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Europe and the birth of Arab states in the Middle East
April 28, 20156:00 pm
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
6:00 pm
Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.
Conference given by Gudrun Harrer, a journalist and Middle East analyst.
Casa Árabe and the Cultural Forum of Austria in Madrid present the conference “Europe and the Birth of Arab States in the Middle East After World War I,” to be presented by Peter Huber, the Ambassador of Austria in Spain, and Eduardo Lopez Busquets, General Director of Casa Árabe.
One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Arab nation-state system created by European powers during the post-war period is now under pressure. The self-named “Islamic State” could put an end to the current borders of the states of Iraq and Syria, which brings up the matter of where these states’ lack of resilience originates. The most frequent response is that they were created and have been maintained as “artificial” states, but this does not explain the phenomenon sufficiently. The first political decisions reached by Great Britain and France, and later by a series of undemocratic regimes, have contributed to these societies’ fragility.
Dr. Gudrun Harrer is the editor of the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. She is a professor of Middle Eastern Politics and Modern History at the University of Vienna and the Diplomatic School in Vienna. She worked for her country’s government as a Special Envoy to Iraq and is the author of several books, including Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme (Routledge 2014). In 2015, she received the prestigious Bruno Kreisky Award, which acknowledges achievements in the field of human rights made by institutions or individuals.
One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Arab nation-state system created by European powers during the post-war period is now under pressure. The self-named “Islamic State” could put an end to the current borders of the states of Iraq and Syria, which brings up the matter of where these states’ lack of resilience originates. The most frequent response is that they were created and have been maintained as “artificial” states, but this does not explain the phenomenon sufficiently. The first political decisions reached by Great Britain and France, and later by a series of undemocratic regimes, have contributed to these societies’ fragility.
Dr. Gudrun Harrer is the editor of the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. She is a professor of Middle Eastern Politics and Modern History at the University of Vienna and the Diplomatic School in Vienna. She worked for her country’s government as a Special Envoy to Iraq and is the author of several books, including Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme (Routledge 2014). In 2015, she received the prestigious Bruno Kreisky Award, which acknowledges achievements in the field of human rights made by institutions or individuals.
