Puritanical Salafist Muslims have attacked Sufi shrines and communities across the Arab world in a campaign to spread their influence. But in Tunisia, where national history and identity are intimately intertwined with Sufism, the Salafis have been thwarted, CSM’s Taylor Luck reports.
Seven years after uprisings that shook the Middle East and North Africa, many civil society leaders, activists, politicians, and journalists from U.S.-allied regional states are worried that Washington’s attention to political pluralism is waning, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy reports. To better understand these concerns and explore future avenues for U.S. engagement, WINEP hosts a Policy Forum with three such figures visiting Washington under the auspices of the Hollings Center for International Dialogue. They will be joined by two Institute fellows: Bilal Wahab and moderator Andrew J. Tabler.
Credit: Solidar Tunisia
PROMOTING POLITICAL PLURALISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2018. 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Aboubakr Jamai is dean of the School of Business and International Relations at IAU College, where he focuses on Middle East politics, media and conflict, and related issues.
Lobna Jeribi (right) is founder and president of the parliamentary think tank Solidar Tunisia [a partner of the National Endowment for Democracy]. She has served as a member of Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly and cofounded the citizen movement #OPEN for OpenGov and OpenBudget.
Oussama Sghaier is a member of the Ennahda Party’s political bureau, the Tunisian Assembly of the People’s Representatives for the constituency of Italy, the parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, and the commission for investigating networks involved in sending 
Tunisian youths to conflict zones.
Bilal Wahab is the Nathan and Esther K. Wagner Fellow at The Washington Institute. He has taught at the American University of Iraq, where he established the Center for Development and Natural Resources.
This event will be held at The Washington Institute, 1111 19th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC, 20036. It will also be broadcast live on the WINEP website.
