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Category - middle east

  • 5 Oct 2011
    What kind of 'minorities' are the Christians of the Middle East?

    The term 'minorities', when applied to Christian and other communities in the Middle East, opens up a range of contradictory emotions and responses, says Dr Harry Hagopian. But perhaps there could be a greater alliance of purposes among those who do and do not use this term, distinguishing a definition that allows for a range of legal and political remedies for those involved, while distancing it from its more disparaging, negative, intimidating and unhelpful resonances?

  • 5 Oct 2011
    More Middle East analysis

    Over the past week, I have enjoyed talking with two rather different but significant Christian audiences about the rapidly changing situation in the Middle East - evangelicals and Catholics.

  • 30 Sep 2011
    Talking about the MENA revolutions

    This weekend I will be joining Andy Walton for the Sunday Breakfast Show at Premier Christian Radio, on 2 October 2011, between 9am and 10am.

  • 27 Sep 2011
    Christians as ‘minorities’ in the Middle East?

    An apparently religious marker is frequently used to break down populations into ‘Muslims’ and ‘others’, with the ‘others’ often being called, more charitably, ‘the minorities’ of the Middle East, says Dr Michael Marten from the University of Stirling. There are many problems with this kind of designation, he suggests: primarily that it feeds into binary understandings of the world exemplified by the misleading ‘clash of civilisations‘ model.

  • 27 Sep 2011
    Parliamentary EDM and Palestinian statehood

    In the the buildup toward the submission of the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas there was much speculation as to what would happen.

  • 22 Sep 2011
    The UN and a Palestinian state: fact or fiction?

    Five hundred Israeli academics and intellectuals recently signed a petition supporting the Palestinian statehood bid: so will the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly decide whether ‘Palestine’ becomes fact or stays fiction - and what kind of fact or fiction? Dr Harry Hagopian explores the background to the much-written-about upcoming UN vote.

  • 20 Sep 2011
    Palestinians, the UN and the quest for statehood

    Palestinian authorities are bidding to gain international recognition of Statehood at the United Nations in New York. The US favours direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine and has already expressed serious reservations with Secretary of State Clinton saying "the route [to peace] lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah not in New York".

  • 16 Sep 2011
    Jerusalem interfaith dialogue sees increased participation

    Religious leaders in Jerusalem are more willing than ever before to take part in dialogue with members of other faiths despite growing political tensions.

  • 13 Sep 2011
    Christians under pressure in the fractured politics of the Middle East

    Whether in Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon, Christians who were once the bellwethers of healthy Middle Eastern societies are feeling exposed, menaced and insecure. Their churches are being burnt down, relatives or friends are at times being killed, beaten up or abducted, voices are being snuffed out, job opportunities are being denied them and they are almost facing a dhimmitude that had become defunct with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Harry Hagopian asks what response is appropriate, starting from a personal exploration of the issues from a European perspective.

  • 11 Sep 2011
    Changing perspectives from 9/11, ten years after

    Over the past ten years we have witnessed the birth of the neologism '9/11' and the horrid and inaccurate phrase 'global war on terror'. Some of what happened in those ten intervening years is now history, says Harry Hagopian. But much of it continues to resonate across the globe, calling us to a change of outlook and action. Revolutions and popular revolts across the Middle East and North Africa region vindicate the standpoint that real changes should come from within and do not necessarily get imposed militarily upon a whole people anymore.