Middle Eastern minorities : the impact of the Arab Spring

Author / Creator

Zabad, Ibrahim author

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Summary

This is a comprehensive survey of minorities in the Middle East with a special focus on the post Arab Spring era and a rich trove of information and insights generated from the detailed case studie...

This is a comprehensive survey of minorities in the Middle East with a special focus on the post Arab Spring era and a rich trove of information and insights generated from the detailed case studies. It is situated in a broader research agenda about how Revolutions in general affect the status of minorities and for comparative purposes, it further explores general questions of how minorities fared in revolutionary times and in their aftermaths and under what conditions revolutions could lead to more minority-tolerant regimes.

"This is a comprehensive survey of minorities in the Middle East with a special focus on the post Arab Spring era. Minority communities in the Middle East are the most susceptible to the turbulence engulfing the region; the majority may suffer physical violence and socioeconomic loss, but minorities could potentially vanish. Instead of ushering in democracy and inclusive politics, the revolutionary upheavals have prompted chaos and fear and reinforced the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the region. Zabad uses historical sources as well as first-hand interviews to vividly describe the current status of minorities in the Middle East, explaining attitudes towards the revolutionary upheavals as well as the various strategies they used to avail themselves of the opportunities presented and to confront the risks posed. The question of ethnic, sectarian and religious minorities is situated in the context of the broader history of the region in order to explain the underlying institutional and ideological factors that caused their predicament and problematized their relationship with the majority. The book provides a rich trove of information and insights generated from ten case studies that covered the Shī'a in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon and Egypt, the Druze, the Alawites, Christians and Kurds in Syria, the Copts in Egypt, and the Zaydis in Yemen." -- Publisher's description

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