Noureddin Zaamout | University of Alberta (original) (raw)

Thesis Chapters by Noureddin Zaamout

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication , 2020

Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the coloni... more Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the colonial condition and retrieving a repressed cosmopolitan worldliness that has been overshadowed by the contradictions of postcolonial politics. Dabashi posits that the pluralist and egalitarian slogans of protesters were an expression of this worldliness. In this research I assess this claim in the context of Syria. I examine the question: Has this cosmopolitan orientation resurfaced in Syria? I argue that the 2011 Syrian uprising was a retrieval of what Dabashi describes as repressed cosmopolitan worldliness. It was a grassroots attempt to bring an inclusive meaning to Syrianism, consistent with the country's boundaries and reflective of its ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism. The transformation of the crisis into a global proxy war has resulted in the rise of hundreds of armed groups driven by competing projects that have vacated the revolutionary attempt to redefine Syrianism.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said... more Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said’s classic piece Orientalism, but has bourgeoned into an interdisciplinary approach, permeating a variety of fields in the social sciences. It was not developed specifically in conversation with security studies, but rather emerged as a critique of the very epistemological structures through which knowledge is produced in the social science. It is best understood as an epistemology that seeks to decenter and delink a Eurocentric monopoly of power and knowledge production, challenging scholars to reflect on the assumptions, ideas, and the beliefs that they hold (Spivak 1988; Mignolo 2007, 2009; Loomba 2015). This paper will discuss the primary arguments put forward by post-colonial scholars, with a focus on demonstrating how these arguments relate to security studies

China Institute University of Alberta , 2019

Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, ... more Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Canada and China. Ms. Meng’s arrest was made at the request of U.S. authorities and she is currently enveloped in a complex extradition proceeding. In what was widely considered a retaliatory measure, two Canadians were subsequently detained in China. Concurrently, both the U.S and Canada are considering measures which would limit the use of Huawei technology and equipment in their respective 5G telecommunications networks. Critics claim that Huawei’s allegedly close relationship with the Chinese state gives rise to national security concerns. Further, they argue that the Canadian government should adopt a more cautious approach to relations with China in general. In contrast, Chinese officials suggest that the national security concerns have been overblown and that American restrictions on Huawei products are unduly punitive.

Huawei, a multinational technology company based in Shenzhen, China, has experienced meteoric rise, in terms of both financial success and global reach, since its founding in 1987. Although Huawei began as a domestic Chinese reseller of foreign-made telephone switches, it invested heavily in internal R&D and quickly shifted to producing independently designed equipment. Huawei’s revenue steadily increased throughout the 1990s, eventually leading to expansion into the international market. Today, Huawei is a powerful and internationally recognized brand with global reach. Huawei’s primary revenue-driving business units are its consumer division (smartphones, laptops, wearable technology) and carrier division (telecommunications network equipment and services, including 5G technology).

The Huawei case is broadly indicative of the cooling broader bilateral relations between Western countries and China. Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the Trump Administration has been outspoken in its criticism, warning allies of the potential dangers of procurement from Huawei, as well as the implications of a Huawei-developed 5G network. A number of U.S. allies, including New Zealand and Australia (both members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance), have raised similar concerns and blocked Huawei involvement in future 5G network development. However, these concerns are not always shared by developing countries, who tend to view Huawei as a cost-effective provider of quality telecommunications products.

As a result of recent controversies surrounding Huawei and the detention of Canadian citizens in China, Huawei has become the subject of significant news coverage and public attention.This media frenzy risks confusion and, in some cases misinformation, regarding Huawei. This paper does not attempt to generate policy recommendations, but rather to provide context and perspective to the issue at hand. Aimed at both the policy community and the general public, this paper seeks to present an overview that charts the path of Huawei from its inception onwards, providing context to inform future discussion and research. The China Institute looks forward to informed and meaningful dialogue on the future of Canada-China relations, including the role that Huawei may or may not play in the development of Canada’s telecommunications infrastructure.

This research project examines the following central question: what does Syrian identity mean in ... more This research project examines the following central question: what does Syrian identity mean in the eyes of contending groups in the current Syrian crisis (2011-2017)? In answering this question, the project engages in original research, shedding light on the ‘identity’ dimension of the war in Syria. It challenges primordialist and/or Orientalist approaches to identity, which shadow the cosmopolitan components of the Middle East, confining the region’s identity-politics to notions of sectarianism and conservative militant Islamism resistant to modernity. Through employing Hamid Dabashi’s critical postcolonial cosmopolitan framework of analysis, the research historicizes the crisis of Syrian identity, focusing on critical periods ranging from the 1920s, up to the contemporary crisis (2011-2017). It demonstrates that the country’s postcolonial state-imposed national identity projects have for years been exclusionary, and either have been shaped by, or have encountered, three ideological formations: those are, anti-colonial nationalism, third-world socialism, and Islamism. These formations emerged in conversation with, and in response to, European colonialism and were conveniently deployed by the ruling regimes to legitimatize their position. Through a discourse and content analysis, based on Dabashi’s analytical framework, the research argues that the 2011 Syrian Uprising was an attempt to bring an inclusive meaning to ‘Syrianism’ and to retrieve the repressed cosmopolitan worldliness. Protestors were committed to a unified Syria, as a political entity and a source of identity. They were not seeking an Islamist, a pan-‘Arabist’, a separatist, a Ba’athist socialist or a sectarian vision, but were rather united by prospects of creating a locally produced alternative that would maintain national harmony and retrieve the country’s cosmopolitanism. The research argues that the prolonging of the Syrian conflict has resulted in the deterioration of an inclusive, cosmopolitan ‘Syrianism’, as various actors have risen with conflicting ideas about national identity. Using archival primary and secondary sources, the research problematizes the identity discourse of the conflicting groups and to compare where they place ‘Syria’ in their ideologies. The research findings suggest that the ideologies of the studied combatant groups embody counter-revolutionary exclusionary notions of identity, which are not based on the cosmopolitan worldliness, but rather reinforce the suppressed, reactionary and exclusionary post-colonial ideological dichotomies.

Papers by Noureddin Zaamout

Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said... more Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said’s classic piece Orientalism, but has bourgeoned into an interdisciplinary approach, permeating a variety of fields in the social sciences. It was not developed specifically in conversation with security studies, but rather emerged as a critique of the very epistemological structures through which knowledge is produced in the social science. It is best understood as an epistemology that seeks to decenter and delink a Eurocentric monopoly of power and knowledge production, challenging scholars to reflect on the assumptions, ideas, and the beliefs that they hold (Spivak 1988; Mignolo 2007, 2009; Loomba 2015). This paper will discuss the primary arguments put forward by post-colonial scholars, with a focus on demonstrating how these arguments relate to security studies

He is currently a Ph.D student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Albert... more He is currently a Ph.D student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta, specializing in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. In his first field of focus, Noureddin specialises in international relations theory and the study of Sino-Middle Eastern relations. In the second, he specialises in the study of democratization, social movements and contentious politics as well as post-colonial theory. Noureddin is also a Policy Researcher at the China Institute University of Alberta (CIUA). At the CIUA, he is responsible for conducting research on a wide variety of topics as well as managing the CIUA' s China-Canada Investment Tracker Database. iv v Table of Contents Overview of China's Relations with the Middle East .

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication

Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the coloni... more Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the colonial condition and retrieving a repressed cosmopolitan worldliness that has been overshadowed by the contradictions of postcolonial politics. Dabashi posits that the pluralist and egalitarian slogans of protesters were an expression of this worldliness. In this research I assess this claim in the context of Syria. I examine the question: Has this cosmopolitan orientation resurfaced in Syria? I argue that the 2011 Syrian uprising was a retrieval of what Dabashi describes as repressed cosmopolitan worldliness. It was a grassroots attempt to bring an inclusive meaning to Syrianism, consistent with the country’s boundaries and reflective of its ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism. The transformation of the crisis into a global proxy war has resulted in the rise of hundreds of armed groups driven by competing projects that have vacated the revolutionary attempt to redefine Syrianism.

China Institute University of Alberta, 2019

As the People’s Republic of China emerges as a power with global reach, understanding its inter... more As the People’s Republic of China emerges as a power
with global reach, understanding its interactions with the
range of states comprising the modern MENA region has
become more urgent.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to review in depth the
economic, political, and strategic dimensions of Chinese
interactions with the modern Middle East. Instead, this
China Institute Occasional Paper will briefly sketch the
interactions between China and the states of the MENA
region in the early 21st century.

Although this paper includes a short historical survey of
China-Middle East relations, the focus is the present and
future of the relationship, and existing economic linkages
with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Our hope is
that gathering and publishing the core economic data will
provide an important reference point for other researchers
who are working on China – MENA relations.

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication , 2020

Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the coloni... more Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the colonial condition and retrieving a repressed cosmopolitan worldliness that has been overshadowed by the contradictions of postcolonial politics. Dabashi posits that the pluralist and egalitarian slogans of protesters were an expression of this worldliness. In this research I assess this claim in the context of Syria. I examine the question: Has this cosmopolitan orientation resurfaced in Syria? I argue that the 2011 Syrian uprising was a retrieval of what Dabashi describes as repressed cosmopolitan worldliness. It was a grassroots attempt to bring an inclusive meaning to Syrianism, consistent with the country's boundaries and reflective of its ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism. The transformation of the crisis into a global proxy war has resulted in the rise of hundreds of armed groups driven by competing projects that have vacated the revolutionary attempt to redefine Syrianism.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said... more Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said’s classic piece Orientalism, but has bourgeoned into an interdisciplinary approach, permeating a variety of fields in the social sciences. It was not developed specifically in conversation with security studies, but rather emerged as a critique of the very epistemological structures through which knowledge is produced in the social science. It is best understood as an epistemology that seeks to decenter and delink a Eurocentric monopoly of power and knowledge production, challenging scholars to reflect on the assumptions, ideas, and the beliefs that they hold (Spivak 1988; Mignolo 2007, 2009; Loomba 2015). This paper will discuss the primary arguments put forward by post-colonial scholars, with a focus on demonstrating how these arguments relate to security studies

China Institute University of Alberta , 2019

Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, ... more Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Canada and China. Ms. Meng’s arrest was made at the request of U.S. authorities and she is currently enveloped in a complex extradition proceeding. In what was widely considered a retaliatory measure, two Canadians were subsequently detained in China. Concurrently, both the U.S and Canada are considering measures which would limit the use of Huawei technology and equipment in their respective 5G telecommunications networks. Critics claim that Huawei’s allegedly close relationship with the Chinese state gives rise to national security concerns. Further, they argue that the Canadian government should adopt a more cautious approach to relations with China in general. In contrast, Chinese officials suggest that the national security concerns have been overblown and that American restrictions on Huawei products are unduly punitive.

Huawei, a multinational technology company based in Shenzhen, China, has experienced meteoric rise, in terms of both financial success and global reach, since its founding in 1987. Although Huawei began as a domestic Chinese reseller of foreign-made telephone switches, it invested heavily in internal R&D and quickly shifted to producing independently designed equipment. Huawei’s revenue steadily increased throughout the 1990s, eventually leading to expansion into the international market. Today, Huawei is a powerful and internationally recognized brand with global reach. Huawei’s primary revenue-driving business units are its consumer division (smartphones, laptops, wearable technology) and carrier division (telecommunications network equipment and services, including 5G technology).

The Huawei case is broadly indicative of the cooling broader bilateral relations between Western countries and China. Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the Trump Administration has been outspoken in its criticism, warning allies of the potential dangers of procurement from Huawei, as well as the implications of a Huawei-developed 5G network. A number of U.S. allies, including New Zealand and Australia (both members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance), have raised similar concerns and blocked Huawei involvement in future 5G network development. However, these concerns are not always shared by developing countries, who tend to view Huawei as a cost-effective provider of quality telecommunications products.

As a result of recent controversies surrounding Huawei and the detention of Canadian citizens in China, Huawei has become the subject of significant news coverage and public attention.This media frenzy risks confusion and, in some cases misinformation, regarding Huawei. This paper does not attempt to generate policy recommendations, but rather to provide context and perspective to the issue at hand. Aimed at both the policy community and the general public, this paper seeks to present an overview that charts the path of Huawei from its inception onwards, providing context to inform future discussion and research. The China Institute looks forward to informed and meaningful dialogue on the future of Canada-China relations, including the role that Huawei may or may not play in the development of Canada’s telecommunications infrastructure.

This research project examines the following central question: what does Syrian identity mean in ... more This research project examines the following central question: what does Syrian identity mean in the eyes of contending groups in the current Syrian crisis (2011-2017)? In answering this question, the project engages in original research, shedding light on the ‘identity’ dimension of the war in Syria. It challenges primordialist and/or Orientalist approaches to identity, which shadow the cosmopolitan components of the Middle East, confining the region’s identity-politics to notions of sectarianism and conservative militant Islamism resistant to modernity. Through employing Hamid Dabashi’s critical postcolonial cosmopolitan framework of analysis, the research historicizes the crisis of Syrian identity, focusing on critical periods ranging from the 1920s, up to the contemporary crisis (2011-2017). It demonstrates that the country’s postcolonial state-imposed national identity projects have for years been exclusionary, and either have been shaped by, or have encountered, three ideological formations: those are, anti-colonial nationalism, third-world socialism, and Islamism. These formations emerged in conversation with, and in response to, European colonialism and were conveniently deployed by the ruling regimes to legitimatize their position. Through a discourse and content analysis, based on Dabashi’s analytical framework, the research argues that the 2011 Syrian Uprising was an attempt to bring an inclusive meaning to ‘Syrianism’ and to retrieve the repressed cosmopolitan worldliness. Protestors were committed to a unified Syria, as a political entity and a source of identity. They were not seeking an Islamist, a pan-‘Arabist’, a separatist, a Ba’athist socialist or a sectarian vision, but were rather united by prospects of creating a locally produced alternative that would maintain national harmony and retrieve the country’s cosmopolitanism. The research argues that the prolonging of the Syrian conflict has resulted in the deterioration of an inclusive, cosmopolitan ‘Syrianism’, as various actors have risen with conflicting ideas about national identity. Using archival primary and secondary sources, the research problematizes the identity discourse of the conflicting groups and to compare where they place ‘Syria’ in their ideologies. The research findings suggest that the ideologies of the studied combatant groups embody counter-revolutionary exclusionary notions of identity, which are not based on the cosmopolitan worldliness, but rather reinforce the suppressed, reactionary and exclusionary post-colonial ideological dichotomies.

Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said... more Post-colonialism emerged in literary and cultural studies in the 1970s, influenced by Edward Said’s classic piece Orientalism, but has bourgeoned into an interdisciplinary approach, permeating a variety of fields in the social sciences. It was not developed specifically in conversation with security studies, but rather emerged as a critique of the very epistemological structures through which knowledge is produced in the social science. It is best understood as an epistemology that seeks to decenter and delink a Eurocentric monopoly of power and knowledge production, challenging scholars to reflect on the assumptions, ideas, and the beliefs that they hold (Spivak 1988; Mignolo 2007, 2009; Loomba 2015). This paper will discuss the primary arguments put forward by post-colonial scholars, with a focus on demonstrating how these arguments relate to security studies

He is currently a Ph.D student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Albert... more He is currently a Ph.D student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta, specializing in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. In his first field of focus, Noureddin specialises in international relations theory and the study of Sino-Middle Eastern relations. In the second, he specialises in the study of democratization, social movements and contentious politics as well as post-colonial theory. Noureddin is also a Policy Researcher at the China Institute University of Alberta (CIUA). At the CIUA, he is responsible for conducting research on a wide variety of topics as well as managing the CIUA' s China-Canada Investment Tracker Database. iv v Table of Contents Overview of China's Relations with the Middle East .

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication

Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the coloni... more Hamid Dabashi (2012) saw the Arab spring revolutions as a collective act of overcoming the colonial condition and retrieving a repressed cosmopolitan worldliness that has been overshadowed by the contradictions of postcolonial politics. Dabashi posits that the pluralist and egalitarian slogans of protesters were an expression of this worldliness. In this research I assess this claim in the context of Syria. I examine the question: Has this cosmopolitan orientation resurfaced in Syria? I argue that the 2011 Syrian uprising was a retrieval of what Dabashi describes as repressed cosmopolitan worldliness. It was a grassroots attempt to bring an inclusive meaning to Syrianism, consistent with the country’s boundaries and reflective of its ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism. The transformation of the crisis into a global proxy war has resulted in the rise of hundreds of armed groups driven by competing projects that have vacated the revolutionary attempt to redefine Syrianism.

China Institute University of Alberta, 2019

As the People’s Republic of China emerges as a power with global reach, understanding its inter... more As the People’s Republic of China emerges as a power
with global reach, understanding its interactions with the
range of states comprising the modern MENA region has
become more urgent.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to review in depth the
economic, political, and strategic dimensions of Chinese
interactions with the modern Middle East. Instead, this
China Institute Occasional Paper will briefly sketch the
interactions between China and the states of the MENA
region in the early 21st century.

Although this paper includes a short historical survey of
China-Middle East relations, the focus is the present and
future of the relationship, and existing economic linkages
with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Our hope is
that gathering and publishing the core economic data will
provide an important reference point for other researchers
who are working on China – MENA relations.