Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Archival and ethnographic interventions on Lebanon

I wonder how I missed this excellent article on ‘sectarianism’ in the Middle East when it was published in 2017. It reminds me of at least a statement and a question by two English who did History at the London School of Economics. One said: “Now I understand why there are many conflicts in the Arab world. It is because there are many dialects.” The other asked me when the split between the Sunnis and Shi’a took place, implying that it is ‘a millennium-long conflict’.  Related Coexistence, sectarianism and racism – an interview with Ussama Makdisi Boundary making and sectarianisation in Syria 2011-2013 Making and unmaking of the greater Middle East

An interview with Ussama Makdisi

From Sykes-Picot to a dysfunctional ‘democtacy’

A book review   Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World

Women and "the Iraqi Revolution"

The Lebanese uprising continues

"Toby Dodge, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and a longtime researcher on Iraq, said the post-2003 system which embedded corruption in the Iraqi state, as well as sectarianism and coercion, was starting to break down – and violence was spiralling as a result. " Oh, but I thought, or I have been told by the media since the invasion of Iraq and the the war in Syria, that sectarianism is inherent and the main issue and that it goes back to post-Mohammed era. Now someone is blaming an imperialist occupation and (re)engineering of the Iraqi society. And a "revolution" is unfolding, i.e. class and social issues have become prevelant.

While Kurds are talking about "betrayal" and "stab in the back", "Within the first two weeks, most of Iraq's cities and provinces  fell to rebel forces. Participants of the uprising were a diverse mix of ethnic, religious and political affiliations, including military mutineers, Shia Arab  Islamists, Kurdish nationalists , and far-left groups." [sectarianism has been going on since the 7th century?] Read here what the American regime's position was  1991 uprisings in Iraq

The New Yorker has just discovered this: The Middle East's Great Divide is not Sectarianism Too late though. 

Like in most analyses, missing is the historical fact of an overlap of sect and class in some Arab countries. Example: one has to look at the position of the majority of the Syrian bourgeoisie towards the uprising and the regime since the outbreak of the uprising and then the war. Postel:  In recent years, a narrative has taken hold in Western policy and media circles that attributes the turmoil and violence engulfing the Middle East to supposedly ancient sectarian hatreds. "Sectarianism" has become a catch-all explanation for virtually all of the regionʹs problems. This narrative can be found across the political spectrum – from right-wing voices with openly anti-Muslim agendas, to softer liberal-centrist articulations and even certain commentators on the left. In its various forms, this sectarian essentialism has become a new conventional wisdom in the West. It is an intellectually lazy, ideologically convenient and deeply Orientalist narrative. The West's ...

Not bad! However, could we speak of economics without considering "uneven and fettered development", regional and global capitalism, productivity, class? The economics of the Arabellion

Iraq Protests and anger of Shia men diretced at Shia politicians? I tought it was fundamentally, inherently and eternally a Sunni-Shia war! "Sunni and Shia politicians sat in the parliament and built fortunes with the blood of the people who massacred each other in the street." Oil flows freely, but corruption fuels growing anger You see, there is no hope in these people. We "liberated them", we "helped them having democracy" after 2003, but it seems they are not fit to catch up with "the civilised world".

Sadr, Sectarianism, and Popular Alternative

"The central point is this: identities are fluid, constantly defined and redefined through economic and political struggles. The predominance of ethnic and sectarian conflict is a phenomenon that itself needs to be explained — not assumed to be an unavoidable driver of discord." The Tribalist Trap Syria as an example Note that the author while generalizing when talking about "Western-backed regimes", failed to say that in the case of Syria the regime is a Russian- and Iranian-backed regime.

"Does 'populism' actually mean anything in this discourse, other than whatever may be inconvenient to Anglo-American liberalism?" No, you blithering idiots, Muqtada al-Sadr is not the Iraqi Trump

The conflict in Yemen is not really about Iranian influence, as is often claimed to and in Western capitals. It’s certainly not about legitimacy or democracy, nor yet about sect, creed or colour. It’s about filthy lucre, and the corrupt access to it via state-capture. The Arab Spring—a rising up of the “street” against the  kleptocracy —was co-opted and corrupted in Yemen by  political factions  (and their foreign sponsors.) The UN-sponsored  National Dialogue Conference  supposed to be a national fresh start after decades of corruption, nepotism and misrule, was itself corrupted by those very factions it sought to replace: many of the ancien regime were able to retain and leverage ill-gotten political and financial resources, despite those being the major cause of the 2011 uprising. And the West stood idly by. Radix Malorum est Cupiditas "Greed is the root of evil"

"It is interesting to note that the majority of the businessmen were from a Sunni background, with the exception of the inner circle of crony capitalists. According to an analysis published in the Syrian magazine Al-Iqtisad Wa Al-Naql in 2011, from the list of the 100 most important businessmen in Syria, 23 percent of them were children of high officials, or their partners or acting as their “interfaces”; 48 percent were new businessmen, but for the majority they had close and corrupt relationships with the security services; 22 percent were part of the traditional bourgeoisie from before the nationalization policies of the sixties, some of whom also had corrupt relationships with the leaders of the state; and seven per cent had their main business activities outside of Syria. In terms of religious sects, the percentage was the following: 69 per cent were Sunni, 16 percent Alawi, 14 percent were Christians, 1 percent Shia, while there was no Druze, Ismaili or Kurdish presence. It...

Understanding Ibn Taymiyyah as a Man of His Time