Articles
What is Truly Happening in Today's Yemen?
Tawakkol Karman
Nobel Peace Laureate
Was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 in recognition of her work in nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peacebuilding work in Yemen. Amongst Yemen’s opposition movement, she is known as “mother of the revolution” and “the iron woman.” Upon being awarded the prize, Tawakkol became the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate at the time, at the age of 32.
Moncef Marzouki
Former President of Tunisia
Was the first democratically elected president of Tunisia after the January 14th Revolution. He is a doctor of medicine, a human rights activist, an author of numerous works on political philosophy in the Arab world, and founder of the center-left Congress Party for the Republic (CPR). In 2015, Dr. Marzouki founded the Movement for Popular Citizenship. He has published more than twenty books in Arabic and French between 1980 and 2011, encompassing a variety of topics related to the ideas and ideals of democracy and human rights in Arab-Islamic society.
Session One
What is Truly Happening in Today's Yemen?
Dr. Nasser Zawia
University of Rhode Island Dean, URI Graduate School
Is the Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Rhode Island, where he oversees about 90 masters, doctoral, and professional degree programs with an enrollment of about 3000 students. He is the founder and director of the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program and played a founding role in the formation of the George and Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience. He has received numerous honors such as US Environmental Protection Agency (Scientific and Technological Achievement Award, Level I), Fidia Foundation, NIH, the Government of Yemen, the Indian Society of Physiology, and others.
Fatima Alasrar
Senior Analyst, Arabia Foundation
Is a Senior Analyst for the Arabia Foundation. Prior to joining the Arabia Foundation, Ms. Fatima was the MENA director for Cure Violence, a research associate at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a Mason fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, and an international policy fellow at the Open Society Foundations. From 2006-2012 she worked as an advisor for the Embassy of Yemen in Washington, DC. Earlier in her career, Ms. Fatima served as a program officer for the Department for International Development (DFID) in Yemen.
Bernard Haykel
Director, The Transregional Institute, Princeton University
Is professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University where he directs the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East and the Program in Near Eastern Studies. He is a scholar of the Arabian Peninsula, with focuses on Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), and Yemen. Professor Haykel is the author of Revival and Reform in Islam, and most recently the co-editor of Saudi Arabia in Transition. He has received several prominent awards including Oxford’s Prize Fellowship, the Carnegie Corporation and Guggenheim fellowships and the Princeton’s Old Dominion Professorship.
Stephen W. Day
Author and Adjunct Professor, Rollins College
Is an adjunct professor of international affairs at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, specializing in Middle East politics with a focus on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. Over the past two decades, Dr. Day taught at St. Lawrence University of New York, Indiana University, and Stetson University of Florida. He was designated a specialist in diplomacy and peacemaking by the Fulbright scholarship program between 2012 and 2014. He is author of the 2012 book, Regionalism and Rebellion in Yemen: A Troubled National Union, and Global Regional, and Local Dynamics in Yemen's War (forthcoming, 2020).
Hassan El-Tayyab
Co-director, Just Foreign Policy
Is a Co-director of Just Foreign Policy. He is immensely involved in various grassroots lobbying efforts for peace in Yemen, which contributed to the Senate passage SJRes54 war powers resolution to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi war on Yemen. He has worked with numerous advocacy organizations including Freedom Works, Defense Priorities, In Defense of Christians, the Koch Institute, FCNL, Win Without War, Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy, Demand Progress, Yemen Peace Project, Peace Action, and many others. Hassan has also taken dozens of meetings with Congressional offices alongside national security expert Col Larry Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell’s chief of Staff during the Bush Administration.