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By Manish Rai: The Islamic State stormed Iraq and whole world in 2014 with its takeover of major Iraqi and Syrian cities by exploiting Sunni Arab grievances in Iraq and chaos in neighbouring Syria. But the militant group is now steadily losing ground in both these countries. The so-called Caliphate is on the back foot….
By Dr. Saman Shali: Every nation has the right to have a unified identity. Some have a unified identity under the umbrella of nationalism; others have it through religious solidarity; and still others have their solidarity as part of an economic bloc. For example, one understanding of the Arab unified identity is “United Arab nation”,…
By Freeyad Ibrahim: Is the Downfall of a Tyrant Enough? Change in Mind before Change on the Ground If you look carefully at human history, you conclude that almost all revolutionary acts have proved after a while to be failures – sarab, a mirage. The people begin to exchange frustrated looks, muttering unsatisfactorily, “This was…
By David Jalil Zare: Like millions of my fellows of Kurdish origin I care about Kurdistan and how to work to make it a place of peace and prosperity. I believe taking the Arabic Gulf States as the model for advancing society and wealth is the worst that can happen to us. It would be…
KT Report: “We know our people, we trusted our people, we organised our people and the results are in front of everybody”. Salih Muslim co-chairman of the PYD (Democratic Union Party), the dominant political party in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), last night addressed hundreds at a packed meeting in the Palace of Westminster, London. Convened by the Centre for…
By Rizgar Anwar Abdullah: After the end of direct European imperialism, a kind of autonomy was given to various tribal groups within the new Independent states, and the power in each of those states, including economic power, was controlled by a family or a tribe with absolute force. And that’s without any regard for the indigenous…
By Osamah Golpy: A popular Arabic song started to emerge in the second Palestinian intifada in 2000. It glorifies two Palestinians, a father and a son: the boy crying and the father waving, all in the eyes of the whole world, and then a burst of gunfire and dust, after which the boy is seen…
By Evin Cheikosman: The revolutions throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have opened many doors that have been locked for centuries; and one of those doors leads into the topic of women’s rights. If we take a moment to reflect on the uprisings that have taken place this past year and the numerous…
By Shenah Abdullah: “It’s no use for the world talking about me and my people when I still have to wake up the next morning worrying about my sons and daughters missing and how to comfort their children. Everyone is responsible. What can you do to comfort my burning heart?” Words of a grandmother who…
By Ahmet Abidin Ozbek: ‘Give them the hope or occasion of a massacre, they will follow you blindly’.E. M. Cioran Whilst the ISIS name is everywhere, most people have already forgotten the deeper crisis in Islam and Muslim society. Unfortunately, if we look closely at history, we can see that every religion (particularly Islam) creates more…
By Rebwar Rashed: Since the England´s Magna Charta (1215), there has been hundreds and thousands of different reforms in “the West”. English, French and American revolutions made fundamental changes in the history of mankind. Abolition of the tyrants and despots, the separation of the state and religion, the democratization of political systems, progress in human…
By Payraw Anwar: There has been no stability in the Middle East from the First World War until now; nothing has happened to remedy this. The Middle East, and the Arabian countries in particular, were divided and designed according to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement by which three states (Britain, French and Russia) planned the division…
By Rebwar Rashed: President Carter spent New Year’s Eve in 1977 with the Shah and toasted Iran as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world”. Less than two years later came the so-called Iranian Revolution. Iran was not as stable as the Carter administration thought. On 4th November,…
By Rauf Naqishbendi: A tumultuous cloud hovering over the Islamic world is ominously unprecedented. Sectarian contention between Shiite and Sunni Muslims is on its way to consuming the entire Middle East with calamitous bloodshed and conflagrations. Clashing groups who advocate to this mishap are claiming their righteousness on the light of divine principles, while in realty…
KT News: Dr Marianna Charountaki and Dr Yunis Al Lahwej organized a one day conference on 6 June 2013 under the auspices of Reading University, Department of Politics and International Relations, entitled The Middle East and the Arab Spring: Change, (in) Stability and (dis)Order. “The initial thought behind this organization was to bring together political figures and scholars…
