Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (BIM)

Opening event of the new talk series on the New Middle East, organized by the  Middle East Research Group (MERGE):


„Palestine and the New Middle East: The Interconnection of Genocide, War and (Counter-)Revolution(s)“

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Dear Colleagues and Friends,

We warmly invite you to the opening event of our new talk series on the New Middle East, organized by the  Middle East Research Group (MERGE), titled:
 Palestine and the New Middle East: The Interconnection of Genocide, War and (Counter-)Revolution(s).

We are honored to welcome Dr. Yasmeen Daher and Prof. Dr. Mohammed Bamyeh, who will join us in discussing the ongoing genocide in Gaza and its interconnections with (counter-)revolutionary processes and other wars across the region. Both speakers are renowned scholars whose work spans the MENA region, social movements, radical critiques of power, and global solidarity.

The MERGE team


Abstract

The "New Middle East“ is emerging as a set of counter-revolutionary and right-wing utopian projects shaped through the ongoing genocide in Gaza, mass displacements, the erosion of international law, as well as a series of economic and infrastructural development schemes that consolidate authoritarian rule. Across the regions, these projects take different forms: The war in Sudan, the repression of Kurdish self-determination movements in Turkey and Syria, the authoritarian rule of Islamists in the post-Assad dictatorship toward further sectarian divide in Syria, the oppression of the revolutionary momentum in Iran by the Islamic regime, and the tightening of surveillance and broader regimes under the guise of security and modernization. To understand the ongoing transformations, Palestine serves as a canonical critical lens, not only for its long history of resistance against ongoing colonial intervention, but also in terms of its embeddedness in the social, political, and affective fabric of the region. In this event, we discuss these new transformations through the lens of Palestine and vice versa, exploring the interconnections of counter-hegemonic struggles in the Middle East.