Is there a geography of crisis?1 Does it have a physical location on the surface of the globe? American officials certainly thought so 50 years ago, designating large swaths of the Middle East and Afghanistan as an “arc of crisis”… Continue Reading
Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton have an interesting article, entitled “Reframing the geopolitics of global capitalism”, in the 2024 edition of the journal Socialist Register. Although framed in a somewhat obscure discussion of the philosophy of form or content,… Continue Reading
Hamza Hamouchene is an Algerian scholar and activist who is based in London. He spoke to Oisín Challen Flynn about a collection of essays, Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region (Pluto, 2023), which he co-edited… Continue Reading
A review of Revolution is the Choice of the People: Crisis and Revolt in the Middle East and North Africa, Anne Alexander (Bookmarks, 2022), £12 Since 2019, the world has been witnessing a “third cycle of revolt”, following the anti-globalisation… Continue Reading
On 4 August a massive explosion shook Beirut port when a neglected storehouse of ammonium nitrate blew up, catapulting Lebanon onto the front pages of the global media. The volatile chemical was being stored next to the country’s main grain… Continue Reading
On 2 April 2019, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to resign.1 In scarcely more than one month, a massive popular movement that had emerged for the first time on 22 February managed to get rid of the ageing and… Continue Reading
In March 2011 the Arab Spring arrived in Syria. Syrians had lived under the totalitarianism of the Asad family, first with the father, Hafez al-Asad (1971-2000), followed by the son, Bashaar al-Asad, for 40 years.1 This included a state of… Continue Reading
Recent months have been full of ominous signs of deepening conflict between the major players in what Alex Callinicos calls the “multi-level chess game” of Middle Eastern geopolitics.1 In March 2018, Turkish forces entered Syria, forcing tens of thousands to… Continue Reading
For the fourth time in less than a decade and half the UK is at war, and once again the vast majority of the victims will be Muslims. Bolstered by the votes and voices of the Labour right, on 2… Continue Reading
Ghayath Naisse’s article “The ‘Islamic State’ and the Counter-revolution” is an extremely valuable contribution to the discussion about the nature of ISIS. In particular, Naisse’s emphasis on the devastating impact of war on Iraqi and Syrian societies—in the Iraqi case… Continue Reading