Social Science Research Council

Posted by Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim
I recall reading in the 1960s for a wise man who said we keep staging failed revolutions because of the bad books we keep reading about rebellions. On the near-20th anniversary of what Abdullahi Gallab calls the “Islamist Republic” (1989- ) (in its various phases) in Sudan, whose impatient enemies [...]

Posted by Neil McHugh.
Abdullahi Gallab’s book The First Islamist Republic is rich in conceptualization and historical perspective, and there are a few major themes that run through it. I will address one of them – violence.
Gallab refers to violence as verbal as well as physical. Various political groups have, since Sudan’s independence and especially since [...]

Posted by Heather Sharkey

In this careful and engagingly written analysis of Hasan al-Turabi’s decade in power, Abdullahi A. Gallab concludes that the experience of Sudan during the “first Islamist republic” (1989-99) serves as a warning against “ideological entrapments” of all kinds, and leads to the “realization that Islamism, like all other isms, can be and [...]

Posted by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
Islamism and Post-Islamism
Islamism has been defined as ‘political Islam’ or a ‘politicized Islam.’ It emerged as the major Western diagnostic reference for ‘extremism’ in Muslim nations after terms such as Islamic “revival,” “resurgence,” or “militance” were generally abandoned. Oliver Roy (1992) argued that Islamism– defined as the populist and often revolutionary [...]

Posted by Angela Raven-Roberts.
David Keen has written a very readable and approachable book tackling a complex subject and tracing its multiple representations, interpretations and modes of analyses. I read it from the point of view of an insider of the ‘humanitarian enterprise’ that he skillfully critiques and as one who is frequently engaged in training [...]

Posted on behalf of Michael Barnett.
David Keen certainly puts the complex into complex emergencies. Combining critical theorizing and detailed knowledge of conflict zones around the world, Keen challenges a mountain of received wisdoms, urban myths, and simplified understandings regarding collective violence, aid, reconstruction, and peace-building. Keen tells us that: not everything is as [...]

Posted on behalf of Abdullahi al Tom.
I am dismayed by de Waal’s venomous article on JEM’s invasion of Omdurman code-named “Operation Long Arm”. In this article, de Waal declares that Khartoum security agents have” no justification for arresting affiliates of the SLA”. The conclusion is clear for those who are sympathetic to JEM, but may [...]

The World Tonight last night on BBC Radio 4 was a 45 minute special devoted to an examination of the UK’s foreign policy. It was structured around Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s four priorities, viz terrorism, conflict and the responsibility to protect, carbon and the international system, with interviews and clips preceding a section by section [...]

Posted on behalf of Sarah Barga
Alex de Waal makes a compelling argument for the possibility of the underground lake found in the northern part of Darfur as having negative effects. It is easy to look at the situation at arms length, or from the outside and think that the water reserves would have positive impact, [...]

Posted on behalf of Sara Pantuliano
Many thanks to Alex de Waal for posting my briefing on land issues in Sudan on his blog last month and for stimulating so many interesting contributions on such a critical topic. I have just returned from Juba where I have been carrying out research on the reintegration of IDPs [...]