Don Nawzar

We need a total reformation of the meaning& mission of university in Muslim majority lands. A good first step could be joint programmes in anthropology, sociology and philosophy with academic institutions based in the West. I know it’s ironic & contradictory, but it’s whay it’s.

Try it. The most difficult conversations on Twitter are with ‘academicians’ , ‘experts’ & ‘experts’ who haven’t yet come out from the Orientalist influence of MENA universities. They happen to be the most fierce (and unconsciously ignorant) in their Islamophobia.

Most graduates from such universities experience an expected intellectual shock when they move to study at Western institutions. They realise, in te West, their ideas about the Orient were not facts but constructs coming from a certain power structure.

Universities in Muslim majority countries are strongholds of Islamophobia, subtle and obvious. They are also, ironically, the last remaining missionaries of Orientalism.

We don’t need The Man in the High Castle to imagine what would Europe look like if far right succeeded to institutionalize Islamophobia. China and India are the real life answers to the hypothetical questions about future of Europe under the anti-Muslim far right. Terrible.https://twitter.com/TjpAbdul/status/1138092209574748160 …

Can we name this the @mehdirhasan effect? I am seeing more and more of this style of questioning lately. Trumps, Bannons, Johnsons & Kushners should be platformed but questioned and pressed for answers. https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1138062585222373376 …

Iraqi Kurdistan region had an option to turn into a second Oman, a hub which uses diplomatic ties with all as means for survival, but chose instead to be a second Dubai, and it ended being a second South Sudan while seen by many as a second Israel.

N Barzani can get Saudi Sabhan & PMF leaders to his inauguration while Barham Salih can go Riyadh, praise King Salman and stand against war on Iran in the same speech. Yet KRG is in deep crisis because these two figures are literally just figureheads. Old Guards run affairs.

Both figures go against the more dominant discourse in Kurdish politics which is one of militant-masculine pseudo-nationalist tendency. They prefer to be friends & allies but not proxies or enemies. Unfortunately both are the weaker side in intra-family/party divisions in KRG.

There are a handful leaders around the globe who can get high level delegations from Saudi, Iran and Turkey to their inauguration ceremony. Two of them are Iraqi Kurds: Barham Salih, Iraqi president & Nechirvan Barzani who was elected president of Iraqi Kurdistan today.https://twitter.com/azheenfalah/status/1138040815958335488 …

The current leading opposition party has never reached power through elections since the end of one party rule. It has been as part of post-military coup coalitions. But they have a chance to win elections now. Reasons vary but we need to be alarmed.

As someone who is more concerned with what Turkish dynamics mean for the greater Middle East, the doomsday scenario will be when the Turkish opposition gets to power The anti-democracy axis in Middle East from Assad to MBZ will have gotten their strongest ally.

But the international media and intelligecia’s rule of thumb for Turkey is: “If he is anti-Erdogan, he is a good guy” Welll, regardless of what you think of Erdogan, in Turkey, one rarely finds a ‘good guy’ in the anti-Erdogan camp. Unfortunate but true.

There is not a single mainstream political grouping in the Western Hemisphere that is as xenophobic as the Turkish opposition! They are leftists but more racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and overall hateful than any right and most far right groups in the Westhttps://twitter.com/06JAnk/status/1137264886923300864 …