Laurie King-Irani

Iraq three years later: A glance back — from the 19th century until today

Laurie King-Irani — 2006-03-23T00:54:18Z

"Although Iraq is often described as separable into three distinct geographic and ethno-religious zones, the actual sociopolitical situation on the ground has always been more complex and heterogeneous due to extensive intermarriage, joint entrepreneurial projects, and consecutive waves of rural-to-urban migration over the last century. It is neither possible nor useful to correlate Iraq's ethno-religious diversity with geography, class, or political ideology. Identity categories are not fixed, constant, and inevitable, but responsive to and shaped by administrative contexts of authority, resource allocation, and the codification of rights and duties. Apparently, no one told the Bush Administration about this basic anthropological tenet." An historical and anthropological overview of Iraq's history and current crises by Laurie King-Irani, an Electronic Iraq co-founder and social anthropologist.

- / Electronic Iraq

Of transplants and transcendence: Questioning social and symbolic categories in Israel

Laurie King-Irani — 2005-11-15T05:52:00Z

"What is more perplexing and amazing? Four dehumanized individuals blowing themselves and sixty other people to bits, or the wondrous lesson in humanity shown by a family that would not have been blamed for seeking revenge, but who instead repaid murder with magnanimity by donating the organs of their son, a non-Jew, to Israelis? The minds of murderers, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim; American, Israeli or Arab, are much easier to understand than the actions of Ahmed Khatib's family. Unlike suicide bombers or IDF snipers, Ahmed's family violated the grammar of the conflict and exposed the arbitrariness and barbarity of erecting walls, whether actual or metaphorical, between human beings."

- / Electronic Intifada

We don't mind the gap

Laurie King-Irani — 2005-07-12T00:02:00Z

"Of course, it's just a matter of time. This summer, next summer — it'll happen eventually. Everyone knows that. We're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop," a publisher told me as we sat in the smoky haze of a London pub in late April 2004. The topic was terrorism, specifically, a terror attack on London. We were attending a three-day conference on new horizons of legal anthropology at the Birkbeck College of the Law, and each day we gathered at this cozy pub to argue over points of theory or ideology, to appraise that day's batch of presentations - ranging from analyses of intellectual property laws, the way Maori juvenile delinquents marked time in jail, the implications of trading soccer players, and my own presentation on universal jurisdiction for war crimes and the use of national courts to try international crimes - and to relate our scholarly interests to the wider world, since law can never remain an academic abstraction. (...)

- / United Press International

Elections Pose Lebanon's Old Questions Anew

Laurie King-Irani, Sateh Noureddine — 2005-06-02T02:01:51Z

Watching a wave of peaceful protests compel the Lebanese government to resign on February 28, 2005, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli hailed the victory of a "Cedar Revolution" in line with, among others, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and "the Purple Revolution in Baghdad." Ereli went on to claim that Lebanon's spring of discontent, sparked by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri on February 14, proved President George W. Bush's thesis that it is "the natural state of human beings to...want to be free." On the streets of Beirut, though a lively striving for freedom was in evidence, the phrase "Cedar Revolution" never gained currency. In Lebanon, the months of protest, theatrical and musical performances, and all-night, left-right, Muslim-Christian political discussions, culminating in the massive demonstration of over one million people that overflowed Martyrs' Square in downtown Beirut on March 14, were called "the independence uprising" (intifadat al-istiqlal). (...)

[May 31, 2005]

- / MERIP

The passionate minority and the silenced majority

Laurie King-Irani — 2005-03-23T00:01:00Z

What kind of truths do statistics tell? What version of reality is our media mediating? What kind of democracy do we settle for when the will of the majority is sidelined by the fanaticism of the few?

Just days after the second anniversary of the shocking death of a young American woman, the result of a murderous act underwritten by US taxpayers, millions of Americans were glued to their television screens as Congress debated and postured until 1:00 AM about the life and death of another American woman. (...)

- / Electronic Intifada

Fables of Freedom and Democracy

Laurie King-Irani — 2005-02-26T03:33:00Z

Fables and the fabulous break into reality with slow or sudden surprise, refracting normality into something marvelous or terrifying: the red shoes that won't stop dancing, animals dispensing sage advice, or a magical rooster that scratches the earth precisely where a great treasure is hidden. Fables often begin with cruelty, suffering, and terror only to end on a note of completion or deliverance. Just-so stories tell us life can be so just: the orphan actually has parents, the scullery maid descends from royalty, and the lost children eventually find their way home. (...)

- / CommonDreams.org

Where is the bride?

Laurie King-Irani — 2005-01-11T04:32:00Z

Yesterday's presidential poll, like a stilted, shotgun wedding, had a strange energy — drained, anemic, and hesitant. No one seemed genuinely enthusiastic. The bride was not there, after all, and big issues and concerns were also missing. Universal human rights and international humanitarian law were not honored guests at this celebration. Inviting them might have elicited passions. Had that happened, Abu Mazen might have lost his title of "moderate candidate." Yesterday's elections did not choose a president so much as they formalized a rite of passage in the upper ranks of Fatah, passing the mantle of leadership of the Palestinian Authority from the late Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a., Abu Mazen.

- / Electronic Intifada