Last update: 2022-04-22 09:41:48
Oasis International Foundation
Press release, Venice, 26 May 2011
Where is the Middle East Heading? New Secularity and Unexpected Events in North Africa
The Oasis International network meets in Venice from 20 to 22 June 2011
What is happening in the Middle East and North Africa? Is a social subjectivity and a new kind of politics being born? How far will the long wave of protest go? What will the future of the Christian minorities be in this revolution that is taking place? And what effects will this have in the West?
These are some of the questions that the Oasis international network will deal with in the forthcoming meeting of the Scientific Committee organised for 20 to 22 June in Venice (Island of San Servolo).
The busy agenda will be characterised not only by the presence of international level speakers, among the greatest experts on these issues, but also by direct accounts of what is really happening in the countries hit by revolutionary uprisings.
Since its foundation Oasis has dealt with the following topics: in 2004 the Scientific Committee held its meeting in Venice, the year of its foundation and in 2005, on the topic of ‘unity and diversity’; in Cairo in 2006 on fundamental rights and democracies; in Venice in 2007 on the mixing of civilisations and cultures; in Amman in Jordan in 2008 on religious freedom; in Venice in 2009 on tradition; in 2010 in Beirut in Lebanon on the education between faith and culture.
Below is the agenda of the Scientific Committee 2011:
Monday 20 June - morning (9 a.m. – 1.00 p.m.)
Card. Angelo Scola,
A stable project of good life. The unforeseen events in North Africa and the new laicity
Olivier Roy,
Une génération post-islamiste? Réflexions sur les nouvelles subjectivités religieuses et politiques au Moyen Orient
Malika Zeghal,
After the Revolutions: Political and Religious Institutions in the Middle East
Nikolaus Lobkowicz,
The collapse of a system: 89 as an historic paradigm?
Hoda Nehmé,
Difficile laïcité dans la société arabe et islamique contemporaine
H.E. Msgr. Maroun Lahham,
Tunisia between revolution and migrants
Monday 20 June – afternoon (3.30 p.m. – 5.45 p.m.)
Card. Antonios Neguib,
Relations islamo-chrétiennes en Egypte suite à la Révolution de février
Amr Elshobaki,
Les Frères Musulmans dans le nouveau Egypte
Tewfik Aclimandos,
Révolution, coup d’Etat ou reforme ? Le rôle de l’armée en Egypte
Vittorio Emanuele Parsi,
Western policies and Middle Eastern changes
Tuesday 21 June - morning (9 a.m. – 1.00 p.m.)
Madawi al-Rasheed,
Saudi Arabia and the Euphoria of Arab Spring: Religion at the Service of Royal Power
Dominique Avon,
La laïcité en débat dans le Liban contemporain
Mark Movsesian,
Ottoman Secularization in the Nineteenth Century: The Tanzimat and Christian Minorities
Short biographies of the speakers
Tewfik Aclimandos
Egyptian, researcher in the contemporary history of the Arab world, at the Collège de France, he is a scholar of Egyptian politics from the postwar period to present day.
Dominique Avon
Dominique Avon, professor of contemporary history at the University of Maine and the Sciences Po (Paris), is specialised in the comparative study of religions.
Amr Elshobaki
Member of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies of Cairo, he is president of the Arab Forum for Alternatives and leader writer for Masri al-Youm, al-Ahram and other Egyptian daily newspapers.
Maroun Lahham
Born at Irbid in Jordan in 1948, he was ordained priest in 1972. Rector of the Latin Seminary of Beit Jala in Jerusalem for ten years, he has been Archbishop of Tunis since 2005.
Nikolaus Lobkowicz
Professor of Philosophy, former rector of the University of Munich and the Catholic University of Eichstätt, he is currently the director of the Zimos Institute for the study of Central and Eastern European Studies.
Mark Movsesian
Jurist and director of the Centre for Law and Religion at Saint John’s University, he lectures in law and religion and writes for journals like Harvard, North Carolina, and Washington & Lee Law Reviews, the American Journal of International Law, the Harvard International Law Journal, the Virginia Journal of International Law.
Antonios Neguib
Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, he is president of the Synod of the Coptic Catholic Church and president of the Egyptian Bishops’ Conference. He was the relator general of the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Middle East (2010), and has been cardinal since November 2010.
Hoda Nehmé
Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences at the Saint-Esprit University of Kaslik, Lebanon, he is head of the Research Centre for Development and Peace of the same faculty, he has studied modern and contemporary Arab thought and is involved in the education of the young Lebanese to citizenship.
Vittorio Emanuele Parsi
Full professor of International Relations at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore , he is program director at the Alta Scuola in Economia e Relazioni Internazionali (ASERI) of Milan. Leader writer for
Avvenire,
La Stampa and
Il Giornale del Popolo, he collaborates with
Limes and L’infedele (La7).
Madawi al-Rasheed
Professor of social anthropology at King’s College London, she is an expert in the history, society, religion and politics of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. She has studied the situation of the Christian minorities in the Middle East and the Arab migrations.
Olivier Roy
French orientalist and politologist at the European University Institute, he has held the Mediterranean Chair at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies since September 2009. Formerly he was director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociale (EHESS) and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris (IEP).
Malika Zeghal
Politologist and former professor of Anthropology and sociology of religion at the University of Chicago, she is the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life at the University of Harvard. She has published various works on the relationship between the state and Islamic religious institutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco.
