Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Conference in USJ to commemorate Samir Kassir (June 8-9)

The Samir Kassir Blog

BEIRUT: To commemorate the first anniversary of Samir Kassir’s death, the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences and the Institute of Political Science at the Université Saint Joseph (USJ) are holding a two-day conference entitled The Middle East: Conflicts and Issues. The conference will be held on June 8 and 9, 2006 at USJ's Social Sciences campus, Rue Huvelin, Beirut.
The opening session will include words from Samir Kassir’s widow, Gisèle Khoury, the president of USJ, as well as welcome notes from the French embassy in Beirut and the Institute of Political Sciences.
The first session is entitled Which Arab Renaissance in the International Context? Panelists include the VP of Arab and Islamic studies at USJ Ahyaf Sinno, the poet Adonis, professor and journalist Katrin Kneisel, and Director General of Le Monde Diplomatique Samir Aita.
The second day will include three sessions covering a wider range of topics. The morning session will discuss the current religious and political situation in the Middle East. The afternoon session will entertain the Palestinian situation titled The Fate of Palestine and the Future of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The concluding session is titled Testimonies and Experiences in Mass Mobilization in the Arab World.
Participants in this academic conference comprise journalists, academics, poets and politicians including prominent public figures such as the Knesset member Azmi Bechara, former minister Samir Makdissi, and Democratic Left Movement member and writer Elias Khoury.

4 Comments:

Blogger Dr Victorino de la Vega said...

As much as I have little sympathy for the Stalinist Syrian regime of Qardaha and its (dwindling) phalanx of Lebanese collaborators (a lesser evil than the March 14 Saudi stooges if you want my opinion, but that’s another debate), I think Samir Kassir is a generally overrated intellectual who went from the apology of revolutionary Marxism to the glorification of the Bush regime…all in the name of the “defense of freedom” of course!

In fact, one could argue that Kassir simply lifted some of Hannah Arendt’s ideas and translated them into mediocre Arabic, thus offering a palatable libertarian soup to the low-brow readers of Al-Nahar and other Beirut-based “musaqqafeen” poseurs.

As for the Baath party and its founders’ alleged “penchant for totalitarianism”, well nothing could be further from the historical truth.

Suffice it to say that professors Mitchell Aflaq and Saladin Al-Bitar both had to leave Syria precipitously in 1966 precisely because the Stalinist regime who raised Samir Kassir’s generation of “new leftist Arab thinkers” and brought Rafic Hariri to power tried to assassinate them in the days following the Assad junta’s successful military coup.

On July 21 1980, Salah al-Din Al-Bitar was shot dead in Paris by General Assad’s henchmen...

6:47 PM  
Blogger Hilal CHOUMAN said...

dear friends check this post in my blog.. it is about sammir kassir.

سمير قصير: أذكر أنني

9:17 PM  
Blogger Hilal CHOUMAN said...

sorry the right link is:
سمير قصير: أذكر أنني

9:26 PM  
Blogger Gab Ferneiné said...

vega u r everywhere!!!!!!

6:12 PM  

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