CTSJ 206 The Middle East & North Africa in the Forever Wars
The events of 9/11 led the US to two decades of newly intensified war, occupation, and corporate engagement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This changed the trajectory of politics and culture in the region, leading to the rise and fall of regimes, mass death, economic turmoil, democratic protest movements, and authoritarian political backlash. This course will analyze the modern ethical and legal grounding for war, and in particular, the Global War on Terror (GWOT). It will track the lasting-effects of decades of US and European war in the Arab World on the possibilities for thinking and living -- on the political imaginary -- of the places and people affected by those wars. How did the GWOT affect the democratic uprisings of the 2011 Arab Spring? What role did the US and the West play in fostering those uprisings and in suppressing them by supporting authoritarian regimes? And why did it make those choices? What might democracy and liberation in the MENA look like in those conditions of emergence. And finally, what is the next generation of anti-authoritarian activists doing to build the capacities, habits, and institutions necessary to bring positive liberatory change to their societies?