Editors’ Foreword
Dear Readers,
The 2022-2023 editorial team of the Oxford Middle East Review (OMER) is proud to
present the seventh edition of our journal. OMER was founded in 2016 by two students
of Middle Eastern Studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, providing a space for
students and scholars to thoughtfully engage with issues pertaining to the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) region. We are proud to still call OMER our institutional
home.
2022-2023 has been a remarkable year for OMER. Our 30-person editorial team is the
largest in OMER’s history. This dedicated group of individuals devoted their time and
efforts to build on the wonderful work of the previous editorial teams, and further
grounded OMER as a student-led academic publication in the area of Middle-Eastern
studies. OMER’s large team involved sub-teams that managed communications, grants,
events, and OMER’s blog. OMER’s social media outreach allowed our content to reach
even more readers, fostering the journal’s name and expanding the potential of its future
editions. This year, OMER’s blog launched a special weekly series on the pertinent
events in the MENA region. Thanks to our editorial team and outside contributors, the
blog now has over forty articles on OMER’s website, including book reviews, interviews
with academics and activists, political commentary, and poetry.
The theme of this year’s issue is “The Afterlives of Revolution”, which invited
contributors to consider the concept “afterlife” not as an end but rather as a continuity
amidst turbulence, changes, transformation, and loss. Our stance expands the
description of the word “afterlife” from life after death and/or rebirth to “the instance of
continued use or influence”, as the Oxford English Dictionary describes it. In this issue,
we advocated for the utilization of the concept of “afterlives” to avoid the imaginaries
of new beginnings after revolutions, and to illustrate the alternative forms of being
following rupture, and the perseverance of human experiences during turbulent
times. From the fall of empires to the events of the Arab Spring twelve years ago, the
contributors in this issue demonstrate the transforming impact of revolutions on the
social, political, economic, and demographic landscapes of the Middle East and North
Africa.
From a remarkable range of submissions, our team has chosen seven articles that
explore the theme from various original perspectives. First, Esther Schoorel examines
the social and political movements in the aftermath of the 2019 Lebanese uprising
through a memory studies approach. Natasha Parnian then looks at Iran to examine
the influence of the nationalist corpus of the late Qajar to the Pahlavi era. Tessa Di
Vizio’s article focuses on Gulf monarchies’ interventions in Yemen and Syria in favour
of anti-regime protesters. Riley Sanborn studies Tunisia’s emerging neo-authoritarian
political movements through the influence of electoral coalitions. Sam Lytton
Cobbold’s article examines Britain’s impact on Oman’s Sultanism in the aftermath of
the Dhofar Revolution. The policy paper written by Achref Chibani and Joshua E. Rigg
demonstrates the influence of the “irregular” migration route that spans from Tunisia’s
Tataouine governorate to France on Tunisia’s recent history of revolution. Lastly, Helen
Murphey investigates the discursive role different political authorities played in the
Jasmine revolution in Tunisia.
We are proud to present such a powerful and well-researched array of articles from
contributors around the world. OMER’s success is a testament to the hard work and
dedication of our team, illustrating the salient role student-run initiatives play in
expanding scholarly work on the MENA region. OMER’s editorial team extends their
gratitude to our peer reviewers who generously provided invaluable feedback to the
selected authors and our editors. Lastly, thank you, our dear readers, for supporting
our endeavours.
Wesam Hassan, St. Antony’s College
Serra Yedikardeş, St. Antony’s College
Managing Editors 2022-2023
Journal Leadership and Contributing Editors
Ella Williams (Treasurer), Matthew J. Smith (Director of Communications), Insiya Raja (Co-Chief Blog Editor), Charles Ough (Co-Chief Blog Editor), Mehr Nadeem (Events Manager)
Abid Zaidi, Adam Rouhana, Ana-Diamond Aaba Atach, Angus Kingsley-Anderson, Ashkan Hashemipour, Aurelia Finch, Bushra Shaikh, Cem Gümüşdiş, Ezgi Yazıcı, Farah Al Hadid, Henna Moussavi, Ju Young Han, Katharina Krause, Luise Eder, Luqman Abu El Foul, Miriam Aitken, Reyam Rammahi, Rosa Rahimi, Stephanie Graban, Su Hyeon Cho, Theo Detweiler, Yuran Shi, Ziad Kiblawi
Special thanks to OMER’s senior member, Professor Eugene Rogan.
Volume VII Articles
For Your Sake We Continue:
Memory and Mobilisation in the Aftermath of the 2019 Lebanese Uprising
Esther G. M. Schoorel
From Cyrus to Hossein:
The Politics of the Ancient Past in Modern Iran
Natasha Parnian
Chaos and Crisis:
Gulf Interference in the Arab Uprisings in Yemen and Syria, 2011-2021
Elizabeth Monier
Voting for Autocracy:
The Socio-political Demographics and Geography of Electoral Support for
the Free Destourian Party (PDL) of Tunisia
Riley Sanborn
Sultanism in Oman:
The Afterlife of the Dhofar Revolution (1964-1976)
Sam Lytton Cobbold
Protest, Migration and Oil:
The Kamour sit-in and the Surreptitious Afterlives of the Tunisian Revolution
Achref Chibani and Joshua E. Rigg
Behind the “Hillary Clinton Spring” 128
Unpacking the Parti Destourien Libre’s Demonisation of the Arab Uprisings
Helen Murphey
Oxford Middle East Review 