Many scholars focus on somewhat traditional ways of thinking about Brazil, but Jeffrey Lesser is interested in Brazilians who don’t fit into the typical categories — namely, Japanese, Jewish and Arab Brazilians.
Guest Column by Kemal Kirişci. Kirişci will give Friday’s Morning Lecture in the Amphitheater at 10:45 a.m.
As the Arab Spring spread from Tunisia to the rest of the Middle East early in 2011, the longtime opposition figure Rashid al-Gannouchi, also the co-founder and leader of Tunisia’s an-Nahda party, was among the many leaders who pointed to Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led Turkey as a model for guiding the transformation of the Middle East. Gannouchi maintained close relations with AKP and its leadership, which later became closely involved in Tunisia’s transformation efforts. Yet, after a May 2013 talk on “Tunisia’s Democratic Future” at The Brookings Institution, Gannouchi’s response to a question asking him which countries he thought constituted a model for Tunisia was striking because he did not mention Turkey. It is probably not a coincidence that he responded the way he did because the news about the harsh police response to the initial stages of the anti-government protests in Turkey was just breaking out. Subsequently, in an interview he gave to Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post early in June, he also took a critical view of both Mohammed Morsi and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for their majoritarian understanding of democracy, a view that he said an-Nahda renounces. So what happened to Turkey’s model credentials? What might have led Gannouchi to change his views so dramatically? Are there any prospects for Turkey to reclaim these credentials?
About five years ago, Ori Soltes and one of his colleagues were lecturing on Shariah at a conference of approximately 200 federal judges and attorneys. During the Q-and-A portion of the presentation, Soltes claimed that Turkey was “positioned to [connect] the East and the West,” and that Turkey now had an opportunity to “re-engage the Arab world, which had been largely hostile to the country for a long time.”
For more than 20 years, Chautauqua Institution has hosted a Middle East Update, an annual program that brings in foreign policy experts to help Chautauquans understand the tightly wound and highly complicated knot of conflicts and relationships in the Middle East.
This year’s Middle East Update begins at 4 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy and will continue on Aug. 12 and 13 at the same time and place. Today, Geoffrey Kemp, director of regional security programs at the Center for the National Interest, will moderate a discussion with Dennis Ross, diplomat and counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Ross is also speaking at today’s morning lecture.
Three days after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Dalia Mogahed and her husband were contemplating whether or not to go to Friday evening services. Unsure of what, or who, would be waiting for them, they entered the mosque.
But instead of finding an angry mob or anti-Muslim protestors, the mosque was packed full of non-Islamic Americans who were there to support the Muslim place of worship.
Mogahed, the former executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and current CEO of Mogahed Consulting, delivered Wednesday’s morning lecture at 10:45 a.m. in the Amphitheater. In keeping with the week’s theme, she discussed how the Arab Spring can inspire the next generation to empower themselves.
The Chautauquan Daily 