Το βίντεο της διάλεξης του Anthony O' Mahony (Reader του Heythrop College του University of London) με θέμα «Οι Χριστιανοί και η τρέχουσα κρίση στη Μέση Ανατολή», που συνδιοργάνωσε το ΚΕΜΜΙΣ με το Ινστιτούτο Εναλλακτικών Πολιτικών ΕΝΑ (14 Ιουνίου 2018).

Το βίντεο της διάλεξης του Anthony O' Mahony (Reader του Heythrop College του University of London) με θέμα «Οι Χριστιανοί και η τρέχουσα κρίση στη Μέση Ανατολή», που συνδιοργάνωσε το ΚΕΜΜΙΣ με το Ινστιτούτο Εναλλακτικών Πολιτικών ΕΝΑ (14 Ιουνίου 2018).

The contours of a different Middle East taking shape under a volatile global order are far from final. Yet recent years have witnessed a growing assertiveness on the part of countries like Russia and China. The interventions of these countries are usually less overt and more non-committal than those of their Western counterparts. But one would be amiss to ignore their symbolism: in what has been a rather unilateral post-Cold War region, new voices are heard and new possibilities are contemplated. It is with regard to China that Reardon-Anderson’s highly interesting edited book offers an almost encyclopaedic debate.

Διαβάστε επίσης τη βιβλιοκριτική του Dmitri Trenin, What is Russia Up To in the Middle East? (Polity Press, 2018).

Dmitri Trenin’s book is a welcome contribution to a thin body of print on Russian politics in the MENA region. Rather than enunciating in detail Putin’s regional policies -by definition an impossible task in 140 small pages- Trenin offers a succinct summation of these policies, their short-term impact and their perceptions by the region’s states. Well-versed in Russia’s geopolitical Weltanschauung, Trenin is aware of the country’s perennial interests in the greater Middle East. Far from a newcomer to the region, Russia has after all had a ‘rich history of involvement’. Yet continuities are often punctured by ruptures: the demise of the Soviet Union and the rejection of its mediating initiatives in the First Gulf War meant that the Middle East ‘almost vanished’ from Russian foreign policy. Moscow’s restoration of ties with Israel in the fall of 1991 and its co-chairing of the Arab-Israeli peace conference in Madrid the same year looked more like spasmodic attempts at survival of a flittering giant.

Frédéric Pichon’s diminutive book is more of a scathing indictment of what Western nations, France in particular, have done wrong in Syria. It is by no means a history of Syria’s war, which the reader ought to be familiar with before reading. French scholarship on Mediterranean affairs has been in no shortage. By virtue of its former regional status as a great power and an ever-sophisticated academia, France counts many knowledgeable pundits. Yet, an overwhelming preponderance of Anglophone international relations literature and the more introverted nature of the French academia has meant that francophone publications have made less noise.

Η ηχητική αναπαραγωγή της ομιλίας του κ. Ali Fayyad με θέμα "Γεωπολιτικές εξελίξεις και Θρησκεία στην Μέση Ανατολή" (Αθήνα, 5 Απριλίου 2017)(αραβικά-ελληνικά)

Το απομαγνητοφωνημένο κείμενο της ομιλίας. (ελληνικά)

The broader Middle Eastern and Northern Africa region has entered an extended period of turmoil where states are collapsing and regimes are being overthrown. While the roots of these conflicts are long-established, eruptions since 2001 are recurring with a ferocity implying that none will come together again in a capacity of state unity. Patrick Cockburn's indefatigable coverage provides a crucial tour d'horizon of the civil wars and insurgencies that have been shattering the societies' central core while demonstrating the variety of reasons as to why these conflicts are ongoing and foremost, as to why religion in the Middle East is now the glue that holds societies together.