Conflicts Forum

Henry Siegman
Report published by the Norwegian Peace-Building Centre

The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank seems to have finally locked in the permanence of Israel’s colonial project. Israel has crossed the threshold from the Middle East’s only democracy to the only “apartheid regime” in the Western world. But outside intervention may offer the last hope for a reversal of the settlement enterprise and the achievement of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Continue reading… »

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Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

The first anniversary of Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States came this week. The sharpest criticism of Obama’s first-year record on domestic and economic affairs came from the Nobel prize-winning economist, New York Times columnist, and Princeton professor Paul Krugman. Continue reading… »

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Sheikh Chafiq Jeradeh

The Islamic Revolution in Iran has come to be defined for many by the concept of Wilayat al-Faqih (the Jurist’s Guardianship), instituted by Imam Khomeini - May Allah Sanctify His Soul (MASHS). Wilayat al-Faqih represents an Islamic concept that is based on the values of the Sufi-Irfan idea that it is possible for humans to ascend through a thorough knowledge of themselves to the state of a ‘Perfect Human Being’. Continue reading… »

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The latest issue of Cultures of Resistance (Volume 01 / Issue 03), a journal published twice a year by Conflicts Forum, is now available to download from the Cutures of Resistance section of this site.

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Alastair Crooke

Whilst America has been absorbed by the Afghan election imbroglio, a less-noticed event slid into place in the Middle East. It is less dramatic than President Karzai’s near removal; but this event tilts the strategic balance: Turkey finally shrugged off its US straight-jacket; stared-past any beckoning EU membership, and has fixed its eyes toward its former Ottoman Asian and Middle Eastern neighbours.
Turkey did not do this shift merely to snub the West; but it does reflect Turkey’s discomfort and frustration with US and EU policy – as well as resonate more closely with the Islamic renaissance that has been taking place within Turkey. Continue reading… »

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Commentary by Alastair Crooke
New Global Studies Vol. 3 : Issue 2, Article 4. Published by The Berkeley Electronic Press

BEIRUT – Many commentators on Islam make the same mistake: They instinctively assume that Muslim resistance to western globalisation reflects the inability of Muslims to accept the social and structural change that ‘modernity’ requires. Muslims, in this view, fail to rise above the ‘closed’ world of cultural traditions, and to embrace change. They shy away from, or react against the ‘choice’ offered by modernity.

The Philosopher, Henri Bergson, writing in 1932, suggested that one reason that some intellectual societies – for which he coined the term ‘closed’ societies – were unable to evolve into ‘open’ societies was that religion arises as a kind of mental habit that binds human intelligence to the instinctive drive for solidarity and continuity. Some societies were simply incapable of lifting themselves above these ‘cultural constraints’ to embrace dynamic society. Karl Popper in his ‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ further refined Bergson to imply that ‘closed’ societies were profoundly inimical to the idea of human freedom. Continue reading… »

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