PUBLICATIONS
Spring 2012
Aisha Ahmad: Knowledge Without Action Is Injustice
Belfer Center Newsletter
As a child, Aisha Ahmad remembers vividly the arms bazaars in Peshawar and the throngs of bearded mujahedeen commanders as they passed through her grandfather’s smoke laden offices in the Pakistani frontier province.Though she was born in the UK and grew up in Canada, her family retained strong ties with their native community and during her youth Ahmad regularly traveled to the unruly Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.
Spring 2012
The Business of Islamism: A Rational Look at Political Islam in Somalia
Belfer Center Newsletter
By Aisha Ahmad, Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2011–2012
"The rise of political Islam in failed states is one of the most pressing security concerns in the world today. Given the increasingly tense interaction between the United States and Islamic countries, such as Pakistan and Iran, the potential for new Islamic regimes emerging out of failed states in Africa, Asia and the Middle East could add a notable degree of uncertainty to future international relations," writes Aisha Ahmad, a research fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program/Program on Religion in International Affairs.
Spring 2012
Hot Off the Presses
Belfer Center Newsletter
By Susan M. Lynch, Program Assistant, International Security Program; Web Manager, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
A brief survey of recent publications by Belfer Center affiliates.
March 16, 2012
Religious Freedom and Religious Extremism
By Monica Duffy Toft, Former Associate Professor of Public Policy; Former Board Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Former Director, Initiative on Religion and International Affairs
Monica Duffy Toft moderates panel at Religious Freedom and Extemism conference at Georgetown University: "How Repression Breeds Religious Extremism - and How Religious Freedom Does the Opposite"
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/FreedomandR&showFullAbstract=1
AP Photo
March 13, 2012
"Afghanistan Atrocity Prompts Rethink of US Policy"
GlobalPost
By Aisha Ahmad, Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2011–2012
"The great folly of this long-term plan is that propping up such a corrupt regime will necessarily generate insurgency. No Afghan will stay at home while local strongmen engage in rape, murder and extortion. Therefore, the international community's plan is to support a weak central government that is corrupt enough to incite rebellion against it, but strong enough to at least partially suppress that rebellion. In other words, the international community is on course to maintain a low-intensity civil war in Afghanistan, ad infinitum."
March 7, 2012
Call for Applications: Religious Violence Summer Program at Columbia University
By Monica Duffy Toft, Former Associate Professor of Public Policy; Former Board Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Former Director, Initiative on Religion and International Affairs
The Hertog Global Strategy Initiative seeks talented undergraduate and graduate students for its 2012 seminar on the History and Future of Religious Violence and Apocalyptic Movements.
Photo by Martha Stewart
February 1, 2012
"Winning the War on War?"
“The departure of the last American troops from Iraq brings relief to a nation that has endured its most painful war since Vietnam...And it could very well be the last one,” wrote Steven Pinker and Joshua Goldstein in the New York Times last December. On Monday January 30th, the Belfer Center's Stephen Walt and Monica Duffy Toft joined Goldstein and Pinker at the JFK Jr. Forum and asked: "Is War on the Way Out?"
September 23, 2011
Belfer Center Welcomes New Research Fellows
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs this week announced its 2011-12 research fellows. The Belfer Center is the hub of research, teaching, and training in international security affairs and diplomacy, environmental and resource issues, science and technology policy, and conflict studies at Harvard Kennedy School; the heart of the Center is its resident research community. The 32 new fellows join 30 continuing fellows drawn from governments, academia, and the public and private sector.
AP Photo
September 17, 2011
"The 'Glocalized' Roots of Religious Politics: Extremism from Below, Not Abroad"
The Huffington Post
By Monica Duffy Toft, Former Associate Professor of Public Policy; Former Board Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Former Director, Initiative on Religion and International Affairs
"What the Arab uprisings revealed is that today's people, in the Arab world assuredly but not only there, desire less a unified ideology around a single leader or leadership that touts triumphalism over some form of evil and more a system of governance that promotes accountability, transparency and protects every individual's needs and interests."
AP Photo
August 11, 2011
"The Dangers of Secularism in the Middle East"
Christian Science Monitor
By Daniel Philpott, Timothy Samuel Shah and Monica Duffy Toft, Former Associate Professor of Public Policy; Former Board Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Former Director, Initiative on Religion and International Affairs
"...[W]e find that religious groups are most likely to be peaceful and supportive of democracy when they live under regimes that respect their autonomy. Islamic countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Senegal, and Turkey demonstrate that when Islamic parties participate in politics they not only operate by the rules of the democratic game but also, in time, become more moderate."
