Middle East Political Responses

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  "explosion" by hasan cilingir / pixabay.

Political Responses in the Middle East: from civil disobedience to martyrdom

Principal Investigator: Marcello Mollica
Project Supervisor: Glenn Bowman
Project dates: December 2005-September 2007
Funding: Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (EC Contract number MEIF-CT-2005-023802)

Background:

The debate over the use of political martyrdom raises the question of whether there are constraints or cultural determinants on the uses of such a strategy in the pursuit of political agenda.

Aims and objectives:

Our project addresses this issue, focusing on Kurdistan/Eastern Turkey, South Lebanon and Occupied Territories/Israel where we will examine communities to assess why and how political groups claiming to represent them change political strategies and how these changes are legitimated. We intend to study these changes within a comparatively theoretical framework insofar as all groups we will examine represent themselves as advocates of communities with strong elements of traditional, sectarian identity. These loci enable us to assess political strategies in terms of their variant relations to religion and tradition, even when groups’ identities seem to challenge these elements. Primary research will take place at a number of sites and will be based on in-depth interviewing and participant observation.

This work will primarily be carried out by Marcello Mollica who, engaging with already established contacts within Christian groups in South Lebanon and Eastern Turkey and Kurdish organisations in Belgium, will gain further access to political representatives and tendencies in the sites and Diasporas. Glenn Bowman’s extensive contacts throughout the West Bank and Israel will enable Marcello Mollica and him to find appropriate parallel sources across the Palestinian political spectrum. Interview material will be linked with materials drawn from newspaper reports, political publications and other sources and these will be categorised, data-based and analysed.

The project works along two parameters: socio-cultural influences in explaining political responses; psychological factors affecting people who sacrifice their lives. Weaknesses in existing studies result from a lack of attention to these factors. We will examine the rhetoric of the appeal of martyrdom in the sites proposed and assess how that rhetoric is adapted to accommodate the development of suicide bombing and bombers as well as socio-political mobilization and responses with specific reference to Christian churches and sects.

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