Professor Madawi Al Rasheed

Book Review
Hanan Kholoussy For Better, For Worse: the Marriage Crisis that Made Modern Egypt. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, pp. 188, bibliographical references, index, ISBN 978-0-8047-6960-0 pbk.

Published in Middle Eastern Studies 2011-10-21

As a self-conscious group with its own economic mode of production, normative worldview, consumption patterns and styles of being and behaving, spokesmen of the middle classes often frighten society with stories about men not marrying, the disintegration of contracted marriages, and the break up of the nuclear family. Shunning away from marriage among urban men of this class is guaranteed to create a cross-cultural, almost a universal anxiety associated with elevating a personal choice into a political and national agenda that announces not only social ills and  psychological turbulences but also communal disintegration and the withering of the nation as a whole. Such urban anxiety does not often find echoes among the traditional old peasantry or their equivalents among industrialised agricultural communities. 

Book Review
The Arab Revolution. The Lessons From The Democratic Uprising,
by Jean-Pierre Filiu, London: Hurst and Co.
Paperback, ISBN 978-1-84904-159-1, 195 pages

Published in Times Higher Education Supplement 29 September 2011-10-21

It may be premature to draw lessons from the on-going Arab revolutions but Jean-Pierre Filiu, an expert on the politics of the region, identifies ten such lessons before the dust has settled. As such, the analysis is swift, relying on the author’s previous knowledge of the region and observations of current events. There is no grand theoretical framework to understand the uprisings, nor an attempt to see them through the prism of long duree historical process. As a result, the book is a cross between a sophisticated journalistic account and policy recommendations.

The Arab Spring has successfully removed three autocrats from the stage, while others may be on their way out. But it has brought three regional powers face to face, each competing to shape the outcome of the revolts in pursuit of its own national interest. Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are struggling either to contain the revolutions or model them in their image. All three seem to be competing in search of lebensraum, or a sphere of influence, where they aspire to create living spaces for ideologies, influence, capital, and military outreach.

This is the first of two "Free Speach Radio News" interviews with Professor Madawi al-Rasheed looking at the political situation in Saudi Arabia. The second interview will focus on the campaign in Saudi Arabia for women’s rights.
Part I
http://fsrn.org/audio/saudi-arabia’s-response-arab-spring-uprising/8632
Part II
Saudi Arabian activists push for women’s right to drive
http://fsrn.org/audio/saudi-arabian-activists-push-women’s-right-drive/8649

Stephane Lacroix Awakening Islam Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University press, 2011, £22.95

ISBN: 978-0-674-04964-2, 328 pages, 1 map

The surge in Arab revolutions since January 2011 has surprised many scholars and policy makers for one reason. The revolt is not currently orchestrated by the much studied Islamists. Since the 1970s, Western academics preferred to see the Arab world through the prism of Islam, which has become the constant variable that explained  everything- stagnation, resistance to democracy, oppression of women, discrimination against minorities, and recently terrorism. The majority of academics ignored a limited number of texts written by nuanced scholars who argued that we must go beyond Islam to understand the many social, political and economic problems of the region. Yet Western obsession with security after 9/11 and so-called Islamic radicalism meant that the academe had to follow suit and privilege the study of Islamists- many are seen as terrorists in the making. Privileging Islam as the only explanatory factor allowed policy makers in the West and the Arab world to avoid facing unpleasant realities such as demographic explosions, unemployment, poverty, corruption, authoritarian rule and abuse of human rights.The recent fall of authoritarian Arab regimes in Tunisia and Egypt at the hands of young and frustrated population proved that Islam alone can never and will never explain the Arab world. Yet the metanarrative persists.

Saudi Arabia and Western Hypocrisy
An interview with "theREALnews"
Madawi Al-Rasheed: Washington is calling the worst repression in the Arab world "evolving reform"
Part I
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6859
Part II
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6867
Part III
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6891

ECONOMIES OF DESIRE, FICTIVE SEXUAL UPRISINGS
Saudi women and the chick lit revolution
Source:
http://mondediplo.com/2011/05/05saudisexnovels
ECONOMIES OF DESIRE, FICTIVE SEXUAL UPRISINGS
Le Monde Diplomatique-English edition May 2011.
Saudi women and the chick lit revolution
A new generation of Saudi women novelists is taking the topic of sex into the very public sphere of chick lit, causing shock waves in Saudi Arabia and beyond. By defying sexual constraints imposed by state and religion, they have exploded the myth of a society sailing on a sea of piety
By Madawi Al-Rasheed
Saudis are reluctant to respond to the revolutionary effervescence that is sweeping neighbouring Arab countries. With the exception of the Shia in the Eastern province, most Saudis have been co-opted into accepting limited political, human and civil rights in return for royal largesse. Even so, a revolution of a different kind is definitely taking place.
Young women novelists are stretching the boundaries in unprecedented ways. They are doing this through producing Saudi versions of the “chick lit” of the 1960s. A new generation of novelists is writing about women as sexual agents rather than submissive victims of patriarchal society.
Among many others are Raja al-Sani (Girls of Riyadh), Samar al-Muqrin (Women of Vice) and two pen names, Warda Abd al-Malik (The Return), and Saba al-Hirz (The Others). Their novels are published in the obvious place, Beirut, with the publisher al-Saqi taking the lead in promoting this new daring literature (1).

Listen to Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed (King's College) and professor Bernard Haykal (Princeton University) discuss on Blogginheads.tv
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/36025

Source:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/madawi-al-rasheed/saudi-complex-power-vs-rights

Saudi Arabia's rulers are deploying a mix of force and largesse to contain the threat of democratic protest. But an emerging civic movement is determined to persist, says Madawi Al-Rasheed.

In the era of oil, voluntary servitude may become the only option for a people deprived of basic human and civil rights. But behind the scenes and prison-bars there is hope in Saudi Arabia: most of all in an emerging civil-rights movement that is attracting Saudis of different ideological, regional and sectarian backgrounds. The Saudi regime is responding with attempts to suffocate this young movement via two classic strategies - sectarian politics and heavy policing. There are growing questions over the effectiveness of each.

The government in Riyadh continues to devote huge resources to sustaining a vast religious bureaucracy, promoting its upkeep of the holy sites, and sponsoring transnational Islamic institutions. In fact, however, the Saudi regime has lost most of its religious legitimacy. Its intimate alliance with the United States, and failure to defend Islamic symbols when they are or appear to be under assault - from Jerusalem to the incident of the Danish cartoons and Pope Benedict XVI’s retrieval of disparaging medieval sources - leave the royal elite looking incapable of living up to its religious narrative.

Saudi dilemmas and the Arab Peace Initiative
April 06, 2011 Edition 8
Source: http://www.bitterlemons-api.org/inside.php?id=49

The Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia's then-Crown Prince Abdullah (king since 2005) and announced during the Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002, is hard to resurrect amidst revolutions and protests in the region. Not only was the initiative a stillborn baby, but over time it became a corpse in need of a death ritual. We all know how important such rituals are for the living, but unfortunately, the illusion of peace persists while the reality attests that "no solution has become the solution".

For a long time, championing the Palestinian cause with either the threat of war, large economic handouts, peace initiatives or even simple delusional rhetoric has been Arab dictators' most favorite road to celebrity status. Turkey and Iran are the contest's most recent arrivals. Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia's king and other aspiring rulers, this road has become a dead end. Neither the Palestinians nor the Arab masses are impressed by previous performance.

Listen to Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed discuss current Saudi dilemmas on Leonard Lopate talk Show-WNYC Radio
The Saudi Royal family has been a close ally with the United States for decades; they are also one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East. Madawi Al-Rasheed, Professor of Anthropology of Religion at Kings College, London, looks into the history of the family, how they rule the country with an iron fist and why a nascent protest movement there has been suppressed.
Source: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/mar/24/backstory-house-saud/

How stable is Saudi Arabia?
Preachers of Hate as Loyal Subjects
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/14/how-stable-is-saudi-arabia/preachers-of-hate-as-loyal-subjects
How Stable Is Saudi Arabia?
Can the monarchy defuse frustrations by doling out benefits or are pressures for reform mounting? Preachers of Hate as Loyal Subjects
March 14, 2011
Madawi Al-Rasheed is professor of anthropology of religion at King’s College, London and author of several books, including "A History of Saudi Arabia."
Only in Saudi Arabia could Western-educated princes and Wahhabi religious scholars have something in common. Both speak the language of violence and terror. A week before the "Day of Rage" – the proposed demonstrations on March 11 calling for political reform in Saudi Arabia – the religious scholar Saad al-Buraik called for "smashing the skulls of those who organise demonstrations or take part in them."

Why Saudi Arabia is ripe for revolution.
Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/28/yes_it_could_happen_here?page=0,1

In the age of Arab revolutions, will Saudis dare to honor Facebook calls for anti-government demonstrations on March 11? Will they protest at one of Jeddah's main roundabouts? Or will they start in Qatif, the eastern region where a substantial Shiite majority has had more experience in real protest? Will Riyadh remain cocooned in its cloak of pomp and power, hidden from public gaze in its mighty sand castles?

Saudi Arabia is ripe for change. Despite its image as a fabulously wealthy realm with a quiescent, apolitical population, it has similar economic, demographic, social, and political conditions as those prevailing in its neighboring Arab countries. There is no reason to believe Saudis are immune to the protest fever sweeping the region.

Saudi Arabia is indeed wealthy, but most of its young population cannot find jobs in either the public or private sector. The expansion of its $430 billion economy has benefited a substantial section of the entrepreneurial elite -- particularly those well connected with the ruling family -- but has failed to produce jobs for thousands of college graduates every year. This same elite has resisted employing expensive Saudis and contributed to the rise in local unemployment by hiring foreign labor. Rising oil prices since 2003 and the expansion of state investment in education, infrastructure, and welfare, meanwhile, have produced an explosive economy of desires.

Sophie Gilliat-Ray Muslims in Britain an Introduction.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 316pp, paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-53688-2
With current debates and controversies surrounding the integration of Muslims in Britain gathering momentum, Sophie Gilliat-Ray has written an informed introductory survey of their history, organisations, and struggles to find a place in British society. Muslims in Britain builds on the vast literature produced by academics over the last four decades and provides a clear synthesis of the main issues addressed by a previous generation of scholars.
An historical introduction traces early Muslim presence in Britain that culminates in the formation of communities in the post second World War period. While early Muslims were Turks and North Africans, today the face of British Islam is predominantly Asian.  Nevertheless since the 1970s, Muslims from Africa and the Middle East add to the religious and ethnic diversity of the community. Second and third generation Muslims probably constitute the majority of Muslims in Britain. Those have produced their own understanding of Islam that evolved in the context of interacting with British society and the Muslim world.

Olivier Roy The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East, Hurst and Company, London 2007, trans. Ros Schwartz, ISBN 978-1-85065-894-8 paperback, pp 159+index
Six years after 9/11 French sociologist Olivier Roy produced a collection of essays to explain what went wrong with American policy in the Middle East. Building on a long career spent studying, analysing and interpreting religious and political trends in parts of the Muslim world and Europe, Roy’s recent book builds on complex but lucid theoretical position and sound methodological skills, both enable him to carve for himself a  sound academic niche and emerge as an authority on current social, political and religious developments that are today not confined to specific countries or regions but are themselves globalised.

Roy’s The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East  is a short collection of essays that captures a long scholarly engagement with Islamism, social movements, globalisation, and political development. Unlike some of the French academic literature on the Muslim world that has emerged since the 1970s, most of which has been grounded in dogmatic secularism  and  revulsion towards  the new Islamist social movements, Roy offers a nuanced and sophisticated analysis of  sociological and political trends that are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

After ongoing military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Pakistan, and possibly in Somalia and Yemen in the near future, the world that America imagined would move towards democracy, stability, prosperity, and security is still far from materialising. In fact, it seems that the neo-conservative vision of the Great Middle East had stumbled in many regions and resulted in what Roy describes as chaos. The rationale behind Bush’s military strategy summed up as ‘whole sale and rapid annihilation of the enemy’ failed miserably to deliver the desired outcome.