ACTIVE ARAB VOICES
The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at AUB
Feminist Mobilizations at the time of COVID-19:
Experiences from the Middle East,
Latin America, and the Caribbean
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
7:00 – 8:30 p.m. Beirut time
Virtual event
Experiences from the Middle East,
Latin America, and the Caribbean
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
7:00 – 8:30 p.m. Beirut time
Virtual event
Join us for a roundtable conversation with and between feminist activists and scholars from the Caribbean and Latin America, Gabrielle Hosein and Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian, and from the Middle East, Lina Abou-Habib and Mozn Hassan.
Feminists all over the world have responded to and mobilized to address the wide-ranging inequalities and forms of gender-based violence exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Women have been disproportionately affected in terms of unemployment, limited access to adequate health care, political marginalization, and increasing and intensified forms of gender-based violence. What are feminists challenging, what are they concretely suggesting and what are their strategies, especially in terms of collaboration with national governments, international organizations, and transnational feminist campaigns? This webinar aims to discuss feminist mobilization and strategies at the time of COVID-19 in relation to Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. The idea is to look at both specificities and similarities in feminist struggles during this challenging period.
Feminists all over the world have responded to and mobilized to address the wide-ranging inequalities and forms of gender-based violence exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Women have been disproportionately affected in terms of unemployment, limited access to adequate health care, political marginalization, and increasing and intensified forms of gender-based violence. What are feminists challenging, what are they concretely suggesting and what are their strategies, especially in terms of collaboration with national governments, international organizations, and transnational feminist campaigns? This webinar aims to discuss feminist mobilization and strategies at the time of COVID-19 in relation to Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. The idea is to look at both specificities and similarities in feminist struggles during this challenging period.
Reflections on Mass Protests
&
Uprisings in the Arab World
(Two Panels)
Monday, 25 January
1 PM EST and 2:30 PM EST
Part 1 @ 8:00 PM Beirut Time, Part 2 @ 9:30 PM Beirut Time
&
Uprisings in the Arab World
(Two Panels)
Monday, 25 January
1 PM EST and 2:30 PM EST
Part 1 @ 8:00 PM Beirut Time, Part 2 @ 9:30 PM Beirut Time
Ten Years On
Mass Protests and Uprisings in the Arab World
Mass Protests and Uprisings in the Arab World
December 17, 2020 marked the tenth anniversary of the start of the Arab uprisings in Tunisia. Beginning in 2011, mass uprisings swept North Africa and the Middle East, spreading from the shores of Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of the Arabian Peninsula. A “second wave” of mass protests and uprisings manifested during 2019 in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon, and Iraq. The persistence of demands for popular sovereignty even in the face of re-entrenched authoritarianism, imperial intervention, and civil strife is a critical chapter in regional and global history.
In an effort to mark, interrogate, and reflect on the Arab uprisings, we launch a yearlong set of events, reflections, and conversations. We hope to produce resources for educators, researchers, students, and journalists to understand the last decade of political upheaval historically and in the lived present.
Over the past decade, a plethora of events, texts, and artistic and cultural productions have navigated the last decade’s spectrum of affective and material registers. We hope to contribute to these efforts through a historically grounded, theoretically rigorous approach that collaboratively interrogates the multiple questions the Arab uprisings continue to pose.
In an effort to mark, interrogate, and reflect on the Arab uprisings, we launch a yearlong set of events, reflections, and conversations. We hope to produce resources for educators, researchers, students, and journalists to understand the last decade of political upheaval historically and in the lived present.
Over the past decade, a plethora of events, texts, and artistic and cultural productions have navigated the last decade’s spectrum of affective and material registers. We hope to contribute to these efforts through a historically grounded, theoretically rigorous approach that collaboratively interrogates the multiple questions the Arab uprisings continue to pose.
Organized by: Arab Studies Institute, Princeton’s Arab Barometer, and George Mason’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program. Co-Sponsored by: Georgetown University (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies), American University of Beirut (Asfari Institute), Arab Council for the Social Sciences, Brown University (Center for Middle East Studies), UC Santa Barbara (Center for Middle East Studies), Harvard University (Center for Middle East Studies), University of Exeter (Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies), Birzeit University (Department of Political Science), Stanford University (Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law), AUC Affiliates, Georgetown University (Qatar), The Global Academy (MESA Affiliated), Institute of Palestine Studies.
لهذه الأسباب يمكن أن نحتفي بعام 2020
لينا أبو حبيب - باحثة وحقوقية نسوية لبنانية
معهد الأصفري للمجتمع المدني والمواطنة
الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت
لينا أبو حبيب - باحثة وحقوقية نسوية لبنانية
معهد الأصفري للمجتمع المدني والمواطنة
الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت
سأحتفي بثورة أولئك الذين يعارضون النظام، والذين يحاربون القمع والظلم يومياً وبأساليب كثيرة مختلفة، والذين يرفضون الاستسلام...عجَّت منصات التواصل الاجتماعي في الفترة الأخيرة، بمنشورات احتفالية عقب الإعلان عن إقرار قانون يعاقب التحرش الجنسي وعن إجراء تعديلات على قانون حماية النساء وسائر أفراد الأسرة من العنف الأسري
فنَّدت الكاتبة والناشطة النسوية الرصينة، مايا العمّار، تلك الانتصارات المزعومة وأثبتت بما لا يدع مجالاً للشك أن ليس ثمّة ما يستدعي البهجة أو
التهليل، وأن الإنجازات المذكورة ليست سوى مجرد إجراءات شكلية زائفة بل وحتى محاولة لتلميع نظام رثّ وإبرازه كنظامٍ مُتحضِّر مناصر للمرأة
للمزيد انقر هنا
فنَّدت الكاتبة والناشطة النسوية الرصينة، مايا العمّار، تلك الانتصارات المزعومة وأثبتت بما لا يدع مجالاً للشك أن ليس ثمّة ما يستدعي البهجة أو
التهليل، وأن الإنجازات المذكورة ليست سوى مجرد إجراءات شكلية زائفة بل وحتى محاولة لتلميع نظام رثّ وإبرازه كنظامٍ مُتحضِّر مناصر للمرأة
للمزيد انقر هنا
For the English version, Please click here
Women in the Sun: Precarity and the Future
among Syrian Refugee Women in Lebanon
Yara Tarabulsi
among Syrian Refugee Women in Lebanon
Yara Tarabulsi
During the months of July to September, my fieldwork in Lebanon led me to drastically different places: from the dusty, dry agglomeration of shacks in a small town in the middle of the Bekaa Valley to a hot and humid hectic sewing workshop hidden within the serpentine alleyways of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. I ended up in these places to speak with Syrian refugee women about their different experiences of laboring in Lebanon. Through this ethnographic work, I aspired to analyze how the Lebanese state’s policies towards Syrian refugee labor have affected the way refugee women navigate the labor market, as well as how the involvement of international and local humanitarian organizations has played into their choices and prospects while doing so.
Click for more
Click for more
It is safe to say that policy change and legal reform toward gender equality has been rather slow and partial in Lebanon. For instance, and compared to other countries in the MENA region, Lebanon has undergone hardly any significant reform in the 16 different religious family codes. This is despite the fact that there has been no dearth of sustained advocacy and lobbying on the part of women and feminist organisations throughout the last four decades to bring about reforms in family laws and protections against gender-based violence. However, the last twenty years have nevertheless witnessed an important shift namely by bringing demands for gender equality into the public domain and as part of the prevailing public and political discourse. Another major advance was the fact that women themselves took over the public space and began to speak openly about their own experiences of oppression and discrimination and, in doing so, contributed to influencing public opinion as to the validity of their demands for change
click here for more
click here for more
|
Recently Completed |
Bourdieu, Latour and Rasha Abbas:
The Uses of Actor-Network Theory
for Studying the Field(s) of Cultural Production
in the Middle East and North Africa
Felix Lang
Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany
The Uses of Actor-Network Theory
for Studying the Field(s) of Cultural Production
in the Middle East and North Africa
Felix Lang
Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany
Beirut Blast Solidarity
Tainted with Racism
ANTI-RACISM MOVEMENTANT
|
On August 4 2020, a massive explosion hit Lebanon’s capital that was caused by a blast of 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut’s port. The explosion caused the death of more than 150 people, thousands of injuries and disappearances, making a lot of families homeless.
Before the explosion, migrant workers had been demanding to be evacuated from Lebanon and to go back home. Today, their families are worried about their safety in a country that not only dehumanizes them but also does not consider their security and survival an urgent priority in a constantly changing situation in terms of coronavirus lockdown and official security protocols. For more, click here |
الثأر لبيروت ولسكّانها
كريم نمور.
|
"الثأر"، لأن التحقيق والعدالة خذلانا... الثأر، لأن النظام يستغلّ قوّته لإحتلال الفضاء العام ومنابره لتبييض صورته، محاولاً إمّا رمي المسؤولية على القضاء (الذي يعجز هو الآخر الدفاع عن نفسه بفعل موجب التحفظ) وإمّا تشتيت المسؤولية على مختلف أركان النظام بغية إغراقها في تفاصيل تركيبته وهلاكها... والثأر، لأن التحقيق والعدالة محتكران من قبل النظام المجرم، فكيف عسى للمجرم أن يحقق ويحاكم ذاته؟ وهو نفسه من شوّه، قبل أيّام من الإنفجار، أنشودة "بيروت ستّ الدنيا" للشاعر نزار قبّاني، مستبدلاً عبارة "الثورة تولد من رحم الأحزان" بلالات بائسة، وكأنه يسعى لمحو الثورة وواقع الأحزان من ذاكرتنا المشتركة. أمّا بعد فشله بتلك المهمّة، ها هو يفجّر بطلة الأنشودة، بيروت ولم تمضِ ساعات على الإنفجار الجرمي حتى تبنّت الحكومة بيان المجلس الأعلى للدفاع، لا سيما لجهة إعلان بيروت مدينة منكوبة وإعلان حالة الطوارئ فيها لمدة أسبوعين قابلة للتجديد (أي من 04/08/2020 لغاية 18/08/2020)، وذلك سنداً للمرسوم الإشتراعي رقم 52 الصادر بتاريخ 05/08/1967، على أن تتولى السلطة العسكرية العليا فوراً صلاحية المحافظة على الأمن فكيف نقرأ إجراء الحكومة هذا لإدارة الكوارث الوطنية، في ظلّ مطالبات الثأر الشعبية؟ |
|
أتى إنفجار بيروت في 4 آب الماضي ليرنّ ناقوس النظام مجدداً. فيتحول الثأر (أو رغبته) إذ ذاك إلى انتفاضة مستجدة لاستعادة عدالة – ومعها سردية لواقعنا – يحاول النظام بائساً التمسك باحتكارها
للمزيد من المعلومات، انقر هنا
للمزيد من المعلومات، انقر هنا
Beirut Catastrophe
|
Through our partner Jadaliyya
By Bassam Haddad
05 August 2020 Like so many, I am beyond mad at the criminal incompetence and corruption of the Lebanese Government, Bureaucracy, and their attendant business cronies/supporters who privilege profit over everything with almost no checks on their horror, save the self-congratulatory "open" discourse in public spaces, which serves more to vent than to exact concrete accountability. Hence the necessary courageous protests and mobilization we have observed for some time being the beaming light amid rot. A much more careful and detailed account is Ziad Abu-Rish's take below on what happened yesterday, and implications. I asked him to synthesize his social media comments for potential publication (perhaps on Jadaliyya). Thanks Ziad. Please consider joining our fundraising campaign to support the Lebanese Red Cross here, Kindly click here |
|
By Ziad Abu-Rish
The nature of Tuesday’s explosion in the port of Beirut and the extent of the damage across the city and beyond is not yet clear. There are plenty of unconfirmed reports and it is hard to take official statements as transparent.
That being said, the effects of the explosion were felt across the city and beyond. For those familiar with the geography, nearby areas such Karantina and Gemmayzeh as well as further away areas such as Manara, Hamra, Burj Hammoud, Sin al-Fil, and Brummana felt the explosion.
The port area itself is largely decimated, with adjacent neighborhoods destroyed and those one neighborhood removed reportedly looking like a warzone. Much of the most-damaged areas are only now being accessed by those searching for victims, rescue teams having been forced to wait out the flames or make sure remaining structures would not collapse on them.
The anecdotes and reports of windows shattering, balcony doors collapsing, and ceilings caving in across Beirut (to say nothing of the “exterior damage” on the streets that are today lined with broken glass) and beyond are true and a testament to how powerful the explosion was. click here for more
The nature of Tuesday’s explosion in the port of Beirut and the extent of the damage across the city and beyond is not yet clear. There are plenty of unconfirmed reports and it is hard to take official statements as transparent.
That being said, the effects of the explosion were felt across the city and beyond. For those familiar with the geography, nearby areas such Karantina and Gemmayzeh as well as further away areas such as Manara, Hamra, Burj Hammoud, Sin al-Fil, and Brummana felt the explosion.
The port area itself is largely decimated, with adjacent neighborhoods destroyed and those one neighborhood removed reportedly looking like a warzone. Much of the most-damaged areas are only now being accessed by those searching for victims, rescue teams having been forced to wait out the flames or make sure remaining structures would not collapse on them.
The anecdotes and reports of windows shattering, balcony doors collapsing, and ceilings caving in across Beirut (to say nothing of the “exterior damage” on the streets that are today lined with broken glass) and beyond are true and a testament to how powerful the explosion was. click here for more
