ASPIRATIONS FOR INDEPENDENCE
INTIFADA BEYOND PALESTINE
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH
Remember the neoconservatives’ plan of “domino effect” following the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq? It was supposed to be followed by the toppling of other “unfriendly” heads of “rogue states” such as those ruling Iran and Syria who do not cater to the US-Israeli interests in the Middle East. It was not meant to threaten the “friendly” regimes that rule Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and their cohorts that have been firmly aligned with the United States. Indeed, it was supposed to replace the former type of “noncompliant” regimes with the latter type of “client states” that would go along with the US-Israeli geopolitical designs in the region.
Barely a decade later, however, the political winds in the Middle East are shifting in the opposite direction: it is not the US-designated “rogue states” that are falling but the “moderate American friends” who are crumbling. How do we explain this truly historical twist of fortunes?
A number of important factors that are clearly contributing to the breathtaking social upheavals in the Arab/Muslim world are economic hardship, dictatorial rule and rampant corruption. While these relatively obvious factors are frequently cited as driving forces behind the upheaval, a number of equally important but less evident forces are often left out of this list of contributory influences. These rarely mentioned factors include: aspirations to national sovereignty, frustration with the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people, and outrage by the malicious smear campaign against the Arab/Muslim people’s religious and cultural values. In other words, the Arab/Muslim people are not just angry with government repression, corruption, and economic hardship; they are also angry with their rulers’ subordination to or collusion with imperialism, both US imperialism and the (mini) Israeli imperialism, as well as with the insidious offenses against their religious and cultural heritage.
The overwhelming majority of the Arab/Muslim people who are up in arms against the status quo harbor a strong sense of humiliation by the fact that they are ruled by tyrannical heads of state who subordinate their interests to the economic and geopolitical imperatives of foreign powers. Equally demeaning to this people is the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people. The creation of the colonial settler state of Israel through terrorization, ethnic cleansing and eviction of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, and the continued violence perpetrated daily against this people is viewed by the Arab/Muslim people as a degrading violence against them all.
Corporate media and mainstream political pundits in the United States tend to deny or downgrade the galvanizing role that anti-imperialism/anti-Zionism plays in the uprising. For example, the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently opined (in a February 16, 2011, column): “Egypt has now been awakened by its youth in a unique way – not to fight Israel, or America, but in a quest for personal empowerment, dignity and freedom.” Obviously, Mr. Friedman must have a very narrow and unusual definition of dignity and freedom—as if such universally-cherished values are unrelated to foreign domination of one’s government or country.
The fact remains, however, that aspirations to national sovereignty and sentiments of anti-imperialism play important roles in the uprising. They explain why the unrest cuts across a wide swath of society. Not only the economically hard-pressed poor and working classes but also the relatively well-off middle classes are joining the youth in the streets. Professional strata such as lawyers, doctors and teachers, as well as people from the arts and intellectual life are joining too.
Just as the thrust of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) is to end the Zionist occupation of their land, so does the more widespread unrest in the Arab/Muslim world represent a broader intifada designed to end the imperialist domination of their governments. Indications of such sentiments were reflected in many views and slogans in Cairo's Liberation Square, which were directed not only at Mubarak’s regime but also at the United States and Israel:
“We are not with America or any other government. We are able to help ourselves. . . . We are against the US interfering in Egypt's establishment of a democratic government. We are against any foreign interference. . . . We are Egyptians and we can decide our fate on our own. . . . “I don't think that Israel is a state. I don't believe in it. Israel is just an occupation. I personally, as an Egyptian, do not acknowledge the existence of Israel. Any Arab government that deals with Israel or works under Israel I do not acknowledge it either”.
Such keen aspirations to independence from foreign influences led Graeme Bannerman, the former Middle East analyst on the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, to acknowledge (on National Public Radio, January 27, 2011) that “Popular opinion in the Middle East runs so against American policies that any change in any government in the Middle East that becomes more popular will have an anti-American and certainly less friendly direction towards the US which will be a serious political problem for us.”
An indication of how passionately the Arab street detests their leader’s catering to the US-Israeli interests, or how they resent the brutal treatment of Palestinians, is reflected in the fact that, according to a number of opinion polls, they have consistently expressed more respect for the Iranian leaders, who are neither Arab nor Sunni, than their Arab leaders—because, contrary to most Arab leaders, the Iranian leaders have (since the 1979 revolution) firmly stood their ground vis-à-vis the egotistical imperialist policies in the region.
Egyptian regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Anwar Sadat (before him) were especially despised for their subservience to the United States and Israel. From the time of its creation in 1948 until 1979 no Arab country recognized Israel as a legitimate state. In 1979, however, Egypt (under President Sadat) broke ranks with the rest of the Arab/Muslim world when he signed a “peace agreement” with Israel, which came to be known as the Camp David accord.
Although the accord was officially between Egypt and Israel, the United States was a key broker and the main partner. The US agreed to supply Egypt with substantial financial and military aid, amounting to nearly $2 billion a year, in return for its recognition of Israel and its compliance with the US-Israeli geopolitical and economic imperatives in the region. As Alison Weir, writer/reporter and the executive director of “If Americans Knew,” recently put it, by thus recognizing and normalizing its relation with Israel, “Egypt led the way for other nations to ‘normalize’ relations with the abnormal situation in Palestine.”
Since then Egypt has been a de facto ally of Israel, as well as bedrock of economic and geopolitical interests of the United States in the Middle East. It has opened its air, water and ground spaces to US armed forces. It has worked to coax or coerce governments and political forces in the region to comply with the US-Israeli interests. And it has served as a counter-balancing force against countries like Iran that defy the imperialist plans of the United States and Israeli in the region. As a “peace partner” with Israel, Egypt has also been complicit in Israel’s colonial policies of vicious oppression of the Palestinian people.
Although under the US-Israeli influence, Anwar Sadat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (along with Prime Minister Begin of Israel), for the Camp David “peace” accord, proponents of Egypt’s national sovereignty and defenders of the rights of the Palestinian people considered the accord as treason and capitulation to Zionist expansionism and US imperialism.
The outrage that the Camp David betrayal generated in Egypt and the broader Arab/Muslim world was epitomized by the tragic assassination of Anwar Sadat, presumably for having signed the giveaway “peace” accord with Israel. The following is one of many accounts that attribute Sadat’s assassination to the “peace” agreement:
“In the months leading up to his assassination, he was hugely unpopular in the Middle East for making peace with Israel, which was considered a 'traitorous' move against the Palestinians. There were several criticisms and death threats made against him and his family.
“It was no surprise to many that he was assassinated, but the circumstances under which he was assassinated are still peculiar. Many reports have claimed that Egyptian Security forces knew well in advance that an attempt on Sadat's life would be made, but did little to stop it. Some even claimed that Egyptian Security forces helped train the would-be assassins. Some see this as a plausible scenario, since the assassins were able to bypass several layers of checks and inspections prior to the military parade in Cairo”.
While President Reagan lamented Sadat’s death when he bemoaned: "America has lost a great friend, the world has lost a great statesman, and mankind has lost a champion of peace," Nabil Ramlawi, a Palestinian official at the time, stated: "We were expecting this end of President Sadat because we are sure he was against the interests of his people, the Arab nations and the Palestinian people".
An often latent goal of the current uprising in the Middle East/North Africa is to end the suffering of the Palestinian people by restoring their geopolitical rights within the internationally agreed upon borders. In subtle or submerged ways, the atrocious injustice perpetrated against Palestinians seems to be the “mother” of all the Arab/Muslim grievances. Viewed in this light, the uprising in the Arab/Muslim world represents an expanded intifada beyond Palestine. Without a fair and just resolution of the plight of the Palestinian people, the political turbulence in the region is bound to continue, with potentially cataclysmic consequences.
Once source of hope in the face of this gloomy picture is that more of the Jewish people would come to the realization that the expansionist project of radical Zionism is untenable and, therefore, join many other Jewish individuals and organizations (such as Jews for Justice for Palestinians) that have already come to such an understanding, and are working toward a just and peaceful coexistence with their historical cousins in the region.
Radical Zionism pins its hope for the success of its project on the support from imperialist powers. As has been pointed out by the critics of Zionism, many of whom Jewish, this is a very dangerous expectation, or hope, since the support from imperial powers, which is ultimately based on their own nefarious geopolitical calculations and economic interests, can precipitously come to an end, or drastically withdrawn, as the geopolitical equations in the region change. As the renowned Jewish thinker Uri Avnery recently put it:
“Our future is not with Europe or America. Our future is in this region. . . . It’s not just our policies that must change, but our basic outlook, our geographical orientation. We must understand that we are not a bridgehead from somewhere distant, but a part of a region that is now – at long last – joining the human march toward freedom.”
To sum up, the long pent-up grievances of the Arab/Muslim world are exploding not just in the faces of local dictators such as Mubarak of Egypt or Ben Ali of Tunisia but, perhaps more importantly, against their neo-colonial / imperial patrons abroad. As the astute foreign policy analyst Jason Ditz recently pointed out, “the resentment is spreading beyond Mubarak and his immediate underlings, and toward the United States and Israel.” This means that the uprising represents something bigger than the buzzwords of abstract, decontextualized personal freedoms, or the money-driven, carefully-scripted bogus elections – called democracy. It represents a growing culture of resistance to neo-colonialism that started with the great Iranian revolution of 1979.
Friday 25 February 2011
WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE MAD COLONEL
By Eugene Robinson
President Obama pledged that “the entire world is watching” the horror in Libya, but watching isn’t nearly enough. There is much more that world leaders—beginning with Obama—urgently must say and do.
The world’s censure means nothing to Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the dictator who vows to die rather than surrender the power he has held for four decades. At this point, the long-running debate about whether Gadhafi is mostly diabolical or mostly deranged is irrelevant. Despite his incoherent ramblings, he clearly is fighting not just for power but for his life.
The forces still allied with Gadhafi—his sons, parts of the military establishment, the mercenaries he has imported from other African countries—know that they are fighting for their lives too. They have opened fire with heavy weapons against unarmed protesters. They have trained sniper fire on peaceful funeral processions. They have terrorized urban neighborhoods with random gunfire designed to make people cower in their homes rather than join the uprising. If Gadhafi’s forces are defeated, the people’s retribution will be definitive and brutal.
I should say when Gadhafi’s forces are defeated, because ultimately the tyrant is playing a losing hand. He’s playing it skillfully, though, having managed to establish a relatively secure bastion in Tripoli. His message to the brave rebels who now control the eastern part of the country is: Come and get me.
Gadhafi appears to still control many of the country’s military assets. Ragtag bands of insurgents are no match for modern jet fighters or helicopter gunships or naval vessels that can bombard coastal population centers from miles offshore. Eventually, the people will surely win. But it is likely that thousands have already died—and abundantly clear that Gadhafi, even in a losing cause, is prepared to commit murder on a genocidal scale.
Gadhafi seems to have calculated that the longer he can drag out the conflict—and demonstrate that he still commands the capital city and a potent, if diminished, military force—the more likely it becomes that he can find some way to survive.
That’s where Obama and other world leaders come in. The immediate aim should be to separate Gadhafi from as much of his military strength as possible.
On Wednesday, in his first extended remarks on the crisis, Obama warned that “the Libyan government has a responsibility to refrain from violence.” Those words, while correct, were far too weak. Obama should state plainly that we no longer consider Gadhafi’s regime to be the legitimate government of Libya and that the dictator must immediately step down.
This will not have the slightest impact on Gadhafi, of course. But the message isn’t for the Mad Colonel, it’s for the military officers—the pilots of his warplanes and commanders of his warships—who must decide whether to follow his orders. They need to be told, in no uncertain terms, that if they side with Gadhafi they will suffer the consequences.
And those consequences need to be spelled out. A chorus of world leaders should make clear that those who commit war crimes, such as firing on civilians, will personally be held accountable. If the avenging mob doesn’t get them, international justice will.
The United States should lead NATO in immediately declaring a no-fly zone for Gadhafi’s military aircraft and announcing that Libyan airspace is being monitored for violations. You wouldn’t attempt to enforce such a ban immediately. The idea, again, should be to influence those who must choose whether to follow Gadhafi’s orders.
By radio, television and the Internet, the U.S. and its allies should blanket Libya with the message that the Gadhafi regime has forfeited any right to legitimacy. Libyans should have no doubt about where we stand.
Such actions will anger the leaders of autocratic regimes that have been reliable allies of the West, such as Saudi Arabia. The Chinese government may not be pleased at such “interference,” and the Russians may not be thrilled, either. But Gadhafi is a special case, as anyone who has seen his recent appearances can attest. The umbrella? The rambling, delusional speeches about how the protesters are on drugs? The vow to kill or be killed? This man is either a psychopath or a sociopath, but not a statesman.
Unambiguous, muscular words and credible threats are the least we can do for the people of Libya. Even by that low standard, we are falling woefully short.
By Eugene Robinson
President Obama pledged that “the entire world is watching” the horror in Libya, but watching isn’t nearly enough. There is much more that world leaders—beginning with Obama—urgently must say and do.
The world’s censure means nothing to Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the dictator who vows to die rather than surrender the power he has held for four decades. At this point, the long-running debate about whether Gadhafi is mostly diabolical or mostly deranged is irrelevant. Despite his incoherent ramblings, he clearly is fighting not just for power but for his life.
The forces still allied with Gadhafi—his sons, parts of the military establishment, the mercenaries he has imported from other African countries—know that they are fighting for their lives too. They have opened fire with heavy weapons against unarmed protesters. They have trained sniper fire on peaceful funeral processions. They have terrorized urban neighborhoods with random gunfire designed to make people cower in their homes rather than join the uprising. If Gadhafi’s forces are defeated, the people’s retribution will be definitive and brutal.
I should say when Gadhafi’s forces are defeated, because ultimately the tyrant is playing a losing hand. He’s playing it skillfully, though, having managed to establish a relatively secure bastion in Tripoli. His message to the brave rebels who now control the eastern part of the country is: Come and get me.
Gadhafi appears to still control many of the country’s military assets. Ragtag bands of insurgents are no match for modern jet fighters or helicopter gunships or naval vessels that can bombard coastal population centers from miles offshore. Eventually, the people will surely win. But it is likely that thousands have already died—and abundantly clear that Gadhafi, even in a losing cause, is prepared to commit murder on a genocidal scale.
Gadhafi seems to have calculated that the longer he can drag out the conflict—and demonstrate that he still commands the capital city and a potent, if diminished, military force—the more likely it becomes that he can find some way to survive.
That’s where Obama and other world leaders come in. The immediate aim should be to separate Gadhafi from as much of his military strength as possible.
On Wednesday, in his first extended remarks on the crisis, Obama warned that “the Libyan government has a responsibility to refrain from violence.” Those words, while correct, were far too weak. Obama should state plainly that we no longer consider Gadhafi’s regime to be the legitimate government of Libya and that the dictator must immediately step down.
This will not have the slightest impact on Gadhafi, of course. But the message isn’t for the Mad Colonel, it’s for the military officers—the pilots of his warplanes and commanders of his warships—who must decide whether to follow his orders. They need to be told, in no uncertain terms, that if they side with Gadhafi they will suffer the consequences.
And those consequences need to be spelled out. A chorus of world leaders should make clear that those who commit war crimes, such as firing on civilians, will personally be held accountable. If the avenging mob doesn’t get them, international justice will.
The United States should lead NATO in immediately declaring a no-fly zone for Gadhafi’s military aircraft and announcing that Libyan airspace is being monitored for violations. You wouldn’t attempt to enforce such a ban immediately. The idea, again, should be to influence those who must choose whether to follow Gadhafi’s orders.
By radio, television and the Internet, the U.S. and its allies should blanket Libya with the message that the Gadhafi regime has forfeited any right to legitimacy. Libyans should have no doubt about where we stand.
Such actions will anger the leaders of autocratic regimes that have been reliable allies of the West, such as Saudi Arabia. The Chinese government may not be pleased at such “interference,” and the Russians may not be thrilled, either. But Gadhafi is a special case, as anyone who has seen his recent appearances can attest. The umbrella? The rambling, delusional speeches about how the protesters are on drugs? The vow to kill or be killed? This man is either a psychopath or a sociopath, but not a statesman.
Unambiguous, muscular words and credible threats are the least we can do for the people of Libya. Even by that low standard, we are falling woefully short.
OIL, ARMS AND THE IMPERIAL ENTERPRISE IN NORTH AFRICA
OIL, ARMS AND THE IMPERIAL ENTERPRISE IN NORTH AFRICA
OIL, ARMS AND THE IMPERIAL ENTERPRISE IN NORTH AFRICA
The Business of Business in Libya
By TARECQ AMER
Another North African country is in the throes of revolution, causing yet more confusion and consternation among western leaders. One can only imagine the chagrin these Europeans and U.S. American progenitors of universal morals feel as they woke up only to see another despotic investment (this time in the form of odd-ball dictator Muammar Qaddafi) fall to the wrath of his people. Money at risk, investments troubled, and cultivated relationships strained all under the hue and cry of popular uprisings that challenge the very foundations of neo-liberal capitalism. There is a clear and protracted state of confusion going on amongst these leaders. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (again) tries in vain to find the safest words to meet the moment of fury in the streets of Libya while not straying too far from the corporate demands for stability at any cost. Her boss, President Obama, hides away on Presidents' Day perhaps hoping that by tomorrow all this will have gone away and he can get back to soaring speeches and mesmerized crowds.
Alas, that is unlikely. The violence unleashed upon the people of Libya, in the streets of Benghazi, Tripoli, al Baida and beyond, could very well make Libya a long-term dilemma for Washington. The people who have suffered through four decades of psychotically messianic rule are not likely to forget the meek (and in some instances downright offensive) statements of the U.S.A. and Europe calling for restraint while fighter jets were dropping bombs on their heads.
But the stakes are high at this point and go well beyond the shores of Tripoli. Firstly, key member states of the European Union have made hefty investments in Libya in the last few years and there isn't a strong desire to have these investments disturbed. With moves over the last decade to be re-admitted into the so-called global community, Qaddafi's Libya has caught the attention of nations and business. The 2004 application to the World Trade Organization, odd diplomatic feints such as suggesting a combined Jewish-Palestinian state called Isratine, and political posturing calling for a unified African nation are Qaddafi's attempts to move Libya away from its revolutionary image of the 1970s and 1980s.
Secondly, natural resources have facilitated these rebranding attempts. Libya's vast oil reserves make it a critical player globally simply because any interruption in supply would have a dramatic ripple effect on economies worldwide. Indeed, we are already beginning to see this at the gas-pump. And lastly, though he may be a disdainful bed partner, to send Qaddafi out the door now would simply add confidence to popular movements in more acceptable client states, thereby leading to the instability (also known as representative rule) that our Secretary of State so clearly dreads. This, at any rate, was the logic that seemed to guiding the brooding diplomats of the United States and Europe until a few days ago. There is likely to be a significant change of course simply because the level of carnage has exceeded the level of acceptability and could prove to be a far more destabilizing factor. That aside, let's now take a look at some key examples that highlight the once enviable position of Muammar Qaddafi in the geopolitical arena.
Italy currently receives 20% of its total oil imports from their former North African colony. This fact alone explains the despicable action of the Italian government over the last three days, as well as its willingness to be as evasive in condemning Qaddafi's violence as their prime minister is in letting the world know why he has a penchant for paying underage prostitutes for sex. Just days ago, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, echoing the words of comfort given by his Prime Minister to Qaddafi, stated, "We should not give the wrong impression of wanting to interfere, of wanting to export our democracy. We have to help, we have to support the peaceful reconciliation."
Perhaps, hearkening back to the brutal days of Italian colonial expeditions in Libya, he forgot that people rarely seek peaceful reconciliation with those who are comfortable with mowing down fellow citizens with 50 caliber machine gun rounds. Now granted, the Italians are apt to take a not-too-terribly-clever passive stance if for no other reason than they have a lot of money riding on the survival of Qaddafi. Oil imports at that scale make a brutal strongman an asset, if he is able to keep the oil flowing. That, though, is the ultimate unknown and we may well see Signor Frattini change his song before long as tribes in the oil-rich south of Libya begin to side with anti-government protesters, thereby threatening oil production.
Now to Britain. First on the list of Britain's new love affair with the Qaddafi regime is the central role of oil. In recent times, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has become something of a Qaddafi fan, with multiple visits with the Madman of North Africa over the past few years, including one that was splashed all over the British headlines in June of last year. What Blair has been up to hasn't fully come to light, but his moves vis a vis the Libyan regime were certainly pleasing to the Board of British Petroleum. Lest we forget, Libya has some of the largest oil reserves on the African continent and the prospect of untethered access to them made the mouths of Big Oil water. For four decades, Qaddafi maintained a nationalized oil extraction and production industry, filling the coffers of the leader and his acolytes. But with the 21st Century came an attempted neo-liberal regime facelift. Three years ago, BP signed a substantial exploration deal with the Qaddafi regime, totaling 900 million USD. This was one of the first of many corporate deals that made western liberal democracies giddy with excitement. The flamboyant defender of the Palestinian cause was shedding the clothes of barbarism and coming to the light of free markets. Big oil now had access to huge reserves; lots and lots of money was to be had. This rapture has come to a screeching halt in the past few days. Odds are that BP executives have joined western leaders and diplomats in sweating bullets over the Libyan events. Strongman Qaddafi was a dream for them. His odd, cultish ways aside, he was meant to be a man who knew how to hold his people in check and did so quite well for 42 years.
These are the characteristics of a leader well suited for the rapacious bottom-feeders of global capital. But they also demand that the ugliness of business be kept tightly under wraps. In this regard, Qaddafi has failed spectacularly.
And then, of course, there are the arms traders. Since its formation, the Cameron government has had an arms dealers' version of a tupper-ware party with the Middle East's less savory dictators, including the selling of crowd control weapons to Libya. Here is the list of some lethal toys sold to Libya by the British, as reported by The Independent on February 18th: tear gas; crowd control and small arms ammunition; ammunition for wall- and door-breaching projectile launchers. Also included in the list was military infrared and thermal imaging equipment, which one may suspect have been used by mercenary snipers to target unarmed protesters over the past five nights. Qaddafi's brutality towards his subject may have sealed his fate, though.
Recent history has shown that Big Oil and western governments have a strong stomach for mercenaries, violence, and cruelty for the preservation of profits. But Heaven forefend that these acts come to light. Reports of fighter jets unleashed on the people of Libya and mercenaries roaming the capital expose the mockery that is European values. As these stories find their way to the webpages of Al Jazeera, the BBC, and CNN, we may see considerably stronger rhetoric and action coming from the houses of power in the west, all signs that Qaddafi has become bad for business. This, of course, doesn't mean that the struggle for justice in Libya is close to being over. Instead, they may have to fend off attempts to replace the Madman of North Africa with a slightly more constrained and manageable strongman.
OIL, ARMS AND THE IMPERIAL ENTERPRISE IN NORTH AFRICA
The Business of Business in Libya
By TARECQ AMER
Another North African country is in the throes of revolution, causing yet more confusion and consternation among western leaders. One can only imagine the chagrin these Europeans and U.S. American progenitors of universal morals feel as they woke up only to see another despotic investment (this time in the form of odd-ball dictator Muammar Qaddafi) fall to the wrath of his people. Money at risk, investments troubled, and cultivated relationships strained all under the hue and cry of popular uprisings that challenge the very foundations of neo-liberal capitalism. There is a clear and protracted state of confusion going on amongst these leaders. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (again) tries in vain to find the safest words to meet the moment of fury in the streets of Libya while not straying too far from the corporate demands for stability at any cost. Her boss, President Obama, hides away on Presidents' Day perhaps hoping that by tomorrow all this will have gone away and he can get back to soaring speeches and mesmerized crowds.
Alas, that is unlikely. The violence unleashed upon the people of Libya, in the streets of Benghazi, Tripoli, al Baida and beyond, could very well make Libya a long-term dilemma for Washington. The people who have suffered through four decades of psychotically messianic rule are not likely to forget the meek (and in some instances downright offensive) statements of the U.S.A. and Europe calling for restraint while fighter jets were dropping bombs on their heads.
But the stakes are high at this point and go well beyond the shores of Tripoli. Firstly, key member states of the European Union have made hefty investments in Libya in the last few years and there isn't a strong desire to have these investments disturbed. With moves over the last decade to be re-admitted into the so-called global community, Qaddafi's Libya has caught the attention of nations and business. The 2004 application to the World Trade Organization, odd diplomatic feints such as suggesting a combined Jewish-Palestinian state called Isratine, and political posturing calling for a unified African nation are Qaddafi's attempts to move Libya away from its revolutionary image of the 1970s and 1980s.
Secondly, natural resources have facilitated these rebranding attempts. Libya's vast oil reserves make it a critical player globally simply because any interruption in supply would have a dramatic ripple effect on economies worldwide. Indeed, we are already beginning to see this at the gas-pump. And lastly, though he may be a disdainful bed partner, to send Qaddafi out the door now would simply add confidence to popular movements in more acceptable client states, thereby leading to the instability (also known as representative rule) that our Secretary of State so clearly dreads. This, at any rate, was the logic that seemed to guiding the brooding diplomats of the United States and Europe until a few days ago. There is likely to be a significant change of course simply because the level of carnage has exceeded the level of acceptability and could prove to be a far more destabilizing factor. That aside, let's now take a look at some key examples that highlight the once enviable position of Muammar Qaddafi in the geopolitical arena.
Italy currently receives 20% of its total oil imports from their former North African colony. This fact alone explains the despicable action of the Italian government over the last three days, as well as its willingness to be as evasive in condemning Qaddafi's violence as their prime minister is in letting the world know why he has a penchant for paying underage prostitutes for sex. Just days ago, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, echoing the words of comfort given by his Prime Minister to Qaddafi, stated, "We should not give the wrong impression of wanting to interfere, of wanting to export our democracy. We have to help, we have to support the peaceful reconciliation."
Perhaps, hearkening back to the brutal days of Italian colonial expeditions in Libya, he forgot that people rarely seek peaceful reconciliation with those who are comfortable with mowing down fellow citizens with 50 caliber machine gun rounds. Now granted, the Italians are apt to take a not-too-terribly-clever passive stance if for no other reason than they have a lot of money riding on the survival of Qaddafi. Oil imports at that scale make a brutal strongman an asset, if he is able to keep the oil flowing. That, though, is the ultimate unknown and we may well see Signor Frattini change his song before long as tribes in the oil-rich south of Libya begin to side with anti-government protesters, thereby threatening oil production.
Now to Britain. First on the list of Britain's new love affair with the Qaddafi regime is the central role of oil. In recent times, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has become something of a Qaddafi fan, with multiple visits with the Madman of North Africa over the past few years, including one that was splashed all over the British headlines in June of last year. What Blair has been up to hasn't fully come to light, but his moves vis a vis the Libyan regime were certainly pleasing to the Board of British Petroleum. Lest we forget, Libya has some of the largest oil reserves on the African continent and the prospect of untethered access to them made the mouths of Big Oil water. For four decades, Qaddafi maintained a nationalized oil extraction and production industry, filling the coffers of the leader and his acolytes. But with the 21st Century came an attempted neo-liberal regime facelift. Three years ago, BP signed a substantial exploration deal with the Qaddafi regime, totaling 900 million USD. This was one of the first of many corporate deals that made western liberal democracies giddy with excitement. The flamboyant defender of the Palestinian cause was shedding the clothes of barbarism and coming to the light of free markets. Big oil now had access to huge reserves; lots and lots of money was to be had. This rapture has come to a screeching halt in the past few days. Odds are that BP executives have joined western leaders and diplomats in sweating bullets over the Libyan events. Strongman Qaddafi was a dream for them. His odd, cultish ways aside, he was meant to be a man who knew how to hold his people in check and did so quite well for 42 years.
These are the characteristics of a leader well suited for the rapacious bottom-feeders of global capital. But they also demand that the ugliness of business be kept tightly under wraps. In this regard, Qaddafi has failed spectacularly.
And then, of course, there are the arms traders. Since its formation, the Cameron government has had an arms dealers' version of a tupper-ware party with the Middle East's less savory dictators, including the selling of crowd control weapons to Libya. Here is the list of some lethal toys sold to Libya by the British, as reported by The Independent on February 18th: tear gas; crowd control and small arms ammunition; ammunition for wall- and door-breaching projectile launchers. Also included in the list was military infrared and thermal imaging equipment, which one may suspect have been used by mercenary snipers to target unarmed protesters over the past five nights. Qaddafi's brutality towards his subject may have sealed his fate, though.
Recent history has shown that Big Oil and western governments have a strong stomach for mercenaries, violence, and cruelty for the preservation of profits. But Heaven forefend that these acts come to light. Reports of fighter jets unleashed on the people of Libya and mercenaries roaming the capital expose the mockery that is European values. As these stories find their way to the webpages of Al Jazeera, the BBC, and CNN, we may see considerably stronger rhetoric and action coming from the houses of power in the west, all signs that Qaddafi has become bad for business. This, of course, doesn't mean that the struggle for justice in Libya is close to being over. Instead, they may have to fend off attempts to replace the Madman of North Africa with a slightly more constrained and manageable strongman.
ANATOMY OF EGYPT'S REVOLUTION (PART THREE)
ANATOMY OF EGYPT'S REVOLUTION (PART THREE)
How Democracy Could be Hijacked
By Esam Al-Amin
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” --Nelson Mandela
January 25 was the date the Egyptian youth decided to launch their revolution. As the fear barrier was broken, Egyptians throughout the country and from all walks of life joined the protests by the millions. Their main chant for eighteen continuous days was ‘The people want the fall of the regime.’
On February 11 that demand was met in a twenty second address by the recently appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman. Appearing on state television, he declared that Hosni Mubarak had resigned from his thirty-year position, transferring his authority to a military council called the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
His brief statement epitomized the end of an era marked by vicious repression and corruption as well as the inauguration of a new era that all Egyptians have since been celebrating in the streets.
The military signified the last institution tied to the deposed regime that still retained the trust and confidence of the people. During the protests it declared neutrality between the people and the regime. Although it demonstrated some favoritism towards the former regime at critical junctures of the uprising, to its credit, it rejected the call by the deposed president to crack down on the demonstrators.
Insisting on their peaceful protests while focusing on their main demand, the pro-democracy revolutionaries did not take the bait of the deposed president by engaging in violence in response to the crackdown by the security forces. When the army was called to the streets, the public embraced it; frequently chanting ‘The people and the army are one.’
Subsequently the groups that participated in the revolution formed loose coalitions in order to articulate their demands. The main coalition of the January 25 revolution, which included the most active groups and parties, has presented 35 demands to the new military rulers. These demands span all aspects of Egyptian life, including the political, constitutional, judicial, security, and economic levels.
Some of the most important demands encompassed the transfer of power from SCAF, which is ruling the country, to a transitional five-member civilian presidential council that would also include the head of the military; the dissolution of the lower and upper chambers of parliament; the dissolution of all provincial and local councils; the dissolution of the last government appointed by Mubarak, led by Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq; and the establishment of an elected and representative congress to write a new constitution.
Other demands include the release of all political prisoners- not only those who were arrested after Jan. 25 but also all political prisoners in Egyptian prisons, the end of the notorious state of emergency law, the dissolution of the state security apparatus that ruled the country through intimidation and fear, the dissolution of the ruling party and confiscation of its assets, investigation of all corrupt politicians and businessmen, including Mubarak and his sons, who systematically stole hundreds of billions of dollars, and putting them on trial, as well as firing all board chairmen and chief editors of the state print and electronic media who were cheering on the regime and deceiving the public through their massive propaganda operations.
In their first communiqués, the military rulers declared they would embrace, without elaboration, the demands of the revolution. But out of the three-dozen demands of the pro-democracy organizers, they have only explicitly supported three major demands in the first ten days while remaining vague on many others. Some pro-democracy leaders looked at the pace and scope of the reforms with cautious optimism, while others were alarmed and raised genuine concerns.
It was clear that behind the scenes the military forced Mubarak to resign, thus playing a crucial role in satisfying the main demand of the revolution. Subsequently, the military council embraced a much narrower agenda by favoring limited constitutional reform. It appointed some of the most respected constitutional scholars in the country to amend the constitution, addressing issues related to free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections, including limiting presidential terms.
But this was the same agenda announced by Mubarak before he resigned, a much less ambitious feat than the public’s demand for a new constitution. The difference was that the military, unlike Mubarak, selected credible judges and constitutional scholars who had no ties to the deposed president or his regime.
Another crucial demand carried out by the military council was the dissolution of the parliament, which the deposed regime fraudulently elected last November. Moreover, in order to diffuse some of the public anger, the military council called on the state prosecutor to arrest three former corrupt ministers and one senior ruling party leader as they are being investigated for massive financial and political corruption.
The prosecutor also banned dozens of other former ministers and oligarchs from foreign travel, as he announced massive investigations on huge sums of ill-gotten money, bribery, extortion, and other acts of economic and official corruption. It appears that the corrosive behavior of power and money during the Mubarak regime is promising to bring down some of the most powerful and wealthy people of Mubarak’s Egypt.
Much information that has appeared in the media since the downfall of Mubarak, show huge financial irregularities and corruption by the pillars of the former regime, reaching over a trillion dollars in one conservative estimate. For instance, many senior leaders of previous Mubarak governments, as well as ruling party leaders close to his son Gamal, acquired state lands or factories at rock bottom prices. In most transactions each individual made billions of dollars. Some even made in excess of $5 billion in one land deal.
However, bringing this class of people to justice would be a huge challenge and a critical test to the ultimate success of the revolution. After all, in the minds of most people revolutions are about rendering justice and punishing usurpers of the people’s rights and wealth.
Whether the investigations would be allowed to cover all corrupt individuals including the Mubarak family remains to be seen. If such investigations are allowed to proceed, they will represent significant indicators to the real independence and transparency of the military council.
Real challenge: Revolution vs. Counter-revolution
As the French revolution was unfolding at the end of the eighteenth century, French philosopher and diplomat Joseph de Maistre wrote, “The Counter-Revolution will not be a reverse revolution, but the reverse of a Revolution.” Likewise, the main challenge to Egypt’s revolution is that it could be hijacked by counter-revolutionaries, tied to the deposed regime, who would then reverse the revolution.
So what are the main challenges paused by counter-revolutionary forces facing the Egyptian revolution?
The dean of Arab journalists in the Middle East is Nasser-era Muhammad Hassanein Haykal. Banned from appearing on state television since the days of former President Anwar Sadat, he has recently sounded the alarm. He claimed in his first Egyptian television interview since the early 1970s that Mubarak, who is residing in his mansion at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm Al-Sheikh, has maintained contacts with the current Prime Minister that he appointed in early February. The implication is that he might be ruling by proxy.
If true, this would imply a huge betrayal of the people’s trust. Sharm Al-Sheikh gives Mubarak a huge advantage over his opponents. It is an isolated tourist destination by the Red Sea in the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, where few Egyptians live, mainly servicing American, European and Israeli visitors.
Moreover, because of the restrictions placed on the Egyptians by the peace treaty with Israel, the army could not send more than 800 personnel into the entire peninsula. Most likely, there are more armed guards protecting Mubarak and his family at Sharm than that paltry number.
But the only way to limit any influence by Mubarak or his cronies on the future of the country is to purge his people from all positions of power or influence. This was the main theme of the more than three million demonstrators in Tahrir Square who came together one week after Mubarak’s ouster on Friday, February 18, celebrating ‘Victory Day.’
On that day the main chants of the demonstrators were, ‘The people demand to purify the regime,’ and ‘The people demand the values of the (Tahrir) Square,’ in a clear reference to revolutionary demands and ethics.
To purify the regime, the revolutionaries are demanding that the military council purge many institutions and dismiss many senior people tied to the previous regime. Otherwise, there will be a serious danger that the revolution could be hijacked –applying the same policies and corrupt practices albeit using different characters.
One of the foremost challenges, which the military council has been trying to avoid despite popular calls, is the dismissal of the central government and all the provincial governors, those officials appointed by Mubarak who showed intense loyalty to him through his final days.
Further, not only was the current government appointed by Mubarak a few days before he resigned, but many of its members, including the oil, information, labor, and health ministers were also known to be some of the most corrupt in the deposed regime.
Therefore the pro-democracy coalition is calling on the military council to declare a complete break from the previous regime and appoint an honest and capable individual to lead a transitional government until the elections, one that comprises a cabinet of technocrats, who were never part of any past Mubarak government.
But the military council has been wavering on this demand, preferring to bring about a limited reshuffle by replacing the most corrupt ministers, perhaps with some opposition members who were friendly with the previous regime. This is going to be a major test to the military council, signaling to the public their seriousness regarding the future direction of the country. Meanwhile, this challenge has been faced by the pro-democracy leaders of the coalition, formed to protect the revolution, by vowing to bring millions of people every Friday to Tahrir Square until this demand is met.
Perhaps the major challenges illustrating whether the military is serious about breaking from the past and embracing the goals of the revolution are in three crucial areas. The first challenge is at the security level. The main reason the deposed regime was able to control and dominate the political scene, and rule by instilling fear and repression is because of the state security apparatus, called the Mabahith. Until this apparatus is totally dismantled, there is a considerable threat that the revolution could be reversed, or at least hindered to the point of derailing its main objectives.
Secondly, major figures in the former ruling party, including major corrupt businessmen, are trying to regroup and re-brand themselves as a new pro-revolution and reform party, in an attempt to take over the levers of state power by manipulating the public, using the huge resources at their disposal, and through their internal knowledge of how state institutions operate. For example, the current government, in a plain effort to appease state employees, has offered each worker a fifteen per cent raise in order to carry favor and gain their support in any future elections.
Thirdly, none of the pro-regime media officials appointed by Mubarak to the numerous state print and electronic media boards or outlets, or heads of labor unions, have been dismissed. If allowed to stay in power, they would pose a very dangerous threat to genuine change since, as part of the previous regime, they have every incentive to promote their people to cover up all their corrupt behavior and practices, even as they falsely present themselves in the interim as reformers.
Another important test to SCAF’s seriousness with regard to the people’s demands is the lifting of the state of emergency law and allowing the unhindered formation of political parties. There are many manifestations of this law that stifle personal, civil, and political freedoms. For instance, under this law people could administratively be detained by the government without any charges for extended periods of time, or their houses searched without any judicial warrants.
Further, all universities are still controlled by the police, so that students could not organize their activities without the prying eyes of the state. The military council has already promised to lift the emergency law within six months. Fulfilling this promise is considered one of the most important signs to the realization of civilian and democratic rule.
An immediate impact of the revolution on the political system was this week’s judicial ruling on the formation of one of the political parties, the Wasat (or Middle), that has been fighting to come to existence since 1996. This time the Administrative Judicial System asserted its independence, voided the past ban, and ruled for it to legally operate. The previous regime fought against it for fifteen years because it was formed by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, the military council has promised to enact laws soon that would make formation of political parties easy and routine.
The role judges are likely to play in the future of Egyptian society will also be a clear indication of the direction of the country. If Egypt establishes a strong and independent judiciary, one whose decisions are respected and observed in society and not undermined by the executive branch, Egypt will then become the modern democratic state the revolution has called for.
This test will come to pass soon, as the next elections are scheduled this year under the supervision of the judiciary. If it is able to assert its authority and administer the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections freely and fairly by truly reflecting the will of the people, then Egypt will have accomplished a major milestone along its path on becoming a democratic state.
In short, like all such moments in history, Egypt’s revolution faces great challenges. But perhaps the most important is whether the new Egypt will break from the grip of some elements of Mubarak’s regime trying desperately to cling to power and prevent real change. The military will certainly have a say on whether to go forward and propel true reforms, as demanded by the revolution, or slow down and besiege it to accommodate the interests of its opponents.
In addition, a central challenge to the revolution will be the external pressures applied by international and regional powers to safeguard their interests and policies, which may diverge from or have a direct conflict with the interests and wishes of the vast majority of the people of Egypt. For instance, Egyptians overwhelmingly want to lift the siege on Gaza that the deposed regime helped maintain. They also want to help the various Palestinian factions reach a re-conciliation and end their division. Both objectives are strongly opposed by the U.S. and Israel.
Hence, the assertion of Egypt’s independence in the face of certain immense Western pressures would represent the ultimate test to the success of this revolution. If the future government of Egypt truly reflects the will of its people in internal as well as external policies, then the revolution has indeed succeeded. If not, then somewhere along the way counter revolutionary elements would have hijacked it, setting the stage for another corrective revolution.
Only the vigilance of the revolutionary forces in society and insistence on achieving their main objectives will determine the destiny of Egypt’s revolution. As it started in Tahrir Square on January 25, Egypt’s revolution might be destined to stay in Tahrir Square for some time until every challenge has met its response and every objective has become a reality.
In his farewell address in 1837, President Andrew Jackson said it best when he reminded his people that “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty,” and that one “must pay the price” in order “to secure the blessing.”
How Democracy Could be Hijacked
By Esam Al-Amin
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” --Nelson Mandela
January 25 was the date the Egyptian youth decided to launch their revolution. As the fear barrier was broken, Egyptians throughout the country and from all walks of life joined the protests by the millions. Their main chant for eighteen continuous days was ‘The people want the fall of the regime.’
On February 11 that demand was met in a twenty second address by the recently appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman. Appearing on state television, he declared that Hosni Mubarak had resigned from his thirty-year position, transferring his authority to a military council called the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
His brief statement epitomized the end of an era marked by vicious repression and corruption as well as the inauguration of a new era that all Egyptians have since been celebrating in the streets.
The military signified the last institution tied to the deposed regime that still retained the trust and confidence of the people. During the protests it declared neutrality between the people and the regime. Although it demonstrated some favoritism towards the former regime at critical junctures of the uprising, to its credit, it rejected the call by the deposed president to crack down on the demonstrators.
Insisting on their peaceful protests while focusing on their main demand, the pro-democracy revolutionaries did not take the bait of the deposed president by engaging in violence in response to the crackdown by the security forces. When the army was called to the streets, the public embraced it; frequently chanting ‘The people and the army are one.’
Subsequently the groups that participated in the revolution formed loose coalitions in order to articulate their demands. The main coalition of the January 25 revolution, which included the most active groups and parties, has presented 35 demands to the new military rulers. These demands span all aspects of Egyptian life, including the political, constitutional, judicial, security, and economic levels.
Some of the most important demands encompassed the transfer of power from SCAF, which is ruling the country, to a transitional five-member civilian presidential council that would also include the head of the military; the dissolution of the lower and upper chambers of parliament; the dissolution of all provincial and local councils; the dissolution of the last government appointed by Mubarak, led by Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq; and the establishment of an elected and representative congress to write a new constitution.
Other demands include the release of all political prisoners- not only those who were arrested after Jan. 25 but also all political prisoners in Egyptian prisons, the end of the notorious state of emergency law, the dissolution of the state security apparatus that ruled the country through intimidation and fear, the dissolution of the ruling party and confiscation of its assets, investigation of all corrupt politicians and businessmen, including Mubarak and his sons, who systematically stole hundreds of billions of dollars, and putting them on trial, as well as firing all board chairmen and chief editors of the state print and electronic media who were cheering on the regime and deceiving the public through their massive propaganda operations.
In their first communiqués, the military rulers declared they would embrace, without elaboration, the demands of the revolution. But out of the three-dozen demands of the pro-democracy organizers, they have only explicitly supported three major demands in the first ten days while remaining vague on many others. Some pro-democracy leaders looked at the pace and scope of the reforms with cautious optimism, while others were alarmed and raised genuine concerns.
It was clear that behind the scenes the military forced Mubarak to resign, thus playing a crucial role in satisfying the main demand of the revolution. Subsequently, the military council embraced a much narrower agenda by favoring limited constitutional reform. It appointed some of the most respected constitutional scholars in the country to amend the constitution, addressing issues related to free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections, including limiting presidential terms.
But this was the same agenda announced by Mubarak before he resigned, a much less ambitious feat than the public’s demand for a new constitution. The difference was that the military, unlike Mubarak, selected credible judges and constitutional scholars who had no ties to the deposed president or his regime.
Another crucial demand carried out by the military council was the dissolution of the parliament, which the deposed regime fraudulently elected last November. Moreover, in order to diffuse some of the public anger, the military council called on the state prosecutor to arrest three former corrupt ministers and one senior ruling party leader as they are being investigated for massive financial and political corruption.
The prosecutor also banned dozens of other former ministers and oligarchs from foreign travel, as he announced massive investigations on huge sums of ill-gotten money, bribery, extortion, and other acts of economic and official corruption. It appears that the corrosive behavior of power and money during the Mubarak regime is promising to bring down some of the most powerful and wealthy people of Mubarak’s Egypt.
Much information that has appeared in the media since the downfall of Mubarak, show huge financial irregularities and corruption by the pillars of the former regime, reaching over a trillion dollars in one conservative estimate. For instance, many senior leaders of previous Mubarak governments, as well as ruling party leaders close to his son Gamal, acquired state lands or factories at rock bottom prices. In most transactions each individual made billions of dollars. Some even made in excess of $5 billion in one land deal.
However, bringing this class of people to justice would be a huge challenge and a critical test to the ultimate success of the revolution. After all, in the minds of most people revolutions are about rendering justice and punishing usurpers of the people’s rights and wealth.
Whether the investigations would be allowed to cover all corrupt individuals including the Mubarak family remains to be seen. If such investigations are allowed to proceed, they will represent significant indicators to the real independence and transparency of the military council.
Real challenge: Revolution vs. Counter-revolution
As the French revolution was unfolding at the end of the eighteenth century, French philosopher and diplomat Joseph de Maistre wrote, “The Counter-Revolution will not be a reverse revolution, but the reverse of a Revolution.” Likewise, the main challenge to Egypt’s revolution is that it could be hijacked by counter-revolutionaries, tied to the deposed regime, who would then reverse the revolution.
So what are the main challenges paused by counter-revolutionary forces facing the Egyptian revolution?
The dean of Arab journalists in the Middle East is Nasser-era Muhammad Hassanein Haykal. Banned from appearing on state television since the days of former President Anwar Sadat, he has recently sounded the alarm. He claimed in his first Egyptian television interview since the early 1970s that Mubarak, who is residing in his mansion at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm Al-Sheikh, has maintained contacts with the current Prime Minister that he appointed in early February. The implication is that he might be ruling by proxy.
If true, this would imply a huge betrayal of the people’s trust. Sharm Al-Sheikh gives Mubarak a huge advantage over his opponents. It is an isolated tourist destination by the Red Sea in the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, where few Egyptians live, mainly servicing American, European and Israeli visitors.
Moreover, because of the restrictions placed on the Egyptians by the peace treaty with Israel, the army could not send more than 800 personnel into the entire peninsula. Most likely, there are more armed guards protecting Mubarak and his family at Sharm than that paltry number.
But the only way to limit any influence by Mubarak or his cronies on the future of the country is to purge his people from all positions of power or influence. This was the main theme of the more than three million demonstrators in Tahrir Square who came together one week after Mubarak’s ouster on Friday, February 18, celebrating ‘Victory Day.’
On that day the main chants of the demonstrators were, ‘The people demand to purify the regime,’ and ‘The people demand the values of the (Tahrir) Square,’ in a clear reference to revolutionary demands and ethics.
To purify the regime, the revolutionaries are demanding that the military council purge many institutions and dismiss many senior people tied to the previous regime. Otherwise, there will be a serious danger that the revolution could be hijacked –applying the same policies and corrupt practices albeit using different characters.
One of the foremost challenges, which the military council has been trying to avoid despite popular calls, is the dismissal of the central government and all the provincial governors, those officials appointed by Mubarak who showed intense loyalty to him through his final days.
Further, not only was the current government appointed by Mubarak a few days before he resigned, but many of its members, including the oil, information, labor, and health ministers were also known to be some of the most corrupt in the deposed regime.
Therefore the pro-democracy coalition is calling on the military council to declare a complete break from the previous regime and appoint an honest and capable individual to lead a transitional government until the elections, one that comprises a cabinet of technocrats, who were never part of any past Mubarak government.
But the military council has been wavering on this demand, preferring to bring about a limited reshuffle by replacing the most corrupt ministers, perhaps with some opposition members who were friendly with the previous regime. This is going to be a major test to the military council, signaling to the public their seriousness regarding the future direction of the country. Meanwhile, this challenge has been faced by the pro-democracy leaders of the coalition, formed to protect the revolution, by vowing to bring millions of people every Friday to Tahrir Square until this demand is met.
Perhaps the major challenges illustrating whether the military is serious about breaking from the past and embracing the goals of the revolution are in three crucial areas. The first challenge is at the security level. The main reason the deposed regime was able to control and dominate the political scene, and rule by instilling fear and repression is because of the state security apparatus, called the Mabahith. Until this apparatus is totally dismantled, there is a considerable threat that the revolution could be reversed, or at least hindered to the point of derailing its main objectives.
Secondly, major figures in the former ruling party, including major corrupt businessmen, are trying to regroup and re-brand themselves as a new pro-revolution and reform party, in an attempt to take over the levers of state power by manipulating the public, using the huge resources at their disposal, and through their internal knowledge of how state institutions operate. For example, the current government, in a plain effort to appease state employees, has offered each worker a fifteen per cent raise in order to carry favor and gain their support in any future elections.
Thirdly, none of the pro-regime media officials appointed by Mubarak to the numerous state print and electronic media boards or outlets, or heads of labor unions, have been dismissed. If allowed to stay in power, they would pose a very dangerous threat to genuine change since, as part of the previous regime, they have every incentive to promote their people to cover up all their corrupt behavior and practices, even as they falsely present themselves in the interim as reformers.
Another important test to SCAF’s seriousness with regard to the people’s demands is the lifting of the state of emergency law and allowing the unhindered formation of political parties. There are many manifestations of this law that stifle personal, civil, and political freedoms. For instance, under this law people could administratively be detained by the government without any charges for extended periods of time, or their houses searched without any judicial warrants.
Further, all universities are still controlled by the police, so that students could not organize their activities without the prying eyes of the state. The military council has already promised to lift the emergency law within six months. Fulfilling this promise is considered one of the most important signs to the realization of civilian and democratic rule.
An immediate impact of the revolution on the political system was this week’s judicial ruling on the formation of one of the political parties, the Wasat (or Middle), that has been fighting to come to existence since 1996. This time the Administrative Judicial System asserted its independence, voided the past ban, and ruled for it to legally operate. The previous regime fought against it for fifteen years because it was formed by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, the military council has promised to enact laws soon that would make formation of political parties easy and routine.
The role judges are likely to play in the future of Egyptian society will also be a clear indication of the direction of the country. If Egypt establishes a strong and independent judiciary, one whose decisions are respected and observed in society and not undermined by the executive branch, Egypt will then become the modern democratic state the revolution has called for.
This test will come to pass soon, as the next elections are scheduled this year under the supervision of the judiciary. If it is able to assert its authority and administer the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections freely and fairly by truly reflecting the will of the people, then Egypt will have accomplished a major milestone along its path on becoming a democratic state.
In short, like all such moments in history, Egypt’s revolution faces great challenges. But perhaps the most important is whether the new Egypt will break from the grip of some elements of Mubarak’s regime trying desperately to cling to power and prevent real change. The military will certainly have a say on whether to go forward and propel true reforms, as demanded by the revolution, or slow down and besiege it to accommodate the interests of its opponents.
In addition, a central challenge to the revolution will be the external pressures applied by international and regional powers to safeguard their interests and policies, which may diverge from or have a direct conflict with the interests and wishes of the vast majority of the people of Egypt. For instance, Egyptians overwhelmingly want to lift the siege on Gaza that the deposed regime helped maintain. They also want to help the various Palestinian factions reach a re-conciliation and end their division. Both objectives are strongly opposed by the U.S. and Israel.
Hence, the assertion of Egypt’s independence in the face of certain immense Western pressures would represent the ultimate test to the success of this revolution. If the future government of Egypt truly reflects the will of its people in internal as well as external policies, then the revolution has indeed succeeded. If not, then somewhere along the way counter revolutionary elements would have hijacked it, setting the stage for another corrective revolution.
Only the vigilance of the revolutionary forces in society and insistence on achieving their main objectives will determine the destiny of Egypt’s revolution. As it started in Tahrir Square on January 25, Egypt’s revolution might be destined to stay in Tahrir Square for some time until every challenge has met its response and every objective has become a reality.
In his farewell address in 1837, President Andrew Jackson said it best when he reminded his people that “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty,” and that one “must pay the price” in order “to secure the blessing.”
Thursday 24 February 2011
GADDAFI MAD DOG OF THE MIDDLE EAST
GADDAFI MAD DOG OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Rivers of blood will run through Libya … these were the chilling words of Saif Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, as anti-government demonstrations spread across the country. “We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet,” he added. They were not idle words. There is no reason to doubt the Gaddafi family means it for their hold on power has been notorious for the copious amounts of blood that have been shed along the way.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is one of the longest-serving rulers in the world. He came to power 41 years ago and soon began rattling doors in every corner of the planet. He became eccentric, unpredictable, and some think him a little insane.
His malevolence could fill an encyclopaedia. He sent hit squads abroad to kill Libyan dissidents. He went to war with neighbouring Chad. He became an ardent supporter of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the IRA, sending them vast sums of money and boat loads of missiles. He used Libya’s oil wealth to bankroll international terrorism, almost certainly paying for the Black September massacre at the 1972 Olympics and the attacks of notorious Carlos the Jackal.
In 1984 one of his diplomats shot and killed PC Yvonne Fletcher from the window of the Libyan embassy in St James’s Square in London. In 1986 a bomb was left under a table in a Berlin nightclub frequented by US servicemen and when it exploded it killed three and wounded hundreds. A telex from Libya to its East Berlin embassy congratulated them on a job well done. It all led US President Ronald Reagan to describe Gaddafi as “the mad dog of the Middle East”.
During the Eighties he was widely regarded as one of the most dangerous men in the world. Then during the Nineties he seemed to go through some form of transformation, turning from mad dog to what many regarded as simply barking mad. He insisted on spending much of his time in a tent, greeting foreign visitors as though he was still a Bedouin to his roots, though visitors would notice luxury Winnebagos packed full of the latest technology always parked nearby.
The late US President Ronald Reagan once described Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as “the mad dog of the Middle East.” Gaddafi’s theatrical and rambling speech on Tuesday, in the minds of many, carried echoes of the nickname Reagan gave him.
Gaddafi’s address may have been intended to instill fear among his opponents, but the Libyan people show no sign of stopping their protests.
In the speech, Gaddafi declared he would die a martyr in Libya, and he threatened to purge opponents “house by house” and “inch by inch.”
“The Libyan people are with me,” he said, exhorting his supporters to “Capture these rats, these terrorists [anti-government demonstrators]!”
French journalist Christian Mallard claims to have to inside information on the state of the Libyan leader’s health. He says Gaddafi is seriously ill but warns that the West should not underestimate him.
The journalist for France 3 television said: “I think we should take his threats seriously. Gaddafi is unpredictable.” Mallard said a Libyan diplomat had told him that Gaddafi “takes a number of chemical products, and is lucid for only a few hours a day.”
Despite relatively recently having appeared to make peace with the West, Gaddafi’s latest televised performance have been broadly construed to indicate that he remains as dangerous as ever.
He said on Tuesday he had “not yet ordered the use of force”, and he warned: “When I do, everything will burn!”
A number of high-profile ministers and diplomats have already defected from Gaddafi’s side, and there are reports that members of the armed forces are disobeying orders.
Many analysts believe it is only a matter of time before Gaddafi leaves power, either by force or of his own accord, though there is also his own reference to becoming “a martyr”.
Rivers of blood will run through Libya … these were the chilling words of Saif Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, as anti-government demonstrations spread across the country. “We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet,” he added. They were not idle words. There is no reason to doubt the Gaddafi family means it for their hold on power has been notorious for the copious amounts of blood that have been shed along the way.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is one of the longest-serving rulers in the world. He came to power 41 years ago and soon began rattling doors in every corner of the planet. He became eccentric, unpredictable, and some think him a little insane.
His malevolence could fill an encyclopaedia. He sent hit squads abroad to kill Libyan dissidents. He went to war with neighbouring Chad. He became an ardent supporter of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the IRA, sending them vast sums of money and boat loads of missiles. He used Libya’s oil wealth to bankroll international terrorism, almost certainly paying for the Black September massacre at the 1972 Olympics and the attacks of notorious Carlos the Jackal.
In 1984 one of his diplomats shot and killed PC Yvonne Fletcher from the window of the Libyan embassy in St James’s Square in London. In 1986 a bomb was left under a table in a Berlin nightclub frequented by US servicemen and when it exploded it killed three and wounded hundreds. A telex from Libya to its East Berlin embassy congratulated them on a job well done. It all led US President Ronald Reagan to describe Gaddafi as “the mad dog of the Middle East”.
During the Eighties he was widely regarded as one of the most dangerous men in the world. Then during the Nineties he seemed to go through some form of transformation, turning from mad dog to what many regarded as simply barking mad. He insisted on spending much of his time in a tent, greeting foreign visitors as though he was still a Bedouin to his roots, though visitors would notice luxury Winnebagos packed full of the latest technology always parked nearby.
The late US President Ronald Reagan once described Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as “the mad dog of the Middle East.” Gaddafi’s theatrical and rambling speech on Tuesday, in the minds of many, carried echoes of the nickname Reagan gave him.
Gaddafi’s address may have been intended to instill fear among his opponents, but the Libyan people show no sign of stopping their protests.
In the speech, Gaddafi declared he would die a martyr in Libya, and he threatened to purge opponents “house by house” and “inch by inch.”
“The Libyan people are with me,” he said, exhorting his supporters to “Capture these rats, these terrorists [anti-government demonstrators]!”
French journalist Christian Mallard claims to have to inside information on the state of the Libyan leader’s health. He says Gaddafi is seriously ill but warns that the West should not underestimate him.
The journalist for France 3 television said: “I think we should take his threats seriously. Gaddafi is unpredictable.” Mallard said a Libyan diplomat had told him that Gaddafi “takes a number of chemical products, and is lucid for only a few hours a day.”
Despite relatively recently having appeared to make peace with the West, Gaddafi’s latest televised performance have been broadly construed to indicate that he remains as dangerous as ever.
He said on Tuesday he had “not yet ordered the use of force”, and he warned: “When I do, everything will burn!”
A number of high-profile ministers and diplomats have already defected from Gaddafi’s side, and there are reports that members of the armed forces are disobeying orders.
Many analysts believe it is only a matter of time before Gaddafi leaves power, either by force or of his own accord, though there is also his own reference to becoming “a martyr”.
Wednesday 23 February 2011
UPRISINGS: FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO THE MIDWEST
UPRISINGS: FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO THE MIDWEST
By Amy Goodman
Posted on Feb 22, 2011
As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to not just badger the state’s public employee unions, but to break them. The Madison uprising follows on the heels of those in the Middle East. A sign held by one university student, an Iraq War vet, read, “I went to Iraq and came home to Egypt?” Another read, “Walker: Mubarak of the Midwest.” Likewise, a photo has circulated in Madison of a young man at a rally in Cairo, with a sign reading, “Egypt supports Wisconsin workers: One world, one pain.” Meanwhile, Libyans continue to defy a violent government crackdown against masses seeking to oust longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and more than 10,000 marched Tuesday in Ohio to oppose Republican Gov. John Kasich’s attempted anti-union legislative putsch.
Just a few weeks ago, solidarity between Egyptian youth and Wisconsin police officers, or between Libyan workers and Ohio public employees, might have elicited a raised eyebrow.
The uprising in Tunisia was sparked by the suicide of a young man named Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old university graduate who could not find professional work. Selling fruits and vegetables in the market, he was repeatedly harassed by Tunisian authorities who eventually confiscated his scale. Unbearably frustrated, he set himself on fire, a spark that ignited the protests that became the wave of revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. For decades in the region, people have lived under dictatorships—many that receive U.S. military aid—suffering human-rights abuses along with low income, high unemployment and almost no freedom of speech. All this, while the elites amassed fortunes.
Similar grievances underlie the conflicts in Wisconsin and Ohio. The “Great Recession” of 2008, according to economist Dean Baker, is now in its 37th month, with no sign of relenting. In a recent paper, Baker says that, due to the financial crisis, “many political figures have argued the need to drastically reduce the generosity of public sector pensions, and possibly to default on pension obligations already incurred. Most of the pension shortfall ... is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009.”
In other words, Wall Street hucksters, selling the complex mortgage-backed securities that provoked the collapse, are the ones who caused any pension shortfall. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston said recently: “The average Wisconsin state employee gets $24,500 a year. That’s not a very big pension ... 15 percent of the money going into it each year is being paid out to Wall Street to manage the money. That’s a really huge high percentage to pay out to Wall Street to manage the money.”
So, while investment bankers skim a huge percentage off pension funds, it’s the workers who are being demonized and asked to make the sacrifices. Those who caused the problem, who then got lavish bailouts and now are treated to huge salaries and bonuses, are not being held accountable. Following the money, it turns out Walker’s campaign was funded by the notorious Koch brothers, major backers of the tea party organizations. They also gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which gave substantial support to Walker’s campaign. Is it surprising that Walker supports corporations with tax breaks, and has launched a massive attack on unionized, public-sector employees?
One of the unions being targeted by Walker, and by Kasich in Ohio, is AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union was founded in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, in Madison. Its 1.6 million members are nurses, corrections officers, child-care providers, EMTs and sanitation workers. It is instructive to remember, in this Black History Month, that it was the struggle of the sanitation workers of AFSCME local No. 1733 that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tenn., back in April 1968. As Jesse Jackson told me as he marched with students and their unionized teachers in Madison on Tuesday: “Dr. King’s last act on earth, marching in Memphis, Tenn., was about workers’ rights to collective bargaining and rights to dues checkoff. You cannot remove the roof for the wealthy and remove the floor for the poor.”
The workers of Egypt were instrumental in bringing down the regime there, in a remarkable coalition with Egypt’s youth. In the streets of Madison, under the Capitol dome, another demonstration of solidarity is taking place. Wisconsin’s workers have agreed to pay and pension concessions, but will not give up their right to collective bargaining. At this point, Walker would be wise to negotiate. It is not a good season to be a tyrant.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
By Amy Goodman
Posted on Feb 22, 2011
As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to not just badger the state’s public employee unions, but to break them. The Madison uprising follows on the heels of those in the Middle East. A sign held by one university student, an Iraq War vet, read, “I went to Iraq and came home to Egypt?” Another read, “Walker: Mubarak of the Midwest.” Likewise, a photo has circulated in Madison of a young man at a rally in Cairo, with a sign reading, “Egypt supports Wisconsin workers: One world, one pain.” Meanwhile, Libyans continue to defy a violent government crackdown against masses seeking to oust longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and more than 10,000 marched Tuesday in Ohio to oppose Republican Gov. John Kasich’s attempted anti-union legislative putsch.
Just a few weeks ago, solidarity between Egyptian youth and Wisconsin police officers, or between Libyan workers and Ohio public employees, might have elicited a raised eyebrow.
The uprising in Tunisia was sparked by the suicide of a young man named Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old university graduate who could not find professional work. Selling fruits and vegetables in the market, he was repeatedly harassed by Tunisian authorities who eventually confiscated his scale. Unbearably frustrated, he set himself on fire, a spark that ignited the protests that became the wave of revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. For decades in the region, people have lived under dictatorships—many that receive U.S. military aid—suffering human-rights abuses along with low income, high unemployment and almost no freedom of speech. All this, while the elites amassed fortunes.
Similar grievances underlie the conflicts in Wisconsin and Ohio. The “Great Recession” of 2008, according to economist Dean Baker, is now in its 37th month, with no sign of relenting. In a recent paper, Baker says that, due to the financial crisis, “many political figures have argued the need to drastically reduce the generosity of public sector pensions, and possibly to default on pension obligations already incurred. Most of the pension shortfall ... is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009.”
In other words, Wall Street hucksters, selling the complex mortgage-backed securities that provoked the collapse, are the ones who caused any pension shortfall. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston said recently: “The average Wisconsin state employee gets $24,500 a year. That’s not a very big pension ... 15 percent of the money going into it each year is being paid out to Wall Street to manage the money. That’s a really huge high percentage to pay out to Wall Street to manage the money.”
So, while investment bankers skim a huge percentage off pension funds, it’s the workers who are being demonized and asked to make the sacrifices. Those who caused the problem, who then got lavish bailouts and now are treated to huge salaries and bonuses, are not being held accountable. Following the money, it turns out Walker’s campaign was funded by the notorious Koch brothers, major backers of the tea party organizations. They also gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which gave substantial support to Walker’s campaign. Is it surprising that Walker supports corporations with tax breaks, and has launched a massive attack on unionized, public-sector employees?
One of the unions being targeted by Walker, and by Kasich in Ohio, is AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union was founded in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, in Madison. Its 1.6 million members are nurses, corrections officers, child-care providers, EMTs and sanitation workers. It is instructive to remember, in this Black History Month, that it was the struggle of the sanitation workers of AFSCME local No. 1733 that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tenn., back in April 1968. As Jesse Jackson told me as he marched with students and their unionized teachers in Madison on Tuesday: “Dr. King’s last act on earth, marching in Memphis, Tenn., was about workers’ rights to collective bargaining and rights to dues checkoff. You cannot remove the roof for the wealthy and remove the floor for the poor.”
The workers of Egypt were instrumental in bringing down the regime there, in a remarkable coalition with Egypt’s youth. In the streets of Madison, under the Capitol dome, another demonstration of solidarity is taking place. Wisconsin’s workers have agreed to pay and pension concessions, but will not give up their right to collective bargaining. At this point, Walker would be wise to negotiate. It is not a good season to be a tyrant.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
Monday 21 February 2011
CORPORATE DICTATORS
TIME TO TOPPLE CORPORATE DICTATORS
Americans Need to Start Showing Up
The 18 day non-violent Egyptian protests for freedom raise the question: is America next? Were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine around, they would likely say "what are we waiting for?" They would be appalled by the concentration of economic and political power in such a few hands. Remember how often these two men warned about concentrated power.
Our Declaration of Independence (1776) listed grievances against King George III. A good number of them could have been made against "King" George W. Bush who not only brushed aside Congressional War-making authority under the Constitution but plunged the nation through lies into extended illegal wars which he conducted in violation of international law. Even conservative legal scholars such as Republicans Bruce Fein and former Judge Andrew Napolitano believe he and Dick Cheney still should be prosecuted for war and other related crimes. The conservative American Bar Association sent George W. Bush three "white papers" in 2005-2006 that documented his distinct violations of the Constitution he had sworn to uphold.
Here at home, the political system is a two-party dictatorship whose gerrymandering results in most electoral districts being one-party fiefdoms. The two Parties block the freedom of third parties and independent candidates to have equal access to the ballots and to the debates. Another barrier to competitive democratic elections is big money, largely commercial in source, which marinates most politicians in cowardliness and sinecurism.
Our legislative and executive branches, at the federal and state levels, can fairly be called corporate regimes. This is corporatism where government is controlled by private economic power. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called this grip "fascism" in a formal message to Congress in 1938.
Corporatism shuts out the people and opens governmental largesse paid for by taxpayers to insatiable corporations.
Notice how each decade the bailouts, subsidies, hand-outs, giveaways, and tax escapes for big business grow larger. The word "trillions" is increasingly used, as in the magnitude of the rescue by Washington of the Wall Street crooks and speculators who looted the peoples' pensions and savings.
It is not as if these giant companies demonstrate any gratitude to the people who save them again and again. Instead, U.S. companies are fast quitting the country in which they were chartered and prospered. These corporations, which were built on the backs of American workers, are shipping millions of jobs and whole industries to repressive foreign regimes abroad, such as China.
Over 70 percent of Americans in a September 2000 Business Week poll said corporations had "too much control over their lives." It's gotten worse with the last decade's corporate corruption and crime wave.
Wal-Mart imports over $20 billion a year in products from sweatshops in China. About a million Wal-Mart workers make under $10.50 per hour before deductions—many in the $8 an hour range. While Wal-Mart's CEO makes about $11,000 a hour plus benefits and perks.
This scenario has metastasized through the economy. One in three workers in the U.S. makes Wal-Mart level wages. Fifty million people have no health insurance and every year about 45,000 die because they cannot afford diagnosis or treatment. Child poverty is climbing as household income falls. Unemployment and underemployment are near 20% levels. The federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation since 1968, would be $10.00 per hour now. Instead, it is $7.25.
Yet one percent of the richest Americans have financial wealth equivalent to the bottom ninety-five percent of the people. Corporate profits and compensation of corporate bosses are at record levels. While companies, excluding financial firms, are sitting on two trillion dollars in cash.
On February 7, President Obama showed us where the power is by walking across LaFayette Park from the White House to the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Before a large audience of CEOs, he pleaded for them to invest more in jobs in America. Imagine, CEOs of pampered, privileged mega-companies often on welfare and in trouble with the law sitting there while the President curtsied.
With Bill Clinton in the Nineties, corporate lobbies tightened their grip on our country by greasing through Congress both NAFTA and the World Trade Organization agreements that subordinated our sovereignty and workers to the global government of corporations.
All this adds to the growing sense of powerlessness by the citizenry. They experience hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and many more injuries every year in the workplace, the environment, and the marketplace. Massive budgets and technologies do not go to reduce these costly casualties, instead they go to the big business of exaggerated security threats.
While the ObamaBush deficit-financed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been destroying those nations, our public works here, such as mass transit, schools and clincs crumble for lack of repairs. Foreclosures keep rising.
The debt servitude of consumers is stripping them of control of their own money as fine print contracts, credit ratings and credit scores tighten the noose on family budgets.
Half of democracy is showing up. Too many Americans, despairingly, are not "showing up" at the polls, at rallies, marches, courtrooms or city council meetings. If "we the people" want to reassert our proper constitutional sovereignty over our country—we can start by amassing ourselves in public squares and around the giant buildings of our rulers.
In a country that has so many problems it doesn't deserve and so many solutions that it doesn't apply; all things are possible when people begin looking at themselves for the necessary power to produce a just society
Americans Need to Start Showing Up
The 18 day non-violent Egyptian protests for freedom raise the question: is America next? Were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine around, they would likely say "what are we waiting for?" They would be appalled by the concentration of economic and political power in such a few hands. Remember how often these two men warned about concentrated power.
Our Declaration of Independence (1776) listed grievances against King George III. A good number of them could have been made against "King" George W. Bush who not only brushed aside Congressional War-making authority under the Constitution but plunged the nation through lies into extended illegal wars which he conducted in violation of international law. Even conservative legal scholars such as Republicans Bruce Fein and former Judge Andrew Napolitano believe he and Dick Cheney still should be prosecuted for war and other related crimes. The conservative American Bar Association sent George W. Bush three "white papers" in 2005-2006 that documented his distinct violations of the Constitution he had sworn to uphold.
Here at home, the political system is a two-party dictatorship whose gerrymandering results in most electoral districts being one-party fiefdoms. The two Parties block the freedom of third parties and independent candidates to have equal access to the ballots and to the debates. Another barrier to competitive democratic elections is big money, largely commercial in source, which marinates most politicians in cowardliness and sinecurism.
Our legislative and executive branches, at the federal and state levels, can fairly be called corporate regimes. This is corporatism where government is controlled by private economic power. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called this grip "fascism" in a formal message to Congress in 1938.
Corporatism shuts out the people and opens governmental largesse paid for by taxpayers to insatiable corporations.
Notice how each decade the bailouts, subsidies, hand-outs, giveaways, and tax escapes for big business grow larger. The word "trillions" is increasingly used, as in the magnitude of the rescue by Washington of the Wall Street crooks and speculators who looted the peoples' pensions and savings.
It is not as if these giant companies demonstrate any gratitude to the people who save them again and again. Instead, U.S. companies are fast quitting the country in which they were chartered and prospered. These corporations, which were built on the backs of American workers, are shipping millions of jobs and whole industries to repressive foreign regimes abroad, such as China.
Over 70 percent of Americans in a September 2000 Business Week poll said corporations had "too much control over their lives." It's gotten worse with the last decade's corporate corruption and crime wave.
Wal-Mart imports over $20 billion a year in products from sweatshops in China. About a million Wal-Mart workers make under $10.50 per hour before deductions—many in the $8 an hour range. While Wal-Mart's CEO makes about $11,000 a hour plus benefits and perks.
This scenario has metastasized through the economy. One in three workers in the U.S. makes Wal-Mart level wages. Fifty million people have no health insurance and every year about 45,000 die because they cannot afford diagnosis or treatment. Child poverty is climbing as household income falls. Unemployment and underemployment are near 20% levels. The federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation since 1968, would be $10.00 per hour now. Instead, it is $7.25.
Yet one percent of the richest Americans have financial wealth equivalent to the bottom ninety-five percent of the people. Corporate profits and compensation of corporate bosses are at record levels. While companies, excluding financial firms, are sitting on two trillion dollars in cash.
On February 7, President Obama showed us where the power is by walking across LaFayette Park from the White House to the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Before a large audience of CEOs, he pleaded for them to invest more in jobs in America. Imagine, CEOs of pampered, privileged mega-companies often on welfare and in trouble with the law sitting there while the President curtsied.
With Bill Clinton in the Nineties, corporate lobbies tightened their grip on our country by greasing through Congress both NAFTA and the World Trade Organization agreements that subordinated our sovereignty and workers to the global government of corporations.
All this adds to the growing sense of powerlessness by the citizenry. They experience hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and many more injuries every year in the workplace, the environment, and the marketplace. Massive budgets and technologies do not go to reduce these costly casualties, instead they go to the big business of exaggerated security threats.
While the ObamaBush deficit-financed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been destroying those nations, our public works here, such as mass transit, schools and clincs crumble for lack of repairs. Foreclosures keep rising.
The debt servitude of consumers is stripping them of control of their own money as fine print contracts, credit ratings and credit scores tighten the noose on family budgets.
Half of democracy is showing up. Too many Americans, despairingly, are not "showing up" at the polls, at rallies, marches, courtrooms or city council meetings. If "we the people" want to reassert our proper constitutional sovereignty over our country—we can start by amassing ourselves in public squares and around the giant buildings of our rulers.
In a country that has so many problems it doesn't deserve and so many solutions that it doesn't apply; all things are possible when people begin looking at themselves for the necessary power to produce a just society
Friday 18 February 2011
ROTE PLAYERS AND ROLE PLAYERS
ROTE PLAYERS AND ROLE PLAYERS
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton rushed to contrast the repressive brutality of the Iranian authorities with what they now seek to present as the bloodless, US-managed triumph of pro-democracy forces in Egypt.
By any measure this was brazen impudence, starting with the fact that across the past few weeks the 300 dead, slaughtered by security forces and government-hired thugs fell in Tahrir Square and the streets of Cairo, not in Teheran, with more dead piling up in Bahrein, home of the US Fifth Fleet.
Good or bad, everything has to be made in America. The 9/11 conspiracists decry the notion that “men in caves” –could plan the destruction of the Twin Towers. They say it had to be non-cavemen Bush and Cheney, plus the commanders of NORAD and several thousand red-blooded American accomplices.
Today, there’s a flourishing little internet industry claiming that the overthrow of Mubarak came courtesy of US Twitter-Facebook Command, overseen by Head of the Joint Chiefs of Twitter, in the unappetizing, self-promoting form of Jared Cohen, with flanking support by the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House.
I’ve no doubt that Cohen, NED and Freedom House are all happy to nod bashful agreement that their efforts were weighty, even crucial, in prompting the Egyptian people to rise up, but the claim is ludicrous.
The New York Times runs endless articles about the role of Twitter and Facebook but now either ignores or reviles Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
In any discussion of the role or the internet in fuelling the upsurges across the Middle East, Wikileaks should be central. Tunisians were able to read the unsparing assessment of the kleptocratic regime oppressing them, courtesy of US Ambassador Gordon Gray’s cables, secured by Wikileaks. Egyptians were able to read hitherto secret details of the role of Omar Suleiman in renditions, of Egypt’s abject services for the US and Israel.
The New York Times, to whom Assange made available some of his Wikileaks, repaid him (as did The Guardian ) with a vulgar onslaught by the Times’ editor, Bill Keller, essentially endorsing patently factitious accusations concerning the supposed nature of Assange’s sexual relations with two Swedish women, and also trumpeting the high minded concern of the New York Times with protecting the lives of US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton rushed to contrast the repressive brutality of the Iranian authorities with what they now seek to present as the bloodless, US-managed triumph of pro-democracy forces in Egypt.
By any measure this was brazen impudence, starting with the fact that across the past few weeks the 300 dead, slaughtered by security forces and government-hired thugs fell in Tahrir Square and the streets of Cairo, not in Teheran, with more dead piling up in Bahrein, home of the US Fifth Fleet.
Good or bad, everything has to be made in America. The 9/11 conspiracists decry the notion that “men in caves” –could plan the destruction of the Twin Towers. They say it had to be non-cavemen Bush and Cheney, plus the commanders of NORAD and several thousand red-blooded American accomplices.
Today, there’s a flourishing little internet industry claiming that the overthrow of Mubarak came courtesy of US Twitter-Facebook Command, overseen by Head of the Joint Chiefs of Twitter, in the unappetizing, self-promoting form of Jared Cohen, with flanking support by the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House.
I’ve no doubt that Cohen, NED and Freedom House are all happy to nod bashful agreement that their efforts were weighty, even crucial, in prompting the Egyptian people to rise up, but the claim is ludicrous.
The New York Times runs endless articles about the role of Twitter and Facebook but now either ignores or reviles Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
In any discussion of the role or the internet in fuelling the upsurges across the Middle East, Wikileaks should be central. Tunisians were able to read the unsparing assessment of the kleptocratic regime oppressing them, courtesy of US Ambassador Gordon Gray’s cables, secured by Wikileaks. Egyptians were able to read hitherto secret details of the role of Omar Suleiman in renditions, of Egypt’s abject services for the US and Israel.
The New York Times, to whom Assange made available some of his Wikileaks, repaid him (as did The Guardian ) with a vulgar onslaught by the Times’ editor, Bill Keller, essentially endorsing patently factitious accusations concerning the supposed nature of Assange’s sexual relations with two Swedish women, and also trumpeting the high minded concern of the New York Times with protecting the lives of US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
ANATOMY OF EGYPT'S REVOLUTION (PART TWO)
ANATOMY OF EGYPT'S REVOLUTION (PART TWO)
By ESAM AL-AMIN
“What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people.”
-- John Adams in an 1815 letter to Thomas Jefferson
Historians and political scientists study revolutions and analyze their impact, not only on their societies, where the political, economic, and social order is fundamentally transformed, but also on neighboring countries and beyond.
The Egyptian revolution, though still in its infancy, promises to be such a phenomenon. Admitting its historic nature was none other than the U.S. President, Barack Obama, who lauded the Egyptians as having “inspired us,” and praised their revolution, which he said represented a “moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice.”
He further added, “The word Tahrir means liberation. It’s a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom.” He went on to describe the momentous event and its impact on the world, saying, “And forever more it will remind us of the Egyptian people-of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world.”
Like similar great historical events, the triumph of the Egyptian revolution will have direct and significant consequences on the country, the region, and the world. Unsurprisingly some of the conditions that factored considerably in the success of the revolution have now become facts on the ground, such as the larger role of youth and women in politics and public life. Thus they are discussed here as well. Here are some of the most important consequences of Egypt’s revolution.
The role of the people: For many decades, the Egyptian people have been marginalized and their interests ignored. Since 1981, the deposed president had ruled the country based on the state of emergency law, which virtually suspended most of the people’s civil rights and political freedoms.
It had built an enormous security apparatus using a convoluted, multilayered system that included uniformed, riot, and secret police, as well as intelligence officers and the dreaded state security personnel, consisting of well over one million people nationwide. The regime ruled by fear and intimidation, employing wide use of brutal tactics including torture and summary military trials that sentenced opponents to long years of hard labor based on political beliefs.
Dr. Ahmad Okasha, president of the Egyptian Psychological Society explained that throughout the Mubarak years “the collective psyche of the Egyptian people was damaged.” Furthermore, he added, “the majority of the people were in a deep state of depression.” They felt insulted and abused by the authorities, powerless to change anything in society, literally strangers in their own country.
So what the revolution offered the people was the opportunity to restore their sense of self-esteem, honor and dignity. Once the fear barrier was knocked down, they acquired a new sense of pride and empowerment that not only challenged the state monopoly on violence but also defeated it using solely peaceful means. With each passing day they became more determined to fight for their rights and quite willing to tender the sacrifices needed to gain their freedom.
Hence, once the people realized their enormous collective power and what they are capable of achieving, they never looked back and would not be disregarded again.
The role of the youth: By sucking the air out of the political space, the deposed regime employed all of its resources to divert the attention of the youth and channel their energies into non-threatening matters such as sports competitions (recall the Algerian-Egyptian conflict that consumed the country last year, lasting for months because of a soccer game) or exhaust people by encouraging mass consumerism.
But since the youth have played a significant role in setting off and sustaining the revolution, their role in society will never be the same. Egyptian youth under 35 represent over 60 per cent of society, yet before the revolution they were not taken seriously nor given much credit.
Now, not only are they part of the most significant event in their modern history but they will also have a seat at the table to determine their country’s future. Already they are a major part of every organization, coalition, and committee appointed or elected to determine the next state of affairs in the country. The ruling military council has already met with their representatives several times. All opposition groups have welcomed them in their parties, offering them leadership positions.
The role of women: Similarly, the women of Egypt have played a major role in this revolution. They demonstrated in large numbers, and were essential organizers, leaders, and spokespersons during all phases of the revolution, including during the most difficult times when they came under physical attack by the security forces and thugs of the ruling party.
They posted the calls for mobilization and uploaded their video blogs on the internet. They distributed leaflets and urged their neighborhoods to protest. They were subsequently beaten, injured, and some even sacrificed their lives. They chanted and led demonstrations against the regime.
Some were doctors, working side by side with their male counterparts treating thousands of the injured in the streets. They were part of the protection and security committees, patting down female protesters to ensure their safety. In short, they were part of every important function of the revolution. The women of Egypt have found their voices and will never return to the margins of society again.
The rejection of sectarianism: One of the most tried and successful techniques of authoritarian regimes is to exploit the major fault lines in society, sparking religious, ethnic, and racial tensions. The deposed regime has often played up and sometimes even instigated the Muslim-Coptic tension in Egypt.
The former regime is even implicated in an incident earlier this year. Egypt’s state prosecutor is currently investigating the role of the Interior Minister and the state security apparatus in last month’s bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria that killed dozens of people. The attack exacerbated the religious divide and threatened social cohesiveness.
However, the revolution has demonstrated in no uncertain terms the popular rejection of sectarianism, as Muslim and Christian communities joined together as fellow citizens protesting the repression and corruption of the regime that has afflicted them all. They marched, sang, chanted, and prayed together. They shared meals and defended each other. Millions of Egyptians witnessed a Muslim imam and a Coptic priest speaking together on the importance of national unity in Tahrir Square.
Ahmad Ragab, a prominent columnist and political cartoonist, observed that when he saw in Tahrir Square a Christian woman pouring water to help a Muslim man make ablution in preparation for prayer, he knew then that the revolution was to succeed.
Prominent Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders praised and defended the Copts while Coptic leaders hailed them in return for their cooperation and sacrifices. Egyptians now believe a new dawn of Muslim-Coptic relations has emerged based on mutual respect and shared citizenship.
The revival of a value-based moral system: Throughout the eighteen days of protests people who were interviewed at Tahrir Square and elsewhere kept referring to a new atmosphere and new attitudes by the people. They talked with pride about the civilized behavior displayed by the demonstrators.
People genuinely cared for and respected one another. They shared their meals and helped each other without expecting any compensation. They felt like they were part of one family. Although millions of people were in the square, there were no reports of fights or robberies. Young women spoke about how young men shielded them from the batons or the rubber bullets of the security forces, or the stones and Molotov cocktails from the goons of the ruling party.
The organizers took pride in the fact that all decisions of the activities of the revolution were based on mutual consultation and democratic principles. Every organizer and group was given the opportunity to voice his or her opinion and vote.
Thus, a new code, dubbed the “revolutionary ethical code,” was established and recognized by all. It encompasses values such as freedom, justice, equality, democracy, participation, solidarity, honesty, transparency, responsibility, and sacrifice- values, which many people had abandoned before the revolution upon feeling that they had no stake in a society ruled by bullies, thieves, and crooks.
The end of dictatorship: The downfall of Hosni Mubarak is not just the ouster of a dictator, but the end of an era that was marked by authoritarianism and cronyism. Egyptians believe strongly that this era is over and can never return.
They have learned that their strength was demonstrated in the streets and they no longer fear any threats by the security forces. If need be, they are willing to go back to the streets by the millions to stand up to the repression of the state. They believe that if they were able to topple Mubarak in eighteen days, they could bring down any future dictator. But they have pledged not to allow any future leader to become one in the first place.
The appreciation of freedom: Millions of Egyptians celebrated and cried with joy when Mubarak resigned on the night of February 11. As reporters from all over the world interviewed countless people dancing in the streets one word came out of their mouths: “we are free.” There is nothing more precious in life than gaining one’s freedom after being shackled by a repressive system or enslaved by a brutal dictator.
The power of this revolution is that it freed the people of Egypt from the yoke of tyranny. Once people taste freedom, it is next to impossible to deny them that exhilarating feeling.
Spreading a culture of democracy: An important consequence of the Egyptian revolution is that, unlike earlier uprisings or protests in Egypt such as the ones in 1968 or 1977, the people’s priority from the inception of this revolution has not only been to topple the regime but also to replace it with a democratic system and a strong civil society.
All opposition parties, including the MB, but especially the movements dominated by the youth, have pledged to honor and practice the rules of a democratic system. They have displayed extraordinary examples of adhering to a culture of democracy as diverse groups came together, united in their political goals but quite different in their tactics. Despite their many differences, they were able to maintain discipline and unity. Majority rule prevailed.
Examining the demands of the revolution, it is clear that spreading a culture of democratic governance was at the center of most of them. Some examples include: a political system based on checks and balances, an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, guarantee of individual freedoms, human and civil rights, free elections, peaceful transfer of power, right to form political parties, transparency in governance, and equal economic opportunity.
Asserting Independence: Since at least the late 1970s, the U.S. has declared that Egypt was its “strategic partner.” This was a euphemism for Egypt becoming a client state for the U.S. in exchange for $64 billion in direct aid over three decades, and another $18 billion in debt relief. Most of this aid did not directly help the Egyptian people but was for the benefit of the military as well as the regime’s cronies.
Egyptians saw in horror how their country’s foreign policy was subjugated to U.S. interests to the detriment of Egyptian interests or their Arab obligations. They were frustrated throughout this period to see the stature and influence of their proud country dwindle, as Egypt became a tool of American foreign policy.
In all issues, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian infighting, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, or Sudan, Mubarak’s Egypt was sure to act as the enabler of U.S. foreign policy at the expense of its own national security.
For instance, it was Mubarak who led the efforts to block all Arab peace initiatives to end the crisis in the first Gulf war and thus enabled the U.S. to wage war against a fellow Arab country with devastating consequences. Similarly, it was the capitulation of Mubarak on nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East in order to please the U.S. that allowed Israel to maintain its nuclear arsenals cost free. He was a full partner with the U.S. and Israel in the siege on Gaza depriving 1.5 million Palestinians from basic livelihood.
In all likelihood, revolutionary Egypt will not be a U.S. client state. Once a civilian democratic and transparent government is in place, Egypt will resort to its historic role of being a leader of the Arab world as well as in Africa, the Muslim world, and the lesser-developed countries more broadly.
Once Egypt’s independence is asserted by its new democratically elected officials, unjust and biased U.S. or Western policies would be challenged. No longer will the wishes of the Egyptian people be ignored for the benefit of one person, or stifled for the interest of a foreign power.
Supporting the Palestinian Cause: Clearly, the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has been one between the leaders, not the peoples. The reason the experts consider it a “cold peace” is because the Egyptian people never believed that Israel wanted or promoted peace. They believe that the Zionist state sought to neutralize Egypt from the conflict so as to annex more Arab territory, especially in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
Throughout three decades Israel felt secure enough from its southern flank that it twice crushed the Palestinian uprisings in the occupied territories (1987-1991 and 2000-2003). Moreover, it invaded or bombed several Arab countries and capitals including Iraq (1981), Lebanon (1982, 2006), Tunisia (1988), Syria (2007), and Gaza (2008-09). Thousands of fellow Arab civilians, especially in the Palestinian occupied territories and Lebanon were massacred without the people of Egypt even having the ability to protest in the streets.
Egyptians were not even allowed to object to Egypt’s sovereignty in the Sinai being stripped under the 1979 treaty. Despite a court order in 2007, they could not stop Egypt’s natural gas from being shipped and sold to Israel with a huge subsidy at a seventy per hcent discount. Meanwhile, in 2009 their government was building an underground iron barrier, financed by the U.S, to seal the border with Gaza, while closing the Rafah crossing to maintain the illegal siege against the people of Gaza.
According to a recent Jerusalem Post report, the Egyptian April 6 youth movement, which played a major role in the revolution, said that if “the military doesn't meet our demands, we'll be on the street again.” Among the group's demands was “the halting of natural gas shipments to Israel.”
The Israeli prime minster is right to worry about Egypt’s foreign policy after Mubarak. His long honeymoon (and Palestinian nightmare) is most probably over. Most of the Egyptian opposition groups strongly support Palestinian rights and detest the Israeli government’s policies.
For example, when the Egyptian Coalition for Change was formed in April 2009, the members of the coalition included the April 6 movement, the Kifaya movement, al-Karama, al-Wasat, and individual members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This coalition was the nucleus of the January 25 revolution. One of their planks was the annulment of the Camp David Accords.
This may not happen overnight though. But if Israel continues to maintain its occupation, apartheid regime, and aggressive policies against the Palestinians, it might come to pass, slowly but surely. Once formed, the new democratic government in Egypt will no longer be relied upon to do Israel’s bidding, nor will it be susceptible to the pressure of the Israel lobby via the U.S. government.
Furthermore, Israel’s underlings within the Palestinian Authority are certain to be severely weakened, as they can no longer depend on Egypt’s support against other Palestinian factions. Israel can no longer announce an invasion against Gaza from Cairo like it did in December 2008.
In short, a major shift in the strategic equation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the entire Middle East has just taken place as a direct consequence of the Egyptian revolution.
Influencing the Arab World and the region: Undoubtedly, the success of Egypt’s revolution in the aftermath of Tunisia’s has already had a tremendous influence not only on the rest of the Arab World, but also on the entire world especially, Muslim countries.
To date, similar protests have swept Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Libya, and Iraq. Other countries are also threatened, including Syria, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Sudan. The common refrain in all of these protests is Egypt’s common chant “The people demand the fall of the regime.” Pro-Western groups in Lebanon have lost their power as Saad Hariri’s government was dissolved. Hezbollah and its coalition partners have now assumed the upper hand in forming a new government.
Yet if some regimes survive the massive protests underway through repressive measures or far-reaching reforms, the Arab World will still never be the same. Because of Egypt’s tremendous influence in the region, most Arab governments would have to move toward more freedom, democratic governance, and transparency over the coming months and years.
These changes might result in either a major shift in U.S. and Western foreign policy especially with regard to the Palestinian cause, or lead to a serious rift between the West and the people of the region to the detriment of the interests of the former.
The role of the military and security forces: One of the major consequences of the revolution is the redefining of the role of the security forces in Egyptian society and the consolidation of the military’s function.
By maintaining a state of fear for decades, the security forces have already lost their credibility and effectiveness with the people. Justifiably, the revolutionary powers are demanding to reconstitute these forces on the basis of a new social contract within a democratic society.
Under instruction from the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry has already pledged to re-train its officers, and re-orient its mission to the “Police is in the Service of the Public,” rather than the security of the regime. Still a huge demonstration by many deserters of the security officers took place demanding the arrest and trial of the former Interior Minister, blaming him for much of the violence and repressive policies of the past.
But regardless of whether these expressions of remorse are genuine or not, the relationship between the people and the security apparatus will never resort back to its prior master-slave relationship.
As for the military, it has maintained its historic position of not attacking or shooting at its citizens. It is now well established that during his waning days Mubarak wanted the army to intervene on behalf of the regime to suppress the protests as the security forces were being pushed back. But the military, to its credit, refused and remained neutral, even pledging to defend the protesters.
If the military were to fulfill its pledge to transfer power to a civilian rule within six months after democratic elections, it will then have solidified its reputation with the Egyptian people as the last protector of their rights and freedoms.
Undeniably, the Egyptian revolution, with its peaceful, disciplined, and civilized attitudes, has become an inspiration to people around the globe. As Martin Luther King Jr. once observed “A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world.”
Egypt’s revolution is not only destined to touch the world, it has already been embraced by it.
By ESAM AL-AMIN
“What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people.”
-- John Adams in an 1815 letter to Thomas Jefferson
Historians and political scientists study revolutions and analyze their impact, not only on their societies, where the political, economic, and social order is fundamentally transformed, but also on neighboring countries and beyond.
The Egyptian revolution, though still in its infancy, promises to be such a phenomenon. Admitting its historic nature was none other than the U.S. President, Barack Obama, who lauded the Egyptians as having “inspired us,” and praised their revolution, which he said represented a “moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice.”
He further added, “The word Tahrir means liberation. It’s a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom.” He went on to describe the momentous event and its impact on the world, saying, “And forever more it will remind us of the Egyptian people-of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world.”
Like similar great historical events, the triumph of the Egyptian revolution will have direct and significant consequences on the country, the region, and the world. Unsurprisingly some of the conditions that factored considerably in the success of the revolution have now become facts on the ground, such as the larger role of youth and women in politics and public life. Thus they are discussed here as well. Here are some of the most important consequences of Egypt’s revolution.
The role of the people: For many decades, the Egyptian people have been marginalized and their interests ignored. Since 1981, the deposed president had ruled the country based on the state of emergency law, which virtually suspended most of the people’s civil rights and political freedoms.
It had built an enormous security apparatus using a convoluted, multilayered system that included uniformed, riot, and secret police, as well as intelligence officers and the dreaded state security personnel, consisting of well over one million people nationwide. The regime ruled by fear and intimidation, employing wide use of brutal tactics including torture and summary military trials that sentenced opponents to long years of hard labor based on political beliefs.
Dr. Ahmad Okasha, president of the Egyptian Psychological Society explained that throughout the Mubarak years “the collective psyche of the Egyptian people was damaged.” Furthermore, he added, “the majority of the people were in a deep state of depression.” They felt insulted and abused by the authorities, powerless to change anything in society, literally strangers in their own country.
So what the revolution offered the people was the opportunity to restore their sense of self-esteem, honor and dignity. Once the fear barrier was knocked down, they acquired a new sense of pride and empowerment that not only challenged the state monopoly on violence but also defeated it using solely peaceful means. With each passing day they became more determined to fight for their rights and quite willing to tender the sacrifices needed to gain their freedom.
Hence, once the people realized their enormous collective power and what they are capable of achieving, they never looked back and would not be disregarded again.
The role of the youth: By sucking the air out of the political space, the deposed regime employed all of its resources to divert the attention of the youth and channel their energies into non-threatening matters such as sports competitions (recall the Algerian-Egyptian conflict that consumed the country last year, lasting for months because of a soccer game) or exhaust people by encouraging mass consumerism.
But since the youth have played a significant role in setting off and sustaining the revolution, their role in society will never be the same. Egyptian youth under 35 represent over 60 per cent of society, yet before the revolution they were not taken seriously nor given much credit.
Now, not only are they part of the most significant event in their modern history but they will also have a seat at the table to determine their country’s future. Already they are a major part of every organization, coalition, and committee appointed or elected to determine the next state of affairs in the country. The ruling military council has already met with their representatives several times. All opposition groups have welcomed them in their parties, offering them leadership positions.
The role of women: Similarly, the women of Egypt have played a major role in this revolution. They demonstrated in large numbers, and were essential organizers, leaders, and spokespersons during all phases of the revolution, including during the most difficult times when they came under physical attack by the security forces and thugs of the ruling party.
They posted the calls for mobilization and uploaded their video blogs on the internet. They distributed leaflets and urged their neighborhoods to protest. They were subsequently beaten, injured, and some even sacrificed their lives. They chanted and led demonstrations against the regime.
Some were doctors, working side by side with their male counterparts treating thousands of the injured in the streets. They were part of the protection and security committees, patting down female protesters to ensure their safety. In short, they were part of every important function of the revolution. The women of Egypt have found their voices and will never return to the margins of society again.
The rejection of sectarianism: One of the most tried and successful techniques of authoritarian regimes is to exploit the major fault lines in society, sparking religious, ethnic, and racial tensions. The deposed regime has often played up and sometimes even instigated the Muslim-Coptic tension in Egypt.
The former regime is even implicated in an incident earlier this year. Egypt’s state prosecutor is currently investigating the role of the Interior Minister and the state security apparatus in last month’s bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria that killed dozens of people. The attack exacerbated the religious divide and threatened social cohesiveness.
However, the revolution has demonstrated in no uncertain terms the popular rejection of sectarianism, as Muslim and Christian communities joined together as fellow citizens protesting the repression and corruption of the regime that has afflicted them all. They marched, sang, chanted, and prayed together. They shared meals and defended each other. Millions of Egyptians witnessed a Muslim imam and a Coptic priest speaking together on the importance of national unity in Tahrir Square.
Ahmad Ragab, a prominent columnist and political cartoonist, observed that when he saw in Tahrir Square a Christian woman pouring water to help a Muslim man make ablution in preparation for prayer, he knew then that the revolution was to succeed.
Prominent Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders praised and defended the Copts while Coptic leaders hailed them in return for their cooperation and sacrifices. Egyptians now believe a new dawn of Muslim-Coptic relations has emerged based on mutual respect and shared citizenship.
The revival of a value-based moral system: Throughout the eighteen days of protests people who were interviewed at Tahrir Square and elsewhere kept referring to a new atmosphere and new attitudes by the people. They talked with pride about the civilized behavior displayed by the demonstrators.
People genuinely cared for and respected one another. They shared their meals and helped each other without expecting any compensation. They felt like they were part of one family. Although millions of people were in the square, there were no reports of fights or robberies. Young women spoke about how young men shielded them from the batons or the rubber bullets of the security forces, or the stones and Molotov cocktails from the goons of the ruling party.
The organizers took pride in the fact that all decisions of the activities of the revolution were based on mutual consultation and democratic principles. Every organizer and group was given the opportunity to voice his or her opinion and vote.
Thus, a new code, dubbed the “revolutionary ethical code,” was established and recognized by all. It encompasses values such as freedom, justice, equality, democracy, participation, solidarity, honesty, transparency, responsibility, and sacrifice- values, which many people had abandoned before the revolution upon feeling that they had no stake in a society ruled by bullies, thieves, and crooks.
The end of dictatorship: The downfall of Hosni Mubarak is not just the ouster of a dictator, but the end of an era that was marked by authoritarianism and cronyism. Egyptians believe strongly that this era is over and can never return.
They have learned that their strength was demonstrated in the streets and they no longer fear any threats by the security forces. If need be, they are willing to go back to the streets by the millions to stand up to the repression of the state. They believe that if they were able to topple Mubarak in eighteen days, they could bring down any future dictator. But they have pledged not to allow any future leader to become one in the first place.
The appreciation of freedom: Millions of Egyptians celebrated and cried with joy when Mubarak resigned on the night of February 11. As reporters from all over the world interviewed countless people dancing in the streets one word came out of their mouths: “we are free.” There is nothing more precious in life than gaining one’s freedom after being shackled by a repressive system or enslaved by a brutal dictator.
The power of this revolution is that it freed the people of Egypt from the yoke of tyranny. Once people taste freedom, it is next to impossible to deny them that exhilarating feeling.
Spreading a culture of democracy: An important consequence of the Egyptian revolution is that, unlike earlier uprisings or protests in Egypt such as the ones in 1968 or 1977, the people’s priority from the inception of this revolution has not only been to topple the regime but also to replace it with a democratic system and a strong civil society.
All opposition parties, including the MB, but especially the movements dominated by the youth, have pledged to honor and practice the rules of a democratic system. They have displayed extraordinary examples of adhering to a culture of democracy as diverse groups came together, united in their political goals but quite different in their tactics. Despite their many differences, they were able to maintain discipline and unity. Majority rule prevailed.
Examining the demands of the revolution, it is clear that spreading a culture of democratic governance was at the center of most of them. Some examples include: a political system based on checks and balances, an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, guarantee of individual freedoms, human and civil rights, free elections, peaceful transfer of power, right to form political parties, transparency in governance, and equal economic opportunity.
Asserting Independence: Since at least the late 1970s, the U.S. has declared that Egypt was its “strategic partner.” This was a euphemism for Egypt becoming a client state for the U.S. in exchange for $64 billion in direct aid over three decades, and another $18 billion in debt relief. Most of this aid did not directly help the Egyptian people but was for the benefit of the military as well as the regime’s cronies.
Egyptians saw in horror how their country’s foreign policy was subjugated to U.S. interests to the detriment of Egyptian interests or their Arab obligations. They were frustrated throughout this period to see the stature and influence of their proud country dwindle, as Egypt became a tool of American foreign policy.
In all issues, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian infighting, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, or Sudan, Mubarak’s Egypt was sure to act as the enabler of U.S. foreign policy at the expense of its own national security.
For instance, it was Mubarak who led the efforts to block all Arab peace initiatives to end the crisis in the first Gulf war and thus enabled the U.S. to wage war against a fellow Arab country with devastating consequences. Similarly, it was the capitulation of Mubarak on nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East in order to please the U.S. that allowed Israel to maintain its nuclear arsenals cost free. He was a full partner with the U.S. and Israel in the siege on Gaza depriving 1.5 million Palestinians from basic livelihood.
In all likelihood, revolutionary Egypt will not be a U.S. client state. Once a civilian democratic and transparent government is in place, Egypt will resort to its historic role of being a leader of the Arab world as well as in Africa, the Muslim world, and the lesser-developed countries more broadly.
Once Egypt’s independence is asserted by its new democratically elected officials, unjust and biased U.S. or Western policies would be challenged. No longer will the wishes of the Egyptian people be ignored for the benefit of one person, or stifled for the interest of a foreign power.
Supporting the Palestinian Cause: Clearly, the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has been one between the leaders, not the peoples. The reason the experts consider it a “cold peace” is because the Egyptian people never believed that Israel wanted or promoted peace. They believe that the Zionist state sought to neutralize Egypt from the conflict so as to annex more Arab territory, especially in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
Throughout three decades Israel felt secure enough from its southern flank that it twice crushed the Palestinian uprisings in the occupied territories (1987-1991 and 2000-2003). Moreover, it invaded or bombed several Arab countries and capitals including Iraq (1981), Lebanon (1982, 2006), Tunisia (1988), Syria (2007), and Gaza (2008-09). Thousands of fellow Arab civilians, especially in the Palestinian occupied territories and Lebanon were massacred without the people of Egypt even having the ability to protest in the streets.
Egyptians were not even allowed to object to Egypt’s sovereignty in the Sinai being stripped under the 1979 treaty. Despite a court order in 2007, they could not stop Egypt’s natural gas from being shipped and sold to Israel with a huge subsidy at a seventy per hcent discount. Meanwhile, in 2009 their government was building an underground iron barrier, financed by the U.S, to seal the border with Gaza, while closing the Rafah crossing to maintain the illegal siege against the people of Gaza.
According to a recent Jerusalem Post report, the Egyptian April 6 youth movement, which played a major role in the revolution, said that if “the military doesn't meet our demands, we'll be on the street again.” Among the group's demands was “the halting of natural gas shipments to Israel.”
The Israeli prime minster is right to worry about Egypt’s foreign policy after Mubarak. His long honeymoon (and Palestinian nightmare) is most probably over. Most of the Egyptian opposition groups strongly support Palestinian rights and detest the Israeli government’s policies.
For example, when the Egyptian Coalition for Change was formed in April 2009, the members of the coalition included the April 6 movement, the Kifaya movement, al-Karama, al-Wasat, and individual members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This coalition was the nucleus of the January 25 revolution. One of their planks was the annulment of the Camp David Accords.
This may not happen overnight though. But if Israel continues to maintain its occupation, apartheid regime, and aggressive policies against the Palestinians, it might come to pass, slowly but surely. Once formed, the new democratic government in Egypt will no longer be relied upon to do Israel’s bidding, nor will it be susceptible to the pressure of the Israel lobby via the U.S. government.
Furthermore, Israel’s underlings within the Palestinian Authority are certain to be severely weakened, as they can no longer depend on Egypt’s support against other Palestinian factions. Israel can no longer announce an invasion against Gaza from Cairo like it did in December 2008.
In short, a major shift in the strategic equation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the entire Middle East has just taken place as a direct consequence of the Egyptian revolution.
Influencing the Arab World and the region: Undoubtedly, the success of Egypt’s revolution in the aftermath of Tunisia’s has already had a tremendous influence not only on the rest of the Arab World, but also on the entire world especially, Muslim countries.
To date, similar protests have swept Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Libya, and Iraq. Other countries are also threatened, including Syria, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Sudan. The common refrain in all of these protests is Egypt’s common chant “The people demand the fall of the regime.” Pro-Western groups in Lebanon have lost their power as Saad Hariri’s government was dissolved. Hezbollah and its coalition partners have now assumed the upper hand in forming a new government.
Yet if some regimes survive the massive protests underway through repressive measures or far-reaching reforms, the Arab World will still never be the same. Because of Egypt’s tremendous influence in the region, most Arab governments would have to move toward more freedom, democratic governance, and transparency over the coming months and years.
These changes might result in either a major shift in U.S. and Western foreign policy especially with regard to the Palestinian cause, or lead to a serious rift between the West and the people of the region to the detriment of the interests of the former.
The role of the military and security forces: One of the major consequences of the revolution is the redefining of the role of the security forces in Egyptian society and the consolidation of the military’s function.
By maintaining a state of fear for decades, the security forces have already lost their credibility and effectiveness with the people. Justifiably, the revolutionary powers are demanding to reconstitute these forces on the basis of a new social contract within a democratic society.
Under instruction from the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry has already pledged to re-train its officers, and re-orient its mission to the “Police is in the Service of the Public,” rather than the security of the regime. Still a huge demonstration by many deserters of the security officers took place demanding the arrest and trial of the former Interior Minister, blaming him for much of the violence and repressive policies of the past.
But regardless of whether these expressions of remorse are genuine or not, the relationship between the people and the security apparatus will never resort back to its prior master-slave relationship.
As for the military, it has maintained its historic position of not attacking or shooting at its citizens. It is now well established that during his waning days Mubarak wanted the army to intervene on behalf of the regime to suppress the protests as the security forces were being pushed back. But the military, to its credit, refused and remained neutral, even pledging to defend the protesters.
If the military were to fulfill its pledge to transfer power to a civilian rule within six months after democratic elections, it will then have solidified its reputation with the Egyptian people as the last protector of their rights and freedoms.
Undeniably, the Egyptian revolution, with its peaceful, disciplined, and civilized attitudes, has become an inspiration to people around the globe. As Martin Luther King Jr. once observed “A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world.”
Egypt’s revolution is not only destined to touch the world, it has already been embraced by it.
POVERTY, FOOD PRICES AND THE CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM
THE REVOLUTIONARY REBELLION IN EGYPT
POVERTY, FOOD PRICES AND THE CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM
By FIDEL CASTRO
Several days ago I said that Mubarak’s fate was sealed and that not even Obama was able to save him.
The world knows about what is happening in the Middle East. News spreads at mind-boggling speed. Politicians barely have enough time to read the dispatches arriving hour after hour. Everyone is aware of the importance of what is happening over there.
After 18 days of tough struggle, the Egyptian people achieved an important objective: overthrowing the main United States ally in the heart of the Arab nations. Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his own people, he was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel, the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO group.
The Armed Forces of Egypt, under the command of Gamal Abdel Nasser, had thrown overboard a submissive King and created a Republic which, with the support of the USSR, defended its Homeland from the Franco-British and Israeli invasion of 1956 and preserved its ownership of the Suez Canal and the independence of its ancient nation.
For that reason, Egypt had a high degree of prestige in the Third World. Nasser was well-known as one of the most outstanding leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, in whose creation he took part along with other well-known leaders of Asia, Africa and Oceania who were struggling for national liberation and for the political and economic independence of the former colonies.
Egypt always enjoyed the support and respect of that international organization which brings together more than one hundred countries. At this precise time, that sister country is chairing NAM for a corresponding three-year period; and the support of many of its members for the struggle its people are engaged in today is a given.
What was the significance of the Camp David Agreements, and why do the heroic Palestinian people so arduously defend their most essential rights?
At Camp David ―with the mediation of then-President of the United States Jimmy Carter―, Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin signed the famous treaties between Egypt and Israel.
It is said that secret talks went on for 12 days and on September 17th of 1978 they signed two important treaties: one in reference to peace between Egypt and Israel; the other having to do with the creation of the autonomous territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where, el-Sadat was thinking – and Israel was aware of and sharing the idea –the capital of the State of Palestine would be, and whose existence, as well as that of the State of Israel, was agreed to by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, in the British protectorate of Palestine.
At the end of arduous and complicated talks, Israel agreed to withdraw their troops from Egyptian territory in the Sinai, even though it categorically rejected Palestinian participation in those peace negotiations.
As a product of the first treaty, in the term of one year, Israel reinstated Sinai territory occupied during one of the Arab-Israeli wars back to Egypt.
By virtue of the second agreement, both parties committed to negotiate the creation of the autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first of these included 5 640 square kilometres of territory and 2.1 million inhabitants; and the second one, 360 square kilometres and 1.5 million inhabitants.
The Arab countries were offended by that treaty where, in their opinion, Egypt had not defended with sufficient energy and resolution a Palestinian State whose right to exist had been the focal point of the battle fought for decades by the Arab States.
Their reactions reached such a level of indignation that many of them broke off their relations with Egypt. Thus, the United Nations Resolution of November 1947 was erased from the map. The autonomous body was never created and thus the Palestinians were deprived of their right to exist as an independent state; that is the origin of the never-ending tragedy they are living in and which should have been resolved more than three decades ago.
The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment. In the Gaza Strip a million and a half people are regularly being attacked with explosive projectiles, live phosphorus and booby-trap bombs. The Gaza Strip lands are being blockaded by land and by sea. Why are the Camp David agreements being talked about to such a degree while nobody mentions Palestine?
The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Egypt, an Arab country, was turned into the second receiver of US weapons. To fight against whom? Another Arab country? Against the very Egyptian people?
When the population was asking for respect for their most basic rights and the resignation of a president whose policy consisted of exploiting and pillaging his own people, the repressive forces trained by the US did not hesitate for a second in shooting at them, killing hundreds and wounding thousands.
When the Egyptian people were awaiting explanations from the government of their own country, the answers were coming from senior officials of the United States intelligence or government bodies, without any respect for Egyptian officials.
Could it possibly be that the leaders of the United States and their intelligence agencies knew nothing at all about the colossal thefts perpetrated by the Mubarak government?
Before the people were to protest en masse from Tahrir Square, neither the government officials nor the United States intelligence bodies were uttering one single word about the privileges and outrageous thefts of billions of dollars.
It would be a mistake to imagine that the people’s revolutionary movement in Egypt theoretically obeys a reaction to violations on their most elementary rights. Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters. They do this when their legal and material rights are being mercilessly sacrificed to the insatiable demands of corrupt politicians and the national and international circles looting the country.
The poverty rate was now affecting the vast majority of a militant people, young and patriotic, with their dignity, culture and beliefs being trampled.
How was the unstoppable increase of food prices to be reconciled with the dozens of billions of dollars that were being attributed to President Mubarak and to the privileged sectors of the government and society?
It’s not enough now that we find out how much these come to; we must demand they be returned to the country.
Obama is being affected by the events in Egypt; he acts, or seems to act, as if he were the master of the planet. The Egyptian affair seems to be his business. He is constantly on the telephone, talking to the leaders of other countries.
The EFE Agency, for example, states: “…I spoke to the British Prime Minister David Cameron; King Abdala II of Jordan, and with the Turkish prime minister, the moderate Muslim Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
“…the president of the United States assessed the ‘historical changes’ that the Egyptians have been promoting and he reaffirmed his admiration for their efforts …”.
The principal US news agency, AP, is broadcasting some reasoning that we should pay attention to:
“The US is asking Middle Eastern leaders leaning towards the West, who are friendly with Israel and willing to cooperate in the fight against Islamic extremism at the same time they are protecting human rights.”
“…Barack Obama has put forward a list of ideal requisites that are impossible to satisfy after the fall of two allies of Washington in Egypt and Tunisia in popular revolts that, according to experts, shall sweep the region.”
“There is no hope within this dream scenario and it’s very difficult for one to appear soon. Partially this is due to the fact that in the last 40 years, the US has sacrificed the noble ideals of human rights, that it so espouses, for stability, continuity and oil in one of the most volatile regions of the world.”
“‘Egypt will never be the same’, Obama said on Friday after praising the departure of Hosni Mubarak.”
“In the midst of their peaceful protests, Obama stated, the Egyptians ‘will change their country and the world’.
“Even as restlessness persists among the various Arab governments, the elite entrenched in Egypt and Tunisia has not shown signs of being willing to hand over the power or their vast economic influence that they have been holding.”
“The Obama government has insisted that the change should not be one of ‘personalities’. The US government set this position since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunis in January, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned the Arab rulers in a speech in Qatar that without reform the foundations of their countries ‘would sink in the sand’.”
People don’t appear to be very docile in Tahrir Square.
Europe Press recounts:
“Thousands of demonstrators have arrived in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of mobilizations that caused the resignation of the president of the country, Hosni Mubarak, to reinforce those continuing in that location, despite the efforts of the military police to remove them, according to information from the BBC.
“The BBC correspondent stationed in the downtown square of Cairo has assured us that the army is appearing to be indecisive in the face of the arrival of new demonstrators …”
“The ‘hard core’ […] is located on one of the corners of the square. […] they have decided to stay in Tahrir […] in order to make certain all their claims are being met.”
Despite what is happening in Egypt, one of the most serious problems being faced by imperialism at this time is the lack of grain.
The US uses an important part of the corn it grows and a large percentage of the soy harvest for the production of biofuels. As for Europe, it uses millions of hectares of land for that purpose.
On the other hand, as a consequence of the climate change originated basically by the developed and wealthy countries, a shortage of fresh water and foods compatible with population growth at a pace that would lead to 9 billion inhabitants in a mere 30 years is being created, without the United Nations and the most influential governments on the planet, after the disappointing meeting at Copenhagen and Cancun warning and informing the world about that situation.
We support the Egyptian people and their courageous struggle for their political rights and social justice.
We are not opposed to the people of Israel; we are against the genocide of the Palestinian people and we are for their right to an independent State.
We are not in favour of war, but in favour of peace among all the peoples.
POVERTY, FOOD PRICES AND THE CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM
By FIDEL CASTRO
Several days ago I said that Mubarak’s fate was sealed and that not even Obama was able to save him.
The world knows about what is happening in the Middle East. News spreads at mind-boggling speed. Politicians barely have enough time to read the dispatches arriving hour after hour. Everyone is aware of the importance of what is happening over there.
After 18 days of tough struggle, the Egyptian people achieved an important objective: overthrowing the main United States ally in the heart of the Arab nations. Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his own people, he was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel, the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO group.
The Armed Forces of Egypt, under the command of Gamal Abdel Nasser, had thrown overboard a submissive King and created a Republic which, with the support of the USSR, defended its Homeland from the Franco-British and Israeli invasion of 1956 and preserved its ownership of the Suez Canal and the independence of its ancient nation.
For that reason, Egypt had a high degree of prestige in the Third World. Nasser was well-known as one of the most outstanding leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, in whose creation he took part along with other well-known leaders of Asia, Africa and Oceania who were struggling for national liberation and for the political and economic independence of the former colonies.
Egypt always enjoyed the support and respect of that international organization which brings together more than one hundred countries. At this precise time, that sister country is chairing NAM for a corresponding three-year period; and the support of many of its members for the struggle its people are engaged in today is a given.
What was the significance of the Camp David Agreements, and why do the heroic Palestinian people so arduously defend their most essential rights?
At Camp David ―with the mediation of then-President of the United States Jimmy Carter―, Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin signed the famous treaties between Egypt and Israel.
It is said that secret talks went on for 12 days and on September 17th of 1978 they signed two important treaties: one in reference to peace between Egypt and Israel; the other having to do with the creation of the autonomous territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where, el-Sadat was thinking – and Israel was aware of and sharing the idea –the capital of the State of Palestine would be, and whose existence, as well as that of the State of Israel, was agreed to by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, in the British protectorate of Palestine.
At the end of arduous and complicated talks, Israel agreed to withdraw their troops from Egyptian territory in the Sinai, even though it categorically rejected Palestinian participation in those peace negotiations.
As a product of the first treaty, in the term of one year, Israel reinstated Sinai territory occupied during one of the Arab-Israeli wars back to Egypt.
By virtue of the second agreement, both parties committed to negotiate the creation of the autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first of these included 5 640 square kilometres of territory and 2.1 million inhabitants; and the second one, 360 square kilometres and 1.5 million inhabitants.
The Arab countries were offended by that treaty where, in their opinion, Egypt had not defended with sufficient energy and resolution a Palestinian State whose right to exist had been the focal point of the battle fought for decades by the Arab States.
Their reactions reached such a level of indignation that many of them broke off their relations with Egypt. Thus, the United Nations Resolution of November 1947 was erased from the map. The autonomous body was never created and thus the Palestinians were deprived of their right to exist as an independent state; that is the origin of the never-ending tragedy they are living in and which should have been resolved more than three decades ago.
The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment. In the Gaza Strip a million and a half people are regularly being attacked with explosive projectiles, live phosphorus and booby-trap bombs. The Gaza Strip lands are being blockaded by land and by sea. Why are the Camp David agreements being talked about to such a degree while nobody mentions Palestine?
The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Egypt, an Arab country, was turned into the second receiver of US weapons. To fight against whom? Another Arab country? Against the very Egyptian people?
When the population was asking for respect for their most basic rights and the resignation of a president whose policy consisted of exploiting and pillaging his own people, the repressive forces trained by the US did not hesitate for a second in shooting at them, killing hundreds and wounding thousands.
When the Egyptian people were awaiting explanations from the government of their own country, the answers were coming from senior officials of the United States intelligence or government bodies, without any respect for Egyptian officials.
Could it possibly be that the leaders of the United States and their intelligence agencies knew nothing at all about the colossal thefts perpetrated by the Mubarak government?
Before the people were to protest en masse from Tahrir Square, neither the government officials nor the United States intelligence bodies were uttering one single word about the privileges and outrageous thefts of billions of dollars.
It would be a mistake to imagine that the people’s revolutionary movement in Egypt theoretically obeys a reaction to violations on their most elementary rights. Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters. They do this when their legal and material rights are being mercilessly sacrificed to the insatiable demands of corrupt politicians and the national and international circles looting the country.
The poverty rate was now affecting the vast majority of a militant people, young and patriotic, with their dignity, culture and beliefs being trampled.
How was the unstoppable increase of food prices to be reconciled with the dozens of billions of dollars that were being attributed to President Mubarak and to the privileged sectors of the government and society?
It’s not enough now that we find out how much these come to; we must demand they be returned to the country.
Obama is being affected by the events in Egypt; he acts, or seems to act, as if he were the master of the planet. The Egyptian affair seems to be his business. He is constantly on the telephone, talking to the leaders of other countries.
The EFE Agency, for example, states: “…I spoke to the British Prime Minister David Cameron; King Abdala II of Jordan, and with the Turkish prime minister, the moderate Muslim Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
“…the president of the United States assessed the ‘historical changes’ that the Egyptians have been promoting and he reaffirmed his admiration for their efforts …”.
The principal US news agency, AP, is broadcasting some reasoning that we should pay attention to:
“The US is asking Middle Eastern leaders leaning towards the West, who are friendly with Israel and willing to cooperate in the fight against Islamic extremism at the same time they are protecting human rights.”
“…Barack Obama has put forward a list of ideal requisites that are impossible to satisfy after the fall of two allies of Washington in Egypt and Tunisia in popular revolts that, according to experts, shall sweep the region.”
“There is no hope within this dream scenario and it’s very difficult for one to appear soon. Partially this is due to the fact that in the last 40 years, the US has sacrificed the noble ideals of human rights, that it so espouses, for stability, continuity and oil in one of the most volatile regions of the world.”
“‘Egypt will never be the same’, Obama said on Friday after praising the departure of Hosni Mubarak.”
“In the midst of their peaceful protests, Obama stated, the Egyptians ‘will change their country and the world’.
“Even as restlessness persists among the various Arab governments, the elite entrenched in Egypt and Tunisia has not shown signs of being willing to hand over the power or their vast economic influence that they have been holding.”
“The Obama government has insisted that the change should not be one of ‘personalities’. The US government set this position since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunis in January, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned the Arab rulers in a speech in Qatar that without reform the foundations of their countries ‘would sink in the sand’.”
People don’t appear to be very docile in Tahrir Square.
Europe Press recounts:
“Thousands of demonstrators have arrived in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of mobilizations that caused the resignation of the president of the country, Hosni Mubarak, to reinforce those continuing in that location, despite the efforts of the military police to remove them, according to information from the BBC.
“The BBC correspondent stationed in the downtown square of Cairo has assured us that the army is appearing to be indecisive in the face of the arrival of new demonstrators …”
“The ‘hard core’ […] is located on one of the corners of the square. […] they have decided to stay in Tahrir […] in order to make certain all their claims are being met.”
Despite what is happening in Egypt, one of the most serious problems being faced by imperialism at this time is the lack of grain.
The US uses an important part of the corn it grows and a large percentage of the soy harvest for the production of biofuels. As for Europe, it uses millions of hectares of land for that purpose.
On the other hand, as a consequence of the climate change originated basically by the developed and wealthy countries, a shortage of fresh water and foods compatible with population growth at a pace that would lead to 9 billion inhabitants in a mere 30 years is being created, without the United Nations and the most influential governments on the planet, after the disappointing meeting at Copenhagen and Cancun warning and informing the world about that situation.
We support the Egyptian people and their courageous struggle for their political rights and social justice.
We are not opposed to the people of Israel; we are against the genocide of the Palestinian people and we are for their right to an independent State.
We are not in favour of war, but in favour of peace among all the peoples.
ANATOMY OF EGYPT'S REVOLUTION
ANATOMY OF EGYPT'S REVOLUTION
By ESAM AL-AMIN
“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”
-- Che Guevara
Like perfect storms, several factors have to simultaneously and collectively come together for popular uprisings or protests, even massive ones, to turn into a revolution. That is why only a few of them have been successful in world history. A revolution is, by definition, a successful struggle embraced by the masses that radically alters the existing political, economic, and social order.
The triumphs of the American, French, Russian, Cuban, and Iranian revolutions were the exceptions. While each one had its genesis in battling an oppressive or corrupt existing political system, each engendered its own unique features while satisfying distinctive conditions in order to produce a successful outcome.
One was initiated by an armed insurrection, but embraced by the public, against a tyrant monarch. Another was led by mobs producing enormous violence before settling down. Other revolutions had core ideological groups embedded in their midst that greatly influenced or manipulated their course of action before achieving their feat.
Likewise, the Egyptian revolution that erupted on January 25 in the aftermath of Tunisia’s was marked by its own unique features. Although the declared goals of the Egyptian revolution have yet to be fully realized, its primary goal of overthrowing its dictator was spectacularly achieved within a historically short period of time. While it took 28 days of continuous protests to depose Tunisia’s dictator, a country of 10 million people, it required only 18 days of massive demonstrations to accomplish the same in Egypt, a country of 85 million people.
The spark for Tunisia’s revolution was Mohammad Bouazizi setting himself ablaze in the city of Sidi Bouzeid on December 17. It was a desperate act of protest against the authorities who insulted him and seized his sole means of sustenance. Remarkably, the downfall of Zein al-Abideen Ben Ali’s regime four weeks later on January 14 was itself the spark for the Egyptian revolution, which erupted eleven days later. It was probably the only revolution in history that determined its commencement and announced its date to the world online. By February 11, the Egyptian regime had collapsed when its head, Hosni Mubarak, after much obstinate and arrogant behavior, was forced to resign in disgrace.
So what are the elements that distinguish the Egyptian revolution?
Historians will most likely debate for many years the various factors that came together to set off the uprising that turned it into a triumphant revolution. However, the most significant and distinctive features are outlined here. They are:
Popular revolution: The Egyptian people have taken ownership of this revolution from its inception. The youth movement that called for the protests before Jan. 25 admitted that they did not know what to expect. Although many opposition parties had called for demonstrations in the past, they only attracted a vocal but limited number of activists and elites. The popular support for these protests was at best timid if not totally ignored.
But in this instance when the young men and women, calling for the uprising on social media websites, moved to rally support on the ground from neighborhood to neighborhood, thousands of people from all walks of life joined in. They did not stop by simply announcing it online, but actually toured the streets mobilizing the people calling for wide participation.
Asma’a Mahfouz, one of the young activists from the April 6 Youth Movement said in her interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that, shortly after the protests started, “I was printing and distributing leaflets in popular areas, and calling for citizens to participate. In those areas, I also talked to young people about their rights, and the need for their participation.”
She continued, “I went to a street in Bulaq Dakrur (poor Cairo neighborhood), where I and a group of members from the movement intended to start protesting. At the same time, other members were doing the same thing in other areas. When we had assembled, we raised the Egyptian flag and began to chant slogans, and it was surprising when a large number of people joined us.”
She added, “With increasing numbers joining us, we stopped for some time in front of Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque, and then we led the march to Tahrir Square. We found several demonstrations coming from different areas toward this one, and thus we decided to occupy Tahrir Square.”
As the demonstrations continued, every day broke new ground. It started with the educated youth, both middle class and affluent. They were soon joined by the oppressed and uneducated poor. Within a few days, the protests swelled to include all segments of society, including judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists, artists, civil servants, workers, farmers, day laborers, students, home makers, the underclass and the unemployed.
Moreover, the demonstrations spread across Egypt like none in its history, not even the great 1919 revolution against the British occupation. The protests since Jan. 25 were not confined to Cairo or Alexandria or even to the main urban centers.
Impressive numbers made their voices heard in every province and city, every town and village, in Upper Egypt and the Nile delta, the coastal areas across the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, in the Canal Zone and the Sinai. On the day Mubarak resigned, an unprecedented 15 million people were demonstrating. Almost twenty per cent of Egyptians were in the streets that day, first protesting, and then celebrating the end of the dictator.
The Role of the Youth: There is no doubt that the Egyptian youth played a critical role in initiating the protests. The “April 6 Youth” and “We are all Khaled Said” movements along with other youth-led organizations including the youth branches of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Baradei Campaign for Change, were at the forefront of the activities before and during the revolution.
At critical moments during the tense negotiations with the regime, it was the steadfastness of these young revolutionaries that defeated the attempts by the regime to push for half measures in order to save Mubarak, proposals that might have been acceptable to some opposition parties. But the youth organizers insisted on their main demand, which was the removal of the president. Most of these leaders are in their late 20s or early 30s.
Incidentally, the youth paid the brunt of the sacrifices. A list on Al-Dustoor newspaper’s website shows that 70 percent of those who lost their lives during the massive protests, as well as 80 per cent of the injured, were 32 years old or younger.
The Role of Women: Egypt, like most Muslim countries, is a largely patriarchal society not used to having women, especially young females, leading any group or organization, let alone a political movement. But here the Egyptian people witnessed young women like Mahfouz, Isra’a Abdel Fattah, Nawwara Nagm, and Sally Tooma Moore, not only speaking out against the brutality and illegitimacy of the regime on live television, but also leading the demonstrators in chants and camping out in Tahrir Square for weeks.
The participation of women in the revolution, including in leadership positions from the beginning, have also encouraged other women across Egypt to participate. They have also sacrificed heavily for their freedom. At least 10 per cent of the casualties in the first week were women. This experience has solidified their role as real partners for genuine change, and entitled them to an ownership of this great event in their history.
Applying Non-Violent and Peaceful Means: From the outset, the organizers of the protests adhered to a strict code of non-violent and peaceful protests. They realized that the regime would crack down and employ brutal methods hoping to either deter or provoke them to use violence to justify even greater violence against them.
Ahmad Maher, the coordinator of the April 6 Youth Movement explained in an interview with Al Jazeera English that non-violence was not a tactic but a strategy for the movement. For over two years, thousands of members debated the writings and methods of non-violent struggle, including those of Gandhi, King, and Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, the sages of the use of non-violent means for social change.
Last year Maher’s second-in-command, Muhammad Adel, was dispatched to Serbia to meet with Srdja Popovic, a proponent of non-violent resistance and leader of the Otpor (Resistance) Movement, a group of young activists who helped depose Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. He came back to Cairo with DVDs and other educational and training materials that demonstrated in detail some of the non-violent means and civil disobedience techniques used to induce political change.
When the protests in Egypt began, there were strict instructions for all participants not to carry any weapons, including knives, sticks, stones or sharp objects. They held signs that said this was a peaceful protest. When confronted by the police who tried to intimidate or beat them they would chant “peaceful, peaceful.”
Even when the regime sent thousands of its goons on February 2 to beat them with sticks and sharp objects, attack them with Molotov cocktails, or even shoot them with live ammunition, the protesters only tried to defend themselves, refusing to employ violent means. When they arrested about 350 of the hired thugs, they refused to take revenge despite the dozens who were killed and thousands more injured. They simply handed them over to the military units stationed nearby.
Non-ideological and homogeneous: Another distinctive feature of the revolution across Egypt was its focus on common goals. Despite the desperate efforts by the regime and its regional and international supporters to paint it as either ideologically based or foreign inspired, these efforts failed miserably.
The organizers were non-ideological. Although most ideological parties participated, including the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the leftists, the liberals, the secularists, and the Copts, all groups displayed a rare unity of purpose, focusing on the primary goal of the revolution without falling into the trappings of narrow divisions.
Unlike other Arab societies with a history of tribalism, sectarianism or ethnic conflicts, Egyptian society is largely homogeneous. The only fault line that its opponents have tried to foment or exploit is that of Muslim-Coptic tension. However, these tensions are a recent phenomenon and are the exception, not the rule. Much of Egypt’s history bears witness to that.
This rare unity among Muslims and Copts was displayed in Tahrir Square and across Egypt. Tooma-Moore, a Christian Copt, demonstrated the unity of all Egyptians, Muslims and Copts, in a recent interview when she said, “It's totally beyond description how the mosque has been transformed into a working hospital. It is a mosque but there are no religious divisions.”
The youth organizers and all participating groups carefully abstained from any religious or sectarian chants. During Friday prayers many Copts surrounded and protected the Muslims while praying. Likewise, on Sunday the Muslims joined the Copts in their Christian services, in a moving display of national unity.
Disciplined and focused: Many observers were surprised at the level of discipline and focus the revolutionaries were able to demonstrate. Throughout the 18 days in the streets, they maintained their focus on Mubarak and his despised regime. They refused to engage in any negotiations that might distract from their primary goal of ousting the beleaguered president. Their slogans and chants reflected this unity of purpose among all demonstrators.
When the regime started offering concessions, almost daily, in the hope of splitting the opposition, weakening their resolve, or slowing down the momentum, the revolutionaries were able to energize the people further, raise their demands and mobilize even greater numbers without conceding their foremost demand.
Decentralized and highly organized leadership: This revolution was not leaderless, but the leaders were not visibly identifiable. They cleverly structured their protests and activities without naming a single group or leader. Dozens were speaking on behalf of the revolution, communicating the same message. Some identified with the youth, others with the diverse opposition movements, while many were independent. The security apparatus was confused and could not identify the major leaders of the revolution.
Even when some leaders were arrested, they were easily replaced because no one person held sole power or vital information that could derail the revolution. When the youth within the Muslim Brotherhood joined the protests on Jan. 28, they were immediately embraced and given leadership roles because of their discipline, resources, and abilities. Although some minor opposition parties tried to take credit or present a different political line, they were immediately exposed and marginalized.
The leaders also illustrated great organizational skills. Makeshift hospitals, staffed with hundreds of doctors, were established to treat the injured and sick. Remarkably, with over two million demonstrators in one geographical area, transportation, security, medicine, food, drink, bathroom facilities, trash collections, Street newspapers, and lost and found services were provided. Tents and covers were also supplied to the thousands of people who chose to camp out in the square.
When the government withdrew all the security forces and released thousands of criminals in order to spread fear and chaos across the country, the people immediately organized and established protection and security teams and neighborhood watches in order to protect their families and neighbors. Within days, thousands of criminals were caught and handed over to the military.
Steadfastness, bravery and determination: When many people in the streets were interviewed on dozens of television networks and new media outlets covering the unfolding events, there was a notable theme that stood out in their tone, namely, the eradication of the fear barrier.
All dictatorial and repressive regimes rule their subjects through intimidation and fear. The Mubarak regime was no different. The regime dispatched at least 350,000 security officers throughout Egypt in the first four days, employing all the tools of repression: beatings, water canons, tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and armed carriers.
However, the youth led the efforts in facing the brutality of the police even when dozens were killed and hundreds injured in the streets. It was clear that when the youth refused to abandon the protests and faced courageously the repression of the state without retreat, the rest of the people followed and the fear factor was removed from the equation.
Creative and resourceful: As much as this revolution was peaceful, it was also incredibly creative. By Sunday January 30, the demonstrators were in control of all the main streets and squares. Millions of people were following the program set by the organizers. Activities were set to mobilize the people and demoralize the regime.
They were also resourceful. They brought huge speakers to broadcast the singing of the national anthem and play patriotic songs to the delight of the massive crowds. It brought a sense of national unity and patriotism, a feeling of honor, duty, and resolve.
On certain days where the protesters were called to attend by the millions, they were given names to consolidate the gains and unite the people under a single theme: Day of Rage, Day of Departure, Martyrs Day, Day of Defiance. People were free to be inventive and artistic as they thought up slogans, created chants, and drew up posters that focused on Mubarak, his family, and the regime.
Many of them were funny and daring. Bold jokes were widely shared, and comedy sketches were daily performed in the squares and streets. Poets, singers, rappers and bands were everywhere creating a festive Woodstock atmosphere. The more the president showed stubbornness the more entrenched and audacious the people became. With each passing day, the people no longer feared Mubarak, and even displayed an attitude of total ridicule and revulsion toward him.
Ingenious use of technology: It is common knowledge that the youth have not only mastered the use of modern technology, but also transformed it into an exceptionally effective political tool to communicate with their peers, educate the public, organize events, and mobilize the masses.
With over 800,000 Egyptians, mostly youth, using Facebook alone, the revolutionaries found a platform that allowed access with little challenge from the government. The use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media outlets played a significant role in disseminating the message and galvanizing the support of the public.
Educational materials, political messages, training videos, mobilization calls, and organizational information, were placed online and utilized before a single protest was called. By the time the government shut down all mobile phone and Internet services, the genie was already out of the bottle. When asked by the French news service AFP, Abd el-Fattah, one of the April 6 youth organizers said after the government disrupted the Internet, “We've already announced the meeting places. So we've done it, we no longer need means of communication.”
Yet even during the revolutionary days of massive protests, the organizers were able to set up safe houses to send blogs, press releases, and instructions to others across the country, as well as announcing their activities, and communicating their viewpoints to the world.
Effective media strategy: The revolutionaries had a simple media strategy: ignore the government-controlled media and build strong contacts with the local opposition and independent media as well as the Arab and international media outlets.
The organizers knew that the regime would mobilize its propaganda machine through the state-owned print and electronic media. After first ignoring the widespread protests, the official media embarked on vast distortion and smear campaigns against the protesters.
Therefore, the organizers set up a sophisticated multilevel strategy comprising numerous spokespersons, who were united in their message and articulated their vision against tyranny, oppression, and corruption. They presented to the public a coherent pro-democracy social justice and freedom agenda. Every day, more prominent individuals from all segments of society were speaking out against the regime and joining the revolution.
They even set up a huge screen in Tahrir Square that featured live non-stop Al-Jazeera coverage. In essence, the revolution was indeed televised, providing not only a significant level of protection to the demonstrators, but also providing rapid response to all breaking news.
Whenever Mubarak or Vice President Omar Suleiman addressed the public in an attempt to seize the initiative, the organizers would immediately present several spokespersons to effectively respond and neutralize any effect on the public.
Neutralization of the Army: Perhaps the most vulnerable matter facing the revolution was the unpredictable reaction of the army. Initially, the organizers knew that the regime would rely heavily on the brutality of its security forces. But once the revolutionaries prevailed over the security forces by standing their ground, the regime would try to force a confrontation with the army.
The strategy of dealing with the army was to embrace it and avoid any confrontation by all means. The Egyptian army is one of the most respected institutions in Egypt, and the organizers were not going to challenge that.
In fact, the moment the army was in the streets after the withdrawal of the security forces, the people chanted, “ the people and the army are one.” They rushed to embrace and kiss the officers. Every pro-democracy speaker praised the army and appealed for its support.
Immediately, the army not only declared its neutrality in the confrontation between the people and the regime, but also pledged to protect the people. This posture made it possible for the revolution to continue its peaceful protests and embolden its political demands.
Even though the army was slow in providing protection to the protesters when they were attacked by the government’s bullies, the fact that the army did not attack the demonstrators and remained neutral was a huge blow to the regime, which at the end helped topple it.
Lacking depth and understanding, pundits recklessly invented names for the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Borrowing from the color and flower revolutions of Eastern Europe or Central Asia, they called them the Jasmine and Lotus revolutions, respectively. But such names are meaningless, as they do not reflect the spirit of these revolutions.
People in Tunisia and Egypt revolted primarily to become free; to restore their dignity; to regain respect for themselves. Hence, these were revolutions marked by the deafening calls for freedom and dignity.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once reminded his fellow oppressed compatriots at the height of their struggle against a repressive system, “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history.”
Indeed these words capture the essence of the revolutions underway in the Arab world today.
ARAB VOICES MATTER
By JAMES ZOGBY
If one lesson is to be learned from the remarkable events unfolding in Egypt, it is that Arab public opinion matters. For too long Arab voices have not been listened to, nor have Arab sensibilities or aspirations been respected. The Egyptian people have not only risen up, demanding to be heard, they have also challenged other Arabs and the West to pay attention to what they are saying.
Last Thursday night, I watched a remarkable scene unfolding on television. As my dinner partner, Patrick Seale, and I sat transfixed watching the BBC, there, on one half of a split screen, was president Hosni Mubarak making a last ditch effort to save his rule. On the other half screen were throngs in Tahrir Square.
The disconnect was real. Mubarak was talking, but he simply wasn't listening. He played every card at his disposal: the caring father, the patriot, the xenophobe, the reformer and more. Maybe, I thought, he was reaching out beyond the square to those he thought might also be listening. But if his imagined and hoped-for audience was there, they were not responding. The crowd in the square was listening, and his lack of responsiveness to their concerns only served to inflame them and deepen their resolve.
It was the immovable object squaring off against the irresistible force. In the end, the force won. The protesters rejected Mubarak's promises and his appeals as "too little, too late", and began to pour out beyond the square to take new space and demonstrate their discontent.
Now the president is gone. The throngs have won this round, and they are empowered to seek more change. It is not the end, just the beginning, of a process, the outcome of which is still uncertain. With the military in charge, it will now be up to them to listen.
Questions remain. Will the military cede space and open the political process to real reform? Will they be more responsive to the growing aspirations of their young who are demanding jobs in an expanding economy where wealth is shared, an opportunity to participate in the shaping of the future of their country, and the freedom to express their discontent with and seek to change policies they find deplorable, without fear of repression?
In some ways, after 11 February much has changed. In other ways, the struggle remains the same. A movement that has won a round now becomes a potentially formidable force. But a regime that fears losing control is also a force that must be reckoned with. In the weeks and months ahead we will see this drama play out in the streets and in negotiations. The constitution must be changed. Mubarak had promised as much. The concerns of the demonstrators have been acknowledged by the military, who have said they are listening. Now we will see if they, in fact, were.
The problem of not listening to Arab voices is not only a problem for those presidents who have fallen or those who are still at risk; it is a problem for the West as well. For too long, the US, Great Britain and others have ignored the concerns and sensibilities of Arab people. Arabs have been treated as if they were pawns to be moved about on the board. While those in the West paid attention to their own needs and politics, Arabs were left to make do or accommodate themselves to realities created for them, as the West sought to protect its interests, not theirs.
This is not a new phenomenon. The cavalier dismissal of Arab voices began with Lord Balfour, who famously rejected the first survey of Arab opinion conducted for US president Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War I. When the survey found Arabs overwhelming rejecting the European powers' plans to carve up the Arab East into British and French mandatory entities, and the creation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, Balfour balked saying, "we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country... Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad... is of far greater import than the desire and prejudices of the Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."
As blatant as that rejection was, this practice of ignoring Arab concerns did not end. Until this day, all too often the West has acted across the Middle East as if Arabs were objects without sensibilities or concerns. The US invaded Iraq without understanding the impact this might have on Arab opinion. The West has continued to ignore Palestinian suffering and aspirations (recall Condoleezza Rice's dismissal of the plight and rights of Palestinian refugees with a casual, "bad things happen in history"). And the US has engaged in widespread profiling and other forms of deplorable treatment of Arabs and Muslims, paying no attention to the toll that these and other wildly unpopular policies were having on the legitimacy of Arab governments who were Western friends and allies.
Now all this must of necessity change. When the Egyptian people organised themselves demanding to be heard they introduced a new and potentially transformative factor into the political equation of the region. It will no longer be possible to operate as if Arab public opinion does not matter. It will no longer be possible to act as if policies can be imposed and blindly accepted.
No longer will the West be able to consider only the Israeli internal debate or the consequences on Israeli opinion in its calculations. Arabs have been inspired by Egypt and empowered to believe that their voices must be heard and respected. It will make life more complicated for Western and some Arab policy-makers. But this complication is a good thing, as it represents change that has been a long time coming.
As US President Barack Obama has said, this is just the beginning, and after today nothing will be same. The reality is that this transformation will not only affect Egypt. The change that is coming will be bigger than any of us can imagine.
THE US AS ISRAEL'S ENABLER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Who's Serving Who?
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
About ten days ago I had a particularly interesting discussion about Israel and its relationship to U.S. policy in the Middle East and to the events swirling there now, in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. My interlocutor is one of the most astute commentators, particularly on U.S. policy, in the alternative media, but he made it clear that, to his mind, Israel does not play a role of any notable relevance to what the United States is doing in the region.
I would say that he has a bit of a blind spot about Israel -- a not uncommon phenomenon among progressive thinkers. But perhaps the current turmoil in the region will ultimately open his eyes and those of others who minimize Israel’s centrality to U.S. policy. Recent events unfolding in Egypt and surrounding Wikileaks-released State Department cables and al-Jazeera-released Palestinian papers dealing with Palestinian-Israeli talks are demonstrating graphically, as no other series of events probably ever has, that the United States does what it does in the Middle East in great measure because of Israel -- to protect and safeguard Israel from Arab neighbors who object to its treatment of its Palestinian subjects, from Muslims with similar grievances, from criticism of Israel’s military exploits against neighboring states, from the ire of other states still threatened by Israel, from governments in the region that challenge Israel’s nuclear monopoly or attempt to develop their own arsenals to defend against Israel.
It is instructive to remember that Egypt is important to the United States almost entirely because it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and helps guarantee Israel’s security, guarding its western border, helping its military assaults on other Arab countries, closing the tunnels into Gaza through which Hamas smuggles some weapons and the Gazan population obtains food and other essentials, undermining Hamas’s rule in Gaza. The United States also regards Egypt as an important cog in the machine of its “war on terror” and its war on Islamic radicalism, a collaboration also closely linked to Israel’s security interests.
Egypt is obviously important in the region in its own right. Its size and strategic location guarantee that it will always have considerable influence in Middle East politics, and it has long been the heart of Arab culture, even without U.S. help. The last three weeks of the Egyptian people’s struggle for democracy have further enhanced its importance, capturing the imagination of people around the world (with the exception of many, perhaps the majority, in Israel and among the curmudgeonly right in the United States, including Israel’s U.S. supporters).
But the fundamental reality is that the United States would not have the close military, political, and economic relationship it has had with Egypt for the last thirty-plus years were it not for the fact that Egypt is friendly with Israel and the fact that, in the words of Middle East expert Rashid Khalidi, Egypt has always acquiesced “in Israel’s regional hegemony.” The $1.5 billion annually in military aid, and the $28 billion in economic and development assistance across the last 35 years would not have been given had not Mubarak’s predecessor Anwar Sadat virtually begged for and then finally signed a peace treaty with Israel that removed Egypt, the largest Arab military force, as a threat to Israel, abandoning the Palestinians and the other Arab parties to their own devices. With Egypt out of the picture and indeed often assisting, Israel has been free to launch military assaults on several of its neighbors, including Lebanon twice and Gaza and the West Bank repeatedly, and free to expand settlements, absorb Palestinian territory, and severely oppress Palestinians without fear of retaliation or even significant disagreement from any Arab army.
Israeli commentator Aluf Benn has pointed out furthermore that, with Mubarak in office, Israel could always feel safe about its western flank if it were to attack Iran, but now Israel will not dare attack when it can no longer rely on Egypt’s “tacit agreement to its actions.” Whoever replaces Mubarak would, by this reasoning, be too concerned about popular rage if he were to collaborate with Israel. “Without Mubarak, there is no Israeli attack on Iran.”
For Israel and therefore for the United States, the U.S. investment of billions in Egypt over the years has been well worth the cost. The loss of the “stability” that Egypt provided -- meaning Israel’s loss of certainty that it remained the secure regional dominant power -- has been a huge game-changer for Israeli and U.S. strategic calculations.
Before the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the United States never considered that Egypt was quite the strategic asset that it became when it surrendered its military capability in the interests of Israel. The same can be said about the United States’ relations with several other Arab states. Its involvement in Lebanon over the years -- including its effort to remove Syrian forces from Lebanon -- has been almost entirely linked to Israel’s interests there. The fallout from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon still reverberates: in response to the invasion, the United States sent a contingent of Marines, which became involved in direct fighting with Lebanese factions, leading in turn to a devastating bombing of Marine headquarters that killed 241 U.S. personnel in 1983; Hizbullah, representing a besieged Shiite population in southern Lebanon, arose as a direct result of Israel’s invasion; the spate of kidnappings of U.S. personnel by Hizbullah throughout the 1980s grew out of hostility to the U.S. because of its support for Israel; Israel withdrew from a two-decade-long occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, leaving behind a strengthened Hizbullah; continued conflict along the border led to Israel’s brutal assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, which failed to defeat the Islamic organization or undermine its popularity; and as a result, the United States has for years pursued efforts to undermine Hizbullah and, essentially, to maintain Lebanon as an Israeli sinecure.
Jordan has been a minor U.S. ally for decades, but its conclusion of a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 enhanced its standing in U.S. eyes and gained the small state on Israel’s eastern border additional U.S. military and economic aid. The State Department’s official profile of Jordan relates the U.S. rationale for its good relationship with Jordan more or less directly to Israel, although without ever mentioning Israel: “U.S. policy seeks to reinforce Jordan's commitment to peace, stability, and moderation. The peace process and Jordan’s opposition to terrorism parallel and indirectly assist wider U.S. interests. Accordingly, through economic and military assistance and through close political cooperation, the United States has helped Jordan maintain its stability and prosperity.” The allusions to “reinforcing” Jordan’s commitment to “peace, stability, and moderation” and to maintaining Jordan’s “stability and prosperity” are obvious references to helping keep the area, and particularly Israel’s border, quiet. Just as clearly, “indirectly assist[ing] wider U.S. interests” refers to the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security interests. “Moderation” in State Department jargon is a code word for a pro-Israeli stance; “stability” is code for a secure environment that benefits Israel primarily.
It is safe to say that neither Lebanon nor Jordan would be at all as important to the United States if it were not considered necessary to keep each of these bordering countries in a stable, quiescent state for Israel’s security. The same situation does not apply in Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. has vital oil interests quite apart from Israel’s concerns. But at the same time, it is the case that the U.S. has managed to tame any Saudi impulse to speak out on behalf of the Palestinians, or any other Arabs under Israeli siege, and align the Saudis at least implicitly on the Israeli side of most issues, whether this is the 2006 attack on Lebanon or the 2008-2009 assault on Gaza or the supposed threat from Iran. The day when the Saudis were angry enough with United States over its support for Israel to impose an oil embargo, as occurred in 1973, is long over.
The recent Wikileaks releases of State Department cables and particularly al-Jazeera’s release of a raft of Palestinian documents dealing with negotiations over the last decade also demonstrate with striking clarity how hard the United States works, and has always worked, to help Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process. U.S. support for Israel has never been a secret, becoming less and less so in recent years, but the leaked documents provide the most dramatic picture yet of the United States’ total disdain for all Palestinian negotiating demands and its complete helplessness in the face of Israeli refusal to make concessions. It is striking to note from these papers that the U.S. role as “Israel’s lawyer” -- a description coined by Aaron David Miller after his involvement in negotiations during the Clinton era -- is the same whether the administration is Bill Clinton’s or George W. Bush’s or Barack Obama’s. Israel’s interests and demands always prevail.
Beyond the Arab world, U.S. policy on Iran is dictated more or less totally by Israel. The pressure to attack Iran -- either a U.S. attack or U.S. support for an Israeli attack -- which has been brought to bear for most of the eight years since the start of the war on Iraq, has come entirely from Israel and its supporters in the United States. This pressure is quite open and impossible to deny the way Israel’s pressure for the attack on Iraq has been. If the United States ever does become involved in a military assault on Iran either directly or through backing up Israel, this will be because Israel wanted it; if there is no attack, this will most likely be, as Aluf Benn surmises, because Israel got cold feet in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution.
Israel, and the desire to ensure its regional hegemony, also played a substantial role in leading the United States into war in Iraq, although this view is a harder sell and a much more controversial position among progressives and conservatives alike than is anything else about U.S.-Israel-Arab relationships.
My progressive interlocutor, for instance -- who has strongly opposed the U.S. adventure in Iraq, equally strongly opposes any possibility of an attack on Iran, and was undoubtedly uncomfortable with U.S. vacillation about pressing for Mubarak’s departure -- disagreed totally with my suggestion that Israel and its neocon supporters were a factor in getting the United States into the Iraq war. Early in our discussion, he talked at length about the neocons, their erstwhile think tank, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), and the overriding neocon-PNAC interest in advancing U.S. global hegemony, and he made the point that when George W. Bush came to power, an entire think tank was moved into the administration. But, despite this recognition of neocon objectives and the success they enjoyed in advancing them, he would not agree that PNAC and the neocons were as much interested in advancing Israel’s regional hegemony as they were in furthering U.S. imperialism.
When, on the other hand, I observed that not only had Bush moved a think tank into the administration, he had also effectively moved the Israel lobby, or its then most active wing, into the highest rungs of his administration’s policymaking councils, my friend readily agreed: oh, of course, he asserted quite vigorously, they -- meaning the neocons -- “are all Likudniks.” There is some kind of disconnect here, which he seemed not to notice: although, on the one hand, he acknowledged the neocons’ very close connection to Israel, he does not on the other hand agree that the neocons did anything in a policy sense for Israel. As if they had checked their pro-Israel sympathies at the doors of the White House and the Pentagon when they officially became policymakers. As if they had discarded their own long history of pro-Israel advocacy and the policy guidance that many of them had long been giving to Israeli leaders -- guidance that included an actual advisory written for the Israeli government in 1996 to move against Iraq.
It has been clear to most analysts for years, even decades, that the United States favors Israel, but this reality has never been revealed so explicitly until recent events laid the relationship bare, and laid bare the fact that Israel is at the center of virtually every move the United States makes in the region. There has long been a taboo on talking about these realities, a taboo that has tied the tongues of people like my interlocutor. People do not mention Israel because they might be called anti-Semitic, they might be attacked as “singling out” Israel for criticism; the media fail to discuss Israel and what it does around the Middle East and, most directly, to the Palestinians who live under its rule because this might provoke angry letters to the editor and cancelled subscriptions by Israel supporters. Congressmen will not endanger campaign funds by talking honestly about Israel. And so Israel is taken off everyone’s radar screen. Progressives may “mention Israel in passing,” as my friend told me, but they do no more. Ultimately, because no one talks about it, everyone stops even thinking about Israel as the prime mover behind so many U.S. policies and actions in the Middle East.
It is time we began noticing. Everyone in the Middle East already notices, as the Egyptian revolution has just made clear. And probably everyone throughout the world also notices. We should begin listening to the world’s people, not to their leaders, who tell us what they think we want to hear.
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and the author of several books on the Palestinian situation, including Palestine in Pieces, co-authored with her late husband Bill Christison.
BEYOND TAHRIR SQUARE
"Everybody is Speaking"
By CARL FINAMORE
Cairo.
As much as the Egyptian military would like it otherwise, recent days have shown that they are a long way from exerting control over the country's affairs. The Egyptian people are not quite ready to put their dreams for a better future on hold nor have their pent-up frustrations put back into a box.
Certainly not since people's power just toppled a dictator thought invincible only a few weeks ago.
The street protests centered in Cairo's Tahrir Square have now spread all across Egypt, as labor unrest grows. Thousands of workers belonging to local units of the government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), who largely work in the public sector, are even striking and protesting, right alongside their unorganized brothers and sisters in the private sector.
In addition, new independent unions are forming. The latter are determined to be democratically controlled by their members instead of by a government and state constitution that only recognized unions considered reliable and obedient to the ruling politicians.
The numerous strikes and protests are telling us that the people are not finished speaking. In the current climate, there is no question their voices will not easily be silenced by military threats to ban strikes, demonstrations, and even unions themselves.
It's not hard to understand why. Egypt's workers have suffered enormously under the country's long-standing neo-conservative economic policies of privatization and elimination of state social subsidies. The United States government, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have promoted these policies since the days of Anwar Sadat, Mubarak's predecessor.
As a result, there has been a tremendous growth in informal sectors of the economy where workers have no rights, no benefits and no contract rights. One young man I met at downtown Cairo, Said, was working in this unrecognized part of the economy. He was an English teacher by day, but had to work evenings as a street vendor with his friends, other teachers I also met, to supplement his 280 Egyptian pound (less than $50) monthly salary.
This is not a unique example; actually, it is quite the norm. According to the AFL-CIO, 40 per cent of Egyptians barely exist on $2 a day. This explains the startling statistic that between 2004 and 2008 there were some 1900 work stoppages and other forms of protest in Egypt involving 1.9 million workers. Obviously, the national uprising against Mubarak was a long time in the making.
Beyond Tahrir Square
Understandably, with events moving so rapidly beyond Tahrir, I wanted to see if military efforts to clear the square of all protestors signaled a downturn in the movement.
So, I woke up early on Monday morning, February 14, and hurriedly rushed to Tahrir, a twenty-minute walk from my hotel through downtown Cairo, past the central Court Building (now open) and past the Egyptian Museum (still closed and guarded by the military).
Only the day before, thousands were still assembled in Tahrir despite warnings from the army to leave the area. But, as I got closer, I could not believe my eyes. For a moment I actually had a difficult time getting my bearings. On the previous two days after arriving in Cairo, I just followed tens of thousands all heading in the same direction and all arriving at the same location-a metaphor for the immense unity of a nation.
Now, remarkably, overnight, the center of Tahrir Square was completely empty. All the protestors were gone, the tents and medical triage centers torn down and all the makeshift barricades removed. In their place in the center of the square hung a very large banner reading: "Egypt is Now Happy!"
A few dozen smartly dressed, unarmed military police in red berets somewhat casually stood guard around the perimeter of the Square. Only a few days before many thousands bravely stood their ground here against organized assaults by the police. Hundreds were killed and thousands injured in this square. Stories of those 18 days before Mubarak resigned are now a permanent and proud modern chapter of Egypt's history.
So how was it that, overnight, all this was gone? Even more important: What did it mean?
A Japanese journalist looked at me as we both gazed at the same scene. Shrugging, with both his arms extended upwards, he exclaimed, "It's over!"
I didn't think so. But I very much wanted to find answers to my questions.
I began walking around the perimeter of the square where I discovered several different assembled groups of around a dozen or more people. Some were praying at hastily erected altars honoring those who were murdered. This was a very moving tribute where total silence was respected.
Other scattered groups were having heated and engaged conversations that could only mean, in today's Egypt, that they were talking politics. I approached one of the larger groups and began asking questions and, again, I found people ready to welcome me and ready to speak.
Of course, there were moments when someone would insist they would only speak Arabic. I would respond with a "thumbs up", showing that I recognized the pride people have in their own language and culture and we would both smile and leave it at that. On only a few other occasions, someone would ask, in Arabic, if I was a spy. They would warn those speaking to me that "Egyptians do not want the world to know our dirty laundry." But always the majority defended me.
Was it a good thing that the protestors left the square? I first asked a 27-year old well-dressed young businessman as he stood alone gazing out over the Square. "Yes, what we wanted came," he replied. "So why stay?"
Others echoed this view. "Yes, why not?" said 32-year old Mahmoud, an unemployed accountant who is now working as a chauffeur for a famous Egyptian academic. "I am glad the people made the changes in a system we had for 30 years. They did what we all wanted."
As I was taking notes, others began to come into our little circle and participate. The discussion group grew bigger and bigger. This happens all the time now whenever I stop to interview someone. It reminded me of a remark I had heard the day before, on Sunday, with Hamad, a 26-year old former soldier and unemployed teacher who also works as a street vendor.
"Before no one talked politics. Now we are free, everyone is speaking," he told me.
Hamad also had an opinion on leaving the square. "It is good to stay in the square because the protestors push our demands." This was Sunday, early afternoon. But by Sunday evening, support for that idea certainly dimmed after the army announced that Parliament was being dissolved, the hated Constitution abrogated and the ban on all parties lifted.
"The president is gone, the parliament is gone, and the constitution will be changed. No party is banned. Our émigrés are returning. Let's celebrate, clean up the square, and go home!" someone said in our group in very clear English.
So much had changed in just 24 hours. But it was clear to me that it was these concessions wrested by the movement from the military that emptied Tahrir Square and not any fear of government reprisals.
Day of Victory March
Amr Taha, a 24-year old dentist who holds dual American and Egyptian citizenship, had now entered our conversation. He was one of the more experienced activists from the very beginning. Amr was arrested while leaving a mosque on his way to a demonstration. "I was arrested for intending to demonstrate," he told me with a big smile on his face.
"A thousand of us were arrested on that day, January 28, but we all escaped from the prison a few days later when the police just disappeared." Later, Amr would show me a burned down police station near his mosque, one of many such examples of the people's fury toward the corrupt and brutal police.
Of course, there are still several important demands that have not been resolved, Amr emphasized. For example, protestors have written and spoken publicly about wanting all political prisoners released, the emergency decree in effect since Mubarak took office lifted, and a definite timetable from the military government for achieving these political and even other economic goals.
"By leaving the square, the people are giving the army the trust they earned by not attacking us, even though we all know they did close their eyes to some of the police brutality," explained Amr. "Anyway, if our demands are not addressed in a timely way, well, we all know the way back to Tahrir Square."
This is not idle talk. Protest leaders have called for a massive demonstration on Friday, February 18, the official day of rest in Egypt. Its size will be a test, once again, of the current power relationships between the movement and the army. I'm betting on the movement.
Suddenly, our talk was interrupted by people all around us laughing and cheering as four large buses honking their horns were seen quickly driving through traffic. The buses were full of young people sticking their heads out the windows smiling and shouting, "Thief! Thief! Thief"
Everyone knew what they meant. The dictator was gone and did not even deserve to be called by his proper name.
Thanks to Mark Harris in Portland and to Shawna Bader, AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, for their insights.
Carl Finamore is in Cairo with letters of introduction from his IAM Machinist local and from the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO where he serves as a delegate.
HOW TO END US RELIANCE ON DICTATORS
Freedom is Not a Stick
By STEVE BREYMAN
The Arab uprisings present US foreign policymakers with their greatest opportunity for a decisive shift in direction since 1989. Will they seize it?
Unfortunately for the peoples of the former Soviet Union and East Bloc, the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations and their own new governments bungled the transitions to freedom and democracy. Former apparatchiks cast off their red stars for shiny new lapel pins, communists became fiery and sometimes murderous nationalists, and for fire sale prices, the men we call oligarchs took over giant state industries. It took the GHW Bush administration several years to even realize the Cold War was over. Jeffrey Sachs’ brutal and myopic “shock therapy” was the best the US could muster by the way of economic advice during the nineties.
We live with the consequences of these historic failures--entrenched autocracies, world-class corruption, decaying economies, renewed international tensions—to this very day. The stakes are as high in 2011. Might the Obama administration avoid the mistakes of its predecessors when it comes to the current wave of democratic uprisings? (It’s too early to call them “revolutions”).
It will only be able to do so if it makes a clear and definitive break with the ruling foreign policy assumptions of the past sixty-five years, and with the climate of fear that helped engender them. Three of the most important of these interlocking assumptions are: (1) “stability” is the paramount goal when dealing with “America’s friends;” (2) American values are merely rhetorical weapons to be deployed cynically and selectively; and (3) what’s good for Israel is good for the United States.
“Stability” seems an odd goal for a country born in an anti-imperial revolution, and for one that professes to cherish liberty and democracy. But there it is, at the center of the foreign policies of president after president.
If you were an “anti-communist” despot in Latin America, Africa or Asia, you could rely on stability-enhancing military and economic support from the United States. You were automatically considered “pro-American.” An academic might even invent a framework that justified this support (Jeanne Kirkpatrick). You could get away with, or perhaps even be further enabled to murder, torture, disappear, and jail your “opponents” as long as you called them “communists.”
If you were a sheik or king in an oil-rich Muslim country, the sky was the limit as long as the petroleum flowed freely, your military bought American weapons and granted base rights to the US military and intelligence agencies, and your secret police oppressed nationalists, socialists, Islamists, and other troublemakers.
“Stability” remained central when the Cold War gave way to the Global War on Terror. Only the faces of “America’s enemies” changed; Washington traded in the “evil empire” for the “axis of evil.” The story is the same for American values in US foreign policy.
American values like “democracy” and “freedom” were and are bipartisan sticks with which to beat unfriendly regimes and disfavored peoples. They, sadly, are not genuine goals and metrics for US foreign policy. “Freedom” only mattered to US foreign policy during the Cold War as a club against “godless atheistic Communism.” During the Global War on Terror, the target is “Islamofascism,” or less colorfully, “violent extremism” while propping up the Houses of al-Saud and Musharraf. The tumult in the Arab world is the latest challenge before citizens to separate rhetoric from reality.
Concern over stability might still trump support for liberation in North Africa and the Middle East. Fortunately for Egyptians, events got ahead of Foggy Bottom. Would Frank Wisner—well-paid lobbyist for Mubarak--be the special envoy to Cairo if the State Department were pursuing democracy rather than stability in Egypt?
The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (and the others boiling in Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere) happened despite not because of US foreign policy. Americans are the only people in the world not to know this--thanks to the US media’s internalization of the goals of US foreign policy. Cable companies do not carry Al Jazeera English even though the President himself was reportedly tuned in. Tunisians have not forgotten Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld’s friendly words for the Ben Ali regime. Egyptians understand that thirty years of US aid propped up the sclerotic and kleptomaniacal Mubarak regime. The inspiring events of Tahrir Square had nothing to do with George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” or Obama’s Cairo speech. Liberty is not a gift that can be offered or withheld by the United States.
Preference for “stability” over the uncertainties of liberation from dictators, and hypocrisy over American values are both evident in the case of US-Israel relations. Any honest person with genuine respect for human rights and international law—conditions that eliminate most members of Congress--long ago rejected bottomless US support for Israel. And yet there appears no Israeli crime too great for its friends in the US to cover-up or rationalize. This despite the clear connections between Israeli policy and the jihadi threat to America because of US support for Israeli policy. And despite the untold damage the relationship with Israel does to American values, US standing in the world, and the “stability” of Palestine. Can there still be doubt that Israel’s (in)actions harm American interests in the region and the world? Not long ago, General Petraeus let as much slip before he was forced to walk his comments back by The Lobby.
The worst-case scenarios of some foreign policymakers are nightmares induced by fear of change. What if Persian Gulf autocrats fall? Might we not be facing another oil embargo? No. Petrostates stay afloat by madly pumping oil and gas, not by withholding it from their best customers. The global reality of peak oil—whether already past, present, or future—ensures the spigot remains open. What if Islamists come to power in democratic elections (as in Gaza and Lebanon)? The President of the United States calls to congratulate the winner, and expresses hope for the future of the relationship. Respect for democracy demands no less. Should democracy break out in the Middle East, will Israel find the new neighbors less willing to get paid by the US to play along with its colonization of Palestine? Absolutely. Again, respect for human rights and international law—‘declaratory’ American values—demands no less.
Might the crack opened by young Arabs in their decades-old American-backed regimes open a crack in public understanding of US foreign policy? Stranger things have happened lately.
Steve Breyman teaches politics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
THE LONG ARAB REVOLUTION
Two Types of Revolt
By VIJAY PRASHAD
The Arab Revolt of 2011 is unabated. Protests continue in such unlikely places as Bahrain. On Valentine’s Day, a protest march in Manama had no love for the al-Khalifah royals. It wanted to deliver its message. “Our demand is a constitution written by the people,” the protestors chanted. Opposition leader Abdul Wahab Hussain told the press, “The number of riot police is huge, but we have shown using violence against us only makes us stronger.” The police fired rubber bullets and dispersed the as yet small crowd. “This is just the beginning,” Hussain said after he had been beaten off the streets.
Such protests appear unlikely only because the wave of struggle that broke out in the late 1950s and peaked in the 1970s was crushed by the early 1980s. Encouraged by the overthrow of the monarch in Egypt by the coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, ordinary people across the Arab world wanted their own revolts. Iraq and Lebanon followed. On the peninsula, the people wanted what Fred Halliday called “Arabia without Sultans.” The People’s Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf emerged out of the Dhofar (Oman) struggle. It wished to take its local campaign to the entire peninsula. In Bahrain, its more timid branch was the Popular Front. It did not last long. With Nasserism in decline by the 1970s, the new momentum came to this Arabian republicanism from the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Islamic Front of the Liberation of Bahrain attempted a coup in 1981. They had the inspiration, but not the organization. This Arab archipelago could not go the way of Yemen, where a revolution allowed a Marxist organization to seize power in 1967.
Exertions by these revitalized forces in the 1990s was met with stiff resistance by the al-Khalifah regime. But the new ruler, Hamad (a graduate of Cambridge University), was smart. He knew a thing or two about hegemony. Not enough to smash the heads of the Islamists, he hastily called for an elected parliament, allowed women to vote, and released some political prisoners. It was enough to please Washington, and the oil companies. Nothing like stability that looks like democracy. The Egyptian virus of 2011, however, overcame the façade of democracy erected by Hamad. Protests are back.
The contagion is not only political. It is also, and perhaps decisively, economic. Bahrain relies upon oil for its wealth. Oil money spawned real estate speculation (the Dubai model). The beneficiaries of this process have been the royal family, and a crony clique. The vast mass, mainly Shi’a, are enraged that this wealth has had almost no social outlet. Afraid of the Shi’a population, the monarch imported 50,000 foreign workers to reconfigure the demographic landscape. This Bahranization policy was a smokescreen to pit the (local) labor against the (foreign) labor. It has not worked. To top it off, an outcome of the credit crunch since 2007 has been the Bahrain government’s proposal to cut subsidies of food and fuel. These have already been withdrawn because of popular anger. The youth in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are kin to the young people in Britain, Ireland, France, Italy – all of whom have been on the streets against austerity. Young people are at the forefront of the revolts because they have the most to lose from the cuts, and from the policies that mortgage their futures. These are also, therefore, convulsions against the overpaid agents (bankers) of over-ground powers (the Davos elite and their institutions).
Meanwhile, the U. S. Fifth Fleet has a berth in Bahrain. Vice Admiral Mark Fox must be powering up the EA-6B Prowlers for emergency action.
Explanations for the Arab Revolt flounder. There are those who take refuge in the trans-historical, finding this an example of the striving for human dignity. The Arabs were angry. They would not take it anymore. This is all very good, but it is too general. Why did the protests happen now, why in this way, why these demands?
There are others who lurch in the other direction, away from the trans-historical to specific circumstance. They think that broad explanations are reductive, and so, they take refuge in the contingent: this event (the immolation) led to that event (the protest) led to another event (the occupation of Tahrir Square), and so to the grand event (Mubarak goes to the seaside). History becomes a series of events that measure up to shifts that have no bearing beyond the surface.
Such attempts to understand the Arab Revolt leads in two directions: they confuse these revolts for Revolution, and it tends to see them as the 2011 Revolution against the 1952 Revolution led by Nasser. Inspirational as these current revolts are, they are part of a long process in the Arab world that stretches back into the 19th century. That long process is the Arab Revolution, one that strives for a total transformation of the structures of domination that constrain Arab futures. One episode in that long Arab Revolution is Nasser’s revolt of 1952. It was defeated by the late 1960s, and it returned Egypt (and the Arab world) to its historical subordination. Another episode is the current wave. The long Arab Revolution poses two questions that remain unanswered. These should provide part of the scaffolding to understand what is afoot in the Arab lands. The first question is of its politics, and the second is of its economics.
Politics.
When will the Arab people rule themselves, and not be ruled by one-party dictators and monarchs who are beholden to bond markets and foreign capitals? Not long ago France’s Sarkozy and America’s Clinton offered praise for their “democratic” friends Ben Ali and Mubarak. To top the obscenity, Obama conferred with the Saudis on the democratic transition in Egypt, which is like asking a vegetarian how to cook prime rib.
In 1953, the aged King Farouk set sail on his yacht, al-Mahrusa, guarded by the Egyptian navy, he waved to people who he considered his lesser: Nasser, son of a postman, and Sadat, son of a small farmer. Their Colonels’ Coup was intended to break Egypt away from monarchy and imperial domination. Nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy came alongside land reforms. But these were ill-conceived, and they were not able to throttle the power of the Egyptian bourgeoisie (whose habit for quick money continued, with three quarters of new investments going to inflate a real estate bubble). The economy was bled to support an enlarged military apparatus, largely to fight the U. S. backed armies of the Israelis. Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war led Nasser to resign on 10 June. Thousands of people took to the streets of Cairo, this time to ask Nasser to return to office, which he did, although much weakened.
The democratic opening of 1952 was, however, unable to emerge. Military officers, however, progressive, are loath to hand over the reins of power. The security apparatus went after the Muslim Brotherhood certainly, but it was fiercest against the Communists. Nasser did not build up a strong, independent political culture. “His ‘socialism’,” as Stavrianos put it, “was socialism by presidential decree, implemented by the army and police. There was no initiative or participation at the grass-roots level.” For that reason, when Sadat moved the country to the Right in the 1970s there was barely any opposition to him. Nasserism after Nasser was as hollow as Perónism after Perón.
The current revolt is against the regime set up by Sadat and developed by Mubarak. It is a national security state that has no democratic pretensions. In 1977, Sadat identified Nasserism with “detention camps, custodianship and sequestration, a one-opinion, one-party system.” Sadat allowed three kinds of political forces to emerge, but then hastily defanged them (the leftist National Progressive Grouping Party), coopted them (the Arab Socialist Party, and the Socialist Liberal Party), or tolerated their existence (Muslim Brotherhood). Cleverly, Sadat put in place what he accused Nasser of building. It was under Sadat, and Mubarak (with Omar Suleiman in tow) that the detention camps and torture centers blossomed.
In Tahrir Square, 22 year old Ahmed Abdel Moneim said, “The French Revolution took a very long time so the people could eventually get their rights.” His struggle in 2010 is to repeal the national security state. That is the basic requirement, to return to the slogan of the French Revolution. The dynamic that Ahmed wants to be a part of is the dynamic of Nasserism, but this time it should be without the military. That is one lesson of history.
The other lesson comes to us from Nadine Naber, who reminds us that women formed a crucial part of this wave of revolt, as they did in the previous ones, and yet, when the revolt succeeds women are set aside, as secondary political actors. “What are the possibilities for a democratization of rights in Egypt,” Naber asks, “in which women’s participation, the rights of women, family law, and the right to organize, protest, and express freedom of speech remain central?” Naber repeats a question raised in 1957 by Karima El-Said, the deputy minister of education of the United Arab Republic (“In Afro-Asian countries where people are still suffering under the yoke of colonialism, women are actively participating in the struggle for complete national independence. They are convinced that this is the first step for their emancipation and will equip them to occupy their real place in society”). It is history’s second lesson, that the democracy that emerges be capacious.
Economics.
The second unanswered question of the long Arab Revolution is about bread and the dignity of work. When will the economies of the Arab region be able to sustain their populations rather than fatten the financial houses in the Atlantic world, and offer massive trust funds for the dictators and the monarchs? Cursed with oil, the Arab world has seen little economic diversification and almost no attempt to use the oil wealth to engender balanced social development for the people. Instead, the oil money sloshed North, to provide credit for overheated consumers in the United States and to provide banks with those vast funds that are otherwise not garnered by populations that have stopped saving (for a long while Americans saved 1 per cent of their paychecks, an understandable figure given the stagnation of wages since 1973). The oil money also went toward the real estate boom in the Gulf, and the baccarat tables and escort services of Monaco (the Las Vegas of Europe, which has another decrepit monarch, Albert II, at its head).
As part of Sadat’s de-Nasserization of Egypt, he opened the economy (infatah) to foreign capital. Nationalization and subsidies ended, and free enterprise zones were created by February 1974. Sadat wanted a “blood transfusion” for the Egyptian economy, and so the Atlantic banks began to draw pints of blood from the ailing Egyptian working class. They replaced it with liquor stores and nightclubs (the targets of the January 1977 riots in Cairo). Inequality flourished in Egypt, and neo-liberal policies produced an haute bourgeoisie with more investment in London than in Alexandria. By 2008, some 40 per cent of the population lived on under $2 a day. In October 2010, the courts directed the government to raise the minimum wage from $70 a month to $207 a month. Because Sadat and Mubarak eviscerated the attempt to create a diverse economy, Egypt now relies upon rent income for its survival (remittances from Egyptian workers, Suez Canal tolls, oil and gas exports, tourism revenues, and payment for privatization, among others). A substantial part of this rent was diverted by Mubarak to his coffers in the Swiss banks. There is no democracy for its economy. The tyrant here is not only Mubarak, but the IMF, the World Bank, the Banks, the Bond Markets, the Multi-National Corporations.
Labor strikes across Egypt, protests before the housing authority, protests at food stalls – this is the face of the ongoing revolt. The Egyptians seem clear that the departure of Mubarak means also the end to the neo-liberal dispensation that was set up in the 1970s. They want to expand the social wage, to better manage whatever rental wealth enters the country and to expand economic activity.
* * *
Over the past twenty years we’ve seen two types of revolts. The first, those in Eastern Europe for instance, were revolts against the suffocation of the late Soviet-era State. Indifferent to the tarnished promises of such socialism, the people sought refuge in the glamour of the market economy. It was a revolt for the market. Two decades later, the East European dreams have become a horrid nightmare.
The second, those in the Arab world today, but also the people’s revolt in the Philippines against Marcos and the people’s revolt in Indonesia against Suharto, were revolts against the market. These were revolts by masses of people who wanted an expansion of the social wage. They began with revolts against long-standing autocrats (Ben Ali, Mubarak, Marcos, Suharto) and cascaded into demands for a different social and economic order.
For the Arab lands, these events of 2011 are not the inauguration of a new history, but the continuation of an unfinished struggle that is a hundred years old. Some people already sink back into gloom, discounting the remarkable victory of ejecting Ben Ali and Mubarak. Such acts raise the confidence of the people and propel other struggles into motion. The old order might yet remain, but it knows that its time is on hand. In Gladiator (2000), the Germanic barbarians sever the head of a Roman soldier and toss it in front of the Roman battle lines. One of the Roman generals says, “People should know when they are conquered.” He meant the barbarians. The dictators of the Arab world, our barbarians, might yet throw some heads before the advance of the people. But they should know already that they are defeated. It is simply a matter of time: a hundred years, or ten.
Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out.
18 DAYS THAT SHOOK EGYPT
Civic Institutions Essential for Egypt's Revolution
By RALPH NADER
Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post writer and founder of the Center for Teaching Peace, must be very happy with the news from Egypt. For twenty-five years, McCarthy has been persuading high schools and colleges to adopt peace studies in their curriculum (for more information, contact him at cmccarthy@starpower.net). Now he has another example of a largely non-violent revolution—led by young people of all backgrounds—successfully ousting a dictatorial regime.
The moral power of non-violence against tyrants is ridiculed by the militaristic mind. Tell that to Ghandi and Mandela and to U.S. civil rights leaders. Those who say these are exceptions due to the relative lower brutality of what they were up against should read the history. Those entrenched regimes were plenty brutal over the years. But when non-violent protests became organized and disciplined enough to reach critical mass, brutality only strengthened and enlarged the uprisings.
Hosni Mubarak's inadvertent gift to the January 25 Revolution was that he united the protestors beyond class, religious and ideological lines. His regular oppression over the years led to the April 6, 2008 Youth movement, and organized labor strikes at textile mills. An auspicious spark came with the Tunisian upheaval of December.
The shaming jolt of immolations in Egypt to overcome widespread fear and reticence to join with others in those frightening early rallies in Cairo's Tahrir Square can scarcely be exaggerated.
The 18 days that shook Egypt will make for fascinating study. The self-discipline and power of mutual self-respect with others locked arm-in-arm tested the regime and the protestors.
First came the security police with tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and water cannons. The resisters held. Then three days later, the police were pulled back and replaced by the respected and familiar Army (Egypt has a draft). The soldiers mostly kept a kind of neutral order, but some soldiers showed their support for the demonstrators by allowing them to decorate the tanks with flowers and freedom signs.
February 2 and 3 brought the ominous pro-Mubarak plain-clothesmen into the Square. That drew new resolve among the crowds that vastly outnumbered what they saw as the government's thugs. The protestors held. From then on, bolstered by demonstrations in Alexandria—Egypt's second largest city—Suez and other Metropolitan centers, the momentum swung decisively in favor of the rebels whose ranks swelled with each day.
Certainly, Al-Jazeera television countered the state-run television to inform the people, almost by the minute about what was transpiring in the streets. Certainly the Internet kept the protestors in touch with one another, though the government briefly shut it down along with the mobile phone networks.
But far from most cameras, residents organized Cairo's vast neighborhoods to defend and supply themselves. They were the real glue, the real depth that convinced the regime that it was all over.
The fall of Mubarak led to the assumption of power by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which suspended the disliked constitution, dissolved the rubber-stamp Parliament, and announced "free and fair" elections with multi-party candidates in six months. They pledged to remove the despised "emergency law," allowing arrests without charges or trial, and promised immunity for the protestors whom they described as "honest people who refused the corruption and demanded reforms."
Now comes the hard part. Three "cultures" are presently the best organized—the military, commercial and religious groups. Least established is the civic culture that is now, in its revelry and formative stage, the toast of the nation.
But it is the civic—political culture at the urban neighborhood and village levels that will shape the future democratic processes and structures to avert falling back into a military-oligarchic concentration of power—one backed by the same old U.S. support for authoritarian stability over democracy. "Much of the old regime remains" wrote author of Middle-East revolutionary movements, David Porter.
As the New York Times columnist—Nicholas D. Kristof, wrote from Cairo where he once was a university student: "We tie ourselves in knots when we act as if democracy is good for the United States and Israel but not for the Arab world. For far too long, we've treated the Arab world as just an oil field."
The peril for the protestors in the critical next six months is how to keep the momentum of unity going behind a broad universal agenda that would lead to the election without opening up rending sectarian divisions.
In 1990 I was in Moscow as a guest of the Soviet Union's U.S. and Canada Institute just before Boris Yeltsin replaced Mikhail Gorbachev. The audiences were overjoyed at the looming prospect of democracy replacing Soviet dictatorship. I cautioned that there would be a large vacuum, should this occur, and joy and relief should not supplant the creation of civic institutions, independent judiciaries and prosecutors and the broadest possible civic participation by the people. Otherwise, the vacuum would be filled with forces not to their liking.
Sure enough, authoritarian practices and the corrupt give-away of Russia's massive natural resources to a dozen oligarchs filled the vacuum.
The Egyptian resistance—politically savvy from dealing with years of repression—is anything but naïve. They know what they have to do and by when, taking nothing for granted. This wariness, they have made clear, includes not taking for granted Washington's sudden praise of their unfolding quest for what President Obama called a "genuine democracy."
Wouldn't it be a surprising change were the Obama administration to stand resolutely with the workers and the peasants in this ancient land of 80 million?
Egypt Finally Makes History
Mahfouz's Prophesy
By RAOUF J. HALABY
During the past sixty years US politicians have convinced Americans citizens that some of the world's tyrants and dictators are "strong and dependable allies of the US." To wit the State Department's official statements about Egypt's Hosni Mubarak during the first few days of the uprising that has swept Egypt like a firestorm.
The emergence of two super powers soon after World War II set the stage for a politically and ideologically polarized world; Communism became our arch enemy, and anti-communist dictators, regardless of their tyrannical rule, became our allies "in the fight to keep communism from spreading around the world." Is this not how we were sold on the Vietnam War?
Perceived to have Communist sympathies, Muhammad Mosaddegh, Iran's duly elected Prime Minister, was ousted from office in 1953 in a CIA orchestrated coup de dat. His Majesty Shahanashah Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, was propped up on the Iranian Imperial Peacock Throne. The CIA would eventually train his SAVAK secret police in the art of torture. Twenty six years later, the Shah fled Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini triumphed into Tehran to supposedly save the Iranians from a tyrant who'd become an American puppet. The results have not been pleasant for Iranians, the Near East, and the world. Closer to home, in 1973 the CIA orchestrated another coup de tat in Chile; Augusto Pinochet, "a strong ally," ruled brutally and tyrannically until his removal in 1990.
Poor decision-making by successive US Administrations, our addiction to oil, strong lobbying of congress by interest groups more concerned with their own foreign policy agendas, and strategic regional concerns are but four of many factors for America's support of tyrants all over world. The latter translates into protecting "our vital interests," a euphemism for assuring American corporations favorable access to natural resources of foreign countries, cheap labor, markets for US products, and the control of strategic water, land, and air routes for rapid military deployment.
While the disintegration of the Soviet Union helped spawn freedom movements in the former Soviet Block, the Philippines, and a handful of Latin American nations, the Arab World and Israel moved in the opposite direction. The so-called peace treaty between Egypt and Israel paved the way for Israel's 1982 disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and, now that Egypt, the largest military threat to Israel, was neutralized, successive Israeli governments diverted the heretofore defense expenditures to a massive settlement building program in the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. To accomplish this goal, Palestinians had to be brutally suppressed. Israel, "Our strongest ally in the region" is, indeed, the only democracy in the Near East, yet its democratic ideals extend only to its Jewish citizens; Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens, and Palestinians in the occupied territories live under the indignity of military occupation.
Enter the Iran-Iraq War of 1979 which pitted Iraq's Sunni Hussein against Iran's Shia Khomeini. US support for Iraq's brutal dictator came in many forms, including weapons, chemicals, technology and intelligence. As long as Hussein exchanged his petro dollars for American goods in the fight against Iran, his brutal rule was condoned; testimony to the aforementioned is a photograph of Dick Cheney hugging Hussein prior to the latter's decision to invade oil-rich Kuwait. As part of the propaganda to oust Hussein from Kuwait with the help of several regional "strong allies" (many of whom continue to be brutal dictators), the charge that "he used chemicals to kill his own people" became a rallying slogan to support the war. Yes, Hussein had gassed some 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, but why was there no prior condemnation? Is it because economic concerns trumped moral indignation?
Enter yet another cataclysmic event. 9/11 changed the landscape on many fronts, and the new enemy became "Islamic terrorists." In his attempt to "win the hearts and minds of the Arab World" and "bring democracy" to a region whose population is governed by brutal dictators, George W. Bush launched the second Gulf War. True, Saddam Hussein has been dealt with, but the verdict on the war's outcome is iffy at best. Planting democracy in Iraq came at a high cost, especially to the Iraqis whose dead numbered well over 100,000, 4 million refugees, and an infrastructure pulverized back to the Stone Age.
Since 9/11, and because of much needed intelligence and logistical support, the list de jour of "strong allies" has grown exponentially. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco, to name but a few, are the new club members. They provide military bases, intelligence and logistical support, the rendition of suspected terrorists and, worse of all, to circumvent US laws, they torture suspects on our behalf. Egypt and Jordan have been singled out for such torture.
Early last week Nobel laureate Muhammad El Baradei summed up the aspirations of the masses of Egypt, and, by extension, the Arab world, thusly: "If there is no democracy, there is no life." Albeit slowly, democracy will come to the Arab world pending the following happen: President Obama becomes more proactive and vocal in holding the rulers of the Arab world to account for their tyrannical rule (last year's sale of $60 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia is foolish); he exerts pressure on Israel to realize that a two-state solution is in its best interest; Arab rulers must democratize their regimes and join the 21st century; the Arab masses must keep the religious fanatics at bay and adhere to the adage I often heard while growing up in the Near East: "Al Deenu lil'Lah, wal watan lil jami" (Religion is God's and country is for all); and Israel, a lynchpin in any democratic future for the region, must realize that it cannot continue to rule over 3.5 million Palestinians yearning for dignity and freedom – apartheid regimes that build walls of separation poison the hearts and minds of their own citizens.
In 1990 in Cairo I had the privilege of interviewing Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt's winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, on the fifth floor of his Al Ahram (The Pyramids) office, the Arab world's largest newspaper. In his closing comments he stated the following: "Egypt had a glorious past. For 3,500 years we made outstanding contributions to civilization, yet during the last 1,500 years we've stood on the sidelines, observing, instead of helping make history." In like manner, while Europe was in deep slumber, the Arabs made history with their great accomplishments in every field of learning, and their contributions helped spawn Europe's Renaissance. It is time for the Umma Al Arabiya (the Arab nation) to stop living on the glorious laurels of the past and join a 21st century world that values individual freedom and human rights for all, men as well as women. If the masses of the Arab world adhere to Gandhi style civil disobedience, then this historic tsunami, which began in Tunisia and might very well travel west to Libya and Morocco and east to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, will, Insha'Allah (God Willing), depose the tyrants of the Arab world.
As for Israel's Netanyahu, he has two options. He can either use the turmoil in Egypt to dig in and follow the illusive dream of a Greater Israel, or he can sit down with the Palestinians to hammer out a permanent and just peace.
Tyrants of Mubarak's ilk hang on to power for as long as possible, no matter the cost, and historic events afford leaders rare opportunities; great leaders know how to seize these opportunities. Depending on how the transition in Egypt plays out, the leaders of the Arab World and Israel cannot afford to miss an opportunity created by a most unique seismic tremor whose impact is reverberating throughout the world.
Scribbled in English on a poster carried by a young Egyptian demonstrator were four words which sum up the aspirations of millions of Arabs: "Yes, we can too." President Obama, himself a product of the changes this country afforded him, should lead the Arab, Israeli and international choir by stating "I know we can. Let's get down to the business of change and peace in earnest." And for their part, Naguib Mahfouz's prophetic words that Egypt "stood on the sidelines, observing, instead of helping make history," have never been more true.
Raouf J. Halaby, a naturalized US citizen, is of Palestinian heritage. He is a Professor of English and Art at Ouachita University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas
THE REVOLUTIONARY REBELLION IN EGYPT
Poverty, Food Prices and the Crisis of Imperialism
By FIDEL CASTRO
Several days ago I said that Mubarak’s fate was sealed and that not even Obama was able to save him.
The world knows about what is happening in the Middle East. News spreads at mind-boggling speed. Politicians barely have enough time to read the dispatches arriving hour after hour. Everyone is aware of the importance of what is happening over there.
After 18 days of tough struggle, the Egyptian people achieved an important objective: overthrowing the main United States ally in the heart of the Arab nations. Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his own people, he was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel, the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO group.
The Armed Forces of Egypt, under the command of Gamal Abdel Nasser, had thrown overboard a submissive King and created a Republic which, with the support of the USSR, defended its Homeland from the Franco-British and Israeli invasion of 1956 and preserved its ownership of the Suez Canal and the independence of its ancient nation.
For that reason, Egypt had a high degree of prestige in the Third World. Nasser was well-known as one of the most outstanding leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, in whose creation he took part along with other well-known leaders of Asia, Africa and Oceania who were struggling for national liberation and for the political and economic independence of the former colonies.
Egypt always enjoyed the support and respect of that international organization which brings together more than one hundred countries. At this precise time, that sister country is chairing NAM for a corresponding three-year period; and the support of many of its members for the struggle its people are engaged in today is a given.
What was the significance of the Camp David Agreements, and why do the heroic Palestinian people so arduously defend their most essential rights?
At Camp David ―with the mediation of then-President of the United States Jimmy Carter―, Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin signed the famous treaties between Egypt and Israel.
It is said that secret talks went on for 12 days and on September 17th of 1978 they signed two important treaties: one in reference to peace between Egypt and Israel; the other having to do with the creation of the autonomous territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where, el-Sadat was thinking – and Israel was aware of and sharing the idea –the capital of the State of Palestine would be, and whose existence, as well as that of the State of Israel, was agreed to by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, in the British protectorate of Palestine.
At the end of arduous and complicated talks, Israel agreed to withdraw their troops from Egyptian territory in the Sinai, even though it categorically rejected Palestinian participation in those peace negotiations.
As a product of the first treaty, in the term of one year, Israel reinstated Sinai territory occupied during one of the Arab-Israeli wars back to Egypt.
By virtue of the second agreement, both parties committed to negotiate the creation of the autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first of these included 5 640 square kilometres of territory and 2.1 million inhabitants; and the second one, 360 square kilometres and 1.5 million inhabitants.
The Arab countries were offended by that treaty where, in their opinion, Egypt had not defended with sufficient energy and resolution a Palestinian State whose right to exist had been the focal point of the battle fought for decades by the Arab States.
Their reactions reached such a level of indignation that many of them broke off their relations with Egypt. Thus, the United Nations Resolution of November 1947 was erased from the map. The autonomous body was never created and thus the Palestinians were deprived of their right to exist as an independent state; that is the origin of the never-ending tragedy they are living in and which should have been resolved more than three decades ago.
The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment. In the Gaza Strip a million and a half people are regularly being attacked with explosive projectiles, live phosphorus and booby-trap bombs. The Gaza Strip lands are being blockaded by land and by sea. Why are the Camp David agreements being talked about to such a degree while nobody mentions Palestine?
The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Egypt, an Arab country, was turned into the second receiver of US weapons. To fight against whom? Another Arab country? Against the very Egyptian people?
When the population was asking for respect for their most basic rights and the resignation of a president whose policy consisted of exploiting and pillaging his own people, the repressive forces trained by the US did not hesitate for a second in shooting at them, killing hundreds and wounding thousands.
When the Egyptian people were awaiting explanations from the government of their own country, the answers were coming from senior officials of the United States intelligence or government bodies, without any respect for Egyptian officials.
Could it possibly be that the leaders of the United States and their intelligence agencies knew nothing at all about the colossal thefts perpetrated by the Mubarak government?
Before the people were to protest en masse from Tahrir Square, neither the government officials nor the United States intelligence bodies were uttering one single word about the privileges and outrageous thefts of billions of dollars.
It would be a mistake to imagine that the people’s revolutionary movement in Egypt theoretically obeys a reaction to violations on their most elementary rights. Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters. They do this when their legal and material rights are being mercilessly sacrificed to the insatiable demands of corrupt politicians and the national and international circles looting the country.
The poverty rate was now affecting the vast majority of a militant people, young and patriotic, with their dignity, culture and beliefs being trampled.
How was the unstoppable increase of food prices to be reconciled with the dozens of billions of dollars that were being attributed to President Mubarak and to the privileged sectors of the government and society?
It’s not enough now that we find out how much these come to; we must demand they be returned to the country.
Obama is being affected by the events in Egypt; he acts, or seems to act, as if he were the master of the planet. The Egyptian affair seems to be his business. He is constantly on the telephone, talking to the leaders of other countries.
The EFE Agency, for example, states: “…I spoke to the British Prime Minister David Cameron; King Abdala II of Jordan, and with the Turkish prime minister, the moderate Muslim Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
“…the president of the United States assessed the ‘historical changes’ that the Egyptians have been promoting and he reaffirmed his admiration for their efforts …”.
The principal US news agency, AP, is broadcasting some reasoning that we should pay attention to:
“The US is asking Middle Eastern leaders leaning towards the West, who are friendly with Israel and willing to cooperate in the fight against Islamic extremism at the same time they are protecting human rights.”
“…Barack Obama has put forward a list of ideal requisites that are impossible to satisfy after the fall of two allies of Washington in Egypt and Tunisia in popular revolts that, according to experts, shall sweep the region.”
“There is no hope within this dream scenario and it’s very difficult for one to appear soon. Partially this is due to the fact that in the last 40 years, the US has sacrificed the noble ideals of human rights, that it so espouses, for stability, continuity and oil in one of the most volatile regions of the world.”
“‘Egypt will never be the same’, Obama said on Friday after praising the departure of Hosni Mubarak.”
“In the midst of their peaceful protests, Obama stated, the Egyptians ‘will change their country and the world’.
“Even as restlessness persists among the various Arab governments, the elite entrenched in Egypt and Tunisia has not shown signs of being willing to hand over the power or their vast economic influence that they have been holding.”
“The Obama government has insisted that the change should not be one of ‘personalities’. The US government set this position since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunis in January, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned the Arab rulers in a speech in Qatar that without reform the foundations of their countries ‘would sink in the sand’.”
People don’t appear to be very docile in Tahrir Square.
Europe Press recounts:
“Thousands of demonstrators have arrived in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of mobilizations that caused the resignation of the president of the country, Hosni Mubarak, to reinforce those continuing in that location, despite the efforts of the military police to remove them, according to information from the BBC.
“The BBC correspondent stationed in the downtown square of Cairo has assured us that the army is appearing to be indecisive in the face of the arrival of new demonstrators …”
“The ‘hard core’ […] is located on one of the corners of the square. […] they have decided to stay in Tahrir […] in order to make certain all their claims are being met.”
Despite what is happening in Egypt, one of the most serious problems being faced by imperialism at this time is the lack of grain.
The US uses an important part of the corn it grows and a large percentage of the soy harvest for the production of biofuels. As for Europe, it uses millions of hectares of land for that purpose.
On the other hand, as a consequence of the climate change originated basically by the developed and wealthy countries, a shortage of fresh water and foods compatible with population growth at a pace that would lead to 9 billion inhabitants in a mere 30 years is being created, without the United Nations and the most influential governments on the planet, after the disappointing meeting at Copenhagen and Cancun warning and informing the world about that situation.
We support the Egyptian people and their courageous struggle for their political rights and social justice.
We are not opposed to the people of Israel; we are against the genocide of the Palestinian people and we are for their right to an independent State.
We are not in favour of war, but in favour of peace among all the peoples.
EGYPT'S GREAT AWAKENING
Spontaneity and a "Collective Moral Earthquake"
By MOHAMMED BAMYEH
Al-Qahira, The City Victorious, February 11, 2011
Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered momentum so quickly and so unexpectedly. The Egyptian Revolution, starting on January 25, lacked leadership and possessed little organization; its defining events, on Friday, January 28, occurred on a day when all communication technologies, including all internet and phones, were barred; it took place in a large country known for sedate political life, a very long legacy of authoritarian continuity, and an enviable repressive apparatus consisting of more than 2 million members. But on that day, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, entrenched for 30 years and seemingly eternal, the only regime that the vast majority of the protesters had ever known, evaporated in one day.
Though the regime struggled for two more weeks, practically little government existed during that period. All ministries and government offices have been closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on January 28. Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again. Popular committees have since taken over security in the neighborhoods. I saw patriotism expressed everywhere as collective pride in the realization that people who did not know each other could act together, intentionally and with a purpose. During the ensuing week and a half, millions converged on the streets almost everywhere in Egypt, and one could empirically see how noble ethics—community and solidarity, care for others, respect for the dignity of all, feeling of personal responsibility for everyone--emerge precisely out of the disappearance of government.
Undoubtedly this revolution, which is continuing to unfold, will be the formative event in the lives of the millions of youth who spearheaded it in Egypt, and perhaps also the many more millions of youth who followed it throughout the Arab world. It is clear that it is providing a new generation with a grand spectacle of the type that had shaped the political consciousness of every generation before them in modern Arab history. All those common formative experiences of past generations were also grand national moments: whether catastrophic defeats or triumphs against colonial powers or allies.
This revolution, too, will leave traces deep in the social fabric and psyche for a long time, but in ways that go beyond the youth. While the youth were the driving force in the earlier days, the revolution quickly became national in every sense; over the days I saw an increasing demographic mix in demonstrations, where people from all age groups, social classes, men and women, Muslims and Christians, urban people and peasants—virtually all sectors of society, acting in large numbers and with a determination rarely seen before. Everyone I talked to echoed similar transformative themes: they highlighted a sense of wonder at how they discovered their neighbor again, how they never knew that they lived in “society” or the meaning of the word, until this event, and how everyone who yesterday had appeared so distant is now so close. I saw peasant women giving protestors onions to help them recover from teargas attacks; young men dissuading others from acts of vandalism; the National Museum being protected by protestors’ human shield from looting and fire; protestors protecting captured baltagiyya who had been attacking them from being harmed by other protestors; and countless other incidents of generous civility amidst the prevailing destruction and chaos.
I also saw how demonstrations alternated between battle scenes and debating circles, and how they provided a renewable spectacle in which everyone could see the diverse segments in social life converging on the common idea of bringing down the regime. While world media highlighted uncontrolled chaos, regional implications, and the specter of Islamism in power, the ant’s perspective revealed the relative irrelevance of all of the above considerations. As the Revolution took longer and longer to accomplish the mission of bringing down the regime, protestors themselves began to spend more time highlighting other accomplishments, such as how new ethics were emerging precisely amidst chaos. Those evidenced themselves in a broadly shared sense of personal responsibility for civilization—voluntary street cleaning, standing in line, the complete disappearance of harassment of women in public, returning stolen and found objects, and countless other ethical decisions that had usually been ignored or left for others to worry about.
There are a number of basic features that are associated with this magnificent event that are key, I think, to understanding not just the Egyptian Revolution but also the emerging Arab uprisings of 2011. Those features include the power of marginal forces; spontaneity as an art of moving; civic character as a conscious ethical contrast to state’s barbarism; the priority assigned to political over all other kinds of demands, including economics; and lastly autocratic deafness, meaning the ill-preparedness of ruling elites to hear the early reverberations as anything but undifferentiated public noise that could be easily made inaudible again with the usual means.
First, marginality means that the revolution began at the margins. In Tunisia it started that way, in marginal areas, from where it migrated to the capital. And from Tunisia, itself relatively marginal in the larger context of the Arab World, it travelled to Egypt. Obviously the situation in each Arab country is different in so far as economic indicators and degree of liberalization are concerned, but I was struck at how conscious the Egyptian youth were of the Tunisian example preceding them by just two weeks. Several mentioned to me their pride in seeming to accomplish in just a few days what Tunisians needed a month to accomplish.
Marginality appears to have been an important factor within Egypt as well. While much of the media focus was on Tahrir Square in central Cairo, to which I went every day, the large presence there was itself a manifestation of a possibility that suddenly became evident on January 25, when large demonstrations broke out in 12 of Egypt’s provinces. The revolution would never have been perceived as possible had it been confined to Cairo, and in fact its most intense moment in its earlier days, when it really looked that a revolution was happening, were in more marginal sites like Suez. The collective perception that a revolution was happening at the margins, where it was least expected, gave everyone the confidence necessary to realize that it could happen everywhere.
Second, in every sense the revolution maintained throughout a character of spontaneity, in the sense that it had no permanent organization. Rather, organizational needs—for example governing how to communicate, what to do the next day, what to call that day, how to evacuate the injured, how to repulse baltagiyya assaults, and even how to formulate demands—emerged in the field directly and continued to develop in response to new situations. Further, the revolution lacked recognized leadership from beginning to end, a fact that seemed to matter most to observers but not to participants. I saw several debates in which participants strongly resisted being represented by any existing group or leader, just as they resisted demands that they produce “representatives” that someone, such as al-Azhar or the government, could talk to.
When the government asked that someone be designated as a spokesperson for this revolt, many participants flippantly designated one of the disappeared, only in the hope that being so designated might hasten his reappearance. A common statement I heard was that it was “the people” who decide. It appeared that the idea of peoplehood was now assumed to be either too grand to be representable by any concrete authority or leadership, or that such representation would dilute the profound, almost spiritual, implication of the notion of “the people” as a whole being on the move.
Spontaneity was a key element also because it made the Revolution hard to predict or control; and because it provided for an unusual level of dynamism and lightness—so long as many millions remained completely committed to a collective priority of bringing down the regime, represented in its president. But it also appeared that spontaneity played a therapeutic and not simply organizational or ideological role. More than one participant mentioned to me how the revolution was psychologically liberating, because all the repression that they had internalized as self-criticism and perception of inborn weakness, was in the revolutionary climate turned outwards as positive energy and a discovery of self-worth, real rather than superficial connectedness to others, and limitless power to change frozen reality. I heard the term “awakening” being used endlessly to describe the movement as a whole as a sort of spontaneous emergence out of a condition of deep slumber, which no party program could shake off before.
Further, spontaneity was responsible, it seems, for the increasing ceiling of the goals of the uprising, from basic reform demands on January 25, to changing the entire regime three days later, to rejecting all concessions made by the regime while Mubarak was in office, to putting Mubarak on trial. Removing Mubarak was in fact not anyone’s serious demand on January 25, when the relevant slogans condemned the possible candidacy of his son, and called on Mubarak himself only not to run again. But by the end of the day on January 28, the immediate removal of Mubarak from office had become an unwavering principle, and indeed it seemed then that it was about to happen. Here one found out what was possible through spontaneous movement rather than a fixed program, organization or leadership.
Spontaneity thus became the compass of the Revolution and the way by which it found its way to what turned out to be its radical destination. It proved therefore difficult to persuade protestors to give up the spontaneous character of the Revolution, since spontaneity had already proved its power. Spontaneity thus produced more confidence than any other style of movement, and out of that confidence there emerged, as far as I could see, protestors’ preparedness for sacrifice and martyrdom. Spontaneity also appeared as a way by which the carnivalesque character of social life was brought to the theater of the revolution as a way of expressing freedom and initiative; for example, among the thousands of signs I saw in demonstrations, there were hardly any standard ones (as one would see in pro-government demonstration).
Rather, the vast majority of signs were individual and hand-made, written or drawn on all kinds of materials and objects, and were proudly displayed by their authors who wished to have them photographed by others. Spontaneity, further, proved highly useful for networking, since the Revolution became essentially an extension of the spontaneous character of everyday life, where little detailed planning was needed or possible, and in which most people were already used to spontaneous networking amidst common everyday unpredictability that prevailed in ordinary times.
But while spontaneity provided the Revolution with much of its elements of success, it also meant that the transition to a new order would be engineered by existing forces within the regime and organized opposition, since the millions in the streets had no single force that could represent them. Most protestors I talked to, however, seemed less concerned about those details than with basic demands the fulfillment of which, it appeared, guaranteed the more just nature of any subsequent system. As finally elaborated a week after the beginning of the Revolution, these demands had become the following: removing the dictator; resolving the parliament and electing a new one; amending the constitution so as to reduce presidential power and guarantee more liberties; abolishing the state of emergency; and putting on trials corrupt high officials as well as all those who had ordered the shooting of demonstrators.
Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident. This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia, since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government (along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.
This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.
Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity, and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a “civic” (madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state.
Fourth, a striking development after January 28 was the fact that radical political demands were so elevated that that all other grievances—including those concerning dismal economic conditions—remained subordinate to them. The political demands were more clear that any other kinds of demands; everyone agreed on them; and everyone shared the assumption that all other problems could be negotiated better once one had a responsible political system in place. Thus combating corruption, a central theme, was one way by which all economic grievances were translated into easily understandable political language. And in any case, it corresponded to reality because the political system had basically become a system of thievery in plain daylight. For months before the revolution, virtually everyone had a story to tell me about the ostentatious corruption of the business-cum-political elite that benefited most from the system. They tended to be a clique clustering around Mubarak’s son. Some of its members, reportedly, stood behind the recruitment of thugs who terrorized the protestors for two long days and nights on February 2-3.
Fifth, as everywhere in the Arab World, a key contributing factor was autocratic deafness. The massive undercurrent of resentment that fueled this volcano was stoked over years by the ruling elites themselves, who out of longevity in office and lack of meaningful opposition completely lost track of who their people were and could no longer read them, so to speak. They heard no simmering noise before the Revolution, and when it erupted they were slow to hear it as anything other than an undifferentiated noise. The one-way direction of autocratic communication allowed for no feedback and presented every recipient of its directives as either audience or point of incoherent noise. Throughout the Revolution this deafness of ruling structures was evident in the slow and uncertain nature of government response.
On the day following the January 25 demonstrations, editors of government newspapers belittled the events. On January 28, when all Egypt was in flames and many world leaders had issued some statement of concern, the Egyptian government remained completely silent—until Mubarak finally spoke at midnight, saying the exact opposite of what everyone had been expecting him to say. He thought he was making a major concession, but one which—as any intelligent advisor would have told him—could only be interpreted as a provocation, resulting in several more days of protests.
Then on February 1 he made another speech, also thinking that he was making major concessions, although again, it was received by many protestors as the height of arrogance. On his last day in office, February 10, he outraged almost everyone in the country when, rather than resigning as everyone had been expecting, he simply delegated his powers temporarily to his now equally hated vice president. Enormous crowds converged on the streets and reached the presidential palace on February 11, and the whole country appeared now determined to extract vengeance on a man so out of touch with such an unmistakably obvious popular will. He was, in a sense, always responding to what he must have understood as incoherent noise, emerging from undifferentiated masses that could be allayed by the appearance of compromise. Arab state autocracies had long been accustomed to approach their people with either contempt or condescension. They were no longer skilled at any other art of communication (although Muhammad Shafiq, the new prime minister, has been trying to do his best in those arts).
Clearly, autocratic deafness was a major factor in escalating the revolution. Many protestors suggested to me that what Mubarak said on January 28 would have resolved the crisis had he said it on January 25, when he said nothing. What he said on February 1 would also have resolved the crisis, had he said it on January 28. And what he said on February 10 meant that there would no longer be an honorable exit to the man who just a couple weeks before appeared to be the strongest man in the Middle East.
When none of these concessions succeeded in diffusing the crisis, Mubarak’s new appointees had no serious arguments to explain why he wanted to stay in power for just a few more months, and in the face of a determined revolt that did not in fact challenge many other parts of the system. On Feb. 3 his new prime minister said that it was not common in Egyptian culture for a leader to leave without his dignity. He cited as evidence the salute given to king Farouk as the free officers forced him to leave Egypt in 1952! And on the same day, his new vice president opined that it is against the character of Egyptian culture to so insult the character of the father, which he claimed (in a moment of forgetfulness of the revolution just outside) Mubarak was to the Egyptian people. And the president himself asserted on that same day that he could not possibly resign, since otherwise the country would descend into chaos--astonishingly, still not realizing what everyone else in the country knew: that it was already there.
In the absence of autocratic deafness, all successful politicians, including manipulative ones, know that one art of maneuver consists of anticipating your audience’s or enemy’s next step, so that you are already there before it is too late. Here we had the exact opposite situation: a lethargic autocracy, having never known serious contest, was unaware of who its enemies had become, which in this case was more or less the vast majority of the country. That on February 2 some of Mubarak’s supporters found nothing better to do than send camels and horses to disperse the crowd at Tahrir, seemed to reflect the regime’s antiquated character: a regime from a bygone era, with no relationship to the moment at hand. It was as if a rupture in time had happened, and we were witnessing a battle from the 12th century. From my perspective in the crowd, it was as if they rode through and were swallowed right back into the fold that returned them to the past.
By contrast, popular committees in the neighborhood, with their rudimentary weapons and total absence of illusions, represented what society had already become with this revolution: a real body, controlling its present with its own hands, and learning that it could likewise make a future itself, in the present and from below. At this moment, out of the dead weight of decades of inwardness and self- contempt, there emerged spontaneous order out of chaos. That fact, rather not detached patriarchal condescension, appeared to represent the very best hope for the dawn of a new civic order.
Mohammed Bamyeh is a professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.
By ESAM AL-AMIN
“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”
-- Che Guevara
Like perfect storms, several factors have to simultaneously and collectively come together for popular uprisings or protests, even massive ones, to turn into a revolution. That is why only a few of them have been successful in world history. A revolution is, by definition, a successful struggle embraced by the masses that radically alters the existing political, economic, and social order.
The triumphs of the American, French, Russian, Cuban, and Iranian revolutions were the exceptions. While each one had its genesis in battling an oppressive or corrupt existing political system, each engendered its own unique features while satisfying distinctive conditions in order to produce a successful outcome.
One was initiated by an armed insurrection, but embraced by the public, against a tyrant monarch. Another was led by mobs producing enormous violence before settling down. Other revolutions had core ideological groups embedded in their midst that greatly influenced or manipulated their course of action before achieving their feat.
Likewise, the Egyptian revolution that erupted on January 25 in the aftermath of Tunisia’s was marked by its own unique features. Although the declared goals of the Egyptian revolution have yet to be fully realized, its primary goal of overthrowing its dictator was spectacularly achieved within a historically short period of time. While it took 28 days of continuous protests to depose Tunisia’s dictator, a country of 10 million people, it required only 18 days of massive demonstrations to accomplish the same in Egypt, a country of 85 million people.
The spark for Tunisia’s revolution was Mohammad Bouazizi setting himself ablaze in the city of Sidi Bouzeid on December 17. It was a desperate act of protest against the authorities who insulted him and seized his sole means of sustenance. Remarkably, the downfall of Zein al-Abideen Ben Ali’s regime four weeks later on January 14 was itself the spark for the Egyptian revolution, which erupted eleven days later. It was probably the only revolution in history that determined its commencement and announced its date to the world online. By February 11, the Egyptian regime had collapsed when its head, Hosni Mubarak, after much obstinate and arrogant behavior, was forced to resign in disgrace.
So what are the elements that distinguish the Egyptian revolution?
Historians will most likely debate for many years the various factors that came together to set off the uprising that turned it into a triumphant revolution. However, the most significant and distinctive features are outlined here. They are:
Popular revolution: The Egyptian people have taken ownership of this revolution from its inception. The youth movement that called for the protests before Jan. 25 admitted that they did not know what to expect. Although many opposition parties had called for demonstrations in the past, they only attracted a vocal but limited number of activists and elites. The popular support for these protests was at best timid if not totally ignored.
But in this instance when the young men and women, calling for the uprising on social media websites, moved to rally support on the ground from neighborhood to neighborhood, thousands of people from all walks of life joined in. They did not stop by simply announcing it online, but actually toured the streets mobilizing the people calling for wide participation.
Asma’a Mahfouz, one of the young activists from the April 6 Youth Movement said in her interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that, shortly after the protests started, “I was printing and distributing leaflets in popular areas, and calling for citizens to participate. In those areas, I also talked to young people about their rights, and the need for their participation.”
She continued, “I went to a street in Bulaq Dakrur (poor Cairo neighborhood), where I and a group of members from the movement intended to start protesting. At the same time, other members were doing the same thing in other areas. When we had assembled, we raised the Egyptian flag and began to chant slogans, and it was surprising when a large number of people joined us.”
She added, “With increasing numbers joining us, we stopped for some time in front of Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque, and then we led the march to Tahrir Square. We found several demonstrations coming from different areas toward this one, and thus we decided to occupy Tahrir Square.”
As the demonstrations continued, every day broke new ground. It started with the educated youth, both middle class and affluent. They were soon joined by the oppressed and uneducated poor. Within a few days, the protests swelled to include all segments of society, including judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists, artists, civil servants, workers, farmers, day laborers, students, home makers, the underclass and the unemployed.
Moreover, the demonstrations spread across Egypt like none in its history, not even the great 1919 revolution against the British occupation. The protests since Jan. 25 were not confined to Cairo or Alexandria or even to the main urban centers.
Impressive numbers made their voices heard in every province and city, every town and village, in Upper Egypt and the Nile delta, the coastal areas across the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, in the Canal Zone and the Sinai. On the day Mubarak resigned, an unprecedented 15 million people were demonstrating. Almost twenty per cent of Egyptians were in the streets that day, first protesting, and then celebrating the end of the dictator.
The Role of the Youth: There is no doubt that the Egyptian youth played a critical role in initiating the protests. The “April 6 Youth” and “We are all Khaled Said” movements along with other youth-led organizations including the youth branches of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Baradei Campaign for Change, were at the forefront of the activities before and during the revolution.
At critical moments during the tense negotiations with the regime, it was the steadfastness of these young revolutionaries that defeated the attempts by the regime to push for half measures in order to save Mubarak, proposals that might have been acceptable to some opposition parties. But the youth organizers insisted on their main demand, which was the removal of the president. Most of these leaders are in their late 20s or early 30s.
Incidentally, the youth paid the brunt of the sacrifices. A list on Al-Dustoor newspaper’s website shows that 70 percent of those who lost their lives during the massive protests, as well as 80 per cent of the injured, were 32 years old or younger.
The Role of Women: Egypt, like most Muslim countries, is a largely patriarchal society not used to having women, especially young females, leading any group or organization, let alone a political movement. But here the Egyptian people witnessed young women like Mahfouz, Isra’a Abdel Fattah, Nawwara Nagm, and Sally Tooma Moore, not only speaking out against the brutality and illegitimacy of the regime on live television, but also leading the demonstrators in chants and camping out in Tahrir Square for weeks.
The participation of women in the revolution, including in leadership positions from the beginning, have also encouraged other women across Egypt to participate. They have also sacrificed heavily for their freedom. At least 10 per cent of the casualties in the first week were women. This experience has solidified their role as real partners for genuine change, and entitled them to an ownership of this great event in their history.
Applying Non-Violent and Peaceful Means: From the outset, the organizers of the protests adhered to a strict code of non-violent and peaceful protests. They realized that the regime would crack down and employ brutal methods hoping to either deter or provoke them to use violence to justify even greater violence against them.
Ahmad Maher, the coordinator of the April 6 Youth Movement explained in an interview with Al Jazeera English that non-violence was not a tactic but a strategy for the movement. For over two years, thousands of members debated the writings and methods of non-violent struggle, including those of Gandhi, King, and Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, the sages of the use of non-violent means for social change.
Last year Maher’s second-in-command, Muhammad Adel, was dispatched to Serbia to meet with Srdja Popovic, a proponent of non-violent resistance and leader of the Otpor (Resistance) Movement, a group of young activists who helped depose Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. He came back to Cairo with DVDs and other educational and training materials that demonstrated in detail some of the non-violent means and civil disobedience techniques used to induce political change.
When the protests in Egypt began, there were strict instructions for all participants not to carry any weapons, including knives, sticks, stones or sharp objects. They held signs that said this was a peaceful protest. When confronted by the police who tried to intimidate or beat them they would chant “peaceful, peaceful.”
Even when the regime sent thousands of its goons on February 2 to beat them with sticks and sharp objects, attack them with Molotov cocktails, or even shoot them with live ammunition, the protesters only tried to defend themselves, refusing to employ violent means. When they arrested about 350 of the hired thugs, they refused to take revenge despite the dozens who were killed and thousands more injured. They simply handed them over to the military units stationed nearby.
Non-ideological and homogeneous: Another distinctive feature of the revolution across Egypt was its focus on common goals. Despite the desperate efforts by the regime and its regional and international supporters to paint it as either ideologically based or foreign inspired, these efforts failed miserably.
The organizers were non-ideological. Although most ideological parties participated, including the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the leftists, the liberals, the secularists, and the Copts, all groups displayed a rare unity of purpose, focusing on the primary goal of the revolution without falling into the trappings of narrow divisions.
Unlike other Arab societies with a history of tribalism, sectarianism or ethnic conflicts, Egyptian society is largely homogeneous. The only fault line that its opponents have tried to foment or exploit is that of Muslim-Coptic tension. However, these tensions are a recent phenomenon and are the exception, not the rule. Much of Egypt’s history bears witness to that.
This rare unity among Muslims and Copts was displayed in Tahrir Square and across Egypt. Tooma-Moore, a Christian Copt, demonstrated the unity of all Egyptians, Muslims and Copts, in a recent interview when she said, “It's totally beyond description how the mosque has been transformed into a working hospital. It is a mosque but there are no religious divisions.”
The youth organizers and all participating groups carefully abstained from any religious or sectarian chants. During Friday prayers many Copts surrounded and protected the Muslims while praying. Likewise, on Sunday the Muslims joined the Copts in their Christian services, in a moving display of national unity.
Disciplined and focused: Many observers were surprised at the level of discipline and focus the revolutionaries were able to demonstrate. Throughout the 18 days in the streets, they maintained their focus on Mubarak and his despised regime. They refused to engage in any negotiations that might distract from their primary goal of ousting the beleaguered president. Their slogans and chants reflected this unity of purpose among all demonstrators.
When the regime started offering concessions, almost daily, in the hope of splitting the opposition, weakening their resolve, or slowing down the momentum, the revolutionaries were able to energize the people further, raise their demands and mobilize even greater numbers without conceding their foremost demand.
Decentralized and highly organized leadership: This revolution was not leaderless, but the leaders were not visibly identifiable. They cleverly structured their protests and activities without naming a single group or leader. Dozens were speaking on behalf of the revolution, communicating the same message. Some identified with the youth, others with the diverse opposition movements, while many were independent. The security apparatus was confused and could not identify the major leaders of the revolution.
Even when some leaders were arrested, they were easily replaced because no one person held sole power or vital information that could derail the revolution. When the youth within the Muslim Brotherhood joined the protests on Jan. 28, they were immediately embraced and given leadership roles because of their discipline, resources, and abilities. Although some minor opposition parties tried to take credit or present a different political line, they were immediately exposed and marginalized.
The leaders also illustrated great organizational skills. Makeshift hospitals, staffed with hundreds of doctors, were established to treat the injured and sick. Remarkably, with over two million demonstrators in one geographical area, transportation, security, medicine, food, drink, bathroom facilities, trash collections, Street newspapers, and lost and found services were provided. Tents and covers were also supplied to the thousands of people who chose to camp out in the square.
When the government withdrew all the security forces and released thousands of criminals in order to spread fear and chaos across the country, the people immediately organized and established protection and security teams and neighborhood watches in order to protect their families and neighbors. Within days, thousands of criminals were caught and handed over to the military.
Steadfastness, bravery and determination: When many people in the streets were interviewed on dozens of television networks and new media outlets covering the unfolding events, there was a notable theme that stood out in their tone, namely, the eradication of the fear barrier.
All dictatorial and repressive regimes rule their subjects through intimidation and fear. The Mubarak regime was no different. The regime dispatched at least 350,000 security officers throughout Egypt in the first four days, employing all the tools of repression: beatings, water canons, tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and armed carriers.
However, the youth led the efforts in facing the brutality of the police even when dozens were killed and hundreds injured in the streets. It was clear that when the youth refused to abandon the protests and faced courageously the repression of the state without retreat, the rest of the people followed and the fear factor was removed from the equation.
Creative and resourceful: As much as this revolution was peaceful, it was also incredibly creative. By Sunday January 30, the demonstrators were in control of all the main streets and squares. Millions of people were following the program set by the organizers. Activities were set to mobilize the people and demoralize the regime.
They were also resourceful. They brought huge speakers to broadcast the singing of the national anthem and play patriotic songs to the delight of the massive crowds. It brought a sense of national unity and patriotism, a feeling of honor, duty, and resolve.
On certain days where the protesters were called to attend by the millions, they were given names to consolidate the gains and unite the people under a single theme: Day of Rage, Day of Departure, Martyrs Day, Day of Defiance. People were free to be inventive and artistic as they thought up slogans, created chants, and drew up posters that focused on Mubarak, his family, and the regime.
Many of them were funny and daring. Bold jokes were widely shared, and comedy sketches were daily performed in the squares and streets. Poets, singers, rappers and bands were everywhere creating a festive Woodstock atmosphere. The more the president showed stubbornness the more entrenched and audacious the people became. With each passing day, the people no longer feared Mubarak, and even displayed an attitude of total ridicule and revulsion toward him.
Ingenious use of technology: It is common knowledge that the youth have not only mastered the use of modern technology, but also transformed it into an exceptionally effective political tool to communicate with their peers, educate the public, organize events, and mobilize the masses.
With over 800,000 Egyptians, mostly youth, using Facebook alone, the revolutionaries found a platform that allowed access with little challenge from the government. The use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media outlets played a significant role in disseminating the message and galvanizing the support of the public.
Educational materials, political messages, training videos, mobilization calls, and organizational information, were placed online and utilized before a single protest was called. By the time the government shut down all mobile phone and Internet services, the genie was already out of the bottle. When asked by the French news service AFP, Abd el-Fattah, one of the April 6 youth organizers said after the government disrupted the Internet, “We've already announced the meeting places. So we've done it, we no longer need means of communication.”
Yet even during the revolutionary days of massive protests, the organizers were able to set up safe houses to send blogs, press releases, and instructions to others across the country, as well as announcing their activities, and communicating their viewpoints to the world.
Effective media strategy: The revolutionaries had a simple media strategy: ignore the government-controlled media and build strong contacts with the local opposition and independent media as well as the Arab and international media outlets.
The organizers knew that the regime would mobilize its propaganda machine through the state-owned print and electronic media. After first ignoring the widespread protests, the official media embarked on vast distortion and smear campaigns against the protesters.
Therefore, the organizers set up a sophisticated multilevel strategy comprising numerous spokespersons, who were united in their message and articulated their vision against tyranny, oppression, and corruption. They presented to the public a coherent pro-democracy social justice and freedom agenda. Every day, more prominent individuals from all segments of society were speaking out against the regime and joining the revolution.
They even set up a huge screen in Tahrir Square that featured live non-stop Al-Jazeera coverage. In essence, the revolution was indeed televised, providing not only a significant level of protection to the demonstrators, but also providing rapid response to all breaking news.
Whenever Mubarak or Vice President Omar Suleiman addressed the public in an attempt to seize the initiative, the organizers would immediately present several spokespersons to effectively respond and neutralize any effect on the public.
Neutralization of the Army: Perhaps the most vulnerable matter facing the revolution was the unpredictable reaction of the army. Initially, the organizers knew that the regime would rely heavily on the brutality of its security forces. But once the revolutionaries prevailed over the security forces by standing their ground, the regime would try to force a confrontation with the army.
The strategy of dealing with the army was to embrace it and avoid any confrontation by all means. The Egyptian army is one of the most respected institutions in Egypt, and the organizers were not going to challenge that.
In fact, the moment the army was in the streets after the withdrawal of the security forces, the people chanted, “ the people and the army are one.” They rushed to embrace and kiss the officers. Every pro-democracy speaker praised the army and appealed for its support.
Immediately, the army not only declared its neutrality in the confrontation between the people and the regime, but also pledged to protect the people. This posture made it possible for the revolution to continue its peaceful protests and embolden its political demands.
Even though the army was slow in providing protection to the protesters when they were attacked by the government’s bullies, the fact that the army did not attack the demonstrators and remained neutral was a huge blow to the regime, which at the end helped topple it.
Lacking depth and understanding, pundits recklessly invented names for the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Borrowing from the color and flower revolutions of Eastern Europe or Central Asia, they called them the Jasmine and Lotus revolutions, respectively. But such names are meaningless, as they do not reflect the spirit of these revolutions.
People in Tunisia and Egypt revolted primarily to become free; to restore their dignity; to regain respect for themselves. Hence, these were revolutions marked by the deafening calls for freedom and dignity.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once reminded his fellow oppressed compatriots at the height of their struggle against a repressive system, “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history.”
Indeed these words capture the essence of the revolutions underway in the Arab world today.
ARAB VOICES MATTER
By JAMES ZOGBY
If one lesson is to be learned from the remarkable events unfolding in Egypt, it is that Arab public opinion matters. For too long Arab voices have not been listened to, nor have Arab sensibilities or aspirations been respected. The Egyptian people have not only risen up, demanding to be heard, they have also challenged other Arabs and the West to pay attention to what they are saying.
Last Thursday night, I watched a remarkable scene unfolding on television. As my dinner partner, Patrick Seale, and I sat transfixed watching the BBC, there, on one half of a split screen, was president Hosni Mubarak making a last ditch effort to save his rule. On the other half screen were throngs in Tahrir Square.
The disconnect was real. Mubarak was talking, but he simply wasn't listening. He played every card at his disposal: the caring father, the patriot, the xenophobe, the reformer and more. Maybe, I thought, he was reaching out beyond the square to those he thought might also be listening. But if his imagined and hoped-for audience was there, they were not responding. The crowd in the square was listening, and his lack of responsiveness to their concerns only served to inflame them and deepen their resolve.
It was the immovable object squaring off against the irresistible force. In the end, the force won. The protesters rejected Mubarak's promises and his appeals as "too little, too late", and began to pour out beyond the square to take new space and demonstrate their discontent.
Now the president is gone. The throngs have won this round, and they are empowered to seek more change. It is not the end, just the beginning, of a process, the outcome of which is still uncertain. With the military in charge, it will now be up to them to listen.
Questions remain. Will the military cede space and open the political process to real reform? Will they be more responsive to the growing aspirations of their young who are demanding jobs in an expanding economy where wealth is shared, an opportunity to participate in the shaping of the future of their country, and the freedom to express their discontent with and seek to change policies they find deplorable, without fear of repression?
In some ways, after 11 February much has changed. In other ways, the struggle remains the same. A movement that has won a round now becomes a potentially formidable force. But a regime that fears losing control is also a force that must be reckoned with. In the weeks and months ahead we will see this drama play out in the streets and in negotiations. The constitution must be changed. Mubarak had promised as much. The concerns of the demonstrators have been acknowledged by the military, who have said they are listening. Now we will see if they, in fact, were.
The problem of not listening to Arab voices is not only a problem for those presidents who have fallen or those who are still at risk; it is a problem for the West as well. For too long, the US, Great Britain and others have ignored the concerns and sensibilities of Arab people. Arabs have been treated as if they were pawns to be moved about on the board. While those in the West paid attention to their own needs and politics, Arabs were left to make do or accommodate themselves to realities created for them, as the West sought to protect its interests, not theirs.
This is not a new phenomenon. The cavalier dismissal of Arab voices began with Lord Balfour, who famously rejected the first survey of Arab opinion conducted for US president Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War I. When the survey found Arabs overwhelming rejecting the European powers' plans to carve up the Arab East into British and French mandatory entities, and the creation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, Balfour balked saying, "we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country... Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad... is of far greater import than the desire and prejudices of the Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."
As blatant as that rejection was, this practice of ignoring Arab concerns did not end. Until this day, all too often the West has acted across the Middle East as if Arabs were objects without sensibilities or concerns. The US invaded Iraq without understanding the impact this might have on Arab opinion. The West has continued to ignore Palestinian suffering and aspirations (recall Condoleezza Rice's dismissal of the plight and rights of Palestinian refugees with a casual, "bad things happen in history"). And the US has engaged in widespread profiling and other forms of deplorable treatment of Arabs and Muslims, paying no attention to the toll that these and other wildly unpopular policies were having on the legitimacy of Arab governments who were Western friends and allies.
Now all this must of necessity change. When the Egyptian people organised themselves demanding to be heard they introduced a new and potentially transformative factor into the political equation of the region. It will no longer be possible to operate as if Arab public opinion does not matter. It will no longer be possible to act as if policies can be imposed and blindly accepted.
No longer will the West be able to consider only the Israeli internal debate or the consequences on Israeli opinion in its calculations. Arabs have been inspired by Egypt and empowered to believe that their voices must be heard and respected. It will make life more complicated for Western and some Arab policy-makers. But this complication is a good thing, as it represents change that has been a long time coming.
As US President Barack Obama has said, this is just the beginning, and after today nothing will be same. The reality is that this transformation will not only affect Egypt. The change that is coming will be bigger than any of us can imagine.
THE US AS ISRAEL'S ENABLER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Who's Serving Who?
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
About ten days ago I had a particularly interesting discussion about Israel and its relationship to U.S. policy in the Middle East and to the events swirling there now, in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. My interlocutor is one of the most astute commentators, particularly on U.S. policy, in the alternative media, but he made it clear that, to his mind, Israel does not play a role of any notable relevance to what the United States is doing in the region.
I would say that he has a bit of a blind spot about Israel -- a not uncommon phenomenon among progressive thinkers. But perhaps the current turmoil in the region will ultimately open his eyes and those of others who minimize Israel’s centrality to U.S. policy. Recent events unfolding in Egypt and surrounding Wikileaks-released State Department cables and al-Jazeera-released Palestinian papers dealing with Palestinian-Israeli talks are demonstrating graphically, as no other series of events probably ever has, that the United States does what it does in the Middle East in great measure because of Israel -- to protect and safeguard Israel from Arab neighbors who object to its treatment of its Palestinian subjects, from Muslims with similar grievances, from criticism of Israel’s military exploits against neighboring states, from the ire of other states still threatened by Israel, from governments in the region that challenge Israel’s nuclear monopoly or attempt to develop their own arsenals to defend against Israel.
It is instructive to remember that Egypt is important to the United States almost entirely because it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and helps guarantee Israel’s security, guarding its western border, helping its military assaults on other Arab countries, closing the tunnels into Gaza through which Hamas smuggles some weapons and the Gazan population obtains food and other essentials, undermining Hamas’s rule in Gaza. The United States also regards Egypt as an important cog in the machine of its “war on terror” and its war on Islamic radicalism, a collaboration also closely linked to Israel’s security interests.
Egypt is obviously important in the region in its own right. Its size and strategic location guarantee that it will always have considerable influence in Middle East politics, and it has long been the heart of Arab culture, even without U.S. help. The last three weeks of the Egyptian people’s struggle for democracy have further enhanced its importance, capturing the imagination of people around the world (with the exception of many, perhaps the majority, in Israel and among the curmudgeonly right in the United States, including Israel’s U.S. supporters).
But the fundamental reality is that the United States would not have the close military, political, and economic relationship it has had with Egypt for the last thirty-plus years were it not for the fact that Egypt is friendly with Israel and the fact that, in the words of Middle East expert Rashid Khalidi, Egypt has always acquiesced “in Israel’s regional hegemony.” The $1.5 billion annually in military aid, and the $28 billion in economic and development assistance across the last 35 years would not have been given had not Mubarak’s predecessor Anwar Sadat virtually begged for and then finally signed a peace treaty with Israel that removed Egypt, the largest Arab military force, as a threat to Israel, abandoning the Palestinians and the other Arab parties to their own devices. With Egypt out of the picture and indeed often assisting, Israel has been free to launch military assaults on several of its neighbors, including Lebanon twice and Gaza and the West Bank repeatedly, and free to expand settlements, absorb Palestinian territory, and severely oppress Palestinians without fear of retaliation or even significant disagreement from any Arab army.
Israeli commentator Aluf Benn has pointed out furthermore that, with Mubarak in office, Israel could always feel safe about its western flank if it were to attack Iran, but now Israel will not dare attack when it can no longer rely on Egypt’s “tacit agreement to its actions.” Whoever replaces Mubarak would, by this reasoning, be too concerned about popular rage if he were to collaborate with Israel. “Without Mubarak, there is no Israeli attack on Iran.”
For Israel and therefore for the United States, the U.S. investment of billions in Egypt over the years has been well worth the cost. The loss of the “stability” that Egypt provided -- meaning Israel’s loss of certainty that it remained the secure regional dominant power -- has been a huge game-changer for Israeli and U.S. strategic calculations.
Before the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the United States never considered that Egypt was quite the strategic asset that it became when it surrendered its military capability in the interests of Israel. The same can be said about the United States’ relations with several other Arab states. Its involvement in Lebanon over the years -- including its effort to remove Syrian forces from Lebanon -- has been almost entirely linked to Israel’s interests there. The fallout from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon still reverberates: in response to the invasion, the United States sent a contingent of Marines, which became involved in direct fighting with Lebanese factions, leading in turn to a devastating bombing of Marine headquarters that killed 241 U.S. personnel in 1983; Hizbullah, representing a besieged Shiite population in southern Lebanon, arose as a direct result of Israel’s invasion; the spate of kidnappings of U.S. personnel by Hizbullah throughout the 1980s grew out of hostility to the U.S. because of its support for Israel; Israel withdrew from a two-decade-long occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, leaving behind a strengthened Hizbullah; continued conflict along the border led to Israel’s brutal assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, which failed to defeat the Islamic organization or undermine its popularity; and as a result, the United States has for years pursued efforts to undermine Hizbullah and, essentially, to maintain Lebanon as an Israeli sinecure.
Jordan has been a minor U.S. ally for decades, but its conclusion of a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 enhanced its standing in U.S. eyes and gained the small state on Israel’s eastern border additional U.S. military and economic aid. The State Department’s official profile of Jordan relates the U.S. rationale for its good relationship with Jordan more or less directly to Israel, although without ever mentioning Israel: “U.S. policy seeks to reinforce Jordan's commitment to peace, stability, and moderation. The peace process and Jordan’s opposition to terrorism parallel and indirectly assist wider U.S. interests. Accordingly, through economic and military assistance and through close political cooperation, the United States has helped Jordan maintain its stability and prosperity.” The allusions to “reinforcing” Jordan’s commitment to “peace, stability, and moderation” and to maintaining Jordan’s “stability and prosperity” are obvious references to helping keep the area, and particularly Israel’s border, quiet. Just as clearly, “indirectly assist[ing] wider U.S. interests” refers to the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security interests. “Moderation” in State Department jargon is a code word for a pro-Israeli stance; “stability” is code for a secure environment that benefits Israel primarily.
It is safe to say that neither Lebanon nor Jordan would be at all as important to the United States if it were not considered necessary to keep each of these bordering countries in a stable, quiescent state for Israel’s security. The same situation does not apply in Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. has vital oil interests quite apart from Israel’s concerns. But at the same time, it is the case that the U.S. has managed to tame any Saudi impulse to speak out on behalf of the Palestinians, or any other Arabs under Israeli siege, and align the Saudis at least implicitly on the Israeli side of most issues, whether this is the 2006 attack on Lebanon or the 2008-2009 assault on Gaza or the supposed threat from Iran. The day when the Saudis were angry enough with United States over its support for Israel to impose an oil embargo, as occurred in 1973, is long over.
The recent Wikileaks releases of State Department cables and particularly al-Jazeera’s release of a raft of Palestinian documents dealing with negotiations over the last decade also demonstrate with striking clarity how hard the United States works, and has always worked, to help Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process. U.S. support for Israel has never been a secret, becoming less and less so in recent years, but the leaked documents provide the most dramatic picture yet of the United States’ total disdain for all Palestinian negotiating demands and its complete helplessness in the face of Israeli refusal to make concessions. It is striking to note from these papers that the U.S. role as “Israel’s lawyer” -- a description coined by Aaron David Miller after his involvement in negotiations during the Clinton era -- is the same whether the administration is Bill Clinton’s or George W. Bush’s or Barack Obama’s. Israel’s interests and demands always prevail.
Beyond the Arab world, U.S. policy on Iran is dictated more or less totally by Israel. The pressure to attack Iran -- either a U.S. attack or U.S. support for an Israeli attack -- which has been brought to bear for most of the eight years since the start of the war on Iraq, has come entirely from Israel and its supporters in the United States. This pressure is quite open and impossible to deny the way Israel’s pressure for the attack on Iraq has been. If the United States ever does become involved in a military assault on Iran either directly or through backing up Israel, this will be because Israel wanted it; if there is no attack, this will most likely be, as Aluf Benn surmises, because Israel got cold feet in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution.
Israel, and the desire to ensure its regional hegemony, also played a substantial role in leading the United States into war in Iraq, although this view is a harder sell and a much more controversial position among progressives and conservatives alike than is anything else about U.S.-Israel-Arab relationships.
My progressive interlocutor, for instance -- who has strongly opposed the U.S. adventure in Iraq, equally strongly opposes any possibility of an attack on Iran, and was undoubtedly uncomfortable with U.S. vacillation about pressing for Mubarak’s departure -- disagreed totally with my suggestion that Israel and its neocon supporters were a factor in getting the United States into the Iraq war. Early in our discussion, he talked at length about the neocons, their erstwhile think tank, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), and the overriding neocon-PNAC interest in advancing U.S. global hegemony, and he made the point that when George W. Bush came to power, an entire think tank was moved into the administration. But, despite this recognition of neocon objectives and the success they enjoyed in advancing them, he would not agree that PNAC and the neocons were as much interested in advancing Israel’s regional hegemony as they were in furthering U.S. imperialism.
When, on the other hand, I observed that not only had Bush moved a think tank into the administration, he had also effectively moved the Israel lobby, or its then most active wing, into the highest rungs of his administration’s policymaking councils, my friend readily agreed: oh, of course, he asserted quite vigorously, they -- meaning the neocons -- “are all Likudniks.” There is some kind of disconnect here, which he seemed not to notice: although, on the one hand, he acknowledged the neocons’ very close connection to Israel, he does not on the other hand agree that the neocons did anything in a policy sense for Israel. As if they had checked their pro-Israel sympathies at the doors of the White House and the Pentagon when they officially became policymakers. As if they had discarded their own long history of pro-Israel advocacy and the policy guidance that many of them had long been giving to Israeli leaders -- guidance that included an actual advisory written for the Israeli government in 1996 to move against Iraq.
It has been clear to most analysts for years, even decades, that the United States favors Israel, but this reality has never been revealed so explicitly until recent events laid the relationship bare, and laid bare the fact that Israel is at the center of virtually every move the United States makes in the region. There has long been a taboo on talking about these realities, a taboo that has tied the tongues of people like my interlocutor. People do not mention Israel because they might be called anti-Semitic, they might be attacked as “singling out” Israel for criticism; the media fail to discuss Israel and what it does around the Middle East and, most directly, to the Palestinians who live under its rule because this might provoke angry letters to the editor and cancelled subscriptions by Israel supporters. Congressmen will not endanger campaign funds by talking honestly about Israel. And so Israel is taken off everyone’s radar screen. Progressives may “mention Israel in passing,” as my friend told me, but they do no more. Ultimately, because no one talks about it, everyone stops even thinking about Israel as the prime mover behind so many U.S. policies and actions in the Middle East.
It is time we began noticing. Everyone in the Middle East already notices, as the Egyptian revolution has just made clear. And probably everyone throughout the world also notices. We should begin listening to the world’s people, not to their leaders, who tell us what they think we want to hear.
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and the author of several books on the Palestinian situation, including Palestine in Pieces, co-authored with her late husband Bill Christison.
BEYOND TAHRIR SQUARE
"Everybody is Speaking"
By CARL FINAMORE
Cairo.
As much as the Egyptian military would like it otherwise, recent days have shown that they are a long way from exerting control over the country's affairs. The Egyptian people are not quite ready to put their dreams for a better future on hold nor have their pent-up frustrations put back into a box.
Certainly not since people's power just toppled a dictator thought invincible only a few weeks ago.
The street protests centered in Cairo's Tahrir Square have now spread all across Egypt, as labor unrest grows. Thousands of workers belonging to local units of the government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), who largely work in the public sector, are even striking and protesting, right alongside their unorganized brothers and sisters in the private sector.
In addition, new independent unions are forming. The latter are determined to be democratically controlled by their members instead of by a government and state constitution that only recognized unions considered reliable and obedient to the ruling politicians.
The numerous strikes and protests are telling us that the people are not finished speaking. In the current climate, there is no question their voices will not easily be silenced by military threats to ban strikes, demonstrations, and even unions themselves.
It's not hard to understand why. Egypt's workers have suffered enormously under the country's long-standing neo-conservative economic policies of privatization and elimination of state social subsidies. The United States government, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have promoted these policies since the days of Anwar Sadat, Mubarak's predecessor.
As a result, there has been a tremendous growth in informal sectors of the economy where workers have no rights, no benefits and no contract rights. One young man I met at downtown Cairo, Said, was working in this unrecognized part of the economy. He was an English teacher by day, but had to work evenings as a street vendor with his friends, other teachers I also met, to supplement his 280 Egyptian pound (less than $50) monthly salary.
This is not a unique example; actually, it is quite the norm. According to the AFL-CIO, 40 per cent of Egyptians barely exist on $2 a day. This explains the startling statistic that between 2004 and 2008 there were some 1900 work stoppages and other forms of protest in Egypt involving 1.9 million workers. Obviously, the national uprising against Mubarak was a long time in the making.
Beyond Tahrir Square
Understandably, with events moving so rapidly beyond Tahrir, I wanted to see if military efforts to clear the square of all protestors signaled a downturn in the movement.
So, I woke up early on Monday morning, February 14, and hurriedly rushed to Tahrir, a twenty-minute walk from my hotel through downtown Cairo, past the central Court Building (now open) and past the Egyptian Museum (still closed and guarded by the military).
Only the day before, thousands were still assembled in Tahrir despite warnings from the army to leave the area. But, as I got closer, I could not believe my eyes. For a moment I actually had a difficult time getting my bearings. On the previous two days after arriving in Cairo, I just followed tens of thousands all heading in the same direction and all arriving at the same location-a metaphor for the immense unity of a nation.
Now, remarkably, overnight, the center of Tahrir Square was completely empty. All the protestors were gone, the tents and medical triage centers torn down and all the makeshift barricades removed. In their place in the center of the square hung a very large banner reading: "Egypt is Now Happy!"
A few dozen smartly dressed, unarmed military police in red berets somewhat casually stood guard around the perimeter of the Square. Only a few days before many thousands bravely stood their ground here against organized assaults by the police. Hundreds were killed and thousands injured in this square. Stories of those 18 days before Mubarak resigned are now a permanent and proud modern chapter of Egypt's history.
So how was it that, overnight, all this was gone? Even more important: What did it mean?
A Japanese journalist looked at me as we both gazed at the same scene. Shrugging, with both his arms extended upwards, he exclaimed, "It's over!"
I didn't think so. But I very much wanted to find answers to my questions.
I began walking around the perimeter of the square where I discovered several different assembled groups of around a dozen or more people. Some were praying at hastily erected altars honoring those who were murdered. This was a very moving tribute where total silence was respected.
Other scattered groups were having heated and engaged conversations that could only mean, in today's Egypt, that they were talking politics. I approached one of the larger groups and began asking questions and, again, I found people ready to welcome me and ready to speak.
Of course, there were moments when someone would insist they would only speak Arabic. I would respond with a "thumbs up", showing that I recognized the pride people have in their own language and culture and we would both smile and leave it at that. On only a few other occasions, someone would ask, in Arabic, if I was a spy. They would warn those speaking to me that "Egyptians do not want the world to know our dirty laundry." But always the majority defended me.
Was it a good thing that the protestors left the square? I first asked a 27-year old well-dressed young businessman as he stood alone gazing out over the Square. "Yes, what we wanted came," he replied. "So why stay?"
Others echoed this view. "Yes, why not?" said 32-year old Mahmoud, an unemployed accountant who is now working as a chauffeur for a famous Egyptian academic. "I am glad the people made the changes in a system we had for 30 years. They did what we all wanted."
As I was taking notes, others began to come into our little circle and participate. The discussion group grew bigger and bigger. This happens all the time now whenever I stop to interview someone. It reminded me of a remark I had heard the day before, on Sunday, with Hamad, a 26-year old former soldier and unemployed teacher who also works as a street vendor.
"Before no one talked politics. Now we are free, everyone is speaking," he told me.
Hamad also had an opinion on leaving the square. "It is good to stay in the square because the protestors push our demands." This was Sunday, early afternoon. But by Sunday evening, support for that idea certainly dimmed after the army announced that Parliament was being dissolved, the hated Constitution abrogated and the ban on all parties lifted.
"The president is gone, the parliament is gone, and the constitution will be changed. No party is banned. Our émigrés are returning. Let's celebrate, clean up the square, and go home!" someone said in our group in very clear English.
So much had changed in just 24 hours. But it was clear to me that it was these concessions wrested by the movement from the military that emptied Tahrir Square and not any fear of government reprisals.
Day of Victory March
Amr Taha, a 24-year old dentist who holds dual American and Egyptian citizenship, had now entered our conversation. He was one of the more experienced activists from the very beginning. Amr was arrested while leaving a mosque on his way to a demonstration. "I was arrested for intending to demonstrate," he told me with a big smile on his face.
"A thousand of us were arrested on that day, January 28, but we all escaped from the prison a few days later when the police just disappeared." Later, Amr would show me a burned down police station near his mosque, one of many such examples of the people's fury toward the corrupt and brutal police.
Of course, there are still several important demands that have not been resolved, Amr emphasized. For example, protestors have written and spoken publicly about wanting all political prisoners released, the emergency decree in effect since Mubarak took office lifted, and a definite timetable from the military government for achieving these political and even other economic goals.
"By leaving the square, the people are giving the army the trust they earned by not attacking us, even though we all know they did close their eyes to some of the police brutality," explained Amr. "Anyway, if our demands are not addressed in a timely way, well, we all know the way back to Tahrir Square."
This is not idle talk. Protest leaders have called for a massive demonstration on Friday, February 18, the official day of rest in Egypt. Its size will be a test, once again, of the current power relationships between the movement and the army. I'm betting on the movement.
Suddenly, our talk was interrupted by people all around us laughing and cheering as four large buses honking their horns were seen quickly driving through traffic. The buses were full of young people sticking their heads out the windows smiling and shouting, "Thief! Thief! Thief"
Everyone knew what they meant. The dictator was gone and did not even deserve to be called by his proper name.
Thanks to Mark Harris in Portland and to Shawna Bader, AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, for their insights.
Carl Finamore is in Cairo with letters of introduction from his IAM Machinist local and from the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO where he serves as a delegate.
HOW TO END US RELIANCE ON DICTATORS
Freedom is Not a Stick
By STEVE BREYMAN
The Arab uprisings present US foreign policymakers with their greatest opportunity for a decisive shift in direction since 1989. Will they seize it?
Unfortunately for the peoples of the former Soviet Union and East Bloc, the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations and their own new governments bungled the transitions to freedom and democracy. Former apparatchiks cast off their red stars for shiny new lapel pins, communists became fiery and sometimes murderous nationalists, and for fire sale prices, the men we call oligarchs took over giant state industries. It took the GHW Bush administration several years to even realize the Cold War was over. Jeffrey Sachs’ brutal and myopic “shock therapy” was the best the US could muster by the way of economic advice during the nineties.
We live with the consequences of these historic failures--entrenched autocracies, world-class corruption, decaying economies, renewed international tensions—to this very day. The stakes are as high in 2011. Might the Obama administration avoid the mistakes of its predecessors when it comes to the current wave of democratic uprisings? (It’s too early to call them “revolutions”).
It will only be able to do so if it makes a clear and definitive break with the ruling foreign policy assumptions of the past sixty-five years, and with the climate of fear that helped engender them. Three of the most important of these interlocking assumptions are: (1) “stability” is the paramount goal when dealing with “America’s friends;” (2) American values are merely rhetorical weapons to be deployed cynically and selectively; and (3) what’s good for Israel is good for the United States.
“Stability” seems an odd goal for a country born in an anti-imperial revolution, and for one that professes to cherish liberty and democracy. But there it is, at the center of the foreign policies of president after president.
If you were an “anti-communist” despot in Latin America, Africa or Asia, you could rely on stability-enhancing military and economic support from the United States. You were automatically considered “pro-American.” An academic might even invent a framework that justified this support (Jeanne Kirkpatrick). You could get away with, or perhaps even be further enabled to murder, torture, disappear, and jail your “opponents” as long as you called them “communists.”
If you were a sheik or king in an oil-rich Muslim country, the sky was the limit as long as the petroleum flowed freely, your military bought American weapons and granted base rights to the US military and intelligence agencies, and your secret police oppressed nationalists, socialists, Islamists, and other troublemakers.
“Stability” remained central when the Cold War gave way to the Global War on Terror. Only the faces of “America’s enemies” changed; Washington traded in the “evil empire” for the “axis of evil.” The story is the same for American values in US foreign policy.
American values like “democracy” and “freedom” were and are bipartisan sticks with which to beat unfriendly regimes and disfavored peoples. They, sadly, are not genuine goals and metrics for US foreign policy. “Freedom” only mattered to US foreign policy during the Cold War as a club against “godless atheistic Communism.” During the Global War on Terror, the target is “Islamofascism,” or less colorfully, “violent extremism” while propping up the Houses of al-Saud and Musharraf. The tumult in the Arab world is the latest challenge before citizens to separate rhetoric from reality.
Concern over stability might still trump support for liberation in North Africa and the Middle East. Fortunately for Egyptians, events got ahead of Foggy Bottom. Would Frank Wisner—well-paid lobbyist for Mubarak--be the special envoy to Cairo if the State Department were pursuing democracy rather than stability in Egypt?
The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (and the others boiling in Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere) happened despite not because of US foreign policy. Americans are the only people in the world not to know this--thanks to the US media’s internalization of the goals of US foreign policy. Cable companies do not carry Al Jazeera English even though the President himself was reportedly tuned in. Tunisians have not forgotten Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld’s friendly words for the Ben Ali regime. Egyptians understand that thirty years of US aid propped up the sclerotic and kleptomaniacal Mubarak regime. The inspiring events of Tahrir Square had nothing to do with George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” or Obama’s Cairo speech. Liberty is not a gift that can be offered or withheld by the United States.
Preference for “stability” over the uncertainties of liberation from dictators, and hypocrisy over American values are both evident in the case of US-Israel relations. Any honest person with genuine respect for human rights and international law—conditions that eliminate most members of Congress--long ago rejected bottomless US support for Israel. And yet there appears no Israeli crime too great for its friends in the US to cover-up or rationalize. This despite the clear connections between Israeli policy and the jihadi threat to America because of US support for Israeli policy. And despite the untold damage the relationship with Israel does to American values, US standing in the world, and the “stability” of Palestine. Can there still be doubt that Israel’s (in)actions harm American interests in the region and the world? Not long ago, General Petraeus let as much slip before he was forced to walk his comments back by The Lobby.
The worst-case scenarios of some foreign policymakers are nightmares induced by fear of change. What if Persian Gulf autocrats fall? Might we not be facing another oil embargo? No. Petrostates stay afloat by madly pumping oil and gas, not by withholding it from their best customers. The global reality of peak oil—whether already past, present, or future—ensures the spigot remains open. What if Islamists come to power in democratic elections (as in Gaza and Lebanon)? The President of the United States calls to congratulate the winner, and expresses hope for the future of the relationship. Respect for democracy demands no less. Should democracy break out in the Middle East, will Israel find the new neighbors less willing to get paid by the US to play along with its colonization of Palestine? Absolutely. Again, respect for human rights and international law—‘declaratory’ American values—demands no less.
Might the crack opened by young Arabs in their decades-old American-backed regimes open a crack in public understanding of US foreign policy? Stranger things have happened lately.
Steve Breyman teaches politics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
THE LONG ARAB REVOLUTION
Two Types of Revolt
By VIJAY PRASHAD
The Arab Revolt of 2011 is unabated. Protests continue in such unlikely places as Bahrain. On Valentine’s Day, a protest march in Manama had no love for the al-Khalifah royals. It wanted to deliver its message. “Our demand is a constitution written by the people,” the protestors chanted. Opposition leader Abdul Wahab Hussain told the press, “The number of riot police is huge, but we have shown using violence against us only makes us stronger.” The police fired rubber bullets and dispersed the as yet small crowd. “This is just the beginning,” Hussain said after he had been beaten off the streets.
Such protests appear unlikely only because the wave of struggle that broke out in the late 1950s and peaked in the 1970s was crushed by the early 1980s. Encouraged by the overthrow of the monarch in Egypt by the coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, ordinary people across the Arab world wanted their own revolts. Iraq and Lebanon followed. On the peninsula, the people wanted what Fred Halliday called “Arabia without Sultans.” The People’s Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf emerged out of the Dhofar (Oman) struggle. It wished to take its local campaign to the entire peninsula. In Bahrain, its more timid branch was the Popular Front. It did not last long. With Nasserism in decline by the 1970s, the new momentum came to this Arabian republicanism from the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Islamic Front of the Liberation of Bahrain attempted a coup in 1981. They had the inspiration, but not the organization. This Arab archipelago could not go the way of Yemen, where a revolution allowed a Marxist organization to seize power in 1967.
Exertions by these revitalized forces in the 1990s was met with stiff resistance by the al-Khalifah regime. But the new ruler, Hamad (a graduate of Cambridge University), was smart. He knew a thing or two about hegemony. Not enough to smash the heads of the Islamists, he hastily called for an elected parliament, allowed women to vote, and released some political prisoners. It was enough to please Washington, and the oil companies. Nothing like stability that looks like democracy. The Egyptian virus of 2011, however, overcame the façade of democracy erected by Hamad. Protests are back.
The contagion is not only political. It is also, and perhaps decisively, economic. Bahrain relies upon oil for its wealth. Oil money spawned real estate speculation (the Dubai model). The beneficiaries of this process have been the royal family, and a crony clique. The vast mass, mainly Shi’a, are enraged that this wealth has had almost no social outlet. Afraid of the Shi’a population, the monarch imported 50,000 foreign workers to reconfigure the demographic landscape. This Bahranization policy was a smokescreen to pit the (local) labor against the (foreign) labor. It has not worked. To top it off, an outcome of the credit crunch since 2007 has been the Bahrain government’s proposal to cut subsidies of food and fuel. These have already been withdrawn because of popular anger. The youth in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are kin to the young people in Britain, Ireland, France, Italy – all of whom have been on the streets against austerity. Young people are at the forefront of the revolts because they have the most to lose from the cuts, and from the policies that mortgage their futures. These are also, therefore, convulsions against the overpaid agents (bankers) of over-ground powers (the Davos elite and their institutions).
Meanwhile, the U. S. Fifth Fleet has a berth in Bahrain. Vice Admiral Mark Fox must be powering up the EA-6B Prowlers for emergency action.
Explanations for the Arab Revolt flounder. There are those who take refuge in the trans-historical, finding this an example of the striving for human dignity. The Arabs were angry. They would not take it anymore. This is all very good, but it is too general. Why did the protests happen now, why in this way, why these demands?
There are others who lurch in the other direction, away from the trans-historical to specific circumstance. They think that broad explanations are reductive, and so, they take refuge in the contingent: this event (the immolation) led to that event (the protest) led to another event (the occupation of Tahrir Square), and so to the grand event (Mubarak goes to the seaside). History becomes a series of events that measure up to shifts that have no bearing beyond the surface.
Such attempts to understand the Arab Revolt leads in two directions: they confuse these revolts for Revolution, and it tends to see them as the 2011 Revolution against the 1952 Revolution led by Nasser. Inspirational as these current revolts are, they are part of a long process in the Arab world that stretches back into the 19th century. That long process is the Arab Revolution, one that strives for a total transformation of the structures of domination that constrain Arab futures. One episode in that long Arab Revolution is Nasser’s revolt of 1952. It was defeated by the late 1960s, and it returned Egypt (and the Arab world) to its historical subordination. Another episode is the current wave. The long Arab Revolution poses two questions that remain unanswered. These should provide part of the scaffolding to understand what is afoot in the Arab lands. The first question is of its politics, and the second is of its economics.
Politics.
When will the Arab people rule themselves, and not be ruled by one-party dictators and monarchs who are beholden to bond markets and foreign capitals? Not long ago France’s Sarkozy and America’s Clinton offered praise for their “democratic” friends Ben Ali and Mubarak. To top the obscenity, Obama conferred with the Saudis on the democratic transition in Egypt, which is like asking a vegetarian how to cook prime rib.
In 1953, the aged King Farouk set sail on his yacht, al-Mahrusa, guarded by the Egyptian navy, he waved to people who he considered his lesser: Nasser, son of a postman, and Sadat, son of a small farmer. Their Colonels’ Coup was intended to break Egypt away from monarchy and imperial domination. Nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy came alongside land reforms. But these were ill-conceived, and they were not able to throttle the power of the Egyptian bourgeoisie (whose habit for quick money continued, with three quarters of new investments going to inflate a real estate bubble). The economy was bled to support an enlarged military apparatus, largely to fight the U. S. backed armies of the Israelis. Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war led Nasser to resign on 10 June. Thousands of people took to the streets of Cairo, this time to ask Nasser to return to office, which he did, although much weakened.
The democratic opening of 1952 was, however, unable to emerge. Military officers, however, progressive, are loath to hand over the reins of power. The security apparatus went after the Muslim Brotherhood certainly, but it was fiercest against the Communists. Nasser did not build up a strong, independent political culture. “His ‘socialism’,” as Stavrianos put it, “was socialism by presidential decree, implemented by the army and police. There was no initiative or participation at the grass-roots level.” For that reason, when Sadat moved the country to the Right in the 1970s there was barely any opposition to him. Nasserism after Nasser was as hollow as Perónism after Perón.
The current revolt is against the regime set up by Sadat and developed by Mubarak. It is a national security state that has no democratic pretensions. In 1977, Sadat identified Nasserism with “detention camps, custodianship and sequestration, a one-opinion, one-party system.” Sadat allowed three kinds of political forces to emerge, but then hastily defanged them (the leftist National Progressive Grouping Party), coopted them (the Arab Socialist Party, and the Socialist Liberal Party), or tolerated their existence (Muslim Brotherhood). Cleverly, Sadat put in place what he accused Nasser of building. It was under Sadat, and Mubarak (with Omar Suleiman in tow) that the detention camps and torture centers blossomed.
In Tahrir Square, 22 year old Ahmed Abdel Moneim said, “The French Revolution took a very long time so the people could eventually get their rights.” His struggle in 2010 is to repeal the national security state. That is the basic requirement, to return to the slogan of the French Revolution. The dynamic that Ahmed wants to be a part of is the dynamic of Nasserism, but this time it should be without the military. That is one lesson of history.
The other lesson comes to us from Nadine Naber, who reminds us that women formed a crucial part of this wave of revolt, as they did in the previous ones, and yet, when the revolt succeeds women are set aside, as secondary political actors. “What are the possibilities for a democratization of rights in Egypt,” Naber asks, “in which women’s participation, the rights of women, family law, and the right to organize, protest, and express freedom of speech remain central?” Naber repeats a question raised in 1957 by Karima El-Said, the deputy minister of education of the United Arab Republic (“In Afro-Asian countries where people are still suffering under the yoke of colonialism, women are actively participating in the struggle for complete national independence. They are convinced that this is the first step for their emancipation and will equip them to occupy their real place in society”). It is history’s second lesson, that the democracy that emerges be capacious.
Economics.
The second unanswered question of the long Arab Revolution is about bread and the dignity of work. When will the economies of the Arab region be able to sustain their populations rather than fatten the financial houses in the Atlantic world, and offer massive trust funds for the dictators and the monarchs? Cursed with oil, the Arab world has seen little economic diversification and almost no attempt to use the oil wealth to engender balanced social development for the people. Instead, the oil money sloshed North, to provide credit for overheated consumers in the United States and to provide banks with those vast funds that are otherwise not garnered by populations that have stopped saving (for a long while Americans saved 1 per cent of their paychecks, an understandable figure given the stagnation of wages since 1973). The oil money also went toward the real estate boom in the Gulf, and the baccarat tables and escort services of Monaco (the Las Vegas of Europe, which has another decrepit monarch, Albert II, at its head).
As part of Sadat’s de-Nasserization of Egypt, he opened the economy (infatah) to foreign capital. Nationalization and subsidies ended, and free enterprise zones were created by February 1974. Sadat wanted a “blood transfusion” for the Egyptian economy, and so the Atlantic banks began to draw pints of blood from the ailing Egyptian working class. They replaced it with liquor stores and nightclubs (the targets of the January 1977 riots in Cairo). Inequality flourished in Egypt, and neo-liberal policies produced an haute bourgeoisie with more investment in London than in Alexandria. By 2008, some 40 per cent of the population lived on under $2 a day. In October 2010, the courts directed the government to raise the minimum wage from $70 a month to $207 a month. Because Sadat and Mubarak eviscerated the attempt to create a diverse economy, Egypt now relies upon rent income for its survival (remittances from Egyptian workers, Suez Canal tolls, oil and gas exports, tourism revenues, and payment for privatization, among others). A substantial part of this rent was diverted by Mubarak to his coffers in the Swiss banks. There is no democracy for its economy. The tyrant here is not only Mubarak, but the IMF, the World Bank, the Banks, the Bond Markets, the Multi-National Corporations.
Labor strikes across Egypt, protests before the housing authority, protests at food stalls – this is the face of the ongoing revolt. The Egyptians seem clear that the departure of Mubarak means also the end to the neo-liberal dispensation that was set up in the 1970s. They want to expand the social wage, to better manage whatever rental wealth enters the country and to expand economic activity.
* * *
Over the past twenty years we’ve seen two types of revolts. The first, those in Eastern Europe for instance, were revolts against the suffocation of the late Soviet-era State. Indifferent to the tarnished promises of such socialism, the people sought refuge in the glamour of the market economy. It was a revolt for the market. Two decades later, the East European dreams have become a horrid nightmare.
The second, those in the Arab world today, but also the people’s revolt in the Philippines against Marcos and the people’s revolt in Indonesia against Suharto, were revolts against the market. These were revolts by masses of people who wanted an expansion of the social wage. They began with revolts against long-standing autocrats (Ben Ali, Mubarak, Marcos, Suharto) and cascaded into demands for a different social and economic order.
For the Arab lands, these events of 2011 are not the inauguration of a new history, but the continuation of an unfinished struggle that is a hundred years old. Some people already sink back into gloom, discounting the remarkable victory of ejecting Ben Ali and Mubarak. Such acts raise the confidence of the people and propel other struggles into motion. The old order might yet remain, but it knows that its time is on hand. In Gladiator (2000), the Germanic barbarians sever the head of a Roman soldier and toss it in front of the Roman battle lines. One of the Roman generals says, “People should know when they are conquered.” He meant the barbarians. The dictators of the Arab world, our barbarians, might yet throw some heads before the advance of the people. But they should know already that they are defeated. It is simply a matter of time: a hundred years, or ten.
Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out.
18 DAYS THAT SHOOK EGYPT
Civic Institutions Essential for Egypt's Revolution
By RALPH NADER
Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post writer and founder of the Center for Teaching Peace, must be very happy with the news from Egypt. For twenty-five years, McCarthy has been persuading high schools and colleges to adopt peace studies in their curriculum (for more information, contact him at cmccarthy@starpower.net). Now he has another example of a largely non-violent revolution—led by young people of all backgrounds—successfully ousting a dictatorial regime.
The moral power of non-violence against tyrants is ridiculed by the militaristic mind. Tell that to Ghandi and Mandela and to U.S. civil rights leaders. Those who say these are exceptions due to the relative lower brutality of what they were up against should read the history. Those entrenched regimes were plenty brutal over the years. But when non-violent protests became organized and disciplined enough to reach critical mass, brutality only strengthened and enlarged the uprisings.
Hosni Mubarak's inadvertent gift to the January 25 Revolution was that he united the protestors beyond class, religious and ideological lines. His regular oppression over the years led to the April 6, 2008 Youth movement, and organized labor strikes at textile mills. An auspicious spark came with the Tunisian upheaval of December.
The shaming jolt of immolations in Egypt to overcome widespread fear and reticence to join with others in those frightening early rallies in Cairo's Tahrir Square can scarcely be exaggerated.
The 18 days that shook Egypt will make for fascinating study. The self-discipline and power of mutual self-respect with others locked arm-in-arm tested the regime and the protestors.
First came the security police with tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and water cannons. The resisters held. Then three days later, the police were pulled back and replaced by the respected and familiar Army (Egypt has a draft). The soldiers mostly kept a kind of neutral order, but some soldiers showed their support for the demonstrators by allowing them to decorate the tanks with flowers and freedom signs.
February 2 and 3 brought the ominous pro-Mubarak plain-clothesmen into the Square. That drew new resolve among the crowds that vastly outnumbered what they saw as the government's thugs. The protestors held. From then on, bolstered by demonstrations in Alexandria—Egypt's second largest city—Suez and other Metropolitan centers, the momentum swung decisively in favor of the rebels whose ranks swelled with each day.
Certainly, Al-Jazeera television countered the state-run television to inform the people, almost by the minute about what was transpiring in the streets. Certainly the Internet kept the protestors in touch with one another, though the government briefly shut it down along with the mobile phone networks.
But far from most cameras, residents organized Cairo's vast neighborhoods to defend and supply themselves. They were the real glue, the real depth that convinced the regime that it was all over.
The fall of Mubarak led to the assumption of power by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which suspended the disliked constitution, dissolved the rubber-stamp Parliament, and announced "free and fair" elections with multi-party candidates in six months. They pledged to remove the despised "emergency law," allowing arrests without charges or trial, and promised immunity for the protestors whom they described as "honest people who refused the corruption and demanded reforms."
Now comes the hard part. Three "cultures" are presently the best organized—the military, commercial and religious groups. Least established is the civic culture that is now, in its revelry and formative stage, the toast of the nation.
But it is the civic—political culture at the urban neighborhood and village levels that will shape the future democratic processes and structures to avert falling back into a military-oligarchic concentration of power—one backed by the same old U.S. support for authoritarian stability over democracy. "Much of the old regime remains" wrote author of Middle-East revolutionary movements, David Porter.
As the New York Times columnist—Nicholas D. Kristof, wrote from Cairo where he once was a university student: "We tie ourselves in knots when we act as if democracy is good for the United States and Israel but not for the Arab world. For far too long, we've treated the Arab world as just an oil field."
The peril for the protestors in the critical next six months is how to keep the momentum of unity going behind a broad universal agenda that would lead to the election without opening up rending sectarian divisions.
In 1990 I was in Moscow as a guest of the Soviet Union's U.S. and Canada Institute just before Boris Yeltsin replaced Mikhail Gorbachev. The audiences were overjoyed at the looming prospect of democracy replacing Soviet dictatorship. I cautioned that there would be a large vacuum, should this occur, and joy and relief should not supplant the creation of civic institutions, independent judiciaries and prosecutors and the broadest possible civic participation by the people. Otherwise, the vacuum would be filled with forces not to their liking.
Sure enough, authoritarian practices and the corrupt give-away of Russia's massive natural resources to a dozen oligarchs filled the vacuum.
The Egyptian resistance—politically savvy from dealing with years of repression—is anything but naïve. They know what they have to do and by when, taking nothing for granted. This wariness, they have made clear, includes not taking for granted Washington's sudden praise of their unfolding quest for what President Obama called a "genuine democracy."
Wouldn't it be a surprising change were the Obama administration to stand resolutely with the workers and the peasants in this ancient land of 80 million?
Egypt Finally Makes History
Mahfouz's Prophesy
By RAOUF J. HALABY
During the past sixty years US politicians have convinced Americans citizens that some of the world's tyrants and dictators are "strong and dependable allies of the US." To wit the State Department's official statements about Egypt's Hosni Mubarak during the first few days of the uprising that has swept Egypt like a firestorm.
The emergence of two super powers soon after World War II set the stage for a politically and ideologically polarized world; Communism became our arch enemy, and anti-communist dictators, regardless of their tyrannical rule, became our allies "in the fight to keep communism from spreading around the world." Is this not how we were sold on the Vietnam War?
Perceived to have Communist sympathies, Muhammad Mosaddegh, Iran's duly elected Prime Minister, was ousted from office in 1953 in a CIA orchestrated coup de dat. His Majesty Shahanashah Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, was propped up on the Iranian Imperial Peacock Throne. The CIA would eventually train his SAVAK secret police in the art of torture. Twenty six years later, the Shah fled Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini triumphed into Tehran to supposedly save the Iranians from a tyrant who'd become an American puppet. The results have not been pleasant for Iranians, the Near East, and the world. Closer to home, in 1973 the CIA orchestrated another coup de tat in Chile; Augusto Pinochet, "a strong ally," ruled brutally and tyrannically until his removal in 1990.
Poor decision-making by successive US Administrations, our addiction to oil, strong lobbying of congress by interest groups more concerned with their own foreign policy agendas, and strategic regional concerns are but four of many factors for America's support of tyrants all over world. The latter translates into protecting "our vital interests," a euphemism for assuring American corporations favorable access to natural resources of foreign countries, cheap labor, markets for US products, and the control of strategic water, land, and air routes for rapid military deployment.
While the disintegration of the Soviet Union helped spawn freedom movements in the former Soviet Block, the Philippines, and a handful of Latin American nations, the Arab World and Israel moved in the opposite direction. The so-called peace treaty between Egypt and Israel paved the way for Israel's 1982 disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and, now that Egypt, the largest military threat to Israel, was neutralized, successive Israeli governments diverted the heretofore defense expenditures to a massive settlement building program in the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. To accomplish this goal, Palestinians had to be brutally suppressed. Israel, "Our strongest ally in the region" is, indeed, the only democracy in the Near East, yet its democratic ideals extend only to its Jewish citizens; Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens, and Palestinians in the occupied territories live under the indignity of military occupation.
Enter the Iran-Iraq War of 1979 which pitted Iraq's Sunni Hussein against Iran's Shia Khomeini. US support for Iraq's brutal dictator came in many forms, including weapons, chemicals, technology and intelligence. As long as Hussein exchanged his petro dollars for American goods in the fight against Iran, his brutal rule was condoned; testimony to the aforementioned is a photograph of Dick Cheney hugging Hussein prior to the latter's decision to invade oil-rich Kuwait. As part of the propaganda to oust Hussein from Kuwait with the help of several regional "strong allies" (many of whom continue to be brutal dictators), the charge that "he used chemicals to kill his own people" became a rallying slogan to support the war. Yes, Hussein had gassed some 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, but why was there no prior condemnation? Is it because economic concerns trumped moral indignation?
Enter yet another cataclysmic event. 9/11 changed the landscape on many fronts, and the new enemy became "Islamic terrorists." In his attempt to "win the hearts and minds of the Arab World" and "bring democracy" to a region whose population is governed by brutal dictators, George W. Bush launched the second Gulf War. True, Saddam Hussein has been dealt with, but the verdict on the war's outcome is iffy at best. Planting democracy in Iraq came at a high cost, especially to the Iraqis whose dead numbered well over 100,000, 4 million refugees, and an infrastructure pulverized back to the Stone Age.
Since 9/11, and because of much needed intelligence and logistical support, the list de jour of "strong allies" has grown exponentially. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco, to name but a few, are the new club members. They provide military bases, intelligence and logistical support, the rendition of suspected terrorists and, worse of all, to circumvent US laws, they torture suspects on our behalf. Egypt and Jordan have been singled out for such torture.
Early last week Nobel laureate Muhammad El Baradei summed up the aspirations of the masses of Egypt, and, by extension, the Arab world, thusly: "If there is no democracy, there is no life." Albeit slowly, democracy will come to the Arab world pending the following happen: President Obama becomes more proactive and vocal in holding the rulers of the Arab world to account for their tyrannical rule (last year's sale of $60 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia is foolish); he exerts pressure on Israel to realize that a two-state solution is in its best interest; Arab rulers must democratize their regimes and join the 21st century; the Arab masses must keep the religious fanatics at bay and adhere to the adage I often heard while growing up in the Near East: "Al Deenu lil'Lah, wal watan lil jami" (Religion is God's and country is for all); and Israel, a lynchpin in any democratic future for the region, must realize that it cannot continue to rule over 3.5 million Palestinians yearning for dignity and freedom – apartheid regimes that build walls of separation poison the hearts and minds of their own citizens.
In 1990 in Cairo I had the privilege of interviewing Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt's winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, on the fifth floor of his Al Ahram (The Pyramids) office, the Arab world's largest newspaper. In his closing comments he stated the following: "Egypt had a glorious past. For 3,500 years we made outstanding contributions to civilization, yet during the last 1,500 years we've stood on the sidelines, observing, instead of helping make history." In like manner, while Europe was in deep slumber, the Arabs made history with their great accomplishments in every field of learning, and their contributions helped spawn Europe's Renaissance. It is time for the Umma Al Arabiya (the Arab nation) to stop living on the glorious laurels of the past and join a 21st century world that values individual freedom and human rights for all, men as well as women. If the masses of the Arab world adhere to Gandhi style civil disobedience, then this historic tsunami, which began in Tunisia and might very well travel west to Libya and Morocco and east to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, will, Insha'Allah (God Willing), depose the tyrants of the Arab world.
As for Israel's Netanyahu, he has two options. He can either use the turmoil in Egypt to dig in and follow the illusive dream of a Greater Israel, or he can sit down with the Palestinians to hammer out a permanent and just peace.
Tyrants of Mubarak's ilk hang on to power for as long as possible, no matter the cost, and historic events afford leaders rare opportunities; great leaders know how to seize these opportunities. Depending on how the transition in Egypt plays out, the leaders of the Arab World and Israel cannot afford to miss an opportunity created by a most unique seismic tremor whose impact is reverberating throughout the world.
Scribbled in English on a poster carried by a young Egyptian demonstrator were four words which sum up the aspirations of millions of Arabs: "Yes, we can too." President Obama, himself a product of the changes this country afforded him, should lead the Arab, Israeli and international choir by stating "I know we can. Let's get down to the business of change and peace in earnest." And for their part, Naguib Mahfouz's prophetic words that Egypt "stood on the sidelines, observing, instead of helping make history," have never been more true.
Raouf J. Halaby, a naturalized US citizen, is of Palestinian heritage. He is a Professor of English and Art at Ouachita University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas
THE REVOLUTIONARY REBELLION IN EGYPT
Poverty, Food Prices and the Crisis of Imperialism
By FIDEL CASTRO
Several days ago I said that Mubarak’s fate was sealed and that not even Obama was able to save him.
The world knows about what is happening in the Middle East. News spreads at mind-boggling speed. Politicians barely have enough time to read the dispatches arriving hour after hour. Everyone is aware of the importance of what is happening over there.
After 18 days of tough struggle, the Egyptian people achieved an important objective: overthrowing the main United States ally in the heart of the Arab nations. Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his own people, he was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel, the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO group.
The Armed Forces of Egypt, under the command of Gamal Abdel Nasser, had thrown overboard a submissive King and created a Republic which, with the support of the USSR, defended its Homeland from the Franco-British and Israeli invasion of 1956 and preserved its ownership of the Suez Canal and the independence of its ancient nation.
For that reason, Egypt had a high degree of prestige in the Third World. Nasser was well-known as one of the most outstanding leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, in whose creation he took part along with other well-known leaders of Asia, Africa and Oceania who were struggling for national liberation and for the political and economic independence of the former colonies.
Egypt always enjoyed the support and respect of that international organization which brings together more than one hundred countries. At this precise time, that sister country is chairing NAM for a corresponding three-year period; and the support of many of its members for the struggle its people are engaged in today is a given.
What was the significance of the Camp David Agreements, and why do the heroic Palestinian people so arduously defend their most essential rights?
At Camp David ―with the mediation of then-President of the United States Jimmy Carter―, Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin signed the famous treaties between Egypt and Israel.
It is said that secret talks went on for 12 days and on September 17th of 1978 they signed two important treaties: one in reference to peace between Egypt and Israel; the other having to do with the creation of the autonomous territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where, el-Sadat was thinking – and Israel was aware of and sharing the idea –the capital of the State of Palestine would be, and whose existence, as well as that of the State of Israel, was agreed to by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, in the British protectorate of Palestine.
At the end of arduous and complicated talks, Israel agreed to withdraw their troops from Egyptian territory in the Sinai, even though it categorically rejected Palestinian participation in those peace negotiations.
As a product of the first treaty, in the term of one year, Israel reinstated Sinai territory occupied during one of the Arab-Israeli wars back to Egypt.
By virtue of the second agreement, both parties committed to negotiate the creation of the autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first of these included 5 640 square kilometres of territory and 2.1 million inhabitants; and the second one, 360 square kilometres and 1.5 million inhabitants.
The Arab countries were offended by that treaty where, in their opinion, Egypt had not defended with sufficient energy and resolution a Palestinian State whose right to exist had been the focal point of the battle fought for decades by the Arab States.
Their reactions reached such a level of indignation that many of them broke off their relations with Egypt. Thus, the United Nations Resolution of November 1947 was erased from the map. The autonomous body was never created and thus the Palestinians were deprived of their right to exist as an independent state; that is the origin of the never-ending tragedy they are living in and which should have been resolved more than three decades ago.
The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment. In the Gaza Strip a million and a half people are regularly being attacked with explosive projectiles, live phosphorus and booby-trap bombs. The Gaza Strip lands are being blockaded by land and by sea. Why are the Camp David agreements being talked about to such a degree while nobody mentions Palestine?
The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Egypt, an Arab country, was turned into the second receiver of US weapons. To fight against whom? Another Arab country? Against the very Egyptian people?
When the population was asking for respect for their most basic rights and the resignation of a president whose policy consisted of exploiting and pillaging his own people, the repressive forces trained by the US did not hesitate for a second in shooting at them, killing hundreds and wounding thousands.
When the Egyptian people were awaiting explanations from the government of their own country, the answers were coming from senior officials of the United States intelligence or government bodies, without any respect for Egyptian officials.
Could it possibly be that the leaders of the United States and their intelligence agencies knew nothing at all about the colossal thefts perpetrated by the Mubarak government?
Before the people were to protest en masse from Tahrir Square, neither the government officials nor the United States intelligence bodies were uttering one single word about the privileges and outrageous thefts of billions of dollars.
It would be a mistake to imagine that the people’s revolutionary movement in Egypt theoretically obeys a reaction to violations on their most elementary rights. Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters. They do this when their legal and material rights are being mercilessly sacrificed to the insatiable demands of corrupt politicians and the national and international circles looting the country.
The poverty rate was now affecting the vast majority of a militant people, young and patriotic, with their dignity, culture and beliefs being trampled.
How was the unstoppable increase of food prices to be reconciled with the dozens of billions of dollars that were being attributed to President Mubarak and to the privileged sectors of the government and society?
It’s not enough now that we find out how much these come to; we must demand they be returned to the country.
Obama is being affected by the events in Egypt; he acts, or seems to act, as if he were the master of the planet. The Egyptian affair seems to be his business. He is constantly on the telephone, talking to the leaders of other countries.
The EFE Agency, for example, states: “…I spoke to the British Prime Minister David Cameron; King Abdala II of Jordan, and with the Turkish prime minister, the moderate Muslim Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
“…the president of the United States assessed the ‘historical changes’ that the Egyptians have been promoting and he reaffirmed his admiration for their efforts …”.
The principal US news agency, AP, is broadcasting some reasoning that we should pay attention to:
“The US is asking Middle Eastern leaders leaning towards the West, who are friendly with Israel and willing to cooperate in the fight against Islamic extremism at the same time they are protecting human rights.”
“…Barack Obama has put forward a list of ideal requisites that are impossible to satisfy after the fall of two allies of Washington in Egypt and Tunisia in popular revolts that, according to experts, shall sweep the region.”
“There is no hope within this dream scenario and it’s very difficult for one to appear soon. Partially this is due to the fact that in the last 40 years, the US has sacrificed the noble ideals of human rights, that it so espouses, for stability, continuity and oil in one of the most volatile regions of the world.”
“‘Egypt will never be the same’, Obama said on Friday after praising the departure of Hosni Mubarak.”
“In the midst of their peaceful protests, Obama stated, the Egyptians ‘will change their country and the world’.
“Even as restlessness persists among the various Arab governments, the elite entrenched in Egypt and Tunisia has not shown signs of being willing to hand over the power or their vast economic influence that they have been holding.”
“The Obama government has insisted that the change should not be one of ‘personalities’. The US government set this position since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunis in January, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned the Arab rulers in a speech in Qatar that without reform the foundations of their countries ‘would sink in the sand’.”
People don’t appear to be very docile in Tahrir Square.
Europe Press recounts:
“Thousands of demonstrators have arrived in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of mobilizations that caused the resignation of the president of the country, Hosni Mubarak, to reinforce those continuing in that location, despite the efforts of the military police to remove them, according to information from the BBC.
“The BBC correspondent stationed in the downtown square of Cairo has assured us that the army is appearing to be indecisive in the face of the arrival of new demonstrators …”
“The ‘hard core’ […] is located on one of the corners of the square. […] they have decided to stay in Tahrir […] in order to make certain all their claims are being met.”
Despite what is happening in Egypt, one of the most serious problems being faced by imperialism at this time is the lack of grain.
The US uses an important part of the corn it grows and a large percentage of the soy harvest for the production of biofuels. As for Europe, it uses millions of hectares of land for that purpose.
On the other hand, as a consequence of the climate change originated basically by the developed and wealthy countries, a shortage of fresh water and foods compatible with population growth at a pace that would lead to 9 billion inhabitants in a mere 30 years is being created, without the United Nations and the most influential governments on the planet, after the disappointing meeting at Copenhagen and Cancun warning and informing the world about that situation.
We support the Egyptian people and their courageous struggle for their political rights and social justice.
We are not opposed to the people of Israel; we are against the genocide of the Palestinian people and we are for their right to an independent State.
We are not in favour of war, but in favour of peace among all the peoples.
EGYPT'S GREAT AWAKENING
Spontaneity and a "Collective Moral Earthquake"
By MOHAMMED BAMYEH
Al-Qahira, The City Victorious, February 11, 2011
Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered momentum so quickly and so unexpectedly. The Egyptian Revolution, starting on January 25, lacked leadership and possessed little organization; its defining events, on Friday, January 28, occurred on a day when all communication technologies, including all internet and phones, were barred; it took place in a large country known for sedate political life, a very long legacy of authoritarian continuity, and an enviable repressive apparatus consisting of more than 2 million members. But on that day, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, entrenched for 30 years and seemingly eternal, the only regime that the vast majority of the protesters had ever known, evaporated in one day.
Though the regime struggled for two more weeks, practically little government existed during that period. All ministries and government offices have been closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on January 28. Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again. Popular committees have since taken over security in the neighborhoods. I saw patriotism expressed everywhere as collective pride in the realization that people who did not know each other could act together, intentionally and with a purpose. During the ensuing week and a half, millions converged on the streets almost everywhere in Egypt, and one could empirically see how noble ethics—community and solidarity, care for others, respect for the dignity of all, feeling of personal responsibility for everyone--emerge precisely out of the disappearance of government.
Undoubtedly this revolution, which is continuing to unfold, will be the formative event in the lives of the millions of youth who spearheaded it in Egypt, and perhaps also the many more millions of youth who followed it throughout the Arab world. It is clear that it is providing a new generation with a grand spectacle of the type that had shaped the political consciousness of every generation before them in modern Arab history. All those common formative experiences of past generations were also grand national moments: whether catastrophic defeats or triumphs against colonial powers or allies.
This revolution, too, will leave traces deep in the social fabric and psyche for a long time, but in ways that go beyond the youth. While the youth were the driving force in the earlier days, the revolution quickly became national in every sense; over the days I saw an increasing demographic mix in demonstrations, where people from all age groups, social classes, men and women, Muslims and Christians, urban people and peasants—virtually all sectors of society, acting in large numbers and with a determination rarely seen before. Everyone I talked to echoed similar transformative themes: they highlighted a sense of wonder at how they discovered their neighbor again, how they never knew that they lived in “society” or the meaning of the word, until this event, and how everyone who yesterday had appeared so distant is now so close. I saw peasant women giving protestors onions to help them recover from teargas attacks; young men dissuading others from acts of vandalism; the National Museum being protected by protestors’ human shield from looting and fire; protestors protecting captured baltagiyya who had been attacking them from being harmed by other protestors; and countless other incidents of generous civility amidst the prevailing destruction and chaos.
I also saw how demonstrations alternated between battle scenes and debating circles, and how they provided a renewable spectacle in which everyone could see the diverse segments in social life converging on the common idea of bringing down the regime. While world media highlighted uncontrolled chaos, regional implications, and the specter of Islamism in power, the ant’s perspective revealed the relative irrelevance of all of the above considerations. As the Revolution took longer and longer to accomplish the mission of bringing down the regime, protestors themselves began to spend more time highlighting other accomplishments, such as how new ethics were emerging precisely amidst chaos. Those evidenced themselves in a broadly shared sense of personal responsibility for civilization—voluntary street cleaning, standing in line, the complete disappearance of harassment of women in public, returning stolen and found objects, and countless other ethical decisions that had usually been ignored or left for others to worry about.
There are a number of basic features that are associated with this magnificent event that are key, I think, to understanding not just the Egyptian Revolution but also the emerging Arab uprisings of 2011. Those features include the power of marginal forces; spontaneity as an art of moving; civic character as a conscious ethical contrast to state’s barbarism; the priority assigned to political over all other kinds of demands, including economics; and lastly autocratic deafness, meaning the ill-preparedness of ruling elites to hear the early reverberations as anything but undifferentiated public noise that could be easily made inaudible again with the usual means.
First, marginality means that the revolution began at the margins. In Tunisia it started that way, in marginal areas, from where it migrated to the capital. And from Tunisia, itself relatively marginal in the larger context of the Arab World, it travelled to Egypt. Obviously the situation in each Arab country is different in so far as economic indicators and degree of liberalization are concerned, but I was struck at how conscious the Egyptian youth were of the Tunisian example preceding them by just two weeks. Several mentioned to me their pride in seeming to accomplish in just a few days what Tunisians needed a month to accomplish.
Marginality appears to have been an important factor within Egypt as well. While much of the media focus was on Tahrir Square in central Cairo, to which I went every day, the large presence there was itself a manifestation of a possibility that suddenly became evident on January 25, when large demonstrations broke out in 12 of Egypt’s provinces. The revolution would never have been perceived as possible had it been confined to Cairo, and in fact its most intense moment in its earlier days, when it really looked that a revolution was happening, were in more marginal sites like Suez. The collective perception that a revolution was happening at the margins, where it was least expected, gave everyone the confidence necessary to realize that it could happen everywhere.
Second, in every sense the revolution maintained throughout a character of spontaneity, in the sense that it had no permanent organization. Rather, organizational needs—for example governing how to communicate, what to do the next day, what to call that day, how to evacuate the injured, how to repulse baltagiyya assaults, and even how to formulate demands—emerged in the field directly and continued to develop in response to new situations. Further, the revolution lacked recognized leadership from beginning to end, a fact that seemed to matter most to observers but not to participants. I saw several debates in which participants strongly resisted being represented by any existing group or leader, just as they resisted demands that they produce “representatives” that someone, such as al-Azhar or the government, could talk to.
When the government asked that someone be designated as a spokesperson for this revolt, many participants flippantly designated one of the disappeared, only in the hope that being so designated might hasten his reappearance. A common statement I heard was that it was “the people” who decide. It appeared that the idea of peoplehood was now assumed to be either too grand to be representable by any concrete authority or leadership, or that such representation would dilute the profound, almost spiritual, implication of the notion of “the people” as a whole being on the move.
Spontaneity was a key element also because it made the Revolution hard to predict or control; and because it provided for an unusual level of dynamism and lightness—so long as many millions remained completely committed to a collective priority of bringing down the regime, represented in its president. But it also appeared that spontaneity played a therapeutic and not simply organizational or ideological role. More than one participant mentioned to me how the revolution was psychologically liberating, because all the repression that they had internalized as self-criticism and perception of inborn weakness, was in the revolutionary climate turned outwards as positive energy and a discovery of self-worth, real rather than superficial connectedness to others, and limitless power to change frozen reality. I heard the term “awakening” being used endlessly to describe the movement as a whole as a sort of spontaneous emergence out of a condition of deep slumber, which no party program could shake off before.
Further, spontaneity was responsible, it seems, for the increasing ceiling of the goals of the uprising, from basic reform demands on January 25, to changing the entire regime three days later, to rejecting all concessions made by the regime while Mubarak was in office, to putting Mubarak on trial. Removing Mubarak was in fact not anyone’s serious demand on January 25, when the relevant slogans condemned the possible candidacy of his son, and called on Mubarak himself only not to run again. But by the end of the day on January 28, the immediate removal of Mubarak from office had become an unwavering principle, and indeed it seemed then that it was about to happen. Here one found out what was possible through spontaneous movement rather than a fixed program, organization or leadership.
Spontaneity thus became the compass of the Revolution and the way by which it found its way to what turned out to be its radical destination. It proved therefore difficult to persuade protestors to give up the spontaneous character of the Revolution, since spontaneity had already proved its power. Spontaneity thus produced more confidence than any other style of movement, and out of that confidence there emerged, as far as I could see, protestors’ preparedness for sacrifice and martyrdom. Spontaneity also appeared as a way by which the carnivalesque character of social life was brought to the theater of the revolution as a way of expressing freedom and initiative; for example, among the thousands of signs I saw in demonstrations, there were hardly any standard ones (as one would see in pro-government demonstration).
Rather, the vast majority of signs were individual and hand-made, written or drawn on all kinds of materials and objects, and were proudly displayed by their authors who wished to have them photographed by others. Spontaneity, further, proved highly useful for networking, since the Revolution became essentially an extension of the spontaneous character of everyday life, where little detailed planning was needed or possible, and in which most people were already used to spontaneous networking amidst common everyday unpredictability that prevailed in ordinary times.
But while spontaneity provided the Revolution with much of its elements of success, it also meant that the transition to a new order would be engineered by existing forces within the regime and organized opposition, since the millions in the streets had no single force that could represent them. Most protestors I talked to, however, seemed less concerned about those details than with basic demands the fulfillment of which, it appeared, guaranteed the more just nature of any subsequent system. As finally elaborated a week after the beginning of the Revolution, these demands had become the following: removing the dictator; resolving the parliament and electing a new one; amending the constitution so as to reduce presidential power and guarantee more liberties; abolishing the state of emergency; and putting on trials corrupt high officials as well as all those who had ordered the shooting of demonstrators.
Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident. This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia, since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government (along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.
This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.
Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity, and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a “civic” (madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state.
Fourth, a striking development after January 28 was the fact that radical political demands were so elevated that that all other grievances—including those concerning dismal economic conditions—remained subordinate to them. The political demands were more clear that any other kinds of demands; everyone agreed on them; and everyone shared the assumption that all other problems could be negotiated better once one had a responsible political system in place. Thus combating corruption, a central theme, was one way by which all economic grievances were translated into easily understandable political language. And in any case, it corresponded to reality because the political system had basically become a system of thievery in plain daylight. For months before the revolution, virtually everyone had a story to tell me about the ostentatious corruption of the business-cum-political elite that benefited most from the system. They tended to be a clique clustering around Mubarak’s son. Some of its members, reportedly, stood behind the recruitment of thugs who terrorized the protestors for two long days and nights on February 2-3.
Fifth, as everywhere in the Arab World, a key contributing factor was autocratic deafness. The massive undercurrent of resentment that fueled this volcano was stoked over years by the ruling elites themselves, who out of longevity in office and lack of meaningful opposition completely lost track of who their people were and could no longer read them, so to speak. They heard no simmering noise before the Revolution, and when it erupted they were slow to hear it as anything other than an undifferentiated noise. The one-way direction of autocratic communication allowed for no feedback and presented every recipient of its directives as either audience or point of incoherent noise. Throughout the Revolution this deafness of ruling structures was evident in the slow and uncertain nature of government response.
On the day following the January 25 demonstrations, editors of government newspapers belittled the events. On January 28, when all Egypt was in flames and many world leaders had issued some statement of concern, the Egyptian government remained completely silent—until Mubarak finally spoke at midnight, saying the exact opposite of what everyone had been expecting him to say. He thought he was making a major concession, but one which—as any intelligent advisor would have told him—could only be interpreted as a provocation, resulting in several more days of protests.
Then on February 1 he made another speech, also thinking that he was making major concessions, although again, it was received by many protestors as the height of arrogance. On his last day in office, February 10, he outraged almost everyone in the country when, rather than resigning as everyone had been expecting, he simply delegated his powers temporarily to his now equally hated vice president. Enormous crowds converged on the streets and reached the presidential palace on February 11, and the whole country appeared now determined to extract vengeance on a man so out of touch with such an unmistakably obvious popular will. He was, in a sense, always responding to what he must have understood as incoherent noise, emerging from undifferentiated masses that could be allayed by the appearance of compromise. Arab state autocracies had long been accustomed to approach their people with either contempt or condescension. They were no longer skilled at any other art of communication (although Muhammad Shafiq, the new prime minister, has been trying to do his best in those arts).
Clearly, autocratic deafness was a major factor in escalating the revolution. Many protestors suggested to me that what Mubarak said on January 28 would have resolved the crisis had he said it on January 25, when he said nothing. What he said on February 1 would also have resolved the crisis, had he said it on January 28. And what he said on February 10 meant that there would no longer be an honorable exit to the man who just a couple weeks before appeared to be the strongest man in the Middle East.
When none of these concessions succeeded in diffusing the crisis, Mubarak’s new appointees had no serious arguments to explain why he wanted to stay in power for just a few more months, and in the face of a determined revolt that did not in fact challenge many other parts of the system. On Feb. 3 his new prime minister said that it was not common in Egyptian culture for a leader to leave without his dignity. He cited as evidence the salute given to king Farouk as the free officers forced him to leave Egypt in 1952! And on the same day, his new vice president opined that it is against the character of Egyptian culture to so insult the character of the father, which he claimed (in a moment of forgetfulness of the revolution just outside) Mubarak was to the Egyptian people. And the president himself asserted on that same day that he could not possibly resign, since otherwise the country would descend into chaos--astonishingly, still not realizing what everyone else in the country knew: that it was already there.
In the absence of autocratic deafness, all successful politicians, including manipulative ones, know that one art of maneuver consists of anticipating your audience’s or enemy’s next step, so that you are already there before it is too late. Here we had the exact opposite situation: a lethargic autocracy, having never known serious contest, was unaware of who its enemies had become, which in this case was more or less the vast majority of the country. That on February 2 some of Mubarak’s supporters found nothing better to do than send camels and horses to disperse the crowd at Tahrir, seemed to reflect the regime’s antiquated character: a regime from a bygone era, with no relationship to the moment at hand. It was as if a rupture in time had happened, and we were witnessing a battle from the 12th century. From my perspective in the crowd, it was as if they rode through and were swallowed right back into the fold that returned them to the past.
By contrast, popular committees in the neighborhood, with their rudimentary weapons and total absence of illusions, represented what society had already become with this revolution: a real body, controlling its present with its own hands, and learning that it could likewise make a future itself, in the present and from below. At this moment, out of the dead weight of decades of inwardness and self- contempt, there emerged spontaneous order out of chaos. That fact, rather not detached patriarchal condescension, appeared to represent the very best hope for the dawn of a new civic order.
Mohammed Bamyeh is a professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.
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