Series "After South Sudan referendum: challenges and implications"

Casa Árabe organizes in Madrid this series, wich is divided in two round tables (on May 31st and June 14th) and a bookstand (on June 7th).

TUESDAY 31st MAY. TRIBUNE. Process and challenges in the creation of a new state in Africa

The first round table is devoted to After South Sudan Referendum: challenges and implications, Sokol Kondi, Senior Civil Affairs Officer for the United Nations Peacekeeping department and UNMIS representative (United Nations Mission in the Sudan); and Aranzazu Flores, member of the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division for the referendum and its preparation.

Both will discuss on the post-referendum situation, as well as on the celebration process, the conflict context and previous peace accords, in order to analyse the current challenges for the maintenance of the stability and the ongoing peacekeeping process within the country.

The event will take place at Casa Árabe’s Auditorium in Madrid (c/ Alcalá 62) at 19.30. Free entrance.

TUESDAY 7th JUNE. BOOKSTAND: Sudan Islamist movement

On June 7th, Casa Árabe will host a debate and the book launching of El movimiento islamista sudanés: discursos, estrategias, transformaciones [Sudan Islamist movement: speeches, strategies, transformations]. Gema Martín Muñoz, Director General of Casa Árabe; Rafael Ortega, book’s author, researcher at Casa Árabe’s International Institute for Arab and Muslim World Studies and Rosa María Calaf Social Investigation Prize 2010; and Caridad Ruiz de Almodóvar, professor at the University of Granada, will take part in the event.

The book provides an analysis of the evolution from the Islamist movement in Sudan and its complex speech variety and structure, from the beginnings of the first groups linked to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, to the surge of a specifically Sudanese movement and its following transformations, headed by Hasan al-Turabi.

The event will take place at Casa Árabe’s Auditorium in Madrid (c/ Alcalá, 62) at 19.30. Free entrance.

TUESDAY 14th JUNE. TRIBUNE: “July Independence Declaration: local and regional implications”

On June 14th, Casa Árabe organizes this tribune where Gema Martín Muñoz, Director General of Casa Árabe; Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, General Secretary Assistant for Communication of the Umma National Party and former member of the board of trustees for the Forum of Youth for Arabic Thought; and Yasir Arman, Vicesecretary General from the North of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and candidate to the Presidency in 2010 elections.

The event will take place at Casa Árabe’s Auditorium in Madrid (c/ Alcalá, 62) at 19.30. Free entrance.

BIOGRAPHIES

Yasir Arman, Vice Secretary General of the MPLS/North, candidate to Sudan´s president in 2010 and former member of its Parliament.

Aranzazu Flores has been a civic and voter education officer within the Electoral Assistance Division in the United Nations Mission in Sudan for the past 15 months. She received her M.A. at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 2003 where she specialized in Latin America and the MENA regions. She holds a political science bachelor with honors degree at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (concentration International Politics) and a political science and public administration bachelor’s degree at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She has also enrolled summer school programs at Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago de Chile and American University of Beirut. She occasionally teaches international trade, culture and politics in the MENA region at both undergraduate and graduate level at Universidad de Sevilla and Universidad Internacional de Andalucía.

Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi is currently the General Secretary Assistant for Communications in the Umma National Party (UNP). She has been a member of the board of trustees for the Forum of Youth for Arabic Thought. Ms. Al-Mahdi has also worked for al-Ahfad University, and the Geneva Call. Her expertise lies in democracy and good governance. She attended the University of Jordan, the University of Liverpool, the al-Ahfad University, and the Sudanese Medical Council for Specialization. She is author of Gender Analysis of Wealth Sharing Protocol in the CPA, Gender and Good Governance, Right to Vote, and Women and Being Religious. Ms. al-Mahdi’s achievements include the constitutional adoption of the quota for women in UNP at the general conference in 2003, and shifting the status of women’s issues into the development sector, rather than an exclusive sector for women that would be kept away from the work of politics in the UNP.

Rafael Ortega has a degree in Geography and History from the University of Valencia and a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Granada. He has taught at the University of Cairo, an interpreter at the Spanish Embassy in Cairo, and editor and translator in Arab International Service EFE. He is currently Senior Researcher at Casa Árabe and its International Institute of Arab and Muslim World and deputy director of the electronic journal Sociopolitical Atalaya of Casa Árabe.