You may remember this old joke from the 1990s: What is Communism? Answer: The transition between capitalism and capitalism. To this we can now add: What was the Arab Spring? In Egypt, it has been the transition between military dictatorship and military dictatorship, with a brief interlude of Muslim Brotherhood rule. Remember all the nonsense […]
Pakistan has been called “the most dangerous place in the world” by Pakistani journalist Imtiaz Gul, the executive director of the Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies. Throughout its history, this country of 180 million people — the second largest Muslim state in the world — has been subject to periodic military coups, often […]
On Jan. 19, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will begin a four-day visit to Israel. He will be greeted like a rock star when he addresses the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and becomes the first Canadian leader to do so. “I (will be) pleased and proud to host the prime minister of Canada, a brave and true friend of […]
Earlier this week, suicide bombers were responsible for the deaths of at least 34 people in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, in attacks on a railway station and a trolley bus. In October, a woman from Dagestan killed seven people in a suicide bus blast in the city. The bombings raise fears of further […]
Earlier this month, the 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA) voted by a ratio of more than two to one to endorse a scholarly boycott against Israeli universities. It asked its members to refuse to “enter formal collaboration with Israeli academic institutions or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions, or on […]
Nelson Mandela has died, at the age 95. Although he left office in 1999, after serving five years as South Africa’s first democratically elected president, he remained the conscience of the country and a man beloved throughout the world. He was a unifying symbol of the “rainbow” nation. How will South Africa fare now that […]
In 2010, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda since 2000 and candidate of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), won a second term with 93 percent of the vote, in an election marred by repression, murder, and lack of credible competition. Some potential opponents were disqualified or failed to enter the race, because they would have […]
On Nov. 7, the Quebec government tabled Bill 60, the so-called Charter of Quebec Values, in the province’s National Assembly. The law would forbid all public employees from wearing “overt and conspicuous” religious symbols and headgear, including Muslim face veils, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, or large crucifixes. The regulations would apply only to publicly-paid […]
One of most protracted conflicts in Africa today concerns the former Spanish colony of Spanish Sahara, situated in the northwestern corner of the continent, adjacent to Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. By the 20th century, Spain’s once-grand empire consisted of a few small bits and pieces, all in Africa: Ifni and the protectorate of Spanish Morocco […]
Israel is, technically, not the only official Jewish homeland in the world. Hidden away in the far east of Russian Siberia, 8,361 kilometres east of Moscow, and not that far from the Pacific Ocean, is the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) of Birobidzhan. And it’s even bigger than the far more famous Jewish state: Birobidzhan has […]