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Arab Shift
The Arab Spring uprisings have triggered notable shifts throughout republican Arab states. The story in the Gulf monarchies, however, is starkly different. The Gulf Monarchies are, for the most part, autocratic, hydrocarbon-rich states whose regimes derive legitimacy from tradition and an inflated ability to pacify populations through the distribution of […]
Read all posts from ‘Syria – an outcry for democracy’
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United Against Violence
On 1-3 November I participated in the International Conference on Non-Violence in Tunis, where activists, academics and journalists from the north and the south of the Mediterranean met to discuss regional strategies to support non-violent activism and democratic transition. The conference aimed to strengthen solidarity and partnership between non-violent civil […]
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Syria has all the ingredients of a global crisis
I have been looking to write on Syria for months now but have never found the right way to put everything I had in mind. Yet recently Robert Fisk wrote about questions asked him by a Syrian friend and it was there that I found the missing link – […]
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Syria: Just Another Candidate for Western Democracy?
In the old days Globalization was usually by means of mounted warriors, ships or explorers who roamed continents. At first they were driven by need, afterwards they did it out of greed and to some degree, out of curiosity. Settlers, travelers on mules and camel caravans, followed the warriors. Today we have […]
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Syrian Opposition, Buoyed By UN Vote, Charts New Future
Opposition parties that effectively ousted decades-old regimes are now battling their way toward self-governance. Despite throwback by Assad’s regime, Syrian opposition parties are also thinking ahead. Ausama Monajed, senior advisor to the Secretary General of The Syrian National Council (SNC), Syria’s main opposition party, described a plan of action the […]