The Middle East: World Crisis? A Conference

I will be giving a talk on 4 June in Berlin regarding Egypt’s role in the region vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with a focus on how the 2011
revolution impacts the legitimacy and narrative surrounding Egypt’s foreign policy decisions.

 

“The Middle East is now subject to a conjoncture of political instability, economic dysfunction, growing religious extremism and seemingly endless war which is bringing misery and hardship to tens of millions of its citizens, and with a capacity to increase already shocking levels of violence in a zone stretching from the Afghan-Pakistan border to the southern shores of the Mediterranean.

In the late summer of 2015 the crisis took on a new and frightening dimension. A year of escalating violence in Syria and Iraq, driven by the Islamic fanaticism of ISIS, has unleashed a huge wave of refugees fleeing for their lives and seeking sanctuary mostly in the member states of the European Union.

With the added violence of the terrorist attacks in Paris and now Brussels, this has become for Europe perhaps the gravest crisis of its kind since the Second World War and engages the continent in the day to day affairs of the Middle East in ways that are unprecedented. Our conference, taking place at the heart of the EU in Berlin, will we hope contribute towards an understanding of the region’s multiple crises, and explore paths to their solution.”

Organised by the New York Review of Books Foundation and the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP.

Panel III: Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia: Regional Powers Manque?
Time: 2:30 PM 3 June 2016
Chair: Sarah Hartmann, DGAP
Amro Ali, University of Sydney
Professor Bülent Aras, Sabancı University, Istanbul
Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed, The London School of Economics

Venue: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik
Rauchstraße 17,
Berlin, Germany