Editor's introduction

Abstract

This issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies presents five articles encompassing a wide and engaging range of subjects: human rights, sustainable development, political satire, post-9/11 literature, and resistance movements. Each is a careful study of its subject matter, drawing the reader in for a close examination of a particular topic. Then, standing back, upon reflection it becomes apparent that these articles, in their diversity, contribute to the same larger question that motivates much of social science: how do we understand the social phenomena that operate within structures of power? How do people respond—through street protests, satirical commentary, novels—to the conditions created by state policies? How do actors of different types pursue the power to make or change those policies, on environmental issues, human rights, and political freedoms? Each author in this issue studies these larger questions from a different perspective, and we think you will find their accounts and analyses deeply interesting.

Nevine Abraham's article, “Mobilizing Religious Differences and Terrorism: Negotiating civil rights in Egypt,” offers a contribution to the understanding of the nexus between state policies on counterterrorism and human rights. In the Egyptian case, Abraham argues, the National Human Rights Strategy for the 2021–2026 period speaks of pluralism and diversity to an external audience, while framing human rights as necessarily constrained by the exigencies of domestic counterterrorism priorities. More particularly, Abraham investigates the expansion of “terrorism” designations as a tool to silence Coptic activists specifically, allowing the regime to expand its power and negotiate political cooperation with religious leaders in exchange for human rights.

In a particularly timely piece, Agostino Rizzo and Attilio Petruccioli consider the apparently-competing demands of urban development and environmental sustainability in his article on contemporary urbanism in the global South, “Khalifa versus Prometheus: Green ethics and the struggle for contemporary sustainable urbanism.” Focusing on the Arabian Gulf environment, Rizzo and Petruccioli argue for a new perspective on development drawn from the concept of khalifa as a basis for a new ethic of technology and its proper uses in human society.

In “The Representation of the Economic Situation in Lebanese Satires: Unfiltered or propaganda in practice?” Dan Naor, Avner Asher, and Yossi Mann take on the engaging topic of satirical Lebanese television programs. These programs are a popular vehicle for the discussion of current events and the state of political and economic affairs, but do they merely reflect public sentiment or seek to shape it along sectarian or other lines? Using an analysis drawn from Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model, the authors investigate whether the economy, as a subject affecting the whole country, is treated in satirical programming in a way that transcends sectarian division or reflects them.

Mubarak Altwaiji's article, “The Post-9/11 Novel: Reading three perspectives in contemporary American fiction,” considers the development of 9/11-related narratives over the past 20 years. Both the 9/11 attacks and the policies and public sentiment emerging from them have become subject matter for, and the environment shaping, American literature. Altwaiji's study considers the ways in which terrorism and counterterrorism pull the post-9/11 novel into particular kinds of narrative, whether ostensibly neutral or overtly political, reflecting on the problematization of shared beliefs and identities. His analysis further considers the perspective of immigrant literature and its potential role as a bridge linking these cultural perspectives.

Lastly in this issue, the Digest of Middle East Studies is pleased to present another work in our occasional “scholarly commentary” category, in which authors address significant current events from a scholarly perspective. These peer-reviewed articles are not empirical research pieces; rather they are intended to allow for especially timely engagement on issues relevant to both policy and scholarship. In this issue, Omid Payrow Shabani's “On Resistance: As evinced in Iranian political affairs” addresses the ongoing and widespread protests in Iran, offering a thoughtful consideration of how resistance is distinguished from other forms of political response, and further how we might classify resistance in relation to its critical and emancipatory elements. He highlights three examples of resistance in Iran in recent years and argues that this form of political response is both distinct from, and preferable to, reform or revolution.

We thank, as always, the scholars who have contributed to this issue through their work as peer reviewers; their thoughtful feedback is an invaluable part of the publication process and we are grateful for their time and expertise. I also wish to thank our editorial assistants, Misha Datskovsky and Andrew Noland, whose work makes the publication of the journal possible. We hope that you will find much to value in the works presented in this issue of the Digest of Middle East Studies.