Our summer issue for 2020 presents a collection of articles by both new and established scholars that examine from interesting and novel perspectives several diverse but persistent political problems in such countries as Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as the very non-independent Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which have remained under Israel occupation since 1967 despite the Oslo peace process of 1993–2000, which was supposed–but failed—to establish an independent Palestinian state. Of course, other long-term problems also persist, such as the civil war in Afghanistan, which has been on-going since 1978, albeit with varying levels of intensity and the interference of different foreign actors, such as the former Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989 and United States since 2001, although the later country is in the process of withdrawing its forces based on a ‘peace’ agreement with its Taliban foes but to which its Afghan government ally is not a party. Civil wars also have been on-going in both Libya and Syria since 2011, the one in the latter country being the most intense and deadly: Up to 500,000 Syrian soldiers, militia, civilians and foreign fighters had been killed as of March 2020; an estimated 7 million Syrian civilians have been displaced from their homes, many of them on multiple occasions; and another 5 million Syrians have fled to refuge in Turkey, with about 20 percent of these making their way to Europe before the EU closed its borders to Syrian refugees. Also in 2011, a civil war erupted in Yemen. However, with the Saudi and Emirati military intervention in 2013, the Yemeni civil war was transformed into an international one. By the end of 2019, an estimated 12,000 civilians had been killed in Saudi and Emirati bombing of towns, and an estimated 85,000 civilians had died as a result of the famine caused by the Saudi blockade of food shipments into Yemen. The United States actually provided logistical and technical support to the Saudi and Emirati military campaign, but when the Republican-controlled US Senate voted to cease such support, Republican President Donald Trump vetoed the Senate resolution. Thus, Washington continues to support the military campaign by the Arab world’s two wealthiest and most developed countries, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, against Yemen, the poorest and most economically under-developed of all Arab countries. We obviously hope to address all of these and other important topics in future issues. As for this issue, we are pleased to welcome back a former contributor, Caroline Seymour-Jorn, as author of our inaugural article: Singing a New Future: Egypt’s Choir Project. She did field research with the Choir Project, a collaborative musical and theatrical group that has provided a context for youth creative, social and political expression since 2010. Applying Richard Bauman’s multifaceted framework for thinking about emerging art forms, Seymour-Jorn examines the history and socio-political

中文翻译：

---

编者注

我们的《 2020年夏季刊》收录了新晋学者和知名学者的文章集，这些文章从有趣和新颖的角度审视了埃及，黎巴嫩和土耳其等国家以及非独立的巴勒斯坦领土中几个不同但持续存在的政治问题。约旦河西岸和加沙地带自1967年以来一直处于以色列的占领之下，尽管1993-2000年的奥斯陆和平进程曾被认为但未能建立独立的巴勒斯坦国。当然，其他长期问题也仍然存在，例如自1978年以来一直在进行的阿富汗内战，尽管其强度不同，而且受到不同外国行为者的干扰，例如1979年的前苏联到1989年以及美国（从2001年开始），尽管后一个国家正在根据与塔利班敌人的“和平”协议撤出其部队，但阿富汗政府的盟友并未加入该党。自2011年以来，内战在利比亚和叙利亚也一直在进行，该国的内战最为激烈和致命：截至2020年3月，多达50万叙利亚士兵，民兵，平民和外国战斗人员被杀；估计有700万叙利亚平民流离失所，其中许多人是多次流离失所；另有500万叙利亚人逃往土耳其避难，其中约20％的人在欧盟关闭对叙利亚难民的边境之前前往欧洲。同样在2011年，也门爆发内战。但是，随着2013年沙特和阿联酋的军事干预，也门内战转变为国际战争。到2019年底，沙特和阿联酋轰炸城镇估计有12,000名平民被杀，沙特封锁向也门的粮食运输造成的饥荒估计造成85,000名平民死亡。美国实际上为沙特和阿联酋的军事行动提供了后勤和技术支持，但是当共和党控制的美国参议院投票决定停止这种支持时，共和党总统唐纳德·特朗普否决了参议院的决议。因此，华盛顿继续支持阿拉伯世界上两个最富有和最发达的国家，沙特阿拉伯和阿拉伯联合酋长国对也门，也就是所有阿拉伯国家中最贫穷和最不发达国家的军事行动。我们显然希望在将来的问题中解决所有这些以及其他重要主题。关于这个问题，我们很高兴地欢迎前撰稿人Caroline Seymour-Jorn成为我们第一篇文章的作者：唱一个新的未来：埃及的合唱团计划。她曾与音乐和戏剧合作组织合唱团（Choir Project）进行现场研究，该合唱团自2010年以来一直为青年的创作，社会和政治表达提供背景。西摩·乔恩运用理查德·鲍曼（Richard Bauman）的多方面框架来思考新兴艺术形式，考察了历史和社会政治的