Nonsense posted:

That's pretty cool, and sounds well researched. Why don't people over there know any of this?

suboptimal posted:

"They are promising Nusra more support, i.e. money, supplies etc, once they let go of the Qaeda ties," the official said.

Al-Saqr posted:

what do you mean?

Scaramouche posted:

I think he's implying that like, man, if these guys just realized they was all Ottoman bros they should get just get along you know?

Darth Walrus posted:

And now, for a much-needed moment of levity ITT, Foreign Policy is proposing paying Anonymous in bitcoins to fight ISIS.

HGH posted:

Explosive overkill is what usually happens with these high priority targets. I remember seeing a graph for the amount of explosives used in different assassinations and such in Lebanon. The ones that had the most usually had 3 to 4 times more than the others.

Randarkman posted:

Duckbag posted:

Ottoman provinces shifted a fair amount, especially when the borders were just lines drawn across the desert. Also, for some reason I will never be able to understand, no two maps found online ever have quite the same borders, even if they're ostensibly for the same year. This one is from Wikipedia (don't ask me why it's in German):

Anyway, if I'm reading them right the Sanjak of Zor/Dair Az Zor was split between Iraq and Syria. ISIS territory on this map would stretch from the eastern half of Aleppo province, to the western part of Mosul and Baghdad province, but its center is pretty firmly in Zor. I don't know how big a factor Sykes-Picot in particular was to the rise of ISIS, but the fact that the Sunni Arabs in Northeastern Syria and Western Iraq seem to have a lot more in common with each other than they do with the governments in Baghdad and Damascus certainly helps explain its geography.

quote:

(Reuters) - An Egyptian court on Tuesday deferred a long-awaited parliamentary election due in March indefinitely after another court declared the election law's provision on voting districts as unconstitutional, judicial sources said.

Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012, when a court dissolved the democratically elected main chamber, reversing a major accomplishment of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

This delay prolongs a period in which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has wielded sole legislative authority and slows Egypt's progress towards democracy since its first freely elected president was ousted by the army in 2013.

The decision by Egypt's Administrative Court came as expected after a ruling on Sunday by the Supreme Constitutional Court against an article on voting districts in an election law which heralded a likely delay to the poll.

The first phase of voting was due to begin on March 22.

The spokesman for the High Election Committee, which said on Sunday it was working on a new timetable, told Reuters on Tuesday a new date would be set after the law had been amended.

Sisi directed his government to change the law within one month. Analysts say it could be several months before elections were held.

According to one expert, Sunday's ruling requires the government to merge or create new voting districts so that each contains an equal number of voters.

"If we assume the legal committee finishes this work within one month, a new period for nominations will have to be opened, which will delay us about three months," Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, said.

The election is the final step in a political road map the army announced in July 2013. Egypt's leaders say the election shows their commitment to democracy but critics say Sisi, who as army chief toppled his predecessor, has undermined freedoms gained after the Arab Spring revolt.

"The final result is the same: no parliament, and the continuation of the executive enjoying legislative authority without any checks or balances," wrote H.A. Hellyer, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, following Sunday's ruling.

Egypt is trying to burnish its image in the run-up to an investors' summit later this month which the government sees as key to turning around an economy battered by four years of political turmoil.

Ahmed Imam, member of the opposition Strong Egypt party which had announced it would boycott the election because it lacked credibility given a clampdown on political freedoms, said changes to the voting districts alone would not result in a fairer election.

Imam said that in order for the elections to be fair, no party should be excluded from running, the state should be neutral throughout and party lists, rather than individual candidates, should take precedence.

"Without these basic changes, whether the election is held now, a month or three months from now, the situation for us won't have changed."

Grouchio posted:

At this point I think Egypt is still in a more progressive direction than Turkey's.

Al-Saqr posted:

haha wut.

Darth Walrus posted:

What do you even call this conflict now? 'The Syrian civil war' doesn't seem to cut it any more.

Darth Walrus posted:

What do you even call this conflict now? 'The Syrian civil war' doesn't seem to cut it any more.

Rincewinds posted:

Gulf War 3: Jihad Harder.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Turkey is on the road to merging mosque and state under a presidential dictatorship. Egypt maintains separation of religion from state through presidential dictatorship.

Grouchio posted:

And personally that's all that matters to me when concerning an Islamic Nation. Democracy is still an alien concept to many in the levant.

Grouchio posted:

And personally that's all that matters to me when concerning an Islamic Nation. Democracy is still an alien concept to many in the levant.

Grouchio posted:

And personally that's all that matters to me when concerning an Islamic Nation. Democracy is still an alien concept to many in the levant.

Grouchio posted:

And personally that's all that matters to me when concerning an Islamic Nation. Democracy is still an alien concept to many in the levant.

My Imaginary GF posted:

I agree, although your phrasing is not up to the latest in cordiality.

What you need to discuss is the weakness of institutional safeguards to secure democracy and separate power from the direct will of the masses. For instance, a successful utilization of institutional mediation is the prohibition on polygamy in Jordan. While the masses would love 4 or 6 wives, the institutions in Jordan prevent polygamy from being legalized, which is all the better for the future security of the state.

One cannot develop institutional mediation to prevent democracy from falling into familial hands without banning polygamy, with the ban backed by the use of force when necessary.

Muffiner posted:

An interesting insight, given that polygamy is legal and widespread in Jordan.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Well, it shouldn't be! You can't have real democracy and have polygamy.

Al-Saqr posted:

oh ok you're a racist idiot with a particular hard on for oppressing brown people then.

Azran posted:

Out of curiosity, are there any Islamic countries where the religious restrictions on women are lighter/aren't actually applied? I remember reading a while ago in a newspaper article that the whole Niqab/Burqa thing is relatively recent (as in, last two hundred years or so), and mostly applied by extremely conservative regimes. As posters have said in this thread before, people aren't robots - there has to be some countries where they are more lax with its use/don't even use it.

Azran posted:

Out of curiosity, are there any Islamic countries where the religious restrictions on women are lighter/aren't actually applied? I remember reading a while ago in a newspaper article that the whole Niqab/Burqa thing is relatively recent (as in, last two hundred years or so), and mostly applied by extremely conservative regimes. As posters have said in this thread before, people aren't robots - there has to be some countries where they are more lax with its use/don't even use it.

Azran posted:

Out of curiosity, are there any Islamic countries where the religious restrictions on women are lighter/aren't actually applied? I remember reading a while ago in a newspaper article that the whole Niqab/Burqa thing is relatively recent (as in, last two hundred years or so), and mostly applied by extremely conservative regimes. As posters have said in this thread before, people aren't robots - there has to be some countries where they are more lax with its use/don't even use it.

HGH posted:

Not wearing it is more of the norm in Lebanon really. But is it right to call it an Islamic country? Sure they're a majority but still.

Azran posted:

Out of curiosity, are there any Islamic countries where the religious restrictions on women are lighter/aren't actually applied? I remember reading a while ago in a newspaper article that the whole Niqab/Burqa thing is relatively recent (as in, last two hundred years or so), and mostly applied by extremely conservative regimes. As posters have said in this thread before, people aren't robots - there has to be some countries where they are more lax with its use/don't even use it.

quote:

The shah's government began its "White Revolution" in 1962 and ratified important women's rights measures, including suffrage and the Family Protection Law of 1967, later amended more heavily in favor of women in 1975, which ended extrajudicial divorce and restricted polygamy. It also raised the minimum age of marriage of girls to 18 that had been 13-15.
--
Within months of the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 1967 Family Protection Law was repealed; female government workers were forced to observe Islamic dress code; women were barred from becoming judges; beaches and sports were sex-segregated; the legal age of marriage for girls was reduced to 9 (later raised to 13); and married women were barred from attending regular schools.

Grouchio posted:

Hold on. This has NOTHING to do with race. This has to do with the fact that the majority of muslims in the Middle East (as Ted Talks put it) are very distrustful of democracy, seeing it as another tool for 'western imperialists'. Hence very few grassroots organizations. Hence the extreme insecurity of attempted democratic institutions in the region, prone to fall to either extremists or dictators. This has to do with battling religious extremism.

That is what I meant.

fade5 posted:

It's definitely a mix in Iraqi/Syrian Kurdistan; some women wear a hijab, some don't:
I think I've linked it before, but have an interesting 25 minute video with interview about life in YPJ.

Also, within living memory there's Iran in 60's and 70's:


I get that there was the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but God it's depressing knowing that Iran once looked like that. Seriously, how the gently caress did everything change so fast, and so drastically?

fade5 posted:

fade5 posted:

I get that there was the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but God it's depressing knowing that Iran once looked like that. Seriously, how the gently caress did everything change so fast, and so drastically?

Darth Walrus posted:

Well, first off, you're going to have to explain how you define an 'Islamic country'.