DOCSLIB.ORG

Chapter 23: Africa and the Middle East, 1945-Present

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Chapter 23: Africa and the Middle East, 1945-Present Africa and the Middle East 1945–Present Key Events As you read this chapter, look for the key events in the development of Africa and the Middle East. • From the 1950s to the 1970s, most African nations gained independence from colonial powers. • Israel declared statehood on May 14, 1948, creating conflict and struggle between the new state and its neighbors. The Impact Today The events that occurred during this time period still impact our lives today. • Many African nations struggle with political and economic instability. • The United States continues to work with the Israelis and Palestinians to find a peace- ful solution to their territorial disputes. World History—Modern Times Video The Chapter 23 video, “Apartheid,” chronicles segregation and its demise in South Africa. Israeli flag 1962 1964 Nelson Palestine 1948 Mandela Liberation Israel declares arrested and Organization statehood imprisoned formed 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1957 1963 1967 First British Organization Six-Day African of African War begins colony gains Unity formed independence 700 0700-0710 C23SE-860705 11/25/03 8:19 PM Page 701 Kwame Nkrumah celebrates independence. Ghana gained its independence from Great Britain in 1957. U.S. military planes during Gulf War 1990 2003 HISTORY Iraqi attack on United States and Kuwait leads to its allies overthrow Persian Gulf crisis Iraqi dictator Chapter Overview Visit the Glencoe World History—Modern 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 Times Web site at wh.mt.glencoe.com and click on Chapter 23– Chapter Overview to 1979 1984 1994 preview chapter information. Israel and Egypt Desmond Tutu Nelson Mandela sign the Camp wins Nobel Peace becomes South David Accords Prize Africa’s first black president Inauguration of Leaders of Camp David Accords Nelson Mandela 701 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Anti-American protesters in Iran Revolution in Iran n the 1970s, many Iranians began to grow dissatisfied Why It Matters with their ruler, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of These revolutionary events in Iran IIran. An opposition movement, led by the Muslim clergy are examples of the upheavals that under the guidance of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, changed both Africa and the Middle grew in strength. (An ayatollah is a major religious leader. East after 1945. In both these areas The word means “the sign of God.”) of the world, Europeans were forced One observer described a political rally in the capital city of to give up their control and allow Tehran in 1978: “On Sunday, December 11, hundreds of thou- independent states to emerge. The change from colony to free nation sands of people held a procession in the center of Tehran.... was not easy. In Africa, the legacy of Slogans against the shah rippled in the wind—‘Death to the colonialism left arbitrary bound- Shah!’ ‘Death to the Americans!’ ‘Khomeini is our leader,’ and aries, political inexperience, and so on. People from all walks of life could be found in the continued European economic dom- crowd.” ination. In the Middle East, ethnic In January 1979, the shah left Iran, officially for a “period of and religious disputes persist. rest and holiday.” Three weeks later, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in Paris. On April 1, his forces History and You The Arab- Israeli war is not one war but a con- seized control and proclaimed Iran to be an Islamic republic. tinual series of struggles. Using your Included in the new government’s program was an attack on textbook and outside resources, the United States, viewed by Khomeini as the “Great Satan.” make a time line of the conflict. On November 4, after the shah had gone to the United Choose three points on your time States for medical treatment, Iranian revolutionaries seized line to highlight, then describe the the United States Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans events that led to those specific hostage. Not until the inauguration of a new American presi- episodes. dent, Ronald Reagan, in January 1981 did the Iranians free their American captives. 702 Independence in Africa Guide to Reading Main Ideas People to Identify Reading Strategy • People hoped that independence would Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Julius Categorizing Information As you read bring democratic governments, but Nyerere, Desmond Tutu, Chinua Achebe this section, complete a chart like the one many African nations fell victim to mili- below identifying the problems in Africa tary regimes and one-party states. Places to Locate during its first stages of independence. • Culturally and economically, African South Africa, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria Africa nations struggled to resolve the tension Preview Questions Economic between the modern and the traditional. 1. What economic problems did inde- Social Key Terms pendent African nations face? Political apartheid, Pan-Africanism 2. How have social tensions impacted African culture? Preview of Events ✦1960 ✦1962 ✦1964 ✦1966 ✦1968 ✦1970 ✦1972 1960 1962 1963 1967 1971 Blacks massacred Arrest of ANC leader Organization of Civil war in Idi Amin seizes in Sharpeville Nelson Mandela African Unity forms Nigeria control of Uganda Voices from the Past On March 21, 1960, Humphrey Taylor, a reporter, described a peaceful march by black South Africans against white rule: We went into Sharpeville the back way, around lunch time last Monday, driving along“ behind a big grey police car and three armoured cars. As we went through the fringes of the township many people were shouting the Pan-Africanist slogan ‘Our Land.’ They were grinning and cheerful. Then the shooting started. We heard the chatter of a machine gun, then another, then another. One woman was hit about ten yards from our car. Hundreds of kids were running, too. Some of the children, hardly as tall as the grass, were leaping like rabbits. Some of them were shot, too.” —The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History 2000, Jon E. Lewis, 2000 Demonstration against The Sharpeville massacre was a stunning example of the white government’s white rule oppression of the black majority in South Africa. The Transition to Independence European rule had been imposed on nearly all of Africa by 1900. However, after World War II, Europeans realized that colonial rule in Africa would have to end. This belief was supported by the United Nations charter, which pledged that all colonial peoples should have the right to self-determination. In 1957, the Gold Coast, renamed Ghana and under the guidance of Kwame Nkrumah, was the first former British colony to gain independence. Nigeria, the Belgian Congo (renamed Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo), Kenya, and others soon followed. Seventeen new African nations emerged in 1960. CHAPTER 23 Africa and the Middle East 703 Another 11 nations followed between 1961 and 1965. political reform. The ANC’s efforts, however, met After a series of brutal guerrilla wars, the Portuguese with little success. finally surrendered their colonies of Mozambique At the same time, by the 1950s, South African and Angola in the 1970s. whites (descendants of the Dutch, known as Afrikan- In North Africa, the French granted full independ- ers) had strengthened the laws separating whites and ence to Morocco and Tunisia in 1956. Because Algeria blacks. The result was a system of racial segregation was home to one million French settlers, France known as apartheid (“apartness”). chose to keep control there. Meanwhile, however, Blacks demonstrated against the apartheid laws, Algerian nationalists had organized the National but the white government brutally repressed the Liberation Front (FLN) and in 1954 initiated a guer- demonstrators. In 1960, police opened fire on people rilla war to liberate their homeland. The French who were leading a peaceful march in Sharpeville, leader, Charles de Gaulle, granted Algeria its inde- killing 69, two-thirds of whom were shot in the back. pendence in 1962. After the arrest of ANC leader Nelson Mandela in In South Africa, where the political system was 1962, members of the ANC called for armed resist- dominated by whites, the process was more compli- ance to the white government. cated. Political activity on the part of blacks had begun with the formation of the African National Reading Check Describing How did Algeria gain Congress (ANC) in 1912. Its goal was economic and independence from France? Independent Africa M editerra MOROCCO TUNISIA nean Sea 1956 1956 30°N ALGERIA WESTERN 1962 LIBYA N SAHARA 1951 EGYPT 1922 R Mor. e E d W S e S a MAURITANIA 20°N 1960 MALI SENEGAL 1960 NIGER After World War II, most 1960 1960 ERITREA CHAD 1993 GAMBIA 1960 SUDAN DJIBOUTI African countries gained 1965 BURKINA FASO 1956 1977 independence. GUINEA 1960 BENIN 1958 GHANA 1960 10°N 1. Interpreting Maps IVORY 1957 NIGERIA ETHIOPIA CENTRAL AFRICAN 1941 COAST 1960 REPUBLIC Which countries became 1960 TOGO CAMEROON 1960 independent by 1957? GUINEA- LIBERIA 1960 1960 BISSAU SOMALIA 2. Interpreting Maps 1974 EQUATORIAL DEMOCRATIC UGANDA 1960 SIERRA 1962 KENYA GUINEA GABON REPUBLIC OF 1963 0° Which countries became LEONE 1968 1960 CONGO 1961 CONGO 1960 Indian independent after 1965? SAO TOME ´´& 1960 RWANDA Ocean Atlantic PRÍNCIPE BURUNDI 1962 3. Applying Geography 1975 Ocean 1962 TANZANIA Skills Is there a pattern 1961 COMOROS to the chronology in Country that was never 1975 10°S a colony ANGOLA MALAWI which independence 1975 1963 Dependency ZAMBIA occurred in the different Countries that gained independence 1964 MOZAMBIQUE countries of Africa? What with date of independence: 1975 can you infer from the By 1957 ZIMBABWE MADAGASCAR NAMIBIA 1980 1960 20°S presence or absence of 1957–1960 1990 BOTSWANA 1961–1965 1966 a pattern? After 1965 SWAZILAND 0 1,000 miles 1968 SOUTH AFRICA 0 1,000 kilometers 1910 LESOTHO 30°S Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area projection 1966 20°W10°W0° 10°E20°E30°E40°E50°E The New Nations Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, preferred an “African The African states that achieved independence form of socialism.” This meant a system in which in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s still faced many ownership of the country’s wealth would be put into problems.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rediscovering the Arab Dimension of Middle East Regional Politics
    Review of International Studies page 1 of 22 2011 British International Studies Association doi:10.1017/S0260210511000283 The New Arab Cold War: rediscovering the Arab dimension of Middle East regional politics MORTEN VALBJØRN AND ANDRÉ BANK* Abstract. This article provides a conceptual lens for and a thick interpretation of the emergent regional constellation in the Middle East in the first decade of the 21st century. It starts out by challenging two prevalent claims about regional politics in the context of the 2006 Lebanon and 2008–09 Gaza Wars: Firstly, that regional politics is marked by a fundamental break from the ‘old Middle East’ and secondly, that it has become ‘post-Arab’ in the sense that Arab politics has ceased being distinctly Arab. Against this background, the article develops the understanding of a New Arab Cold War which accentuates the still important, but widely neglected Arab dimension in regional politics. By rediscovering the Arab Cold War of the 1950–60s and by drawing attention to the transformation of Arab nationalism and the importance of new trans-Arab media, the New Arab Cold War perspective aims at supplementing rather that supplanting the prominent moderate-radical, sectarian and Realist-Westphalian narratives. By highlighting dimensions of both continuity and change it does moreover provide some critical nuances to the frequent claims about the ‘newness’ of the ‘New Middle East’. In addition to this more Middle East-specific contribution, the article carries lessons for a number of more general debates in International Relations theory concerning the importance of (Arab-Islamist) non-state actors and competing identities in regional politics as well as the interplay between different forms of sovereignty.
    [Show full text]
  • Empire's H(A)Unting Grounds: Theorising Violence and Resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan
    Empire’s h(a)unting grounds: theorising violence and resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan LSE Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/102631/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Manchanda, Nivi and Salem, Sara (2020) Empire’s h(a)unting grounds: theorising violence and resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan. Current Sociology, 68 (2). pp. 241-262. ISSN 1461-7064 10.1177%2F0011392119886866 Reuse Items deposited in LSE Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the LSE Research Online record for the item. [email protected] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/ Empire’s H(a)unting Grounds: Theorising violence and resistance in Egypt and Afghanistan Nivi Manchanda, Queen Mary University of London Sara Salem, London School of Economics Abstract This article thinks theory otherwise by searching for what is missing, silent and yet highly productive and constitutive of present realities’. Looking at Afghanistan and Egypt, we show how imperial legacies and capitalist futurities are rendered invisible by dominant social theories, and why it matters that we think beyond an empiricist sociology in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, we explore the ways in which portrayals of the country as retrogressive elide the colonial violence that that have ensured the very backwardness that is now considered Afghanistan’s enduring characteristic.
    [Show full text]
  • The Question of 'Race' in the Pre-Colonial Southern Sahara
    The Question of ‘Race’ in the Pre-colonial Southern Sahara BRUCE S. HALL One of the principle issues that divide people in the southern margins of the Sahara Desert is the issue of ‘race.’ Each of the countries that share this region, from Mauritania to Sudan, has experienced civil violence with racial overtones since achieving independence from colonial rule in the 1950s and 1960s. Today’s crisis in Western Sudan is only the latest example. However, very little academic attention has been paid to the issue of ‘race’ in the region, in large part because southern Saharan racial discourses do not correspond directly to the idea of ‘race’ in the West. For the outsider, local racial distinctions are often difficult to discern because somatic difference is not the only, and certainly not the most important, basis for racial identities. In this article, I focus on the development of pre-colonial ideas about ‘race’ in the Hodh, Azawad, and Niger Bend, which today are in Northern Mali and Western Mauritania. The article examines the evolving relationship between North and West Africans along this Sahelian borderland using the writings of Arab travellers, local chroniclers, as well as several specific documents that address the issue of the legitimacy of enslavement of different West African groups. Using primarily the Arabic writings of the Kunta, a politically ascendant Arab group in the area, the paper explores the extent to which discourses of ‘race’ served growing nomadic power. My argument is that during the nineteenth century, honorable lineages and genealogies came to play an increasingly important role as ideological buttresses to struggles for power amongst nomadic groups and in legitimising domination over sedentary communities.
    [Show full text]
  • Omar-Ashour-English.Pdf
    CENTER ON DEMOCRACY, DEVELOPMENT, AND THE RULE OF LAW STANFORD UNIVERSITY BROOKINGS DOHA CENTER - STANFORD PROJECT ON ARAB TRANSITIONS PAPER SERIES Number 3, November 2012 FROM BAD COP TO GOOD COP: THE CHALLENGE OF SECURITY SECTOR REFORM IN EGYPT OMAR ASHOUR PROGRAM ON ARAB REFORM AND DEMOCRACY, CDDRL FROM BAD COP TO GOOD COP: THE CHALLENGE OF SECURITY SECTOR REFORM IN EGYPT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY gence within the police force of a cadre of reform- ist officers is also encouraging and may help shift Successful democratic transitions hinge on the the balance of power within the Ministry of Interi- establishment of effective civilian control of the or. These officers have established reformist orga- armed forces and internal security institutions. The nizations, such as the General Coalition of Police transformation of these institutions from instru- Officers and Officers But Honorable, and begun to ments of brutal repression and regime protection push for SSR themselves. The prospects for imple- to professional, regulated, national services – secu- menting these civil society and internal initiatives, rity sector reform (SSR) – is at the very center of however, remain uncertain; they focus on admira- this effort. In Egypt, as in other transitioning Arab ble ends but are less clear on the means of imple- states and prior cases of democratization, SSR is mentation. They also have to reckon with strong an acutely political process affected by an array of elements within the Ministry of Interior – “al-Ad- different actors and dynamics. In a contested and ly’s men” (in reference to Mubarak’s longstanding unstable post-revolutionary political sphere, the minister) – who remain firmly opposed to reform.
    [Show full text]
  • Triumphs and Tragedies of the Iranian Revolution
    The Road to Isolation: Triumphs and Tragedies of the Iranian Revolution Salma Schwartzman Senior Division Historical Paper Word Count: 2, 499 !1 Born of conflicting interests and influences — those ancient tensions deeply rooted in its own society — the Iranian revolution generated numerous and alternating cycles of triumph and tragedy, the one always inextricably resulting from and offsetting the other. This series of vast political shifts saw the nation shudder from a near feudal monarchy to a democratized state, before finally relapsing into an oppressive, religiously based conservatism. The Prelude: The White Revolution Dating from 1960 to 1963, the White Revolution was a period of time in Iran in which modernization, westernization, and industrialization were ambitiously promoted by the the country’s governing royalty: the Pahlavi regime. Yet although many of these changes brought material and social benefit, the country was not ready to embrace such a rapid transition from its traditional structure; thus the White Revolution sowed the seeds that would later blossom into the Iranian Revolution1. Under the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the State of Iran underwent serious industrial expansion. After seizing almost complete political power for himself, the Shah set in motion the land reform law of 1962.2 This law forced landed minorities to surrender vast tracts of lands to the government so that it could be redistributed to small scale agriculturalists. The landowners who experienced losses were compensated through shares of state owned Iranian industries. Cultivators and laborers also received share holdings of Iranian industries and agricultural profits.3 This reform not only helped the agrarian community, but encouraged and supported 1 Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia.
    [Show full text]
  • Soft Power and Cross-Border Mobility in the Middle East
    IPS0010.1177/0192512118759902International Political Science ReviewTsourapas 759902research-article2018 Article International Political Science Review 2018, Vol. 39(3) 400 –416 Authoritarian emigration states: © The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: Soft power and cross-border sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118759902DOI: 10.1177/0192512118759902 mobility in the Middle East journals.sagepub.com/home/ips Gerasimos Tsourapas University of Birmingham, UK Abstract Can labor emigration form part of a state’s foreign policy goals? The relevant literature links emigration to states’ developmental needs, which does not explain why some states choose to economically subsidize their citizens’ emigration. This article explores for the first time the soft power importance of high-skilled emigration from authoritarian emigration states. It finds that the Egyptian state under Gamal Abdel Nasser employed labor emigration for two distinct purposes linked to broader soft power interests: first, as an instrument of cultural diplomacy to spread revolutionary ideals of Arab unity and anti-imperialism across the Middle East; second, as a tool for disseminating development aid, particularly in Yemen and sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on Arabic and non-Arabic primary sources, the article identifies the interplay between foreign policy and cross-border mobility, while also sketching an evolving research agenda on authoritarian emigration states’ policy-making. Keywords Soft power, diasporas, Egypt, Middle East, authoritarianism, migration, case study, Arab–Israeli conflict Introduction Can labor emigration serve a state’s foreign policy goals? In particular, how do authoritarian states use labor emigration in their foreign policy-making? The emerging academic literature on the poli- tics of international migration has yet to fully explore this phenomenon as a separate field of inquiry.
    [Show full text]
  • Africa and the International Criminal Court: Behind the Backlash and Toward Future Solutions
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Bowdoin College Bowdoin College Bowdoin Digital Commons Honors Projects Student Scholarship and Creative Work 2017 Africa and the International Criminal Court: Behind the Backlash and Toward Future Solutions Marisa O'Toole Bowdoin College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/honorsprojects Part of the African Studies Commons, International Law Commons, International Relations Commons, and the Law and Politics Commons Recommended Citation O'Toole, Marisa, "Africa and the International Criminal Court: Behind the Backlash and Toward Future Solutions" (2017). Honors Projects. 64. https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/honorsprojects/64 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship and Creative Work at Bowdoin Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of Bowdoin Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AFRICA AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Behind the Backlash and Toward Future Solutions An Honors Paper for the Department of Government and Legal Studies By Marisa O’Toole Bowdoin College, 2017 ©2017 Marisa O’Toole Introduction Marisa O’Toole Introduction Following the end of World War II, members of international society acknowledged its obligation to address international crimes of mass barbarity. Determined to prevent the recurrence of such atrocities, members took action to create a system of international individual criminal legal accountability. Beginning with the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes trials in 19451 and continuing with the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 19932 and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 19943, the international community commenced its ad hoc prosecution of individuals for the commission of international crimes.
    [Show full text]
  • Bowl Round 5 Bowl Round 5 First Quarter
    NHBB B-Set Bowl 2017-2018 Bowl Round 5 Bowl Round 5 First Quarter (1) The remnants of this government established the Republic of Ezo after losing the Boshin War. Two and a half centuries earlier, this government was founded after its leader won the Battle of Sekigahara against the Toyotomi clan. This government's policy of sakoku came to an end when Matthew Perry's Black Ships forced the opening of Japan through the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa. For ten points, name this last Japanese shogunate. ANSWER: Tokugawa Shogunate (or Tokugawa Bakufu) (2) Xenophon's Anabasis describes ten thousand Greek soldiers of this type who fought Artaxerxes II of Persia. A war named for these people was won by Hamilcar Barca and led to his conquest of Spain. Famed soldiers of this type include slingers from Rhodes and archers from Crete. Greeks who fought for Persia were, for ten points, what type of soldier that fought not for national pride, but for money? ANSWER: mercenary (prompt on descriptive answers) (3) The most prominent of the Townshend Acts not to be repealed in 1770 was a tax levied on this commodity. The Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver carried this commodity from England to the American colonies. The Intolerable Acts were passed in response to the dumping of this commodity into a Massachusetts Harbor in 1773 by members of the Sons of Liberty. For ten points, identify this commodity destroyed in a namesake Boston party. ANSWER: tea (accept Tea Act; accept Boston Tea Party) (4) This location is the setting of a photo of a boy holding a toy hand grenade by Diane Arbus.
    [Show full text]
  • War and Diplomacy: the Suez Crisis
    1 Professor Pnina Lahav, Boston University School of Law C.) Please do not use, quote or distribute without author’s permission War and Diplomacy: The Suez Crisis 1. Introduction Stephen M. Griffin, Long Wars and the Constitution, and Mariah Zeisberg’s War Powers, are two remarkable books that certainly deserve an entire symposium devoted to them. These books complement each other in the same way that the war powers, some vested in Congress and others in the President, are in correspondence with each other. Griffin’s book revolves around the history of the war powers since 1945, and in this sense is more empirical. Its thesis is that the cold war and Truman’s subsequent decision to launch the war in Korea destabilized American constitutionalism. In the following decades the United States has found itself confronting an endless string of constitutional crises related to the deployment of troops abroad, and the quest for a formula to resolve the constitutional puzzles is as strong as ever. Zeisberg’s book, which took advantage of the fact that Griffin’s book preceded it, is more normative, even though it should be emphasized that Griffin also offers important normative insights. Both books are anchored in democratic theory in that they emphasize the cardinal significance of inter-branch deliberation. Both endorse the notion that the implicit assumption underlying the text of the Constitution is that while the war powers are divided between the legislative and executive branches, these institutions are expected to deliberate internally as well as externally when confronting the critical matter of war.
    [Show full text]
  • Egypt in Transition the Third Republic
    Egypt in Transition The Third Republic BY M. CHERIF BASSIOUNI n January 25, 2011, the Egyptian people took to the streets and in 18 days were able to bring down the 30-year corrupt dictatorial regime of Hosni Mubarak, using entirely Opeaceful means. That revolution set the Arab Republic of Egypt on a hopeful path to democracy. After Mubarak resigned, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) became the custodian of the transition. In June of 2012, in Egypt’s first free and fair presidential election, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi was elected President. Slightly more than 50 percent of registered voters actually voted, and those voters gave Morsi a majority of just less than 52 percent. Having won by this slim margin, Morsi was sworn in as President on June 30, 2012, and thus the Second Republic came to be.1 He was removed by the military on July 3, 2013 and a temporary President, Adly Mansour, was appointed on July 4, 2013. Thus began the Third Republic. The Second Republic Five months later, Morsi declared his decisions beyond judicial review, and thus his authority unchallengeable. In December, 2012, he pushed a pro-Islamist constitution through a popular referendum; it passed but with less than 30 percent of the popular vote. There was no constitu- tional way to recall, impeach, or remove Morsi. The path to democracy was taking a turn towards theocratic autocracy. The serving People’s Assembly (Majliss al-Sha‘ab) had been elected under a law later declared unconstitutional. Over 60 percent of the members of the new parliament were Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and Salafists.
    [Show full text]
  • CLASSROOM | 9-12 Lessons
    CLASSROOM | 9-12 Lessons : JIMMY CARTER AND THE IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS President Carter announces sanctions against Iran in the White House Press Room. Jimmy Carter Library Jimmy Carter would say later, “No matter who was with me, we watched the big grandfather clock by the door.” Time was running out, for it was Tuesday, January 20, 1981. The scene was the Oval Office. In just hours this president would leave it for good, and a new leader, Ronald Reagan, would move in. As the clock ticked the time away, Carter tried to resolve a crisis that had almost destroyed his presidency. He was close, very close, and as he said, “At stake were the lives of 52 precious human beings who had been imprisoned in Iran for 444 days–and almost 12 billion dollars of Iranian assets.” 1 Prelude The beginnings of this crisis preceded Jimmy Carter’s term by almost thirty years. For that long, the United States had provided political support and, more recently, massive military assistance to the government of the shah of Iran. Iran was important because it provided oil to the industrial West and separated the Soviet Union from the Persian Gulf and the oil states. The United States had an enormous stake in keeping it stable and independent. By 1979, however, when Carter had been in office three years, the shah was in trouble, reaping the harvest of years of brutal and unpopular policies, including the use of secret police that controlled dissent with arbitrary arrests and torture.2 It was clear that the shah had lost the (next page) White House Historical Association | http://www.whha.org | Pg.
    [Show full text]
  • Encounters with Amin 2013 Ron Stockton
    Encounters with Amin 2013 Ron Stockton I crossed paths with Idi Amin three times. He had started as an army cook with a fourth grade education, been promoted to commander of Uganda military forces, and ended up as President for Life of the country (until he was overthrown in 1979). My first encounter was in 1966 when I was living in Machakos. Milton Obote, the Prime Minister in neighboring Uganda, had just crushed his rival, the Kabaka, with General Amin’s help. The thought that the military could unleash such violence was frightening. Kenya was very peaceful, and we were forty miles from Nairobi, where any problems would occur, but still, the headlines were nervous-making. One Saturday afternoon I was in my front yard on the school compound. The road twisted through the school grounds with the school in the front and teacher’s houses along the road farther in. My house was the very last one. I looked up and saw a large military lorry filled with standing soldiers coming down the one-track road. Fear is irrational but as that lorry got closer and closer to my house, with nowhere to go after me, I wondered what was going to happen next. It pulled up in front of my house and a uniformed man jumped out. I was so relieved when he said, “Sir, where is the football match?” Dictator and mass murderer My second encounter was in 1970 when I was returning to Kenya to do doctoral research. I stopped in Kampala to see some friends at the university and to get whatever advice I could on doing field work.
    [Show full text]