Center for International and Regional Studies

Nabil Fahmy on US Arab Relations in a Changing World
2009-04-29 08:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Moscow)
Former Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Nabil Fahmy gave his analysis and insight into the foreign policy challenges facing the United States and the Arab world in a speech at the Diplomatic Club in Doha on April 29, 2009.

Fahmy stressed the inter-connectedness of the challenges facing the region and suggested that developments on both the American and Arab political landscapes have presented new opportunities to tackle them.

He hailed the election of Barack Obama in particular as an indicator that the “United States is going through a transformational period” in terms of the way it sees its place in the world. Under the Clinton administration, he said, the United States struggled with the new roles and responsibilities it assumed as it transitioned from a Cold War superpower to a global power. Meanwhile, George W. Bush “sold his foreign policy to Americans as a function of fears” and withdrew American participation in international treaties and cooperation with the United Nations.

In contrast, President Obama has told Americans that they need to change and has elevated the role of diplomacy in America’s toolkit for international engagement. Obama “was not selling fear,” Fahmy said, and instead arguing that America can “engage in the world.”

While the Arab world has a large stake in America’s actions – the global financial crisis, for example, Fahmy said, has led to a $10 billion reduction in foreign investment in the region – it is also experiencing a transformation of its own, spurred by a new openness in the media and an ever-more knowledgeable and globally exposed youth demographic. Fahmy sees, in the future, a continued importance for states that have traditionally played a leading role in the region, such as Egypt, as well as an increased importance for countries in the Gulf which have an opportunity to diversify their investments and gain a sense of economic power that is not wholly dependent on outside brokers.

However, Fahmy said, the Arab world suffers from a lack of unity created by conflicts in national priorities and petty rivalries. Thus, he advised, Arabs need to look to the model of the European Union and “find a way to talk in one voice even if we do not have identical positions.” In addition, the Arab foreign policy agenda should be more proactive and clearly stated, rather than merely reacting to agendas set out by other international players.

On a whole host of issues, from Iraq and Iran to Arab-Israeli peace and terrorism, the United States and the Arab world have a different ordering of priorities, according to Fahmy. The encouraging news, however, is that developments on one front often have positive repercussions for others, and President Obama “wants to deal with all these issues together.”

On Israeli-Palestinian peace, Ambassador Fahmy stressed that there is no solution but a two-state solution. He added that he was worried by the formation of a new Israeli government led by Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right. If, however, Arab states make it clear that they will pursue their foreign policy objectives regardless of outside pressure, the United States will respond and offer cooperation on realizing peace, which is also in its national interest, as it did during the 1970s with Anwar Sadat.

Fahmy acknowledged that terrorism is a major challenge facing the Arab world, but he called for some historical perspective on the matter, arguing that Egypt was the target of terrorism and religious extremism before America. He also stated that terrorism is hardly a phenomenon limited to the Middle East. Europe experienced waves of terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s, and the West “cannot put blame on others, because they have been there before.”

On Iraq, Fahmy said it was in the interest of the Arab world that Iraq remain a unified country, and efforts must be made to promote national identity above the myriad sectarian identities that have emerged.

Responding to a question from the audience regarding political reform and the absence of democracy in the region, Fahmy said, “Having better institutions in the Arab world serves the Arab world before it serves America.” He stressed, however, that reform is a longer-term project that requires fostering implementation, rather than appealing to immediate and careless strategies.

A seasoned diplomat, Ambassador Fahmy was Egypt’s chief representative to the United States for nine years beginning in 1999. He has participated in Arab-Israeli peace talks and filled several advisory positions in the course of his tenure at the Foreign Ministry. Ambassador Fahmy is an expert on international security and disarmament and served as chairman of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board of Disarmament Matters in 2001.

Summary by Alex Schank.

Mark Farha Lectures on Lebanon as the Mirror of Arab Politics
2009-04-07 08:00 - 18:00
On April 7, 2009, Mark Farha, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, was invited by CIRS to give the April Monthly Dialogue on the subject of “Lebanon as the Mirror of Arab Politics.”

Farha began by noting that the “sheer number of civil society organizations, the amount of political activism, and the dynamism of social activism that the city of Beirut has witnessed over the centuries is unparalleled.” He further emphasized Lebanon’s unique strength, which, he said, comes from the strategic geographical position that Lebanon occupies as a gateway to the Arab world and the Mediterranean Sea, helping to make it “one of the most vibrant terrains on earth” and “a meeting point for civilizations.” Farha explained that the “melting pot” effect created in Lebanon was as a result of the diversity of its cultures, religions and ethnicities that, for centuries, unleashed creative synergies through their interaction despite periodic backlashes of civil strife.

Historically, Lebanon was a cross-road for a variety of cultures that congregated in this particular location to partake in commercial and intellectual exchanges. One example from ancient history was that segments of the Justinian code were formulated in Beirut. Ancient Beyrutus was hailed as a center for law, and prospective jurists flocked to Lebanon from all over the world to study at its famous school of law until the 6th century.

“Lebanon,” Farha said, “is the oldest democracy in the Middle East, continuously operating since 1926,” and “despite all the trouble that one may associate with Lebanon, it should be borne in mind that what you have here is a political system, which, despite all its failings, has endured for very long periods.” Regarding the milestones of Lebanese political history, Farha pointed out that Lebanon has had no military coups d’état – in contradistinction to most Arab countries. The country has the highest density per capita of universities and secondary schools in the Arab world, which is partly a legacy of the establishment of Catholic and Protestant missionary schools, and, to this day, many “Lebanese are multi-lingual and quite well-educated.” Farha continued by recording that Lebanon was the first Arab country to grant women’s suffrage in 1953, which, he noted, occurred some twenty years prior to Switzerland’s granting of these rights.

“Lebanon has seen its share of confessional conflict throughout the ages” Farha recounted, but he argued that, due to Lebanon’s history and diverse mix of cultures, “the liberalism of Lebanon is a function of its pluralism. If you want to get along, if you have a country which is so divided, ethnically and religiously, there are a few options, and one of them is to find a modus vivendi, which de facto means recognizing each group and giving each its due…to maintain the peace long-term.” To this effect, Farha counted no less that eighteen officially recognized spiritual leaders in Lebanon, each representing a different confessional identity and each empowered by the constitution to voice their community’s concerns at the government level.

Despite all these various factions, Farha argued that Lebanon’s problems cannot all be blamed on the friction of confessional identities or external meddling. Juxtaposing the demographic make-up and class divisions of the country, Farha claimed that tensions will continue to loom if socio-economic disparities are not adequately tackled by an enfeebled state. As such, skewed forms of globalization and commercialism have shown a propensity to upset any balance that the country may have achieved.

Farha argued that each of the surrounding Arab countries experiences similar socio-economic and communal predicaments, but that their salience is accentuated by Lebanon’s unique diversity. Just as the hidden potential of Arab thought and culture can unfold in Lebanon’s open marketplace of ideas, so too the negative symptoms of the Arab world are writ large upon the face of Lebanese politics and society.

Farha concluded by outlining three possible future courses open to Lebanon: A pernicious emulation of the Israeli model of exclusive ethno-religious discrimination and confessional segregation; the confessional democracy Lebanon narrowly succeeded to preserve thanks to the 2008 Doha Accords mediated by Qatar; or, finally, the avenue leading towards true national integration in which each citizen is granted full and equal rights in all spheres irrespective of his or her personal religious identity. While Lebanon stands out as the only country in the region neither predicated on a religion of state nor a single sectarian hegemony, Farha underscored that the regional escalation of competing communalisms has rendered the reaffirmation of a trans-sectarian, inclusive Arab-Lebanese identity at once all the more difficult and indispensable.

Professor Mark Farha is currently teaching the core class “Comparative Political Systems” as well as an elective on “Globalization and Geopolitics of the Middle East.”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Edward Djerejian on U.S. Policy Toward the Arab & Muslim World
2009-03-17 08:00 - 18:00
Drawing on his career of experience as a diplomat, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel, Edward Djerejian, offered his insights and analysis of current foreign policy challenges facing the United States in the Middle East and South Asia to a full house at the Diplomatic Club in Doha on March 17, 2009.

Ambassador Djerejian, a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, is currently the Director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He has served in eight U.S. administrations from John Kennedy to Bill Clinton and has filled such posts as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and ambassador to Syria and Israel. In 2008, Djererjian published a book entitled Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador’s Journey through the Middle East, detailing his experiences in the region.

In his lecture, Ambassador Djerejian noted that “the challenges that the Obama administration faces in its foreign policy toward the Arab and Muslim world are comparably great.” He addressed U.S. policy challenges in Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, stressing that the politics of the region are often interconnected and what happens in one state can have a significant impact on another. Specifically, he pointed to the centrality of Israel-Palestine conflict, saying that the so-called neo-conservatives erred when they claimed that the road to peace in the region ran through Baghdad rather than Jerusalem. While he hailed some positive developments in Israeli-Arab relations, including the Madrid conference of 1991, in which Arabs and Israelis negotiated face-to-face for the first time, Djerejian said that it was essential that U.S. policy be aimed at a resolution of the conflict. He added that the term “peace process,” was not useful as it implies that there is no end in sight, and he therefore preferred to concentrate on a more results-oriented vision.

In his discussion of U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq, Djerejian stressed that the Bush administration made a serious error in ignoring a key recommendation of the Iraq Study Group to engage diplomatically its adversaries, Iran and Syria. The United States has many common interests with Iran in particular, among them cooperation on Iraq, Afghanistan, and energy. Djerejian suggested that all issues be on the table in talks with Iran, except for the threat of regime change. Military action against Iran would be a huge failure, he said.

On Afghanistan and Pakistan, the former ambassador suggested that U.S. policy suffers from a lack of coherence in approach, in part, due to the distraction of the war in Iraq. He proposed that the Obama administration lower its military goals and expectations in Afghanistan, partly out of recognition that, historically, the country is not easily controlled by foreign powers. Additionally, the United States should recommit to building roads and infrastructure and providing basic services and security to the Afghan people, given that the Taliban thrives in places where these essentials are missing.

Addressing the region as a whole, Ambassador Djerejian argued that it “is fraught with critical issues – unresolved – that need the attention of the people of the region in the first instance, but also, the hopefully constructive involvement of the outside world.” He argued that “overarching all of these specific issues, in my view, is the struggle of ideas within the Muslim world and by that I mean the struggle between the forces of moderation and the forces of extremism and in the middle, those – especially the younger generations – who haven’t made up their mind which way to go. This is a struggle of ideas that will determine the future of the Arab world.”

Djerejian concluded by noting that the problem for U.S. democracy promotion efforts is the possibility that radical Islamist parties will use elections to assume power then overthrow the democratic system. The United States should therefore take a careful approach to promote a culture of democracy rather than trying to impose an American-modeled democratic system on foreign cultures. He stressed education as an important building-block in such a promotion of democracy, highlighting the role education played in Arab high society over the centuries and citing Qatar’s Education City as an example of rising new models of education in the region.

Summary by Alex Schank. Alex graduated from Georgetown University in 2008 with a major in English and minors in Arabic and government. As an undergraduate, he studied abroad in Cairo, Egypt and completed an internship with the U.S. Department of State in Doha, Qatar. Alex is currently studying Arabic at Qatar University.

Mehran Kamrava on International Power Realignment in the Gulf
2009-03-10 08:00 - 18:00
On March 10, 2009, a Monthly Dialogue entitled “International Power Realignment in the Gulf” was given by Mehran Kamrava, Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies and an expert on Iran and the Persian Gulf. The Dialogue was attended by Georgetown faculty, students, staff, and invited guests.

Kamrava’s Monthly Dialogue informed the audience about “how changing dynamics in the Gulf are resulting in the emergence of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as major players in the region and beyond.” Kamrava argued that we are witnessing a shift in power alignments in the Gulf region as small states, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, are exhibiting powerful performances in the region as well as within the international arena. In tandem with this trend, the position of the region’s traditional “big powers,” such as Iran and Iraq, are being gradually and strategically declining.

This power realignment is important in two respects. Firstly, Kamrava’s thesis regarding the Gulf region is that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are unusual in that they are “small states” and yet are powerful players changing the international relations of the region. “These small states of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, in many ways, do not fit the defined model. In fact, they are often times going against the model of how small states are supposed to behave in the international arena” according to the various international relations theories. They exhibit an extraordinary set of characteristics and engage in behaviors that are fundamentally atypical.

These countries, Kamrava noted, rely on the support and protection of global superpowers and Qatar is home to one of the largest United States airbases. These states also spend huge amounts of resources on forging a number of alliances with large states. Traditionally, small states limit themselves to dealing with their immediate geographic surroundings, but Qatar has shown a penchant for helping to negotiate in other countries’ regional and civil strife. These small states show a growing self-confidence and clout and have become “norm makers” as they influence others with their particular style of international relations and, essentially, “change the rules of the game.”

These small states’ power, Kamrava pointed out, is evident in three distinct areas:

Neither Qatar nor the United Arab Emirates blindly tow Riyadh’s line as they have done historically, particularly concerning trade relations and policies.
Both these states demonstrate some fearlessness in relation to Iran, with particular emphasis on their struggle over the issue of the three islands. These countries have also reclaimed their symbolic sovereignty by re-naming the area the “Arabian” Gulf rather than conforming to what has been known historically as the “Persian” Gulf.
With the decline of Iraq’s regional influence, these states have emerged as major regional power players.

One of the most important issues regarding these particular small states, Kamrava argued, is that not only do these states change the power dynamics in the region, but they are instrumental in changing our very conception of what constitutes power in the first instance. Traditional scholarship argues that there are two types of power: hard power and soft power. “Hard power” is a country’s ability to gain influence and submission from others through military or forceful means and “soft power” is how a country gains influence by having a strong appeal and by attracting others to its particular values systems and norms.

Kamrava concluded by noting that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates exhibit neither of these powers and yet, they are highly influential and successful states. Kamrava argued that what these small states do have is what he terms “civilian power,” which is a combination of personal and state-owned wealth and stability along with strategic and clever use of these assets. These countries have vast sovereign wealth funds that have allowed Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to be partially shielded from the damage that the global economic crisis has had on the rest of the world and has given these small states “big power.”

Dr. Mehran Kamrava is Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He received his PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge. His specialties include political development, comparative politics, and Middle Eastern Studies.

In addition to a number of journal articles, he is the author of Revolution in Iran: The Roots of Turmoil (1990), The Political History of Modern Iran: From Tribalism to Theocracy(1992), Revolutionary Politics (1992), Politics and Society in the Third World (1993),Understanding Comparative Politics: A Framework for Analysis (1996), Democracy in the Balance: Culture and Society in the Middle East (1998), Cultural Politics in the Third World(1999), Politics and Society in the Developing World, 2nd ed. (2000), The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War(2005), and Iran’s Intellectual Revolution(2008). He has also edited The New Voices of Islam: Rethinking Politics and Modernity(2006) and is the co-editor of the two-volume work Iran Today: Life in the Islamic Republic.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Ibrahim Oweiss on the Global Depression and the Gulf Economies
2009-02-10 08:00 - 18:00
Ibrahim M. Oweiss, Professor of Economics at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, gave the February CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on the subject of “Current Economic Global Depression: Causes and Effects With Reference to the Gulf Economies.”

Oweiss began the talk by noting that he refers to the current economic crisis as a “depression” rather than the more commonly used term “recession,” because, he said, the fall-out from unemployment will be one of the most devastating features of the years to come. He gave various examples to demonstrate the negative effects of deregulation and emphasized that no country is immune from the global effects of the depression.

“There are many causes for the financial crisis,” Oweiss argued, “and one of them is the war in Iraq” that is a constant drain on financial resources and is costing the U.S. taxpayer dearly. Giving some recent figures, Oweiss calculated that “it costs 371,000 dollars every minute.” The war has created an unfathomable amount of debt and budget deficit to the U.S. economy. This crisis was a result of “the unwise fiscal policy during the Bush administration. Usually at a time of war, a country increases taxes, and not decreases them. George W. Bush inherited a surplus in the budget” and yet awarded tax cuts and with a mounting war, this “had a dual negative effect on the U.S. budget and on the National Debt.”

View the presentation from lecture below:

The Global Depression and Gulf Economies from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

The other obvious cause for the financial crisis, Oweiss pointed out, is the lack of government regulation in private equity and corporate affairs. This has had a devastating effect and has allowed people to act with impudence because, he said, “Americans have been used to buying with money they do not own,” and there will always be a problem when people overextend themselves and cannot pay back debts. Oweiss warned that “the crack in the U.S. economy is too wide and too deep to be filled by any amount of money, whether it had been approved under the Bush administration or now under the Obama administration.”

With reference to the Gulf economies, Oweiss stated that no economy is safe from the global economic crisis and the Gulf countries “are being affected to varying degrees.” According to the Oweiss Demand Curve theory, “petro-dollars are declining because the world’s industrial machinery is slowing down” hence the demand for oil and the prices of oil are also in decline. He argued that the effects for the GCC were also psychological and that Arab investors are used to following the pattern of global stock markets and will undoubtedly become discouraged by the negative outlook. “The GCC labor market” in particular, he added, “is bound to be reduced.” A variety of real-estate projects have been delayed or cancelled in the UAE in particular, costing 260 billion dollars, and losses to sovereign wealth funds in the region may reach 450 billion dollars. This, Oweiss explained “is equal to all petro-dollar revenues for the year 2008. Such losses are only on paper but can materialize if those invested assets are to be liquidated.” However, Qatar, due to years of immense expenditures and investments in natural gas and other important business ventures, will have a reasonable rate of growth in 2009 that will be of help to its economy.

A question Oweiss asked at the beginning of the lecture was “Is this the end of capitalism?”, and he answered it by saying that, contrary to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s affirmative answer, it most definitely was not. If one defines capitalism, in its most basic philosophy, as being “an economic system allowing private citizens to own capital and to benefit from it,” then there will always be some form of capitalism. There are many shades, he said, between “unbridled individualism” and “regulated capitalism” and these need to be properly defined and applied.

On a positive note, Oweiss concluded that there have been many depressions in U.S. and world history, and that people have always managed, over time, to extract themselves from dire situations through overseeing a consistent program of proper regulation. Hope, he concluded, coupled with human ingenuity, unlike all other resources, is not finite.

Oweiss joined the faculty of the Department of Economics at Georgetown University in 1967 after having served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota and Western Maryland College. He was also a Visiting Professor of Economics at Harvard University and taught at Johns Hopkins University.

As an international economic advisor, he worked for several governments and multinational corporations in the USA and abroad. Dr. Oweiss was one of the founding members of Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies as well as the College of Commerce and Economics at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. Dr. Oweiss has authored over fifty scholarly publications including, Arab Civilization, and The Political Economy of Contemporary Egypt.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Nur Yalman Lectures on Turkey's Transformation
2009-02-08 08:00 - 18:00
Nur Yalman, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, gave a CIRS Focused Discussion on February 8, 2010 on the topic of “Turkey’s Transformation: Regional Implications.” Yalman was invited to Doha by GU-Qatar Professor Mark Farha on whose PhD thesis Yalman served as an advisor. The lecture was attended by Georgetown University students, faculty, and staff.

Yalman discussed several features of Turkey that have increased its prominence as an international player in recent years. He explained that Turkey has a large and growing population of over 76 million people. This is a relatively young population, which bodes well for a productive future economy. Currently, Turkey is rapidly industrializing, and has become a manufacturing base for various international and local products. Remote parts of the country that had no electricity thirty years ago, Yalman said, have been connected to electricity grids and fully equipped with modern convenience goods.

Yalman recounted how the modern Turkish Republic was formed after the Ottomans allied with Germany in order not to lose parts of the Empire – its Balkan and Caucus territories – to its large and growing Russian neighbor to the north. The Ottoman Empire was defeated, but Mustafa Kemal Atatürk succeeded in rallying against occupying forces by instigating a nationalist movement to found modern Turkey. “Atatürk became a great hero, not only for the Turks, but for the non-western world. The fact that Turkey kept out of WWII meant that it has had a period of relative peace in its development from 1923 to today.”

The context of Turkey’s steady development and zealous economic drive stems from the philosophy behind Turkey’s “cultural revolution,” instigated by Atatürk. This “cultural revolution,” however, had devastating effects on the local population who were obliged to become forcibly “westernized,” at least in outward appearances, in order for the country to contend with European nations. Traditional modes of dress, language, writing styles, and perceptions were all effectively outlawed and replaced with more “scientific,” modern, and progressive ones.

However, Yalman argued, notions about progress and the gradual emancipation of human beings from religion were nineteenth century ideas that did not take into account the strong traditional communal formations that were deeply rooted in Turkish society. A strong underlying negative public reaction to Atatürk reforms emerged in the form of the very popular Justice and Progress (or AK) party that is now in power in Turkey and has strong Islamic roots. The AK party, which has forcefully expressed its profound interest in the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular, also maintains a strong connection with the secular Ataturk legacy.

In conclusion, Yalman said that there are two very powerful yet competing discourses in Turkey: an Islamist resurgence and the secularist drive for modernity. This division has caused tremendous tensions that will likely continue into the future.

Yalman is Senior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows. His fields of concentration include South Asia (Sri Lanka and India), the Middle East, and Japan. Dr. Yalman’s research interests include contemporary social theory and theorists; anthropology of religion, and social and political conditions in South Asia and the Middle East. He has published widely, including “Religion and Civilization” in Dialogue of Civilizations: a New Peace Agenda for a New Millenium, eds. M. Tehranian & D.W.Chappell (2002).

Article by Suzi Mirgani. Suzi is CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr on Islam and the Preservation of the Natural Environment
2009-01-26 08:00 - 18:00
On January 26, 2009, CIRS began its Spring semester FacultyDistinguished Lecture Series with a talk by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world. He was introduced to the audience by Mohammed Al Sudairi, SFS-Qatar sophomore and President of the Blue and Gray theater club.

Nasr’s lecture, held at the Al Sharq hotel in Doha, outlined daily environmental struggles within an elaborate frame of spiritual Islam. This subject, Nasr emphasized, “is of gravest importance” because people have resorted to covering up the problem without actually finding a solution. Environmental destruction however, “will not be solved by cosmetics,” but “requires a change in our way of life.”

Nasr noted the irony of human mastery over nature by warning that “to dominate nature is to destroy ourselves” in the process. He also said that there is no issue that should be higher on the world’s agenda, as other peripheral economic and political problems pale in comparison to the environmental crisis. Should the problem of degradation continue at its current rate, no other problem would even exist.

The main problem, Nasr stated, is that Muslims, although passionate about performing their religious duties, do not translate this into a greater awareness of their surrounding environments. This results in what he describes as a “disconnect” between the strength of Muslim faith and the way people’s daily actions and activates do not live up to Islamic principles. This, he argued, is because of the prominence of scientism as the singular most important principle of the modern world.

Initially, scientism became popular in the Muslim world as a means of combating colonialism and saving Islam from the onslaught of the West. This was done by mastering Western schools of thought and combining it with the principles of Islam. During this period, the Muslim world followed the basic assumptions of positivism; “the humanities were cast aside as insignificant” and “there was no intellectual resistance” to the West.

The Muslim world has become enslaved to the technological aspirations of the West and one common denominator, he noted, is that Muslims worship modern technology and science, which is falsely considered to be encouraged by Islam. Not only that, he said, but these modernized Muslims believe that the West will also take care of any problems that arise from technological developments.

The solution, according to Nasr, is to keep in mind that ultimately, God is nature and the environment. The question of Islam is integral to the environment as it is the connection humans have to the divine. Religious teaching, Nasr said, is paramount for human survival as it informs people about how to be respectful of their natural environments and how to honor every living creature, of which we are just one species. “Every creature has its rights, independent of humans” and he emphasized that we cannot overlook them. To reverse the current crisis, he said, it is imperative that we consider nature sacred.

Nasr concluded on the note that the populations of the Gulf region have an especially important task of conserving the endangered underwater coral reefs in the area. Coral reefs are one of the most fragile ecological life-forms in the world and, yet, are also one of the most instrumental in sustaining the environment.

Earlier in the day, Nasr was invited to visit the SFS-Qatar campus and to have an informal lunch- time discussion with SFS-Qatar Faculty and staff.

Summary by CIRS Intern Assma Al-Adawi and CIRS Publications Coordinator Suzi Mirgani.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, currently University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, Washington D.C., is one of the most important and foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world today. Author of over fifty books and five hundred articles which have been translated into several major Islamic, European and Asian languages, Professor Nasr is a well known and highly respected intellectual figure both in the West and the Islamic world.

Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq by Mona Eltahawy
2009-01-19 08:00 - 18:00
Journalist and opinion-writer Mona Eltahawy was invited by CIRS to give a lunchtime lecture at the SFS-Qatar campus on the subject of “Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq.” Eltahawy is an award-winning syndicated columnist and an international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues. Her opinion pieces have been published frequently in the International Herald Tribune,The Washington Post, the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper and Qatar’s Al-Arab.

Eltahawy began the lecture by noting her shift from being a journalist concerned with balance and objectivism to being compelled to speak out as an opinion-writer rather than as an impartial academic on a variety of issues that affect Muslims. This, she said, was as a result of the change in political climates all over the world after the attacks of September 11, 2001. According to Eltahawy, much of her work is driven by her subject-position as a feminist Muslim, which is an identity that is not always given the forum to voice an opinion. As a female Muslim residing in the United States, Eltahawy felt that her views were not being represented, and this forms the context in which her writing and public speaking are situated. The subject of female suicide bombers, she said, was simultaneously “a deeply fascinating and disturbing subject.”

To dispel the myth that female suicide bombers are a new ideological formation particular to Islamic extremism and to the Middle East, Eltahawy points toward the research conducted in a 1992 book by Eileen McDonald, Shoot the Women First. The title comes from the West German security-force directive to shoot the women first upon entering a Red Army stronghold, as the female fighters tended to pose the most aggressive response. The book documents the varied instances of women’s involvement in acts of extremism and violence in organizations such as the Basque separatist movement, the Kurdish PKK separatists in Turkey, the Tamil Tigers, the Baader-Meinhof gang, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, all of which existed long before the instrumentalist use of suicides by certain groups of Islamic extremists. But, “what distinguishes what is happening in Iraq from these examples”, Eltahawy notes, “is that these groups were secular, militant and terrorist groups” whereas the groups in Iraq are centered on religious extremism.

The question Eltahawy poses is: “What is the motivation for women to join a violent group or to become a terrorist?” She argues that “inherent in that question is the idea that a woman is different from a man in choosing to join these groups.” But scholars on the subject have found that the ideological and political motivations that drive radicalization are largely the same for both men and women.

Eltahawy takes Iraq as her case study and presents a number of statistics regarding female suicide bombers. She reports that, “according to U.S. military statistics, since the invasion in March 2003 until the end of last year, Iraq has seen 57 female suicide bombers – including one who surrendered – and they killed a total of 370 people and injured 650.” What is alarming is the rate at which the attacks have tripled in 2008. The reason there is a sharp increase in female bombers has to do with increased security measures all over Iraq since the U.S. military surge. Today, women can get to places that men cannot.

Also alarming, Eltahawy notes, is the varying nature of the females carrying out this extremist violence in Iraq. One bomber was a 13 year old girl, another was a woman dressed as a man, and yet another was a married mother of two. These are unusual characteristics for what constitutes a radical and do not fit within the common profile. Usually, such acts are carried out by single, divorced or widowed women who have lost family members during a particular period and so have also lost their primary sources of income.

Extremist violence, such as suicide bombings, has been articulated as an act of desperation and a weapon of political and ideological struggle and “resistance against occupying forces” and powerful oppressors. Suicide bombings in Iraq were initially seen as political and ideological resistance to occupying forces, but these extremist acts have become increasingly religious and sectarian in nature. Ironically, Eltahawy concludes, in Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, such religiously and ideologically-backed martyrdom has seen more Muslims killing Muslims than supposed enemies, occupiers, or infidels. What is more, most of the victims of suicide bombings are religious Shi’ia pilgrims and not legitimate military targets.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Katja Niethammer on Political Reform and Confessional Identities in Bahrain
2009-01-18 08:00 - 18:00
On January 18, 2009, CIRS began the 2008-2009 spring semester with a Monthly Dialogue lecture entitled “Democrats and Autocrats, Shi’ites and Sunnis: Political Reform and Confessional Identities in Bahrain” given by its Postdoctoral Fellow Katja Niethammer.

Niethammer’s lecture is part of a larger study undertaken in her PhD research and analyzes the differences in goals, strategies and behavior between Shi’ite and Sunni Islamist political organizations in Bahrain. As such, she “shed light on the relationship between Islamist actors and political reform.” Niethammer conducted extensive fieldwork in Bahrain, during which time she conducted interviews with political and religious activists from both Shi’ite and Sunni communities and also spent time within the Bahraini parliament. During these visits, she witnessed parliamentarians “engage in serious confessionalist agitation and occasionally scuffles between MPs erupted sparked by discussions on events in Iraq.”

The study of Islamist groups in general is extremely important in the current political climate of the Gulf states as “Islamist groups are currently – and not only in Bahrain – the most important actors besides the ruling elites.” This is because “they have a wide social base and have extensive religious networks at their disposal.” Niethammer noted that the groups portrayed in her research are legal organizations and promote their goals through non-violent means.

During her lecture, Niethammer proceeded to debunk the two major assumptions currently holding sway over Islamic studies scholarship. The first assumption is that Islamist parties form a natural partnership with ideas of reform and justice and the second revolves around the hypothesis that Islamist parties will lose any extremist edge and become more democratic if involved in serious parliamentary participation.

These assumptions have been proven valid in some Middle Eastern countries, but Niethammer proposed that the situation in Bahrain was far more complex. Because those parties that rejected electoral participation – the Shi’ite Islamist parties – called out for more democratic reform, and those that fully contributed to parliamentary elections – the Sunni Islamist parties – were more concerned about supporting authoritarian rule, other factors must be useful in explaining moderation and reform-mindedness.

Niethammer proposes that one reason why Bahrain does not fit comfortably within the frame-work of these hypotheses is Bahrain’s prevalent sectarian and ethnic fragmentation, which has created dominant and marginalized groups. Hence, the social and economic positions of the Islamists vis-à-vis the ruling elite determine their political goals and strategies to a larger extent than their ideological orientation. She suggests that this might also be the case in other fragmented societies in the Middle East.

In conclusion, Niethammer argued that such experiences from Bahrain suggest that “when Islamists represent a dominant confessional group, they reject meaningful reforms that enhance political representation and participation. When Islamists represent politically marginalized groups, they endorse such reforms.” In other words, Niethammer maintained that Islamist political actors do not exhibit any behavior that is different from their secular counterparts.

Niethammer joined CIRS for the 2008-2009 academic year. During her Fellowship spent within the framework of CIRS’ research and scholarship initiatives, she has been involved in three major projects.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

International Relations of the Gulf Working Group II
2009-01-08 08:00 - 2009-01-09 18:00
On January 8-9, 2009, CIRS convened the second International Relations of the Gulf working group session. This meeting was part of a year-long research initiative that began with the first working group meeting in June 2008 and which focused on analyzing several key aspects of the International Relations of the Gulf from different angles. CIRS invited a core group of distinguished Gulf studies scholars to Doha to attend the working group meetings and to contribute individual chapters towards a book entitled The International Politics of the Persian Gulf (Syracuse University Press, 2011). The book covers topics such as the history of Gulf Shaikhdoms, Gulf security strategies, and political reform in the region. Concomitantly, CIRS also invited several other experts in the field to act as discussants and to give critical consultation and enrich the topics under examination.

This book breaks new ground and will contribute greatly to the literature on the international relations of the Middle East in general and the Gulf in particular. It will be of great interest to academics and scholars specializing in the Gulf and the Middle East, as well as practitioners and policy-makers, students, and interested readers.

Participants in the International Relations of the Gulf Working Group:

Mohammed Ayoob, Michigan State University
Daniel Byman, Georgetown University
Gregory Gause, University of Vermont
N. Janardhan, Political Analyst, Gulf-Asia Affairs, UAE
Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University in Qatar
Rami Khouri, American University of Beirut
Joseph Kostiner, Tel Aviv University
Fred Lawson, Mills College
Katja Niethammer, Georgetown University in Qatar
Gerd Nonneman, University of Exeter
James Onley, University of Exeter
J. E. Peterson, University of Arizona
Lawrence Potter, Columbia University
Paul Salem, Carnegie Middle East Center
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, London School of Economics and Political Science
Robert Wirsing, Georgetown University in Qatar
Steven Wright, Qatar University
Obaid Younossi, RAND-Qatar Policy Institute

Summary by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Jo Ann Moran Cruz & Haifaa Khalafallah on Religion and Legitimization of Political Rule
2008-12-03 08:00 - 18:00
Georgetown University professors Jo Ann Moran Cruz and Haifaa Khalafallah gave the December 3, 2008, Monthly Dialogue lecture entitled “Religion and Legitimization of Political Rule in the Islamic and Christian Worlds: Preliminary Findings.” The presentation was part of a larger study entitled Religion and the State in the Christian and Islamic Worlds, in which both professors conducted research into coinciding Islamic and Christian historical experiences by juxtaposing a variety of primary sources.

Moran Cruz began the lecture by debating the prevailing current discourse on the “Clash of Civilizations.” She noted that the task of their study was to get beyond modern and ahistorical ideas, an example of which is “secular humanism,” which, she said, “is a problem in western scholarship. It is a term that does not stand up to scrutiny.” Moran also suggested that prevailing ideas on the role that religious hegemony has played in the West understate its influence on representative institutions. Khalafallah, in turn, argued that the bulk of historical evidence shows that the current narratives for the study of Islam blur and do not clarify our understanding of its historical experiences. She emphasized the importance of the memory of Medina and the role of consultative rule and legal methodologies in Islam.

Moran Cruz and Khalafallah further argued that both religions, although different from one another, shared a common historical concern with notions of “legitimacy.” Legitimacy, in this historical sense, is an “established, recognized, and accepted framework (legal, cultural, moral, social, procedural) that is paramount for the survival of political authority.” Both Muslim and Christian histories have been concerned with legitimacy and this concern has shaped social and legal infrastructures. Both Moran Cruz and Khalafallah took turns at explaining particular convergences between Muslim and Christian historical discourses and noted similarities between the two religions and how they informed the means of governance around the Mediterranean in each religious tradition.

Beginning with an examination of their formative years and foundational texts, the speakers noted that in both religions, there are scriptural indications, even if implicit, regarding what makes good governance. For example, Khalafallah noted that in the Qur’an, there are instructions to “respect persons in authority…a general endorsement of the notion of collective decision-making, including an explicit directive to consult,” as well as an emphasis on notions of “egalitarianism and equality.”

In their formative years, there was the Pauline model of governance in the Christian context and the Medina model in the Muslim one, both of which are marked by persuasion, connections, negotiated settlement of disputes, as well as extreme fluidity. Using religion to legitimate political authority, the professors argued, became high on the agenda after the triumph of authoritarian states that were, for the most part, illegitimate. Moran Cruz noted that, subsequently, in the struggle for legitimacy, “both cultures have struck varying balances between theocratic and civil governments and between religious and political authorities.” The narratives in both religious traditions are similar with regard to these dynamics, although differing in other fundamental ways.

In conclusion, both Moran Cruz and Khalafallah argued for situating current narratives on Islam and Christianity and their relations to each other in their historical contexts in order to better understand their common experiences and differences vis-à-vis political authority as well as to be able to locate their current ones, rather than focusing on “otherness.”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Compromising Democracy: The Lebanese Example
2008-11-19 08:00 - 18:00
The Center for International and Regional Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar hosted a luncheon talk for the visiting Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, on November 19, 2008.

Berri has been the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament since 1992. He is effectively one of three heads of state with the prime minister and president. Berri, an advocate of the March 8 Alliance in Lebanon, is also the head of the Shi’a Muslim AMAL Movement.

Berri began by extending gratitude to H.H the Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and H.E. the foreign and prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani, for Qatar’s key mediatory role between rival Lebanese political factions, which ultimately led to the resolution of Lebanon’s political deadlock earlier this year via the Doha Agreement 2008. Berri confirmed the successful implementation of the accord, pointing to the election of a president, the approval of the constitution by all parliamentary members and the formation of a national unity government.

He also extended gratitude to the State of Qatar for its help with the reconstruction of Lebanon following the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, in areas ranging from “healthcare to homes to houses of worship.” Berri also invited further assistance to clear the 2.4 million cluster bombs that remain scattered throughout Southern Lebanon.

Berri’s address provided a theoretical overview of the basis and key characteristics of a “congruent democracy” as distinct from other forms of democracy, as well as a practical account of its realisation in Lebanon.

Congruent democracy, he explained, emanates and develops in situations of weak national unification and a divided, heterogeneous population. In particular, he stated that the most important characteristic of a congruent democracy is the element of ruling through a large coalition such as a national unity government.

In talking about Lebanon’s experience, Berri confirmed the country’s early adoption of this system of governance since May 23, 1926, with the establishment of its first constitution. He highlighted the constitutional provisions which are central to the concept of congruent democracy, namely, ensuring that all sects are equally represented in the cabinet and among public services functions, and that freedom of religion is absolute (Articles 95 and 9 of the Lebanese Constitution respectively).

Citing its independence in 1943 and a host of domestic, regional and international influences that led to constitutional amendments of 1990, Berri reinforced the fact that Lebanon’s democracy are not static.

A number of key changes were highlighted under the rubric of Lebanon’s evolving congruent democracy. The Chamber of Deputies’ Muslim to Christian seat distribution ratio was changed from 5:6 to an equal 6:6, to accommodate for a growing Muslim majority. He also discussed Article 69 of the amended constitution which deems the government as resigned if more than 1/3 of the members withdraw. Other points discussed include the veto right extended to the Council of Ministers to create a system of unanimous decision-making and a revision in the balance of executive power extended to the prime minister and president.

On the question of whether or not congruent democracy proved to be a successful political system for Lebanon, Berri confirmed its positive outcome.

“Lebanon is unlike any other country in the world, in the light of its steadfast commitment and continuous recourse to dialogue meetings held both locally and internationally,” he said. He pointed to talks held in Lausanne, Saint-Cloud, Taif and Doha, as key examples of the operations of a congruent democracy.

Berri explained that the congruence culture, while evolving to better reflect the socio-political changes of its time, “has always been rooted in the minds of the Lebanese nationals.” As distinct from an inevitably unsuccessful export product, he stressed the importance of a “home-made and national democracy which must be consistent with the nature and hopes of its people.”

Berri concluded that his country’s culture of congruence, regardless of its results, constitutes the “security and safety valve of Lebanon’s political system.” As such, the lacking ingredient in Lebanon is not the recognition of congruent democracy per se, but the need to observe and respect the principle.

During the concluding Q&A session, Berri recalled the great show of national unity during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, drawing upon examples of supported internal migration and united Lebanese resistance. Berri also highlighted nationalist ideologies, refusing the claim of a Lebanese “positive-neutral” political approach and endorsing Lebanon’s Arab identity and commitment to the Palestinian crisis. Finally, in countering the claim that the TAIF Agreement of 1989 runs parallel to a congruent democratic Lebanon, Berri ended by retracing Lebanon’s history from the days of Fakhreddine, who celebrated the unique demographics of the country where reconciliation and harmony should prevail.

James Reardon-Anderson on Rainfall and the American Civil War
2008-11-03 08:00 - 18:00
On November 3, 2008, James Reardon-Anderson, Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, gave a lecture at CIRS’s Monthly Dialogue Series on the connection between “Rainfall and the American Civil War.” Dean Reardon-Anderson explained to the invited audience that the lecture was inspired by a class he regularly teaches entitled “Map of the Modern World,” which is a graduation requirement for all students.

Dean Reardon-Anderson began his lecture by suggesting that one way of understanding human behavior is by examining the fundamental natural forces – earth tectonics and atmospheric physics – that shape the stage on which history has been and is being performed. This lecture, which focuses on the geography of North America and the implications for the outbreak of the American Civil War, is a case study of that phenomenon.

Tectonic forces have produced a North American continent with high mountain ranges in the west and a broad flat plain in the middle, and lodged the center of this continent, which is home to the United States, between 30 and 50 degrees north latitude. Atmospheric forces produce extremely dry conditions at 30 degrees north, the locus of the American Southwest, and prevailing westerly winds across the rest of the country, which cause heavy precipitation over the western mountains, dry conditions on the central plains, and again wet conditions in the east.

The mix of weather conditions and the nature of the physical geography in the southeastern United States meant that the land was arable and conducive to the cultivation of cash crops, especially tobacco, sugar cane, and cotton. Because of the richness of the soil and the bounty of the harvest, these lands were geared towards mass-scale farming, which also meant that hundreds of people were needed to maintain the operations. This manual labor came in the form of slaves from Africa and elsewhere, shipped over to the Americas in order to toil in the fields and produce the crop. The northern areas, by comparison, had little need for such large-scale import of slave-labor, as the temperate weather meant that farming was in the form of small-scale food-crop agriculture. Due to the progressive urbanization and industrialization of the northeast, businesses were largely run by European immigrants and their extended families. In these areas, maintaining slaves during the long winters was, on the contrary, an expensive rather than a cost-effective enterprise.

As more and more communities of people moved west across North America, the territories that applied to join as new states in the United States, grew from 13 in 1789 to 34 in 1861. Until 1850, these states were roughly divided between those in the southern areas and those in the north, and so too between the states that maintained slavery as an important economic enterprise, and those with little or no need for it to sustain their economies.

By the late 1850s, the southern states, whose economy relied on the growth and export of cotton, had exhausted the geographic regions that supported cotton plantations and could not viably expand beyond the areas to which they were confined. As the westward expansion of the North continued and the number of “free” states increased, the South found itself in an increasingly disadvantaged position. This ultimately resulted in the South’s attempt to secede from the union, and the Civil War ensued.

Ultimately, Dean Reardon-Anderson concluded, the levels of rainfall and other similar climatic factors played significant roles in precipitating the American Civil War.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Commemoration of Mahmoud Darwish
2008-10-22 08:00 - 18:00
In honor of the memory of Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish, CIRS hosted a literary evening to recall his life and his legacy. His Excellency, the Palestinian Ambassador to Qatar, Munir Ghannam, and Georgetown University Professor, Amira El Zein, were invited to share their thoughts on different aspects of the poet’s life and work. Ambassador Ghannam recounted Darwish’s biography from birth to death and El Zein, professor of Arabic, engaged with his art, speaking of the powerful metaphorical nature of his poetry. Drawn by the culturally binding subject of poetry, the audience was an eclectic mix of students, faculty, embassy staff, and poetry-lovers. The audience was treated to rare insights into Darwish’s life as both speakers relayed anecdotes about meeting the poet, conversing with him, and relaying what he meant to them as a personal friend.As an introduction to his talk, Ambassador Ghannam began by lamenting the loss of not only a great poet, but of “the voice of Palestinian resistance.” He recounted to the audience several episodes in the life of Mahmoud Darwish: how he was born in a land called Palestine that is no longer in existence; how he and his family were driven away from their homes by Israeli occupiers; how he was arrested on numerous occasions because of his inflammatory writings; how he went into exile to Russia, France, the United States, and Egypt; and how he returned and became actively involved in the politics of Palestine. Ambassador Ghannam spoke of the social, political, and economic struggles of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how the realities and hardships of Darwish’s life figured prominently in his work as he translated his personal experience into poetry.

Ambassador Ghannam gave a bi-lingual recitation of some of the verses of Darwish’s famous poem “Identity Card,” which is believed to have defined Palestinian identity through language and, which became a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Over the years, Darwish gained a reputation as a leading voice of protest and became known as the national poet of Palestine. He even lent his words to the Palestinian cause by penning a famous speech delivered by Yasser Arafat at the United Nations and by wording the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. Darwish’s work, Ambassador Ghannam concluded, has been translated into many languages and several of his poems have crossed artistic disciplines and have been set to music by Marcel Khalife, making them popular to a wider audience.

Georgetown University Professor Amira El Zein concentrated on the metaphorical nature of Darwish’s work. In most of his poems, El Zein said, Darwish acknowledged the native American use of the “name” and the metaphor of home to give identity to, and keep alive, a home long gone. She argued that everything exists in language and so to keep the idea of home alive in language is to also keep the idea of returning to that home alive. El Zein quoted Darwish as saying “because I couldn’t find my home in the land, I found it in history.”

Language, El Zein said, does not mirror the world, but rather, Darwish created Palestine through poetry and that is why his use of language is such a powerful socio-political tool. The foundation of Israel not only appropriates the land, but perhaps more importantly, the histories, mythologies, and identities of the Palestinian people. All these elements of existential strife are interwoven through the poetic devices of Darwish’s work. El Zein concluded by telling the audience that she is in the process of translating a book of interviews with Darwish, which she had hoped to share with him.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

American Public Diplomacy after the Bush Administration
2008-10-19 08:00 - 18:00
CIRS hosted a luncheon discussion on October 19, 2008, featuring Cynthia Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, nonresident Fellow at the Brookings institution, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands. Professor Schneider discussed ways in which the next U.S. administration should use culture as part of its diplomatic efforts. The lunch was attended by a number of locally-based ambassadors, policy-makers, and educational experts from Qatar Foundation and the Brookings Institution.

Schneider began her talk by quoting author Fareed Zakaria, saying that “America remains the universal nation, a country that people across the world believe should speak for universal values”. This, she said, summed up the current situation in which the U.S. has seriously squandered its world-wide reputation as a country that stands for universal values. The U.S. does however, have the potential to fix its image abroad through the healing and generative aspects of its art and culture.

Throughout her career as both an art historian and a diplomat, Schneider said that she attempted to successfully combine public diplomacy with cross-cultural understanding. Her aim, she said, was to promote U.S. culture as a major component of foreign policy; not in the sense of “selling” U.S. culture to the rest of the world, but by offering it as a friendly gesture in order to enhance “mutual understanding and respect” with other nations. Schneider reported that one of the most striking results of John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed’s Gallup poll research was that the issue of “lack of respect and understanding on the part of the U.S.” rated higher on the agenda in the Arab world than the Israel/Palestine conflict or the war in Iraq. This shows how important it is for the next U.S. administration to conduct culturally sensitive diplomatic missions that try to understand the realities of the Arab world in order to not misrepresent the problems it faces in these regions.

In order to fully integrate cultural promotion with foreign policy, Schneider quoted the basic principles of public diplomacy, which are to communicate some aspect of U.S. values such as diversity, opportunity, or freedom of expression; to cater to the needs of other countries and to recognize that the same formula does not work for everyone; and to enter into a long-term relationship with other countries. She explained that “military power has limited value and can’t solve all, or many, problems” and that we have witnessed the damage that the excessive use of force has done. This is why it is necessary for the next U.S. administration to find alternative means of engaging with the rest of the world. Listening, she said, was an integral part of reciprocal public diplomacy and one that, in its simplicity, generates a great deal of respect for the other.

The media, both commercial and state-owned, is a powerful tool for promoting values internationally and should be used to enhance positive cross-cultural relationships. Popular culture is an important means of promoting values, history and heritage. Specifically, more positive representations of Arabs in U.S. media and entertainment programs can go a long way to bettering relationships between the U.S. and the Arab world.

In conclusion, Schneider made three recommendations to the next U.S. administration that would significantly improve its diplomatic efforts in the Arab world. These included aligning values and actions; engaging and not instructing; and taking other nation’s cultures as seriously as they do.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

The American Presidential Elections: Democratic and Republican Perspectives
2008-10-12 08:00 - 18:00
In order to gauge local public opinion regarding the United States Presidential elections and to bring the nuances of the American debate to the Gulf region, CIRS hosted its own Democratic vs. Republican debate on October 12, 2008 at the Diplomatic Club in Doha. On the Republican side was James Patti, Director of Strategic Planning & Analysis for the Division of Biology & Medicine at Brown University and early supporter of Senator John McCain’s campaign for the Republican nomination. On behalf of the Democrats was Gary Wasserman, Visiting Professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. The debate, which was attended by a record audience of interested members of the local community, was moderated by David Foster, seasoned journalist and correspondent at the Al Jazeera English television network.

Click here to download an MP3 of the debate

Foster asked both representatives to deliver a five minute introductory summary of the primary issues in order to define the most pertinent concerns of the evening’s debate. Gary Wasserman argued that the United States’ Presidential debate had become side-tracked by the public focus on celebrity politics and personality examinations and this has caused a tremendous amount of confusion among the electorate. The choice between both nominees should, in fact, be a simple and straightforward decision between each party’s policies and programs over the next four years. He argued that the Republican Party treated the American people with little respect by constantly reiterating statements and slogans that were untrue, hoping “that they would swallow it.” This, he said, was in keeping with the Bush administration’s tactic of bullishly repeating a statement ad nausea in order to convince the public of its sincerity. Wasserman concluded his opening statement by saying that “if we want change, it needs to be more than a campaign slogan; we need Barack Obama.”

In his introductory remarks, James Patti argued that the public should remember that the Republican Party is not, and should not, be defined by the Bush administration. The Republican Party, he argued, is the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and it is the party of free trade and courageous public policies. He noted that whoever becomes elected as President of the United States needs the strong will to fill a number of criteria in order to reassert America’s role in the world. Senator McCain, he said, despite the negative rhetoric and opinion polls will make an excellent leader.

After both debaters had defined their political positions, David Foster asked each a series of pointed questions regarding the state of the United States economy and its foreign policy and what hope there was for the Middle East if both Republican and Democratic campaign strategies insisted on the importance of maintaining a strong relationship with Israel. Wasserman answered by saying that despite all their fundamental differences, both the pro-Israel and anti-Israel lobbies were in agreement on one issue and that is the belief in the strong influence of the Israel lobby and its ability to affect foreign policy. Wasserman noted that foreign policy decisions depend on a number of considerations and variables and do not simply follow a formula of befriending Israel at all costs.

Jim Patti argued, in relation to the question of foreign policy and Iraq, that Senator Obama was extremely irresponsible towards the American people by giving a definite timeframe for troop withdrawal regardless of the ensuing consequences. He admitted that “Brand America” was extremely damaged at the moment, but this was not irreparable, as the American system allowed for renewal and reconstruction. Patti emphasized that what is needed is greater oversight, stronger reforms and a clearer vision.

Audience members were invited to ask questions of both men, which produced a lively discussion. Some of the questions focused on initiating a conversation debating Arab views of America and what it means to be an Arab American in the current climate of home security and racial profiling.

Both speakers were asked to give concluding statements to wrap up the debate. Patti ended by saying that he had great respect for Barack Obama but because of the Senator’s inexperience, he should not be elected in 2008 but instead, should use the next four years to gather some valuable insight into the Presidency and run in the 2012 election. Wasserman warned that the Presidential candidates should not avoid concentrating on the important overarching issues by resorting to the tabloid tactics of mud-slinging and personality discredits in order to achieve their objectives.

Participant Biographies:

James W. Patti is the Director of Strategic Planning & Analysis for the Division of Biology & Medicine at Brown University. Prior to joining Brown in 2006, he served as the founding Chief Financial Officer of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.A native of Massachusetts, Patti is a lifelong Republican with a keen interest in international affairs, economic development and education policy. He was an early supporter of Senator John McCain’s campaign for the Republican nomination, organizing grassroots activists and helping secure a McCain primary victory in Rhode Island. In 2008, he represented the State of Rhode Island as a McCain delegate to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Dr. Wasserman is a Visiting Professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He has been a Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies teaching graduate students about American government, media, and political parties in Nanjing, China. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, Nairobi University, and Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. His book, The Basics of American Politics was published by Longman and is currently in its 13th edition. He has taught at Columbia, Medgar Evers College CUNY, and George Mason universities.As a Senior Vice President of the public affairs firm Bozell Sawyer Miller, Dr. Wasserman organized and shaped state and local campaigns, a role he had also filled while a partner in a grassroots Washington firm. His public service includes: National Issues Coordinator for a presidential campaign; legislative assistant in the House of Representatives, and Special Assistant for Evaluation to the Administrator of USAID. At present he advises the U.S. Agency for International Development, has spoken in several countries under the U.S. Speakers Program and created Banyan Advisors, a non-profit lobbying firm for the poor.

David Foster has over 34 years of experience as a journalist, covering stories in more than 50 countries. He came to Al Jazeera English from Sky News, the UK-based satellite news channel, where for almost ten years he was a studio news presenter and business correspondent.
Summary by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Renee Richer on Environment and Industry in Qatar
2008-09-15 08:00 - 18:00
“Beauty and the Beast: Environment and Industry in Qatar”

CIRS kicked off its Monthly Dialogue Series on September 15, 2008, with a lecture by Renee Richer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. Richer’s presentation included a photograph slide-show of diverse life-forms that are rarely seen but are nevertheless indigenous to the desert environment and to Qatar. She pointed out that the desert is mistakenly perceived to be devoid of life-forms, but there is a fantastic array of biodiversity in both the marine and terrestrial environments beyond the boundaries of urban areas.

Richer’s lecture focused on putting into context an assumption that is often taken for granted, namely that strict environmental rules automatically work in reducing environmental damage. Richer questioned this hypothesis by giving evidence from primary research she had conducted on the state of environmental protection in Qatar.

Although Qatar recently adopted strict laws regarding the allowable amount of toxic particulate matter in air or water, she stressed that environmental protection can only be achieved if all surrounding countries adhered to the same standards. If Qatar imposes strict air and water regulations and its neighboring countries do not, then its environmental objectives cannot be met. Richer suggested that environmental pollution is a regional problem and not one that can be adequately addressed within the borders of just one country. Gulf countries should attempt to standardize their laws and work in tandem toward their enforcement.

In order to assess the state of environmental protection in industrial areas, Richer focused on Ras Laffan and Messaid, which have a concentration of large industrial plants and are, therefore, subject to greater levels of environmental degradation.

Pearl Oyster Case-Study

One of the case-studies Richer spoke of described the environmental degradation resulting from the impact of industrial cooling water on the surrounding marine environment, especially on the pearl oyster. In order to understand the problem, Richer explained, we must understand the industrial systems that are causing the localized environmental damage. Large industrial plants use huge amounts of energy and electricity, and the machinery used in their production require vast amounts of seawater as a cooling mechanism. Pearl oysters inhabiting these areas become entrapped in the iron filters and their build-up can reduce the industrial plant’s efficiency. In order to rid the filters of the marine life-form accumulation, the industry then pours tons of chlorine into the water. This not only rids the cooling system of pearl oysters, but also results in eradicating many marine organisms in the surrounding areas. At one point in Qatar’s history, the pearl oyster was the cornerstone of the economy, but now that energy plants have replaced them as the primary form of economic activity, the pearl oyster’s existence has become of peripheral importance.

Some organizations are beginning to attempt to adhere to the philosophy of environmental conservation by trying to find a medium between healthy productivity and a healthy environment. One industrial complex in Ras Laffan has solicited research into pearl oysters and has come up with a biologically-based solution to reducing the damage caused by the chlorination of cooling water. The results of the research suggested the use of “pulse chlorination,” which only releases chlorine into the water at set intervals, thereby reducing the harm done to the larger marine environment.

The alternative to chlorination of cooling water is for an industrial plant to perform a “shut-down” where the entire complex is disabled for maintenance purposes. This alternative has its own environmental consequences as the industrial plant must then go through a “start-up” phase, where there is a colossal surge of energy and electricity released into the atmosphere in the form of oxidants and harmful particulate matter.

Richer suggested that because a high level of particulate matter is already naturally present in a desert atmosphere, one interesting area of research would be to try to ascertain how much of Qatar’s atmospheric pollutants are industrially-produced. This would be useful in measuring the level of industrial emissions and seeing how much it deviates from the suggested levels. Some organizations have begun to undertake such studies, but corporations are notoriously guarded about their discoveries and do not share information with the public or with each other.

Richer argued that many organizations were applying environmental laws to their production facilities because they realize that it is actually a savvy business move and, therefore, it would reduce allegations of mismanagement and lawsuits in the long run.

Richer concluded on a positive note by saying that although Qatar is developing at an accelerated pace, because of its small population it is not too difficult to have community involvement in the direction that industrial projects take regarding the environment. She also noted that Qatar recently elevated the Supreme Council for the Environment to a ministerial level, which was a positive step in Qatar’s progress towards valuing the environment and halting its degradation.

Summary by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Rami Khouri on Challenges Facing the Next US Administration
2008-08-24 08:00 - 18:00
CIRS kicked off its Distinguished Lecture Series for the 2008-2009 academic year with a lecture by Rami Khouri, editor-at-large of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. Khouri’s talk, held at the Doha Diplomatic Club on August 24, 2008, was attended by an audience of 350 people.

Khouri’s lecture was titled, “America, the Middle East, and the Gulf: An Arab View of Challenges Facing the Next U.S. Administration,” in which he emphasized that the Middle East is currently undergoing a period of momentous change within itself and in its relationship with the West. This, he said, was a pivotal moment in history as executive decisions being made in the current political climate are likely to have both short-term and long-lasting consequences. Past failures, he noted, could have been avoided had there been better political leadership in the region. According to Khouri, contrary to popular belief, the fall of communism in the 1990s had more significant effects on the Middle East than did the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The conclusion of the Cold War presented one such opportunity for the Middle East, when the region saw a revival of political movements, a newfound dynamism, and emergence of new players. Sadly, he said, the historic opportunities thus presented to the Middle East were lost. Khouri named five immediate and short-term changes looming on the horizon with profound consequences for the Middle East. They include: 1. The election of a new president in the United States; 2. The likelihood of the United States and coalition troops withdrawing from Iraq and its consequences; 3. A possible resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue; 4. Movement on the Arab-Israeli conflict; and, 5. Global energy shifts resulting in increasingly significant roles played by Russia and China. Along with these short-term changes, Khouri named the five major crises that are affecting the region and that need to be addressed urgently by the region’s political leaders. These crises are the lack of a stable and secure statehood; the uncertain nature of the relationship between citizens and the state; the lack of availability of basic human needs services and socioeconomic development; the crisis of individual and national identities; and the relationship crisis between the Arab world and the rest of the world.Khouri concluded by summing up the issues that are of the greatest concern to Arabs. The need for accountable governments is perhaps the most widely sought-after goal, as is the yearning for protection of civil rights and security. For now, Khouri argued, there is neither the bold leadership nor the permissive international environment needed to tackle the Middle East’s many problems.

Article prepared by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Rami Khouri Bio

Rami George Khouri, 59, a Palestinian-Jordanian and US citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman and Nazareth, is editor-at-large, and former executive editor, of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is a book author and writes an internationally syndicated weekly column.

He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Dubai Initiative-Belfer Center/JFK School of Government at Harvard University, and a lecturer at the University of Chicago and Northeastern University in the USA. In the 2001-02 academic year he was a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University, and has also had fellowships at Stanford, Syracuse, and Mt Holyoke universities. In 1976-2001 he lived in Amman, Jordan, where he was editor in chief of the Jordan Times newspaper, hosted television and radio shows on current affairs and ancient history and archaeology, was general manager of Al Kutba, Publishers, and wrote for leading international publications, including the Financial Times, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post.

He often comments on Mideast issues in the international media, including the BBC and U.S. National Public Radio, and lectures frequently at conferences and universities throughout the world. He is a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School, a member of the board of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University and the Jordan National Museum, and a member of the international advisory council of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 2002 he was named a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World. He also served for many years as the chief umpire for Little League baseball in Jordan.

He has BA and MSc degrees respectively in political science and mass communications from Syracuse University (USA), is married to Ellen Kettaneh, and has two grown sons.

International Relations of the Gulf Working Group I
2008-06-18 08:00 - 2008-06-19 18:00
On June 18 and 19, 2008, CIRS hosted a working group to discuss various aspects of the “International Relations of the Gulf.” This initial round of talks consisted of preliminary thoughts on chosen topics and brainstorming sessions to critically assess the project’s focus, parameters of analysis, and main thesis.

A second working group meeting took place in January 2009. The papers have been collected as an edited volume titled The International Politics of the Persian Gulf (Syracuse University Press, 2011). The International Relations of the Gulf research initiative explores critical issues in the Gulf region such as security strategies and foreign policy implications of political reforms in the Gulf region, questions of sovereignty and borders, American policy, and the foreign and security policies of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other regional actors.

Below are the working group participants and their specialized topics:

Seminar Program

Britain and the Gulf Shaikhdoms 1820-1971: The Politics of Protection – James Onley, University of Exeter
Foreign Policy Perspectives of the Persian Gulf States – Fred Lawson, Mills College
American Policy toward the Persian Gulf: Strategies, Effectiveness, and Consequences – Mohammed Ayoob, Michigan State University
The Iraqi Factor: Regional Consequences of Internal Turmoil – Daniel Byman, Georgetown University
GCC Collective Security Efforts – Joseph Kostiner, Tel Aviv University
Sovereignty and Boundaries in the Gulf States: Settling the Peripheries – J.E. Peterson, University of Arizona
Conceptualizing EU-Gulf Relations: Trends and Realities – Gerd Nonneman, University of Exeter
Iran’s Regional Foreign and Security Policies in the Persian Gulf – Mehran Kamrava, Georgetown University in Qatar
Saudi Arabia’s Regional Security Policy – Gregory Gause, University of Vermont
Qatar’s Foreign Policy: Autonomy and Security – Steven Wright, Qatar University
China, India and the Gulf – Converging Interests? – N. Janardhan, Gulf-Asia News, UAE
Political Reform and Foreign Policy in the Gulf Monarchies – Katja Niethammer, Georgetown University in Qatar​

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on the Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
2008-06-17 08:00 - 18:00
On June 17, 2008, The Center for International and Regional Studies hosted a lecture by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt as part of its Distinguished Lecture Series. The lecture, attended by a capacity audience of nearly 500, was based on Mearsheimer and Walt’s recent book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Mearsheimer and Walt stressed the importance of studying the role of the Israeli lobby in U.S. foreign policymaking with some sensitivity since the subject often gives rise to strong passions among most Americans. Walt made it clear that the views expressed in the book challenged the politics of the Israel lobby and their resultant policies, but not the validity or place of lobbying in U.S. politics itself. Walt outlined the special role that interest groups play in U.S. politics, demonstrating that the Israel lobby was one of the most influential forces in American politics, shaping American policy toward Israel often to the detriment of the United States. He questioned the wisdom of the special relationship that exists between the U.S. and Israel, viewing it as both inimical to American strategic and international interests around the world.

Mearsheimer further elaborated on the Israel lobby’s effects on U.S. foreign policy. He argued that the lobby’s effectiveness in pursuing an Israel-centered agenda is the reason why the U.S. favors Israeli policies over Palestinian protests. Moreover, Mearsheimer maintained, the efforts of the Israel lobby not only undermined American interests, they also harmed the interests of Israel itself and ran counter to the wishes of a number of high profile Israeli political figures and influential currents of thought. Mearsheimer concluded that, at least in the near future, there was little reason for optimism regarding a change in the entrenched nature of the relationship between the Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy.

Summary prepared by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS staff member.

Victoria Pedrick on Myths of Desecration in Nature
2008-04-22 08:00 - 18:00
Victoria Pedrick, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Classics at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Qatar), wrapped up CIRS events for the academic year 2007-2008, with a lecture entitled “A Hunger for Trees: Myths of Desecration in Nature.” The lecture was addressed to an intimate audience of 40 people made up of students, Qatar Foundation faculty and personnel, locally-based ambassadors, and interested members of the general public. The talk was the sixth in the Monthly Dialogue Series, an academic and outreach effort sponsored by CIRS where faculty discuss their latest work and research interests.

Pedrick began her talk by recounting a variety of anecdotes about how the tree figures in ancient mythology and how, through these stories, it can be read as a symbol of a wider understanding of nature and human attitudes regarding their natural environment. As such, Pedrick’s lecture came with a warning regarding current ecological disasters. She cautioned that environmental degradation largely stems from how humans determine their role in the world as the center around which all other elements oscillate.

Pedrick explained that ancient Greek and Roman myths, although fictional, “offer us a window onto the ancient sensibilities and imagination of nature.” Beneath their fantastical elements, these ancient myths reveal the truth of how ancient peoples reacted towards their natural environments and how they affirmed their debt to it. She explained that by comparing these ancient stories to modern ones, we can clearly see our relative deterioration in values regarding the natural environment and how we have downgraded nature to little more than a resource that is in servitude of human endeavor and subject to the will and mercy of our voracious needs. Today’s insatiable human appetite and “hunger for trees” overrides any of nature’s delicate requirements as natural resources are exploited with impunity and humans rarely, if ever, give back in the form of sustainability and reciprocity. Today’s ecological destruction is paralleled by the myth of Erysichthon and the curse of the insatiable hunger cast on him by the goddess Demeter in return for his brazen cutting down of a sacred tree.

Roman and Greek myths offer glimpses into human relationships with nature and with trees in particular. Pedrick explained that “yet despite – or perhaps because of – its ubiquity in ancient life, the tree holds an enigmatic place in ancient thought.” Trees are the epitome of what we understand nature to be; a complex cycle that is at once annual and fleeting and yet lasting far longer than the average human life. Trees’ growth cycles from seed, to sapling, to splendid creations are in tune with seasonal cycles and if left to grow naturally in good conditions, can grow virtually eternally. Trees’ life cycles of leaf-growth, full foliage and leaf-fall are in harmony with the cycles of the seasons as these natural elements work in conjunction and in support of each other in a reciprocal manner.

In ancient Roman and Greek mythologies, trees were valued and revered because they were crucial to the survival of ancient civilizations, and also because they were the source of all kinds of benefits and comforts. Trees provided wood for a great many things but most significantly, they were needed as vital elements to sustain the lives and lifestyles of the ancient heroes. A variety of ancient myths tell of the great heroes who depended on wood to build their chariots and mighty ships. These were the vessels that carried them on the glorious journeys that secured the retelling of their stories and hence their immortality and their being eternally etched in lore. Trees also provided the wood with which to take these heroes on journeys of another kind: they were used to build the funeral pyres that carried them across into the afterlife. As such, the humble tree was seen as noble, and its simple offering of its own body as a mournful loss and a sacrifice respected by all who cut down trees. Many of the myths record that often, paradoxical prayers of thanks and prayers for forgiveness were said just before a tree was cut down in acknowledgment of the complexity of the relationship between humans and nature. Trees were simultaneously needed as a resource and yet at times needed to be cleared to make way for grazing and farming areas and all the practices that rendered humans civilized. Today, however, a tree’s use is measured by its exchange-value and has become an object of epistemological violence as it is forced to become a partisan to modern humans’ perception of nature as little more than a profitable resource.

The complexity underlying ancient stories is academic proof that humans and nature were in a delicate relationship of reciprocity. It is thus through these ancient Greek and Roman myths that modern humans can take valuable lessons and see that our progress has, in many cases, led to poverty. Our development has been dwarfed by ancient humans’ advancement in the stewardship of nature and of its bounty.

Summary prepared by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS staff member.

Documentary Film - Promises
2008-04-13 12:00 - 2008-04-14 00:30
As part of its ongoing outreach efforts, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted B.Z. Goldberg and Justine Shapiro, creators of the multiple award-winning documentary film Promises, and invited them to take part in public screenings of the film. Promises is a documentary film that follows the stories of seven children from opposite sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The film was a nominee in the category of “Best Feature Documentary” at the 74th Annual Academy Awards.Goldberg and Shapiro were invited to come to the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar campus, where they were welcomed by CIRS staff and where they conducted an informal workshop with SFS-Qatar students and faculty.On April 14th, 2008, CIRS organized two different screenings of Promises in one day in order to accommodate public demand and interest in the documentary. The first screening at the auditorium in the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) was the matinee and aimed at local Qatari and international high-school students, who attended the screening accompanied by their chaperones. The matinee was attended by 150 students from the American School of Doha and from Amna Bint Wahab School for Girls. The evening event, also held at the CNA-Q auditorium, was dedicated to the members of the general public and began with a reception for the attendees before the screening of the film. Both Goldberg and Shapiro were in attendance and took the stage after the screening of the film, in order to answer audience questions.

CIRS Hosts Conference on "Innovation in Islam"
2008-04-05 08:00 - 2008-04-06 18:00
On April 5–6, 2008, the Center for International and Regional Studies hosted the “Innovation in Islam” Conference.

Innovation in Islam explored topics such as the idea and reality of innovation in Islam; development of knowledge in early Islam; development and change in the Islamic legal system; the arts and artistic innovation in Islam; science and scientific innovation in Islam; jurisprudential innovation in Islam; and politics and political innovation in Islam.

In addition to posting the proceedings of the conference on its website, CIRS plans on compiling, editing, and publishing some of the key papers of the conference in the form of an edited volume titled Innovation in Islam: Traditions and Contributions (University of California Press, 2011).

Keynote Speaker:

The keynote address for the conference was delivered by the acclaimed poet Adonis. A pioneer in modern Arabic poetry, Ali Ahmad Said Esber has written more than twenty books in Arabic.

Participants:

The conference brought together some of the most prominent scholars on Islamic thought, culture and history. They included Amira Sonbol, Hassan Hanafi, John Voll, Mehran Kamrava, Mohammed Arkoun, Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, Nelly Hanna, Omaima Abou Bakr, Patrick Laude, Peter Gran, Sherman Jackson, Sumaiya A. Hamdani, Tariq Ramadan, Walter Denny, Zakaryya Abdel-Hady, and Ziba Mir-Hosseini.

Schedule:

Panel I – Innovation In Islam: Concept and Reality

Chair: James Reardon-Anderson

Development of Knowledge in Early Islam – Nasr Hamid Abu-ZaydHistory from Below; Dictionary from Below – Nelly Hanna

Panel II – Islamic Institutions: Traditions and Contributions

Chair: Patrick Meadows

The Fatimid Legacy: Policy and Precedent for Minority-Majority Coexistence in Islam – Sumaiya A. HamdaniThe Changing Family in Islam – Amira SonbolThe Mosque Yesterday and Today – Zakaryya Abdel-Hady ​

Panel III – Islam and the Intellectual Process

Chair: Ibrahim Oweiss

New Directions in Islamic Thought – Hassan HanafiIslam and the Intellectual Process: Deconstructing Episteme(s) – Mohammed ArkounKnowledge and Hermeneutics in Islam Today – Tariq Ramadan

Panel IV – Literary and Artistic Innovation

Chair: Patricia O’Connor

Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Art – Walter DennySufi Poetry: Innovation and Tradition – Patrick LaudeHistory and Biography – Jawid Mojaddedi ​

Panel V – Theology and Politics of Fiqh

Chair: Edmund Ghareeb

Shi’a Fiqh at the Gates of Historic Change – Mehran KamravaFiqh and Moral Disagreement in : Challenging the Justice of the Criminal Justice System – Ziba Mir-Hosseini Interpreting Women’s Biographies in Medieval Islamic Writings – Omaima Abou-Bakr ​

Panel VI – Islam and Modernity

Chair: Joshua Mitchell

Liberal/Progressive, Modern and Modernized Islam: Muslims and the American State – Sherman JacksonModern Movements in Islam – John VollThe Reception of Islamic Roots of Capitalism – Peter Gran

Ed Husain on the Jihadist Movement
2008-03-04 12:00 - 13:00
On March 4, 2008, Ed Husain visited SFS-Q to meet with Georgetown University students and to engage with them in an informal group discussion. Husain was in Qatar as a guest on the Doha Debates show which had filmed a day earlier the debate entitled “This House Believes that Muslims are Failing to Combat Extremism” in which he was for the motion. He is the deputy director of The Quilliam Foundation, which is a Muslim organization against extremism and author of The Islamist: Why I joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left, published by Penguin in 2007.

Husain discussed his book which describes his descent into, and then subsequent break from, radical Islam. He engaged with the students and answered their questions regarding his experiences as a former British Jihadist who managed to disengage from extremism.

Elzbieta Gozdziak on Child Trafficking into the United States
2008-03-03 08:00 - 18:00
Elzbieta M. Gozdziak, a prominent scholar of migration issues at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University was invited by CIRS to visit the SFS-Qatar campus.

Gozdziak’s visit aimed to forge research relationships and future collaborations with SFS-Qatar professors working on migration issues. During her time in Doha, she was also a guest speaker at the CIRS Monthly Dialogue Series. Gozdziak is the Director of Research at ISIM and editor of International Migration, a peer reviewed, scholarly journal devoted to research and policy analysis of contemporary issues affecting international migration.

The Monthly Dialogue took place on March 2, 2008 at the SFS-Qatar library. Gozdziak’s lecture was entitled “Victims No Longer: Challenges, Dilemmas, and Opportunities in Studying Trafficked Children” and focused on issues of child trafficking and abuse. Gozdziak outlined the parameters of a comprehensive research project which examines the situations of trafficked children. The study examines the trauma experienced by many children who are lured away from their families and homes, often under false pretenses and with the promise of travel to better environs. The study also analyzes the challenges that service providers face in assisting the children, and assesses prospects for rehabilitation and integration of the children into society. During the lecture, Gozdziak presented key findings from the study and discussed the methodological and conceptual challenges involved in research with trafficked children.

Gozdziak emphasized the need for in-depth academic research concerning the trafficking of children because, she said, “there is much general writing on the subject but little that yields sufficient results that aid in explaining or easing the situation.” Solutions towards rehabilitation and prevention can only happen if governmental policy-making is informed by in-depth and concerned research. Gozdziak told the gathered audience of the difficulties of conducting research on such sensitive and clandestine affairs as the trafficking of children and gaining access to them. She reported that the originally intended year-long study, lengthened to become a two-year endeavor, as the researchers were faced with a variety of challenges concerning approvals, permissions, and grants that needed to be secured before the research project could begin. Thus the dynamics at work are difficult for any research on the subject to fully comprehend and analyze the situation.

Because of the illegality of trafficking, the children can usually only be addressed after they have been freed from their ordeals. Therefore, the research revolves around the rehabilitation process of the children. In these rehabilitation centers the children are considered to be “victims” and so there is even greater challenge in trying to gain permission to study such “vulnerable” populations. Gozdziak insisted, however, that in order to treat trafficked children as beings beyond that of victims, they must not be considered helpless. Instead, they must be allowed and encouraged to have their own sense of self-identity and their own agency.

Self-identity is an important component of rehabilitation as every child’s trafficking situation is different. It is true that some children are neglected and abused in the worst possible ways. At the same time, however, there are many others who do not consider themselves to be victims and were merely fulfilling a cultural and familial obligation, often by working at young ages to support their families. This is why critical and informed research into the subject is important, as not all children should be considered to be in the same predicament. The research should aid in distinguishing each child’s individual needs.

The process of rehabilitation from this point of view should be one that focuses on the children’s sense of empowerment and treats them through cultural relativity as individuals rather than relying on a standardized and homogeneous, and Westernized, ideal of what it means to be child.

Summary prepared by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS staff member.

Global Media Between Dialogue and War: When Enemies Boost the Ratings
2008-02-26 08:00 - 18:00
On Tuesday February 26, 2008, CIRS hosted a one-day conference with the Italian organization Reset – Dialogues on Civilizations at Weill Cornell Lecture Hall 2.

This symposium featured an intensive set of discussions in which experts from the fields of media, journalism, international relations, and film studies came together to deliberate the consequences of using the international media as a weapon of war. The symposium was attended by students, journalists, scholars, Doha-based ambassadors, and other members of the public.

The audience and guests were welcomed by Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS, and Nina Zu Fürstenberg, Director of Reset. Guests were then were given a brief introduction by His Excellency Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi, the Ambassador of Italy to Qatar, who praised the efforts of Georgetown University, Qatar Foundation, and Al Jazeera in their vision and value of progressive thinking, open dialogue and education.

Some of the speakers taking part in the symposium included Giuliano Amato, the Italian Minister of Interior, and Otto Schilly, Member of the German Parliament. Other speakers—including noted political figures, film-makers, academics, and practitioners—deliberated on several important issues pertaining to the relationship between media and war, as well as the state of the interaction between, broadly-defined, Arab and Western media.

Also discussed was the balancing act that many media conglomerates play between local demands and preferences on the one hand and international and multi-cultural trends on the other. This has resulted in a proliferation of multi-language media broadcasts. In the context of the post-9/11 global environment, broadcasts in Arabic have assumed particular significance as more media outfits are eager for a wider audience share n the Arab world. Other issues of contemporary relevance—immigration, terrorism, cultural diffusion—have also combined to heighten interest in the role of global media.

The audience also observed two documentary films and was able to address questions to the directors who presented their works. The first film was entitled “Who to Believe?” and was shown by the Iranian film-maker Hossein Dehbashi and his assistant Mateo Farzaneh. This was an edited version of a longer, seven-hour documentary commenting on the war in Iraq and how it has become a subject of polarization by its coverage in Western and Arab media.

The second documentary was a proposal introduced by Carlo Sartori, the CEO of NewCo Rai International, the Italian media organization, to launch an Arabic language channel from an Italian perspective. The hope is to ease some of the strained relations between the Arab world and the West by emphasizing cross-cultural communication.

The symposium concluded on the note that listening is as much a solution to war as speaking is, and that two-way communication is the simplest yet hardest-to-achieve model of communication.

Event Program

9:00 – 9:30 am Welcome

Mehran Kamrava, Director, Center for International and Regional StudiesH.E. Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi, Ambassador of Italy in QatarNina Zu Fürstenberg, Director of Reset – Dialogue on Civilizations, Italy

9:30 – 11:30 am Panel I

Media as Weapons? Crossed views between East and WestThis panel analyzed how television and other media shape the mutual (in)comprehensions between different cultures and faiths, from mass-media and satellite television to the spread of blogging, and from vertical to horizontal communication. Panelists included:Giancarlo Bosetti, Reset Magazine, ItalyDaniela Conte, IMT Lucca, ItalyAshraf Galal, Qatar UniversityThomas Gorguissian, Qatar UniversityIbrahim Helal, Al Jazeera InternationalSteven Livingston, George Washington UniversityPaolo Mancini, University of Perugia, ItalyLawrence Pintak, American University of CairoMohamed Zayani, American University of Sharjah

12:00 – 1:30 pm Films and Discussion

Religious Television and International NewsThe Iranian film-maker Hossein Dehbashi and his assistant Mateo M. Farzaneh presented their latest documentary, and the Italian television producer Carlo Sartori presented the project of an innovative channel to be broadcast in the Mediterranean region.

1:30 – 3:00 pm Lunch Break

3:00 – 5:00 pm Panel II

How Politics Can Deal with the Media War

Presenters

Giuliano Amato, Italian Minister of InteriorGiancarlo Bosetti, Reset Magazine, ItalyMehran Kamrava, Director, Center for International and Regional StudiesOtto Schily, Member of the German Parliament

Summary prepared by Suzi Mirgani, a CIRS staff member.

John Esposito on What a Billion Muslims Really Think
2008-02-17 08:00 - 18:00
World-renowned scholar and prolific author John L. Esposito spoke to an audience of nearly 400 guests on February 17, 2008 at the Diplomatic Club in Doha. In his remarks, the Georgetown University Professor of Religion and International Affairs covered the findings of his latest book, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think.

As the Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Esposito emphasized that throughout his career he has been repeatedly asked the same questions regarding Islam: Is Islam compatible with democracy? What is the relationship between Islam and modernity? And, what about Islam is particularly violent? According to Esposito, such questions affirm this clear clash of perceptions between the West and the Muslim World. The problem, he said, is that extremists and terrorism have too often been amplified in the media, consequently overshadowing the hopes, fears, resentments, and realities of a billion Muslims globally. Rather than lend credence to an extreme minority, Esposito, along with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, decided to compile data and give voice to a silenced majority—which will enable the public to get beyond ideologies and ignorance.

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think is based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims who reside in more than 35 nations with predominant or sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90 percent of the world’s Muslim community, this poll is the most comprehensive and revealing study of its kind.

Esposito focused his talk on the main findings of the survey as they relate to the clash of perceptions, double standards of US foreign policy, and the need to promote democratization and economic development in the Muslim world. Before delving into policy grievances, Esposito highlighted the perception problem as a glaring difference between what Muslims admire about the West, and what Westerners admire about the Muslim world. The majority of Muslims interviewed stated an admiration for Western ideals of democracy, rule of law, political participation, accountability, economic growth, and technology. However, despite the increased awareness of Islam and Muslims in the West in the post 9/11 era, 57% of Western respondents said they admired nothing or couldn’t think of anything they admired about the Muslim world. Here, the clash of perceptions becomes evident, where the war against terrorism translates into a war against Islam.

Esposito maintained that this is a fragile delineation, because many Muslims view the war against terror as an excuse to redraw the map of the Muslim world. With the persistent denigration of Islam and Muslims, many Muslims are seriously concerned that the West in general and America in particular operate with a double standard when it comes to the Middle East and the larger Muslim world. When we look into the consequences of 9/11, Esposito argued, the reality is that many countries in the Muslim world have become more authoritarian; thereby thwarting movements towards democratization. Thus, this stands in contradiction to the US administration’s push for democracy in the region. Esposito argued that the US democracy promotion policy was “not an export of self-determination but the export of a particular brand of democracy.” Furthermore, not only do Muslims want greater democratization within their countries, but “young Muslims want jobs, not jihad.” Hence, not only are Muslims frustrated with their domestic policies as well as with US foreign policy, but more poignantly, they are also disappointed about the lack of opportunity and economic mobility in their own countries.

Esposito recommended that the way forward for the West and the US is to emphasize soft power rather than military power. When speaking about America’s role in the Muslim world, he recommended that the United States must use the carrot and stick approach. More specifically, the US and the West have to honestly promote freedom, civil society, and human rights in countries that they offer aid and support to. These countries have an important role to play in flexing their muscles in order to address governments that marginalize their people.

According to the Gallup research, both the West and the Muslim world care about the future, but each thinks that the other side doesn’t. Both agree that there needs to be greater interaction, exchange and education. Respect and partnership should be central to Western and Muslim foreign policies. It is more about policy than principles. At a time when sensationalist headlines often eclipse and undermine mutual understanding between Western and Muslim communities, it is essential to engage in meaningful dialogue and discourse.

Esposito told his audience, “I see light at the very end of the tunnel. It is going to take years for us to get out of where we are.”

Summary prepared by Aalaa Abuzaakouk. Aalaa serves as a Student Affairs Officer at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Gary Wasserman on the role of Lobbying Groups in American Foreign Policy
2008-02-11 08:00 - 18:00
On February 11, 2008, students and guests of CIRS were treated to a lecture by Gary Wasserman, Professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Wasserman’s lecture, part of the CIRS Monthly Dialogue Series, discussed the question “Democracy and American Foreign Policy: Do Interest Groups Help or Hinder?”

Wasserman argued that allowing interest groups to lobby helps open up the highly centralized U.S. foreign policy process, which is dominated by the executive branch. Wasserman called this executive hegemony “presidentialism.” Presidentialism can be illustrated by many experiences under the Bush administration, Wasserman said. He cited examples of presidential language modeled on rhetoric of the armed forces, and of the increase in classified documents under the Bush administration.

Wasserman claimed that the use of classified documents limits the involvement of outsiders in the political process, and reduces political debate and executive accountability. Moreover, these classified documents are used selectively as a means to an end, as in the case of the buildup of argumentation for the Iraq War, Wasserman said. Serving as another example of presidentialism are governmental sanctions against dissident voices, such as the case of two American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists who have recently been prosecuted for having obtained classified information.

According to Wasserman, the post-9/11 climate has added strength to the tendency of presidentialism; however, over the past few years and with new presidential elections coming up, this trend is beginning to be undermined by others, like globalization. Through globalization, new and different influence groups have risen, and this broadening of the political sphere has made American foreign policy slightly more pragmatic.

Wasserman then anticipated an expected audience question, stemming from the widespread negative image of interest groups and lobbyists: Is greater public involvement in foreign policy desirable? Here, Wasserman referred to Alexis De Tocqueville, who, in the mid-nineteenth century, pointed to the uneasy relationship in the United States between foreign policy and democracy.

Traditionally, these two entities are seen as antagonistic towards each other. Wasserman commented, however, that foreign policy often results from bureaucratic compromises, and that foreign policy is portrayed as more coherent than it actually is. Discussing the people factor, he referred to the work of Benjamin Page, who portrays the public as just as coherent, and stresses that it should not be excluded from the political decision-making process. Page then provides suggestions for the problem at the core of this matter, i.e., how to make democracy work with foreign policy.

Currently in U.S. society, the problem of the “people factor” has led to increasing prominence of experts in all fields. Since in foreign policy, lobbyists are the experts, lobbyists can in fact open up the foreign policy process, and lessen presidentialism, Wasserman claimed.

Wasserman argued against the traditional negative stereotype that surround lobbyists. Adding nuance to their traditional image, he alerted his audience to the potentialities of lobbyists as contributors to foreign policy-making in the democratic state, rather than selfish takers in that process.

Summary prepared by Katrien Vanpee. Katrien is a PhD-candidate at Georgetown University, and works at the Embassy of Belgium in Doha.

Andrew Natsios on "The Sudan in Crisis and the International Response"
2008-01-24 08:00 - 18:00
On January 24, 2008, CIRS sponsored a Distinguished Lecture by Andrew Natsios, Professor on the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and former U.S. Special Envoy to Darfur. The lecture was titled “The Sudan in Crisis and the International Response” and took place at the Al Sharq Village Hotel. It was attended by fifty invited guests who were treated to dinner and insight into one of the world’s most prominent crises. Earlier in the day, Natsios also spoke on the Sudan in a keynote address to some 350 high school students gathered at the Opening Ceremony of the CIRS-sponsored annual Model United Nations conference.

Commenting on the ongoing crisis in the Sudan, Natsios detailed the complex tensions that have fueled violent conflicts in the Darfur region, building on his firsthand knowledge of the Sudan and its political actors. Beside the tense relations that exist between Sudanese of Arab and African descent, Natsios’ discussion touched upon a series of lesser-known issues, such as the strained relations between the central government and the Janjaweed (tribal militias).

Natsios highlighted the real danger regarding the collapse of central authority in Africa’s largest country should the country return to war between the North and the South which nearly happened in October and November 2007. The ethnic cleansing of Darfur represents only one aspect of a much larger crisis that could lead to the disintegration of the Sudan, with even more tragic political and humanitarian consequences for the whole of eastern Africa. Unless the international community realizes the gravity of the situation and the fragility of central authority in Khartoum, and enjoins all of the political actors involved to alter their current course of action, the country is likely to break up under the pressure of various centrifugal forces.

Natsios argued that the central government in Khartoum has managed to alienate several previously non-political Sudanese social groups. It has, among other things, failed to honor all the articles of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, which was intended to put an end to the long civil conflict between the predominantly Muslim North and the oil-rich Christian South. As a result, the most serious conflict in recent Sudanese history—with casualties ten times those of the Darfur crisis—remains a partially unresolved issue that continues to threaten the stability of the entire country. With high levels of discontent and resentment among the population and a high proportion of government officials who are unwilling to defuse the situation peacefully for fear of a coup or of standing trial for war crimes, the Sudan is becoming increasingly unstable and should the North and South return to war, might well disintegrate as a state.

To bring the current crises to an end and avoid future degradation, Natsios argued that the international community must first and foremost encourage the parties to enforce the Comprehensive Peace Agreement it originally supported, and must normalize political relations with the Sudanese government. Because the International Criminal Court is a sword of Damocles hanging over Sudanese officials, it has become an impediment to conflict resolution. For this reason, Natsios recommended that the international community forgo the right to bring suspected war criminals to justice in exchange for peace and stability. The Sudanese government, for its part, would have to share oil revenues equitably, restrain the hardliners within its own ranks, and give greater regional autonomy to Darfur. These measures, combined with free, fair and open elections, present the only viable options for saving Sudan from fragmenting into its various provinces and bringing the Darfur crisis to an end.

Summary prepared by Henri Lauziere. Henri is a Teaching Assistant at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Hany El Banna and Azhari Gasim Ahmed
2007-12-17 08:00 - 18:00
As part of a Working Group Symposium on Global Development, Organizations, and Faith in the Muslim World, on December 17, 2007, CIRS hosted a Distinguished Lecture by Hany El Banna, co-founder and president of Islamic Relief Worldwide, and Azhari Gasim Ahmed, Senior Economist, Islamic Development Bank.

Earlier in the day, the Working Group symposium was held at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. The symposium focused on institutions; relationships among public, private, and religiously inspired actors; financing issues; and other issues such as children, education, health, and gender.
