mei-nus

ME 101 Lecture #04: Geopolitical Competition in the Middle East | China – Can the Dragon Tame the Middle East or will the Middle East Tame the Dragon?

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

ME101 Lecture Series 2022 #05: Geopolitical Competition in the Middle East | Russia and the Middle East

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

ME 101 Lecture #06: The Challenge Beyond Economics | What to Expect from Egypt Host of Upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP 27)

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

[Book Talk] Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society under Authoritarianism

In the past, media and think-tanks have published numerous reports and papers on the social transformations happening in the Arabian Peninsula, and, more specifically, inside Saudi Arabia. However, this analysis too often focused on the changes brought about from the top, via government initiatives like the emblematic Saudi Vision 2030. The newly-published book, Charity in Saudi Arabia, takes the opposite tack. In this innovative study of everyday charity practices in Jeddah, author Nora Derbal employs a “bottom-up” approach to challenge dominant narratives about state-society relations in Saudi Arabia. Exploring charity organisations in Jeddah, the book offers a rich ethnography of associational life. It counters Riyadh-centric studies which focus on oil, the royal family, and the religious establishment, while closely following those who work on the ground to provide charity to local poor and needy to document their achievements, struggles, and daily negotiations.

In this webinar, Dr. Derbal will explain why the lens of charity offers rare insights into the religiosity of ordinary Saudis, showing that Islam offers Saudi activists a language, a moral frame, and a worldly guide to confronting inequality. Charity in Saudi Arabia examines perspectives that are too often ignored or neglected, opening new debates about civil society and civic activism in the Gulf.

Lecture #07: Geopolitical Competition in the Middle East | The Centrality of Central Asia

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

COP 27 and the Middle East – From Ambitious Climate Pledges to Action?

The 27^th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Egypt from 6 to 18 November 2022. The location in Egypt, part of a wider Middle East region vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, offers a better opportunity to reflect regional concerns, challenges, and diverse national circumstances. This public discussion aims to examine the current state of climate action and implementation gaps in the Middle East.

• What are the key climate change challenges facing the Middle East countries?
• What are the climate adaptation implementation gaps in the Middle East?
• How will variant national circumstances shape Middle East countries’ contribution to climate mitigation and global energy transition?
• What are the specific climate policies and aspects of governance that contribute to more effective climate mitigation and adaptation?
• How can Middle East countries adapt to extreme weather events?
• What is the current state and gaps of climate finance in the Middle East?
• How can Middle East countries seize the opportunity to voice their regional climate concerns and interests at COP 27?

The Middle East Institute, in collaboration with the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics and Political Science, will host two panels to tackle these and other questions.

Sinostan: China’s Inadvertent Empire

China’s rise is changing the world. Much attention has been given to how China’s geo-economic vision is playing out in the global economy, or how its technology is reshaping the planet. Yet, it is over its western borders, in Central Asia, that China’s influence has been quietly expanding in a more pervasive way. It is here that you can find the first strand of Xi Jinping’s grand Belt and Road Initiative, China’s new Silk Road to the West. It is to the Eurasian heartland that we can look to for an understanding of China’s new foreign policy vision and its consequences.

In Sinostan, Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen recount their travels across Central Asia to tell the story of China’s growing influence. They interview Chinese traders in latter-day Silk Road bazaars; climb remote mountain passes threatened by construction; commiserate with Afghan archaeologists charged with saving centuries-old Buddhist ruins before they are swept away by mining projects; meet with eager young Central Asians learning Mandarin; and sit with officials in all five Central Asian capitals, bearing witness to a region increasingly transformed by Beijing’s presence. Their stories and experiences illustrate how China’s foreign policy initiative has expressed itself on the ground, and what it means for those living both within and beyond the boundaries of its “inadvertent empire”.

Great Power Rivalry and the Middle East

As China deepens its engagement in the Middle East, the United States is relooking its posture in the region. These moves will impact ties between Washington and its traditional partners. Join us as experts from the Washington Institute, dissect the issue.

Indigenising Islam as a Minority: A South African Community with Southeast Asian Origins, and the case of Shaykh Seraj Hendricks

The Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, in coordination with Wardah Books, invites you to join Dr Hisham A. Hellyer, a scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA), Dr Suzaina Kadir, Vice Dean and Associate Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS and Mr Fazlur Rahman, a Muslim community leader for a discussion on the ‘indigenisation’ of Islam as minorities, with reflections on the South African Capetonian Muslim community in general, and the example of the late Shaykh Seraj Hendricks, often referred to as the ‘Mufti of Cape Town’. 

Capetonian Muslims are indelibly impacted by South-east Asia, one of the main origins of Muslim South Africa, while deeply impacted by Western traditions. The community’s history as a deeply integral component of South Africa, which was cut off from much of the world due to its earlier apartheid regime, has since become a focus of interest of many Muslim minority communities. 

Shaykh Seraj Hendricks was a contemporary South African Sufi shaykh and Islamic scholar who drew from his own Western education and training from sages and savants in Mecca, many of whom also taught numerous South-east Asian Muslim religious authorities. 

[Book Launch] Asian Perceptions of Gulf Security

Gulf stability is beginning to play a larger role in the foreign policy calculus of many states, but the evolving role of Asian powers is largely under-represented in the International Relations literature. To fill this gap, MEI will host a discussion with the editors and contributors of a new book that provides fresh perspectives on the topic. The underlying assumption is not that Asian powers have already become important security actors in the Gulf, but that they perceive the Gulf as a region of increasing strategic relevance. How will leaders in these countries adjust to an evolving regional framework? Will there be coordinated efforts to establish an Asian-centred approach to Gulf stability, or will Asian rivalries make the region a theatre of competition? Will US–China tensions force alignment choices among Asian powers? Will Asian states balance, bandwagon, hedge, or adopt some other approach to their Gulf relationships? These and other questions will be covered by the panel.