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

Watchmen guard Ras Baalbek against attacks   by Hikmat Samhan, The Daily Star  “I haven’t gone up for three years,” he said. “There are no guarantees. Our east is occupied by Daesh.” Samhan, a senior resident of Ras Baalbek, was using the Arabic acronym of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), the Al-Qaeda splinter group that has declared a “caliphate” last month in parts of Iraq and Syria. Now the village, a few kilometers north of Arsal, has set up watch posts to track and guard against Syrian rebels hiding in the nearby hills on the border with Syria. If they attack, the village’s defenders can fight them off for a spell, Samhan said. “Then the village will have woken and the Army would have woken, and maybe help would come from Hezbollah, because wherever they show up Hezbollah shows up,” he said. Ras Baalbek is only a few kilometers from Syria, bordered by a lawless mountain range. Its 10,000 residents are overwhelmingly Christian...

About two weeks ago the Lebanese pro-Assad daily Al-Akhbar featured an interesting report about a possible Druze statelet in Syria by its correspondent Firas Choufi. The report is both food for thought and full of propagandist features. Readers of this blog might remember, that the work of the author was discussed here already in January in the context of The alleged conversion of the Idlib Druze . Syria's Druze reject autonomous statelet despite growing ISIS threats by Firas Choufi, Al - Akhbar  The Druze community is observing the new developments in the region with great unease. The declaration of an Islamic caliphate is enough of a reason for minorities to worry about their future. And as Israeli projects are promoted by Druze collaborators to achieve “the illusion of a Druze statelet,” the Druze in Syria and Lebanon are committed to their nations and national armies, stressing that “We are not border guards for Israel, but we are in the heart of the Resistanc...

ANALYSIS: Iraq's minorities under fire , by IRIN  Inside an Iraqi Christian ghost town , by Christof Putzel, Al Jazeera America Iraqi Christians' flee violence, fear end of long history , by Robin Emmott,  Reuters