Description

The state is in flux. As state borders have become abstract within Europe, they are increasingly rigid without, expanding into the high seas off the coast of Libya and Tunisia to keep migrants at bay. Regionalism has become nationalistic from Scotland to Catalonia, and attempts to redesign the frontiers of European states have become more relevant than ever before. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the state has collapsed in Iraq and in Syria, and there is reason to question whether multi-ethnic, pluri-religious states can exist in the ruins of two disastrous and unending wars. Kurdistan is moving towards de facto statehood,
while the Islamic State has imposed itself as a de facto proto-state. UNESCO and Sweden have recently recognised the state of Palestine, but the symbolics of recognition do not yet trump the reality of Israeli colonialism. What is the state of the State within this increasingly fragmented context? To address this question, Khaled Hourani will report on his project Picasso in Palestine, and Fawwaz Traboulsi will report on the legacy of Sykes-Picot in the age of Da’esh, shifting borders and the evolving forms of nationalism in Europe, the Near East and the Asian subcontinent.