Just a little over a year has passed since the outset of the massive uprisings that shook Egypt and deposed one of the longest-ruling Middle Eastern leaders in modern history, and they are quickly passing from the realm of current events into history.
Offset against grey skies and the black uniform of an average Istanbulite bundled against the cold, the bright yellow and turquoise banners of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) bring a hint of the Arab Spring to Taksim Square.
Perhaps the most critical and least acknowledged impediment to the negotiation of a conflict is the manipulation of language. No peace process can come to fruition when representatives from conflicting parties are embroiled in debates on semantics, yet individuals in both government and media inevitably employ strategic language at various stages in the process.
It has long since become cliché to wax poetic about the momentous changes that are now sweeping the Middle East.
Over the weekend, Coptic Christians all over the world mourned the death of their Church’s leader, known as Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria.
This week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran asserted that Iran was ready for negotiations on its nuclear (weapons) program. Indeed, he insisted that it always had been, and that European and American declarations to the contrary were, in fact, “excuses.”
This week, the long captured soldier Gilad Shalit will be released in exchange for nearly 1,000 Palestinian prisoners convicted – in Israeli courts – for list of crimes of varying degrees of violence.
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