dynamics of accumulation in the world market. Initially, much of the postwar demand for oil and gas was supplied by the United States and Europe. By the mid-1960s, however, the world's principal supplies of cheap and accessible hydrocarbons were to be found in the Middle East—notably in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, and the smaller Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the seven sheikhdoms that would eventually become the United Arab Emirates. By 1969 the Middle East's oil production exceeded that of North America and Europe; by the mid-1970s, it would be equivalent to their combined total.6 For this reason, political domination of the Gulf and wider Middle East was an essential element to how the postwar international states system developed as numerous authors have analyzed in detail, the emergence of a US-dominated global capitalism was to a great extent premised on Western control of the region.7 Despite the availability of alternative sources of oil in recent years—such as North American shale reserves—the Middle East remains key to the world energy markets, accounting for more than half of proven oil reserves and nearly one-third of oil production, and 47% of proven gas reserves.8 The Middle East's pivotal position in a hydrocarbon-based global capitalism carries enormous ramifications for the region as a whole, and the Gulf Arab states in particular. the chapter begins with an overview of an influential perspective known as Rentier State Theory (RST), which has been described as "one of the major contributions of Middle East regional studies to political science."9 Rentier State theorists foreground the impact of oil rents on Gulf states, drawing causal relationships between these rents and the characteristics of the Gulf's political economy. Employing a theoretical understanding of state and society drawn from Weberian sociology, these theorists argue that rents have fostered a pronounced autonomy of the Gulf states from society, allowing the former to dominate and shape all other social processes. After outlining the principal contentions of RST, the chapter turns to a critique of some of its core theoretical assumptions, notably its theorization of state and class.Ultimately, it is argued, a more satisfactory understanding of the political economy of oil in the Gulf can be found through a return to the categories of class and capitalism, and a deeper appreciation of the ways in which the Gulf is located in the wider dynamics of accumulation in the world market. In this manner, the analysis below emphasizes the necessarily intertwined processes of class and state formation in the Gulf, tracing how this has shaped forms of capital and labor over recent decades Hossein Mahdavy wrote a germinal account of the impact of oil on Iran's economy prior to the revolution of 1970. According to Mahdavy, Iran was an archetypal example of a rentier state, defined as an economy that received "on a regular basis substantial amounts of external rent [which are] rentals paid by foreign individuals, concerns or governments to individuals, concerns or governments of a given country."10 Describing these external rents as akin to "a free gift of nature or as a grant from foreign sources,"11 Mahdavy argued that they produced a particularly distorted pattern of economic development. Notably, they enabled the Iranian government to embark on large spending programs without having to resort to taxation As a consequence of this particular economic structure—regular capital inflows with little need to extract wealth from alternative industrial or productive activities—Mahdavy posited that rentier states would be inclined to spend on consumption rather than pursue industrial diversification. This, in turn, would accentuate the gap between those sectors connected to oil rent and other industries; while "considerable government expenditure (usually in a few cities) [create] an impression of prosperity and growth, the mass of the population may remain in a backward state and the most important factors for long-run growth may receive little or no attention at all." Mahdavy, and later RST-influenced scholars, highlighted the presence of external rents to explain the social, political, and economic characteristics of resource-rich countries. But while Mahdavy's analysis warned of the potentially negative impact that rents could have on economic development, he was nonetheless careful to avoid determinist readings—emphasizing that governments could pursue alternative paths that prioritized industrialization and support of education and training.14 Subsequent interpretations of RST, however, have tended to adopt a much more deterministic approach to the effects of oil-derived rents on politics, economics, and even the behavior of individual citizens. Among the wider population, rentier-state theorists have also explored the internal dynamics of citizenship and its relationship to the state. In this regard, an overriding theme is once again the supposed reluctance of the state to create "market incentives for development"—instead, the state utilizes its control of rents to "structure relationships with society vertically through chains of patronage dependence."19 Because the allocation and circulation of external rents is fully controlled by the Gulf's ruling families—and access to these rents forms the primary means of wealth for all social groups—internal competition around rent circuits becomes a major preoccupation of citizens. The state is able to penetrate all spheres of society, using its distributive powers to bind allegiances, incorporate patronage networks, and mute opposition. Running through all these accounts is an analytical emphasis on the pronounced autonomy of the state apparatus in the Gulf from wider society. Freed from the constraints of taxation and the need to account for societal pressures—and having differentially incorporated citizens into rent circuits through patterns of vertical segmentation—Gulf monarchies constitute an archetypal "strong state," with a particularly enhanced capacity "to penetrate society, regulate social relationships, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways. The theory has, nonetheless, been subject to a variety of critiques. These have included a questioning of its empirical predictions around political quiescence and the presence of rent24; claims that the theory excluded politics and needed to better theorize the interaction between exogenous rents and domestic sociopolitical variation25; critiques of its ability to account for different state spending policies between the first and second oil booms; and arguments that RST downplays the political economy of imperialism in the Middle East.27 These and other critiques have spawned numerous subgenres of RST A core feature of all RST approaches is a particular theoretical conceptualization of the state and class that is drawn from Weberian sociology and political science. Framing this perspective are two basic analytical categories—the state and "civil society." As with the wider Weberian literature in which it is located, institutions (specifically those of the state) are considered the determinant, a priori, factor driving the characteristics of wider social patterns. As a result, within the rentier framework, categories such as class and capitalism either disappear from view or are considered derivative and subordinate to the policies of the state. The development of capitalism is understood as a consequence of the nature and choices of the state apparatus (particularly decisions made by the ruling family). Numerous scholars have argued that the state, as an institution, is never independent from the social (class) relations that govern the reproduction of any capitalist society. The state is an institutional "form of appearance" of these social relations, which acts to maintain the existing class structure, mediates the convicts that inevitably appear between and within classes, and allows these relations to reproduce themselves. Although the state may appear to us as an independent political institution, we need to penetrate below this appearance to grasp the state as a social relation As a consequence, the relationship that the ruling class holds with the state is actually part of what constitutes it as a class; state and class need to be seen as mutually reinforcing and co-constituted, with the latter providing the conditions of existence for the former. If the Gulf state is viewed as an institutional form of the class relations that typify Gulf societies, then the challenge becomes one of tracing how capitalist social relations developed and took the particular form that they did in the Gulf (including, of course, the political form). Methodologically, this alternative standpoint redirects analytical attention toward the categories of class and capitalism, which have largely dropped from view within the RST literature's focus on the state. an emphasis on the intertwined processes of class and state formation brings to the fore the relations of power that underlie the political economy of the Gulf. Class formation in the Gulf needs to be located alongside and within the wider development of the world market in the postwar period. Viewed from this perspective, Gulf capitalism is not a self-enclosed space that can be understood simply through features that are considered "internal" to it (such as the use of oil revenues). Rather, Gulf capitalism arose as an integral part of the making of the global political economy. Profit-making opportunities in the commercial circuit are largely connected to the possession of rights to import and distribute foreign commodities—automobiles, food, technology, basic consumer goods, and so forth. In all of the Gulf states, these agency rights form a lucrative source of income for the largest conglomerates. Because agency rights are granted by the state, there is a tight connection between accumulation opportunities in this circuit and proximity to the ruling family. Moreover, the real estate boom has been a key destination for financial surpluses, confirming that the Gulf has been no exception to the increasing entanglement of nancial and real estate markets within contemporary capitalism.41 Accompanying these processes is a reworking of the Gulf urban space, characterized by privatized and fragmented enclaves that market tourist, nancial, residential, and shopping activities to select participants. Moreover, the internationalization of Gulf capital is also notable throughout the wider Arab world. This feature of the regional scale became increasingly prominent during the first decade of the twenty-first century, with a growing proliferation of cross-border investments by both Gulf conglomerates and state- owned investment firms. Investments originating in the Gulf reached more than one-third of total foreign investments in the Middle East in 2008, surpassing North America, Europe, and Asia.44 Most of these Gulf-based investments went to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.45 Indeed, in these five countries, more than half of total global investments came from the GCC states during the period between 2003 and 2008. These gures reveal an important characteristic of the recent political economy of the Arab world: neoliberal reform has been accompanied by the increasing penetration of Gulf-based capital into national class structures. Emerging from this account of the structure and moments of accumulation of Gulf capital are two important features that challenge the analytical assumptions of Weberian approaches to the Gulf state. Gulf ruling families—while clearly dominating state power—should be viewed as the central, organizing core of the Gulf capitalist class itself, rather than as simply the locus of political power. There is no strict dividing line between capital and state. Many individuals from ruling families occupy positions within the state apparatus as well as their own private business interests—or simultaneously act in both "private" and "public" capacities. The avowed autonomy or independence of the Gulf state from class disappears when viewed from this perspective. The capitalist class needs to be seen as broader than simply the ruling families. While the latter may constitute the dominant, central core of capital, there also exists a wider layer of large conglomerates drawn from older merchant families and other newer social groups. These conglomerates—like the ruling families themselves—have formed in close symbiosis with the state. The key point is to recenter analytical primacy on the class relations underpinning capital. The Gulf is not an anomaly within capitalist states internationally, in which a "weak" capitalist class is arrayed against a "strong, independent state." Rather, the nature of state power in the Gulf is reflective and supportive of a powerful capitalist class—consisting of both ruling families and a wider network of large conglomerates. THE QUESTION OF MIGRANT LABOR on. According to the most recent statistics, the percentage of non-nationals has reached a remarkable 48% of the Gulf's 49 million- strong total population.46 In the labor force this proportion is even higher—ranging from between 56 to 82% of the employed population in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait, to around 93-94% in Qatar and the UAE.47 Throughout the entire Gulf, 70% of the total employed population is made up of non- nationals A distinctive structure has developed to manage the deployment and control of these workers. This includes the notorious kafala system, a work visa arrangement that essentially binds the migrant to a sponsor (known as a kafeel) and prevents them from seeking work elsewhere. This system is not simply a means of disciplining labor; it is also critical to the ways in which Gulf citizenry are incorporated into their societies. Because the right to be a kafeel is provided by the state and becomes a property right of the employer, it creates a situation in which Gulf citizens are delegated the right to control the entry and employment of a migrant. In this manner, the surveillance and control of migrant labor is "subcontracted" by the state to individual citizens and businesses.50 This provides a profitable income source for citizens (through the sale of permits), and also situates Gulf citizenry as an integral part of the state's disciplining of labor.51 Moreover, competition between citizens over access to kafeel rights helps to generate a further process of vertical segmentation within society, encouraging the profession of loyalty and allegiance to the ruling family.52 The control over migrant labor is further enhanced through laws that prevent migrant workers from organizing collectively and systematically exclude them from the limited political and civil rights enjoyed by citizenry. Taken together, these processes enable a profound exploitation of labor that includes dangerous and low- paid working conditions, very long hours of work, and the legally sanctioned possibility of arrest and deportation in the case of any labor protest. In several key ways, this class structure is essential to how Gulf capitalism is able to reproduce itself. It has, for example, directly underpinned the accumulation of the conglomerates described above through the supply of a highly controlled and cheap labor force. Moreover, a highly precarious migrant workforce has enabled the Gulf to deal with numerous economic crises, such as that which occurred following the collapse of the real-estate bubble in Dubai in 2009-2010. By shutting down real-estate projects, slowing the hiring of new workers, and deporting workers back to their home countries, the UAE was able to partially ameliorate the worst aspects of the crisis itself—spatially displacing it onto sending countries dependent on the labor markets of the Gulf.58 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this class structure has acted to block the emergence of any significant indigenous labor movements that could challenge the obduracy of the Gulf monarchies and state system—indeed, this is one of the key reasons why the Gulf's labor structure developed in the way that it did.59 In contrast, therefore, to the causal link that some versions of RST draw between the lack of taxation and pressures for political change, this perspective points to the centrality of class relations in understanding the nature of autocracy in the Gulf. All of these observations highlight the importance of locating migrant labor at the core of an understanding of the political economy of oil in the Gulf. The development of the Gulf's economies cannot be adequately theorized through looking solely at the deployment of oil revenues, the internecine rivalries of royal families, or the institutional configurations and policies of the Gulf state. Both state and capital in the Gulf fully depend on the presence of a transient, precarious, and highly exploitable class of migrant workers drawn from numerous states across the globe The arguments made above are naturally not meant to deny the criticality of oil revenues to the ways in which Gulf capitalism reproduces itself. Petrodollars have both underpinned the development of capital and state in the Gulf, and permitted the emergence of a labor market that depends so crucially on migrant workers. The point, however, is to refocus attention on Gulf capitalism as a totality—where institutions are seen as social forms that reflect and mediate relations of class power. Seen in this light, political economy accounts of the Gulf move toward an analysis much more concerned with tracing how forms of class and state power in the Gulf developed through a mutually reinforcing process fully embedded in the development of the global economy. Petrodollar surpluses are important not solely for the business opportunities they present. As this chapter has noted, hydrocarbon revenues have enabled Gulf states to bind citizen populations to ruling families through the use of generous subsidies around food, energy, housing, and other social services. In the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings—and the outbreak of protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Kuwait—an increase in this state spending was an important mechanism throughout which Gulf states attempted to insulate themselves from the wider regional uprisings. Given the structural importance of migrant labor to the Gulf it is very difficult for governments to substantially address these unemployment levels, despite the professed aim to shift reliance away from migrants toward a citizen-based labor force. In this context, any long-term drop in the oil price accompanied by further downturn in global economic conditions means that the question of migrant labor remains essential. Previous crises have pointed to the ways in which migrants in the Gulf have borne the most severe impact of these moments, and the likelihood of increased repression of labor is immanent in any attempt by Gulf states to resolve a potential crisis. All of these dimensions of the Gulf political economy bear deeply on our understanding of the wider Middle East. The Gulf's dominant position in the regional political situation—as well as the growing influence of Gulf businesses in key Arab economic sectors such as real estate, finance, construction, retail, and agribusiness—is a striking feature of the contemporary moment. For this reason, there is an urgent need to position the Gulf as a core component of the study of political economy in the Middle East. Processes of class and state formation in the Gulf have signicant implications not just for the Gulf region—they will continue to decisively shape the future trajectory of the Arab world for many years to come.

Gelvin 207-221 CHAP 12: STATEBUILDING BY REVOLUTION AND CONQUEST

In egypt, saudi arabia, anatolia, and persia, indigenous nationalist movements and nation-builders established states through revolution, conquest, coups, and anti imperialist struggle EGYPT: In 1914 (after outrbeak of WWI) Britain declared egypt a protectorate, ending ottoman sovereignty British rule had become increasingly unpopular, and by end of WWI, british alienated virtually all segments of the egyptian population During war: britain established contorls over cotton (infuriated large landowners); wartime inflation devaastation living standards. The "spark"---nov 1918; Egyptian politicians testing limits of Wilsonian self-determination petitioned British high commissioner to go to Paris to represent Egypt at the epace conference Leader: Zaghlul; was arrested and deported (along with his colleagues) for their presumption; demonstrations and strikes broke out in spring of 1919 (the 1919 Revolution)---was put down by British two months later Milner Commision: formed in response to uprising, oconcluded Britian could not keep direct control of Egypt; British interests better serve if Egypt given conditional independence Treaty imposed asserted British rights to control Egyptian defense/foregin policy, Suez Canal accesss, safeguard capitulations, etc. EGYPTIAN NATIOANLISTS DISAPPOINTED—would continue to work towards full independence A strange system of governance in Egypt that pit three powerbrokers against each other also undercut the limited independence Egypt received. The power brokers were the Wafd, the palace, and the British. The Wafd was the main nationalist party. Sad Zaghlul had founded it not as a party but as the platform representing the aspirations of the Egyptian nation. Also arrayed against the Wafd were the king (still a descendant of Mehmet Ali) and the British ambassador. Although the Wafd was extremely popular, both the king and the British conspired against unfettered parliamentary rule. Ultimate power rested, of course, in the hands of the British. The British only allowed the Wafd to take power when it needed to exploit the party's popularity in times of crisis (WWII) Mainstream nationalist movement did NOT advocate radical change—represented interests of large landowners and intellectuals, both who feared unbridled democratic rule. Left door open to other movements —>Muslim Brotherhood The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna to promote personal piety, charitable acts, and a Muslim revival to counter what many Egyptians believed to be a Western cultural onslaught. While nationalism was not an essential part of its agenda, it was natural for its program to progress from hostility toward the intrusion of Western cultural values to anti-imperialism, and, finally, to an affinity for national-im. The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood claimed to represent the one true voice of Egypt above the partisan fray strengthened that affinity. The brotherhood with Islamic messaging spoke to layers of population unmoved/alienated by mainstream movement SAUDI ARABIA: In 1902, Abd al-'Aziz ibn al-Sarud, a descendant of Muhammad in Saud, retook control of Riyadh, the capital of the earlier Saudi states, and drove out competing tribes from the region with the help of the ikhwan. The ikhwan were fighters from an assortment of tribes whom Wahhabi missionaries, put off by "idolatrous" nomadic culture, won over to their teachings and settled in agricultural communities. By the time World War I broke out, the Saudi/ikhwan alliance proved a formidable force so much so that they attracted the attention of the British. The British placed ibn al-Saud's domain under a "veiled protectorate," — wanted to make trouble for the Ottomans, which in al-Saud was more than willing to do. So Britian recognized the borders of his domain and agreed to defend its sovereign territory so long as he respected what was theirs. The veiled protectorate remained in effect until 1927. While ibn al-Saud kept his pledge to keep his hands off Britain's Gulf protectorates, he made no such pledge to the British about Hashemite domains. By 1925 he had conquered the Hijaz (kicking out Sharif Husayn) and several years later combined the Hijaz with the Najd to form Saudi Arabia. To this very day, every king of Saudi Arabia has been a son of al-Saud, the doctrines of 'Abd al-Wahhab has been the official state ideology of Saudi Arabia, and Wahhabi ulama have wielded tremendous power and, in return, have served to legitimate the dynasty. Because the government claims strict adherence to the Quran, it also claims that there is no need for any other constitution. Once he had consolidated his state, al-Saud had no use for the ikhwan, whose raids into Iraq promised to bring down the wrath of the British Royal Air Force on Saudi Arabia. He therefore squelched them. But he took another step as well: he made sure that clerics who had once used the doctrines of 'Abd al-Wahhab to inspire a warrior ethos now preached another message- that Islam demands obedience to author-ity. Even rule by a despot is better than fitna (strife) that disobedience to a ruler would bring. TURKEY AND IRAN Both had strongmen seeking to centralize authority and "modernize" after seizing power post-WWI TURKEY Treaty of Sevres: formally severed connection between Turkish and non-Turkish regions of OE; divided Anatolia among ITaly France and GREECE Greeks wanted to restore glory of byzantine empire and snatch as much of Anatolia as possible; but Turks did NOT want Greek rule (their former vassal state would now rule its overlord) Govt sent Mustafa Kemal to restore order (among Turks rebelling); Kemal instead led the rebellion and forced foreign troops from Anatolia Kemal took the name Ataturk and guided establishment of Turkish Republic PERSIA/IRAN After WWI, British tried to impose a treaty on Persia that would make Persia a protectorate; Anglo-Persian Treaty was so unpopular no Persian govt could not ratify it British wanted to protect oil interests/prevent BOlshevik expansion but could NOT afford to maintain occupation—>Brits enougraged Reza Khan to take matters into his own hands Reza Khan declared himself shah in 1926 (Reza Shah); insisted Persia change name to Iran in 1935 Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah looked to contemporaneous models to provide them with a blueprint for state construction. Thus, in addition to adopting the standard policies any leader interested in holding on to power and building states from scratch would have to adopt, both cherry-picked from models then in vogue, including those established by the Bolsheviks in Russia and Benito Mussolini in Italy. Reza Shah also self-consciously modeled himself and his Iranian experiment on Mustafa Kemal and Turkey. Each man placed himself at the center of a cult of personality (like Mussolini). Both adorned cities with statues of themselves, had their images printed on postage stamps, and ensured their portraits were ubiquitous. Kemal's cult of personality lasted well beyond his death. Reza Shah was less fortunate: because of his pro-German leanings during World War II, the British deposed him and put his son, Muhammad Reza Shah, on the throne in his place. The son replaced his father's statues and images with those of his own, only to see them removed or desecrated after the 1978-1979 Iranian revolution. Both Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah were unabashed Westernizers. Unlike the Islamic modernists who sought to find a compromise between Islam and Western ideas, Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah sought to impose a model for modernity borrowed directly from the Western experience. Kemal even proposed legislation forbidding women from wearing the veil in public (contrary to myth, it never became law).Decrees about clothing were not for women only: Mustafa Kemal did away with the conical hat, the fez, which had been associated with high Ottoman moder. nity, in favor of Western-style headgear. Reza Shah undertook similar initiatives State-builders regularly legislated on matters of clothing during this period. They wanted to eliminate all clothing styles that alluded to regional, religious, or ethnic identities that might compete with the state for the loyalty of its citizens. They also wanted to advertise government policies (in this case, Westernization) by making citizens into walking billboards for them. And, perhaps most important, they regulated clothing because they could. By attacking something as personal as clothing, governments demonstrated their ability to cow their citizens. Clothing wasn't the only way Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah sought to imitate the West and simultaneously expand the reach of the state. They also supported the rights of women. Mustafa Kemal changed the civil code abolishing polygamy and granting women equal rights to men in divorce and inheritance; supported women's education. Women gained the right to vote in municipal elections in 1930 and in national elections in 1934 Reza Shah visited his Turkish counterpart, and that visit resulted in his own forays into women's rights. During his reign, the state mandated female education, outlawed discrimination against women in public facilities, and ended the segregation of men and women in places they might mingle, such as coffeehouses and cinemas. Iranian women did not have the right to vote, but then again, under Reza Shah voting did not mean much anyway. Like other authoritarian figures whose stance on the 'woman question" appears progressive, both sought to expand the reach of the state into he home and to replace the "private patriarchy" of the husband/father-dominated family unit with a "public patriarchy" defined by the state. Granting women rights they had not previously enjoyed was a means of accomplishing this. Both Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah were secularizers, and both adopted the French model of secularism. The Turkish and Iranian states tolerated private beliefs, but religion and religious display had no place in the public sphere. Kemal abolished the caliphate, closed down Islamic courts, and abolished the millet system, nationalizing its functions. Reza Shah faced greater problems in his attempts to secularize Iran than Mustafa Kemal faced in Turkey. This was because Iranian ulama were involved in a broader range of activities than their Turkish counterparts. In Turkey tanzimat and post-tanzimat policies had effectively done much of Mustafa Kemal's job for him. Nevertheless, the changes introduced by Reza Shah were sweeping. He required state certification of ulama and narrowed the domain covered by sharia law, which they administered, to family matters only. The state banned public religious ceremonies and celebrations. It also refused exit visas to pilgrims wishing to go to Mecca and Medina or to the Shii holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. In the end, however, these policies, continued during the reign of his son, would backfire. In addition to being Westernizers and secularizers, Mustafa Kemal and Reza Khan might also be viewed as heirs to the defensive developmentalists of the nineteenth century. Like their forebears, both attempted to expand the role of the state, centralize power, and spread a single, official ideology to bind citizens to each other and to the state. It was easier to accomplish this last task in Iran than Turkey, as Iran had been a sovereign state before Reza Shah took over Because language played such a central role in both Iranian and Turkish nationalisms, cleansing their respective languages of foreign words would be a central plank in the construction of national ideologies in both countries. This project was more successful in Turkey than in Iran. Both Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah held power at a time when state intervention into economies had become the norm globally. Kemal determined that the state would support and direct the private sector when possible and intervene directly into the economy on its own when it had to. The onset of the Great Depression, however, forced Turkey's economists to rethink their development strategy. As a result, Mustafa Kemal increasingly followed the lead of the Soviet Union, which had avoided the worst the depression had to offer by cutting itself off from the sinking global ship and by making the state the engine of the economy. Reza Shah's "New Order" also advocated a strong role for the state in the economy to eliminate foreign control and to foster rapid development. Under the shah, the state canceled foreign concessions, established a national bank to take the place of the British-run "Imperial Bank" and took control of posts, telegraph, and customs from foreign-ers. The state also set high tariffs to protect the infant industries it established. Most importantly, the state acquired revenues from oil. The shah himself negotiated new terms for the d'Arcy concession, first threatening to cancel the concession entirely, then granting the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (which became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company two years later) a concession for another sixty years. Although the company increased its payments and obligations to the Iranian government, it was clear to all but the self-impressed shah that the British government had proved the wilier negotiator. The capital accumulated from confiscations, monopolies, and oil enabled the shah to launch an ambitious program of what economists would later call import substitution industrialization. Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal tried to nurture their national economies by freeing them from the constraints of the world system. Unfortunately for them, it was a fool's errand. State-building in the twentieth century was, more often than not, an ugly affair and was frequently accompanied by ethnic cleansing to "purify" populations of "foreign" elements and repression to ensure the obedience of those who remained. State-building in Turkey and Iran was no exception. Governments of Turkey and Greece arranged a population transfer to rid themselves of minorities they viewed as untrustworthy. The Turkish government forced up to 1,300,000 Christian Turks out of the coun-try. There is a dark side to the history of Turkey's official ideology, Kemalism, as well. When Mustafa Kemal took charge of the Committees for the Defense of Rights, no one fighting by his side could have realized the breadth or depth of the changes he would oversee. In fact, many fought in the name of Islam. Sometimes, opposition to Kemalism has broken down along ethnic lines. Kurds have resisted the "Turkification" policies of the government. To this day, some Kurds demand cultural autonomy while others go so far as to demand separation from Turkey. Opposition to Kemalism has also come from those put off by its uncompromising secularism. As early as 1950, the Democratic Party, which had distanced itself from the official secularist line and wrapped itself in Islamic imagery, emerged the victor in Turkish national elections. The Democrats' victory sent a clear message of disaffection to the country's ruling elites, who did not take kindly to their displacement. The Democratic Party ruled until 1960, when it was overthrown in a military coup d'état. All of which brings up the thorny issue of military/civilian relations. Turkish democracy works until it doesn't. In sum, any assessment of Turkish democracy must balance a dynamic public sphere and parliamentary tradition with a history that includes repression and military intervention into politics. The Iranian experience with repression matches the Turkish one. Reza Shah imposed strict censorship, controlled elec-tions, and jailed and executed political opponents and labor activists. He built a well-equipped national army whose top priority was not to defend Iran from foreign aggression but, like most armies built in the Middle East since the end of World War I, was designed to quash internal dissent, prevent the emergence of mass movements such as had taken place during the Constitutional Revolution, and pacify tribes and separatists. the repressive policies of his son and heir were instrumental in sparking the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, What, then, were the legacies left by Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah? Cer-tainly, after the Iranian Revolution the secularism promoted by the shah has gone by the board. For many Turks, the AKP-dominated government has led to what they call the "creeping Islamization" of Turkey. They point to a statement made by Prime Minister Recep Erdogan that Turkey must raise "a religious youth" and to a number of government initiatives that include imposing censorship on books and movies deemed "immoral," reintroducing Qur'anic education into primary schools, etc Much of the legacy left by Mustafa Kemal and Reza Sahah remains intact. This is most obvious in Turkey, of course, whose very existence Mustafa Kemal created. But it holds true for Iran as well, despite its revolutionary transformation. The mullahs (religious leaders) who run the country stand on a platform built by Reza Shah and would not be able to rule, for better or for worse, but for the structural and institutional infrastructure he brought to Iran. If they ever do something as "un-Islamic" as building a pantheon to the heroes of the Islamic Revolution, Reza Shah would certainly deserve a place in it.

Compare and contrast the regimes in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey from the 1940s to the 1970s. In what ways were their experiences with secular nationalism similar, in what ways were they different? Refer to specific groups, events, the role of women, and the economy.

Intro: Talk in general about the post-WWI period and the tension between secular nationalism and religious political movements as the decades marched on Egypt paragraphs Free Officers Revolution Secret coup led by Mohamed Naguib, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat deposed King Farouk I Naguib first president for 2 years, forced out by Nasser Nasserism Land reform, massive state-owned sector, large subsidies, free education and health, one-party system, state controlled unions and media, large bureaucracy Severe censorship in the name of "unity" - power grabbing and control "Power Triangle" - Political leadership, armed forces, security state. All three vying for power but codependent State Feminism Emphasis on the "working woman" Public reform but not private for women, Nasserist society was patriarchal Feminist movements co-opted, just as in Iran Cultural icons used as pawns for the state, such as Um Kalthoum What made Nasserism secular nationalism crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, jailing and execution of its members, such as Sayyid Qutb Pan-Arabism as opposed to Pan-Islamism Religion as an inhibitor of socialist progress Uniqueness of Nasserism compared to other secular nationalisms, such as Turkey and Iran Draw on Abou El-Fadl Nasser had compelling charisma - great communicator, people in the palm of his hand Inspired many other authoritarian socialist leaders of Global South countries - "Nasser was the pinnacle of the World's anti/decolonialist movement" Military superiority, cultural influence Three Circles Theory (Arab, African, Islamic circles, hit the middle) SUEZ CRISIS----Nasser was able to fend off Tripartite Aggression and nationalize the canal Nasserism was socialist and distinctly antiwestern as opposed to the Shah's Iran and Kemalist Turkey, which catered to and idolized the West Exported the FOR to other countries in the region, supported leaders like him and causes like his To pay for these services, military governments took over entire sectors of the economy. They did this for other reasons as well— to end their nations dependence on international markets and the industrialized West, to break the back of industrialists and others who had, more often than not, proven themselves hostile to the new rulers, and to tighten their control over their populations. nationalizations enabled the regimes to diminish the influence of foreigners, political enemies, and "resident-aliens" over the economies of their countries. Controlling economic resources enabled states to expand their role in society and to rearrange society so that they might control it better. Through cen-rally planned economies and unopposed state power, governments used incentives to gain the compliance of their citizens and reward those sectors of society the governments claimed to represent. Iran paragraphs Deposition of Reza Shah by the British because he wants to nationalize 50% of the oil industry and Muhammad Reza Shah takes the throne (claims dynastic continuity), election of Mossadegh and Mi-6 CIA joint mission to remove him from power because they want Iran under their thumb. Genuine bid for democracy failed because of Western powers Characteristics of Muhammad Reza Shah's regime-successful infrastructure projects but ultra-powerful surveillance state and secret police (SAVAK). No political dissent or opposition parties. Catered to the west's wishes in terms of oil, amassed vast personal wealth at the expense of his people as well as a stockpile of weapons from the USA. Shah claimed to be empowering women with secular nationalism, but it was more performative and used as propaganda for his regime. Closely allied with Britain and US Contrast with Egypt, why secular nationalism was different. Nasser was *technically* elected, Shah ruled as an absolute monarch and dictator. Both cracked down on personal freedoms, freedom of press not a thing in Shah's Iran. Eventually, 1979 Islamic Revolution Religious groups co-opt the revolution (from women, workers, others) —(Ayatollah Khomeini) led to another dictatorship and not democracy Turkey paragraphs In the early 1940s, the party of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk dominated Turkish politics and power. Extreme westernization, the opposite of what Egypt was doing The Republic of Turkey "How Happy to Say I am a Turk" slogan (and videoclip from class) Illegal to play Turkish music on the radio (1934) Women were portrayed on magazines in extreme western fashion, "walking billboards" for westernization (Gelvin) "Let me taste your mouth's sugar candy" - If we get this essay you all have to bring this up Kemal switched from Arabic script to Phoenician alphabet Break in secular nationalism: Adnan Menderes led Turkey as its PM from 1950 to 1960, when he was ousted in a military coup and hanged because the military thought he was invoking too many religious values. Menderes argued that hypersecularism did not really represent Anatolian values and wanted to serve parts of Turkey that were being neglected. "Stop! The people are speaking!' Religious language in speeches Turkey then continued on with Kemalist hypersecular nationalism. It differed from Egypt in Iran in that it had a blip in the middle of the 1940s-70s period rather than at the beginning like Egypt (with the Free Officers movement to start secular nationalism and state socialism) or the end like Iran (with the Islamic Revolution of 1979). Concluding Paragraph Egypt, Turkey, and Iran all experienced secular nationalism differently, but in the end, the experiment did not succeed for any of them as populations grew discontented; positive change either did not occur or was set back by authoritarian measures of the state Mention FAILURES of secular nationalism - economic success and prosperity did not occur or was not shared amongst all social classes. Social movements then turned to local and religious symbols for mobilization Immediate future outcomes for all three countries: Egypt continued under the authoritarian format, with Sadat succeeding Nasser after his death and Mubarak succeeding him. Muhammad Reza Shah was toppled under mass protest in Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, ushering in major changes. Turkey continued under secular nationalist rule, interspersed with several military coups and crackdowns—Kurds for example

10. What kind of policies did the Shah of Iran pursue in the 1960s and 1970s and why did this generate popular resentment and finally revolution in 1979?

Muhammad Reza Shah (ruled 1941-79) SAVAK 1953—secret police in Iran; brutal crackdown on opposition, trained by US and Israeli forces. Jimmy Carter + Mohammad Reza Shah—US sold lots of weapons to Shah SHah—modernized, hyper-Westernized, political repressive regime—women had more freedom but used as symbols of modern regimes as "progess" ISlamic movements took issue with ^^^this hyper-Western regime, eventually would take power Iran-SAVAK-seceret police 60,000 strong; surveillance; exprorpriated land for large agrobusiness; massive urban development projects; jailed/tortured opposition, Shah amassed personal wealth of 5-20 billion US supported this regime in exchange for oil IRAN Women's demonstrations, March 1979: demanding equal rights WOrkers demanded better conditions/rights; farmers demanded access to land Eventually religious groups take contorl of revolutionary movement and fashion it into an ISlamic revolution—led by Ayatolah Khloemeni Immediately repress other groups who were part of that movement—women Feelings of injustice due to foreign intervention also catalyzed these revolutions As promises made in the name of Western-style democracy, capitalism, and secularism brought bitter disappointment, social and political movements turned to local and religious symbols for mass mobilization The disillusioned then use Islamist/nativist appeals to mobilize opposition movements The Iranian Revolution combined nativism with demands for social justice and individual rights. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had used Iran's vast oil wealth to engage in social engineering, consolidate his own power, and expand the state's intrusion into the lives of its citizenry as well as the state's repressive power. The shah's policies sparked widespread disaffection. The shah alienated "traditional elites," such as rural landowners and the ulama. He initiated a draconian land reform program (the "White Revolution") that upset the social and economic order in the countryside and placed much of Iran's agricultural sector in the hands of multinational agribusiness companies (upsetting peasants). Ulama, many of whom were also landlords, opposed the shah's expansion of public education at the expense of religious education, his acquiescence to a treaty granting legal immunity to large numbers of American diplomatic and military personnel in Iran --a move they interpreted as submitting Iran to foreign domination—-and his government's enfranchisement of women. Both groups wielded wide influence among the population. Finally, the shah alienated intellectuals, human rights advocates, labor activ-ists, and members of the secular middle class in multiple ways. He imposed strict censorship. He restricted political participation and banned independent political parties. He was at the center of a network of corruption that enriched him and his family to the tune of anywhere between $5 billion and $20 billion. He built a security apparatus (SAVAK) of upwards of sixty thousand agents to spy on and terrorize the population. And he jailed and tortured political dissidents.

Why did religion begin to play a more pronounced role in the politics of MENA from the 1970s onward? What features might be considered as shared by Hamas, Hizballah, and the Muslim Brotherhood? How did these commonalities render them different from Al-Qaeda?

Points to hit: Religion gains a greater role in MENA politics because people are tired of secular solutions. There's this secular pan-Arabism/socialism of the 50s and 60s, exemplified by Nasser, which more or less hypothesizes that the problems of colonialism/imperialism/domestic economic woes can be fixed through these ideologies. Failures of secular nationalism and state socialism became apparent: No economic successes, prosperity No social transformation as promised No clear end to imperialism—foreign powers still played prominent role, especially during Cold War No true democracy No justice for Palestinians When MENA problems AREN'T fixed by this ideology, people kind of turn to an alternative ideology, political Islam, as another way of fixing these problems. ARGUMENT As promises made in the name of Western-style democracy, capitalism, and secularism brought bitter disappointment, social and political movements turned to local and religious symbols for mass mobilization The disillusioned then use Islamist/nativist appeals to mobilize opposition movements "Islamist movements"---what does Gelvin say?Really NATIONALIST movements—evoke religious symbols but confined to borders Want to take reins of state and control domestic politics, not take Islam beyond borders Iranian revolution perfect example of this^^^ Muhammad Reza Shah (ruled 1941-79) Challenged by elected PM Mosaddegh in 1951-53 Mosadegh wanted to curb power of Shah, remove British and US influence, control over oil resource Mossadegh overthrown by CIA, British MI6 1953 Iranian coup especially US intervention—Operation Ajax: (by CIA and MI6)- first attempt on August 15 1953 Restores royal dictatorship; White Revolution the U.S.- and UK-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected PM Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi SAVAK 1953—secret police in Iran; brutal crackdown on opposition, trained by US and Israeli forces. Jimmy Carter + Mohammad Reza Shah—US sold lots of weapons to Shah SHah—modernized, hyper-Westernized, political repressive regime—women had more freedom but used as symbols of modern regimes as "progess" ISlamic movements took issue with ^^^this hyper-Western regime, eventually would take power Iran-SAVAK-seceret police 60,000 strong; surveillance; exprorpriated land for large agrobusiness; massive urban development projects; jailed/tortured opposition, Shah amassed personal wealth of 5-20 billion US supported this regime in exchange for oil The Iranian Revolution combined nativism with demands for social justice and individual rights. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had used Iran's vast oil wealth to engage in social engineering, consolidate his own power, and expand the state's intrusion into the lives of its citizenry as well as the state's repressive power. The shah's policies sparked widespread disaffection. The shah alienated "traditional elites," such as rural landowners and the ulama. He initiated a draconian land reform program (the "White Revolution") that upset the social and economic order in the countryside and placed much of Iran's agricultural sector in the hands of multinational agribusiness companies (upsetting peasants). Ulama, many of whom were also landlords, opposed the shah's expansion of public education at the expense of religious education, his acquiescence to a treaty granting legal immunity to large numbers of American diplomatic and military personnel in Iran --a move they interpreted as submitting Iran to foreign domination—-and his government's enfranchisement of women. Both groups wielded wide influence among the population. Finally, the shah alienated intellectuals, human rights advocates, labor activ-ists, and members of the secular middle class in multiple ways. He imposed strict censorship. He restricted political participation and banned independent political parties. He was at the center of a network of corruption that enriched him and his family to the tune of anywhere between $5 billion and $20 billion. He built a security apparatus (SAVAK) of upwards of sixty thousand agents to spy on and terrorize the population. And he jailed and tortured political dissidents. Feelings of injustice due to foreign intervention also catalyzed these revolutions Women's demonstrations, March 1979: demanding equal rights WOrkers demanded better conditions/rights; farmers demanded access to land Eventually religious groups take contorl of revolutionary movement and fashion it into an ISlamic revolution—led by Ayatolah Khloemeni Immediately repress other groups who were part of that movement—women Khomeini's blueprint for Iran is embodied in the Iranian constitution, adopted in 1979. According to the document, "Islamic principles were to provide the foundation for all laws of the Islamic republic." It would be up to the ulama to ensure respect for these principles. ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS Soon after the Iranian Revolution, NATIVIST movements that equated the regeneration of their communities with a return to Islamic governance or Islamic mores emerged throughout the Middle East and beyond. Hamas Charter 1987—"Hamas regards nationalism as part and parel of the religious faith" (article 12; Palestine) Hamas: Tired of the PLO and its failures, coming up as a young, hungry, religious Palestinian resistance movement seeking to replace the PLO as the main representative of the Palestinians. Hamas's use of religion, and Hamas as a perhaps "radical" Islamic actor, is a response to immediate domestic problems. Hezbollah: If Hamas is a new, young, energetic voice for the downtrodden Palestinians, Hezbollah serves the same role for South Lebanon's young Shia, who traditionally experience bad economic conditions and bad treatment from the central state. Hezbollah could not have emerged without these domestic problems in Shia South Lebanon, and a lot of its effectiveness as an organization was due to its ability to provide social services to these communities. It became, more or less, a para-state, and used religion as a domestic tool to fix domestic problems. Hizballah Manifesto (1980s): lebanon is our homeland Not all Islamist movements that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s took it upon themselves to target homegrown autocrats and their regimes for overthrow. While both Hizbullah and Hamas have successfully engaged in partisan politics in quasi-democratic systems and have even used violence against their domestic opponents, both had emerged in response to Israeli occupations of their homelands--Lebanon (1982-2000) and the Palestinian territories (1967-). They made resistance to Israel, a foreign enemy, their guiding principle. Muslim Brotherhood: Hassan al-Banna—founder of Muslim Brotherhood; believed 'we aren't a party btu simply nationalists working for the welfare of Egypt' (paraphrased) The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna to promote personal piety, charitable acts, and a Muslim revival to counter what many Egyptians believed to be a Western cultural onslaught. While nationalism was not an essential part of its agenda, it was natural for its program to progress from hostility toward the intrusion of Western cultural values to anti-imperialism, and, finally, to an affinity for national-im. The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood claimed to represent the one true voice of Egypt above the partisan fray strengthened that affinity. The brotherhood with Islamic messaging spoke to layers of population unmoved/alienated by mainstream movement Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966); Qutb hung by Nasser's regime Given the same principle, the Free Officers' rule developed to be heavily repressive of political challengers.r. In 1954, after an attempt on Nasser's life by a Muslim Brother, the CCR extended the ban to the Muslim Brotherhood and thousands were jailed or went into exile. Thus, organized political opposition was not tolerated and the security apparatus expanded to monitor political activity across the country. Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as local movement beginning with Hassan Al-Banna, movement that criticized British imperialism, movement that sought to improve conditions in Egypt, criticized Egypt's current rulers, use Islam to solve political problems. Tunisia and Egypt during Arab spring: When moderate Islamist organizations--Ennahda in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt--won popular mandates to form governments, the deep state joined forces with other remnants of the old regime and more secular-oriented groups within the population in defiance. In Egypt, the brotherhood saw itself locked in a battle to the death with its adversaries, who felt likewise. It therefore refused to share power with them, and even pushed through a constitution it drafted when it appeared that the judiciary was about to dissolve the constitution-drafting assembly on procedural grounds. As the crisis escalated -and as the Egyptian economy went into a free fall--hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets. The military stepped in once again, dissolved the brotherhood, had a constitution drafted that enhanced the power of the deep state, and established a regime far more repressive than Hosni Mubarak's. Things in Tunisia did not end up as badly. Unlike the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda did not overplay its hand. As a matter of fact, from the beginning Ennahda reached out to opposition parties and brought them into the government. And when faced with the same crises and oppositional forces faced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, as well as its opponents, stepped away from the precipice. Ennahda not only dissolved the government it dominated and called for new elections (which it lost), it signed on to the most liberal constitution in the Arab world. If any of the uprisings is to have a happy ending, the Tunisian uprising is the most likely candidate. After the 2013 coup d'état in Egypt, President Sisi ordered the massacre of between eight hundred to one thousand supporters of ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Muhammad Morsi who had gathered to protest his ouster in Rabaa al-Adawiyya and Nahda squares in Cairo. Sisi then had the top leaders of the Brotherhood arrested, disbanded the organization, and confiscated its property. And it wasn't just the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt that found itself under attack: Muslim brotherhoods throughout the region found themselves caught up in the competition between Turkey and Qatar, which generally supported them, and Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, which did not. In most places (the most notable exception being Tunisia), Saudi Arabia and its friends proved more success-ful, and brotherhoods were no longer serious contenders for power-a bitter pill for organizations that had sought to avoid such an eventuality by renouncing violence and combining popular appeal with doctrinal flexibility. Exceptions: al-Qaeda was NOT confined to any territory or seeking to control any state; wanted to upset prevailing order of US hegemony and regime system in MENA ISIS wanted to undo Sykes-Picot, their claim of injustice Jihadi; jihadist—terror terms used to dehumanize Muslim societies and claims for justice/grievances. Way of diminishing claims coming from thai context hen there is the anomalous al-Qaeda, which, as we have seen, views the nation-state system as a trick perpetrated by the Crusader-Zionist conspiracy to divide Muslims from one another. Their fight is therefore not with local autocrats and their regimes, but with those autocrats' puppet masters, the far enemy. Jihad mentioned mentioned twice in Quran; j-had occurs 41 times (struggle, often internal) Lesser and Greater Jihad Lesser jihad: military, fight against unbelievers Greater jihad: struggle to live a righteous life; rectify injustice Political objectives come before the scripture when used in these political movements—cherry-pick verses defined by the context and goals of the movement Islamist groups using violent methods in reaction to these repressive violent regimes, NOT because Islam inherently violent Islamist groups should be understood in state-specific context, not regional/global war on terror

4. Discuss some of the principal features of state- and nation-building in the Arabian peninsula, referring to the roles of WWI, agriculture, water, oil, and religion. Draw on the articles by Jones, Hanieh, Al-Shehabi, and Bsheer, and others as relevant.

SAUDI ARABIA: gelvin In 1902, Abd al-'Aziz ibn al-Sarud, a descendant of Muhammad in Saud, retook control of Riyadh, the capital of the earlier Saudi states, and drove out competing tribes from the region with the help of the ikhwan. The ikhwan were fighters from an assortment of tribes whom Wahhabi missionaries, put off by "idolatrous" nomadic culture, won over to their teachings and settled in agricultural communities. By the time World War I broke out, the Saudi/ikhwan alliance proved a formidable force so much so that they attracted the attention of the British. The British placed ibn al-Saud's domain under a "veiled protectorate," — wanted to make trouble for the Ottomans, which in al-Saud was more than willing to do. So Britian recognized the borders of his domain and agreed to defend its sovereign territory so long as he respected what was theirs. The veiled protectorate remained in effect until 1927. While ibn al-Saud kept his pledge to keep his hands off Britain's Gulf protectorates, he made no such pledge to the British about Hashemite domains. By 1925 he had conquered the Hijaz (kicking out Sharif Husayn) and several years later combined the Hijaz with the Najd to form Saudi Arabia. To this very day, every king of Saudi Arabia has been a son of al-Saud, the doctrines of 'Abd al-Wahhab has been the official state ideology of Saudi Arabia, and Wahhabi ulama have wielded tremendous power and, in return, have served to legitimate the dynasty. Because the government claims strict adherence to the Quran, it also claims that there is no need for any other constitution. Once he had consolidated his state, al-Saud had no use for the ikhwan, whose raids into Iraq promised to bring down the wrath of the British Royal Air Force on Saudi Arabia. He therefore squelched them. But he took another step as well: he made sure that clerics who had once used the doctrines of 'Abd al-Wahhab to inspire a warrior ethos now preached another message- that Islam demands obedience to author-ity. Even rule by a despot is better than fitna (strife) that disobedience to a ruler would bring. Centralized state control (over THE ECONOMY) Centralized state control is not one of the options, but a reflection of the social relations underlying class and capital in the Gulf states. (refer to Hannieh) RST argues Oil rents allowed states to rely on revenues generated from foreign individuals, concerns, and governments, disregarding the popular tax base. (refer to Hannieh's critiques---braoder capitalism; Bsheer's critiques---ignores imperialism) In addition, the influx of migrant labor under the unjust Kefala work visa system helps maintain the class structure. The Kefala prevents any indigenous labor movements that might challenge the authority and political power of the state. (refer to Hannieh and Al-Shehabi) STATE CONTROL OVER ENVIRO States also utilized environmental knowledge and the help of foreign experts and exploited the wealth generated from discovery of oil to consolidate its power. It is a reciprocal relationship. (refer to Jones) Jones argues that mastering the natural environment was critical for modern state-making in Saudi Arabia. As life-sustaining natural resources such as water were scarce, control over these resources was necessary for the political survival of the Saudi regime. Saudi rulers facilitated the expansion of agriculture and used agriculture and their control over water resources as tools to subdue threats to their reign, particularly from the nomadic Bedouins. The Saudis embraced environmental science and engineering to fully exploit and utilize the natural resources in the region, understanding that control over these resources would also strengthen their centralized political authority. On this front, the Saudis collaborated with Americans and other foreign technical experts who helped establish Saudi control over resources and build up state capacity by connecting the Saudi state with environmental power. This approach to controlling water resources as a way to consolidate state power laid the groundwork for similar methods after the discovery of oil in the region. Sectarianism --connect to religion Sectarianism emerged as a tool of control since state formation (refer to Bsheer). As Al-Shehabi demonstrates, the presence of sectarian divides in the opposition groups made the opposition easy to contain for the regime. This is evident by the "divided rule" implemented by the British colonizers in the early twentieth century. Under such rule, individuals on the island were to be categorized either as foreign or local subjects, whereas foreigners were not a clear-cut category. Its definition would mainly be constructed and contested by the British based on an ethno-sectarian gaze. It shows ethno-sectarian cleavages as underlying codes of political power, which formed the context of future political mobilization The vertical segmentation under the petrostate is another example of how the authority exploited sectarianism. This structure of society formed various alliances based on tribal, religious, ethnic, and other interests that are divided from one another and seek to gain access to the centrally determined flow of rents — further undermining the potential for horizontal forms of cooperation Sectarianism characterized many political movements in Baharain and presented as an obstacle to the success and sustainability of those movements. They were either divided by ethnicities(local v.s. foreign), religion (Shia v.s. Sunni), or class(labor strikes). Some notable examples are the divide between ALF(Arab Liberation Fronts) and MAN(Movement of Arab Nationalists). Only a few attempts during the Arab Spring were marked by trans-sectarianism. (refer to Al-Shehabi) Strong presence of foreign influence/intervention Western states, which benefit from centralized control of state's resources, supported the authoritarian regimes. According to Jones, maintaining a centralized regime in Saudi Arabia is cornerstone to U.S. foreign policies. (refer to Jones) After WWI, the great powers created mandates that further excavated the problem of sectarianism that presented obstacles to nation-building. The ethno-sectarian gaze from the nineteenth century continues to be used as a mechanism to splinter nation-building projects in Arab countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Those mandates separated what are considered "foreign" and what are considered as "local" and colonial powers utilized labeling to categorize nationalist movements as only representative of certain sects, which disrupted their popular foundation. There is also a hierarchical relationship in which authoritarian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia dominate. Such a relationship is reflected in the control of information and outside perception among scholars of Arab Peninsula studies. (refer to Bsheer) The petroregimes of the peninsula have institutionalized various limits to knowledge production and access to information. Following the Arab uprisings, and increasingly so after the ongoing war on Yemen, the GCC states further escalated their punitive measures against critics of state policies. These include hefty fines and significant prison time that include acts of torture.5 Such measures are reinforced by the control that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates increasingly have on media and publishing infrastructures throughout the Middle East. This hierarchy is a result of the capital accumulation thanks to the discovery of oil in the Arab world (refer to Hannieh). It is also important to maintain the stability of authoritarian regimes in the region, which is evident by the presence of the Saudi army in Bahrain during the Arab Spring (refer to Al-Shehaibi).

Seferdjeli; A War over the People: The Algerian War of Independence, 1954-1962

Seferdjeli argues that the Algerian War was truly a war on two fronts. Internationally, the FLN-ALN worked to gain worldwide recognition of French atrocities and support for the Algerian nationalist and anti-colonial cause. On the domestic front, the Algerian War was a war over the people, in which the FLN-ALN and the French colonialists adopted measures to try to win the support of the population, especially women. For example, the French granted women suffrage in 1958, and additionally promoted Algerian Muslim women like Sid Cara into high-ranking government positions. The FLN-ALN also encouraged women's participation, utilized female bombers such as Bouhired, and recognized the value of publicizing women's involvement in the FLN-ALN movement and stories of French torture of Algerian women in the international arena. The FLN-ALN also used violence and intimidation to repress political opponents and maintain control over the population, which combined with French abuses made the Algerian War of Independence one of the most bloody decolonial struggles. This chapter provides an overview of the Algerian War of Independence. The first part looks at the colonial period and at the origins of the Algerian nationalist movement. The second part is a detailed account of the war. The third part discusses some important characteristics of the Algerian war, such as the nature of the war, the use of violence, the significance of international diplomacy, and the large- scale participation of women. In addition, this last section examines how, during the war, Algerian women were incorporated into the war strategy of the French authorities and the French army as well as that of the FLN-ALN by looking at the itinerary of two high-profile women during the war: Djamila Bouhired and Nassa Sid Cara. The Algerian War of Independence was one of the longest and most brutal wars of decolonization. The war lasted eight years and ended with Algeria gaining its independence after over a century of French colonization. During the war, an estimated 300,000 people died, another two millions were displaced and violence—committed by both sides—reached appalling levels. Its consequences both in Algeria and in France have been immense. In France, the Algerian war has been central in shaping French politics and identity.1 Long taboo after the end of the war, the Algerian war resurfaced in French public debates at the end of the 1990s. The revelations by former actors of the war, as well as the partial opening of the French archives on the war in 1992 reopened sensitive issues such as the systematic use of torture by the French as a weapon of war and France's treatment of the harkis2 during and after the war.3 Colonial Algeria, 1830-1954 The steps toward complete colonization of Algeria included land expropriation and a reconfiguration of the local socioeconomic and administrative structures, as well as the establishment of a large community of European settlers. Unlike the European settlers (known as pieds-noirs), Algerians were not considered full French citizens but French subjects with a Muslim status; in civil matters, they did not come fully under French law but were governed by local customs and Islamic principles. And since they were governed by different legal systems, the settlers and the Algerians were subject to different rules and regulations—with Algerians having a status distinctly inferior to that of the settlers. By the turn of the century, Algerians had begun to address the inequalities and discrimination to which they were subjected. They started to form social and political movements—each with its own vision and aspiration for the Algerian "nation." The Second World War opened a new era for Algerian nationalism. First, the occupation of France during the Second World War had highlighted the country's military weakness. Second, political movements were becoming increasingly disillusioned with the failure of reforms. Despite growing discontent, protest, and demands for reforms by Algerians, little had been done to bring about a fuller assimilation of Muslims. Disillusionment about reforms and an intensification of French repression toward the PPA and other movements during the Second World War soon radicalized the nationalist movement and led to the collapse of the assimilationist program. Economic deprivation at the end of the Second World War, worsened by famine—the winter of 1944-45 was record-dry—deepened the sense of hopelessness among Algerians and bred a climate of violence that eventually culminated in the tragic events of May 1945, a turning point in the history of colonial Algeria. In March 1944, Ferhat Abbas had started Les Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté (AML), a movement that favored the creation of an Algerian nation federated with an anticolonialist France. On May 8, 1945, a demonstration for the liberation of Algeria, organized by the AML along with PPA leaders, took place just as Europeans were celebrating the liberation of Europe. While there were no major incidents in most cities, in Sétif, in the eastern part of the country, demonstrators called for immediate independence and the release of Messali Hadj, who had been imprisoned since 1937. The march was broken up by the police and sparked a general and violent insurrection in which 193 settlers were brutally murdered and over one hundred injured. French retaliation was ruthless. Thousands of Algerians were reportedly killed and over five thousand arrested, including Ferhat Abbas. Historian Annie Rey Goldzeiguer and others have identified the events of May 1945 as the direct cause of the Algerian war.13 Indeed, the May 1945 events led to a rise in support for the nationalist movement, and after May 1945, the nationalist movement gained greater popular support and became more radicalized, with many Algerians seeing direct armed action against the French as the only way forward. The period from 1945 to the outbreak of the war in 1954 was a period of intense radicalization and deep political divisions on the Algerian side, and more failed reform attempts, broken promises, and violent repression on the French side. Following the violent reprisals of May 1945, French authorities attempted to bring change with a new Statute of Algeria. The 1947 Statute proclaimed equality among all French citizens without distinction of origin, race, language, or religion, and reffiarmed that Algerians would keep their personal civil status unless they expressly renounced it. Unfortunately, those measures remained only promises. First, they were all subject to approval by the Algerian Assembly and an impossible two-thirds majority.15 The colonial authorities manipulated the composition of the Assembly by consistently rigging the elections in order to ensure the election of loyal Muslims. The War, 1954-1962 The approximately seventy coordinated attacks across Algeria on the eve of November 1, 1954 by the newly created and largely unknown FLN marked the official beginning of the Algerian War of Independence. But the fledgling FLN initially had to face an insurmountable task. First, the organization was virtually unknown to the Algerians and the French; second, it had few men and was poorly armed. At the beginning, the FLN had an estimated fighting force of less than a thousand men. Its program was to act first and to organize later. Its goal was simple: to achieve the independence of Algeria. To this end, as John Ruedy explains, "The task of the revolutionary leadership was first to convince the Algerian people of its existence, then to give it condence in its capacities, and finally to create structures through which the people could begin to express its nationhood."17 In what could be identified as thefi rst phase of the war, all these goals were achieved in less than three years. From 1954 to 1957, the FLN went from being a largely unknown organization, mounting what the French had called a mere "rebellion," to a large-scale resistance movement. In one of thefi rst documents the FLN circulated at the time of the insurrection and one of the FLN's most significant texts during the war—the FLN Proclamation of 31 October 1954—the FLN stated its goals and strategies. The main goal was national independence, which would restore the sovereign, democratic, and social Algerian state within the framework of Islamic principles. In order to achieve this goal, the FLN identified both internal and external objectives. Its internal objective was political housecleaning. The nationalist movement would be redirected on to the right track and all corruption in the movement would be eliminated. Through the proclamation, the FLN also clearly positioned itself as the Algerian nationalist movement. Its main external objective was the internationalization of the Algerian question. The document also clearly specified that the FLN would continue the armed struggle by all means possible until the achievement of independence.20 These goals and strategies remained virtually unchanged for the entire duration of the war. Toward the end of 1955, however, things quickly changed. On August 20, 1955, two FLN-ALN leaders ;aunched an insurrection in Constantinois with the aim of relaunching a revolution that had not yet produced the reaction it needed from the population. ALN fighters, with the help of the population, went on the offensive in over twenty localities and attacked centers of colonial power such as gendarmeries, city halls, post offices, and military barracks. In two villages, however, the August offensive led to a massacre of civilians. Overall, thirty-one military and ninety-two civilians, among them seventy-one Europeans, were killed.21 French retaliation against Algerian civilians was brutal. It is believed that the French killed over 10,000 Algerian civilians as a reprisal. As a result, Algerian civilians started to support and to join the FLN-ALN. The August 1955 insurrection is significant and is considered in the historiography of the Algerian War of Independence as the true beginning of the war in that it marked the beginning of the population's involvement in the war and the transformation of what was considered a minor rebellion into a full-edged war. By the end of 1955, the FLN-ALN had a fighting force of approximately six thousand men.22 Less than a year later, the FLN-ALN met another of its major goals. At the beginning of the insurrection, the FLN had appealed to other political movements to join in the common struggle. In January 1956, the ʿulama rallied to the FLN and recognized it as the "authentic" representative of the Algerian people. In April 1956, Ferhat Abbas' UDMA joined the FLN-ALN, followed by the communists in July of the same year. The decision of Ferhat Abbas, who had long been the voice of moderation and was the personification of dialogue with France, to join the armed struggle was of particular symbolic importance. It signaled clearly that Algerians throughout the territory saw no viable alternative to armed struggle and full independence from France. Finally, another significant development during this first phase of the war was the development of the FLN- ALN into a structured organization that took responsibility not only for the armed insurrection but also for the population. The FLN-ALN created its own administrative institutions to replace the colonial ones—registry and judicial office, tax collection, medical, family assistance program, propaganda service, and so on. Thus, by 1956, the FLN-ALN became an organization with proper political institutions, a growing organized fighting force, and institutions to oversee and manage the population. The French responded to the outbreak of the war by introducing a series of harsh measures. On March 12, 1956, the National Assembly voted for special powers and gave the army a free hand to break the rebellion. Reservists were called up and, by the end of 1956, some 400,000 soldiers were stationed in Algeria. French strategy went beyond military operations, however. One of the army's main missions was to isolate the FLN-ALN from the population. The strategy was multifaceted: to drive a wedge between the FLN-ALN and the population, to encourage the population to cooperate and provide intelligence, and to rally the people to the French side in support of a French Algeria. To that end, the army divided the territory of Algeria into several zones of their own and started a policy of resettlement. By the end of the war, the army had uprooted almost one-third of the rural population and placed them under guard, transferring them to resettlement camps (centres de regroupement).. As of 1956, the army took charge of administrative and civilian tasks, as well as the re-establishment of order and security. The French army thus used military, political, economic, social, medical, and psychological weapons in its struggle against the FLN-ALN. By 1956, however, despite substantial gains, the FLN-ALN was under considerable pressure from the French army. At that time, the war took a different turn, spreading from the countryside to the cities. While there had been attacks in cities from as early as 1955, the first two years of the conflict were limited to spontaneous actions. In the summer of 1956, a series of violent events led to one of the most aggressive and most publicized episodes of the war, commonly known as the "Battle of Algiers."On June 19, 1956, two FLN activists, Ahmed Zabana and Abdelkader Ferradj, were guillotined. This led to a cycle of violence in Algiers in which both the FLN-ALN and pro-French Algeria European activists engaged in a series of random killings and terrorist attacks against Europeans and Algerians respectively. Eventually, the FLN-ALN organized at the end of 1956 a major counter offensive in the city of Algiers, and carried out hundreds of attacks in the capital. This included planting bombs in public spaces—many by young Algerian women who looked and acted and dressed as European women. Taking guerrilla warfare into the cities radically altered the course of the war. It meant targeting the French military and civil administration directly and exposing the main concentrations of European population to the conflict. Also during the battle, the FLN-ALN organized a general strike—with its main center in Algiers —to coincide with the United Nations (UN) General Assembly debate on the Algerian question. The aim of the strike was to demonstrate to the UN that the population supported the FLN-ALN and the goal of independence for Algeria. General Massu, commander of the Tenth Paratroop Regiment, took command of the battle with the aim of breaking the FLN by any means possible. During the Battle of Algiers,which lasted over nine months, the French army resorted to widespread and systematic use of torture. At the end of the battle, the French had defeated the FLN-ALN and dismantled its organization in Algiers. Yet at the same time, the battle of Algiers turned out to be a major diplomatic victory for the FLN-ALN. The systematic use of torture by the French—and more particularly, the stories of young Algerian women who were arrested and subjected to torture, became widely reported. The worldwide response to these abuses, as well as the concerted eort by the FLN-ALN to make the world aware of the Algerian conict during the repression of Algiers, greatly contributed to internationalizing the conflict, and aroused a great deal of sympathy for the Algerian cause at the international level. As for France, its use of torture contributed to its isolation at the international level. It had won militarily but lost diplomatically. By early 1958, the Fourth Republic was facing a crisis. Robert Lacoste, Governor General of Algiers, had been recalled to Paris, but no one had been designated to replace him at the head of the General Government in Algiers. With no civil power in Algiers, the military ruled. Fearing negotiations with the FLN-ALN and the recognition of the FLN-ALN "rebels" as valid interlocutors, the army and pro-French Algeria Europeans organized demonstrations throughout Algeria on May 13. At the end of the day the army, with the support of the European population of Algeria, took power in Algiers. On June 1, General de Gaulle was given emergency powers to restore order and draft a new constitution, and in September 1958, the new constitution was approved by referendum. In 1958 and 1959, the French government pursued an integrationist policy in Algeria and implemented a number of significant reforms aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the Algerian people. To counteract de Gaulle's initiatives and reforms, the FLN-ALN launched a new diplomatic offensive. On September 19, 1958, at a Cairo press conference, it announced the creation of a provisional government, the Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algérienne (GPRA), with its capital in Tunis. In Tunisia, the FLN-ALN became better organized. The FLN-ALN had proper institutions and the ALN became a proper army. More important, the GPRA was successful in gaining diplomatic recognition. By October 1958, thirteen states had already recognized the GPRA, and it was operating oces in the states of the Arab League and also in West Germany, Spain, Finland, Britain, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland. The FLN-ALN diplomatic offensive meant that, despite French military superiority and the implementation of socioeconomic reforms in Algeria, there was no prospect of an end to the conflict, and de Gaulle quickly concluded that only a political solution would bring an end to the war. On September 16, 1959, in a televised speech, de Gaulle eventually mentioned self-determination for the first time. He announced that Algerians would be called upon to choose between three solutions: secession, integration with France, or close association with France. In his speech, he clearly indicated that he was in favor of the latter solution. The third and nal phase of the war, from 1960 to 1962, was dominated by three aspects: negotiations between the French government and the FLN-ALN in an attempt to reach an agreement; the signing of the Evian agreement, which put an end to the conflict and formally recognized the independence of Algeria; and the state of anarchy and violence that dominated Algeria in the summer of 1962. Negotiations eventually resumed in Evian on May 20, 1961 but reached an impasse on several issues: The fate of the European minority that was expected to remain in Algeria after independence. The French government wanted assurances that the Europeans of Algeria would enjoy normal civil and political rights and that their property rights would be guaranteed. The GPRA, on the other hand, did not want to make any promises—especially on the question of property rights—before a sovereign Algerian state was in place. The question of sovereignty over the Sahara. For the French, the Sahara was of particular importance. Major deposits of petroleum had been discovered in 1956. Thee French government had been using the Sahara for nuclear testing and argued that the Sahara had never been an integral part of Algeria but was only attached to Algeria through colonization. The GPRA, on the other hand, viewed the Sahara as an integral part of Algeria. The status of French military air and naval bases on Algerian soil. After months of protracted negotiations, the Evian agreement was eventually signed on March 18, 1962.---formally recognized the independence of Algeria over its entire territory—the Sahara included—and called for an immediate ceasefire. On July 1, 1962, Algerians went to the polls. Some 99.72 percent of Algerians voted for independence.29 On July 3, 1962, President de Gaulle proclaimed the independence of Algeria. The human cost of the war was enormous. By the end of the war, the French army had lost more than 20,000 men. On the Algerian side, the French army indicated that it had killed 141,000 FLN-ALN "rebels." As for civilians, while there is no consensus on the numbers, it is generally acknowledged that approximately 300,000 Algerians were killed in the conict. In addition, the war had ravaged the Algerian countryside and by the end of the war, more than two million Algerians had been displaced and were living in resettlement camps. The FLN-ALN, a Total War, the Use of Violence, Diplomacy, and the Participation of Women Contrary to what the FLN-ALN tried to project during and after the war, the FLN-ALN was never a cohesive movement, nor was it a united "front" leading a revolution by the people and for the people, against one common enemy—the colonizer. The first aspect to note about the FLN-ALN is its extreme diversity. During the war, the forces of each zone or wilaya varied in their modus operandi, there was little coordination between the different wilayat and each commander had considerable independence in his particular zone, area, or wilaya. This diversity within the movement throughout the war has been so extreme at some point that historians have often argued that it would be more appropriate to talk about several FLNs during the war. Fourth, in its relations with the population and other movements, the FLN-ALN was authoritarian—even though most of the population genuinely supported the movement and the independence of Algeria. Everybody had to rally to the FLN-ALN. The FLN-ALN was almost as much at war against any potential rivals or opponents amongst Algerians as it was against the French Despite the FLN-ALN's suspicion of the population, its survival and success rested almost entirely on the active or passive support and/or complicity of the population. The Algerian war was a total war and it was above all a war over the people. Even during the latter phase of the war, when diplomatic maneuvers were as important as actions on the ground, the people's support was crucial in showing the international community that the vast majority of the Algerian population supported the FLN-ALN and the independence of the country. Having the population on its side was vital for the FLN-ALN. To that end, the FLN-ALN used a variety of tactics in order to rally the population to its cause: persuasion, propaganda, but also education, social and medical assistance and care, as well as intimidation and violence. The FLN-ALN, too, resorted to violence, intimidation, and terrorism during the war. FLN-ALN violence— which included assassination, but also decapitation, mutilation, and throat cutting—was not solely directed toward the French. In fact, most of the FLN-ALN's violence was internal violence—Algerians fighting other Algerians A particularly remarkable feature of the Algerian war was the active participation of women during the war.43 From the start, Algerian women became active participants in the FLN-ALN and women's participation took many different forms. Some women left their homes and families to join ALN military units and put themselves at the total disposal of the ALN (the mudjahidat or women fighters). Others actively supported the FLN-ALN in cities and, among other things, took part in attacks and planted bombs in Algiers (the daiyat). During the war, the French authorities initiated a series of measures aimed specifically at women in order to win them over. They granted women the franchise in 1958, offered them greater access to education and employment, and revised the Muslim personal status in women's favor. At the same time, the French army adopted a psychological strategy that deliberately targeted women in deep rural areas through a mobile network of medico-social teams. In their effort to win over women, the French recruited Algerian women. Some assisted the French in their campaign; a few became spokespersons for a French Algeria. The French campaign to win the hearts and minds of Algerian women was, by and large, a response to the large-scale participation of Algerian women in the FLN-ALN, and the impact it had on the Algerian population and internationally. Early on, the FLN-ALN saw the benefits of publicizing women's involvement during the war. First, Algerian women's active participation symbolized the shift from what the French called merely a "rebellion" to a large-scale national independence movement. Indeed, internally, the FLN used examples of women in ALN guerrilla units to impress the population and presented their involvement in the ALN as an example of patriotism. In addition, by publicizing the participation of women and especially the incorporation of young, often unmarried, women in the ALN, the FLN-ALN was able to project to the international community a constructed image of a modern and progressive FLN-ALN within which women were being liberated and emancipated.

Gelvin 222-250 CHAP 14: THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

Some of these nationalisms existed only briefly and attracted only a marginal following; others remain with us to this very day. As we have seen, one of the nationalisms that has lasted is Zionism. And while Zionism was not itself the product of World War I (its roots stretch back much further), the fact that during the war the Zionist movement received the endorsement, and later the support, of a major power was critical for its endurance. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 is one consequence of this; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is another. Although Zionist immigration to Palestine began even before the British announced the Balfour Declaration, the declaration was positive for Zionist leaders, particularly because it soon took on the force of law. As should be obvi-ous, Jewish immigration into Palestine, and the hostility that immigration aroused in the indigenous population, lie at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is possible to divide the conflict into three phases, each marked off from the next by a game-changing event or set of events. 1. The first phase began in 1882 with the arrival of the first Zionist immigrants into Palestine. It lasted until 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel and what Palestinians call the nakba (disaster), when 720,000 of them were forced into exile. 2. Second phase: The invasion of Palestine by Arab armies bent on destroying the newly declared State of Israel. Because this seemed to shift the dynamic of the conflict from one between two peoples to one between sovereign states, the world's attention shifted to making peace between those states. In other words, during this phase the Palestinian question seemed to drop out of the equation entirely as the attention of the world focused on normalizing the relationship between Israel and its sovereign neighbors. The heart of the conflict, after all, does not concern Israelis and generic "Arabs" or even their states, but rather Israelis and Palestinians, the indigenous population that was dispossessed and its descendants. 3. The signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, which laid the foundation for direct negotiations between the two principals, thus marks the beginning of the latest phase of the conflict. 1882-1948: THE INITIAL CONFRONTATION Period of late imperialism Europeans (Zionists)believed that they had a monopoly on "civilization" and that they had the right, if not the duty, to expand that civilization to benighted peoples around the globe and determine their future. The common use by early Zionists of the word "colonization" was not as a term of criticism but of pride. And hence, the belief that a British mandate over Palestine would fulfill the "sacred trust of civilization." Finally, This period marks a time of mass migration, when more people-over 150 million between 1850 and 1940-than had ever done so before left their homes in search of a better life or to escape persecution. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe, particularly from the Russian Empire where most of the world's Jews lived, to Palestine and elsewhere might thus be seen as part of a global trend. Perhaps most important for the future of the Middle East was the labor policy adopted by the new immigrants. The Zionists of the second and third aliyot expressed their aspirations in two slogans: "conquest of land" and "con-quest of labor." The first slogan refers to the need these Zionists felt to make their imprint on the land of Palestine by 'taming the wilderness through settlement activity. The second refers to the need these Zionists feld so remake the Jewish people by having Jews fill all jobs in the economy. Zionists believed that to become a true nation Jews had to overcome their dependence on others and become autonomous in all spheres. The indigenous inhabitants of Palestine resisted Zionist settlement policies from the beginning. This resistance took a variety of forms, from land occupations to violence against settlers and destruction of property. But while the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine resisted Zionist settlement early on, this resistance was mainly defensive, devoid of political goals, and rather haphazard. No Palestinian national movement existed until after World War I. The Palestinian community was hardly as well organized or as unified as the Zionist community. As citizens of the Ottoman Empire, there had been no need. Whereas the Zionist community embraced the mandates system and organized itself accordingly, political elites in the Arab community in Palestine accepted neither the Balfour Declaration nor the British mandate. They thus did not organize themselves in a way that could take advantage of the mandate. But there was another reason why a separate Palestinian identity began to emerge during the mandates period. The inhabitants of Palestine faced a problem that no other inhabitants of the region faced: Zionist settlement. While British and French administrative control of the region in their mandates left long term traces, they did not alienate the main resource— land—from those dependent on it, establish a rival and competing economy, or establish rival and competing political structures as the Zionists did in Palestine. And, according to the terms of the man-dates, the British and French were destined to leave. Zionist settlers had no such intention. As Zionist immigration and land purchases increased during the late 1920s, so did tensions between the two communities. By 1931, Zionist land purchases had led to the ejection of approximately twenty thousand peasant families from their lands. Close to 30 percent of Palestinian farmers were landless and another 75 to 80 percent did not have enough land for subsistence. Thus, in 1936 Palestine exploded in violence. What Palestinians call the Great Revolt was, after the 1948 War, the most traumatic event in modern history for Palestinians. To put down the revolt, the British launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, employing tactics all too familiar to Palestinians today: collective punishment of villages, "targeted kill-ings" (assassinations), mass arrests, deportations, and the dynamiting of homes of suspected guerrillas and their sympathizers. The revolt, and the British reaction to it, ravaged the natural leadership of the Palestinian community and opened up new cleavages in that community. Palestinian society never recovered. The roots of the nakba of 1948 can be found in the Great Revolt. The Great Revolt compelled the British to find some diplomatic solution to the Palestine imbroglio. The White Paper of 1939 advocated restricting (but not ending) Jewish immigration and proposed closer supervision of (but not the end of) land sales. It also promised independence for Palestine within ten years in the unlikely event that the two communities learned to work together. Both communities felt betrayed by the White Paper. Both communities rejected it. By 1947 (after WWII) the British decided that enough was enough and dumped the Palestine issue in the lap of the newly established United Nations. In November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted to terminate the mandate and partition Palestine, dividing it into a "Jewish State" and an "Arab State." In the wake of the United Nations' vote to partition Palestine, a civil war broke out between the two communities, followed by the intervention of surrounding Arab nations on behalf of the Palestinians. 1948-1993: THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT Two global phenomena shaped the second phase of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The first was the cold war. Both the United States and the Soviet Union viewed conflicts in the Middle East through the lens of their global, existential struggle—-added fuel to the Arab-Israeli and the Israeli-Palestinian fires and inhibited a resolution to the overall conflict. The second phenomenon that shaped this phase of the conflict was decoloni-zation. This was the environment in which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) emerged. The PLO was reinventing or borrowing the tactics, strategies, goals, and organizational structures of other national liberation movements. The 1948 War devastated Palestinian society, driving a vast majority of Palestinians who lived in what became Israel into exile. Although the reasons for the nakba have been a subject of debate for over sixty years, most scholars now agree that a combination of factors led to it. On the one hand, many of those Palestinians who fled quite sensibly chose to escape from a war zone. On the other hand, there were calculated expulsions. In some places Zionists deliberately frightened Palestinians into leaving by committing acts of terror. Israel, too, underwent dramatic demographic change after the 1948 War as a result of two factors. The first was the flight of Palestinians. Israel only repatriated a handful of Palestinians --a gesture it made to win the goodwill of the international community. Although welcoming Jewish immigrants—in 1950, the Israeli parliament, the knesset, passed the Law of Return guaranteeing Jews from around the world citizenship --Israel could hardly retain its Jewish character if it granted the right of citizenship to large numbers of non-Jews. Hence, the second factor that shifted the demographic balance: the influx of Jews, many of whom came from the Arab world, which doubled the population of Israel in its first four years of existence. The Israeli government confiscated abandoned Palestinian property and redistributed it to jewish immigrants from Europe. Some Palestinians attempted to reclaim their property, others crossed the lines to commit acts of sabotage or violence. To deal with the problem of "infiltration," launched reprisal raids against the neighboring states from which the infiltration occurred, thus shifting the burden of stopping infiltration to Israel's neighbors. Obviously, it did little to endear Israel to them. The raids touched off a series of events that would lead to war between Israel and Egypt in 1956 and 1967. Little wonder, then, that the international community concentrated on promoting some form of reconciliation between Israel and its neighbors to tamp down the Middle East tinderbox. The final problem with the "land for peace" solution is that it reduced the conflict to one between states. The PLO begged to differ. For them, the 1967 War demonstrated that Palestinians could not rely on Arab states to bring about their liberation. They had to do it themselves 1993-PRESENT: BACK TO FUNDAMENTALS a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian minds in Oslo, Norway, the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, and the anticipation that those negotiations might, over time, lead to a permanent settlement. The accord was revolutionary in nature: After fifty years of the world viewing the conflict as an Arab-Israeli problem, Israelis and Palestinians affirmed that, in fact, the conflict was theirs and theirs alone. Although the period since 1993 has been marked by the establishment of a Palestinian governing authority and a partial Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory, it has also been marked by countless rounds of failed negotiations, periods of extreme violence, and, at one point or another, each side walking away from the negotiating table and attempting to resolve the conflict on its own terms. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the longest running nationalist conflict still in play. Three factors have contributed to the conflict's longevity: First, the creation of Israel took place in the mid-twentieth century. In previous centuries it was possible for settlers simply to eradicate indigenous peoples when they proved troublesome, without a sense of wrongdoing or anything more than fin-ger-wagging by the international community. Second, more than four decades of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took place during the cold war. As we have seen, the superpowers viewed the conflict as just one more front in a global battle, and both the Soviet Union and the United States attempted to manipulate it to gain tactical advantage in that battle. Finally, the conflict has gone on so long and has been so difficult to resolve not only because it has been shaped by the antagonists, but because it has shaped them as well. Like all nationalisms, both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism defined themselves in relation to what they opposed.

Stein, Travelling Zion

Stein argues that the practice of tiyulim among Jewish Zionists in Palestine was an important political practice of settler nation-making to claim and rewrite the Arab Palestinian landscape as Jewish. Stein focuses on the writings of two Zionist leaders who extensively and narratively documented their travels and recognized the pedagogical value of these travels to further the nationalist project. Stein discusses how the Zionists grappled with the Arab Palestinian communities and landscapes they encountered and the methods they used to try to delegitimize Arab claims to the land. The Zionists renamed towns and wrote extensively about encounters with both friendly Arabs and dangerous, "bad" Arabs to suggest that Arab hostility to Zionists was not universal but was due to cultural differences among the Arabs, denying the influence of power dynamics in the mandate period. Stein also compares writings about tiyulim within Palestine and similar travels to neighboring Arab regions to demonstrate that the nationalist narrative was specific to Palestine and part of a nationalist, colonial project. This essay considers the political import of the hike or walk (ha-tiyul; plural, tiyulim) among Jewish settlers in Palestine during the first decades of the twentieth century. Situating this travelling practice within the broader Zionist discourse of which it was a part, I will suggest that the tiyulim conducted by Jewish settlers were important technologies of settler nation-making which helped to rewrite Arab Palestine as a Jewish geography. Drawing on postcolonial arguments about imperial travel, this essay presents both a condensed history of such travelling practices and a close reading of some of the travelogues they spawned. I focus on two divergent itineraries: (a) accounts of travel within the borders of the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) replete with classic colonial tropes of conquest, the empty landscape, and Palestinian-Arab culture qua ethnographic object; and (b) accounts of Jewish travel to neighbouring Arab countries (Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon) from which colonial tropes are frequently absent. I suggest that these postcolonial readings of Zionist travel and travelogues advance the scholarship on Zionist coloniality by suggesting the role of everyday culture within the settler-national project I will argue that within the context of the larger Zionist pedagogy of which they were a part, these hikes and excursions, and the large body of travel writings that they spawned, played an integral role in the settler-national project in Palestine by helping to refigure the (home)land as a Jewish geography Much of this study focuses on the travel writings and histories of two of Israel's 'founding fathers': Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the Labor Zionist leader, scholar, and journalist whose writings are introduced above, and David Benvenisti, a Sephardic e ́migre ́ to Palestine from Salonika who would later become a celebrated Israeli geographer, cartographer, and textbook author with a fluency in the natural history and geography of Eretz Yisrael As I will suggest, their travel memoirs and histories highlight an oft remarked tension at the core of the Zionist project: namely, the effort to advance a settler-national claim on the territory of Palestine in the face of perpetual contact with its indigenous Palestinian-Arab population, a population apprehended ambivalently as both a site of romantic intrigue and of threat (Eyal 2006: 3361). The rhetorical strategies used for resolving this potential tension, for discursively producing Palestine as a Jewish geography in the face of these facts on the ground, lie at the core of my inquiry. According to its practitioners, knowledge of the (home)land was to be relayed to the Jewish pupil through both intellectual and sensorial means, the latter functioning to convert dispassionate knowl- edge into affective patriotism. The tiyul was considered among the most important of such sensorial means. practices of walking and exploring the land were understood by Zionist educators as both instructional tools and acts of conquest that provided the means for active reclamation of the national homeland through bodily contact with the landscape and cognitive mastery of its contours The writings of Benvenisti and Ben Zvi, both committed Zionist educators, manifest something of an ideological tension where encounters with Arabs are concerned—a tension born at the interface between such encounters, often illustrated as extremely pleasurable ones, and the Zionist pedagogical imperative to fashion Palestine as a Jewish geography. , textual erasure was one rhetorical option Yet the genre of the travelogue frequently adopted other narrative tactics, ones which did not categorically remove the Palestinian population from the landscape, but rather mitigated Palestinian presence in ways that enabled concurrent Zionist political claims. In the writings of Ben Zvi, one sees frequent recourse to a more subtle strategy of obscuring the Arab fabric of the Palestinian landscape through recourse to a Jewish historical overlay. the problem of Arab settlement in the pre-state period is resolved through recourse to biblical citations and ancient Hebrew place-names that effectively translated the Arab landscape into a Jewish one. By dividing the Palesti- nian-Arab population into a set of seemingly discrete units, this discourse of the disaggregate both undercut the political claims of Palestinian nationalism and mitigated the threat that Palestinians posed to Zionist land claims Equally consequential were the political leanings of the Jewish communities encountered during the course of such trips. The Yishuv travellers who ventured into neighbouring Arab territories in the 1920s and 1930s encountered Jewish populations with few political ties to or sympathy for the project of political Zionism What this discursive excess suggests is not only the endurance of the tiyul as an Israeli national institution, but also its continued import as a tool of settler-nationalism within the post- 1967 Israeli landscape. the tiyul would be frequently called upon to advance Israeli political claims in its occupied territories. he intellectual and political stakes in this inquiry greatly exceed this abbreviated history of the tiyul. Rather, this essay joins a growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship that argues for a greater understanding of the colonial roots and dimensions of the Zionist project, historically

Discuss the role of women in Algerian, Egyptian, and Turkish political life in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Draw on lectures and Gelvin. Possible points of reference are the image of the "new woman" in the Early Turkish Republic, the Egyptian Revolution, the Algerian War of Independence, the Arab Spring, and the Gezi Park Protests.

TURKEY Like other authoritarian figures whose stance on the 'woman question" appears progressive, Ataturk sought to expand the reach of the state into he home and to replace the "private patriarchy" of the husband/father-dominated family unit with a "public patriarchy" defined by the state. Granting women rights they had not previously enjoyed was a means of accomplishing this. THe New Turkish Woman: 1926 Turkish Civil Code granted women equal rights in matters of divorce and child custody, 1934—women's suffrage Women become "walking billboards" for Westernization (Gelvin) Clothing wasn't the only way Mustafa Kemal sought to imitate the West and simultaneously expand the reach of the state. They also supported the rights of women. Mustafa Kemal changed the civil code abolishing polygamy and granting women equal rights to men in divorce and inheritance; supported women's education. Women gained the right to vote in municipal elections in 1930 and in national elections in 1934 Kemal even proposed legislation forbidding women from wearing the veil in public (contrary to myth, it never became law). State-builders regularly legislated on matters of clothing during this period. They wanted to eliminate all clothing styles that alluded to regional, religious, or ethnic identities that might compete with the state for the loyalty of its citizens. They also wanted to advertise government policies (in this case, Westernization) by making citizens into walking billboards for them. And, perhaps most important, they regulated clothing because they could. By attacking something as personal as clothing, governments demonstrated their ability to cow their citizens. MORE RECENT TURKISH HISTORY—GEZI PARK Contribution to the revolutions: Arab Spring/Gezi: women in the protests saw their struggles as interconnected to the state's devastation to the urban environmental design, which sparked their shared experiences of grievances towards the state and desperation towards the indifference from the state over the people's demands (reference to the impacts of spread of the red-dressed woman image) ALGERIA Seferdjeli On the domestic front, the Algerian War was a war over the people, in which the FLN-ALN and the French colonialists adopted measures to try to win the support of the population, especially women. For example, the French granted women suffrage in 1958, and additionally promoted Algerian Muslim women like Sid Cara into high-ranking government positions. The FLN-ALN also encouraged women's participation, utilized female bombers such as Bouhired, and recognized the value of publicizing women's involvement in the FLN-ALN movement and stories of French torture of Algerian women in the international arena. The FLN-ALN capitalized on female involvement in their movement to demonstrate to the international community that they were a progressive movement that worked to liberate women. The FLN-ALN quite effectively portrayed Bourihed (bomber) as a symbol of the Algerian struggle, sparking international protests that would serve to overturn her death sentence. Largely because of stories like Bourihed, the FLN-ALN was able to turn the military defeat at the Battle of Algiers into a diplomatic victory, as the international community denounced the French's use of torture and was firmly on their side. Similarly, the French publicized the story of Sid Cara, the first Muslim woman appointed secretary of state in a French government, to demonstrate their desire to "emancipate" Muslim women and move towards a new, modern, integrated Algeria. However, the French government ultimately would lose the battle to win over female supporters and the broader Algerian population from the FLN-ALN. A particularly remarkable feature of the Algerian war was the active participation of women during the war.43 From the start, Algerian women became active participants in the FLN-ALN and women's participation took many different forms. Some women left their homes and families to join ALN military units and put themselves at the total disposal of the ALN (the mudjahidat or women fighters). Others actively supported the FLN-ALN in cities and, among other things, took part in attacks and planted bombs in Algiers (the daiyat). During the war, the French authorities initiated a series of measures aimed specifically at women in order to win them over. They granted women the franchise in 1958, offered them greater access to education and employment, and revised the Muslim personal status in women's favor. At the same time, the French army adopted a psychological strategy that deliberately targeted women in deep rural areas through a mobile network of medico-social teams. In their effort to win over women, the French recruited Algerian women. Some assisted the French in their campaign; a few became spokespersons for a French Algeria. The French campaign to win the hearts and minds of Algerian women was, by and large, a response to the large-scale participation of Algerian women in the FLN-ALN, and the impact it had on the Algerian population and internationally. Early on, the FLN-ALN saw the benefits of publicizing women's involvement during the war. First, Algerian women's active participation symbolized the shift from what the French called merely a "rebellion" to a large-scale national independence movement. Indeed, internally, the FLN used examples of women in ALN guerrilla units to impress the population and presented their involvement in the ALN as an example of patriotism. EGYPT Women played active role in 1919 revolution Paris 1919: Egyptian politicians testing limits of Wilsonian self-determination petitioned British high commissioner to go to Paris to represent Egypt at the epace conference Leader: Zaghlul; was arrested and deported (along with his colleagues) for their presumption; demonstrations and strikes broke out in spring of 1919 (the 1919 Revolution)---was put down by British two months later Egyptian Revolution 1919: protests, attacked symbols of Brotish rule, taken up by broad segment of population (women); british violently suppressed but had to accept status quo would not work (largely because how broad protests were_ 1922-3: Britain had to negotiate some nominal Egyptian independence State Feminism Nasser co-opted grassroots feminism within patriarchal state, did not have widespread effects The "working woman" model—simultaneously dometic and professional Lack of personal status law reform (divorce, inheritance, child custody, etc) Family planning programs—birth control programs due to overpopulation problem Woman's suffrage, but symbolic—-no free elections Mobilizing Cultural Icons: Umm Kalthoum —singers embraced by Nasser, also wrote nationalist songs, helped establish Nasser's cult of personality Women played active role in Tahrir Square protests and Arab spring protests more generally ARAB SPRING The broad participation of women in the Arab Spring revolutions shocked the authoritarian regimes, which had expected that women would remain cautious and wouldn't take part in popular demonstrations that could have posed serious risks to their lives. Women's participation in the 2011 protests confounded dictatorships and intelligence services, as it showed the full extent of the popular rejection of such entities and contributed to the quick downfall of several oppressive regimes. It also revealed the important role that women could play in challenging the resistance to change, the lack of any meaningful political reform, and authoritarian regimes rife with nepotism, corruption and bribery. Political and cultural elites did not anticipate that women would take part in popular uprisings.

9. What is the problem with the discourse on sectarianism in MENA historiography according to Weiss? What are the forces that contributed to the creation of sectarian difference in MENA and those that continue to fuel it? Refer to specific examples to demonstrate your answer.

Weiss challenges our conceptual understanding of sectarianisms in the Middle East by linking it to state-driven and colonial influences, as well as popular origins. Weiss argues that other historians have both put too much emphasis on ethnic or religious differences and have focused on outbreaks of sectarian violence, and have ignored the ways in which the sectarian intersects with and has been produced or exacerbated by other social, political, and cultural factors. Weiss argues that instead of solely ethnic or religious differences, sectarianism is significantly connected with the emergence of the modern state system and the different ways colonial powers and emerging independent states privileged certain groups and gave certain identities a new political meaning and status. Weiss warns that the current obsession with the problem of sectarianism runs the risk of projecting backwards into history a notion of unchanging discord and division across the region, which can be capitalized on by nefarious internal and external actors to prevent trans-sectarian mobilization against regimes. Bahrain Arab spring: Repressive minority governments (Sunnis in Bahrain) hold onto power despite massive protests by using extensive violence.. As the protests wore on, official media channels began adopting an antagonistic rhetoric, which increasingly targeted the sectarian divide. Invoke sectarianism to stay in power, allying themselves with their respective religious communities, blaming dissent on sectarian opponents. —Legitimacy by blackmail, idea that the religious communities in power forced those who identified as the same to support the regime, as if the regime toppled the anger from the 'ruled' group would spill over and affect those who weren't in power, just guilty by association In Bahrain, the Sunni-Shia divide was a force working against protestors. As mainly Shias took part in the protests, and the most radical began calling for a new republic, many Sunnis feared that these Shia Islamists wanted to create an Islamic Republic similar to Iran. Regional events and recent Bahraini history thus combine to hinder the emergence of trans-sectarian opposition movements like once appeared in Bahrain, helping to ensure the regime's continuity even in times of upheaval. Saudi (Sunni royalty) invaded Bahrain to help maintain the Sunni regime HOWEVER— as Al-Shehabi demonstrates, Bahrain has longer history of trans-sectarian mobilization (such as the HEC in the 1950s); gets hidden in this echo chamber of sectarian scholarship. It would be more appropriate to approach sectarianism as a historically conditioned problem, one whose manifestations and effects must be carefully contextualized within local, regional, and global frames. Arguing against the reduction of sectarianism as a core, violent struggle that is indigenous to the Middle East, Weiss advocates that scholarly questions about the ubiquity of sectarianism contribute to its spread. Although Weiss does not deny that sectarianism exists and has contributed to violent authoritarian breakdowns (including under Assad's regime in Syria and Hussein's othering of Kurds in Iraq), Weiss challenges our conceptual understanding of sectarianisms in the Middle East by linking it to state-driven and colonial influences, as well as popular origins. Sectarianism, therefore, has been greatly fueled by foreign intervention. For example, Bahrain had several explicitly cross-sectarian movements, such as the Higher Executive Committee consisting of four Shii and four Sunni, that attempted to call for political reform. However, the British and Bahraini state intervened time and time again to dismantle cross-sectarian movements and institutionalize sectarianism to strengthen the Bahraini state.

Weiss, The Matter of Sectarianism

Weiss challenges the prevailing historiography regarding sectarianism in the Middle East. Weiss argues that other historians have both put too much emphasis on ethnic or religious differences and have focused on outbreaks of sectarian violence, which is a rare phenomenon that ignores the "sectarianism of the street" that shapes everyday interactions. Weiss argues that instead of solely ethnic or religious differences, sectarianism also is significantly connected with the emergence of the modern state system and the different ways colonial powers and emerging independent states privileged certain groups and gave certain identities a new political meaning and status. Weiss simultaneously emphasizes that only focusing on this "sectarianism of the state" ignores the social and cultural factors that shape sectarianism and define the ongoing relationships between different groups, and thus that both lenses are needed to truly understand the multiple sectarianisms that have emerged in the modern Middle East. sectarianism: the mobilization of identities for political and social purposes. Identities already exist/do exist; but political purposes imposed top-down Rather than accepting primordialist conceptions of sectarian phenomena, and without reducing the sectarian to instances of violence, this chapter argues that that there is a dialectical relationship between the matter of sectarianism in the modern Middle East and the scholarly research questions and journalistic lines of inquiry that contribute to its definition and, in many instances, its spread. THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN SECTARIANISM If there is a single distinguishing hallmark of what might be called "modern sectarianism," it has had to do with the role of the modern state, which is why scholars of modern sectarianism tend to identify its emergence in relation to the late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century modernizing Ottoman state. Broadly speaking, the encounter with European colonial and imperialist power in the mid-nineteenth century resulted in the reconfiguration of status hierarchies and new struggles over resources, power, and influence in the cities and in the countryside throughout the eastern Mediterranean. These developments set into motion transformative processes with profound consequences for the emergence of new forms of sectarian identity and institutions in the decades to come. SECTARIANISM OF THE STREET, SECTARIANISM OF THE STATE If shifting relationships between Europe and the Middle East as well as the transforming nature of imperial state-society relations across the Middle East and North Africa transformed the conditions of possibility for the emergence of new forms of sectarian identity in the nineteenth century, the colonial encounter in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries proved even more disruptive. the advent of various forms of colonial rule contributed to the institutionalization of politics, culture, and identities along sectarian, religious, and ethnic lines The problem with modern scholarship on sectarianism, therefore, is not only that it carelessly and inaccurately transforms sectarianism into an analytical category rather than an object of study and critique, but rather that it tends to ignore the ways in which the sectarian intersects with and has been produced or exacerbated by other social, political, and cultural factors. It would be more appropriate to approach sectarianism as a historically conditioned problem, one whose manifestations and effects must be carefully contextualized within local, regional, and global frames.

Gelvin 291-320 CHAP 17: THE UNITED STATES AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Only after World War II did American policymakers work to replace the old imperialist powers in the region. It was not until after 1956, in the wake of the Suez War, that the United States accomplished this, finally replacing France and Britain as the primary Western power in the region. Surprisingly, American policy with regard to the Middle East remained fairly stable throughout most of the second half of the twentieth century. Overall, then, we can identify objectives that guided American policy toward the region for over forty years. First and foremost among American goals in the region was the containment of the Soviet Union. That is to say, the primary objective of the United States in the Middle East, as in all other areas of the cold war world, was to prevent the expansion of Soviet influence into the region. The second goal of the United States in the Middle East was to assure Western access to oil. The third goal of American policy in the Middle East was to ensure the peaceful resolution of conflicts and to maintain a balance of power in the region. The U.S. government feared that interstate conflicts -most of all the Arab-Israeli conflict -would polarize the region. This would encourage some states to turn to the Soviet Union and might destabilize the governments of America's friends. The best way to ensure stability in the region was to establish some sort of regional balance of power. The fourth goal: To ensure regional stability, the United States promoted stable, if autocratic, pro-Western states in the region. In addition, policymakers believed that if the states of the region were strong, and if they fulfilled the aspirations of their popu-lations, they and their populations would resist Soviet blandishments. To ensure the newly independent states would follow the proper path to "modernization," US often supported the "modernizing" military officers who took power in military coups d'état. Military men were uniquely qualified to lead, they felt, because they knew how to work as a cohesive group, were more technologically savvy and better trained than most others in the region, and were already in the coercion business, Because stability and anti-communism were high on the American agenda, however, the United States (and its allies) also intervened to support monarchs threatened by real or imagined communist subversion. EX: Muhammad Mossadesh became prime minister of Iran in 1951 soon after the Iranian majlis (parliament) had voted to nationalize the British-held Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, an act he strongly supported. He also pledged to restrict the power of the shah (Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the son of Reza Shah) and affirm Iran's neutrality in the cold war. The nationalization infuriated the British; that nationalization, Mossadegh's neutralism in the cold war (a policy he called "negative equilibrium"), and rumors of possible communist influence over Mossadegh disquieted the Americans. The shah's attempt to dismiss Mossadegh backfired, and huge anti-shah demonstrations forced the shah to flee. Neverthe-less, the United States and Britain spread around enough largesse to buy their own crowds, along with the right politicians, religious leaders, and generals. The army seized control, arrested Mossadegh, and restored the shah. For American participation in the coup d'état, American oil companies won the right to 40 percent of Iranian oil. To further strengthen states and prevent social revolution, the United States also supported economic development in the region, acting both as a contributor of foreign assistance and as an advocate in international economic institutions such as the World Bank The fifth goal of American policy during the cold war was the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of the State of Israel. The United States has consistently reaffirmed its commitment to Israeli sovereignty and security. Numerous factors contributed to the American-Israeli alliance, from ideological to strategic to domestic. In terms of ideology, the Israelis have presented their case well in the United States, portraying Israel as the sole democracy and repository of American values in the region. In terms of strategy, U.S. policymakers oftentimes viewed Israel as a proxy in the light against Soviet influence in the region. In terms of domestic politics, presidents and congressmen have attempted to garner Jewish -and, more recently, Christian evangelical - votes by portraying themselves as supporters of israel. The final objective of American policy during the cold war was the protection of sea lanes, lines of communications, and the like, connecting the United States and Europe with Asia. The Middle East is, after all, the middle East. Its geographic position alone makes it a prize worth fighting for by any power with global pretensions. In the most abstract sense, then, American objectives in the Middle East—containing the Soviet Union, maintaining access to oil, achieving a peaceful resolution of conflicts and a balance of power among states of the region, safe. guarding Israel, and capitalizing on the strategic location of the region—-remained consistent over the course of the forty-year cold war. Why, then, does it appear to have been otherwise? First, although American administrations faithfully advocated the same six policy objectives for forty years, the approaches the American government used to achieve them varied over time (ex: different strategies of containment) A second reason why U.S. cold war policy in the region seems inconsistent is that policy planners often attempted to achieve one objective at the expense of others. U.S. policy also seems to have been inconsistent because of what might be termed "the law of unintended consequences." Finally, U.S. policy during the cold war appears to have been inconsistent because even a superpower does not have a boundless capacity to impose its will on the world, and failures prompted the reassessment of policies. America was far more successful in achieving its objectives in the Middle East than in Southeast Asia. Of its six policy objectives, the United States clearly accomplished five (containment, oil, stable states, Israel, sea lanes and communications) and split on one (the United States was not able to end regional conflicts, particularly the Arab-Israeli dispute, but for the most part was able to maintain a regional balance of power) The United States has achieved its goals by supporting truly appalling regimes, for example, and U.S. policy has inflicted its own share of horrors on the population of the region as well. American weapons have been used against civilian populations in Lebanon in 1982 and in the Palestinian territories to this very day. The United States cynically abandoned Palestinians and Lebanese to their fate in 1983, the Kurds to theirs in 1975 and 1988, and the Shiis of southern Irag to theirs in 1991. The United States pressured regimes in the region to adopt economic policies that have, more often than not, brought hardship rather than benefit to the populations of the Middle East. These effects might be more easily brushed away as unfortunate side effects of an otherwise successful U.S. policy were it not for their human cost, the legacy they left for the region and the world, and the disjuncture between American claims of benevolence and a reality obvious to those affected by that "benevo-lence." While most Americans were willing to accept the Afghanistan war and the Global War on Terrorism because of their connection to 9/11, the war in Iraq soured them on further adventures in the region. Chances are the United States has lost its hegemonic position in the Middle East for good. And policy analysts and historians will continue to argue about whether that loss was inevitable, the result of contingent factors, or the result of the failings of one or another leader (George W. Bush? Barack Obama?). But in the end, it is worth remembering the unique set of circumstances that both permitted and compelled the United States to take on the role of Middle East hegemon and that obliged states in the region to accept it as such. During the period of American hegemony in the Middle East, the global system was bipolar, the contest to dominate the region played out as a zero-sum game in which a victory for one side meant a loss for the other, and the Middle East was a prize worth competing for. The United States was unrivalled as an economic and, arguably, military power and had a preeminent position within the global economic system. There was a core group of states in the Middle East whose interests aligned with American interests and whose very existence the American security umbrella guaranteed. And with the help of some deft diplomacy in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the United States became the only power capable of brokering a land-for-peace deal among the combatants. This put the most populous and militarily capable Arab state, Egypt--previously the region's preeminent spoiler--permanently in the American pocket. Comparable circumstances do not exist for the United States anymore, nor for any state or group of states for that matter. There has, of late, been a lot of talk of Russia or China taking America's place in the region, but Russia's ambitions outstrip its capabilities; for China the opposite is true. In the absence of a hege-mon, local powers- Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran- will vie without check for position within the regional order.

Jones, State of Nature: The Politics of Water in the Making of Saudi Arabia

Jones argues that mastering the natural environment was critical for modern state-making in Saudi Arabia. As life-sustaining natural resources such as water were scarce, control over these resources was necessary for the political survival of the Saudi regime. Saudi rulers facilitated the expansion of agriculture and used agriculture and their control over water resources as tools to subdue threats to their reign, particularly from the nomadic Bedouins. The Saudis embraced environmental science and engineering to fully exploit and utilize the natural resources in the region, understanding that control over these resources would also strengthen their centralized political authority. On this front, the Saudis collaborated with Americans and other foreign technical experts who helped establish Saudi control over resources and build up state capacity by connecting the Saudi state with environmental power. This approach to controlling water resources as a way to consolidate state power laid the groundwork for similar methods after the discovery of oil in the region. Although the Americans have cloaked their military engagements in the Persian Gulf in the language of freedom and the war on terrorism, protecting the flow of Saudi Arabia's oil has been their preeminent concern. But while oil and the wealth it has generated have been hugely important, the history of the modern Saudi state and the consolidation of the power of the Saudi royal family in the twentieth century had more complex environmental foundations, Water, agriculture, and the broader pursuit of mastery over other non-petroleum natural resources all figured in important ways in the making of modern Saudi Arabia. In the first half of the twentieth century, in fact, it was the convergence of several environmental factors—most notably the pursuit of control over both oil and water--that most shaped the contemporary political order in the kingdom, Control over both would prove necessary to secure the fortunes of the AI Saud, Given the scarcity of life-sustaining natural resources, particularly water, on the devastatingly arid Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi ambition to control them is hardly surprising, Both settled and nomadic communities have depended on and often struggled violently for access to water resources for their survival. No less important was the role of agriculture Saudi rulers sought to tame the environment by actively facilitating agricultural expansion across the peninsula. The strategy thereby ensured that attempts to control the enviornment would play a key role in Saudi plans to deepend their power The saudis lacked technical and material resources to master the environment—in 19302-40s relied heavily on foreign experts, technical advisers, and an American oil conglomerate, The Saudis' goals were to simultaneously exploit their natural resources, engi- neer the environment, and strengthen centralized political authority, Their collaborators in these efforts helped to consolidate, institutionalize, and centralize Saudi political authority, as well as turn expertise and the environment itself into a source of royal power . In addition to helping establish central- ized control over the environment—-including natural resources such as oil and water, but also territory and people—-these experts also helped build up the kingdom's administrative and governmental capacity, connecting bureau- cratic power with environmental power, In a place better known for the power of religion and religious scholars, it was the work of experts and their efforts to master the environment that sealed the political fortunes of the ruling elite, While the kingdom relied heavily on foreign experts, the initiative to link the environment and the country's natural resources to power was driven by the Saudis, Saudi rulers increasingly sought and paid for info:mation about territory, resources, and people from a variety of local and Interna- tional sources, They well understood that their fortunes were connected to their ability to control/harness nature THE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE MODERN SAUDI STATE The most important aspect of the effort to control the environment and establish authority over the region's natural resources was political. Because most of the kingdom's subjects were engaged in some form of agriculture—thus engaged with or dependent on the environment—it made sense to target agriculture and the environment as objects of state power and controL. " While much Saudi energy was spent on integrating farming communities into the kingdom's sphere ofinfluence, most pastoralists were not permanently settled. The FAO report claimed that at least 66 percent of the population continued to be nomadic as late as 1956. Although settled farming communities were not always easily pacified, the Al Saud and their supporters eventually quelled most into submission. Rulers used water and agriculture as tools to subdue potential threats to their authority. Potential rivals included the settled farming and merchant communities that lived along the Arabian Peninsula's shores, including al·Hasa and the Hijaz in the west. These communities had much to lose financially and politically with the ascendance of the Saudis. And they would indeed eventu· ally lose, although the Al Saud used a combination of incentives and penal- ties to cOmpel the cooperation of the merchants. Most importantly, the Saudis and their backers used agriculture to rein in the tribal and Bedouin forces that threatened their newfound and still loose grip on power. Establishing the kingdom and successfully securing it depended on overcoming tribal tensions and defusing the threat posed by communities who had long enjoyed freedom of movement. Indeed, if the raiding (ghazu) that generated part of tribal income was allowed to continue, it would have represented a real threat to the integrity of the Saudi polity and the ability of the country's rulers to assert their power. Promoting sedentarization and using settlements as instruments to overcome politically threatening raiding practices reflected a new strategiC thinking on the part of Saudi leaders. With the aid of supportive religious scholars, who saw their own influence grow with the emerging power of the Al Saud, Saudi rulers partially justified their rule through the exploitation of the environment and through socio-environmental engineering. The Al Saud learned to see water as strategically critical—knowing about and establishing contro over water wells made it possible to maintain military outposts at vital locations OIL, EXPERTISE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL AUTHOIRTY With the discovery of oil in the late 1930s, a new era of environmental power emerged in Saudi Arabia. Before the discovery of oil and the "petrolization" of the Saudi state, however, the kingdom's leaders turned to the science of geologY in the hope of unearth- ing something of value from the arid landscape. In fact, the discovery of oil was the result of the government fully embracing environmental science and applying it in the consolidation of centralized authority. And the discovery of oil should furthermore be seen as a product of the continuation of the strategic thinking that first evolved while attempting to settle the Bedouin. Saudi leaders came to see that knowing their natural environment more systematically was a precursor to controlling the political one But before the work of searching for and selling oil proceeded, the Saudis turned to Americans to help them find water. . Indeed, Saudi-American relations were first shaped in the 1930S by the work of American geologists, most of whom simultaneously served American and Saudi Arabian political and commercial interests. Since World War II,when the potential of the kingdom's bountiful oil reserves became well known, the U.S. government has prioritized the security and stability of the Saudi regime, no matter how dreadfully it has treated its own citizens. A stable tyrannical Saudi government beholden to American oil companies and to U.S. security assurances was far more preferable to a politically open state that would potentially prioritize its own citizens' needs the Saudis harbored concerns about relying on potential domestic rivals for collect- ing information. And while there were locals who would carry out the work on behalf of the authorities in Riyadh, their numbers were limited. In addition, the Americans offered something beyond political expediency and basic scientific ability. Equally important was the establishment of the connection between science, environmental expertise, and authority. Expertise itself became a mea- sure of authority and this was something that state leaders would subsequently aspire to make a central part of their own ruling strategy. Motivated by the conviction that oil was there awaiting discovery, the geologist, once carrying out the work of a philanthropist, now saw an opportunity for personal gain. In July he began explor- ing for oil in the Arabian Peninsula, In spite of initial rejections by several mining and oil companies, Twitchell persisted and his efforts eventually led to the signing of Saudi Arabia's oil concession agreement with the Standard Oil Company of California (Socal) in May 1933, which formed an operating com- pany that ultimately came to be known as the Arabian American Oil Company (or Aramco)." The Saudi Arabian government granted Socal the exclusive right to explore for and extract oil in al-Hasa (over an area of 3r8,000 square miles) in exchange for royalties if any was discovered in commercial quantities. The presence of oil in al-Hasa and its subsequent development proved to be the most important geological discovery in the kingdom's brief history. The wealth it eventually generated did more to shore up Saudi political authority than agriculture could have accomplished even in the best-case scenario. Saudi rulers appreciated this fact early on, Even so, it did not diminish their efforts to learn more about the still much-needed water and to pursue the intensifica- tion of agriculture. There was perhaps a simple reason for this. Oil generated income, but wealth alone was not sufficient to build power. It did not confer credibility and it did little to bring subjects directly into the orbit of the govern- ment. For these things to happen, oil wealth had to be spent. And it was through non-petroleum environmental projects that it would often be put to use. Most of the young kingdom's subjects continued to be engaged in agriculture and were hence dependent on water for their livelihoods. Even though the state did not look at its citizens as a source of revenue to be gained through taxes or other means, it continued to believe that the population needed to be productively engaged and that managing resources was a key to state oversight, administra- tive power, and security. In addition, the report emphasized the very strategic logic that the Saudis had already begun devel- oping themselves: because the center was natural-resource poor--the Najd was clearly the least fertile region and had the least water resources--captur- ing resources from the periphery was a key to power. Thus, the U.S. agricultural mission sought to accomplish much more than simply help the central government capture resources from its provinces. In their final report the team provided a scientific framework, including a set of recommendations, that would help the central government more fully include far-flung areas within its sphere. It accomplished this by arguing that existing production levels of local agricultural areas were disappointing and by offer- ing specific suggestions on how those levels could be expanded. The mission's aim was not to serve local cultivators, but rather the government that sought to increase revenue and establish its own presence. In reality, the argument put forward by Twitchell served American interests—both government and business—particularly well, and the American preference for centralized Saudi control over its domestic market would indeed prove a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. The argument in favor of helping establish a strong government was tied directly to the American desire for political stability in Saudi Arabia. Even in the early 194os, before the terms of American-Saudi relations had become totally clear, the United States understood that because of its rich oil deposits the kingdom would be a critical postwar partner and a key ally in the battle to control both the postwar global econory and the flow of energy resources." . By the late '970s, the Saudis were no longer pressed to build political capacity. Instead, the state was confronted with the challenge of redistributing some of its massive wealth. Subsidising water, agriculture, and making the environment and the country's limited natural resources easier for citizens to access emerged as important parts of Saudi Arabia's post-boom redistributive political order, a system that used patronage more than coercion to ensure Saudi authority.

Gelvin 261-290 CHAP 15: THE AUTOCRATIC STATE

New responsibilities transformed the "ruling bargain"---the mutual rights and obligations states and citizens demand from each other In MENA—benefits for compliance (result of defensive developmentalism/imperialism; post-WWI experience (borrowing political models to institutionalize their regimes); Bretton Woods system (embedded liberalism; IMF and World Bank both active in MENA); US global political/economic predominance that championed policies to empower a new MENA middle class and land reform; decolonization)] Decolonization: 1950s-70s; process by which formal empire ended in most of the world Before WWII only 5 Middle Eastern states—Turkey Iran Sauid Arbai Oman and Iraq—enjoyed complte indepednecne By 1971 every contemporary state (except Palestine) was independent Countries on periphery of world economy took advantage of embedded liberalism system to introduce political/economic policies designed to support the new ruling bargain (state-led economic development, economic centralization, import substitition) States attempted to assert sovereign control over natural resources (oil); economic nationalism BUT by end of 1960s optimism had soured; Global South's share in world trade and income had declined; few states on the periphery had changed their position in th world economic system Global South blamed the Bretton Woods System; demanded compensation and a seat at the table Called for a New Internatiaonl Economic Order that would overhaul the structure of the global economic system to make it more responsive to the needs of the GLobal south; demands based on idea of "collective rights" (Bretton Woods had also collapsed—US not unrivaled economic power) Oil shock of 1973-74: 380% increase in the price of oil within 3 months; caused by oil producers seized control over pricing from oil companies that had previously set prices; assertion of GS for sovereign rights Scared US—-oil shock led to stagflation (stagnant economy and inflation) in developed world/US US pushed neoliberalism to counter this economic nationalism of the Global SOuth—-markets should be allowed to govern themselves with minimal govt influence Arab world forced to accept these IMF policies in late 1970s-80s; but IMF riots broke out in all of MENA A number of factors contributed to the emergence of strong states ruled by authoritarian governments in the Middle East. Authoritarian structures worked their way into the DNA of most states early on Can divide states of the region into three categories: 1. Emerged in the interwar period (Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia)---militaries played a key role in establishing the states and miliary leaders emerged as their initial rulers 2. Maintained structures put in place during colonial domination (monarhcies of Morroco, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE; also lebanon). Path to independence mainly peaceful (Oman) 3. Postcolonial republics that overthrew colonial order after independence (Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen). Emerged at height of decolonization; coups undertaken by colonels focused on destroying old order Great powers also played a key rooel in ensuring autocratic governance in the region—established states and directly intervened in their affairs, protected from internal and external threats; have used leverage in political economic spheres to dictate policies Oil also used by governments to bolster their power—oil revenues controlled by governments Both elites and nonelites in the Middle East increasingly came to equate economic development with social justice (reducing income inequality. ensuring a minimum standard of living, expanding opportunity, and the like) and nation-building. They have also come to view government as the primary engine for economic development. The widely held belief that a leading function of government is to guide economic development and ensure social justice enabled governments in the region to concentrate an inordinate amount of power in their hands. The developmentalist ethos achieved its greatest influence in the region during the period between the 1950s and the 1970s, when state-led economic development was the international norm, when the postwar economic system created a supportive environment for developmentalism, and when a series of military coups d'état established new regimes in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. These new regimes based their legitimacy on their ability to bring about economic development and social justice. They also established a new set of standards for state behavior that continue to influence both governments and populations throughout the region. Groups of industrialists and bankers that emerged first in Egypt in the early 1920s, then in Syria and Iraq, played a particularly important role in energizing the principle of developmentalism. They made developmentalism a key component of nationalism by spreading the gospel of economic nationalism. Not only did they encourage Egyptians, for example, to "buy Egyptian", they attempted to infuse nationalist movements with enthusiasm for economic and social reform. True independence, they claimed, was not limited to political independence. Economic independence could only be achieved through economic development and establishing a social system that would allow all to participate in nation-building. The message of the economic nationalists was spread by new types of mass political parties and associations. As urban populations increased, so did the number of those available for political mobilization. These parties and associations differed from earlier nationalist parties in three ways: They were tightly structured, they possessed a middle-class leadership and middle-class and lower middle-class following, and they championed doctrines that went beyond mere calls for political independence. The developmentalist policies promoted by elites and popular political associa-tions, along with the intrusive activities of foreign powers, redefined the criteria for political legitimation in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. More often than not, the "old guard" politicians who dominated parliamentary politics had to respond to new demands. But more often than not they responded in word rather than in deed. All this was to change over the course of the next two decades. Beginning in 1949, cliques of military officers launched coups d'état against civilian politicians in all three countries and then against already empowered military regimes in Syria and Iraq. it was the Free Officers coup in Egypt in 1952 that would set the standard and provide a model for other states in the region. A group of mostly younger officers established the Free Officers movement in the late 1940s. Soon after the coup, its guiding member, Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser, became Egypt's president. They launched their coup to put an end to corruption, ineptitude, and treason. They did not, at first, offer a grand ideologiical vision. Instead, they promised to work with the private sector and the least objectionable political parties, and to restore democracy once they had ironed things out. For this reason, the Free Officers referred to themselves and their coup merely as a "movement." Only later did they retrospectively overstate their sense of purpose by replacing the word "movement" with "revolution." This is not to say, however, that the Free Officers or other military cliques who seized power between 1949 and 1958 were ideologically barren. As urban dwellers, graduates of military academies, and the products of lower middle. or middle-class upbringing at a time when those classes formed the nucleus of new political curents, military ofticers were very conscious of the political controversies of the day. They also inhabited an environment that provided them with a set Ofassumptions about modernity and progress. Nevertheless, military conspirators throughout the region only began promoting comprehensive programs to restructure their economies and societies after the Suez War/Crisis of 1956. The war was a debacle, an ill-conceived invasion of Egypt by British, French, and Israeli forces that Egyptians still call the Tripartite Aggression. The three states launched their invasion to topple Nasser's govern-vent because the Egyptian leader had become a thorn in the side of all three. He had nationalized the Suez Canal, was supporting Algerian insurgents against French rule, obstructed Israeli sea lanes, and had just concluded an arms deal with Czechoslovakia that threatened to upset the regional balance of power. The invasion did not topple Nasser's government. international pressure forced the invading states to withdraw their forces before they could achieve their aim. As a result of the failure of Britain, France, and Israel to realize their goal, the war actually raised Nasser's political stock both at home and throughout the region. Overall, the invasion had three results for the eastern Arab world and Egypt. 1. First, it convinced Nasser that the Free Officers had not yet eliminated the twin threats of domestic reaction and foreign imperialism. From that moment on, the regime would no longer seek accommodation with the forces of reaction and imperialism. It would seize the property of reactionaries and imperialists and use it to finance rapid economic and social development. 2. The Suez War also created a political atmosphere in Iraq that made the overthrow of the monarchy by a military coup almost a foregone conclusion. That coup took place in 1958. Others soon followed, introducing policies to Iraq first sampled in Egypt. 3. Finally, Nasser's anti-imperialist stance incited political groupings in Syria to demand unification with Egypt. Foremost of these groupings was the Bath (Resurrection) Party. Founded in 1949, the party found support among intellectuals who wanted Arab unity, as well as among hardcore organizers who brought to the party populist demands for economic and social reform. Bathist regimes, a bit less ideological but no less fervent about holding on to power, have controlled the Syrian government since 1963 and retained control of Irag until 2003. The unification of Egypt and Syria took place in 1958 with the establishment of the United Arab Republic. It lasted for three years. During that time, the Egyptians exported their model for development directly to Syria. Wherever military officers and their "civilianized" successors took control (first in Egypt, Syria, and Irag, then in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan), their first goal was to weaken or break the power of previously existing elites. In some cases—-Egypt, Iraq, and Libya—-they deposed a monarch, confiscated his property, and dissolved the venue for distributing royal patronage, the court. Coup leaders also dismissed parliaments that had provided landowning notables with a base for their political maneuverings and disbanded political parties they felt were more part of the problem than part of the solution. Alongside these political measures, the coup leaders destroyed the power of he old elites by striking at their economic power. One of the ways they did this was through land reform. On the eve of the 1963 revolution in Svria, for example, 60 percent of peasants were landless. In Iraq, the figure was 80 percent. But whatever the need, the revolutionary regimes found land reform to be a convenient way to weaken their rivals. At the same time, the new regimes viewed land reform as a means to gain the support of the rural masses and extend their control over them. The Egyptian program of land reform was typical of the sort of program other states would come to adopt. The Egyptian government placed ceilings on the amount of land that individuals or families could own and redistributed holdings to peasants. Peasants who received land had to join cooperatives set up by the state to organize and improve production, control the sale and pricing of agricultural goods, and provide credit. Military coups empowered representatives of the so-called new middle class (professionals, administrators, managers), and of provincial and rural society. Throughout the region, employees of the expanded bureaucracies had similar provincial and lower middle-class back-grounds. As a result, government policies came to reflect their concerns and the concerns of others like them who became the main beneficiaries of expanding services, such as healthcare, education, rent stabilization, and food subsidies provided by governments. To pay for these services, military governments took over entire sectors of the economy. They did this for other reasons as well— to end their nations dependence on international markets and the industrialized West, to break the back of industrialists and others who had, more often than not, proven themselves hostile to the new rulers, and to tighten their control over their populations. nationalizations enabled the regimes to diminish the influence of foreigners, political enemies, and "resident-aliens" over the economies of their countries. Controlling economic resources enabled states to expand their role in society and to rearrange society so that they might control it better. Through cen-rally planned economies and unopposed state power, governments used incentives to gain the compliance of their citizens and reward those sectors of society the governments claimed to represent. But while the revolutionary states curtailed the rights of organized labor, they expanded the rights of women. The Egyptian government, for example, recognized women as a distinct category of society whose needs it deemed worthy of special consideration. The Egyptian constitutions of 1956 and 1962 guaranteed equal opportunities to all Egyptians regardless of gender. The Egyptian state granted women the right to vote (as had the Syrian state after its first military coup), and guaranteed women paid maternity leave and the right to child care is employed at a large facility. Notwithstanding their stated commitment to social justice, the regimes stepped into this social minefield and promoted "state feminism" for two other reasons. First, they aspired to appease middle-class sentiment and to displace feminist organizations that had been active in the region since the 1920s. These organizations might have participated in liberal challenges to their rule. Second, the regimes sought to further their control over the private lives of their citizens in much the same way as had Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Reza Shah before them. Iranian shah's White Revolution: Like the Bathists, the shah committed his government to wide-ranging social and economic reforms, including a land reform program. The shah felt that land reform would placate American policymakers who continued to believe that land reform imposed from the top would prevent a social upheaval from below. The shah also sought to take the wind out of the sails of his liberal and leftist opponents Besides, land reform would break the power of rural landlords, link the peasantry directly to the central government, and thus strengthen the shah's power. The program restricted the number of villages that landowners could own and redistributed land to those peasants who could prove they had sharecropping rights. The shah's government compensated landowners with shares in state-owned industries that the White Revolution also expanded. Unfortunately for the shah, many were left un-satisfied. Historians often cite the unpopularity or failure of the White Revolution when cataloguing the reasons behind the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979. From republican Egypt to monarchic Saudi Arabia to Islamist Iran, governments still play a major role in the economic sphere. In most states a small, close-knit ruling group stood above the fray, dispensing goodies to favored clients. This bound populations to their governments and made those populations complicit in a political system that otherwise excluded them. In most states, what passed for political debate entailed little more than disputes over the allocation of resources. Then there is the problem of repression. Because the revolutionary regimes claimed to represent the "will of the nation," they repressed their opponents and classified whole layers of society as "enemies of the people." The heyday of the so-called revolutionary model in the Arab East was short-lived. A combination of nationalizations, foreign assistance, and oil revenues had buoyed the economies of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq from their decolonization through the 1970s. By the early 1980s, events compelled the governments of all three to change course. Centralized economic planning had proved to be just as inefficient in the Arab Middle East as it had in other parts of the world. States had run out of properties to nationalize and, after a rapid climb, oil prices once again bottomed out. To make matters even worse for all three states, the world economy had entered into a crisis period. And with the triumph of the United States over its adversaries in the Global South, neoliberal economic policies became the order of the day. The result everywhere was the worst of both possible worlds. States held on to the most profitable sources of income, such as oil production, along with the least profitable, which they could not sell off even at fire-sale prices. Privatization did not lead to capitalism, but rather to crony capitalism as regime insiders took advantage of their access to the halls of power to make insider deals. Little wonder, then, that corruption and economic privation, along with unfettered autocracy, would emerge as principal grievances expressed by those who took to the streets in 2010-2011, or that the first impulse of the autocrats who faced uprisings was to promise their populations jobs, increased sub-sidies, and other goodies that would have, in effect, turned back the clock to a period before "economic reform."

Gelvin 291-320 CHAP 16: OIL

Oil production has affected state formation and sustained autocratic governments in the middle east in a number of ways: --First, those states blessed with oil revenue used it to manipulate public attitudes and behaviors and to maintain the "benefits" part of the "benefits for compliance" ruling bargain, thus possibly buying off dissent. --It enabled oil-producing states to assist less fortunate states so that those states might attempt to buy off their populations as well. The oil producers did this by providing loans and direct grants to other states and by providing the surplus labor living in those states with jobs. --Oil revenue also enabled oil-producing states to come to the aid of their less fortunate neighbors to fight external aggression and domestic insurrection. Saudi Arabia supported the Yemeni monarchists against Yemeni republicans backed by Egyptian troops in the 1960s and, along with the UAE, Saudi Arabia sent troops and police into Bahrain during Bahrain's 2011 uprising. --And because they sat on a pool of oil, the West--particularly the United States—had an added incentive to support some of the most hideous regimes on the planet in the name of promoting stability. Economists call the type of revenue generated from oil and similar sources "rent." They define rent as income acquired by states from sources other than taxation In no other area of the world have so many states been so reliant on income derived from rent as in the Middle East. Every state in the region depends on income from rent to a greater or lesser extent. Nevertheless, oil was not an important commodity for the Middle East until the twentieth century. In fact, oil was not a particularly important commodity anywhere until the last decades of the nineteenth century. The so-called oil revolution that culminated in the 1970s was nothing more than a step-by-step whittling down of these concessions and privileges (to Europeans/US) by the countries under whose territory oil lay. In 1973, Iran negotiated what was, in effect, a takeover of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Persian Gulf countries, beginning with Kuwait and Dubai, joined the bandwagon in 1975. Rather than using the term "nationalization," which would have raised red flags in the minds of Western diplomats, they called their takeovers "100 percent participation" in the consortia working in their territories. Most did not attempt to acquire 100 percent participation overnight. But One hundred percent participation is, in effect, nationalization. Oil-producing states were able to assume greater control over their most important resource in part because they acted in concert. The result was the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), founded to ensure "the unification of the petroleum policies of member countries and the determination of the best means for safeguarding their interests." OPEC came into its own during the late 1960s and early 1970s as states in the Global South, which came to dominate international fora such as the United Nations General Assembly, put the economic dimension to the right of self-determination on the international agenda. OPEC ministers meet regularly to decide how much oil each producer should pump. The meetings are commonly contentious, a perennial clash between "price hawks" and "price doves." Saudi Arabia is in the latter category. Saudi Arabian ministers have traditionally fought to keep prices down to prevent new sources of oil from becoming economical. The Saudis also fear that high oil prices would encourage the West to turn to alternative sources of energy, such as nuclear or solar power. Iran, on the other hand, has a large population and an industrial infrastructure that Saudi Arabia can only envy. Since the 1950s, it has sought to end its dependence on oil revenues by becoming an industrial power. Iranian ministers therefore argue for higher prices so that they might reap immediate profits to invest in their industrial economy of the future. Then they return home and present the determination of that round of negotiations to their governments, which then cheat. Even during the collapse of oil prices in 2014-2016, OPEC members consistently overproduced, the main culprits being Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. Should OPEC members increase production to deal with lost market share, prices will continue to decline; should they cut production to raise prices, their market share will continue its slide. However things have turned out, the decade of the 1970s seemed to mark the beginning of a new era for both the Middle East and the rest of the world. BUT—No dramatic change took place in the relative positions of the West and the Middle East as a result of the oil revolution. In fact, oil has had much the same effect on the twentieth-century Middle East as had cotton on nineteenth-century Egypt. Both reinforced a pattern of trade that has been favorable to the West. This is not to sav that the oil revolution brought no changes to the region. Rather, it is to say that the changes brought about by the oil revolution have mainly affected economic, political, and social life within the Middle East itself. What this has meant for the region is, however, controversial. Some political scientists argue that an overdependence on rent is actually the Achilles heel of Middle Eastern governments. They assert that governments in the region have been dangerously dependent on the international market or on the goodwill of foreign governments. If those sources of revenue dry up-if, for example, the price of oil plummets or foreign governments cut off aid--states have no safety net to make up the shortfall. Because citizens of rent-dependent states are bound to their governments in the same way that clients are bound to patrons, the theory goes, once the subsidies or jobs or welfare benefits dry up, the bond connecting them may very well break. It was for this very reason that soon after the outbreak of the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011, the Saudi Arabian government offered Saudi citizens a particularly generous bonus package to keep them quiet—worth $130 billion in the form of sixty thousand new government jobs, a raise in the public sector minimum wage, bonuses for state employees, half a million new housing units, and personal debt relief. MIGRANT LABOR Although Arabs initially made up a vast majority of guest workers in the Gulf, Gulf states worried lest those workers bring with them politically and socially subversive ideas, which as Arabic-speakers, they might spread to native populations. As a result, Gulf states increasingly looked to their own populations for labor--a policy called "job nationalization." More significantly, they also looked to South Asia. In 1975, 90 percent of the foreign workers in the Gulf came from Arab countries; twenty years later, that percentage number had topped to 38 percent. This decrease, of course, closed the social safety valve on which non-oil producers had come to rely. Labor migration from South Asia and elsewhere has created divided societies in Gulf states and Saudi Arabia. Those states now comprise citizens who are entitled to government benefits and noncitizen guest workers who are not. Oil has had three further effects on the Middle East that merit mention here. First, as a result of its income from oil, the Gulf region, which many in the more populous and cosmopolitan regions of the Middle East considered a social and cultural backwater, assumed a new, important, and, at times, disruptive role in inter-Arab politics. Ex: Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened in the civil war in Yemen, which began in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising in that country. Oil wealth has also enabled Saudi Arabia to peddle its venomous Wahhabi doctrines globally Wahhabism acts as the gateway drug for many who go on to become jihadis. Finally, oil has made the region strategically important to outside powers, particularly the United States. (intervention in Kuwait)--

Bsheer, W(h)ither Arabian Peninsula Studies?

The Arabian Peninsula has played a central role in modern history. It is the birthplace of Islam and where Mecca, the destination of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, is located. It holds the world's largest petroleum reserves and has been central to the global ow of economic, political, intellectual, and cultural networks since the early twentieth century. Yet these realities are not reected in the scholarship on the Middle East. If anything, the latter largely approaches the peninsula as a backwater of politics, culture, and civilization. This chapter interrogates the politics of knowledge production on the peninsula, especially as they intersect with questions of power, culture, and imperialism. Addressing some of the critical scholarship in Arabian Peninsula studies, it moves on to a discussion of the politics of history-making in Saudi Arabia before concluding with a brief note on the role of Yemen therein. A most deafening silence has prevailed in the academic world since Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a war on Yemen in March 2015. With the exception of a few scholars of Yemen,1 scholars of the Middle East in general, and the Arabian Peninsula in particular, have all but turned a blind eye to the urgency of critical analysis on the humanitarian, sociopolitical, and environmental catastrophes overtaking the southwestern region of the peninsula. This has opened up the eld for what historian Toby C. Jones once called "instant experts"2 to dominate public statements (and thus knowledge production) on Yemen—sparse as they may be—with little to no rigorous analysis of Yemen. Embedded within the nexus of think tanks, public relations rms, and governments, these "experts" have instead prioritized the security concerns, national interests, and dominant narratives of external powers and their local allies over those of the people bearing the brunt of unfathomable violence. Geopolitics is thus reduced to a simple game of identity politics that privileges the (un)analytical category of "sectarianism." The net effect has been to elide how decades of destructive Saudi intervention and US counterterrorism policies in Yemen have produced the current reality in the country. If political turmoil is a productive site for critical scholarly examination, then something has gone terribly amiss in Arabian Peninsula studies, to the extent that such a field exists. For not only is the absence of sustained critical analysis in the face of brute regime force in the peninsula commonplace, but it is also emblematic of the state of Arabian Peninsula studies more broadly. The peninsula remains marginal in Middle East studies and beyond. This is despite its centrality to the broader circuits of power, counterrevolution, capital, labor, popular mobilization, and religion that have shaped world history. On the other hand, within the field itself, long-entrenched analytic frameworks have persisted. Scholarship on Arabia has largely embraced the myopic focus on oil, religion, and security. It has also received the artificial, and very much political, separation between Yemen and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The result has been deep ignorance of the southwest region of the peninsula and its people, history, and contemporary politics. This ignorance has both enabled and normalized the analytical silence around the current war on Yemen. While the aggressor Gulf states have suffered great material losses as a result of the ongoing war, they have so far emerged with narrative power on their side and the ability to shape global discourse on the war. That political practices and institutions work to shape the form and content of knowledge produced about peoples, places, and events is not surprising. They are constitutive of all political governance and the ways in which power operates, as Edward Said and others have argued. To be sure, the various regimes of the Arabian Peninsula are complicit in obscuring political, cultural, social, and economic realities therein. They have long invested in shaping knowledge production on the peninsula's history and that of their own. In so doing, they aim to render invisible, among other things, the decades-long popular opposition to conservative and authoritarian systems of rule as well as the struggle for political, civil, social, and economic rights. Such realities betray official representations of conservative populations that are docile, supportive of the unaccountable regimes that have ruled over them for decades, and—in the case of the oil- rich states—politically pacified by distributive wealth The petroregimes of the peninsula have institutionalized various limits to knowledge production and access to information. Following the Arab uprisings, and increasingly so after the ongoing war on Yemen, the GCC states further escalated their punitive measures against critics of state policies Severe as the censorial and punitive measures of the peninsula's regimes may be, they are not as exceptional as scholars and laypeople often portray them. They are part of our daily political lexicon. After all, power and knowledge are co-constitutive, and governments everywhere engage in such practices to varying degrees. Yet they are stark reminders of the nondemocratic machinations that even so-called liberal democracies practice to prevent or punish certain forms of criticism. The regimes of the Arabian Peninsula are no different Despite the challenges of conducting research in and on the Arabian Peninsula, a critical scholarship has emerged since the turn of the twenty-first century. This chapter engages some of the intellectual directions that the English-language scholarship on the peninsula has taken, before turning to my own work on Saudi Arabia and the significance of Yemen therein.8 The goal is not to take stock of the state of the field or to review its rich historiography. Rather, the chapter aims to highlight the latter's methodological rigor, conceptual interventions, and intellectual significance to other fields and disciplines. In other words, it is to take seriously the view of the Middle East from one of the world's most penetrated and diverse regions. Against all odds, the Arabian Peninsula emerges in this scholarship as an exciting site of theory-making that confronts structures of political domination, economic exploitation, and cultural reductionism. Dominant Frameworks in the Study of the Arabian Peninsula Indeed, political economists of the modern Middle East have relied on Rentier State Theory to explain the prevalence of authoritarianism and single- commodity economies as well as the alleged absence of popular politics in the Arabian Peninsula and its neighbors. They did so with little regard to historical specificity and political realities. That British and US imperial powers were party to the very making, and survival, of the conservative and hereditary regimes in the Gulf did not factor into their analyses Neither did the central role that Islamic conservatism, Gulf authoritarianism, and petrocapital played in the success of global capitalism in the twentieth century.12 For these scholars, the existence of oil revenues was enough to explain the behavior of rulers and ruled in these oil-producing states. When social, economic, or political realities did not fit the rentier model, as was often the case, they were either ignored or subsequently theorized as exceptions to the rule. The success of Rentier State Theory was, at best, premised on a selective reading of the past. The challenges of conducting research in the Arabian Peninsula, coupled with orientalist tropes on religion, tribalism, and gender, facilitated the production and circulation of knowledge that was neither rigorous nor archivally grounded. Further, proponents of Rentier State Theory and other scholars of the peninsula took imperial and other archives at face value. These scholars failed to see the myriad attempts of Arabian regimes to diversify their economies, even if these regimes only did so to ensure their own longevity. They also did not take seriously the decades-long popular political mobilizations that sought a more equitable future, such as those in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen that called for economic and social justice and an end to authoritarianism and imperialism. . So dominant was the Rentier State Theory framework that not only did it shape research agendas on the region and dictate what people and scholars outside the region came to believe about the peninsula, but it also obscured critical scholarship In privileging theory at the expense of everyday life, these scholars of Arabia produced the peninsula as a place without history, politics, or people (as historical agents). In many ways, this echoed the ideologies of Gulf Arab regimes, which, for the better part of the twentieth century, encouraged an ahistorical and apolitical understanding of the states they ruled. They did so in order to shore up their own political legitimacy and downplay their codependent relationship with imperial powers. If Arabia is said to have no history, short of that of the monarchies, or a history that is not really worth incorporating in the classroom, then that is because of the prevalent views that the reactionary forces in power there have propagated. To regurgitate such views is thus to be complicit in the violence that the peninsula's regimes have done to the diverse histories of Arabia and its people. The not-so-covert war in Yemen—which was designated a "combat zone" in April 2002—coupled with the 2003 Iraq War and subsequent occupation only raised the stakes. This defensive scholarship aimed to at once dispel misconceptions about the region, its people, and politics, while somehow offering a corrective to the foreign-policy decision of the George W. Bush administration. Pursuing new lines of inquiry, this emerging scholarship signals the importance of connecting Arabia— conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically—to regional and global developments from which they have long been disconnected. Beyond Area Studies? Arabian Peninsula Studies in the Twenty-First Century The last decade thus featured a prominence in much-needed critical local histories and ethnographies that were at once attuned to the transregional and global dynamics that shaped everyday life across the peninsula . The rise of a new generation of scholars coincided with several significant developments in the region. Importantly, and following the initial defensive reactions to the September 2001 attacks, peninsular regimes sought to remake the image of the states they ruled. As a result, they eventually eased up restrictions to entering some of the region's countries and to conducting limited archival and ethnographic research. The richness of the emerging literature defies summary. However, a few broad thematic interventions are worth mentioning: Some of the scholarship, for example, took on the intersection of capitalism, class, labor, space, and law to complicate conventional ideas about political, economic, and social power.23 Indeed, it turned out that the authoritarian regimes of the peninsula were not formed outside class politics and global economic processes. On the contrary, class formation and dominant capitalist orientations were as instrumental to the production and maintenance of power in the peninsula as they were—and are—in states elsewhere. Therein, the reliance on coercive labor was both instrumental and necessary. It also further connected Arabia to different parts of Asia and Africa. Historically, imperialism and slavery in Arabia, along with trans-Atlantic slavery, undergirded the formation of modern capitalism. As Matthew Hopper has shown, slavery in the Middle East was not constitutively dierent, and somehow more benign, than its Atlantic counterpart, as some scholars have argued.24 The demand for goods led to the enslavement of Africans as commodities in the Arabian Peninsula as elsewhere. Cheap migrant workers grew alongside forced labor, with the peninsula's economies becoming mostly dependent on them by the last quarter of the twentieth century. This social group has attracted great attention in recent years. Shedding light on their political, social, and cultural lifeworlds, and not simply their exploitation, has been a welcome development. Studying migrant labor has helped us more critically understand the politics of identity, citizenship, gender, and sociocultural exchange among migrant workers and other residents of the peninsula Other forms of migration, travel, trade, and commerce between the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and East Africa have been equally important. They reveal the trans-regional/national dynamics of exchange to be crucial to political, social, economic, and urban life and forms of belonging.25 The circulation of people, commodities, and ideas also had an indelible influence on the diverse cultures of the peninsula, including on religion. . Sectarianism emerges in this literature as a contextualized and historicized phenomenon, one that the regimes of the peninsula and their imperial supporters have varyingly deployed as a tool of control since state formation, but increasingly so since 1979.28 Where the 1960s saw local regimes in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, and elsewhere cooperate with US forces to brutally crush leftist movements, 1979 epitomized the decade-long marginalization of these secular movements and the privileging of reactionary Islamist politics. As I argue elsewhere, 1979 was a turning point in world history, not simply that of the Arabian Peninsula.29 That year's Iranian Revolution, the takeover of Mecca, the uprising in Saudi Arabia's Qatif, and the war in Afghanistan all brought religion and politics closer together. In so doing, they altered the sociopolitical landscape in the Middle East, with consequences for contemporary political life around the world. Critical explorations of transnational subjectivities were not limited to the study of religious life and socialization. Indeed, the circulation of people and ideas was central to the emergence of leftist, anticolonial, and antiauthoritarian movements as well as networks of solidarity across the Indian Ocean world throughout the twentieth century.30 Identity—broadly conceived—was intertwined with experiences of urbanization, time, materiality, and political and cultural modes of socialization.31 Exploring urbanization, in particular, has been a growing line of inquiry in Arabian Peninsula studies, one that has linked practices of urban (petro)modernity to everyday political and social life in the last century Saudi Arabia: Knowledge, History, Politics Despite these rich histories and complex connections, and perhaps because of them, the Saudi regime has long endeavored to assert local and regional control over the press, the media, scholarship, and academic institutions. The aim was to project a sanitized, teleological narrative of state formation wherein Al Saud were the only legitimate rulers of the 1932 state and its imagined antecedents, the so-called first and second Saudi states. It was also to elide the regime's many contradictory domestic and foreign policies from the purview of Saudi subjects. Increased access to Arab satellite television networks and then to Internet servers encroached on the kingdom's ability to control the discursive realm on Saudi Arabia. In addition, the September 11, 2001 attacks as well as the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq presented a paradoxical and stark image that the regime needed to spin in its favor. In the former, the attacks on US soil were largely planned and orchestrated by subjects in, and residents of, Saudi Arabia. In the latter, and not for the first time, Saudi Arabia supported a US invasion of another Arab state, this time in the name of the global "war on terror." Around the same time in the early 2000s, al-Qāʿida operatives struck inside Saudi Arabia. They targeted foreigners, local residents, and domestic institutions and assets in their quest to pressure the Saudi regime to expel US troops—remnants of the 1991 Gulf War—from Saudi Arabia. Despite its domestic counterterrorism agenda, the Saudi regime supported Sunni insurgents in Iraq who years later formed the Islamic State. Through these developments, the kingdom remained one of the US government's strongest allies in the Middle East. Following the Arab uprisings at the end of the decade, the regime had much to conceal and repackage by way of improving its own image abroad while revisiting its internal mechanisms of subject formation and political legitimation. In many ways, Yemen played a huge role in Saudi domestic and regional politics since the formation of the Saudi state in 1932. But the 1962 revolution on Saudi Arabia's southwestern borders, which started the war, proved especially alarming to Faisal and his supporters in the ruling family, especially the Sudayri brothers.35 Because it firmly pitted Faisal against Abdel Nasser, the most popular of Arab leaders, it attracted unprecedented internal opposition, both military and civilian. The revolution also came on the heels of intense developments inside Saudi Arabia. Popular optimism and anti-authoritarian activism had spread throughout the kingdom following King Saud's 1960 radio broadcast of a new constitution and 1962 announcement that he would not renew the US Dhahran Airfield accord.36 The revolution in Yemen thus exacerbated the Saudi regime's financial, military, and political problems. Yet, alarming as it may have been, the 1962 revolution on Arabia's southwestern borders presented an opportunity for Faisal and the Sudayri brothers to consolidate their power and dictate the emerging shape of the Saudi state as well as the regional power balance. But when Faisal forcibly took control of the throne from Saud in 1964, he was primarily alarmed with the symbolic threats that Gamal Abdel Nasser presented to his rule. Not only was the Egyptian president increasingly popular inside the kingdom, but his relentless war of information against the monarchy, which continued until Abdel Nasser's death in 1970, also proved especially incriminating. The fledgling Saudi state bureaucracy had neither the technical nor the human infrastructures needed to compete with Egypt's seasoned multimedia government mouthpieces. Intent on remedying the imbalance, Faisal pleaded with successive US administrations to prevent Egyptian propaganda against the kingdom. He also asked the US government for the technical equipment and training needed to bolster the regime's symbolic capital. In contradistinction to his predecessor, Faisal invested in firmly controlling the production and circulation of knowledge on Arabia and its monarchy, starting with an unofficial ban on any mention, oral or written, of Saud. He issued new media, publishing, and archiving laws and signed bilateral cultural cooperation protocols that kept records on mid-twentieth-century Arabia in foreign and corporate archives inaccessible long past their declassification dates. Faisal's regime resorted to developing and centralizing mass education, and the historiographical self-representation of the Saudi state in particular, employing a network of non-Saudi historians, poets, and writers.42 The goal was to solidify a homogeneous, Najd-based and religiously framed "Saudi identity" against the competing secular populist ideologies that had challenged Al Saud's rule. At the same time, Faisal's regime mobilized education as a tool through which it could both reconcile differences with its opponents and build new alliances. In this way, Faisal's regime connected official historical praxis and knowledge production on Arabia to the necessity of foreclosing political and socio intellectual challenges of the mid-twentieth century. Therein, producing a more homogeneous public and a benign, ahistorical narrative of the Saudi past was necessary. Control over historical production thus amplified practices of power and constrained the unfolding of alternative futures while producing and refracting social, cultural, and political differences. Such practices were, and remain, central for transforming Al Saud's territorial empire into an authoritarian petrostate, with its deep-seated violence to the very idea of the self as connected to ones that have come before. The counterrevolutionary measures that Faisal adopted in the late 1960s had the intended effect of stifling knowledge production on Arabia, particularly, but not exclusively, on the formative decades of the mid- twentieth century. His regime succeeded in consigning this crucial period in Saudi history to an insignificant moment in an otherwise important era of state and economic formation. Additionally, it was able to flatten the history of Arabia and confine it to that of the Saudi-Wahhabi quest for imperial territorial control. State-sanctioned historiography in Saudi Arabia thus severed Saudi Arabia's diverse subjects and spaces from their cosmopolitan pasts, identities, and intellectual trajectories, oriented as they were toward the northeastern littoral of the Gulf, North Africa, East Africa, and Southeast Asia.45 Instead, it rendered pre- and early modern state forms as insular, apolitical, and outside history's inexorable march. But various parts of the Arabian Peninsula were connected to transnational political, economic, and cultural formations that predate the advent of Al Saud's state and the petroeconomy and that persisted long after the formation of the modern state. Rendering these historical narratives visible brings into conceptual view the intersection of Saudi state-making, history writing, and imperial formation. It reveals the multiple identities, histories, and potentialities that Saudi Arabia offered and the violence done in and to its histor Authoritarianism, Imperialism, and the Politics of Knowledge Production Not unlike that historical moment, the ongoing Saud-led counterrevolutionary campaigns in the Middle East allowed the GCC regimes to individually and collectively consolidate their own power. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, in particular, emerged as the strongest Arab states. They dictated regional policies and shaped how the world viewed them and the many conflicts and wars in which they were embroiled. Their ability to buy off scholars in some of the highest echelons of academic institutions in Europe and the United States only reified and gave credence to their state- sanctioned narratives, as did the infrastructures of knowledge production and dissemination that they either controlled or held sway over around the world. Given the increasing power of the authoritarian GCC states, unpacking knowledge production on the peninsula is all the more urgent. Doing so furthers the recent empirical, conceptual, and political interventions of scholarship on the peninsula in several ways: first, by exposing what the peninsula's regimes want elided from official discourses. This, in turn, reveals their anxieties, domestic and regional transgressions, and the alliances that enable such practices. Second, by marginalizing state-driven, top- down histories and instead narrating pasts that regimes of the peninsula have long attempted to conceal. Finally, by confronting the growing discourses of Gulf exceptionalism and dispelling the stereotypes that these regimes and their foot soldiers perpetuate to obscure the daily struggles of the people of Arabia. Peoples in the Arabia Peninsula, much like their brethren elsewhere, have suffered from economic inequality, poverty, and myriad other socioeconomic issues. Far from being shielded from dire economic realities and summarily pacified by oil wealth, they have a history of resilience against brutal regimes that pride themselves on having unbridled US and European support. The peoples of the peninsula have, at great cost, engaged in various forms of political activism, from signing petitions to joining peaceful protests. For the fifth year in a row, Bahrainis have taken to the streets as part of an ongoing uprising that still requires the military and intelligence intervention of Saudi Arabia to keep it under control. If what little attention the Bahraini uprising received since 2011 has all but come to a halt, that in Yemen has attracted even less coverage. The US "war on terror" long predated, and established the conditions for, the Yemeni uprising in 2011-12. Carried out under the Bush and then Obama administrations, the war on terror had drastically undermined Yemeni sovereignty and condence in state institutions.48 As the central government was shown to be increasingly impotent in its control over its own territory, alternative claims to territorially based belonging and political authority were strengthened. More than other popular mobilizations, the uprising on Saudi Arabia's southern borders caused an internal crisis among the kingdom's ruling classes. Indeed, it was a peaceful and successful uprising until Saudi Arabia and the United States intervened to halt it by endorsing a transnational plan and imposing it on the Yemenis, despite growing signs of the reconstitution of authoritarian governance. In March 2015, the United States, United Kingdom, and a coalition of regional states led by Saudi Arabia began an unprovoked war on Yemen. At this time, no border had been breached by troops, no bombs had landed on neighboring lands, and no foreign citizens had been imprisoned or killed. This was always a move to ensure a compliant regime reliably outside the sphere of Iranian influence, despite claims of support for the restoration of the "legitimate" government of Yemen. In addition to causing the unimaginable loss of life, the war enabled, among other things, al-Qāʿida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to strengthen its stronghold inside Yemen. This, in turn, has given Saudi Arabia and the United States further justification to continue their wars in Yemen, with little regard for civilian casualties, as the latest commando raid under drone cover by the Trump administration indicates.49 Such a circular logic is part of counterterrorism strategies, but it also undergirds the politics and technologies of knowledge production. Indeed, it has enabled authoritarian regimes such as that of Saudi Arabia and others to silence criticism and crush dissent and any form of political opposition in the name of the war on terror. With the emergence of the Islamic State, and the absence of political legitimacy, these regimes are sure to continue deploying such logics to ensure their own survival and longevity. Conclusion This chapter details the ways in which the Arabian Peninsula was largely written out of modern history except to explain the post-1970s vagaries of oil wealth, religion, and terrorism. The political rulers and their imperial supporters are first to blame for the empirical and conceptual marginalization of this otherwise prominent space and its people. But scholars are also liable for the persistence of this omission despite paying lip service to the centrality of the peninsula.

Gelvin 321-347 CHAP 18: RESISTANCE

The events in Tunisia, Turkey, and Iran demonstrate the breadth of issues contested by populations in the postcolonial Middle East. They also demonstrate that neither religion, tribalism, unique history, nor any other factor commonly attributed to the region has prevented the same social and political movements found elsewhere in the world from emerging there. As in the rest of the world, there have been three possible foundations for social and political movements in the postcolonial Middle East: utopianism, nativism, and demands for the restoration or expansion of rights. Utopian movements seek to rebuild society wholesale by overthrowing the old order and replacing it with an entirely new one. Marxism and anarchism, both European imports that found adherents in the Middle East, belong to this category. Nativists believe that the only means to bring about the regeneration of a particular community is by that community's embrace of its authentic, defining traditions. Inasmuch as the Young Ottomans of the nineteenth century believed that the only way to preserve the empire from the depredations of the West was by reasserting the Islamic principles that were its bedrock, they might be considered to have had a strong nativist streak. So might the "orthodox" ulama. The only thing that makes nativism in the Islamic world different from nativism elsewhere is that Islam can be mobilized to play a role in defining authenticity there. The third basis for social and political movements in the postcolonial Middle East is the claim for rights, be they for social and economic justice or for collective or individual rights. The three episodes with which this chapter began depict social and political movements organized to assert claims for such rights, although in all three cases instead of sticking with their original demands for the redress of specific grievances, protesters went on to challenge the authority of the state itself. Most postcolonial social and political movements, however, have combined nativism with an appeal to rights. The few remaining stateless nationalities in the region-the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Sahrawis in southern Morocco, for example-certainly do, as do all nationalists, who claim a right to self-determination based on a distinct linguistic, ethnic, religious, or historical tradi-tion. The remainder of this chapter looks at four varied instances of collective action in the region: the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, the rise and spread of Islamist movements from the 1980s onward, the emergence of secular rights-based movements beginning in the 1980s, and the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011. THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION The Iranian Revolution combined nativism with demands for social justice and individual rights. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had used Iran's vast oil wealth to engage in social engineering, consolidate his own power, and expand the state's intrusion into the lives of its citizenry as well as the state's repressive power. The shah's policies sparked widespread disaffection. The shah alienated "traditional elites," such as rural landowners and the ulama. He initiated a draconian land reform program (the "White Revolution") that upset the social and economic order in the countryside and placed much of Iran's agricultural sector in the hands of multinational agribusiness companies (upsetting peasants). Ulama, many of whom were also landlords, opposed the shah's expansion of public education at the expense of religious education, his acquiescence to a treaty granting legal immunity to large numbers of American diplomatic and military personnel in Iran --a move they interpreted as submitting Iran to foreign domination—-and his government's enfranchisement of women. Both groups wielded wide influence among the population. The so-called traditional middle class also paid a price for the shah's obsession with "modernization." Urban redevelopment leveled bazaars in the popular quarters of cities, displacing shop owners (bazaaris) whose economic and social connections placed them at the forefront of urban crowds and protest move-ments. Finally, the shah alienated intellectuals, human rights advocates, labor activ-ists, and members of the secular middle class in multiple ways. He imposed strict censorship. He restricted political participation and banned independent political parties. He was at the center of a network of corruption that enriched him and his family to the tune of anywhere between $5 billion and $20 billion. He built a security apparatus (SAVAK) of upwards of sixty thousand agents to spy on and terrorize the population. And he jailed and tortured political dissidents. the story of the revolution actually goes back to the 1960s, when armed groups, modeling themselves on the Algerian and Palestinian liberation movements, undertook a guerilla war against the state. Some borrowed their ideas from an Iranian writer and political activist, Ali Shariati, who promoted a doctrine that combined elements of Islamic modernism and Marxist analysis. Shariati's ideas influenced a wide spectrum of Iranians, from university students to ulama. His denunciation of those who slavishly imitate the West; his advocacy of cultural authenticity; his division of individual societies and whole nations into the categories of oppressor and oppressed; and his belief that the principal function of the state is to promote equal economic, political, and social rights combined the language of nativism with that of social justice and contained many of the elements of other Third World ideologies popular at the time. As influential as Shariati was as an ideologue, the principal architect of what was to become the Islamic Republic of Iran was a cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (ayatollah is a title granted to prominent teaching mutahids). Khomeini had first come to public attention in 1964 when he called on the shah to resign for signing the treaty with the Americans. As punishment, the shah forced him into exile, initially in Iraq, then France. It was during his exile in Iraq that Khomeini first proposed establishing Iran as a theocracy run, ultimately, by ulama. Khomeini's blueprint for the future of Iran was not the only one that was circulating at the time, and while ulama played a critical role in honing the message of the revolution, the revolution succeeded because of the widespread support it attracted. For example, a strike by oil field workers played an essential role in turning the tide in favor of the revolutionaries because it limited the access of the government to revenue. This frustrated the government's ability to suppress the revolution. Students, leftist guerrillas, members of the Tudeh (Communist) party, even women's groups all mobilized to get rid of the shah, putting issues of economic and social justice and human rights on the revolutionary table. Nevertheless, the ulama emerged on top for several reasons. Besides the fact that they enjoyed close ties to the urban masses, particularly the bazaaris who also played a prominent role in the revolution, they were able to speak a language that had broad appeal. The ulama were able to counter-pose their own brand of "cultural authenticity," as represented by the symbols of Shii Islam, to the secular nationalism of the shah's regime or the communism of the Tudeh party, both of which, they argued, were inauthentic because they had been imported from the West. Khomeini's blueprint for Iran is embodied in the Iranian constitution, adopted in 1979. According to the document, "Islamic principles were to provide the foundation for all laws of the Islamic republic." It would be up to the ulama to ensure respect for these principles. The first supreme leader was Ayatollah Khomeini, who dubbed this type of government a velayat-e faqih-that is, a government of the faqih. An assembly of clerics—the Assembly of Leadership Experts, to be precise—elected his successor, Sayyed Ali Khamenei, upon his death in 1989, as the constitution authorizes. Ulama also comprise the supreme court of the Islamic republic, the Supreme Judicial Council, as well as the Council of Guard-ians, whose job it is to ensure that laws passed by the majlis are compatible with Islam. But clerical control is not unfettered. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -a branch of the Iranian armed forces designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 2019-- along with the 400,000 man paramilitary basij command independent fiefdoms. The IRGC and the basi) derive their power not only from their military and police functions, but from the dominant role they play in the engineering, construction, oil and gas, banking, and armaments sectors of the economy (not to mention their role in the lucrative contraband trade, particularly when the international community or the United States has imposed sanctions on the regime). IRGC leaders (appointed by the supreme leader) have even headed the "Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled"-the former Pahlavi Foundation- an economic powerhouse. The "theocratic-republic" is thus not a true theocracy; rather, in the words of a dissident cleric, it functions as a "military-guardianship." There is no clear line delineating the functions of the religious leadership from that of the military. It might be argued that it was inevitable that Iran would continue to function as just another nation-state, albeit one that at times is particularly surly and contentious and more than willing to use any opportunity to spread its influence. This is because of the strength and resiliency of the international economic and state systems, because Iran cannot simply opt out of those systems, and because, in the end, Iran must play by the rules of those systems. For all its early identification as the spearhead of an international Islamic anti-imperialist movement, the international state system has forced Iran to conform to its dictates. When the United States froze Iranian assets in the aftermath of the takeover of its embassy in Tehran, the government of the Islamic republic took the dispute to the World Court. The World Court only recognizes states that conform to international norms as litigants. Overall, then, the modern economic and state systems gave the revolutionaries of the Islamic republic little leeway for accomplishing or even envisaging a new order that lay outside those systems. And here is the true irony of the Iranian Revolution. As much as Khomeini and his disciples might argue that they sought to purify Iranian society by returning it to its roots, the Iranian revolutionary model of government is, in many ways, borrowed from the West. ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS Soon after the Iranian Revolution, nativist movements that equated the regeneration of their communities with a return to Islamic governance or Islamic mores emerged throughout the Middle East and beyond. These Islamist movements were not new to the region. As we have seen, Hassan al-Banna had founded the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 as a tool for Islamic regeneration, . But during the 1980s and 1990s, the number of Islamist associations, parties, and even governments seeking to order their societies according to what they considered to be Islamic principles, be they Sunni or Shii, swelled. Over the years, social scientists have given several reasons for the proliferation of Islamist groups in the decades following the Iranian Revolution. Some have argued that the success of that revolution indicated to many in the region that Islam provided greater potential for social cohesion and successful political action than secular nationalisms—particularly after the dismal showing of those Arab states that advanced one or another form of secular nationalism in the 1967 War against Israel. Others have pointed out that the so-called Islamic resurgence that took place in the Middle East coincided with the oil price revolution and the infusion of huge amounts of money into the Gulf region. The governments of Gulf countries, along with newly enriched foundations sponsored by them and their citizens, used their wealth for mosque construction throughout the Muslim world, which provided the spaces in which Islamist groups might take shape. They also set up Islamic charities that influenced popular attitudes and practices, and educational institutions that inculcated a conservative brand of Islam prevalent in the Gulf. Still others have noted that governments of some countries in which Islamist movements have appeared also contributed to the phenomenon, either intentionally or unintentionally. While all these explanations are plausible, none are demonstrable. There is no way to account for intellectual fashion or why at a certain moment in history an idea becomes an idea whose time has come. And we shouldn't ignore other types of movements that formed in the postcolonial Middle East. As we shall see later, while most of the world was fixated on Islamist movements in the region, movements whose objective was to establish a social order that respected human and democratic rights also engaged in struggles with autocracies, as did those whose primary concerns were social and economic justice. Not all Islamist movements that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s took it upon themselves to target homegrown autocrats and their regimes for overthrow. While both Hizbullah and Hamas have successfully engaged in partisan politics in quasi-democratic systems and have even used violence against their domestic opponents, both had emerged in response to Israeli occupations of their homelands--Lebanon (1982-2000) and the Palestinian territories (1967-). They made resistance to Israel, a foreign enemy, their guiding principle. The Justice and Development Party of Turkey, on the other hand, built a sophisticated political machine that, when the time was ripe, won elections and formed governments. Over time, it became "the man" against which a left/liberal opposition railed. There were other opinions as well about the role of Islam in politics and the proper enemy to fight. Most salafi groups treated politics and politicians with derision (at least before the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011).They believed there was no point governing populations whose Islam had become so watered down that they are neither ready nor worthy of living in an Islamic state. Thus, they viewed their task as spreading the word (dawa) and engaging in social service and chat-ity work. Then there is the anomalous al-Qaeda, which, as we have seen, views the nation-state system as a trick perpetrated by the Crusader-Zionist conspiracy to divide Muslims from one another. Their fight is therefore not with local autocrats and their regimes, but with those autocrats' puppet masters, the far enemy. Nevertheless, during the 1980s and 1990s a significant number of Islamist groups saw themselves engaged in struggles against the regimes under which they lived. (violent and nonviolent) Overall, the Arab governments campaign against violent Islamist groups during the 1980s and 1990s might be judged a success for two reasons: It wiped out their violent opposition and it demonstrated that the tactics adopted by those groups were unproductive. There is another side to the story, however: It might also be argued that the Arab governments' campaign against violent Islamist groups during the 1980s and 1990s was an unmitigated disaster for those governments. There are two reasons this might be said. First, by demonstrating the inefficacy of violence, the governments' campaign created a political opening in which mass-based, nonviolent Islamist organizations such as those that performed so well in the 2011-2012 elections held in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt--might flourish. This is one of the reasons for the spread of people power-style movements throughout the region, which unlike their Leninist forebears, engaged huge numbers in protests that were not easily marginalized or suppressed. Second, the very tactics governments used to destroy violent Islamist groups -imposing emergency laws, expanding repression and the repressive apparatus, and the like-inspired rights-based protest movements that culminated in the uprisings of 2010-2011. SECULAR RIGHTS-BASED MOVEMENTS That which abetted and, indeed, encouraged, the emergence of rights-based protest movements was the diffusion of international norms of human rights and democratic governance throughout the world. Trends in the Middle East reflected global trends, and while governments barely, if at all, changed their policies, the diffusion of international norms provided activists with a stick with which to beat their governments as well as an international support system. Evidence for this diffusion might be found in a wave of protests and uprisings that began with the Berber Spring and continued throughout the region for the next thirty years. Like the uprisings of 2010-2011, these protests demanded social justice, democratic reform, and an end to human rights abuses. Among their number were the following: • The so-called Black October riots in Algeria (also dubbed, dismissively, the "Couscous Riots"), which began as a bread riot in Algiers and quickly took a political turn as protesters targeted regime corruption, torture and other forms of repression, and the lack of democratic institutions and rights. The ruling FLN took the protests so seriously that it offered a new constitution that guaranteed freedom of expression and association and made no mention of the FLN at all. • The brief "Damascus Spring" of 2000, a period of intense political ferment that began after the death of Syria's president of thirty years, Hafez al-Assad, and the accession of his son, Bashar al-Assad, to the presidency. The statements demanded, among other things, the end of the emergency law; the release of political prisoners; multiparty elections; and freedom of speech, assembly, and expression. Even after the Damascus Spring turned into the Damascus Winter, aftershocks of the mobilization continued. Among those aftershocks was the Damascus Declaration Movement of 2005, which (initially) united the secular and religious opposition in a common demand for democratic rights. Rights-based popular agitation in the region was not limited to demands for individual human rights. The imposition of neoliberal economic policies throughout the region also made demands for economic and social justice compelling and provoked popular resistance (such as the IMF riots of the 1980s) and a wave of worker activism of which the Gafsa strike was only one example. The growing militancy of Egyptian labor set the stage for the strike wave that spread throughout the country beginning on 8 February 2011. It was this strike wave that likely convinced the military to depose Mubarak three days later. The history of mass agitation for human and democratic rights that swept the region for thirty years raises the question of why no one saw the eruption of 2010-2011 coming. The answer is probably twofold. First, most observers were focused on the wars being waged between Arab regimes and their Islamist op-ponents. They thus viewed each protest for free elections, freedom of assembly, the end of emergency rule, and so forth, as an anomaly, driven by local issues, and not part of a pattern or wave. Second, it was commonplace to lump all Islamists together into an anti-democratic camp and to write off Islamists who participated in electoral activity, whether in professional organizations or parliamentary elections, as opportunists. It was also commonplace to highlight the differences between the nativist discourse of Islamists and the rights-based discourse of the liberal and leftist opposition, and to dismiss that opposition as being hopelessly out of touch with their deeply religious societies and as being minuscule in size. It is true that over the course of the past thirty years a significant number of Islamists doubled down on their nativism to the exclusion of all else and scorned the rhetoric of human rights as bida* (unlawful innovation). It is also true, how-ever, that a significant number of particularly younger Islamists responded to the possibilities for building coalitions with their more secular counterparts around a shared set of values against a common enemy THE ARAB UPRISINGS OF 2010-2011 In the first decades of the twenty-first century, the global financial collapse of 2007-2008 and the underside of neoliberal economic policies--the ripping up of ruling bargains, the savaging of social safety nets, the widening of the gap between rich and poor, the spread of crony capitalism, the reshaping of industrial and commercial and even spatial landscapes throughout the world—sparked pain and outrage across the globe. Within a short period of time, the disaffected raised the stakes. Rather than targeting their governments per se, they blamed the very system that seemed to have abandoned them. Some of them staged protests associated with specific sites: Wall Street, Gezi Park in Istanbul,. I And the Arab world had its uprisings. In each place, the disaffected drew from local repertoires of contentious action and translated global concerns into local vernaculars. In the Arab world, crony capitalism became "corruption" and the savaging of the social safety net and increased income disparities became the slogans, "Bread, Freedom, Social Justice and "A Job is a Right." The Arab uprisings that broke out in the wake of Muhammad Bouazizi's self-immolation were very much of their time. But they were very much of their place as well. As described earlier, Arab states combined brutality with impunity, sparking the protests and uprisings that had erupted throughout the region over the course of the previous thirty years. Like their predecessors, the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011 and those that broke out in the years after - spoke the language of human and democratic rights and social and economic justice. About a week and a half after the deposed president of Tunisia fled, protesters began their occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, as well as other sites throughout Egypt. Over the next several months, uprisings and protests spread to almost all of the twenty-two member Arab League, demonstrating the loathing many Arabs felt toward the regimes that governed them as well as the commonality of their experiences and problems. In Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, and elsewhere labor activists and organized labor played a key role in spreading and maintaining the momentum of up-risings. By declaring work stoppages, labor brought economic muscle to the up-risings. It also put social and economic justice issues front and center in rebellions often remembered solely for the demand for human and democratic rights. And, of course, Islamists and the youth wings of Islamist organizations smelling blood in the water oftentimes joined their more secular colleagues in their protests. In Tunisia and Egypt militaries stepped in to depose autocrats-Hosni Mubarak who had ruled for thirty years in the case of Egypt, Zine al-Abidine bin'Ali who had ruled for twenty-three in Tunisia - who faced widespread disaffection. The militaries thus cut the revolutionary process short, which, in turn, prevented a thorough house cleaning in both states. Tunisia and Egypt are unique in the Arab world: beginning in the nineteenth century, both experienced two centuries of continuous state. building. As a result, in both there were long lived, functioning institutions autonomous from the executive branch of the government. The military is one of those institutions, but there are others as well, including the judiciary and security services. Together, these institutions make up what political scientists call the "deep state" When faced with an unprecedented crisis, the institutions of the deep state closed ranks to protect themselves. The struggle between the deep state and the forces promoting change in both places defined the course of the two uprisings. When moderate Islamist organizations--Ennahda in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt--won popular mandates to form governments, the deep state joined forces with other remnants of the old regime and more secular-oriented groups within the population in defiance. In Egypt, the brotherhood saw itself locked in a battle to the death with its adversaries, who felt likewise. It therefore refused to share power with them, and even pushed through a constitution it drafted when it appeared that the judiciary was about to dissolve the constitution-drafting assembly on procedural grounds. As the crisis escalated -and as the Egyptian economy went into a free fall--hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets. The military stepped in once again, dissolved the brotherhood, had a constitution drafted that enhanced the power of the deep state, and established a regime far more repressive than Hosni Mubarak's. Things in Tunisia did not end up as badly. Unlike the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda did not overplay its hand. As a matter of fact, from the beginning Ennahda reached out to opposition parties and brought them into the government. And when faced with the same crises and oppositional forces faced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, as well as its opponents, stepped away from the precipice. Ennahda not only dissolved the government it dominated and called for new elections (which it lost), it signed on to the most liberal constitution in the Arab world. If any of the uprisings is to have a happy ending, the Tunisian uprising is the most likely candidate. Yemen and Libya, on the other hand, present us with an altogether different story. In both states, the regimes fragmented, pitting officers and soldiers, cabinet ministers, politicians, and diplomats who stood with the regime against those who joined the opposition. Tribes and tribal confederations, on which the regimes depended to compensate for institutional underdevelopment, also divided into opposing camps. The fragmentation of regimes in the two states is not sur-prising. Both Yemen and Libya are poster children for what political scientists call "weak states," a result of the newness of the states, difficult geography, and a style of leadership in each that relied on patronage rather than institutions to tie populations to regimes. In weak states, governments and the bureaucracies on which they depend are unable to assert their authority over the entirety of the territory they rule. Nor are they able to extend their reach beneath the surface of society. It is partly for this reason that popula-tons in weak states lack strong national identities. Because regimes in both states fragmented, there was no unified military to step in to end the uprisings, as had happened in Tunisia and Egypt. As a result, uprisings in both states were both violent and prolonged. The Libyan uprising began when protesters staged a "Day of Rage" after the arrest of a prominent human rights lawyer. He represented families of the twelve hundred "disappeared" political prisoners murdered in cold blood by the regime in one single incident in 1996. Libya soon descended into civil war, marked by a fierce NATO air campaign, the subsequent overthrow and execution of "brotherly leader" Muammar Qaddafi, and the simultaneous formation of three governments, all of which have claimed the right to govern and were willing to fight the others for the privilege. The Yemeni uprising began with a protest modeled on the one in Tahrir Square that had brought down Hosni Mubarak the very day Yemeni protesters took to the streets. Peaceful protest soon gave way to violence. The international community, led by Saudi Arabia, attempted to mediate among the warring fac-tions, but Saudi Arabia had its own agenda in Yemen and attempted to stabilize its neighbor by engineering the formation of a government subservient to its wishes. Because the new government failed to address the grievances of a significant number of Yemenis, they rejected the imposed settlement. One group that felt slighted was the followers of the deceased Zaydi leader, Hussein Badr Eddia Houthi (Zaydis are followers of a branch of Shiism and comprise 35-45 percent of the Yemeni population). The Houthis, as they came to be called, became the core of the opposition. The Yemen civil war created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. In Syria and Bahrain, regimes maintained cohesion against the uprisings. Thus, once uprisings broke out in these states there was little likelihood that one part of the ruling institution would turn on another, as happened in Tunisia or Egypt, or that the ruling institution would splinter, as happened in Libya and Yemen. The rulers of Syria and Bahrain had effectively "coup-proofed" their regimes. They did this by, among other things, exploiting ties of sect and kinship to build a close-knit, interdependent ruling group. In Syria this group consisted of President Bashar al-Assad, his extended family, and members of the minority Alawite community. None of them could have turned on the regime; if the regime goes, they would go, too. The core of the regime in Bahrain consists of members of the ruling Khalifa family who hold critical cabinet portfolios, from the office of prime minister and deputy prime minister to ministers of defense, foreign affairs, finance, and national security. As in Syria, members of a minority community—Sunni Muslims, who make up an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the population—form the main pillar and primary constituency of the regime. The regime has counted on the Sunni community to circle its wagons in the regime's defense, although the uprising started out as non-sectarian in nature, as had Syria's. But as happened in Syria, repression by a regime identified with a minority community, along with the regime's deliberate provocation of inter-sectarian violence to ensure their communities would stick with the regime until the bitter end, sectarianized the uprisings and intensified the level of violence. Foreign intervention played a critical role in determining the course of the uprisings in both Bahrain and Syria. On 14 March 2011, one thousand Saudi soldiers and five hundred Emirati policemen crossed the causeway connecting Bahrain with the mainland and took up positions throughout the capitals Manama. This freed up the Bahraini military and security services (led by men-bers of the ruling family and made up of Sunnis from Pakistan, Jordan, and else-where) to crush the opposition. The regime then embarked on a campaign of repression that was harsh even by Gulf standards. All the while, the regime hid behind the façade of a series of national dialogues whose outcomes the regime fixed. As the Syrian uprising morphed into a Syrian civil war, it became a proxy war. Russia, Iran, and Hizbollah intervened on the side of the Syrian govern-ment; the West, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and Turkey on the side of the opposition. This prolonged it and made it more lethal, because patrons came to the assistance of their proxies whenever there was need- that is, until Russia ramped up the level of violence to an extent states supporting the opposition were unwilling or unable to match. The regime will remain in power-but it is so weakened and the country so devastated that its victory will certainly be Pyrrhic. The scorecard, then, for the Arab uprisings has hardly been encouraging. In Egypt and in all the monarchies, the forces of reaction snuffed out the demand for change. Libya, Yemen, and Syria are still suffering from the worst excesses of political violence. In Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and even Tunisia and the Egyptian Sinai, the weakening of regimes or the diversion of their attention elsewhere ere-ated an environment in which violent Islamist groups, like ISIS and al-Qaeda, have bred. And elected governments in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon remain ineffectual and unaccountable. Across the region, the uprisings led to a rise in sectarianism, fueled in particular by the spillover from the Syrian civil war, Saudi-Iranian competition to define the post-uprising regional order and determine the fate of embattled re-gimes, and the Islamic State's policy of purifying its caliphate of those who do not conform to their rigid interpretation of Sunni Islam. Foreign intervention has taken place with impunity, perhaps signaling the beginning of an epochal shift in the meaning of sovereignty and sovereign relations. Such intervention decisively shifted the trajectory of uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Egypt. Finally, since 2011 the region has experienced one humanitarian crisis after another. Tunisia remains the one possible success story of the 2010-2011 uprisings, although the challenges it faces - particularly jihadi violence and poor economic performance-are daunting. WHAT WENT WRONG? From the beginning, protesters and rebels throughout the region faced overwhelming odds, the tenacity of ruling cliques fighting for their lives, the hostility of those dependent on the old order, foreign intervention, the lack of foreign in-tervention, and extremist groups out for their own ends. Furthermore, the very spontaneity, leaderlessness, diversity, and loose organization on which the uprisings thrived proved to be their Achilles heel as well. On the one hand, these attributes kept regimes off guard and prevented them from reining in rebellious activity. On the other hand, these attributes prevented protesters and rebels from agreeing on and implementing coordinated policies with regard to tactics, strat-egy, and program. Even were this not the case, participants in the uprisings were, more often than not, united by what they were against the regime-rather than what they were for. This gave "deep states" the latitude to regroup, call on outside support, and stigmatize and isolate their oppositions. In most of the region, that latitude enabled defeat the forces of counter-revolution to defeat the forces advocating change. And yet there remains the possibility that it might be too early to write off the wave of uprisings. After all, protests and uprisings in the Arab world did not end in 2011, and powerful protest movements in Lebanon and Algeria in 2019 remind us that human rights, representative government, and social and economic justice still resonate with populations in the region and beyond. Perhaps future historians will find the best historical analogy for the Arab uprisings to be the events that rocked Europe in 1848. While none of the protests and rebellions that broke out during the "Springtime of Nations" ousted any autocrat, their outbreak signaled in retrospect that the field of political contesta-tion in Europe had opened up to include liberal and nationalist alternatives to the old order. While historical analogies are inevitably deficient, historians may well draw a corresponding lesson from the ongoing spate of uprisings in the Middle East.

Al-Shehabi Political Movements in Bahrain Across the Long Twentieth Century (1900-2015)

Al-Shehabi traces the modern history of Bahrain's political movements and argues that these movements have shaped state actions as well as the modern relationship between state and society. British imperialists attempted to reduce these political movements to only the ethno-sectarian dimension, in which a ruling Sunni minority privileged and supported by the British was challenged by a resentful Shia majority. However, Al-Shehabi also illuminates the trans-sectarian, nationalist, and anti-colonial dimensions of certain movements, which culminated in the creation of the HEC led by both Shias and Sunnis to articulate their demands to Al Khalifa and the British, to give one example. Al-Shehabi examines the evolution of these movements, moving between secular and religious, national and transnational, reformist and radical, and ultimately argues these movements have forced state responses that have defined the form of absolutist rule the modern state of Bahrain has assumed. This chapter traces the birth, rise, and evolution of political movements in Bahrain throughout the long twentieth century, taking as its starting point the beginning of direct British presence in the local political scene in 1900, and ending with the aftermath of the mass protests that engulfed the islands in 2011. It highlights four intersecting dichotomies that have characterized these political movements across time: trans-sectarian versus ethnosectarian, national versus transnational, reformist versus revolutionary, and public versus underground. It sheds light on the importance of externally imposed structural factors on local developments on the island, including British colonial absolutist rule, the discovery of oil and the subsequent fluctuation in the commodity's global prices, and the rise of American hegemony. Taking its cue from the work of the autonomistas, the analysis also highlights the central role that political movements have played in shaping the actions and reactions of the state. The state's attempts to contain these movements, and the contestation between the two sides, played a central role in shaping the contours of both state and society across Bahrain's long century. four intersecting dichotomies that have characterized these political movements across time. The first is the trans-sectarian versus ethnosectarian, as political movements oscillated between ethnosectarian versus civic-based identities and demands. The second is the national versus the transnational, as mobilization varied between pushing local-centric issues versus reaching toward other currents in the regional or global setting to draw inspiration. The third dichotomy is the reformist versus revolutionary currents, as these movements switched between putting forward gradualist reform demands, versus taking a much more radical approach. The fourth is the public versus underground nature of the movements, as mobilization shifted between open versus clandestine forms. The state's attempts to contain these movements, and the contestation between the two sides, played a central role in shaping the contours of both state and society across Bahrain's long century. Such an analysis serves as a much- needed corrective to the exclusively ethnosectarian narrative through which politics in Bahrain are usually construed, where developments are reductively essentialized to "a Sunni loyalist minority versus a Shia opposition majority." British Colonialism and the Birth of Ethnosectarianism and Nationalism (1900-1923) Once the British became directly involved in local affairs by force in 1904, they instituted a system of "divided rule"4 in Bahrain. Dual authority meant that individuals on the island were to be categorized either as "foreign" or "local" subjects, with "foreigners" under the jurisdiction of the British, while "locals" would be under the jurisdiction of the ruler. The sticking point, however, was that "foreigner" was not a clear-cut category, and thus would turn into a point of contestation, with significant legal and political repercussions. The definition of "foreign" versus "local" would mainly be constructed and contested by the British based on an ethnosectarian gaze, a systematic approach that saw ethnosectarian cleavages as the underlying epistemic codes that shape local political power, practice, and discourse. Thus, ethnosectarian divisions were elevated to become the most important markers of the local political map from the British point of view, while other socioeconomic and political factors such as class, geography, and profession were relegated to play a secondary role to these "primordial" forces. "Divided rule" created a legal and institutional basis to catalyze political mobilization based on ethnosectarian identities. Thus, the British passed laws and set up courts, business arbitration councils, and municipal councils that reflected the situation of fragmented sovereignty. The British saw "Sunnis" and "tribes" as being pro-ruler and anti-British, while they saw "Shia" and "Persians" as being anti-ruler and pro-British. The system had to be reorganized. Events reached a climax in May 1923, as the British completely took over local rule. The ruler Isa was deposed and his powers transferred to his son Hamad. The anticolonial nationalists would then put forward a petition demanding reform of the political system to become more participatory and for the cessation of British meddling. The British responded by arresting and deporting them. Modernized Absolutism Meets Petrodollars (1923-1957) This juncture was important as it marked the birth of the modernized form of absolutism that would become a predominant feature of Bahrain and the Gulf Arab States in the twentieth century. The British goal was not to end the rule of Al Khalifa, nor to institute a representative form of government, but to "reform" the system to ensure that it was stable and compatible with their interests. The fortunate discovery of oil in 1932 reversed the situation drastically, as Bahrain was the first of the Gulf Arab States to discover the commodity, largely saving it from the harsh economic situation that its neighbors faced in the 1930s. The new oil industry in many ways took over from the pearl industry as the major form of economic sustenance on the island. Pearl divers as an economic class eventually disappeared, and instead the oil industry became the main employer until the 1960s. Thus, the government was able to achieve independence in terms of revenue from merchants and the rest of local society, as the oil revenues poured in during the 1930s. This was coupled by a program of reform aimed at modernizing the governmental bureaucracy, whose senior positions would largely be staffed by British subjects and members of the ruling family. Sovereign power came to be monopolized in the hands of the ruler, with the advisor running the scene from behind. Bahrain would emerge as the role model for the rest of the region from the British viewpoint. This system of "modernized absolutism" came to control the local population through "vertical segmentation"7 based on the ethnosectarian gaze. From here onward, the population was to be viewed as a collection of sects and ethnicities, with the sovereign situated at the top, gazing from a bird's-eye view, and binding these groups together. Any political movements that might arise in opposition to this absolutist rule would be dealt with by being reduced to their constituent ethnicities and sects.8 Throughout the twentieth century, ethnosectariancentric political mobilization in Bahrain would mainly manifest itself in Shiacentric movements.The unique experience of bonded labor directly under tributes paid to the ruling family in the villages, coupled with the fact that the rulers were from a different sect, as well as the emergence of the religious institutions of Ashura processions, the Ma'tams,11 and the ʿulama (clergy), provided the socioeconomic backdrop that cultivated the formation of Shiacentric movements. In contrast, and although tribes were present as a form of political mobilization, there was a marked lack of political movements self-identifying and shaping their political discourse and mobilization primarily as "Sunni" throughout the twentieth century.12 This did not prevent the British and subsequent local rulers from reading all political movements in ethnosectarian terms. Hence, although the nationalist movement from 1923 explicitly adopted a trans- sectarian discourse, the British labeled the movement as mainly being driven by "Sunnis," given that the propagators of the movement were mainly members of that sect. Such a labeling of the nationalist opposition as "Sunni" by the British would continue well into the 1950s. Nationalism Takes Center Stage (1953-1956) The 1950s was a revolutionary period in the Arab world, with the rising tide of Arab nationalism, heightened by the charismatic figure of Nasser in Egypt. These regional developments echoed strongly in Bahrain, where a vibrant local press and several cultural and sports centers had emerged throughout the 1930s and 1940s. These brewing developments needed a catalyst that would transform them into a larger movement. This was provided by the sectarian violence that erupted after clashes in the Ashura processions of 1953, which were soon followed by the 1954 taxi drivers' labor strikes protesting the monopoly of British companies in car insurance provision.To address these ethnosectarian and anticolonial tensions, several meetings were held between members from both sects, which culminated in the election of a Higher Executive Committee (HEC) composed of eight members—four Shia and four Sunnis—to articulate their political demands to the local ruler Salman Al Khalifa and the British. At first, the British and the local ruler Sheikh Salman refused to deal formally with the HEC, but the strong momentum and nationwide reach of the movement finally forced the authorities to officially recognize it. The HEC collected 25,000 signatures in support of its demands—a remarkable feat in a country whose population barely numbered 150 thousand at the time. The British advisor and the rulers then resorted to the well-worn tactic of ethnosectarian divide and rule, labeling the movement as mainly driven by "Huwala," and creating an alternative committee of Shia notables under their wing, in the hope of splitting and weakening the HEC. Finally, the authorities seized an opportune moment to forcibly end the movement. When violent protests broke out in November 1956 to denounce the tripartite aggression against Egypt after the nationalization of the Suez Canal, these were used as an excuse to arrest and deport the leaders of the HEC Revolutionary Fervor and the Move Underground (1956-1971) Although the HEC was dissolved prematurely, it left a long-lasting legacy that continues until today. It arguably constitutes the crystallization of modern Bahraini nationalism, becoming an idealized source of inspiration for subsequent political movements. It also successfully formed Bahrain's first labor union, which was disbanded with the end of the HEC, as well as actively being involved in drafting the country's first labor law of 1957. . Hence, this period saw the rise of a local technocracy, with a plethora of British advisors still playing a role in the background. Modernized absolutist rule was increasingly taking on a local flavor. The dissolution of the HEC marked a new epoch in the history of Bahraini political movements. In essence, the HEC confined its demands to political reform within the existing system of British and Al Khalifa rule. The political movements that emerged in its aftermath, however, saw these aims as not far-reaching enough. They went underground and took a much more radical approach. Their goals were no longer reform, but the overthrow of the regime, using armed struggle if necessary. Two clandestine movements were to dominate the local scene over the next decade. The National Liberation Front (NLF) was a communist movement that was established in 1955. The anti-Communist Movement of Arab Nationalists (MAN) originated in Beirut, aiming to establish a vanguard secular movement focused on the liberation of Palestine and the wider Arab world by revolutionary means. Between 1958 and 1959, the group began enrolling some Bahraini students in Beirut and Cairo in its ranks. The movement subsequently expanded rapidly in Bahrain, with several hundred local members joining. Both movements were strongest in the urban parts of Bahrain, establishing footholds in the cities of Muharraq and Manama. The relationship between the two movements was always ambivalent due to their ideological differences. The MAN viewed the Arab world as its natural homeland and the main focus of its activities. It saw the NLF as an internationalist agent that did not have the region's interest at heart, with its equivocal support to the Palestinian struggle clouding its legitimacy. In return, the NLF viewed the MAN as a parochial upstart laced with nationalist xenophobia and limited horizons. The idea of Arab nationalism did not sit naturally with communists. Meanwhile, the British announced in 1968 their intention to withdraw from areas east of the Suez, including the Arabian Peninsula. To fend off any potential Iranian claims to Bahrain, a UN commission was sent to the island to inquire about the local population's desire for independence. The preordained outcome was the establishment of the independent state of Bahrain in 1971 under the rule of Al Khalifa. As the British withdrew, a new major superpower ally for the now-independent regime appeared on the horizon as the United States of America became the dominant military and political force globally. This was epitomized by the expanding US Navy presence on the island, with the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy eventually coming to be based in Bahrain. Labor, Parliamentary Rule, and the Rise of the Petro-Modernist Emirate (1970s) The year of independence also marked the establishment of the Constitutive Committee (CC) for the General Federation of Workers in Bahrain, the first organized public mass movement in Bahrain's independent era. As the industries and sectors in Bahrain's economy expanded, so did the labor movements situated within them, with labor strikes intermittently erupting across the different sectors in the late 1960s. The CC signaled a major shift within the tactics of Bahrain's political movements, shifting once again away from clandestine political activity toward public coalition-building. It organized petitions for the establishment of a general labor union, with chapters across the diverse industries and sectors, and it was able to garner nearly 5,000 membership signatures in its support. Although the CC was spearheaded by individuals from PFLOAG, NLF, and MAN, it was not organized along party lines, and included many independents among its members. Its composition and goals were formulated without any regard for sectarian or ethnic considerations whatsoever, the first public coalition to achieve such a feat in Bahrain's modern history. The authorities repeatedly refused to grant recognition to the CC. The deadlock climaxed in the March 1972 uprising. The parliamentary experiment did not last long. The legislature locked horns with the government on a proposed "state of emergency" law and the proposed lease renewal for the American naval base on the island. The government grew increasingly frustrated and reacted by dissolving the assembly, suspending the constitution, and declaring a state of emergency, which was to last for the next twenty-five years.19 Many individuals were arrested, including former parliamentary members. The crackdown focused mainly on leftists and Arab Nationalists, with the rural conservative clergy acquiescing, as the authorities made it clear that this crackdown would not reach them. Accusations of the use of torture, always present in previous epochs, increased. The repression culminated with Bahrain's first two political torture martyrs. Saʿid al-Uwainaty from the NLF and Muhammad Buchiri from the PFLOAG were arrested and accused of murdering a prominent Shia religious cleric, and subsequently died in jail in 1976. Thus ended Bahrain's first experiment with democratic political institutions in the independence era. The oil boom of 1973 and the backing of the Americans gave the newly independent government confidence to push forward with a modified version of absolutist rule, heralding the rise of the petro-modernist emirate.20 Fueled by a huge increase in petrodollars throughout the 1970s, the governmental bureaucracy and the welfare state expanded rapidly along with the economy. Rapid social change ensued. Fordist modes of consumption predominated, with locals moving out of the old cities to live in newly built suburban car- based areas and working mainly in government-funded jobs, which over the years increasingly displayed an ethnosectarian element in their allocation.21 The arrival of migrant workers, both blue and white collared, accelerated under the rapidly consolidating Kefala system,22 with the majority of the workforce becoming non-national. The Rise of Islamists (1979-2000) These social changes were reflected on the contours of the local political movements. The historic cities of Muharraq and Manama, for long the hotbed of opposition, were slowly emptied of citizens who moved to the suburbs as migrants took their place there. The ethnosectarian reading of the local political map would shift as well. Thus, while during the 1920s to 1950s, Sunnis were seen by the British as the main source of opposition, throughout the 1960s and 1970s this perception changed to members of nationalist and leftist movements, with their bastion still being the urban centers. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, however, these forces declined, and Shia Islamist movements, with strong support in the villages, would take center stage as the main source of opposition. Particularly, the Shia clergy, playing a largely marginal and conservative role in political movements on the island for the past eighty years, and which were until recently seen by the British as strong possible allies with the local regime, would rise to head the largest opposition political movements for the remainder of the twentieth century. The 1979 revolution in Iran and the rise of the Islamic Republic had a significant impact on galvanizing Shia Islamist movements in Bahrain. Members of al-Daʿwa were seen as following a more reformist and "moderate" path, while the Shirazis turned towards revolution and armed means to overthrow the regime and install an Islamic republic. The political branch of the Shirazis in Bahrain was the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain. Their efforts culminated in a failed 1981 coup attempt in Bahrain, thus marking a shift by political movements back toward a strategy of overthrowing the regime using violent and covert means.23 s the political and economic situation stalled, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent liberation marked a turning point in regional dynamics and local political movements. The 1990s witnessed once again the re-emergence of a public movement that attempted to unite the diverse political groupings together in a movement for greater political representation. Former members of the NLF, PFLOAG, along with independents and Shia religious clergy initiated the "elite petition" and "popular petition" that called for the restoration of the 1973 constitution and parliamentary democracy. By this point, Shia political Islam was the dominant form of political mobilization on the island. The backbone of the popular movements was now firmly fixed in the villages. Shia religious scholars, such as Abdul Amir al-Jamri and Ali Salman would become the most influential in the emerging movement. As in previous epochs, the movement was met with a campaign of state violence that increasingly took on a sectarian dimension. The authorities blamed Iran for foreign interference, and the country plunged into what became known as the "nineties uprising," lasting from 1994 to 1999.24 A Parliamentary Monarchy (of Sorts) (2000-2011) A new ruler ascended to the throne in 1999, and at the turn of the century, Bahrain seemed to enter a new phase of political reform. The new constitution of 2002, however, was written behind closed doors and with no popular input in its drafting. It did not live up to the expectations of the opposition. A half-elected legislative assembly with weak supervisory and legislative powers was established, to be elected via heavily gerrymandered electoral districts. The booming economic situation gave the authorities the belief that they were able to control the political situation. The price of a barrel of oil rose from below $20 in 2000 to a peak of more than $140 in 2008, with more than US$2 trillion in resultant revenue pouring into the Gulf States. Bahrain became a hub for some of these investments, via both its burgeoning finance and real-estate sectors. The new system seemed to entrench demographic and political divisions successfully, with a dizzying array of political societies emerging under the new system that rarely found common ground. Some decided to contest the parliamentary elections, while others chose to boycott the system altogether. The local Muslim Brotherhood also established their own political societies and entered parliamentary politics. Individuals who chose to boycott the political system formed Haq, an unauthorized movement that continued to call for a full constitutional monarchy. Nevertheless, the government seemed to be in a comfortably commanding position. The high oil prices sustained an economic boom throughout the island, as privatization and neoliberalism became the modus operandi, fueled by government expenditure and soaring migration.25 The officially sanctioned opposition groups were effectively contained within a weak parliament, while members of the more radical movements that operated outside official channels were faced with jail on charges of terrorism and plotting to overthrow the regime February 14 Explosion and Beyond (2011-) The stalled political situation unexpectedly exploded in February 2011, when Bahrain entered its most recent and largest political upheaval in the midst of the so-called Arab Spring. Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, anonymous social media activists in Bahrain called for a "Day of Rage" on February 14, 2011, the anniversary of the National Action Charter. The Pearl roundabout subsequently became the center of the protest movement for the next month. Composed of a motley collection of different political forces and individuals with no unifying thread except opposition to the regime, the protesters' demands varied from system reform to the regime's downfall, with the latter becoming by far the most dominant chant at the roundabout. The now-entrenched sectarian divide, heightened since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was the most formidable political obstacle facing the protesters, and so it proved this time around. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the opposition protestors were Shia. As the protests wore on, official media channels began adopting an antagonistic rhetoric, which increasingly targeted the sectarian divide. Security forces were withdrawn from the streets, and over time vigilante groups appeared and sectarian clashes occurred across the island. The opposition split in their demands, with the more radical elements now openly demanding a republic. Given that all those who made the demand for a republic were from a Shia Islamist background, many Sunnis took this as a call for the establishment of an Islamic Republic, along the lines of the theocratic regime in Iran. Calls increasingly grew amongst Sunnis for a forcible government response. Saudi troops entered Bahrain on March 14 through the causeway connecting the two countries. The king declared a state of emergency the subsequent day. The Pearl roundabout was forcibly cleared of protesters, and over the next two months, dozens were killed, hundreds jailed, and thousands more fired from their jobs, mainly on a sectarian basis.27 The protest movement continued to show notable resilience. Protests and clashes with security forces continued, although their intensity and frequency had decreased markedly by 2015, and have largely been conned to sporadic flash protests in the villages. Thus, the government seemed able to control the security situation, if not the political one. From its side, the state has shown little intention to make substantial political reforms. Indeed, it took several antagonistic steps during 2016, dissolving Al Wifaq, the largest formally recognized opposition group, and revoking the citizenship of Isa Qassem, the highest Shia cleric on the island Bahrain has become a heavily politicized country, with a new cohort of youth engaging in contentious politics for the first time. A fertile and as yet unstable political terrain has emerged with constantly shifting contours. Society continues to be split on sectarian lines, with events in the wider Arab world further agitating the situation, especially in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. This seems to suit the regime, ensuring that no trans-sectarian movements are able to emerge like they have in the past, although the sectarian situation does threaten to spiral out of its control. On the opposition front, the more formally established political societies, and particularly Al Wifaq, have had to compete with new groups that have emerged on the scene, such as the February 14 Coalition. These groups have resorted to anonymous mobilization with a heavy focus on direct street action, adopting regime change as their explicit aim. This sits in contrast to the demands of the formally recognized political societies, which continue to focus on reforming the system into a democratic constitutional monarchy. These opposition movements have become extremely active abroad, marketing their cause through international outlets. The general trend has been to reach out to potential allies in the West, particularly Europe and the US, based on considerations of human rights and democracy, while in the region, most of the solidarity has been sect-based, with the most vocal and active regional support coming from Shia in Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iran, and the Eastern province in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, such ties have reflected in the opposition groups' healthy funds, setting up several TV channels, newspapers, think tanks, human rights and democracy advocacy outlets, with large parts of the funding coming from sect-based funders in the region, or Western human rights and democracy advocacy institutions. One of the most significant qualitative developments has been the emergence of what is now known as the "Sunni street," with groups such as the Gathering of National Unity and Al Fateh Youth emerging on the scene. As previously mentioned, there was little historical precedence of Sunnis mobilizing primarily as "Sunnis" in Bahrain, but the slowly brewing sectarian factors since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 exploded with the events of 2011. Although their stance so far has focused against the Shia opposition, they have also started to signal their increasing frustration with the way the authorities are ruling. They, too, have turned their gaze abroad, with active calls for a federal union with the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. They have also increasingly adopted the Syrian revolution as their cause célèbre regionally. Although critical of the government, they perceive Bahrain as a fault line in a wider regional battle between Iran and the Gulf Arab States—a battle that requires conscientious and sustained mobilization, with the other side already far more advanced than they are in this regard.28 What about trans-sectarian movements with a national outlook that try to bridge the gap between all of these divergent groups? Small attempts have been witnessed in this regard, notably by the old guard of nationalists and leftists, who have tried to resuscitate some sort of a national trans-sectarian coalition. Given that this period is marked by the most entrenched sectarian division in Bahrain's modern history, however, they face a daunting task. On the regime front, and although seemingly containing the protests by 2015, one crucial factor that continues to cause worry is its heavily dented international image, which has impacted negatively on Bahrain's trade-dependent economy. As the oil prices tumbled in 2015, the economy has further stagnated, with the public deficit and debt climbing at alarming and unsustainable rates, forcing the regime to undertake a series of unpopular steps of subsidy removals and price hikes of basic goods in the midst of political instability. Nor does it seem like the regime will be granted relief any time soon on the political front. As we have outlined, by now political movements in Bahrain have had a long history of mobilization for more than a century. Throughout this period, the colors and contours of these movements have changed considerably, shifting from urban to rural, secular to religious, national to transnational, public to underground, reformist to revolutionary, and vice versa. The responses to these movements have sculpted the shape of absolutist rule the petro-modernist state has taken during this time, formed under the heavy backing of British colonial and then American and Saudi protection. Indeed, it is quite certain that new and emerging political movements will continue to write several further chapters in the future of Bahrain's contested sociopolitical scene.

Why by 1948 was there a state for Palestine's Jewish but not its Arab population? For the "why" draw on Gelvin and lecture (institutional differences in the mandate and their causes). Also draw on articles by Bashkin and Stein, among others.

Bashkin: Leading up to the mandate period, Arab Muslim and Christian writers supported the Jewish community and condemned anti-Semitism. These writers' pro-Jewish stances supported their critique of European hypocrisy and colonialism. Arab writers emphasized that Arab and Jewish communities have developed cultures of peaceful coexistence within the Ottoman Empire. However—-European Zionists involved in an inherently colonial project, would lead to tensions between these communities; Zionists were much better organized and equipped to take advantage of British support Zionist colonial practices' Theodor Herzl (1860-1904): Austria-Hungarian journalist covering Dreyfus Affair Concluded that Jews would not be integrated into European soceity—needed territory for an independent state (Debate between Argentina or Palestine) 1897—World Zionist Congress organized by Herzl—established WOrld Zionist Organization The Basel Declaration: colonization of Palestine, uniting all Jews, fostering a Jewish national congress. Ethno-national movememnt To secure the support of a Great Power 1933-35 (hitler in power): Jewish population in Palestine DOUBLED (anti-Semitism+British system privileging Jews+Zionist propaganda encouraged migration) Europeans (Zionists)believed that they had a monopoly on "civilization" and that they had the right, if not the duty, to expand that civilization; The common use by early Zionists of the word "colonization" was as a term of pride. Perhaps most important for the future of the Middle East was the labor policy adopted by the new immigrants. The Zionists expressed their aspirations in two slogans: "conquest of land" The first slogan refers to the need these Zionists felt to make their imprint on the land of Palestine by 'taming the wilderness through settlement activity'-----TIYULIM (Stein): national colonial hikes taken by Zionist community to familiarize themselves with the land/reclaim it and delegitimize Arab presence As Zionist land purchases increased during the late 1920s, so did tensions between the two communities. By 1931, Zionist land purchases had led to the ejection of approximately twenty thousand peasant families from their lands. Close to 30 percent of Palestinian farmers were landless and another 75 to 80 percent did not have enough land for subsistence. Thus, in 1936 Palestine exploded in violence. "con-quest of labor." The second refers to the need these Zionists feld so remake the Jewish people by having Jews fill all jobs in the economy. Zionists believed that to become a true nation Jews had to overcome their dependence on others and become autonomous in all spheres. Herbert Samuel: British Jewish official,granted Jewish companies a lot of privileges/rights (over Arabs) Jews paid higher wages in British administration, considered "European" By 1930s, Jewish businesses much more prosperous; Arabs feared would be economically dominated British mandate history stuff Balfour done for WARTIME purposes, but falls into larger trend of colonial rule——choosing to put a minority in power to ensure loyalty and dependence Still, by 1920s British enthusiasm for Jewish state had waned Already J-A clashes in Palestine; Arabs demanded Balfour be revoked 1922: White Paper: British Government distanced themselves from the plan to build a Jewish national home in Palestine; says not all Palestine (but somewhere in Palestine). Makes Jews AND Arabs mad Shaw Report 1930: Examined causes of J-A hostilities/violence Says Arab hostility based on fears for their political/social/economic future; Arabs fear they will soon be under Jewish economic domination Passfield Paper—Calls on Zionists to accept Arab presence as permanent and stop exclusionary practices. Causes outrage among Jews Dec 1935: another attempt to make Jew-Arab joint government in Palestine, voted down by British Parliament (who feared Zionist backlash); Arab leaders saw British favoritism 1936—Arab Revolt, British military occupation. Over 100 Arabs hung, many more killed, targeted British homes as well To put down the revolt, the British launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, employing tactics all too familiar to Palestinians today: collective punishment of villages, "targeted kill-ings" (assassinations), mass arrests, deportations, and the dynamiting of homes of suspected guerrillas and their sympathizers. The revolt, and the British reaction to it, ravaged the natural leadership of the Palestinian community and opened up new cleavages in that community. Palestinian society never recovered. The roots of the nakba of 1948 can be found in the Great Revolt. Peel Commision 1937: concluded the Palestinian mandate no longer viable because 2 different demands for statehood; creates first plan for partition Jewish northern part had most fertile lands, many Arabs living there (250,000) Arab leadership rejected this plan The Great Revolt compelled the British to find some diplomatic solution to the Palestine imbroglio. The White Paper of 1939 advocated restricting (but not ending) Jewish immigration and proposed closer supervision of (but not the end of) land sales. It also promised independence for Palestine within ten years in the unlikely event that the two communities learned to work together. Both communities felt betrayed by the White Paper. Both communities rejected it. White Paper 1939: British wanted Arab support pre-WWII; Walks back Balfour Declaration Jewish national home inside a majority Arab state. Plan rejected by Jewish agency—went against ideal of Jewish independent state Plan ALSO rejected by Arab Higher Committee—state wanted now, not in 10 years—did not trust British to keep promise 1940: Jewish population grown to 30% At end of WWII, Zionism shift in focus and tactics: Smuggle arms, foster immigration Develop Haganah; against Arabs AND British Attack British rule—King David Hotel 1946—91 killed Focus on USA for international support British government publicly denounced Jewish call for statehood and waited to see what UN would do UN proposes yet another partition plan—Jewish state included about as many Arab as Jews; UN votes to approve this plan (largely due to US pressure), Britain abstains British withdrew in 1948; state of Israel born Israelis celebrate, for Arabs remembered as "day of catastrophe" (Nakba) Creates refugees (~700,000 Arab refugees to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan) Palestinian nationalism emerged as response to this^^ Zionist colonialism; The Palestinian community was hardly as well organized or as unified as the Zionist community. As citizens of the Ottoman Empire, there had been no need. Whereas the Zionist community embraced the mandates system and organized itself accordingly, political elites in the Arab community in Palestine accepted neither the Balfour Declaration nor the British mandate. They thus did not organize themselves in a way that could take advantage of the mandate. As Gelvin argues, "Palestinian" nationalism could have easily been Arab nationalism or even Syrian nationalism, but was created in a unique context defined by opposition to Zionism

6. Describe the significance of the meeting between Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Husayn during the Iran-Iraq War.

Iran-Iraq War (1980-88): violent, brutal war that drained both countries of theri resources; loss of human life; neither country has recovered from this conflict US wanted war to reverse Islamic Revolution—overthrow Khloemeni's regime and restore Pahlavi dynasty friendly to US oil interests Iraq supported by US—but also supplied Iran with weapons Iran Contra Affair: Aksakal wants us to connect the Rumsfeld-Husayn meeting to the U.S. policy of sending arms, aid, and sharing intelligence with Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, Iran) during the Iran-Iraq war. Rumsfeld: Secretary of Defene The US also encouraged third-parties to arm Iraq, while imposing an arms embargo on Iran due to its status as a "state sponsor of terrorism." The U.S. then also broke the arms embargo during the Iran-Contra affair to supply Iran with weapons. The US/Kissinger WANTED both sides to lose war (emerge heavily damaged, weak powers)

3. What was the Free Officers Movement? How did the Free Officers contribute to shaping the Arab world as we know it today?

Monarchy blamed for 1948 war defeat, British control of Suez Canal, narratives aligned with longstanding resentment of monarchy/elites→popular movement 1952: Free Officers' Revolution—-first goal was to end colonailsim's influence in Egypt (and thus the monarchy). Military saw their role as essential The Free Officers Movement was a clandestine network in the Egyptian military that overthrew King Faruq in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. It was heavily influenced by Nasser's political philosophies and practices. The Free Officers movement shaped the contemporary Arab world through its philosophies of "political and social revolutions," referring to the struggle for national liberation from colonialism, and the idea of national unity through social justice. The call for greater autonomy for the Arab world and modern citizenship values enshrined in the Free Officers movement later became a symbol of pan-Arabism and social justice in today's political movements in the Arab world. Protesters today used the precedent of the Free Officers movement to signal a new understanding of Arab solidarity in which citizens and not regimes defined the nation and its borders. Exporting the Free Officers' Revolution 1958 Iraq: overthrow of Hashemite dynasty and establish republic 1962 Yemen: dehtroning monarchy, lead to 8 year civil war →republic 1969 Libya: overthrow of Senussi dynasty and established Libyan Republic it was the Free Officers coup in Egypt in 1952 that would set the standard and provide a model for other states in the region. A group of mostly younger officers established the Free Officers movement in the late 1940s. Soon after the coup, its guiding member, Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser, became Egypt's president. They launched their coup to put an end to corruption, ineptitude, and treason. They did not, at first, offer a grand ideologiical vision. Instead, they promised to work with the private sector and the least objectionable political parties, and to restore democracy once they had ironed things out. Specifically, the Free Officers addressed themselves to two colonial legacies—underdevelopment and compromised sovereignty. The praxis of Nasserism sprang from this endeavor—a project for national liberation with limited resources, entailing simultaneous action on the domestic, regional, and international levels. how it shaped the Arab world? FO viewed as a group of individuals that they can formulate a path independent of foreign influence, how its charisma helped its messaging; figures for inspirations, how Egyptian leaders paid their respect to Nasser every year (visionary leader who can actually claimed legitimacy); also a symbol of pan-arabism, secular nationalism, though it shifted over time

2. What were the characteristics of "Nasserism"? In what ways did the legacy of Nasserism contradict or diverge from its original philosophy and principles?

Nasserism: Simultaneous political and social revolutions—-struggle to free Egypt from imperial influence and social justice domestically Pan-arab and pan-African unity in face of imperialism and support for decolonizing movements State co-opted feminist movement and thus had much more limited impact Economic nationalist—-nationalized Suez Canal, fought off Tripartite Aggression Legacy of Nasserism: Charismatic and beloved leader, but did not institutionalize democracy—disillusionment with his platform; no social transformation as promised, no end to imperial influence/change in international sphere Historical continuity—both political leaders and protest movements call upon his legacy Military's close connection with the people Nasserism became an interpretative political framework: people advocating for a return to Nassersim would pick and choose. For example, 2011 Arab Spring protestors commonly used Nasserist symbology in protesting for democratization despite Nasser never instituting democracy. Instead, this was just a continuation of many Nasserist protestors highlighting the erosion of Nasserist social welfare policies and the drift from neutral nonalignment. New Nasserists, the student generation that came of age after Nasser's death, critiqued Nasser's one-party system and pushed for human rights and democracy, but they continued to uphold the principles of social justice and pan-Arabism. The crux of the praxis of Nasserism was arguably the conception of domestic and external objectives as intertwined. Specifically, the Free Officers addressed themselves to two colonial legacies—underdevelopment and compromised sovereignty. The praxis of Nasserism sprang from this endeavor—a project for national liberation with limited resources, entailing simultaneous action on the domestic, regional, and international levels.

4. What developments and ideas formed the underpinnings of the 1923 Exchange of Populations between Greece and Turkey? What were the objectives of this "exchange"? To what extent were they met?

4. What developments and ideas formed the underpinnings of the 1923 Exchange of Populations between Greece and Turkey? What were the objectives of this "exchange"? To what extent were they met? The Treaty of Sevres divides Anatolia into nation-states, key being Greek and Turkish zones that will be in conflict. Mustaf Brits aid and arm the Greek army to fight Mustafa Kemal, saying they will give the Greeks a chunk of Eastern Anatolia in exchange—Greek invade Smyrna, wanting to restore byzantine empire, starting intense conflict between the Greeks and Turks. Mustafa Kemal (at this time) uses cultural and religious images/themes to motivate the people ("Muslims against Western Aggression")Fighting ends in 1922 with the Treaty of Lausanne, recognizing Turkish sovereignty, and Turkey is created in 1923The Greek-Turkish Population Exchange follows after, with 1.5 mil Greek Orthodoxs being sent from Anatolia/Turkey to Greece, and 500,000 Muslims to Turkey State-building in the twentieth century was, more often than not, an ugly affair and was frequently accompanied by ethnic cleansing to "purify" populations of "foreign" elements and repression to ensure the obedience of those who remained. Governments of Turkey and Greece arranged a population transfer to rid themselves of minorities they viewed as untrustworthy The population exchange between Greece and Turkey, agreed a century ago on 30 January 1923, was meant by both governments to help ensure harmony through the creation of homogenous nations, supposedly free from sectarian strife. On paper this was a great deal, helping rehome and settle the chaos after this long conflict, in reality it failed as it ignored the local cultural and identity of those living in each zone, instead forcing them to move based off their religious identity Only based on religion, not language or "ethnicity"----very violent and unjust "exchange" All sent away from home to place they'd never ben—ethnic cleansing DId not integrate well into new societies—not a happy "homecoming" Lived as refugees basically in new/foreign places These people were forced to migrate regardless of heritage, language, cultureTook long time to integrate, and had to battle with racism and harsh cultural differences

Abou El-Fadl; Nasserism

Abou El-Fadl argues that while "Nasserism" did not necessarily constitute a wholly developed ideology, the core set of principles and practices that constituted Nasser's policymaking have since been used by different political leaders across the world in their attempts at state transformation. El-Fadl discusses how Nasser emphasized Egypt's need for simultaneous political and social revolutions, including both the struggle to free Egypt from imperialism's influence and social justice in the domestic sphere. Nasser viewed these domestic and foreign objectives as interconnected, for example, encouraging industrialization to end reliance on foreign industries and imports. Additionally, Nasser emphasized Egypt's connections to both the Arab and African worlds based on a shared history of colonialism and supported other decolonizing movements in these regions. Nasser wanted to simultaneously empower the decolonizing Egyptian people and steer the country's direction, which left a complicated legacy on the country. This chapter revisits the political phenomenon of "Nasserism," acknowledging that it has multiple connotations and yet enduring signicance across the Arab world. It discusses Nasserism under Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) during his 1952-70 leadership and Nasserism as the political tradition that survived him. The chapter's range generates the conclusion that Nasserism has transcended its historical origins. It is now widely employed in political contestation to signal a set of enduring principles and aspirations for sovereignty and dignity across the Arab world. At the same time, it is an important node in critiques of contemporary political centralization and authoritarian rule in Arab republics. Sparking debate between these poles continuously, and as a political tradition with movements in most Arab countries today, Nasserism is set to remain a force to be reckoned with in Egyptian and Arab politics for the foreseeable future. On the simplest level, we may understand Nasserism as denoting the combination of principles and ideologies on the one hand, and policies and practices on the other, which characterized Nasser's rule from the 1952 coup to his death in 1970. however, there was a great deal of policy variation in the two-decade Nasser era, yet the term "Nasserism" has been widely used to connote only certain policies. These comprise welfarist economics, pan-Arab unity campaigns, and broader Third World solidarity politics, in opposition to colonialism and dependence. These were not necessarily the earliest nor the most enduring of the Nasser era's policies, but a combination of those that resonated the most and incited the most controversy. There is an accepted wisdom that the Free Officers lacked a clear "blueprint" of action when they came to power—no doctrine, program, or mass organization. However, in 1948, while recruiting for the Free Officers, Nasser had spoken about the need for two simultaneous "political and social revolutions." These would become a motif in his public discourse and would inform his political practice. The political revolution referred to the struggle for national liberation from colonialism, while the social revolution was to generate national unity through social justice. Both entailed confronting the British and their local collaborators—the monarchy, landowners, and political elites—all held responsible for deepening dependence and economic inequality in Egypt.2 Also in his 1953 publication The Philosophy of the Revolution was an emphasis on Egypt's commitment and belonging to Arab and African spheres, based on a shared history of colonialism and resistance, rather than ethnic ties. It should be emphasized that Nasser's preoccupation with social equality and a pan-Arabist regional orientation was common among the nationalist working and middle classes across mid-twentieth-century Egypt. The crux of the praxis of Nasserism was arguably the conception of domestic and external objectives as intertwined. Specifically, the Free Officers addressed themselves to two colonial legacies—underdevelopment and compromised sovereignty. The praxis of Nasserism sprang from this endeavor—a project for national liberation with limited resources, entailing simultaneous action on the domestic, regional, and international levels. Nasserist praxis was built on a belief in the role of the revolutionary state as the appropriate vehicle through which to represent popular sovereignty and advance a particular project Knowing that their project would undermine the privileges of the landed class and its colonial allies abroad, the Free Offcers retained a deep-seated belief that opening up the political system would restore the ancien régime. They were suspicious of party politics, given their own political formation in the 1930s and 1940s and their disillusionment with the liberal order. In 1953, they abolished the party system and announced a three-year transition period. They soon became reluctant to relinquish their hold on power, enjoying the unrivaled influence they had to pursue their objectives. In 1954, Nasser and then-President Muhammad Nagib (1901-1984) clashed over the restoration of parliamentary process. Nagib was ousted and by 1956 Nasser had replaced him. Thereafter, he dominated decision-making in domestic and foreign affairs. Given the same principle, the Free Officers' rule developed to be heavily repressive of political challengers.r. In 1954, after an attempt on Nasser's life by a Muslim Brother, the CCR extended the ban to the Muslim Brotherhood and thousands were jailed or went into exile. Thus, organized political opposition was not tolerated and the security apparatus expanded to monitor political activity across the country. With these objectives and this centralized approach, Nasserist praxis evolved through three areas: 1. A welfarist economic project featuring redistribution, industrialization, and planning policies; 2. Foreign policies seeking greater autonomy for Egypt and forging connections with Arab and other decolonizing movements; 3. Cultural and educational policies fostering "modern" citizenship values and promoting secular Egyptian and Arab identity. Social justice and national sovereignty were guiding principles but Nasser's decisions were pragmatic, open to revision in pursuit of competing objectives. NASSERISM AS SOCIAL JUSTICE: LAUNCHING THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION In 1952, the CCR articulated Six Principles that would guide its earliest decisions: these included ending "feudalism," eliminating monopolies, and striving for "social justice." However, redistribution was married with the pursuit of accelerated development, which generated confrontations with Egypt's capitalist class and revealed the limits of international financial support. The second phase of Nasser's economic policy began when the former colonial powers, along with the United States, withdrew their pledges of funding for the dam, prompting him to nationalize the Suez Canal Company. Here Nasser faced most acutely the challenge posed by the simultaneous need for social and political freedom; his plans for "freedom of bread" required autonomy of maneuver abroad, while the latter was dependent on a far more robust economic base than decolonizing Egypt could muster. The praxis of Nasserism was the effort to turn this dilemma into an opportunity: to make the international sphere work for the domestic. When Britain and France followed Israel in attacking Egypt in 1956, Nasser decided to nationalize their assets. Balancing this was the pull factor of Soviet support, manifest in the agreement to exchange Egyptian cotton for Czech arms in 1955 and in Moscow's commitment to finance the High Dam in January 1958.23 By that year, Egypt was sending almost half its exports to and receiving a third of its imports from the Soviet bloc.24 At the same time, the Egyptian leadership remained wary of the communist bloc's influence. The 1956 Constitution maintained that "social solidarity was the basis of Egyptian society", repudiating any notion of class struggle. NASSERISM AS PAN-ARABISM AND NEUTRALISM: LAUNCHING THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION The defining features of Nasserist foreign policy were pan-Arabism and Third World neutralism, later nonalignment, albeit with crucial Soviet military support. Though now regarded as hallmarks of the Nasserist project, these policies evolved through the negotiation of pressures of domestic capacity and external challenges. This was a contingent process which the CCR began without the intention of antagonizing the Western bloc nor reaching out to its Soviet rival. Meanwhile, the Free Officers attempted to "freeze" Egypt's second front of hostilities: the army could not face Israel on the eastern border while the British remained in the Canal Zone. Nasser reasoned that ultimately only development could empower the Arabs to restore their stolen lands. However, the early foreign policy of the Free Officers was preoccupied not only with the Palestinian cause but also with Arab liberation movements in general. This ability to build up Egypt's Arab and African network, while simultaneously focusing on domestic development, was not to last. external factors intervened: Britain and the United States pressured Egypt to join a Middle East collective security pact, effectively a regional arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This would grant them inuence over Egyptian foreign policy and military bases on its soil. they attached to this conditions for an Egyptian-Israeli settlement that Nasser refused to accept. Multiple provocations by the Israeli leadership itself, aimed at nipping Egypt's development plans in the bud. Most notable among these was the February 1955 Israeli raid on Egyptian-administered Gaza. Throughout, his response was to attempt to harness the popular successes of his pan-Arab stances—given their limited impact on Arab leaders—to gain leverage on the international stage, and translate this in turn into assistance. the illustrative episode of Suez CULTURES OF NASSERISM: POLITICAL AND POPULAR Studies of the Nasserist project have made much of its status as a "revolution from above." Examining the culture of Nasserism, both political and popular, is instructive; it reveals the ways in which it structured political expression for Egyptians and the ways in which they engaged with this. Nasserist political culture was characterized by the paradoxical dual objective of transmitting empowerment to a decolonizing people and of steering its overall direction. This recentering of the citizen in the political and social spheres, as compared with previous eras, established Nasser's charismatic legitimacy and partially enabled his centralization of power. The paradox was that the CCR viewed itself as responsible for guiding this process of change. This was informed by a broader anticolonial and modernist worldview, which envisioned progress as a combination of secular education, industrialization, and technological advances, and a negotiation of modernity and authenticity in the private and cultural realms. The principal condition of its freedom to express criticism and suggest policy changes at the time was the dissolution of Egypt's communist parties. Indeed, even as these loyal intellectuals noted the signs of apathy among the young generation and after student protests in 1967 conrmed this, Nasser did not move to authorize an opposition party. His own March 1968 declaration recognized the need for liberalization and a plurality of voices. However, the model remained one in which the government deemed threats to its direction too great to enable any meaningful devolution of power. Accompanying these institutional efforts were a slew of cultural policies aimed at producing educated, "model citizens" with socialist values.61 There was a concerted effort to make "high culture," associated with both Arab and European art and letters, accessible to most Egyptians. 62 Simultaneously, there was a prominent orientation toward the celebration of popular or folk arts, in line with the revolution's emphasis on the sovereignty and capacities of the people, and its care to maintain "connections with the past." post-nasser legacies Participating in popular demonstrations, strikes, or solidarity committees in this way, contentious actors were retrieving from Nasser's record a set of principles and precedents which they deployed in the face of the new regime. Crucially, in the process of taking up Nasser's legacy in their political claims-making, these actors redefined and reordered the priority principles of Nasserism to surpass the old centralized state context, and to demand greater political rights. They critiqued Nasser's one-party system and explicitly incorporated references to human rights and democracy in their new party platforms. Throughout this time, the neo-Nasserists were a key group in a larger set of intellectual circles in Egypt and the Arab world, which continued to debate the challenges of development and democracy, and the fortunes of pan-Arabism, while evaluating Nasser's legacy. Nasserism continued to manifest as a protest repertoire within a larger political tradition throughout the years leading up to the 2011 revolutionary outbreak. It was therefore a mark of some continuity when, starting January 2011, Egyptian revolutionary protests featured images, slogans, and music from the 1950s, but made thoroughly new demands.many unorganized protesters used Nasser-era symbols as recognized cultural frames to communicate the demand for social justice.Given the symbolic use of elements of Nasserism in the 2011 protests, its principles became part of the contest for revolutionary legitimacy in Egypt. Nasserism was duly instrumentalized in efforts to contain the revolution—such that political contests could be waged over this in 2014 Yet precisely because of its core principles, Nasserism has been employed and deployed by different political figures into the twenty-first century, each emphasizing a different configuration of its associated elements to a particular end. Nasserism is now an authentic political tradition in the Arab world and Egypt's recent revolutionary contestations are testament to this. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that its legacy as an example of political praxis—pursuing a fairer deal for less privileged nations and promoting unication trends such as pan-Africanism, tricontinentalism, and Bolivarism—has continued to inspire beyond Egypt. In Egypt in 2015, however, with political violence escalating and democracy still elusive, many argue that the shortcomings of the Nasserist experience have cast a long shadow. Others see in Egypt today echoes of the reality that Nasserism challenged, and emphasize an ongoing struggle for sovereignty and social justice.

Bashkin, The Colonized Semites and the Infectious Disease: Theorizing and Narrativizing Anti-Semitism in the Levant, 1870-1914

Bashkin argues that during the Nahda movement, Arab Muslim and Christian writers supported the Jewish community and condemned anti-Semitism and persecution, especially in Europe after events such as the Dreyfus affair. Arab intellectuals recognized that both Jews and Muslims were seen as Other by Europeans based on an assumption their beliefs were unmodern or "backwards", but to the Nahda writers interested in equality, science, and modernity, it was anti-Semitism that marked backwardness. Rida even argued that "anti-Semitism was a disease inflicted on the Arabs by those whose own society was split between civilized men and anti-Semites", emphasizing that anti-Semitism was inherently uncivilized. The Nahda movement's emphasis on modernity and equality subverted European narratives of "backwardness" and their pro-Jewish stances supported their critique of European hypocrisy and colonialism. Arab writers also sought to illuminate shared cultural, historical, and even racial histories between Arabs and Jews to overcome religious differences and emphasize that Arab and Jewish communities have developed cultures of peaceful coexistence within the Ottoman Empire.

Gelvin 348-62 A NEW MIDDLE EAST?

Condoleezza Rice was, however, correct in one sense: the American invasion of Iraq was one of two events that created what has become known as the "New Middle East." The other event took place seven years later when, on 17 December 2010, Muhammad Bouazizi burned himself to death in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia—an act that set the Arab world ablaze as well. Early on, "Arab Spring" became the term of choice for the wave of protests and uprisings that spread throughout the Arab world. But as the wave subsided there were few traces of the renewal and optimism the word "Spring" conjures up. Instead, much of what has come to define the region after 2011 is a continuation of phenomena that was already present. Arab states remain rent-seeking and patrimonial, for example, much as they had been before the turn of the twenty-first century. In other words, states still depend on sources of income other than taxation for revenue, and power is concentrated in the hands of a ruler or rulers who foster ties of dependency with select elements in society. The region remains embedded within a global economic system that gives pride of place to neoliberalism. Arab states are still deficient in human rights, account. bility, transparency, and rule of law. And populations still suffer from low human security in much of everything from education and healthcare to good governance to access to adequate food and water supplies. Nevertheless, the region has changed, and most of that change has not been for the better. It is possible to identify six changes that have come to define the New Middle East so far. 1. First, although none of the uprisings that broke out in 2010 succeeded (save for possibly Tunisia's), and although it is still too early to tell their long term effects, governments throughout the region that were able to withstand the tumult became more reliant on a combination of raw power, elite cohesion, external sup-port, and bribery to maintain themselves. None of the solutions these or other regimes have found will bring long-term relief to their crisis of legitimacy. The case of Algeria is telling: in 2011, the regime squelched a protest movement when three thousand demonstrators confronted thirty thousand riot police. Eight years later, after the chronically ill eighty-two-year-old president declared for a fifth term, protests broke out throughout the country. In the capital, Algiers, a reported 800,000 protesters took to the streets to express their anger. In places like Egypt and Bahrain protests and uprisings threatened regimes, but those regimes came through them not only relatively unscathed but emboldened. The story is different in those states that have been the sites of multi-sided Civil wars fueled by outside powers - Syria, Libya, and Yemen. The government of Syria, aided by Russia and Iran, took back almost all the territory that had been under opposition control, but at tremendous cost. It is likely that Syria's fate will resemble that of Somali, hence the word coined to describe Syria's future, "Somalization." Syria will have an internationally recognized government that will continue to reign but not rule over a ruined country. Local warlords who fIelded militias during the civil war and financed them by grabbing hold of some resource such as oil or smuggling will continue to wield power while the govern-ment, impoverished and debilitated by war, can only look on. Libya will probably meet a similar fate, with or without a government Yemen may follow a different path. Outside powers that intervened into the Syrian and Libyan wars did so for their proxies to take control of a state apparatus that would rule over the entirety of the state. In contrast, the UAE intervened in the Yemeni civil war with the intention of dividing the country and reestablishing an independent South Yemen. Although it subsequently withdrew from the fighting, Little Sparta maintains big plans for its future in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. As regimes shifted their strategies for holding on to power, oppositional movements paid a heavy price. In Egypt and Bahrain, for example, counter-rev-olutionary regimes out for revenge crushed mass-based oppositional movements that they had allowed to operate before 2011 or that had emerged publicly during the uprisings. After the 2013 coup d'état in Egypt, President Sisi ordered the massacre of between eight hundred to one thousand supporters of ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Muhammad Morsi who had gathered to protest his ouster in Rabaa al-Adawiyya and Nahda squares in Cairo. Sisi then had the top leaders of the Brotherhood arrested, disbanded the organization, and confiscated its property. And it wasn't just the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt that found itself under attack: Muslim brotherhoods throughout the region found themselves caught up in the competition between Turkey and Qatar, which generally supported them, and Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, which did not. In most places (the most notable exception being Tunisia), Saudi Arabia and its friends proved more success-ful, and brotherhoods were no longer serious contenders for power-a bitter pill for organizations that had sought to avoid such an eventuality by renouncing violence and combining popular appeal with doctrinal flexibility. As for the activists whose call for "Days of Rage" started it all in Egypt, Bah-rain, Yemen, and elsewhere, the amorphous structure and ad hoc nature of the movements they created only made the repression unleashed by regimes easier. In Syria, the uprising weakened, demoralized, and diverted the attention of the military and security services and the regime lost control of large areas of the country. The collapse of authority created an environment in which the ultra-violent ISIS could emerge. Although born in Iraq, ISIS began its territorial expansion in Syria. From Syria, ISIS's reach spread to Iraq when the army of that unfortunate country refused to defend the corrupt and sectarian regime empowered by the United States there. For a brief moment, ISIS ruled over a caliphate the size of the United King-dom, comprising upwards of eight million people. ISIS applied a draconian interpretation of Islamic law that was rigid even by Saudi standards. Otherwise, the rent-seeking, patrimo-nial, and autocratic "caliphate" ISIS created was a perfect fit for the neighborhood. 2. The Syrian civil war and the emergence and expansion of ISIS were two of the factors that contributed to the spread of sectarianism across the region--the second characteristic of the New Middle East. Since its appearance in the nineteenth century, sectarianism has had a variable footprint across the region. Nevertheless, in their day-to-day interactions, most Iraqis, like most Syrians before 2011, continued to abide by an unwritten code of "public civility," much as many Ameri-Cans do on the issue of race. Recently, however, sectarianism has not only become entrenched in both places, it has spread elsewhere. Two factors have encouraged this: the activities of local political entrepreneurs and Saudi-Iranian competition. In Syria and Iraq, political entrepreneurs deliberately set out to sectarian-ize society. In Syria, the Alawite-dominated government stirred up sectarian tensions to rally the support of Alawites and other minorities to its cause. In Iraq, both jihadi groups and the post-occupation government provoked sectari-anism. Sectarian tensions spread from Syria and Iraq as the conflicts in Syria and Iraq reverberated beyond their borders. Refugees seeking safety, fighters seeking sanctuary abroad, and opposition groups seeking assistance from co-religionists abroad also spread the sectarian toxin. 3. Elsewhere in the region, the Saudi-Iranian competition has driven sectari-anism, as both Saudi Arabia and Iran have sought to find "natural" allies in their struggle to check the ambitions of their rival. This competition is the third characteristic of the New Middle East. The roots of Saudi-Iranian competition go back no further than 1979, when, in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, Saudi and Iranian interests in the Gulf and elsewhere diverged. Since then, Saudi Arabia has sought to maintain a regional status quo that has worked to its advantage. Iran, on the other hand, seeks to turn a generally hostile political environment to its favor. It finds cracks in the current system and exploits them. The American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the Arab uprisings created plenty of cracks. Saudi Arabia has blamed Iran for stirring rebellion in Bahrain and Yemen, as well as in the Eastern Province of the kingdom and other places. While it is indisputable that Iran has capitalized on crises in multiple arenas, it has not come close to being the provocateur that Saudi Arabia claims it to be. If, then, Saudi anxieties are not commensurate with the level of Iranian threat, why do they persist? There are three reasons. First, there were the Arab uprisings. The uprisings not only threatened to spill over into the kingdom, they jeopardized Saudi Arabia's allies as well as the regional order. And by raising the prospect that the realm of democratic and human rights might expand into the region, they rattled the foundations of Saudi Arabia's legitimacy. Just as serious for the Saudis, the uprisings threatened to empower Muslim brotherhoods and Muslim-Brotherhood-style movements throughout the region. The second factor that stoked Saudi paranoia was Barack Obama's Middle East policy. The policy so disturbed the Saudis that they made sure to capture the ear of Donald Trump, his administration, and his clan early on. And they succeeded, as can be seen by a number of Trump initiatives. These included withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal; his veto of resolutions in the House and Senate that would have ended American complicity in the Saudi campaign in Yemen; and his defense of Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman, the real ruler of the country, who everyone but Trump believes ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident. Finally, the collapse of oil prices threatened the financial underpinning of the Saudi kingdom and fed Saudi concerns about the future. broad, Saudi Arabia became uncharacteristically intrusive in the region, intervening into the internal affairs of its neighbors, fighting against an often-imaginary Iranian enemy. In the cases of Yemen and Bahrain, Saudi intrusiveness took a military form; in the cases of Syria, Libya, and Egypt, it was financial. Saudi Arabia is hardly alone in abandoning the Westphalian principles of respect for state sovereignty and nonintervention. Powers great and small, from inside and outside the region have also done so consistentlv in the New Middle East. That this has taken place is the result of widespread civil disorder and state breakdown within an environment characterized by intense interstate competi-tion. It doesn't help that there is no hegemon that might have reserved such transgressions for itself. The American declaration of a global war on terrorism virtually codified permission to violate the national sovereignty of others. At one time or another since 2011, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and Israel, not to mention the United States, its European allies, and Russia, have intervened in one way or another into the internal affairs of Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Irag, and Yemen against established governments or without their express approval. 4. The widespread abandonment of the principles of respect for state sovereignty and nonintervention marks the fourth characteristic of the New Middle East. 5. The absence of a hegemon that might act as a regional stabilizer and temper conflicts in the region also distinguishes the current period. It is true that A mer-ica's golden age in the Middle East was not solid gold. American success in the region during the Cold War was tempered by setbacks. During that era, the United States was not able to prevent the overthrow of a friendly government in Iran, end the civil war in Lebanon, rein in its Israeli ally, roll back the oil price revolution of 1973, nor bring Syria, Iraq, or Yemen into its orbit. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of truth to Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat's remark, cited earlier, that by 1977 America held "99 percent of the cards" in the Middle East. With the help of its partners in the region, the United States was able to limit and even roll back Soviet influence there, the main goal of its policy. The United States was successful for two reasons: It had proxies in the region it could rely on - Israel in the west, Saudi Arabia and, until 1979, Iran in the east--to act as deterrents against any group or state that sought to upset the status quo; and those proxies had the same overriding objective as the United States: the maintenance of that status quo. Then three things happened. First, the Soviet Union imploded, removing the unifying factor that held the alliance together. Then, the United States invaded and occupied Iraq. This, along with the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, soured most Americans on further interventions into the region, as poll after poll has indicated. It also demonstrated the limits of American military power--the one power at which the United States excels-to effect determinate solutions to complex problems. Finally, there was the election of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Neither president convinced America's partners and adversaries in the region that the United States was willing to play the same role during his administration that it had played during the Cold War Although the region has certainly piqued China's interest, China, too, is a doubtful contender for the mantle of hegemon. First off, the amount of money China has pledged is not nearly sufficient. According to the IMF, Syria alone has suffered infrastructure damage of $180 billion and economic losses of $275 bil-lion. Why should China throw good money after bad? And even though Chinese foreign policy has been more assertive of late, China has limited its assertiveness to its own neighborhood-the South China Sea, its immediate neighbors, and those countries that border China's immediate neighbors. There is no reason why China should shoulder the responsibilities of a hegemon when it can take advantage of existing security networks and a functioning global economic system sustained by others, as it has in the past. China's role in the contemporary Middle East is, ironically, similar to the role played by the United States in the region during the interwar period. 6. Amidst the ongoing jockeying for position in the region, one perennial conflict seems to have diminished in relevance in the New Middle East: the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The diminished relevance of the conflict is the sixth and final characteristic of the New Middle East. For decades, Arab governments, along with a number of policy analvsts and American presidents, have pushed the doctrine of "linkage." Linkage refers to the idea that instability in the Middle East is "linked" to a failure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Whatever significance Arab governments might have given to the conflict in the past, however, a significant number of them, led by the Saudi Arabian government, have put the conflict on the back burner of their foreign policy concerns-if they have not dismissed it altogether. In the true spirit of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," shared antipathy to Iran brings Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the members of the Saudi-led "anti-terrorism" (i.e., anti-Iran) alliance together in a common cause. In April 2018, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman told an interviewer that he believed "Israelis have the right to have their own land." In winter of that same year, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared a platform with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Yemen, and Oman at the Warsaw Summit, originally called by the United States to address "Iran's influence and terrorism in the region." And Israel continues to maintain government and quasi-government offices in Oman, Qatar, and the UAE. Israel provides Saudi Arabia and the Gulf with strategic depth and a technological edge in their confrontation with Iran, not to mention the benefits of its special relationship with the United States. The fact that the Israel-Palestine peace process had collapsed does not seem to have bothered the states involved in these dealings. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM In 2009, the United Nations Development Programme published its fifth Arab Human Development Report, titled, "Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries." The report then goes on to list seven threats to human security in the Arab Middle East: pressures on environmental resources; the performance of the state in guaranteeing or undermining human security; the personal insecurity of vulnerable groups; economic vulnerability, poverty and unemployment; food security and nutrition; health and human security; occupation (meaning Israel) and foreign military intervention. Needless to say, the Arab world, and, indeed, the Middle East as a whole, are regions in which the threats to human security are among the greatest in the world. Although the rate of growth is declining in the region, the near doubling of the population in a little over thirty-five years strains available resources and state capacities. Along with neoliberal economics, which discourages states from making investments in much needed infrastructure and services, the population rise in the non-oil producing states of the Arab world has decimated education and health. care systems built during the early postcolonial years when populations were smaller. Population growth is one of the forces driving the rise in poverty in the region as well (the exception being among the citizens of the oil producing states of the Gulf). Alongside population growth, unemployment and stalled economies, civil and political conflict, and climate change and environmental degradation have contributed to high rates of poverty in the Arab world. In Israel, it is the large number of working poor, along with the expanding number of ultra-Orthodox who shun work for religious study. In Turkey, the main culprits are global and domestic economic downturns and the government's pro-natalist (pro-birth) policies. In Iran, it's population growth, the collapse of oil prices, corruption and mismanagement, and American sanctions, of which the population, not the regime, has borne the brunt. Throughout the region, the side effects of neoliberal economic policies--rising income disparities, privatization-induced unemploy-ment, and the like--also bear responsibility for the large number of those living below the poverty line. At the root of female disempowerment in the Arab world are patriarchal at-titudes. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center Poll, on the average 86 percent of Arabs polled (male and female) believed that a wife must always obey her hus-band, 63 percent believed family planning is not morally acceptable, and 35 percent believed polygamy is. Only 38 percent believed a woman should have the right to divorce her husband and only 26 percent believed that daughters should have equal inheritance rights with sons. Entrenched patriarchy manifests itself in other ways as well. Although women in all countries in the Middle East have the right to vote (Saudi Arabia, the last on board, bowed to the inevitable in 2011), voting in most of the region is not exactly empowering. Women still lag in participation in governance at the highest levels behind their sisters in every other region of the world Women also lag behind their male counterparts in terms of workforce participation and education. Female participation in the Arab workforce is about 25 percent--among the lowest in the world- In addition to entrenched cultural biases against hiring women, women lack employment opportunities in the Arab world because of high reproductive rates, legal systems that make hiring women difficult, and personal status regulations. In terms of education, the Arab world also has one of the world's lowest rates of female education While climate change will affect every region of the globe, the Middle East is more vulnerable than most for three reasons. The first has to do with food. The Middle East not only has a high dependence on climate sensitive agriculture, it is dependent as well on agricultural imports from areas that climate change will affect. Scientists predict that higher temperatures and reduced precipitation will increase the occurrence of droughts in the region. The drought sparked a rural to urban exodus of about 1.5 million Syrians. This helps explain why the birthplace and epicenters of the uprising were cities and towns surrounded by agricultural areas, such as Dara and the towns in the Hawran region surrounding the capital. Climate change outside the region will likewise affect it by diminishing the quantity of food available for import. Because of difficult agricultural conditions throughout the Middle East, the region imports more food, particularly grains, than any other region in the world. Ninety percent of Egyptian wheat, for example, comes from abroad, mostly from Russia. In 2010, wildfires and a heat wave diminished the Russian crop by forty percent, and Russia took its grain off the international market. Over the course of the following year, food prices in Egypt jumped 30 percent. Scientists have attributed the wildfires and heat wave to climate change. It would, of course, be simplistic to draw a straight line between the Russian decision to take its grain off the market and the outbreak of the Egyptian uprising a year later, much as it would be to draw a straight line between the Syrian drought and the uprising there. Egyptians and Syrians harbored multiple grievances against their governments that cannot be linked to climate change. Be-sides, privation does not necessarily translate into political action-as often as not, privation leads to alienation and impassivity. Nevertheless, climate change will hardly have a calming effect on the region. This brings us to the second reason the Middle East is more vulnerable to climate change than other regions - water, or the shortage thereof. Only 43 percent of surface water in the Middle East originates within a single country. This has led to conflict and threats of conflict between states over water rights A final reason that the Middle East is vulnerable to climate change is that a large proportion of the region's population lives in coastal areas. These, then, are just a few of the problems the inhabitants of the New Middle East face. There are others. Given the fact that the Middle East is a region in which the one prerequisite for dealing with these problems - what the UN calls. diplomatically, "good governance"- is in deficit, the prospect the region will deal adequately with them is not encouraging.

Gelvin 222-250 CHAP 13: The Invention and Spread of Nationalisms

In the aftermath of World War I, a variety of nationalist movements emerged and spread in the Middle East. Representatives of the Armenian, Arab, and Kurdish "nations" descended on Paris to lobby the peace conference, while Turkish, Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese ("Phoenician") nationalists made their voices heard in other ways. Each of these movements claimed to represent the political aspirations of populations that the Ottoman Empire had previously ruled. Each claimed that the Ottoman Empire had been little better than an imperial prison that had kept their nations in captivity. Despite the claims of nationalist movements, these movements did not represent age-old nations yearning to re-establish their freedom after four hundred years of bondage. Nationalist movements created those nations. Furthermore, it was the very Ottoman Empire the movements vilified that had made possible the explosion of nationalisms in the post-World War I Middle East possible. The key to understanding the emergence of nationalism among the populations of the Ottoman Empire and Persia rests in the transformation of these empires. It is important to keep in mind that the culture of nationalism and the particular nationalisms that draw from it are different. A culture of nationalism enables popular acceptance of a specific nationalism. For example, osmanlilik, Syrian nationalism, Arab nationalism, and the like could emerge because a culture of nationalism was already present in the Ottoman Empire. A specific nationalism can take root if and only if a culture of nationalism exists--but it doesn't have to. The diffusion of any specific nationalism is not inevitable. Furthermore, the culture of nationalism has proven to be extraordinarily resilient wherever it has taken hold. In the modern world, everyone must belong to a nation. Specific nationalisms, on the other hand, come and go all the time

7. Contextualize the following quote by Shirin Ebadi: "In the past 23 years...I had repeated one refrain: an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy as an authentic expression of faith. It is not a religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them to be cloistered. That belief, and the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully, and from within, has underpinned my work." What historical moments and developments might she be referring to and why? Do you support her point of view? (Ebadi, who is Iranian, was the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.)

Islam is not inherently undemocratic, violent, or sexist, and that interpretations of Islam which ARE these things should be situated within their historical and cultural contexts. esp after "war on terror"; Islam has been seen as violent Islamist groups using violent methods in reaction to these repressive violent regimes, NOT because Islam inherently violent Jihadi; jihadist—terror terms used to dehumanize Muslim societies and claims for justice/grievances. Way of diminishing claims coming from thai context Another important part of the quote is change coming both peacefully and from within, meaning the West shouldn't just go in and try to impose secular liberal democracy. Outsiders have been claiming to solve the region's problems for far to long 1953 Iranian coup especially US intervention—Operation Ajax: (by CIA and MI6)- first attempt on August 15 1953 Restores royal dictatorship; White Revolution the U.S.- and UK-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected PM Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Perhaps key for long-term peace is to diminish feelings of injustice (Related to foreign interventions, etc)

5. What was the Bandung Conference and what was Nasser's role in it? What effects did this have on the wider Arab and Muslim world, including Algeria?

The Bandung Conference (1955) was a gathering of post-colonial states to discuss self-determination and navigating the Cold War's global atmosphere. Their message was that the priority should now be development, avoiding embroilment in the Cold War, and the leaders hoped to focus on the potential for collaboration among the nations of the third world, promoting efforts to reduce their reliance on Europe and North America.. The Bandung conference played a role in providing the FLN one of the first international audiences to their message of anticolonialism and struggle for independence--- condemned "colonialism in all its manifestations" and called for Algerian independence. Nasser was one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement, and of the independent postcolonial world generally. Nasser, a charismatic leader and newcomer to the political scene, Began to emerge as an anticolonial, 3rd world revolutionary and LEADER ALSO Nasser talked with the Chinese premier to get him a contact to Moscow to get arms from communist Czechoslovakia, allied with the USSR at the time. This seemed to contradict his promotion of the nonalignment stance, yet simultaneously helped secure his position as a regional power (El-Fadl)

What is Rentier State Theory and what are its critiques?

The Rentier State Theory posits that oil revenues or "rent" coming from foreign sources have produced an autonomy of state apparatuses from society, which will leadd to large disparities between industries connected to oil and other sectors of the economy as well. Rentier States receive massive amounts of money that they aren't really held accountable for because it doesn't come from the people. Hanieh argues that the Rentier State Theory needs to reconsider the ways that class and the broader global capitalist economy influence the societies and economies of the Gulf states. RST makes this artificial, Weberian distinction between the state and the capitalist ruling class; however, a Rentier State is just a state with an extremely unequal but basically familiar version of capitalism. Focusing on oil as a cause of this inequality rather than just global capitalism then becomes a sort of "commodity fetishism" in which this one single item is blamed for everything wrong with the state economically. Hanieh argues that scholarship must use a holistic view of Gulf capitalism, in which the rise of an exploitable migrant labor force and other phenomena are understood as parts of institutions that reflect class and power dynamics in the Middle East. Bsheer emphasizes that the RST is used to explain the prevalence of authoritarianism and single- commodity economies while not considering and thus obscuring the ways that British and US imperial powers were party to the very making, and survival, of these Gulf regimes.

7. Discuss the role of discourse and the importance of discursive analysis to history. Consider examples where rhetorical construction translated to action and had real, tangible impact. Reflect on colonialism, nationalism, and state-building. You might include consideration of the impact of discursive aspects of the Zionist movement and practices employed in travel discourse (tiyul), and how this discourse supported a settler-colonial project (Stein); the co-optation of feminism by both the FLN and French colonial power during the Algerian War of Independence, the Kemalist state with regard to the "new woman," and the Nasserist state via state feminism (Gelvin and lecture); Arab nationalism and the construction of a shared pan-Arab identity; the role of rhetoric in establishing legitimacy for an authoritarian and military state (Dina El-Baradie's lecture); and Orientalism as a discourse that shaped colonialism.

Zionist discourse Stein argues that tiyul, the act of walking through Palesetine by Jewish settlers, had a discursive impact in favor of the Zionist settler-colonial project.One primary narrative was the way in which the tiyul was described as a heroic act in the face of Arab and natural hostility. The description of tiyul as heroic reinforced the idea of the "New Hebrew," a discourse that held that the act of emigrating to Palestine would reinvigorate the Jew. The concept of the New Hebrew would be a significant pull factor for many Ashekenazi Jews who perceived that life in Europe had led to a deterioration in certain principles, such as strength and heroism.Travelogues written by Zionist figures such as Ben Zvi also had a large impact in configuring Palestine as a new Zionist geography. For example, in one account of a journey to Hebron in 1908, Ben Zvi cites Jewish biblical history and ancient Hebrew names to overwrite the Arab landscape. Even though he only literarily erases the Arab presence, such discursive methods would manifest real-world impacts. Ben Zvi would later take part in a special naming committee that would replace Arab names for areas in Palestine with Hebrew names. FLN and French co-optation of feminism during Algerian War of Independence According to Seferdjeli, the FLN recognized the powerful discursive potential of publicizing women's active participation in the FLN. Advertising female participation had the following benefits:Symbolized a shift from a more limited revolt to a widely encompassing national independence movementProject an image of progressiveness to the international community that appeared to show liberation/emancipation of women (which was not entirely true in reality within the FLN, with women typically being excluded from military activities) The French responded to this discourse with their own attempts to co-optInitiated several measures intended to win over women: Granted franchise in 1958, offered greater access to education/employment, revised the Muslim personal status to benefit womenFrench were eager to counter the FLN's discourse by publicizing Algerian women in support of a French Algeria, like Nafissa Sid Cara. Despite being a Algerian Muslim woman, she supported French rule of Algeria and became appointed as a secretary of state in the French government. However, such French counter-discourses never reached the effectiveness or widespread popularity of the FLN's. The Kemalist state "new woman" Mustafa Kemal pushed for expanding the rights of women. He changed the civil code abolishing polygamy and granting women equal rights to men in divorce and inheritance. He opened schools in Turkey for girls and young women through the university level. Women gained the right to vote. All of this contributed to advancing the new Kemalist discourse about the "New Woman" However, this discourse was not intended to be one characterized only by benevolence for equality; rather, it contributed to Kemalist state building by pitting the New Woman discourse against the typical private patriarchy of the husband/father dominated household. The deconstruction of the private patriarchy would then create power vacuums that the public patriarchy, aka the Kemalist state, could fill.Nasserist state via state feminismHad a very similar discursive narrative about women as the Kemalist state; there was an advancement of the idea of the "working women model" in order to protect the state itselfNasserist support for state feminism, such as the right to vote, paid maternity leave, etc, were thus all part of constructing a narrative that the Nasserist state was dedicated to social justice.Why?Wanted to appease middle class sentiment and displace feminist organizations that had been around since the 1920s. These groups could have proved to be a challenge to regime rule if they became dissatisfied.Also wanted to further cement state control over private lives like Kemal The working woman model also helped support the Nasserist goal of economic self-sufficiency; adding women to the labor force improves economic output and productivity Role of rhetoric in establishing legitimacy for an authoritarian and military state A developmentalist ethos emerged in the Middle East during the nineteenth century. Some populations began to internalize the logic that successful state governments were those that were successful in economic development (plus social justice). This developmentalist ethos fused with a growing anti-imperialist mood, particularly after events like the Suez War of 1956. This explains how the Nasserist regime rhetorically justified the legitimacy of his authoritarian state; the Suez War of 1956 served as evidence that his military rule was needed to defend against foreign interference; plus the anti-imperialist rhetoric also fit neatly into a developmentalist ethos. By nationalizing foreign assets and properties, Nasser would be able to further develop Egypt's economy. Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal, British and French investments, funds in banks in Egypt, and many private enterprises Orientalism as a discourse that shaped colonialism—SATIA British intelligence agents perceived Arabia as a mysterious and dishonest region, necessitating the use of intuitive intelligence tactics as opposed to empirical procedures. Therefore, agents who were believed to be blessed with the intuition necessary to "think like an Arab" gained tremendous influence after the conclusion of World War One, such as T.E. Lawrence. These agents pushed for the use of air control because they envisioned it as paralleling the swiftness of Bedouin warfare. They also believed that the Iraqi Arabs were culturally accustomed to warfare and would therefore be completely fine with the violence of air control. An additional justification was that in a biblical land, it was culturally normal for random "acts of God" to wreak havoc, and therefore the inhabitants would not be shocked by air control. Pan-Arabism Baathism: a political movement originally built on platform of economic justice; social justice; cultural revitalization. One Arab nation "umma"; unity, freedom, socials Baathist coups after 1967: Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Asad in Syria Iraq—Baath (rebirt) Party—-logo has whole MENA outline; talks about a single, untied Arab society/state. A pan-arab Map/unity