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Since the end of 2010, the countries of North Africa and the Middle East have been rocked by a series of revolutions, termed enthusiastically as the “Arab Spring”. Tahar Ben Jelloun describes this phenomenon as the “awakening of Arab dignity”.

In parallel with the unrest which still unsettles these areas, there is a co-existence of progress and regression, underlining the fact that the path towards the hoped-for democratic governments can be neither linear nor a short-term objective.

An investigation into the political and social hopes for this long Arab transition towards democracy will be conducted by Renzo Guolo, Professor of Islamic Sociology and Political Sociology at the University of Padua, and journalist Francesca Paci, Middle-East correspondent for “La Stampa” and an expert in the Arab-Islamic world. The meeting is hosted by Alessandro Mezzena Lona, who works as a journalist for “Il Piccolo”.

Renzo Guolo
teaches Islamic Sociology and Political Sociology at the University of Padua. His main areas of interest include geopolitics, political and social systems in the Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern area, Islamic fundamentalism, and Islam in Europe. His publications include Potere e responsabilità. Obama, l’Islam e la comunità internazionale (Guerini, 2009); L’islam è compatibile con la democrazia? (Laterza, 2007). Prof. Guolo contributes regularly to several periodicals, including “Aspenia”, “liMes”, “Quaderni di relazioni internazionali” and “il Mulino”. He is a columnist for “la Repubblica” and the local newspapers belonging to the Espresso Group.

Renzo Guolo on Treccani >>

Francesca Paci
journalist, Middle-East correspondent for “La Stampa”, after working as a correspondent in Jerusalem, Francesca Paci now focuses principally on the Arab-Islamic world. In parallel with her principal journalistic activity, she also works in the field of immigration and the processes of integration, which she sees as the social and cultural antidote to the threat that she defines as «Lo scontro delle inciviltà».

In 2007, Paci hosted the TV programme Nirvana for La7. She has written three books: L’Islam sotto casa (Marsilio, 2004), Islam e violenza (Laterza, 2006), Dove muoiono i cristiani (Mondadori, 2011), and has also won the Luchetta prize for journalism and the Premiolino Giovani.

Francesca Paci on Wikipedia >>

Alessandro Mezzena Lona
is a journalist and is director of the cultural section of the daily newspaper “Il Piccolo”. He hosts numerous cultural events, and in 2013 won the “Grado Giallo” national literary award with her short story Non credere ai santi.

Alessandro Mezzena Lona/Arcanestorie >>