Why Minorities?

Tharwa Editorial

One of the main criticisms that the Tharwa Project has received focuses on its emphasis on the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in the region, noting that this could easily conflict with other avowed goals of the Project, namely: the interest in democracy promotion in the region and raising the standards of civic awareness and citizenship therein. The emphasis on minorities, we are told, could eventually increase the feeling of non-belonging and separation among minority groups, further isolating them from the rest of society and further feeding the growing ethnic and sectarian suspicions that exist between minority and majority populations in the region. As such, wouldn’t it be better to simply focus on democratization and citizen rights? Continue reading “Why Minorities?” →

Where are we now? A few observations on Tharwa’s progress

Tharwa Editorial

Several months have passed now since the official launch of the Tharwa Project Website, and the Tharwa Team is fast approaching the end of the Site’s trial period. The trial period was intended to help us further define the particular mission of the Website, taking visitors’ comments, interests and queries into account. Continue reading “Where are we now? A few observations on Tharwa’s progress” →

Stuck in the Bottleneck

Tharwa Editorial / Also published in the Daily Star under the title: “Prepare for when the Arab bottle breaks.”

When you are stuck in the neck of a bottle, it doesn’t matter how far you are from the bottom, or how close you come to the edge of freedom. There are no points of no return. As you struggle to free yourself, you can as easily fail and fall as succeed and climb out of the top. For those stuck in the neck, though, the option of not doing anything, of accepting their bondage, seems like the safest bet. But what happens when they realize that an overwhelming force may threaten to break the bottle? What is the safest bet then? Continue reading “Stuck in the Bottleneck” →

Are we all racists now?

Or, to be more precise, have we always been so blatantly racist? If the events in Qamishly and Darfur prove anything about the Arab peoples, regimes and intellectuals included, is that they are far from being immune to racist stands. More so, we seem to be mired in them, immersed to the neck, in fact, but we are too numb, too absorbed with our feeling of victimhood, to pay attention, to notice. Apartheid, genocide, and slavery, especially slavery (how could we so conveniently forget about our history with slavery?) are not foreign crimes, as we have always contended. We are as equally guilty in this regard as everyone else. Continue reading “Are we all racists now?” →