MENA Minorities

Besides of Mahmud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim was the most prominent Palestinian "poet of the resistance" but far more radical and unforgiving than the former. He was born 1939 in az-Zarqa (then Transjordan) into a Druze family from Rama, a mixed village in the Galilee, where his family returned to prior of 1948. Some would argue his radicalism compared to Darwish is due to his heritage - which may kinda forced forced him to prove his nationalism even more because of the perception of the Druze as collaborators with Israel - but honestly I am not convinced. Although al-Qasim was very secular and a long time member of the Communist Party, he had never hidden his Druze background. In 1960 he was one of the first Druze who were imprisoned for refusing conscription into the IDF and later he was very active to mobilize support for the Communist Party and the anti-conscription movement among his fellow Druze in Israel. He died last week in Safad at the age of 75. Samih al-Qasim wa...

Analyzing and even just following the events concerning religious minorities in the MENA is not all fun these days-it's often depressing, but one man lately put a little badly needed humor in it: Walid Junblat. Lebanon's by far most influential Druze leader is not only the head of a socialist party, a former militia leader and a feudal lord - apart from these he has somehow the reputation of a playboy. Honestly, I am not really interested in such gossip especially since it dates back decades. However, in the light of all the domestic problems and the threat by IS, Junblat seriously took time to welcome the competitors of the Lebanese edition of reality TV series Topmodel to his castle of Mukhtara in the Shuf mountains. Since Junblat had been referred to as Hugh Hefner on Twitter, it reminded me of one of his most interesting interviews, which was published 198 4 in the Playboy Magazine . Junblat, it seems, loves to play with his playboy-image. Edit: Junblat wrote a self...

In contrast to the case of the Christians, which is more an expulsion, what is happening now to the Yazidis clearly has genocidal features. Other minorities like the Shabak might be next. One of the best overviews comes from Matthew Barber (also read his piece on the expulsion of Mosul's Christians) for Syria Comment: IS Routs Peshmerga, Takes Control of Sinjar Mountains, Jeopardizes Yazidi Homeland by Matthew Barber, Syria Comme nt Some round-up: Iraq’s Religious Minorities are Being Slaughtered and ISIS Just Captured the Last Town Giving Them Shelter by Andrew Slater, The Daily Beast In a major defeat for Kurdish forces the Iraqi town of Sinjar was captured Sunday by the group known as ISIS, now calling itself the Islamic State. This is the Kurds first major loss to ISIS and a catastrophe for the religious minorities who had taken refuge in the area and are now at imminent risk of being slaughtered. Reports from the region describe an unfolding tragedy with...

At Syria Comment Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi provides a solid overview about current militia-related minority dynamics in Syria briefly touching Alawites (including muqawama as-Suriya ), Druze and Christians (in a SSNP- and an Assyrian context). Minority Dynamics in Syria by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, Syria Comment