DC Public Library System

Break all the borders, separatism and the reshaping of the Middle East, Ariel I. Ahram

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

Break all the borders

bibliography

1043970393

Ariel I. Ahram

separatism and the reshaping of the Middle East

In Break all the Borders, Ariel Ahram focuses on why these conflicts erupted and how separatist movements were able to gain control over territory and population centers in the years since 2011. After explaining how contemporary Arab states were established in the twentieth century, he emphasizes that the separatist movements that did gain traction were the descendants of movements and populations that lost independence in the twentieth century. That is important because Arab politics is often caricatured as a contest of ancient clans, tribes, and sects masquerading under the banner of modern states and political parties. Given the presumed ubiquity of sub-state identities and artificiality of state borders, the Arab world should be rife with rebellions bent on breaking the borders of existing states. Yet most of the rebels involved in the 2011 uprisings sought to overthrow individual rulers and regimes and did not contest the integrity of the state. There are only a handful of actors bent on separation, and they have been trying to reinstate political entities that were repressed within the last one hundred years. Their appeals are distinctly modern: they ask the international community to make good on the promises of popular sovereignty and point to recent histories of self-rule or failed bids for independence to justify their campaigns. Ahram ends by stressing that if we look at the actual sources of separatism in the region, we can see that they do not necessarily signal a breakdown of 'order'--an order that was always tenuous given that its foundations lay in repression of legitimate territorially-based political movements. We should not dismiss contemporary separatists them but rather engage with them

The rise and decline of Arab statehood, 1919 to 2011 -- 2011 : revolutions in Arab sovereignty -- Cyrenaica -- Southern Yemen -- Kurdistan -- The Islamic state -- Conclusion : the ends of separatism in the Arab world