DIS to Host Seminar on Arab Spring

DIS will be hosting a seminar on the Arab Spring on Wednesday 26 October 2011 at Vestergade 23, Room 401, from midday until 17.00.

October 21, 2011

This seminar will bring together top researchers and politicians from Denmark to debate viable future foreign policies of the US and EU in light of the Spring 2011 Arab revolutions, and do this in a constructive and comparative manner. How should we approach these rapid developments? What important differences characterize the different countries in the region as well as US and EU interests? And how can Europe and the US learn from and engage with each other when developing their responses?

The 2011 Arab Spring caught everyone off guard. This is a once in a life-time opportunity, some say. The words on the Arab street are no longer anti-imperialist, communist, or anti-western. No, they are ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. And it is their choice of words. For many years, the West has talked about ‘freedom and democracy’ on camera, but supported autocratic rascals in the region once the camera was off. Now the time has come to put words into practice.

Speakers include:

Lars Erslev Andersen: Head of the Middle Eastern Studies unit at the Danish Institute for International Studies [DIIS], an independent state funded reseach unit on international realations.

Hanna Ziadeh: A PhD candidate at the Danish Institute for Human Rights and University of Roskilde, where he works on the history of the modern Arab world, nation-building in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen and the Arab debate on the role of Human Rights in the region.

Søren Hove: A project researcher on the opposition in the Arab Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, with specific focus on terrorism and Islamist militancy in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia.

Naser Khader: A Muslim and a self-ascribed ‘fanatic democrat’. He is the co-founder and former leader of Democratic Muslims, an organisation established as a counterpart to radical Muslim voices in the wake of the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis.