Will Kymlicka, Eva Pföstl (eds) (2014), Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World
Will Kymlicka, Eva Pföstl (eds) (2014), Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World

Summary/Abstract: Over the last five years, the Arab world has undergone significant transformations. The Arab Spring, which began in 2011 with the escape of Tunisian president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia, not only led to profound changes in the political sphere in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa (hereafter MENA), but also shook the fundaments of social divisions and questioned the existing methods of regional management of cultural and religious diversity. At the same time, the Arab revolutions attest to the failure of Arab governments to deal creatively with the problems of societal pluralism, including issues of minorities. As a consequence, many previously ignored or taboo political and social issues were brought up and publically debated. The recently published book Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World, edited by Will Kymlicka and Eva Pföstl, is very useful at a time when the international community is closely observing frequently turbulent transformations of the states and societies in the MENA region. In some sense it follows Kymlicka’s efforts to assess how Western ideas on the management of ethnic/religious diversity influence and relate to other social and political contexts.1 However, it also goes further, by aiming to explore how ‘identity politics’ functions and how minority rights are understood and debated in the region.

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