Search results for ""Author Laurent Bonnefoy""

Contemporary Yemen has an image problem. It has long fascinated travellers and artists, and to many embodies both Arab and Muslim authenticity; it stands at important geostrategic and commercial crossroads. Yet, strangely, global perceptions of Yemen are of an entity that is somehow both marginal and passive, yet also dangerous and problematic. The Saudi offensive launched in 2015 has made Yemen a victim of regional power struggles, while the global ‘war on terror’ has labelled it a threat to international security. This perception has had disastrous effects without generating real interest in the country or its people. On the contrary, Yemen’s complex political dynamics have been largely ignored by international observers—resulting in problematic, if not counterproductive, international policies. Yemen and the World offers a corrective to these misconceptions and omissions, putting aside the nature of the world’s interest in Yemen to focus on Yemen’s role on the global stage. Laurent Bonnefoy uses six areas of modern international exchange—globalisation, diplomacy, trade, migration, culture and militant Islamism—to restore Yemen to its place at the heart of contemporary affairs. To understand Yemen, he argues, is to understand the Middle East as a whole.

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Over the last decade or so Salafism has become one of the West's new political bogey-men. Many regard the movement as the antechamber of violent groups such as al-Qaeda, and as the by-product of a centralized foreign-policy platform shaped by so-called Saudi interests. Based on extensive research conducted throughout Yemen between 2001 and 2009, and particularly in the southern province of Yafi', this book offers an original approach to Salafism and draws a necessary counter-narrative that takes into account the dynamics of the Salafi movement as well as its relationship to its evolving environment, either local, regional and international. Having studied over a hundred recorded sermons and conferences and dozens of books, and carried out interviews with numerous clerics, intellectuals and activists, Laurent Bonnefoy focuses on the allegedly apolitical Salafi doctrine promoted by the renowned Yemeni Salafi figure, Muqbil al-Wadi'i, who died in 2001. Building on IR theory and political sociology, he references the everyday practices of al-Wadi'i's dedicated followers, their rivalries as well as their own evolving trajectories. He demonstrates that, rather than resulting from specifically planned policies, Yemeni Salafism has, since the early 1980s, evolved through a series of spontaneous, grassroots mechanisms, many of which are shaped by transnational flows, that embed this movement in the complex Yemeni context.

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Young Arabs are too often reduced to the figures of the potential terrorist, the migrant or the exotic icon of the revolution. But the reality is much richer.Coming from both sides of the Mediterranean, the researchers in this book travel off the beaten track by exploring how young Arabs spend their free time. The case studies take in a wide range of countries, including Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and all manner of activities, from football to rap music, café culture to sex work. Drawn with sensitivity and humour, Arab youths presents an exceptional portrait of a generation that is much talked about but rarely listened to.This book gives a voice to young men and women who, as heirs of plural traditions, animated by new ideas and influenced by various cultural movements, are inventing the future of their societies in the midst of radical change.

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