If Hillary can make it in Arabic, will Rousseau?

By Samar Farah | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

DAMASCUS, SYRIA – Nouri Bookstore, one of the main book dealers in Damascus, bulges and buckles with Arabic translations of Western texts – mostly books on computers, medicine, and cooking. On prominent display: a book by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke with the very loosely translated title “My Awakening, the Jewish Control over USA”; a copy of Hillary Clinton’s autobiography, and other works on Sept. 11 and the Iraq war. Continue reading “If Hillary can make it in Arabic, will Rousseau?” →

From Nationalism to Country-Building: A Necessary Shift in Emphasis

Introduction

Observers of Middle East contemporary politics have always contended that the Palestinian cause has often been used by the various ruling Arab regimes to distract the minds of their oppressed peoples from the need for internal political, economic and social reforms. There is an urgent need, however, now that the region seems to be undergoing conditions similar to those that existed in the early twentieth century, to flesh out this argument even further. Continue reading “From Nationalism to Country-Building: A Necessary Shift in Emphasis” →