Portside

1. Women’s Rights in the Gulf in 2022
2. Fighting Resumes in Defense of Western Sahara
3. Iran’s Moment of Truth
4. Palestine’s Rising Tide
5. Afghanistan: One Word of Defiance Against Taliban Misogyny
6. Protests Spread in Jordan
7. Lula Launches Reform Government
8. Nepal Power Shifts
9. Ukrainian Voices
10. New Year Gift: Download The Crisis and Future of Democracy

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Women’s Rights in the Gulf in 2022

Jennifer Holleis / NewsClick (New Delhi)

Despite significant gains, women’s rights remain curtailed in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. What was achieved in 2022 and what are the crucial topics for the coming year?

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Fighting Resumes in Defense of Western Sahara

Pavan Kulkarni / Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)

Moroccan forces illegally occupying the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) have come under repeated bombardment by the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Moroccan forces currently occupy over 80% of SADR, also known as Western Sahara, which remains classified by the UN as among the last countries still awaiting decolonization.

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Iran’s Moment of Truth

Christopher de Bellaigue / The Guardian (London)

Iran has entered a period of rolling protest in which the Islamic Republic must defend itself against wave upon wave of public anger. The ability of the opposition to pull together is only beginning to be tested. But already we know that whatever happens in Iran over the next few months, something has changed, something fundamental.

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Palestine’s Rising Tide

• Is a New Intifada Coming?   Cenk Agcabay / Socialist Project (Toronto)
   
• 2022: The Deadliest Year   Huthifa Fayyad / Middle East Eye (London)
   
• Thousands March in Occupied Territories   / Peoples Dispatch
   
• A New Jewish-Arab Party   Ben Reiff / 972+ (Tel Aviv)
   
• Rocking Gaza   Rakan Abed El Rahman / Middle East Eye

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Afghanistan: One Word of Defiance Against Taliban Misogyny

Noor Gul Shafaq / BBC World Service (London)

On Sunday 25 December, a woman stood in front of Kabul University holding up a board with a particularly powerful word written on it - iqra, or ‘read’. Muslims believe this was the first word revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by God. “God has given us the right to education. We need to be afraid of God, not the Taliban who want to take away our rights,” she told the BBC Afghan service.

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Protests Spread in Jordan

Mohammad Ayesh / Middle East Eye

Jordan is witnessing escalating popular protests whose violent turn has ushered in an important, sensitive, and dangerous period in the country's history. But what is happening in Jordan cannot be isolated from current conditions and growing tensions in the entire region, signalling what may be a prelude to a second wave of the Arab Spring.

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Lula Launches Reform Government

• First Administrative Acts   Brasil de Fato (São Paulo)
   
• First Appointments   Diane Jeantet / Associated Press (New York)

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Nepal Power Shifts

Kallol Bhattacherjee / The Hindu (Mumbai)

Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Nepal on December 26, 2022. At the event, both the former Maoist rebel leader Prachanda and the outgoing Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba were dressed in daura-suruwal, the dress of Nepal’s traditional power elite. Did the choice of daura-suruwal indicate an evolution in the ex-guerilla’s ideological journey?

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Ukrainian Voices

Volodymyr Ishchenko / New Left Review (London)

National liberation is no longer understood as intrinsically linked to social revolution, challenging the basis of capitalism and imperialism. Instead, the results under neoliberalism neither achieve the consolidation of liberal democracy nor eradicate corruption, even if authoritarian regimes are overthrown, ‘empowering’ the ngo representatives of civil society.

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Download The Crisis and Future of Democracy

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Brussels)

In 14 chapters, this book tackles a wide range of problems surrounding democracy. The authors bring together a wealth of knowledge, astute insights and forward-looking conclusions about the state of democracy, the potential for democratic change and the actors and strategies that can get us there. We hope it will inspire political action striving for a democratisation of democracy.