Word: popular
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Dismay over the effects of industrialization helped fuel the popular unrest that brought down the Shah in what Princeton's Richard Falk calls "the first Third World revolution, one which is neither Marxist nor capitalist but indigenously Islamic." Some Iranian officials believe that their revolution will inspire other uprisings in the Muslim world. "I think a new era of Islamic struggle and a new Islamic awareness have been triggered by our revolution," says Ibrahim Yazdi, Deputy Prime Minister for Revolutionary Affairs. "From now on, all Islamic movements that were dormant or apologetic in their approach to change or action will...
Sudan. The largest nation in Africa is linked to Egypt by a defense treaty, and the two countries have moved closer toward a political and economic confederation. President Gaafar Nimeiri endorsed Sadat's visit to Jerusalem and the Camp David accords, but that stand is not universally popular. Despite a policy of reconciliation aimed at ending the intrigues and coups that have plagued the Sudan since it became independent in 1956, Nimeiri still faces opposition from the National Front led by Anwar Sadiq al-Mahdi, who advocates an Islamic state like neighboring Libya. If Sadat were to fall from power...
...ruling Baath Party; its leadership is Sunni, while 52% of Iraq's 12 million people are Shi'ites. As in Iran, the mullahs have a tradition of political activism, and there have been violent clashes between religious dissidents and the regime's 125,000-man all-Sunni "popular army." Although government corruption and mismanagement of oil wealth are not major issues, General Saddam Hussein runs a tough police state: dissent is ruthlessly suppressed and Iraqi jails are said to hold thousands of political prisoners. The government's greatest worry is a revival of unrest among the 2 million Kurds...
...instability. Ancient rivalries between the two groups are being exploited by both right-and left-wing extremists. Last December Sunni gangs massacred a hundred Alevis in the southern Turkish town of Maras. But unlike the Shah's Iran, Turkey has a functioning democratic system, and no single issue or popular figure unites the opposition. The government is fearful, however, that "political opportunists" will try to capitalize on religious rancor. Premier Bülent Ecevit has launched a vigorous television and radio campaign appealing for unity and tolerance...
...Richard Burton [British explorer who translated the Arabian Nights], at coming to terms with Islam. Still, gross ignorance persisted, as it will whenever fear of the different gets translated into attempts at domination. The U.S. inherited the Orientalist legacy, and uncritically employed it in its universities, mass media, popular culture, imperial policy. In films and cartoons, Muslim Arabs, for example, are represented either as bloodthirsty mobs, or as hooknosed, lecherous sadists. Academic experts decreed that in Islam everything is Islamic, which amounted to the edifying notions that there was such a thing as an "Islamic mind," that to understand...