Renowned feminist and human rights activist Nawal El Saadawi was a political prisoner and exiled from Egypt for years. Now she has returned to Cairo, and she joins us to discuss the role of women during the last seven days of unprecedented protests. “Women and girls are beside boys in the streets,” El Saadawi says. “We are calling for justice, freedom and equality, and real democracy and a new constitution, no discrimination between men and women, no discrimination between Muslims and Christians, to change the system… and to have a real democracy.” [includes rush transcript]
Een bijdrage op JOOP waarin ik mij wel enigszin kan vinden:
De revolutie in Egypte en de reactie in Nederland
Wat, geen sperzieboontjes meer uit Egypte?
Voor wie de afgelopen dagen aan het beeldscherm gekluisterd naar Al Jazeera heeft zitten kijken, is het ontnuchterend de Nederlandse kranten te lezen. Het is een ontnuchtering die snel overslaat in schaamte. Wat, geen sperzieboontjes meer uit Egypte?
Al Jazeera levert een kwaliteitsjournalistiek waar CNN bleek bij afsteekt. De zender uit Quatar blijft doorvragen over de dubbele bodems in het Amerikaanse buitenlandse beleid, over de good cop, bad cop strategie van de Egyptische regering, waarbij de ene minister de knokploegen organiseert terwijl de ander zich verontschuldigt en plechtig belooft de dingen tot op de bodem uit te zoeken. Eigenhandig levert Al Jazeera zo een bijdrage aan de democratisering in de wereld, die wel eens vele malen belangrijker zou kunnen zijn dan het gehypte facebook en twitter. De journalisten van Al Jazeera weten dat ze een historisch moment meemaken en handelen daar ook naar.
En nu ik toch bezig ben, deze zeer terechte (en leuke) bijdrage van Francisco van Jole:
De Nederlandse Mubarak
In Egypte proberen ze de autocratie af te schaffen, in Nederland voert een listige politicus hem in
Wat ik de afgelopen tijd toch mis bij berichtgeving over de revoluties in Tunesië en Egypte zijn de ‘echte kenners’ van de Arabische wereld. Ik bedoel de types die de afgelopen tien jaar aan ons zijn opgedrongen. Ineens zijn ze verdwenen. Ik zou bijvoorbeeld graag zien hoe Hans Jansen, de arabist die ons jarenlang mocht inprenten dat moslims geen verlangen naar vrijheid kennen, de tv-beelden zou duiden. Maar helaas, Jansen is in geen velden of wegen te bekennen. Zeker te druk met de voorbereiding van de rechtszaak tegen Wilders.
Over de PVV gesproken: Martin Bosma, de zogenaamde partijideoloog, zien we ook al niet. Die zou toch perfect kunnen uitleggen dat de naar vrijheid smachtende Egyptenaren gewoon moslims zijn die taqiyya bedrijven. Ze doen maar net alsof ze vrij willen zijn, eigenlijk vinden ze het heerlijk om geknecht te worden.
De PVV blijft trouwens opmerkelijk buiten schot in het media-enthousiasme over de Arabische vrijheidsdrift. Is de PvdA volgens Wilders nog steeds de Partij van de Arabieren? Dat is dan een groot compliment. Hadden Rutte en Rosenthal maar zoveel lef. Zou Wilders de revolutie behandelen in Fitna 2, de film waar we al zo lang naar uit kijken? Of hoopt de PVV-leider dat de revolutie-hype snel voorbij is en hij weer over kan gaan tot de orde van de dag: z’n dagelijkse potje islamofobie presenteren aan kiezers die denken dat hij minister is (zie voor dat laatste opmerkelijke detail ook dit blogbericht van Maarten van Rossem, FS).
Egypt’s prospects look better no matter what happens at this point, but its immediate future is still uncertain.
Michael C. Hudson Last Modified: 02 Feb 2011 13:23 GMT
The fallout from the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt will shape a new geopolitical structure in the Middle East [CC – Jacob Anikulapo]
Hosni Mubarak is still president of Egypt, but his days in power are numbered; there will be no Mubarak dynasty either. The authoritarian order in Egypt and throughout the Arab world has been profoundly shaken. The ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia, a remarkable event in itself, now appears to have been the trigger for a far broader upheaval that is shaking regimes across the region.
Since Mohamed Bou’azizi set himself alight in Tunisia on December 17, self-immolations have taken place in Egypt, Algeria, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Unprecedented demonstrations have since spread to Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen. Remember too that all this was taking place against the backdrop of a tense regional environment: the dangerous paralysis in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, a simmering crisis in Lebanon, continuing uncertainties over Iraq, and the Iranian nuclear issue.
Egypt as a catalyst?
Egypt, with a population of over 80 million, is not only the largest country by far in the Arab world, it is also strategically and centrally situated astride Africa and Asia, and has exerted profound political, cultural and social influence in the modernisation of the whole region since the late eighteenth century. During the rule of the charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser from 1952 to 1970 Egypt dominated the Arab world.
To be sure, under his successors Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, who aligned Egypt with the US, Egypt’s influence in regional affairs waned; but by virtue of its size and history this country commands a privileged place in the Arab imagination. Thus, it has served as a model of authoritarianism for the region and were it to dissolve into chaos or, preferably, a liberal democratic system similar to today’s Turkey the demonstration effect could be significant. That is why Arab ruling elites from the Atlantic to the Gulf must be losing sleep these days.
Political scientists who until recently were pronouncing Arab authoritarianism as too deeply rooted to fail are now discovering so many reasons why Mubarak is facing the most serious challenge of his long career. There is the economic argument: despite decent aggregate growth, unemployment and a rising cost of living are fuelling popular protest. There is the administrative argument: corruption and bureaucratic mismanagement have gotten out of hand. There is the social argument: Egypt’s youth are alienated, the educational system is in decay, families and marriages are under stress. But above all there is the political argument: the president and his ruling party have become increasingly authoritarian over time.
The respected Egyptian political scientist Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid, in a lecture at the Middle East Institute in Singapore a month before the crisis exploded, described the blatantly un-free parliamentary elections staged by the Mubarak regime, which brought its authoritarian habits to a new low.
“Stagnation will continue if things remain as they are,” he said, “but they may not remain as they are because people’s reactions show that they do not accept it.” If the people have taken to the streets to demonstrate that they do not accept authoritarianism in Tunisia and Egypt, why should they not do the same thing in other authoritarian Arab countries?
A model for other Arab countries?
Many of the conditions that help explain the eruptions in Tunisia and Egypt are present in other Arab countries. In the non-oil rich states like Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Yemen we see the same volatile social cocktail: a youth bulge, vast unemployment, inadequate education, and gross economic inequality. Little wonder that their rulers are belatedly trying to ease conditions that will take years to remedy. Jordan is offering subsidies; Yemen (where tax evasion is endemic!) is cutting taxes. Too little, too late?
Will the Arab oil-rich states be immune? Perhaps so if the present upheaval is seen as being driven exclusively by economic deprivation. But there are two other powerful political factors fomenting popular anger: entrenched authoritarianism and subservience to America’s strategic agenda for the Middle East – especially its tacit support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
Petro-rulers as different from each other as Muammar Ghaddafi in Libya and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have condemned the popular upheavals, with Ghaddafi voicing support for the disgraced Ben Ali in Tunisia and Abdullah excoriating the protesters on the streets of Egypt as infiltrators, who “in the name of freedom of expression, have infiltrated into the brotherly people of Egypt, to destabilise its security and stability and they have been exploited to spew out their hatred in destruction, intimidation, burning, looting and inciting a malicious sedition.” Might it be said, quoting Shakespeare, that “they doth protest too much?”
Is it time to reexamine the proposition often expressed by Western observers that the oil-rich authoritarian monarchies are the ideal model for the Arab world, because they are rooted in a traditional (i.e., patriarchal tribal) culture and seem to convey an image of Islamic legitimacy?
Where are the Islamists?
And speaking of Islam, where are the Islamists in the recent upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt? There is scant indication that Islamist organisations played a major role. Yet to believe the conservative US media one would understand that what we are seeing is an Islamist terrorist conspiracy. And virtually every Arab regime has fanned this alleged threat in order to win US military, financial and political support. But this is an oversimplification of the complex realities of Arab society and political culture. In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood has been so slow to get on board the upheaval that it risks its own credibility. As for Al Qaeda, it is nowhere to be seen.
The fact is that the protest movement is driven less by the slogan “Islam is the solution” than by a popular revulsion at authoritarianism, corruption, poor governance, and subservience to US strategic priorities (of which Israel is at the top). Certainly the Muslim Brotherhood will emerge as a main player along with others in any new Egyptian political order, but don’t expect the Arabs to welcome an Iranian or Taliban-style regime.
Dilemma for the US and Israel
The Obama administration’s confused and timid reaction reflects all too clearly the dilemma it faces. Egypt is a lynchpin of the American security architecture for the greater Middle East. Egypt helps guarantee Israel’s interests. Omar Suleiman played a key role in helping Israel seal off Gaza in their common effort to dislodge the Hamas government there. Successive administrations have poured money into Egypt to secure its regime and reinforce its client status.
A radical Islamic takeover in Egypt would constitute the worst possible scenario for Washington and Tel Aviv. But for Israel even the evolution of a new Egypt along Turkish lines would be anathema. Once again, the US is caught between its professed ideals of promoting democracy and freedom and its perceived interest in a Middle East whose publics (and their anti-American, anti-Israeli opinions) are sidelined from political participation by friendly authoritarian rulers.
So far the protesters in Egypt are not targeting America, and Washington has a moment of opportunity to do the right thing and get behind the transition. But its response so far is weak and hypocritical. If it comes down on the side of the old status quo its real adversaries in the region – Iran and the radical movements – will benefit.
Whither Egypt? Whither the Arab world?
The revolution in Egypt has begun. Mubarak is on his way out. General Omar Suleiman, pillar of the intelligence establishment and reliable friend of Washington, looks to be the man in charge of a transitional regime. But transitional toward what? Doubtless the US government, Israel, and the pro-American authoritarian regimes in the Arab world are desperately hoping that he will keep Egypt from falling into the hands of the popular opposition, let alone the Islamist currents.
The higher ranks of the Egyptian military must share this orientation, given its historically lucrative ties with the Pentagon. But the middle and lower ranks may be another matter entirely. After all, it was middle-rank officers of Islamist sympathies who assassinated president Anwar Sadat in 1981. And it is hard to believe that the multiple strands of Egypt’s new “people power” are ready to accept Omar Suleiman as an agent of genuine change, even though some of them have viewed him as definitely preferable to a Mubarak dynasty.
Egypt is at a turning point. If it turns toward a continuation of military-dominated leadership supported by the business elite we will not have seen the end of turmoil. Popular forces, including the Muslim Brotherhood, cannot continue to be excluded from meaningful participation. One must hope that the transitional government will do the right thing and open up the political arena for full participation and an early (and this time free) election.
The Muslim Brothers didn’t make this revolution but they will need to be part of the new order – an order that also includes centrists, leftists, and liberals. Perhaps Mohamed ElBaradei will emerge as the revolution’s representative.
A genuinely representative Egyptian government will reject the slavish pro-American, pro-Israeli clientelism of its predecessor. That need not mean that Egypt will become a spearhead for anti-Western, anti-Israeli projects. On the contrary, a genuinely legitimate Egyptian government could set a prominent example for non-authoritarian, participatory government throughout the region and play a decisive role in leading the Middle East out of its present dysfunctional condition.
Michael C. Hudson is the Seif Ghobash Professor of Government and International Relations at Georgetown University. He is currently serving as the Director of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. He has written, edited and contributed to numerous books including Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration (Columbia University Press), Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy (Yale University Press) and The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon (Random House).
This article first appeared in the Strait Times (Singapore).
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Omdat niet alle kaartjes altijd worden opgehaald, wordt er bij de kassa een uur voor aanvang van het programma een wachtlijst geopend.
VOERTAAL: ENGELS / ENGLISH SPOKEN
Overal ter wereld kijken mensen vol verwachting toe hoe de Egyptische en Tunesische bevolking wereldgeschiedenis aan het schrijven is. Staan we aan het begin van een beweging die zich als een olievlek over de regio verspreidt – en daar voorbij?<!– [ + ] –>
Wereldleiders worstelen openlijk met het herzien van hun beleid en strategieën ten aanzien van de razendsnelle veranderingen binnen de internationale arena. Kranten, televisieprogramma’s, blogs en tweets buitelen over elkaar heen met scoops en het laatste nieuws. Zowel in de politiek als de media wordt verrast gereageerd op de huidige ontwikkelingen in Noord-Afrika en het Midden Oosten. Echter, in de artscene van zowel Tunesië als Egypte brengen kunstenaars en andere artiesten door middel van hun werk al jarenlang een afwijkend geluid ten gehore en zijn ze al jaren bezig nieuwe blauwdrukken voor de toekomst te ontwikkelen.
Wij presenteren een avond vol film, hip hop, theater, blogs, skype en discussie.
Met: Abdelkader Benali (schrijver), Frans Timmermans (PvdA), Monique Samuel (auteur), Hassouna Mansouri (filmcriticus), Sabri Saad El Haamus (artistiek leider theatergroep DNA), Amiad Bajazy (activist), Petra Stienen (auteur van ‘Dromen van een Arabische Lente’), Sami ben Gharbia (digitaal activist), Guido Kleene (artiest) en vele anderen… Houd onze website in de gaten voor een update van gasten en artiesten.Presentatie: Farid Tabarki
Dit programma is een initiatief van Neil van der Linden en Hassouna Mansouri in samenwerking met De Balie, SICA, Hivos, IKV Pax Christi/PAX it, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunsten.
***
People all over the world are watching how Tunisians and Egyptians are changing the course of history. Is this a movement that will spread throughout the Middle East and beyond?
On Wednesday the 9th at De Balie artists, activists and specialists from Egypt, Tunisia, the Netherlands and Syria will discus the outburst of the revolution, the history behind it and its consequences through the lens of the artistic (underground) scene.
World leaders are struggling with revising their approaches and strategies towards the rapid changes within North African and the Middle East. Newspapers, television shows, blogs and tweets are in a rat race for the latest scoop and the most sensational features. Both politicians and the press act surprised by the recent events. However, within the cultural scene in both countries artists have been expressing their own original, opposing and often visionary ideas for years! <!– tekst uitklappen [ + ] –>
We offer you an evening full of film, hip hop, theatre, presentations, blogs and discussion.
Op woensdag 9 februari spreken kunstenaars, activisten en diverse specialisten uit Egypte, Tunesië, Nederland & Syrië in De Balie over de revolutie. Maar ook over de voorgeschiedenis en de toekomst van zowel Egypte, Tunesië en de regio vanuit de (underground) artscene in beide landen.
Egyptian opposition cautious after vice-president Suleiman opens talks
Government offers concessions to groups including Muslim Brotherhood – but critics say proposals do not go far enough
// // Monday 7 February 2011
Protesters emerge from their tents in Cairo’s Tahrir Squarefor a 14th day of anti-government demonstrations Link to this videoThe Egyptian government has offered a series of concessions at the first talks with opposition groups, including the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, in an attempt to end the mass pro-democracy protests across the country.
But opposition leaders said that Egypt’s vice-president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, did not go far enough in his proposals for greater political freedom and pledge of free elections.
In Cairo, demonstrators again packed Tahrir Square to demand President Hosni Mubarak’s immediate removal from office as a prerequisite for any deal, undermining the government’s attempts to get people back to work because of the huge economic losses caused by the crisis.
While the mood was relaxed in the square for much of the day on Sunday, with even a wedding taking place, the army fired warning shots after dark in an apparent confrontation with some protesters. There are concerns that demands by the military to remove barricades blocking roads are a move towards breaking up the demonstration.
A government statement said that Suleiman, who is apparently playing an increasingly powerful role, agreed to a number of measures including the formation of a committee of political and judicial figures to oversee changes to the constitution which would scrap provisions that limit the ability of the opposition to run for the presidency.
The government said it will also immediately release “prisoners of conscience of all persuasions” and end legal restrictions on the press. However, it gave only a partial commitment to lift the state of emergency, which gives the president considerable powers and has been used to jail opponents, saying that it will be rescinded “based on the security situation and an end to the threats to the security of society”.
The meeting was greeted with scepticism by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, who is now a prominent opposition voice.
“The process is opaque. Nobody knows who is talking to whom at this stage. It’s managed by Vice-President Suleiman. It is all managed by the military and that is part of the problem,” he said on NBC.
Another member of ElBaradei’s group, the National Association for Change, who attended the talks with Suleiman, said they had been “positive” but did not go far enough.
“We demanded a full democratic transformation and not partial reforms,” said Mustafa Naggar. “But Suleiman responded: ‘Democracy comes in stages and I am keen that there is a peaceful transitional period and civilian rule.'”
Suleiman held separate talks with Muslim Brotherhood, currently banned by the government. The Islamist organisation said it did not regard the meeting as negotiations but as an opportunity to hear the government’s position. A Muslim Brotherhood leader, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, said it was not pleased with the results because Suleiman had failed to respond to the central demand that Mubarak resign. He also said that if the government was serious about political reform it should immediately dissolve parliament, which was elected in a tainted ballot from which the Muslim Brotherhood was banned. The group said it would meet on Monday to decide whether to continue the talks.
The Egyptian prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, has said that Mubarak would not resign before elections in September.
Washington has backed the talks, with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, “cautiously welcoming” the meeting between Suleiman and the Muslim Brotherhood. But many pro-democracy activists are suspicious of US involvement, fearing that Washington, which backed Mubarak for 30 years as a force for stability in the Middle East, is seeking to perpetuate that policy with its support for Suleiman’s oversight of the political transition.
That view was reinforced by remarks over the weekend by the US special envoy, Frank Wisner, who argued that Mubarak should stay in power through the transition to democracy. The fond tone of his comments, claiming that Mubarak “has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country” and therefore deserved a chance to shape its future, was seen as particularly damaging.
The US state department insisted the remarks, made to an international security conference in Munich, represented the personal opinion of the 72-year-old retired diplomat. But European officials said they seemed to reflect a real shift in Washington’s policy towards acceptance that the transition would be managed by the Egyptian government according to a timetable followed by Suleiman.
Egyptian banks opened for the first time in a week on Sunday, drawing long lines of people desperately short of cash for food and other essentials. But despite the government’s appeal for a return to normality, many shops and factories remained closed, and a plan to open the stock exchange on Monday was called off.
The government estimates that the crisis has cost the country more than $3bn, a large part of it because more than 1m tourists have left.
Pro-democracy protests continue at Tahrir Square, a day after government held talks with opposition to end turmoil.
Last Modified: 07 Feb 2011 20:41 GMT
Pro-democracy protesters are continuing their sit-in in Cairo’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square, showing no signs of being appeased by talks held a day earlier between the government and opposition groups.Demonstrators seeking the immediate ousting of Hosni Mubarak, the president, were still camped out in the square on Monday, while life was slowly getting back to normal in other parts of the Egyptian capital following a fortnight of turmoil.The protesters were to be visited by Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who had played a key role in helping the demonstrators get organised, and who was released on Monday by Egyptian authorities after having disappeared on January 27.A symbolic funeral procession was also held in the square for a journalist killed by a sniper during the unrest. The procession was led by the journalist’s wife and daughter.About two thousand pro-democracy protesters also marched in the port city of Alexandria, Al Jazeera’s correspondent there reported.The UN says at least 300 people have been killed in the violence since the demonstrations began, with Human Rights Watch, the international rights group, putting the number killed in the cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez at 297 on Monday.An Al Jazeera correspondent said traffic on the streets of Cairo was increasing on Monday, while businesses were beginning to reopen.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
“There’s a lot of popular public sentiments in Cairo and wider Egypt regarding what those protesters are trying to achieve but at the same time, people are trying to get back to live as normal lives as possible,” he said.
“But some of the shopping malls for example are still closed because they’re afraid of looting, and the banks yesterday were only open for a few hours.”
Another correspondent, also in Cairo, said: “There are divisions. On one side, people do agree with the messages coming out of Tahrir Square, but on the other, Egypt is a country where about 40 per cent of the population lives on daily wages.”
Tanks continue to guard government buildings, embassies and other important institutions in the capital.
The curfew in major Egyptian cities, which has largely been ignored by protesters, has now been shortened to run from 8pm to 6am local time, and the Egyptian stock market is set to reopen for trading on Sunday.
The bourse has been closed since January 27, when it plummeted 17 per cent over two days.
The Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority, the national financial regulator, will announce new measures affecting trading, according to a statement.
Cabinet meeting
On Monday, the government announced that it was raising all public sector salaries and pensions by 15 per cent, as Mubarak chaired the first full meeting of his cabinet since unrest began on January 25, the state MENA news agency reported.
IN VIDEO
Our correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin talks abouthis detention by the Egyptian military
Samir Radwan, the country’s new finance minister, told MENA that increasing pensions will cost the government 6.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($940m), while a five billion pound ($840m) fund has also been created to compensate those affected by looting or vandalism during the protests.
While the government is keen on projecting the image of stability returning to the country, however, protesters are unconvinced.
“The word ‘stability’ is a word the regime uses all the time – but … what is stability without freedom?” Dr Sally Moore, a representative of the Popular Campaign in Support of Elbaradei (one of six groups that makes the “Youth of the Egyptian Revolution” coalition), told Al Jazeera.
“We are in for the long haul. The regime is trying to play us against the people in Tahrir Square, but we always remind them they are our people, our families.
“We are talking about freedom … about lost rights for 30 years, … about torture … and I think people want radical change, not only minor reform.”
Meanwhile, an Al Jazeera online producer, reporting from the square, said relations between the protesters and the troops had been turning tense.
On Sunday night, troops stationed near the National Museum briefly opened fire.
Tensions also rose when soldiers attempted to reinforce a barbed wire fence, which the protesters resisted. Agitated protesters staged a sit-in and two of them were detained.
‘People’s revolution’
Omar Suleiman, the country’s newly appointed vice-president, began meetings with six opposition groups on Sunday, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood (MB), in an attempt to end the crisis.
However, Salma El-Tarzi, an activist in Tahrir Square, told Al Jazeera that she was indifferent to the talks.
“The political parties can do whatever they please because they don’t represent us,” she said.
“This is not a revolution made by the parties. The parties have been there for 30 years and they’ve done nothing. This is the people’s revolution.”
Some analysts have called the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in the dialogue a major concession.
The group had initially refused to participate in any negotiations unless Mubarak resigned.
“It’s important for us not to say that our own only two options are either the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed people”Barack Obama,US president
Essam El-Erian, a member of the MB, Egypt’s largest opposition group, told Al Jazeera that it has to participate “in any dialogue that can meet the demands of the people”.
“This process can encourage more people to be added to protesters in Tahrir Square and all over the country.
“We’ve gone to the dialogue to enforce the revolution … to add more pressure on Mubarak and his regime to leave.”
However, another member of the movement played down the meeting, saying the MB is not prepared to drop its central demand of calling for Mubarak to resign as president.
“We cannot call it talks or negotiations. The Muslim Brotherhood went with a key condition that cannot be abandoned … that he [Mubarak] needs to step down in order to usher in a democratic phase,” Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh told Al Jazeera.
Reforms pledged
According to a statement from Suleiman’s office following the meeting, the government offered to form a committee to examine proposed constitutional amendments, pursue allegedly corrupt government officials, “liberalise” media and communications and lift the state of emergency in the country when the security situation was deemed to be appropriate.
But Fotouh said the government had failed to take concrete measures on the ground.
“If they were serious, the parliament would have been dissolved, also a presidential decree ending the emergency law”.
People gathered to pray in front of tanks to prevent the army from placing barbed wires at the square [Reuters]
Egypt has been under emergency rule since 1981, the year Mubarak assumed power.
Barack Obama, the US president, made new remarks on the political situation in Egypt after the meeting.
He told the US television network Fox that Egyptians would not permit a repressive government to fill the Mubarak void, adding that the Muslim Brotherhood is only one faction in Egypt.
“But here’s the thing that we have to understand, there are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt, there are a whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that want to come to the fore as well.
“So it’s important for us not to say that our own only two options are either the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed people.”
In remarks made on the sidelines of a speaking enagement on Monday, Obama said Egypt was “making progress” through the ongoing negotiations.
Also on Monday, PJ Crowley, the US state department’s spokesman, said it would be “challenging” for Egypt to hold free and fair elections immediately. He said the US wants an “orderly transition”, though he stopped short of saying that he thought Mubarak should stay as president in the interim.
Our correspondent in Cairo said the pro-democracy protesters were still not pleased with Obama’s stance on the crisis.
“Protesters tell me Obama still hasn’t come up with any statement that they want to hear,” he said.
“They want immediate change and the feeling among many of them is that the way US is handling this crisis is not good for the way America is perceived both here and in general in the wider region.”
Leaked US cables raise questions over whether vice-president can be honest broker in any talks with Muslim Brotherhood.
Last Modified: 07 Feb 2011 01:05 GMT
Protests against Mubarak’s rule prompted the leader to appoint Suleiman as vice-president [Reuters]
Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s recently appointed vice-president, has previously harshly criticised Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his communications with US officials, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.
The revelations came as Suleiman met opposition leaders, including the Muslim Brotherhood, on Sunday in an bid to end a political crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in opposition to Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president.
But the leaked cables raise questions over whether the former intelligence chief can be seen as an honest broker in any negotiations.
In the cables, obtained by the Reuters news agency through the whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks, Suleiman is reported to have told US officials that the Muslim Brotherhood was creating armed groups.
He is also said to take “an especially hard line on Tehran”, and in one dated January 2 2008, Suleiman is quoted as saying that Iran remained “a significant threat to Egypt”.
In a cable dated February 15, 2006, Francis Ricciardone, then the US ambassador to Egypt, reported that Suleiman had “asserted that the MB [Muslim Brotherhood] had spawned ’11 different Islamist extremist organisations’, most notably the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Gama’a Islamiya [Islamic Group]”.
‘Technically illegal’
The cable, which uses the spelling “Soliman”, goes on to say: “The principal danger, in Soliman’s view, was the group’s exploitation of religion to influence and mobilise the public.”
It continues: “Soliman termed the MB’s recent success in the parliamentary elections as ‘unfortunate’, adding his view that although the group was technically illegal, existing Egyptian laws were insufficient to keep the MB in check.”
The elections referred to were those in November and December in 2005, in which the Brotherhood made substantial gains.
Egypt’s president Mubarak has long attempted to paint his rule of Egypt as a counterbalance to an “Islamist threat”.
Reuters said the cables implied that US officials were sceptical of Suleiman’s portrayal of the Muslim Brotherhood, but officials have not commented on the issue.
The news agency reported PJ Crowley, the US state department spokesman, as saying: “We decline to comment on any individual classified cable.”
Google executive Wael Ghonim speaks after release from Egyptian custody, sparking outpouring of support from protesters.
Last Modified: 08 Feb 2011 01:59 GMT
Egypt’s demonstrations have been ongoing since January 25 as protesters call for Mubarak to resign
Egyptian anti-government protesters have welcomed the release of a Google executive who disappeared in Cairo last month after playing a key role in helping demonstrators organise.
Wael Ghonim was released on Monday by Egyptian authorities, sparking a fast and explosive response from supporters, bloggers and pro-democracy activists on the internet.
Ghonim’s release came nearly two weeks after he was reported missing on January 28 during protests against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
“Freedom is a bless[ing] that deserves fighting for it,” Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, wrote in a message posted on his Twitter account shortly after his release.
He said he was seized in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, late last month as he joined tens of thousands of protesters in the city’s Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests aimed at calling on Mubarak to step down from his 30-year-rule in Egypt.
Ghonim said he was picked up by three plainclothes men on the street, pushed into a car and taken off for interrogation by state security members.
‘Not a hero’
The prominent blogger spoke to Egypt’s On TV after his release on Monday, pleading with reporters not to call him a hero.
“Please don’t make me a hero. I’m not a hero. I have been asleep for 12 days,” he said.
Part one of Ghonim’s interview with Dream TV. For part two and a translation of both, click here for our live blog. All rights to video belong to Dream TV.
“I hope that we would be able to put an end to all the rubbish in this country. The rubbish really needs to be cleaned up.”
Ghonim gave a subsequent, emotional interview to the privately owned Egyptian channel Dream TV later on Monday.
“I am not a symbol or a hero or anything like that, but what happened to me is a crime,” he told Dream TV.
“If you want to arrest me, that’s your right. But there are laws and I am not a terrorist or a drug-dealer. We have to tear down this system based on not being able to speak out.”
Ghonim said he was blindfolded during his 12 days in the custody of state security so that he could not identify his interrogators, but he said that he was not physically tortured.
He described his abduction as a “crime which we are fighting”, adding that the law that allows such actions such be changed – a reference to the country’s emergency laws.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria said the interview will “no doubt have a massive impact on the number of pro-democracy protesters” in the country.
“I expect their numbers to increase dramatically tomorrow and Friday because of this show,” our correspondent said.
“The show also included an interview with a former state TV presenter who dismissed her previous employers as liars and propaganda artists for Mubarak.
“The show ended with a plea from her: ‘To all the children watching this show, go to your parents, tell them: mum, dad, if you want me to have a brighter future, a good education, then take me to Tahrir square tomorrow’.”
Sparking the uprising
Activists said Ghonim was the person behind a page on the social networking site Facebook that is credited for helping spark the uprising in Egypt.
Twitter Reaction
Wael Ghonim’s release
lizhenry RT @Nour_han: Dad just asked me to create a Twitter account for him so that he can follow @Ghonim. =) On a side note, FML. about 1 minute ago · reply
r7y6 RT @monasosh “It isn’t our fault,it’s the fault of everyone clinging to power” I hope the world is listening carefully to @ghonim #Jan25 #p2 44 seconds ago · reply
monaeltahawy Me talking @Ghonim, #Wisner and #Suleiman on PBS Newshour http://bit.ly/e7ogZF Thanks always Scarce #Jan25 31 seconds ago · reply
RASHADaldabbagh RT @mmbilal: Number of protesters predicted to soar in wake of @Ghonim’s emotional interview. get the background and reaction here: http://tiny.cc/nw40l24 seconds ago · reply
The “We are all Khaled Said” page and Facebook group was named after an Egyptian activist who rights groups said was beaten to death by police in the northern port city of Alexandria. Two officers are now facing trial in the case.
Pro-democracy protesters have continued their sit-in in Cairo’s Tahrir Square since mass protests began on January 25. The demonstrations showed no signs of being appeased on Tuesday by talks between the government and opposition groups on Sunday.
But the number of protesters in the streets has decreased since the height of the protests on January 28, a day demonstrators billed the Day of Wrath.
However, immediately after Ghonim’s interview on Dream TV on Monday, activists asserted that the blogger had breathed new life into the protests.
“Left breathless by Wael Ghonim. InshaAllah his sincerity & patriotism, beamed into Egypt’s living rooms, will ignite this revolution #Jan25,” Twitter user Desert_Dals wrote.
“My aunt called me crying after Ghonim’s interview saying “I’m going to Tahrir tomorrow! God Bless him! He made us proud!” Twitter user MennaGamal wrote on her account.
“Ghonim just became the mayor of Tahrir Square!” Twitter user AngelSavant wrote.
DFMorrison, another Twitter user wrote, “If you feel recharged by #Ghonim for the Egyptian Revolution to reach its goals, Retweet! #Tahrir #Egypt #25Jan.”
The UN says at least 300 people have been killed in the violence since the demonstrations began, with Human Rights Watch, the international rights group, putting the number killed in the cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez at 297 on Monday.
Ghonim, in his interview on Monday, paid tribute to those killed.
“I want to say to every mother and every father that lost his child, I am sorry, but this is not our fault.
“I swear to God, this is not our fault. It is the fault of everyone who was holding on to power greedily and would not let it go.”
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
Mass protests continue in Egypt
Pro-democracy supporters hold fresh rallies in Cairo, just hours after the release of a detained Google executive.
Last Modified: 08 Feb 2011 11:45 GMT
Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros reports on the camaraderie and community inside Tahrir Square in central Cairo
Protesters in the Egyptian capital are holding mass demonstrations, with a new wave of optimism reaching the pro-democracy camp following the release of the detained cyber activist, Wael Ghonim.
As demonstrations seeking an immediate end to Hosni Mubarak’s rule enter their 15th day, protesters – set up in makeshift tents in central Cairo’s Tahrir [Liberation] Square – are refusing to leave until their demands are met.
In a bid to counter the political challenge, the government offered on Monday a pay rise to public-sector workers, but the pro-democracy camp feels the government has conceded little ground in trying to end the current crisis.
“[The pay rise] doesn’t mean anything,” Sherif Zein, a protester at Tahrir Square told Al Jazeera on Tuesday. “Maybe it will be a short-term release for the workers … but most of the people will realise what this is, it’s just a tablet of asprin, but it’s nothing meaningful.”
Zein said protesters had called for mass demonstrations and he believed the crowds of Egyptians would not let them down.
Mubarak’s message has thus far clearly stated that he has no plans to leave office until his term is up in September.
However, Omar Suleiman, the country’s newly appointed vice-president, announced on Tuesday that Mubarak would set up a committee that would carry out constitutional and legislative amendments to enable a shift of power.
Amid this ongoing contest of wills between the government and protesters, Ghonim’s release on Monday is “highly significant” in the sense that it “could certainly push big numbers into this protest later on”, an Al Jazeera correspondent in Cairo said.
Suleiman Speech
Following are the main points of announcement
Mubarak will form a committee to review constitutional amendments.
Mubarak will form another committee to follow up govt measures to solve the crisis, including talks with opposition.
Third committee will investigate violent acts and attacks on protesters.
Mubarak promised not to arrest or charge any one of those who took part in the protests.
“Protesters say [Ghonim] is potentially some sort of figurehead for them … they have been looking for a leader.”
Ghonim, a senior executive of the US internet search company Google, may be a candidate for such a position, despite comments he made on Monday saying he did not want to be seen as a hero.
Ghonim, who was responsible for setting up the Facebook page that mobilised the start of the protests, was arrested by government authorities on January 28.
Beyond Tahrir Square, life has been slowly getting back to normal in other parts of Cairo. Some shops and banks were open, and our correspondent said on Monday thattraffic on the streets was increasing.
However, the country’s tourism sector is still suffering, with the area around the pyramids remaining closed.
“There’s a lot of popular public sentiments in Cairo and wider Egypt regarding what those protesters are trying to achieve but at the same time, people are trying to get back to live as normal lives as possible,” our correspondent said.
Another correspondent, also in Cairo, said: “There are divisions. On one side, people do agree with the messages coming out of Tahrir Square, but on the other, Egypt is a country where about 40 per cent of the population lives on daily wages.”
Tanks continue to guard government buildings, embassies and other important institutions in the capital.
Funeral procession
Activists in Tahrir Square held a symbolic funeral procession on Monday for a journalist killed by a sniper during the unrest.
The same day, about 2,000 pro-democracy protesters also marched in the port city of Alexandria, Al Jazeera’s correspondent there reported.
The UN says at least 300 people have been killed in the violence since the demonstrations began, with Human Rights Watch, the international rights group, putting the number killed in the cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez at 297 on Monday.
In Monday’s other developments, the government announced it was raising all public-sector salaries and pensions by 15 per cent.
Samir Radwan, Egypt’s new finance minister, told the state MENA news agency that increasing pensions would cost the government 6.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($940m), while a five billion pound ($840m) fund has also been created to compensate those affected by looting or vandalism during the protests.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
The government is keen on projecting the image of stability returning to the country, but protesters are unconvinced.
“The word ‘stability’ is a word the regime uses all the time – but … what is stability without freedom?” Dr Sally Moore, a representative of the Popular Campaign in Support of Elbaradei (one of six groups that makes the “Youth of the Egyptian Revolution” coalition), told Al Jazeera.
“We are in for the long haul. The regime is trying to play us against the people in Tahrir Square, but we always remind them they are our people, our families.
“We are talking about freedom … about lost rights for 30 years, … about torture … and I think people want radical change, not only minor reform.”
Omar Suleiman, the country’s newly appointed vice-president, began meetings with six opposition groups on Sunday, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood (MB), in an attempt to end the crisis.
However, Salma El-Tarzi, an activist in Tahrir Square, told Al Jazeera that she was indifferent to the talks.
“The political parties can do whatever they please because they don’t represent us,” she said.
“This is not a revolution made by the parties. The parties have been there for 30 years and they’ve done nothing. This is the people’s revolution.”
Some analysts have called the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in the dialogue a major concession.
The group had initially refused to participate in any negotiations unless Mubarak resigned.
Brotherhood’s demand
Essam El-Erian, a member of the MB, Egypt’s largest opposition group, told Al Jazeera that it has to participate “in any dialogue that can meet the demands of the people”.
Another member of the movement played down the meeting, saying the MB is not prepared to drop its central demand of calling for Mubarak to resign as president.
“We cannot call it talks or negotiations. The Muslim Brotherhood went with a key condition that cannot be abandoned … that he [Mubarak] needs to step down in order to usher in a democratic phase,” Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh told Al Jazeera.
According to a statement from Suleiman’s office following the meeting, the government offered to form a committee to examine proposed constitutional amendments, pursue allegedly corrupt government officials, “liberalise” media and communications and lift the state of emergency in the country when the security situation was deemed to be appropriate.
But Fotouh said the government had failed to take concrete measures on the ground.
“If they were serious, the parliament would have been dissolved, also a presidential decree ending the emergency law”.
Egypt has been under emergency rule since 1981, the year Mubarak assumed power.
Preference for Egypt’s new vice-president to succeed Mubarak disclosed by leaked documents obtained by WikiLeaks.
Last Modified: 08 Feb 2011 10:02 GMT
Mounting protests against Mubarak’s rule prompted the Egyptian leader to appoint Suleiman as vice-president [AFP]
Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s recently appointed vice-president, has long long seen by Israel as the favoured successor to Hosni Mubarak, the current president, according to a leaked diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, and published by the UK daily, The Telegraph.
The August 2008 cable said David Hacham, a senior adviser at the Israeli ministry of defence (MoD), told US officials the Israelis expected Suleiman, spelt Soliman in some cables, to take over.
“Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim president if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated,” the cable sent from the US embassy in Tel Aviv said.
“We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman,” the memo cited US diplomats as saying.
The cable said Hacham was full of praise for Suleiman, even noting that “a ‘hot line’ set up between the MoD and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use”.
Suleiman was Egypt’s intelligence chief since 1993 and had been a frequent visitor to Israel and a mediator in its conflict with the Palestinians.
He was appointed Egypt’s vice-president late last month following pressure by mass demonstrators in the country calling for an immediate end to Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, backed Suleiman on Saturday as the best candidate to lead a “transition” government as Mubarak continues to cling to power.
Mubarak has said he only intends to leave office in September at the end of his current term. But on Tuesday Suleiman announced that Mubarak would set up a committee that would carry out constitutional and legislative amendments to enable a shift of power.
Questions raised
The Telegraph’s report followed an earlier one by Reuters news agency on Monday, which also received leaked diplomatic cables via WikiLeaks.
Reuters reported that Suleiman had previously harshly criticised Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his communications with US officials.
Significantly, Suleiman held a meeting with opposition leaders, including the Muslim Brotherhood, on Sunday in a bid to end a political crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in opposition to Mubarak’s rule.
The leaked cables raised questions over whether Suleiman could be seen as an honest broker in any negotiations regarding the next steps for Egypt.
In the cables obtained by Reuters, Suleiman is reported to have told US officials that the Muslim Brotherhood was creating armed groups, most notably “the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Gama’a Islamiya [Islamic Group]” it said.
He is also said to take “an especially hard line on Tehran”, and in one dated January 2, 2008, Suleiman is quoted as saying that Iran remained “a significant threat to Egypt”.
‘Technically illegal’
The cable obtained by Reuters went on to say: “The principal danger, in Soliman’s view, was the [Muslim Brotherhood] group’s exploitation of religion to influence and mobilise the public.”
It continues: “Soliman termed the MB’s recent success in the parliamentary elections as ‘unfortunate’, adding his view that although the group was technically illegal, existing Egyptian laws were insufficient to keep the MB in check.”
The elections referred to were those in November and December in 2005, in which the Muslim Brotherhood made substantial gains.
The document’s obtained by the Telegraph also disclosed that Suleiman explored the idea of allowing Israeli troops into the Egyptian border area of Philadelphi in a bid to stop arms being smuggled to Palestinian fighters in Gaza.
Mubarak has long attempted to paint his rule of Egypt as a counterbalance to an “Islamist threat”.
“In their moments of greatest frustration, (Egypt Defence Minister) Tantawi and Soliman each have claimed that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) would be ‘welcome’ to re-invade Philadelphi, if the IDF thought that would stop the smuggling,” the cable said.
The memo later revealed that Suleiman wanted Gaza to “go hungry but not starve” and for Hamas, the Palestinian group which governs the besieged enclave, to be “isolated”.
»De begrafenis van de Tunesiër Mohammed Bouazizi AFP
Toegevoegd: zondag 30 jan 2011, 15:31
Update: maandag 7 feb 2011, 20:19
Dat zijn zelfverbranding zoveel gevolgen zou hebben, had de Tunesiër Mohammed Bouazizi waarschijnlijk niet kunnen bedenken. Zijn actie leidde niet alleen tot protesten tegen de regering in zijn eigen land, maar ook tegen die in andere landen, zoals Egypte, Jemen, Jordanië en Algerije.
Een chronologisch overzicht van de gebeurtenissen.
2011
7 februari
In de Egyptische hoofdstad Caïro staan nog altijd tienduizenden mensen op het Tahrirplein. De demonstranten willen later deze week weer grote demonstraties houden en ze zijn niet van plan met de protesten op te houden voordat president Mubarak vertrekt. De onrust is wel afgenomen en het openbare leven komt weer gedeeltelijk op gang.
Het nieuwe kabinet in Egypte heeft een salarisverhoging voor ambtenaren aangekondigd van 15 procent. Ook de pensioenen gaan omhoog.
6 februari
In Tunesië worden alle activiteiten van de partij van de verdreven president Ben Ali opgeschort. De kantoren blijven dicht totdat justitie zich uitgesproken heeft over een verbod. De autoriteiten zeggen dat de maatregelen nodig zijn in het belang van de staatsveiligheid. Ze volgen op gewelddadige incidenten die volgens de autoriteiten veroorzaakt zijn door aanhangers van Ben Ali. Die zouden daarmee chaos in het land willen veroorzaken.
De dertiende protestdag in Caïro wordt uitgeroepen tot de ‘Dag van de martelaren’ ter ere van de demonstranten die zijn omgekomen. Het openbare leven komt weer op gang. De beurs en de banken zijn voor het eerst in een week weer open en op veel plekken wordt ook de troep op straat opgeruimd.
De Egyptische regering doet in een rondetafelgesprek toezeggingen aan de oppositie. Voor het eerst in de geschiedenis is ook de Moslim Broederschap betrokken bij het overleg. Vicepresident Suleiman belooft persvrijheid en de vrijlating van iedereen die bij de betogingen van de afgelopen twee weken is opgepakt.
5 februari
Berichten dat Mubarak aftreedt als leider van de regeringspartij NDP, worden even later weer tegengesproken. Wel vervangt hij het bestuur van de partij, onder wie zijn zoon Gamal. Hossam Badrawi wordt de nieuwe secretaris-generaal. Hij wordt gerekend tot de gematigde vleugel van de partij.
De VS willen dat president Mubarak aanblijft totdat er een overgangsregering is. Dat zegt een speciale afgezant van president Obama.
Op het Tahrirplein in Caïro blijft het rustig. President Mubarak overlegt al vroeg met enkele ministers over de staat van de economie in zijn land.
In El Kef, in het noordwesten van Tunesië, worden zeker twee mensen gedood wanneer de politie het vuur opent op demonstranten, die zich hebben verzameld bij het politiebureau. Ze eisen het aftreden van het hoofd van de politie die volgens hen schuldig is aan machtsmisbruik.
4 februari
De betogers roepen deze dag uit tot ‘Dag van Vertrek’ voor Mubarak. Minister van Defensie Tantawi spreekt op het Tahrirplein met militairen en demonstranten. Hij is de eerste vertegenwoordiger van het regime die zich in het hol van de leeuw waagt.
In Israël maakt men zich grote zorgen over wat er in het buurland gebeurt. De regering vreest voor een nieuwe vijandige moslimstaat.
Leiders van de Europese Unie roepen Egypte op om snel een brede overgangsregering in te stellen. President Obama roept Mubarak op te luisteren naar het Egyptische volk voor een orderlijke overdracht van de macht.
De Egyptische president Mubarak overleeft de ‘Dag van Vertrek’. Hij zit nog steeds in zijn paleis
An Egyptian demonstrator uses his shoe to hit a picture of President Hosni Mubarak during a protest in Cairo. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty ImagesWhat cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will happen next? Who will emerge as the political winner?
When a new provisional government was nominated in Tunis, it excluded Islamists and the more radical left. The reaction of smug liberals was: good, they are the basically same; two totalitarian extremes – but are things as simple as that? Is the true long-term antagonism not precisely between Islamists and the left? Even if they are momentarily united against the regime, once they approach victory, their unity splits, they engage in a deadly fight, often more cruel than against the shared enemy.
Did we not witness precisely such a fight after the last elections in Iran? What the hundreds of thousands of Mousavi supporters stood for was the popular dream that sustained the Khomeini revolution: freedom and justice. Even if this dream utopian, it did lead to a breathtaking explosion of political and social creativity, organisational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. This genuine opening that unleashed unheard-of forces for social transformation, a moment in which everything seemed possible, was then gradually stifled through the takeover of political control by the Islamist establishment.
Even in the case of clearly fundamentalist movements, one should be careful not to miss the social component. The Taliban is regularly presented as a fundamentalist Islamist group enforcing its rule with terror. However, when, in the spring of 2009, they took over the Swat valley in Pakistan, The New York Times reported that they engineered “a class revolt that exploits profound fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants”. If, by “taking advantage” of the farmers’ plight, the Taliban are creating, in the words of the New York Times “alarm about the risks to Pakistan, which remains largely feudal,” what prevented liberal democrats in Pakistan and the US similarly “taking advantage” of this plight and trying to help the landless farmers? Is it that the feudal forces in Pakistan are the natural ally of liberal democracy?
The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that the rise of radical Islamism was always the other side of the disappearance of the secular left in Muslim countries. When Afghanistan is portrayed as the utmost Islamic fundamentalist country, who still remembers that, 40 years ago, it was a country with a strong secular tradition, including a powerful communist party that took power there independently of the Soviet Union? Where did this secular tradition go?
And it is crucial to read the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt (and Yemen and … maybe, hopefully, even Saudi Arabia) against this background. If the situation is eventually stabilised so that the old regime survives but with some liberal cosmetic surgery, this will generate an insurmountable fundamentalist backlash. In order for the key liberal legacy to survive, liberals need the fraternal help of the radical left. Back to Egypt, the most shameful and dangerously opportunistic reaction was that of Tony Blair as reported on CNN: change is necessary, but it should be a stable change. Stable change in Egypt today can mean only a compromise with the Mubarak forces by way of slightly enlarging the ruling circle. This is why to talk about peaceful transition now is an obscenity: by squashing the opposition, Mubarak himself made this impossible. After Mubarak sent the army against the protesters, the choice became clear: either a cosmetic change in which something changes so that everything stays the same, or a true break.
Here, then, is the moment of truth: one cannot claim, as in the case of Algeria a decade ago, that allowing truly free elections equals delivering power to Muslim fundamentalists. Another liberal worry is that there is no organised political power to take over if Mubarak goes. Of course there is not; Mubarak took care of that by reducing all opposition to marginal ornaments, so that the result is like the title of the famous Agatha Christie novel, And Then There Were None. The argument for Mubarak – it’s either him or chaos – is an argument against him.
The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly supported democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on behalf of secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all deeply concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance? Today, more than ever, Mao Zedong’s old motto is pertinent: “There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent.”
Where, then, should Mubarak go? Here, the answer is also clear: to the Hague. If there is a leader who deserves to sit there, it is him.
Nog een ‘revolutionair clipje’
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Van de blog van Zeinobia, een van de bloggers waarvan het protest op het Tahrirplein het moet hebben (support this blog):
Today was another a great day at Al Tahrir , a lot of photos of the days coming from the square and also from the Parliament as there are wonderful Egyptians having currently an open sit in now there till their demands are met.
Among all the photos I stopped at one or two to be accurate : When Khaled Said’s mom met Wael Ghonim , the admin of her son’s group !!
Mrs. Laila did not know that Ghonim was the true knight behind “We are Khaled Said” group just like us.
Yesterday Ghonim said that he would honored to be Khaled when Mona El-Shazly called him Khaled by mistake.
Wael Ghonim spoke today to millions of Egyptians in the square .
Khaled Said’s movement has contributed a lot to this revolution , you can consider Said as our official Mohamed Bou Azizi. Khaled Said was the Alexandrian who made the middle class go and protest his murder silently across the country for one hour standing at the corniche whether the Nile corniche and the sea coniche. History will record the role of Khaled Said movement and group in this revolution , history will record it.
Here is the word Wael Ghonim said today in video after the break :
Wael’s speech at Tahrir square
The blood of martyrs will not be wasted and Mubarak must leave , insh Allah he will leave.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said the Egyptian president lent him and his family a plane during a holiday in Egypt at new year.
Hosni Mubarak, who is facing widespread anti-government protests, also paid for Mr Fillon’s holiday accommodation.
Another French minister has faced calls to resign after saying she used a Tunisian businessman’s plane during the country’s uprising.
Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has said she regretted her actions.
Temple visitA statement from the prime minister’s office, released after the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine broke the story, said Mr Fillon took the trip to Egypt between 26 December and 2 January.
“The prime minister was put up during this visit by the Egyptian authorities.”
The French government is mounting a spirited counter-charge after the revelations over Prime Minister Francois Fillon’s holiday in Egypt.
It is not unusual, it states, for heads of government to use official accommodation while visiting foreign countries. Nor is it a sign of particular venality for a prime minister to accept a trip on an Egyptian government jet.
More to the point, Mr Fillon’s trip to Egypt was at new year – more than three weeks before any sign of the popular uprising there. And he is not a prophet.
It is true that next to the charges against Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, Francois Fillon’s transgressions (if such they are) seem less culpable.
Ms Alliot-Marie was in Tunisia while the uprising there was in full swing – and she twice flew on the private jet of a businessman close to the Ben Ali clan.
However the cumulative effect of the two stories is not good for the French government. The real damage is to the country’s standing in the Arab world. Those who accuse France of cosying up to dictators can claim new evidence.
Mr Fillon, again at the invitation of the authorities, “borrowed a plane from the Egyptian fleet to travel from Aswan to Abu Simbel where he visited a temple”, the statement said.
The prime minister “also embarked on a boat trip on the Nile in the same conditions,” meaning at the expense of the Egyptian authorities, it said.
Mr Fillon met Mr Mubarak during the visit on 30 December in the southern city of Aswan.
For his flight from France to Egypt, Mr Fillon travelled on a French government plane but paid for it “in accordance with the rules he has set himself and which apply to every private trip”, it adds.
At least 300 people have been killed in two weeks of protests seeking to oust Mr Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for almost 30 years.
Mr Mubarak has said he will not seek re-election in September, but is facing mounting international pressure to begin a political transition immediately.
Mr Fillon has in recent days expressed support for his foreign minister as she fought pressure to step down over her alleged links with the ousted Tunisian leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Earlier this week, Ms Alliot-Marie told French radio “it was an error” to fly on a Tunisian plane owned by Aziz Miled, a businessman with close links to Mr Ben Ali.
Mr Ben Ali, who had ruled Tunisia for 23 years, was toppled after widespread protests against his rule.
France had had close ties with Mr Ben Ali when he was in office, but when the long-time leader fled his country French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared he would not be welcome in France.
A day after offering sweeping concessions, Omar Suleiman expresses impatience with burgeoning pro-democracy protests.
Last Modified: 08 Feb 2011 23:34 GMT
Egyptian vice-president said the alternative to dialogue is a coup. [EPA]
Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian vice-president, warned on Tuesday that his government “can’t put up with continued protests” for a long time, as tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters rallied in Cairo’s Tahrir Square for the sixteenth day in a row.
In a sharply worded statement reflecting the regime’s impatience and frustration with the mass demonstrations, the newly appointed Suleiman said the crisis must be ended as soon as possible.
Increasingly the public face of the embattled government, Suleiman said there will be “no ending of the regime” and no immediate departure for President Hosni Mubarak, according to the state news agency MENA, reporting on a meeting between the vice-president and independent newspapers.
The immediate departure of Mubarak is a key demand for the pro-democracy demonstrators. Mubarak’s pledge to not seek another term later this year didn’t tame the angry protests.
Meanwhile, the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon added his voice to host of countries calling for “an orderly transition” in Egypt.
Speaking at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Moon said Egyptian government must heed the call from its people for greater reform immediately.
Subtle threat
Suleiman reportedly told the editors of the newspapers that the regime wants dialogue to resolve protesters’ demands for democratic reform, adding, in a veiled warning, that the government doesn’t “want to deal with Egyptian society with police tools.”
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
At one point in the roundtable meeting, Suleiman warned that the alternative to dialogue “is that a coup happens, which would mean uncalculated and hasty steps, including lots of irrationalities. We don’t want to reach that point, to protect Egypt.”
Pressed by the editors to explain the comment, he said he did not mean a military coup but that “a force that is unprepared for rule” could overturn state institutions, said Amr Khafagi, editor-in-chief of the privately-owned Shorouk daily, who attended the briefing.
“He doesn’t mean it in the classical way.”
“The presence of the protesters in Tahrir Square and some satellite stations insulting Egypt and belittling it makes citizens hesitant to go to work,” he said.
Egyptian military, widely hailed for professionalism and restraint, has vowed not to use force against peaceful protesters. President Mubarak, his deputy and the new prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, are all retired military officers with deep links to the institution.
Sticks and carrots
Suleiman warned that calls by some protesters for a campaign of civil disobedience are “very dangerous for society and we can’t put up with this at all.”
This comes a day after Suleiman announced a slew of constitutional reforms, to be undertaken by yet to be formed committees.
Suleiman said that one committee would carry out constitutional and legislative amendments to enable a shift of power while a separate committee will be set up to monitor the implementation of all proposed reforms. The two committees will start working immediately, he said.
Suleiman stressed that demonstrators will not be prosecuted and that a separate independent fact-finding committee would be established to probe the violence on February 2.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
Een aantal foto’s die ik kreeg toegestuurd van een Iraakse vriend, van hoe de demonstranten op het Tahrirplein zichzelf beschermden tegen de rondvliegende stenen:
Today is my scheduled day of departure from Egypt. As I sit on Cairo airport waiting for my flight to Frankfurt, it is the first time on this trip that regret anything – I regret that I am leaving today and not staying. I have told to every Egyptian I have met today that I am not escaping, just going for my work at the university and returning soon. But perhaps it has been more to convince myself than them. My European friend who like me came here last Monday is staying for another two weeks. My American friend in Imbaba tells that for months, she has been homesick to go to America and see her parents and family again. But now when the US government would even give her a free flight, she says that she cannot go. This is her home, and she is too attached to the people, and especially to her husband. Two days ago, he was arrested on his way back from Tahrir square, held captive for four hours, interrogated, and tortured with electroshocks. He is now more determined than ever. How could she leave him behind? But today is my scheduled departure, and I only intended to come for a week and then return to do what I can to give a balanced idea of the situation in Egypt in the public debates in Germany and Finland. Tomorrow I will give a phone interview to Deutschlandradio (a German news radio), and on Tuesday I will give a talk in Helsinki in Finland. Right now, I feel that maintaining high international pressure on the Egyptian government is going to be crucial, and I will do what I can.
There remains little to be reported about the beginning day in Cairo, but maybe I can try to draw some first conclusion from this week.
The morning in Cairo today was marked by a return to normality everywhere except on Tahrir Square itself, where the demonstrations continue. Now that the streets are full with people again, the fear I felt in the past days on the streets is gone, too. If I stayed, today would be the day when I would again walk through the streets of Cairo, talk with people and feel the atmosphere.
From what I know from this morning’s short excursion in Giza and Dokki, the people remain split, but also ready to change their mind. As my Egyptian friend and I took a taxi to Dokki, the taxi driver was out on the street for the first time since 24 January, and had fully believed what the state television had told him. But as my friend, a journalist, told him what was really going on, the driver amazingly quickly shifted his opinion again, and remembered the old hatred against the oppressive system, the corruption, and the inflation that brought people to the streets last week. A big part of the people here seem impressively willing to change their mind, and if many of those who were out on the streets on 28 January – and also of those who stayed home – have changed their mind in favour of normality in the past days, they do expect things to get better now, and if they don’t, they are likely to change their minds again. This is the impression I also got from the taxi driver who took me to the airport from Dokki. He, too, had not left his house for eleven days, not out of fear for himself, but because he felt that he must stay at home to protect his family. He was very sceptical of what Egyptian television was telling, but he did expect things to get better now. What will he and others like him do if things don’t get better?
As I came to Egypt a week ago I expected that the revolution would follow one of the two courses that were marked by the events of 1989: either a successful transition to democracy by overthrowing of the old regime as happened in eastern Europe, or shooting everybody dead as happened in China. Again, my prediction was wrong (although actually the government did try the Chinese option twice, only unsuccessfully), and now something more complicated is going on.
This is really the question now: Will things get better or not? In other words: Was the revolution a success of a failure? And on what should its success be measured? If it is to be measured on the high spirits and sense of dignity of those who stood firm against the system, it was a success. If it is to be measured by the emotional switch of those who after the Friday of Anger submitted again to the mixture of fear and admiration of the president’s sweet words, it was a failure. If the immense local and international pressure on the Egyptian government will effect sustainable political change, it will be a success. But it will certainly not be an easy success, and very much continuous pressure is needed, as a friend of mine put it in words this morning: “Now, it’s gonna be a long one.”
In Dokki I visited a European-Latin American couple who are determined to stay in Egypt. He was on Tahrir Square on Wednesday night when the thugs attacked the demonstrators, and he spent all night carrying wounded people to the makeshift field hospital. He says: “What really worries me is the possibility that Mubarak goes and is replaced by Omar Suleyman who then sticks to power with American approval. He is the worst of them all.” Just in case, he is trying to get his Latin American girlfriend a visa for Schengen area, because if Omar Suleyman’s campaign against alleged “foreign elements” and “particular agendas” continues, the day may come when they are forced to leave after all.
A few words about the foreigners participating in the revolution need to be said.. Like the Spanish civil war once, so also the Egyptian revolution has moved many foreigners, mostly those living in Egypt since long, to participate in the struggle for democracy. This has been an ambiguous struggle in certain ways, because the state television has exploited the presence of foreigners on Tahrir Square in order to spread quite insane conspiracy theories about foreign agendas behind the democracy movement. The alliance against Egypt, the state television wants to make people believe, is made up of agents of Israel, Hamas, and Iran. That’s about the most insane conspiracy theory I have heard of for a long time. But unfortunately, conspiracy theories do not need to be logical to be convincing. But to step back to the ground of reality, if this revolution has taught me one thing is that the people of Egypt do not need to look up to Europe or America to imagine a better future. They have shown themselves capable of imagining a better future of their own making (with some important help from Tunisia). Compared to our governments with their lip service to democracy and appeasement of dictators, Egyptians have given the world an example in freedom and courage which we all should look up to as an example. This sense of admiration and respect is what has drawn so many foreigners to Tahrir Square in the past days, including myself.
Analysts say a popular president, dreaded security forces and religious diversity make a Syrian revolution unlikely.
AJE staff writer Last Modified: 09 Feb 2011 17:18 GMT
A key factor for stability within Syria is the popularity of President Bashar al-Assad
Despite a wave of protests spreading across the Middle East, so far the revolutionary spirit has failed to reach Syria.
Authoritarian rule, corruption and economic hardship are characteristics Syria share with both Egypt and Tunisia. However, analysts say that in addition to the repressive state apparatus, factors such as a popular president and religious diversity make an uprising in the country unlikely.
Online activists have been urging Syrians to take to the streets but the calls for a “Syrian revolution” last weekend only resulted in some unconfirmed reports of small demonstrations in the mainly Kurdish northeast.
“First of all, I’d argue that people in Syria are a lot more afraid of the government and the security forces than they were in Egypt,” Nadim Houry, a Human Rights Watch researcher based in Lebanon, says.
“The groups who have mobilised in the past in Syria for any kind of popular protest have paid a very heavy price – Kurds back in 2004 when they had their uprising in Qamishli and Islamists in the early 1980s, notably in Hama.”
The so-called Hama massacre, in which the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama in 1982 in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood, is believed to have killed about 20,000 people.
“I think that in the Syrian psyche, the repression of the regime is taken as a given, that if something [protests] would happen the military and the security forces would both line up together. I think that creates a higher threshold of fear.”
Demonstrations are unlawful under the country’s emergency law, and political activists are regularly detained. There are an estimated 4,500 “prisoners of opinion” in Syrian jails, according to the Haitham Maleh Foundation, a Brussels-based Syrian rights organisation.
‘Kingdom of silence’
As pages on Facebook called for demonstrations to be held in cities across Syria in early February, more than 10 activists told Human Rights Watch they were contacted by security services who warned them not to try and mobilise.
“Syria has for many years been a ‘kingdom of silence’,” Suhair Atassi, an activist in Damascus, says, when asked why no anti-government protests were held.
2010 WORLD RANKINGS
Democracy
Corruption
Press freedom
Algeria
125
105
141
Egypt
138
98
130
Jordan
117
50
140
Syria
153
127
178
Tunisia
144
59
186
Yemen
146
146
173
Sources: Economist Intelligence Unit, Transperency International, Freedom House
“Fear is dominating peoples’ lives, despite poverty, starvation and humiliation … When I was on my way to attend a sit-in against [the monopoly of] Syria’s only mobile phone operators, I explained to the taxi driver where I was going and why.
“He told me: ‘Please organise a demonstration against the high cost of diesel prices. The cold is killing us’. I asked him: ‘Are you ready to demonstrate with us against the high diesel price?” He replied ‘I’m afraid of being arrested because I’m the only breadwinner for my family!”
Fawas Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics, says Syria is one of the Middle Eastern countries least likely to be hit by popular protests, because of its power structure.
He says the allegiance of the army in Syria is different than in both Tunisia, where the military quickly became one of the main backers of the president’s ouster, and in Egypt, where the army still has not taken sides.
“The army in Syria is the power structure,” he says. “The armed forces would fight to an end. It would be a bloodbath, literally, because the army would fight to protect not only the institution of the army but the regime itself, because the army and the regime is one and the same.”
Popular president
But even if people dared to challenge the army and the dreaded mukhabarat intelligence service, analysts say the appetite for change of the country’s leadership is not that big.
Many Syrians tend to support Bashar al-Assad, the president who came to power in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, who had ruled the country for 30 years.
“An important factor is that he’s popular among young people,” Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of Syria Comment, says.
“Young people are quite proud of [President al-Assad]. They may not like the system, the regime, they don’t like corruption … but they tend to blame this on the people around him, the ‘old guard'”Joshua Landis, author of Syria Comment
“Unlike Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who’s 83, Bashar al-Assad is young. Young people are quite proud of him. They may not like the regime, they don’t like corruption and a lot of things, but they tend to blame this on the people around him, the ‘old guard’.”
A Syrian student echoes these comments. “The president knows that reform is needed and he is working on it”, she says.
“As for me, I don’t have anything against our president. The main issues which need to be addressed are freedom of speech and expression as well as human rights. I believe that the president and his wife are working on that. New NGOs have started to emerge.
“Also, many things have changed since Bashar came to power, whether it has to do with road construction, salary raises, etc. Even when it comes to corruption, he is trying hard to stop that and limit the use of ‘connections’ by the powerful figures in Syria. However, he won’t be able to dramatically change the country with the blink of an eye.”
Al-Assad’s tough stance towards Israel, with which Syria is technically at war, has also contributed to his popularity, both domestically and in the region.
Multi-religious society
Analysts stress that Syria’s mix of religious communities and ethnic groups differentiates Syria from Egypt and Tunisia, countries which both have largely homogeneous populations. Fearing religious tensions, many Syrians believe that the ruling Baath party’s emphasis on secularism is the best option.
“The regime in Syria presents itself as a buffer for various communities, essentially saying ‘if we go, you will be left to the wolves’,” Houry says. “That gives it ability to mobilise large segments of the population.”
Syria is home to many different religious sects
Sunni Muslims make up about 70 per cent of the 22 million population, but the Alawites, the Shia sect which President al-Assad belongs to, play a powerful role despite being a minority of 10 per cent. Christians and Kurds are other sizable minorities.
Landis says Alawites and Christians tend to be al-Assad’s main supporters.
“If his regime were to fall, many of the Alawites would lose their jobs. And they look back at the times when the Muslim Brotherhood targeted them as nonbelievers and even non-Arabs.
“Then of course the Christians, who are about 10 per cent of the population, are the biggest supporters of al-Assad and the Baath party because it’s secular. They hear horror stories of what has happened in Iraq, about Christians being killed and kidnapped.”
The proximity to Iraq, another ethnically and religiously diverse country, is believed to play a major role in Syria’s scepticism towards democracy and limited hunger for political change. About a million Iraqi refugees have come to Syria since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“The Iraqi refugees are a cautionary tale for Syrians,” Landis says. “They have seen what happens when regime change goes wrong. This has made Syrians very conservative. They don’t trust democracy.”
Parties banned
Syria is essentially a one-party state, ruled by the Baath Party since 1963. Many political groups are banned. But Landis says the lack of political freedom does not appear to be a major concern among the people.
“I’m always astounded how the average guy in the street, the taxi driver, the person you talk to in a restaurant or wherever, they don’t talk about democracy. They complain about corruption, they want justice and equality, but they’ll look at elections in Lebanon and laugh, saying ‘who needs that kind of democracy’?”
“The younger generation has been depoliticised. They don’t belong to parties. They see politics as a danger and they have been taught by their parents to see it as a danger. They look at the violence out there, in places like Iraq.”
Pages on Facebook have calledfor a ‘Syrian day of anger’
Tunisia and Egypt both have a longer tradition of civil society and political parties than Syria and Landis describes the Syrian opposition as “notoriously mute”.
“In some ways, being pro-American has forced Egypt to allow for greater civil society, while Syria has been quite shut off from the West,” he says. “The opposition in Syria is very fragmented. The Kurds can usually get together in the biggest numbers but there are 14 Kurdish parties … And the human rights leaders – half of them are in jail and others have been in jail for a long time.”
Facebook sites calling for protests to be held in Syria on February 4 and 5 got about 15,000 fans but failed to mobilise demonstrators for a “day of anger”. In fact, countercampaigns set up online in favour of the government garnered as much support.
Ribal al-Assad, an exiled cousin of President al-Assad and the director of the London-based Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, said the people calling for protests were all based abroad and he is not surprised that nothing happened inside Syria.
“The campaign was a bit outrageous. First, they’ve chosen a date that reminds people of the uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood [the 29th anniversary of the Hama massacre],” he says.
“People don’t want to be reminded of the past. They want change, they want freedom, but they want it peacefully. And the picture they used on Facebook, a clenched fist and red colour like blood behind, it was like people calling for civil war and who in his right mind wants that?
“But of course people want change, because there is poverty, corruption, people get arrested without warrants, the government refuses to disclose their whereabouts for months. They are sentenced following unfair trials, a lot of times with stupid sentences such as ‘weakening the nation’s morale’ for saying ‘we want freedom and democracy’. But the only one weakening the nations moral is the government itself.”
‘Not holding hands with Israel’
One Syrian who became a “fan” of a Facebook page opposed to protesting says he cannot imagine, and does not want, Egyptian-style anti-government rallies to spread to Syria.
“I love Syria and I don’t want to see people fighting. I can’t imagine the events occuring in Egypt to happen in Syria because we really love our president, not because they teach us to love him,” he says.
“In the formation of ministries, he’s made use of 100 per cent talent with the multiplicity of religions. There are not Alawites only. There are also Sunnis and Kurds and Christians. The president is married to Asmaa and she is Sunni. He shows the people we are brothers.
“The Syrians, like any other Arab household today, have their TVs turned on to Al Jazeera. They’re seeing what’s happening in Tunisia and Egypt. Freedom is an infectious feeling and I think people will want more freedom”Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch
“And he is the only president in the Arab region that did not accept any offers from Israel, like other presidents. I, and most Syrians, if not all, can’t accept a president who will hold hands with Israel.”
As in Egypt and Tunisia, unemployment in Syria is high. The official jobless rate is about 10 per cent, but analysts say that double is a more realistic estimate. According to a Silatech report based on a Gallup survey last year, 32 per cent of young Syrians said they were neither in the workforce nor students.
Since the current president took office, the Syrian economic system has slowly moved away from socialism towards capitalism. Markets have opened up to foreign companies and the GDP growth rate is expected to reach 5.5 per cent by 2011.
Last year, the average Syrian montly salary was 13,500SP ($290), an increase of six per cent over the previous year, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
But like in some other countries in the region, state subsidies have been slashed on various staples, including heating oil, and analysts say the poor are feeling the pinch.
“The bottom half of Syrians spend half of their income on food. Now, wheat and sugar prices have gone up in the last two years by almost 50 per cent,” Landis says.
“Syria is moving towards capitalism. This has resulted in a greater growth rate but it’s expanding income gaps. It’s attracting foreign investment and the top 10 per cent are beginning to earn real salaries on an international scale because they’re working for these new banks and in new industries. But the bottom 50 per cent are falling because they’re on fixed incomes and they get hit by inflation, reduced subsidies on goods, coupled with the fact that Syria’s water scarcity is going through the roof.”
However, Forward Magazine recently quoted Shafek Arbach, director of the Syrian Bureau of Statistics, as saying there is nothing in new data to suggest a growing gap between the rich and the poor in Syria.
‘Reforms needed’
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal late January, President al-Assad acknowledged the need for Syria to reform and but also said his country is “immune” from the kind of unrest seen in Tunisia and Egypt.
“We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people’s beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance,” he said.
But Ribal al-Assad says it is obvious that the government is worried in the light of the discontent and anger spreading in the Middle East.
“Right after the Tunisian uprising they reduced the price for ‘mazot’ for the heating. They were supposed to bring up the price of medicines but then they didn’t. They distributed some aid to over 450,000 families. And, today we’re hearing that Facebook has been unblocked. They should have started this process a long time ago but better late than never.”
Houry says the lesson from Tunisia, which has been hailed as an economic role model in North Africa, is that economic reform on its own does not work.
“It will be interesting to watch how things are going to unfold over the coming few months,” he says. “The Syrians, like any other Arab household today, have their TVs turned on to Al Jazeera. They’re seeing what’s happening in Tunisia and Egypt. Freedom is an infectious feeling and I think people will want more freedom.”
Ben Ali might be gone but it is still unclear how much social and economic transformation will take place.
Yasmine Ryan in Tunis Last Modified: 08 Feb 2011 05:42 GMT
Did the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali amount to a genuine revolution? Three weeks after Tunisia’s president of 23 years, facing public protests, fled to Saudi Arabia, this is a question that ordinary people are still grappling with.Though the Ben Ali regime may be going, or gone, it is unclear to what extent the political changes will lead to the decisive social and economic transformations that protesters have been calling for – particularly in the marginalised central and southern regions.Yet the social transformations that are taking place on the streets of Tunis, whether in the commercial downtown area or the bourgeois eastern suburbs or the poorest suburbs, are undeniable.After a quiet Sunday, central Tunis was again abuzz with a steady flutter of micro-protests – once inconceivable, now daily – as the week began anew on Monday.A crowd gathered around a man who, seated on the sidewalk of Avenue Habib Bourgeiba, busily draw political drawings.Across the avenue, spray painted messages read “Thank you Facebook” and “Tunisia democratic and secular”.A group of young women approach, asking if I am a journalist. They work for the municipal council and will be holding their own protest for better salaries and employment conditions.”Come to the Casbah tomorrow at 9am to show solidarity!” they ask.Opulent lifestylesIn Gammarth, an eastern suburb which some of the most notorious members of the Trabelsi and Ben Ali families called home until less than a month ago, a steady flow of curious Tunisians are coming to see the ruins of the opulent lifestyle that their rulers led behind closed doors.Ali Abdirazak, a Tunisian who lives in Paris, was doing a round of the ravaged houses with a carload of friends on Monday afternoon.”I’ve been living it on the internet,” Abdirazak said, standing inside Mourad Trabelsi’s former living room.A man and his mother walked back to their car with souvenirs they had taken from the house.”We have always driven by this house but we had no idea how extravagant it was inside, he said, carrying a white slab of marble under one arm.”I’m keeping this for my children, to show them what the people can achieve.”The end of the Trabelsi era has also brought change in nearby Bhar Lazreg, one of the capital’s poorest suburbs.Bhar Lazreg was the stomping ground of Imed Trabelsi, the former first lady’s nephew who is the subject of an international arrest warrant for his financial dealings.
Aside from his yacht- and car-stealing activities in Europe, Imed Trabelsi and his associates terrorised the impoverished inhabitants of Bhar Lazreg.
Alcohol stand
One of the symbols of Trabelsi’s tyranny was an illegal alcohol stand that people Al Jazeera spoke with said shamelessly exploited their misery.
Now, the locals have shut down the black-market stand for good, and all that remains of the gutted building are its ashes. Few appeared sorry to see it go.
“Everyone felt it was an intrusion, there were always drunk people in the street causing problems,” Abdelkarim Ayouni, a local man, said.
People here have been able to reclaim land that had been “confiscated” from them.
Trabelsi family members used fraudulent papers to trump land deeds here, as they did across the country. Corrupt [or fearful] officials would ignored legal documents, rendering locals landless without hesitation.
There is a flurry of building as people take back their land.
The army came in to restore order in late January, ensuring that those taking back land were the legitimate owners.
Source:
Al Jazeera
Een betoog van Roel Meijer op Closer, waar ik mij zeer in kan vinden:
Egypte en het gelijk van de islambashers
9 February 2011 15 views No Comment
Guest Author: Roel Meijer
De Nederlandse islambashers, zoals Hans Jansen, moeten de afgelopen twee weken zich achter hun oren hebben gekrabd. Is het dan toch mogelijk dat moslims even vergeten zijn dat ze moslims zijn? Dat ze zo maar in opstand komen tegen een regime? Dat ze niet zoals altijd slaafs de bevelen van machthebbers volgen? Zijn Egyptenaren niet vergeten dat ze a) inherent passief zijn, dom, traditioneel, of nog liever, b) radicaal, haatdragend, antiwesters en gewelddadig? In plaats daarvan zijn de afgelopen twaalf dagen honderdduizenden mensen vreedzaam de straat opgegaan en hebben burgerrechten geëist: transparantie, gelijke rechten, eerlijke verkiezingen en een eind aan corruptie. Rationeler—lees westers volgens de islambashers—kan het niet.
Maar gelukkig duurde het niet lang of de critici hadden een verklaring voor dit merkwaardige fenomeen dat al hun vaststaande ideeën over moslims bevestigde. De demonstraties zijn geen inleiding tot hervormingen, maar een voorbode van een islamitische revolutie die moet leiden tot het aan de macht komen van de politieke islam, vertegenwoordigd door de Moslim Broederschap, die gezien wordt als de bron van het islamitische terrorisme. Daarmee waren de gebeurtenissen weer makkelijk te duiden in het apocalyptische wereldbeeld van de islamhaters die de islam zien als het pure kwaad, de antithese van het verlichtingsideaal dat de demonstranten eigenlijk vertegenwoordigden.
Eigenlijk spreken die islamhaters zichzelf op fundamentele wijze tegen. Hun gedachtegang is namelijk fundamenteel in tegenspraak met het zichzelf toegeëigende monopolie van de islamhaters op verlichting, namelijk dat je open staat voor nieuwe informatie en niet alles meteen in een goed-kwaad sjabloon plaatst. In plaats daarvan houden ze er een soortgelijke redenering op na als die van Mubarak: mij of de chaos. In feite stellen zij zich aan de kant van de autoritaire staat. Tegelijkertijd is dit ook de redenatie van Israel, die alleen interesse toont voor regimes in de regio die het vredesverdrag naleven; wat ze doen met de eigen bevolking is verder van weinig belang.
de afgelopen jaren heeft beweerd (die bijdrage gaat nog komen). Maar wel opmerkelijk dat hij de PVV vergelijkt met de demonstranten op het Tahrirplein en Konigin Beatrix, die niet zo dol is op Wilders, met Meneer Mubarak. Denk niet dat er ik hier veel aandacht aan hoef te besteden. Wat je ook van Jansens fratsen mag vinden, hij solliciteert in ieder geval niet naar een lintje :). Wel wil ik hier nog een keertje wijzen op zijn genante optreden in Pauw & Witteman, in debat met Joris Luijendijk. Een uitgebreide beschouwing volgt later. Treurig vind ik het overigens wel. In 2001 heb ik in Leiden nog een vakje bij hem gevolgd en in de pauzes stonden wij regelmatig samen een sigaret weg te paffen. In die tijd heeft hij me veel interessants over het Midden Oosten verteld, waar ik hem nog altijd dankbaar voor ben. Ik heb er toen veel van opgestoken en bovendien is het ook (naar studenten althans) een hele aardige man en kun je ook erg met hem lachen. Gevoel voor humor heeft hij zeker, al vind ik veel van zijn recente bijdragen eerder hysterisch dan grappig. Maar de Jansen van toen was toch een hele andere dan de Jansen van nu.
Tot zover Hans Jansen. Terug naar belangrijker zaken.
Suleiman, a friend to the US and reported torturer, has long been touted as a presidential successor.
Lisa Hajjar Last Modified: 07 Feb 2011 14:10 GMT
Suleiman meets with Israeli president Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv, November 2010 [Getty]
On January 29, Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s top spy chief, was anointed vice president by tottering dictator, Hosni Mubarak. By appointing Suleiman, part of a shake-up of the cabinet in an attempt to appease the masses of protesters and retain his own grip on the presidency, Mubarak has once again shown his knack for devilish shrewdness. Suleiman has long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism, his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran – and he has long been the CIA’s main man in Cairo.
Mubarak knew that Suleiman would command an instant lobby of supporters at Langley and among ‘Iran nexters’ in Washington – not to mention among other authoritarian mukhabarat-dependent regimes in the region. Suleiman is a favourite of Israel too; he held the Israel dossier and directed Egypt’s efforts to crush Hamas by demolishing the tunnels that have functioned as a smuggling conduit for both weapons and foodstuffs into Gaza.
According to a WikiLeak(ed) US diplomatic cable, titled ‘Presidential Succession in Egypt’, dated May 14, 2007:
“Egyptian intelligence chief and Mubarak consigliere, in past years Soliman was often cited as likely to be named to the long-vacant vice-presidential post. In the past two years, Soliman has stepped out of the shadows, and allowed himself to be photographed, and his meetings with foreign leaders reported. Many of our contacts believe that Soliman, because of his military background, would at least have to figure in any succession scenario.”
From 1993 until Saturday, Suleiman was chief of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service. He remained largely in the shadows until 2001, when he started taking over powerful dossiers in the foreign ministry; he has since become a public figure, as the WikiLeak document attests. In 2009, he was touted by the London Telegraph and Foreign Policy as the most powerful spook in the region, topping even the head of Mossad.
In the mid-1990s, Suleiman worked closely with the Clinton administration in devising and implementing its rendition program; back then, rendition involved kidnapping suspected terrorists and transferring them to a third country for trial. In The Dark Side, Jane Mayer describes how the rendition program began:
“Each rendition was authorised at the very top levels of both governments [the US and Egypt] … The long-serving chief of the Egyptian central intelligence agency, Omar Suleiman, negotiated directly with top [CIA] officials. [Former US Ambassador to Egypt Edward] Walker described the Egyptian counterpart, Suleiman, as ‘very bright, very realistic’, adding that he was cognisant that there was a downside to ‘some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way’. (p. 113).
“Technically, US law required the CIA to seek ‘assurances’ from Egypt that rendered suspects wouldn’t face torture. But under Suleiman’s reign at the EGIS, such assurances were considered close to worthless. As Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer [head of the al-Qaeda desk], who helped set up the practise of rendition, later testified, even if such ‘assurances’ were written in indelible ink, ‘they weren’t worth a bucket of warm spit’.”
Under the Bush administration, in the context of “the global war on terror”, US renditions became “extraordinary”, meaning the objective of kidnapping and extra-legal transfer was no longer to bring a suspect to trial – but rather for interrogation to seek actionable intelligence. The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites – and others were turned over for torture-by-proxy to other regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt’s torturer-in-chief. At least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt — Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib — was reportedly tortured by Suleiman himself.
Suleiman the torturer
In October 2001, Habib was seized from a bus by Pakistani security forces. While detained in Pakistan, at the behest of American agents, he was suspended from a hook and electrocuted repeatedly. He was then turned over to the CIA, and in the process of transporting him to Egypt he endured the usual treatment: his clothes were cut off, a suppository was stuffed in his anus, he was put into a diaper – and ‘wrapped up like a spring roll’.
In Egypt, as Habib recounts in his memoir, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, he was repeatedly subjected to electric shocks, immersed in water up to his nostrils and beaten. His fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. At one point, his interrogator slapped him so hard that his blindfold was dislodged, revealing the identity of his tormentor: Suleiman.
Frustrated that Habib was not providing useful information or confessing to involvement in terrorism, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a shackled prisoner in front of Habib, which he did with a vicious karate kick. In April 2002, after five months in Egypt, Habib was rendered to American custody at Bagram prison in Afghanistan – and then transported to Guantanamo. On January 11, 2005, the day before he was scheduled to be charged, Dana Priest of the Washington Post published an exposé about Habib’s torture. The US government immediately announced that he would not be charged and would be repatriated to Australia.
A far more infamous torture case, in which Suleiman also is directly implicated, is that of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. Unlike Habib, who was innocent of any ties to terror or militancy, al-Libi was allegedly a trainer at al-Khaldan camp in Afghanistan. He was captured by the Pakistanis while fleeing across the border in November 2001. He was sent to Bagram, and questioned by the FBI. But the CIA wanted to take over, which they did, and he was transported to a black site on the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea, then extraordinarily rendered to Egypt. Under torture there, al-Libi “confessed” knowledge about an al-Qaeda–Saddam connection, claiming that two al-Qaeda operatives had received training in Iraq for use in chemical and biological weapons. In early 2003, this was exactly the kind of information that the Bush administration was seeking to justify attacking Iraq and to persuade reluctant allies to go along. Indeed, al-Libi’s “confession” was one the central pieces of “evidence” presented at the United Nations by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to make the case for war.
As it turns out, that confession was a lie tortured out of him by Egyptians. Here is how former CIA chief George Tenet describes the whole al-Libi situation in his 2007 memoir, At The Center Of The Storm:
“We believed that al-Libi was withholding critical threat information at the time, so we transferred him to a third country for further debriefing. Allegations were made that we did so knowing that he would be tortured, but this is false. The country in question [Egypt] understood and agreed that they would hold al-Libi for a limited period. In the course of questioning while he was in US custody in Afghanistan, al-Libi made initial references to possible al-Qa’ida training in Iraq. He offered up information that a militant known as Abu Abdullah had told him that at least three times between 1997 and 2000, the now-deceased al-Qa’ida leader Mohammad Atef had sent Abu Abdullah to Iraq to seek training in poisons and mustard gas.
“Another senior al-Qa’ida detainee told us that Mohammad Atef was interested in expanding al-Qa’ida’s ties to Iraq, which, in our eyes, added credibility to the reporting. Then, shortly after the Iraq war got under way, al-Libi recanted his story. Now, suddenly, he was saying that there was no such cooperative training. Inside the CIA, there was sharp division on his recantation. It led us to recall his reporting, and here is where the mystery begins.
“Al-Libi’s story will no doubt be that he decided to fabricate in order to get better treatment and avoid harsh punishment. He clearly lied. We just don’t know when. Did he lie when he first said that al-Qa’ida members received training in Iraq – or did he lie when he said they did not? In my mind, either case might still be true. Perhaps, early on, he was under pressure, assumed his interrogators already knew the story, and sang away. After time passed and it became clear that he would not be harmed, he might have changed his story to cloud the minds of his captors. Al-Qa’ida operatives are trained to do just that. A recantation would restore his stature as someone who had successfully confounded the enemy. The fact is, we don’t know which story is true, and since we don’t know, we can assume nothing. (pp. 353-354)”
Al-Libi was eventually sent off, quietly, to Libya – though he reportedly made a few other stops along the way – where he was imprisoned. The use of al-Libi’s statement in the build-up to the Iraq war made him a huge American liability once it became clear that the purported al-Qaeda–Saddam connection was a tortured lie. His whereabouts were, in fact, a secret for years, until April 2009 when Human Rights Watch researchers investigating the treatment of Libyan prisoners encountered him in the courtyard of a prison. Two weeks later, on May 10, al-Libi was dead, and the Gaddafi regime claimed it was a suicide.
According to Evan Kohlmann, who enjoys favoured status among US officials as an ‘al-Qaeda expert’, citing a classified source: ‘Al-Libi’s death coincided with the first visit by Egypt’s spymaster Omar Suleiman to Tripoli.’
Kohlmann surmises and opines that, after al-Libi recounted his story about about an al-Qaeda–Saddam-WMD connection, “The Egyptians were embarassed by this admission – and the Bush government found itself in hot water internationally. Then, in May 2009, Omar Suleiman saw an opportunity to get even with al-Libi and travelled to Tripoli. By the time Omar Suleiman’s plane left Tripoli, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi had committed ‘suicide’.”
As people in Egypt and around the world speculate about the fate of the Mubarak regime, one thing should be very clear: Omar Suleiman is not the man to bring democracy to the country. His hands are too dirty, and any ‘stability’ he might be imagined to bring to the country and the region comes at way too high a price. Hopefully, the Egyptians who are thronging the streets and demanding a new era of freedom will make his removal from power part of their demands, too.
Lisa Hajjar teaches sociology at the University of California – Santa Barbara and is a co-editor of Jadaliyya.
Suleiman considers the business fraternity friendly, but it is the nation’s women and youth who are driving the unrest.
Paul Amar Last Modified: 10 Feb 2011 12:30 GMT
Women have been at the heart of organising protests in Tahrir Square [Getty]
On February 6, 2011, Egypt’s hastily appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, invited in the old guard – or what we could call the Businessman’s Wing of the Muslim Brotherhood into a stately meeting in the polished rosewood cabinet chamber of Mubarak’s presidential palace. The aim of their tea party was to discuss some kind of accord that would end the national uprising and restore “normalcy”. When news of the meeting broke, expressions of delight and terror tore through the blogosphere. Was the nightmare scenario of both the political left and right about to be realised? Would the US/Israel surrogate Suleiman merge his military-police apparatus with the power of the more conservative branch of the old Islamist social movement? Hearing the news, Iran’s supreme leader sent his congratulations. And in the US, Glenn Beck and John McCain ranted with glee about world wars and the inevitable rise of the cosmic caliphate.
On that same day, an unnamed White House official told the Associated Press that any “academic type” who did not focus on the Muslim Brotherhood and see them as the principle actor in this drama “was full of sh*t”. The White House seemed to believe that Suleiman, chief of Egypt’s intelligence services, was the kind of keen mind they could depend on. Suleiman’s brand of “intelligence” was on display in his interview on February 3, in which he traced the cause of Egypt’s uprising to a conspiracy coordinated by a united front of Israel with Hamas, al-Qaeda with Anderson Cooper. Is it true that Suleiman also has a dossier revealing the sinister role played in all this by “Simpsons” character C Montgomery Burns?
One fraction of one faction
In reality, the Suleiman-Brotherhood tea party turned out to be nothing more than another stunt staged by Nile TV News. This once-interesting cable service was transformed in the past week into a rather Murdochian propaganda unit, whose productions are run by the artistic genius of Mubarak’s presidential guards. Images of the Suleiman-Brotherhood tete-a-tete were broadcast at a time when Suleiman’s legitimacy and sanity were appearing increasingly shaky within Egypt – and when this particular sub-group of the Brotherhood, who represent only one fraction of one faction of the opposition, was trying to leverage an unlikely comeback.
As reporters obsessed over which Brother was sitting with Suleiman, they continued to ignore or misapprehend the continuing and growing power of the movements that had started this uprising. Many progressives continued to think that the US was conspiring with Suleiman to crush all hope – as if America’s puny $1.5 bn in aid (which all must be recycled as purchases from US military suppliers anyway) really dictates policy for a regime that makes multi-billion dollar deals with Russia, China and Brazil every month – and that has channelled an estimated $40-70 bn into Mubarak’s personal accounts.
Proving Nile TV and the pessimists wrong, 1.5 million people turned out on February 7 – the biggest mobilisation so far in this uprising. Commentators focusing on the Brothers had completely missed the real news of the past two days. The ruling NDP party leadership had been savaged from within. In a desperate attempt to salvage his phantom authority, Mubarak had tossed his son Gamal and a whole class of US-linked businessmen to the lions, forcing them to resign and freezing their assets. And at the same time, Egyptian newspaper El-Masry El-Youm reported that the Muslim Brothers’ Youth and Women’s Wings split from the main Brotherhood organisation – to join the leftist April 6 Movement. The men sitting around Suleiman’s table were left without much of a movement behind them.
Below I trace the declining power of the economic and moral politics of this “Businessman’s Wing” of the Brotherhood. I map the ascendant socio-political power of a new national-development-oriented coalition of businessmen and military entrepreneurs, as well as the decisive force of micro-enterprise and workers’ organisations consisting of women and youth – a force that portends well for the future of democracy and socio-economic inclusion in Egypt.
Bands of Brothers
The Muslim Brothers are not a marginal force in Egypt. They are very well organised in every city – and can be credited with providing health, education, legal aid and disaster relief to citizens ignored or neglected by the state. But they are not Egypt’s equivalent of Hezbollah or Hamas. As Mona El-Ghobashy has described, in the 1990s the Society of Muslim Brothers made a definite break, abandoning its secretive, hierarchical, sharia-focused form. Today the Brotherhood is a well-organised political party – officially banned but occasionally tolerated. In the past twenty years, it has made significant inroads in parliament via alliances with other parties and by running independent candidates.
The Brothers now fully support political pluralism, women’s participation in politics and the role of Christians and communists as full citizens. However, with the rise of other competing labour, liberal and human-rights movements in Egypt in the 2000s, what one can call the “new old guard” of the Brotherhood – those that emerged in the 1980s – have retained a primary focus on cultural, moral and identity politics. Moral-cultural conservatism is still seen by this group as what distinguishes the Brotherhood from other parties – a fact they confirmed by appointing a rigid social conservative, Muhammad Badeea, as leader in 2010.
This turn was rejected by women and youth in the movement. This socially conservative leaning thus brings the “new old guard” more in line with the moralistic paternalism of Mubarak’s government – and set them against the trajectory of new youth, women’s and labour movements. This leads to new possibilities of splits in this organisation or for exciting revitalisation and reinvention of the Brotherhood – as Youth and Women’s wings feel drawn toward the April 6 coalition.
The moral-cultural traditionalist wing of the “new old guard”, is composed of professional syndicate leaders and wealthy businessmen. In the 1950s-80s, the movement regrouped and represented frustrated elements of the national bourgeoisie. But this class of people has largely been swept up into new opportunities and left the organisation. The “new old guard” of the Brotherhood’s business wing has started to look like a group of retired Shriners, except that in the Middle East, Shriners have stopped wearing fez.
In the past ten years, this political force of this particular wing has been partially co-opted by Mubarak’s government from two angles. First, Brothers were allowed to enter parliament as independent candidates and have been allowed to participate in the recent economic boom. The senior Brothers now own major cell phone companies and real estate developments – and have been absorbed into the NDP machine and upper-middle class establishment for years. Second, the government wholly appropriated the Brotherhood’s moral discourse.
For the past ten or fifteen years Mubarak’s police-state has stirred moral panics and waved the banner of Islam, attacking single working women, homosexuals, devil-worshipping internet users, trash-recycling pig farmers, rent-control squatters – as well as Bahai, Christian and Shia minorities. In its morality crusades, the Mubarak government burned books, harassed women, and excommunicated college professors. Thus, we can say that Egypt has already experienced rule by an extremely narrow Islamist state – Mubarak’s. Egyptians tried out that kind of regime. And they hated it.
In recent years, as described in the work of Saba Mahmood and Asef Bayat, people have grown disgusted by Mubarak’s politicisation of Islam. Egyptians began to reclaim Islam as a project of personal self-governance, ethical piety, and social solidarity. This trend explicitly rejects the political orientation of Islam and explicitly separates itself both from Brotherhood activities and Mubarak’s morality crusades.
The military as a populist middle class
At one time, the Muslim Brotherhood represented frustrated, marginalised elements of the middle class. But that story is so 1986! Now there are a wide range of secular – but not anti-religious – groupings that represent emergent economic patterns within the country. Moreover, these groups are swept up in a whirlwind of new political-economic energies coming from new or renewed world influences and investors – Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Israel, Dubai, China, Turkey, and Brazil – as well as the return of remittance flows into the country, as Egyptian professionals got swept up in the Emirates’ building and development boom.
In the context of this new multi-dimensional globalisation, in which East/West divides and post-colonial patterns are radically remade, the military has come to be one of the more interesting economic mediators and success stories. The Egyptian military is one of the most interesting and misunderstood economic actors in the country.
The military’s economic interests are split in interesting ways. Since the military has been prevented by the Camp David treaty from making war, it has instead used its sovereignty over huge swathes of desert and coastal property to develop shopping malls, gated cities and beach resorts – catering to rich and modest Egyptians, local and international consumers and tourists. Their position vis-a-vis the uprising is thus complicated.
They hated the rapacious capitalists around Gamal Mubarak, who sold off national lands, assets and resources to US and European corporations. But the military also wants tourists, shoppers and investors to consume in their multi-billion dollar resorts and venues. The military identifies very strongly with representing and protecting “the people” – but also wants the people to go home and stop scaring away tourists. The military will continue to mobilise this in-between position in interesting ways in the coming years.
Suleiman’s General Intelligence Services are nominally part of the military – but are institutionally quite separate. Intelligence is dependent on foreign patrons, primarily Israel and the US, and are looked on skeptically by Egyptians. But the Air Force and Army are quite grounded in the economic and social interests of national territory. The army’s role in countering Suleiman’s lust for repression was crucial to saving the momentum of this uprising.
On February 4, the day of the most terrifying police/thug brutality in Tahrir Square, many commentators noted that the military were trying to stop the thug attacks but were not being very forceful or aggressive. Was this a sign that the military really wanted the protesters to be crushed? Since then, we have learned that the military in the square were not provisioned with bullets. The military were trying as best they could to battle the police/thugs – but Suleiman had taken away their bullets for fear the military would side with the protesters and use the ammunition to overthrow him.
Bullets or no, the military displaced the police, who had stripped off their uniforms and regressed into bands of thugs. Security in Cairo’s public spaces has been taken over by the military – and in residential quarters we witnessed the return of a 21st century version of futuwwa groups. As Wilson Jacob has described, in the 19th century futuwwa were icons of working-class national identity and community solidarity in Egypt.
Futuwwa were organised groups of young men who defended craft guilds and the working-class neighbourhoods of Cairo. But the futuwwa reborn on February 1, 2011 are called Peoples’ Committees and include men of all classes and ages – and a few women with butcher’s knives, too. They stake out every street corner, vigilant for police and state-funded thugs who would try to arrest, intimidate or loot residents. Given the threat of sexualised physical violence from Mubarak’s police/thugs, there is a gender dimension to this re-imagining and redeployment of security and military power during this uprising. In the first days of the uprising we saw huge numbers of women participating in the revolt.
Then the police/thugs started targeting women in particularly horrifying ways – molesting, detaining, raping. And when the police were driven back, the military and the futuwwa groups took over and insisted that “protecting” the people from thugs involved filtering women and children out of Tahrir and excluding them from public space. But women in this revolt have insisted that they are not victims who need protection, they are the leading core of this movement. On February 7, women’s groups – including the leftist April 6 national labour movement, as well as anti-harassment, civil rights groups and the Women’s Wing of the Brotherhood reemerged in force in downtown Cairo – by the hundreds of thousands.
Gutting Gamal’s globalisation
On January 28, the headquarters of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party burned down – and with it, Mubarak’s substantive authority turned to ashes. The rising military and national-capital interests then spat on those ashes on February 5. On that day, they ensured that Gamal Mubarak would resign as head of the NDP’s political office. In his place, Dr Hosam Badrawy was named the new Secretary-General of the party.
The choice of Badrawy reflects the direction the winds are now blowing. Badrawy holds the dubious honour of being the man who founded Egypt’s first private-sector healthcare HMO in 1989. All Egyptians are constitutionally guaranteed access to free, universal health care. But Mubarak, under orders from the IMF, made draconian cuts to the public health service – beginning in the 1980s. Badrawy has championed the privatisation of health care – and has created a national private health care industry with significant capital and legitimacy.
This industry is threatened by global competition and describes itself in nationalist, paternalist tones. Gamal Mubarak served as a vehicle for foreign investment and posed a threat to businessmen such as Badrawy. Badrawy in the past also served as the director of the NDP’s human rights organisation, a particularly contradictory job to hold during a time of mass repression and torture.
Naguib Sawiris, the self-proposed chair of the “Transitional Council of Wise Men”, is similar in some ways to Badrawy. Sawiris is a patriotic, successful nationalist businessman. Sawiris heads the largest private-sector company in Egypt, Orascom. This firm has built railways, beach resorts, gated-cities, highways, telecom systems, wind farms, condos and hotels. He is a major Arab world and Mediterranean region financier.
He is also the banner carrier for Egypt’s developmentalist nationalists. On February 4, Sawiris released a statement proposing a council of wise men who would oversee Suleiman and the police – and who would lead Egypt through the transition. The proposed council would be a so-called “neutral, technocratic” body that would include Sawiris, along with a couple of non-ideological members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s business wing, some strategic-studies experts, and a Nobel Prize winner. Would this Nobel winner be Mohammed ElBaradei, the peace laureate and opposition leader? Nope. They had found an Egyptian laureate in organic chemistry.
Women, micro-businesses and workers
In the context of the relationships described above, we can understand why we witnessed, in the first week of February, the emergence of a coalition around nationalist businessmen in alliance with the military – a military who also act like nationalist middle-class businessmen themselves. This group ejected the “crony globalisers” and “barons of privatisation” surrounding Gamal Mubarak. Would this group then cement their hold on power, to rule the country with Suleiman as their hammer? No. Other massive social forces were also at work. They are well organised. Legitimacy, organisation, new vision and economic power are in their hands. The new nationalist business-military bloc cannot develop the country without their participation and mobilisation.
It is crucial to remember that this uprising did not begin with the Muslim Brotherhood or with nationalist businessmen. This revolt began gradually at the convergence of two parallel forces: the movement for workers’ rights in the newly revived factory towns and micro-sweatshops of Egypt – especially during the past two years – and the movement against police brutality and torture that mobilised every community in the country for the past three years. Both movements feature the leadership and mass participation of women of all ages and youth of both genders. There are structural reasons for this.
First, the passion of workers that began this uprising does not stem from their marginalisation and poverty; rather, it stems from their centrality to new development processes and dynamics. In the very recent past, Egypt has reemerged as a manufacturing country, although under the most stressful and dynamic of conditions. Egypt’s workers are mobilised because new factories are being built in the context of a flurry of contentious global investment. Several Russian free-trade zones and manufacturing settlements have opened up, and China has invested in all parts of the Egyptian economy.
Brazil, Turkey, the Central Asian Republics and the Gulf Emirates are diversifying their investments. They are moving out of the oil sector and real estate and into manufacturing, piece-goods, informatics, infrastructure etc. Factories all over Egypt have been dusted off and reopened, or new ones built. And all those shopping malls, gated cities, highways and resorts have to be built and staffed by someone. In the Gulf, developers use Bangladeshi, Philippine and other expatriate labour. But Egypt usually uses its own workers. And many of the workers in Egypt’s revived textile industries and piece-work shops are women.
If you stroll up the staircases into the large working-class apartment buildings in the margins of Cairo or the cement-block constructions of the villages, you’ll see workshops full of women, making purses and shoes – and putting together toys and computer circuitboards for sale in Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf. These shop workers joined with factory workers to found the April 6 movement in 2008. They were the ones who began the organisation and mobilisation process that led to this uprising in 2011, whose eruption was triggered by Asmaa Mahfouz circulating a passionate YouTube video and tens of thousands of leaflets by hand in slum areas of Cairo on January 24, 2011. Ms Mahfouz, a political organiser with an MBA from Cairo University, called people to protest the next day. And the rest is history.
The economic gender and class landscape of Egypt’s micro-businesses has been politicised and mobilised in very dynamic ways, again with important gender and sexual dimensions. Since the early 1990s, Egypt has cut back welfare and social services to working-class and lower-middle-class Egyptians. In place of food subsidies and jobs they have offered debt. Micro-credit loans were given, with the IMF and World Bank’s enthusiastic blessing, to stimulate entrepreneurship and self-reliance. These loans were often specifically targeted toward women and youth.
Since economically disadvantaged applicants have no collateral to guarantee these loans, payback is enforced by criminal law rather than civil law. This means that your body is your collateral. The police extract pain and humiliation if you do not pay your bill. Thus the micro-enterprise system has become a massive set of police rackets and “loan shark” operations. Police sexualised brutalisation of youth and women became central to the “regulation” of the massive small-business economy.
In this context, the micro-business economy is a tough place to operate – but it does shape women and youth into tough survivors who see themselves as an organised force opposed to the police state. No one waxes on about the blessings of the market’s invisible hand. Thus the economic interests of this mass class of micro-entrepreneurs are the basis for the huge and passionate anti-police brutality movement. It is no coincidence that the movement became a national force two years ago with the brutal police murder of a youth, Khalid Said, who was typing away in a small internet cafe that he partially owned. Police demanded ID and a bribe from him; he refused – and the police beat him to death, crushing his skull to pieces while the whole community watched in horror.
Police demanding bribes, harassing micro-businesses – and beating those who refuse to submit – became standard practise in Egypt. Internet cafes, small workshops, call-centres, video-game cafes, microbuses, washing/ironing shops and small gyms constitute the landscape of micro-enterprises that are the jobs base and social world of Egypt’s lower middle classes. The so-called “Facebook revolution” is not about people mobilising in virtual space; it is about Egyptian internet cafes and the youth and women they represent, in real social spaces and communities, utilising the cyberspace bases they have built and developed to serve their revolt.
The Egyptian Difference
In the case of the Iranian Revolution in the 1970s, the “bazaaris of Tehran” – the medium-sized merchants and shop owners – ended up serving as the crucial “swing vote”, moving the Iranian Revolution from left to right, from a socialist uprising toward the founding of an Islamic republic. In the case of Egypt, the social and political force of women and youth micro-entrepreneurs will lead history in the opposite direction. These groups have a highly developed and complex view of the moral posturing of some Islamists – and they have a very clear socio-economic agenda, which appeals to the dynamic youth wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The progressive groups have a linked network of enterprises, factories, identities and passions. They would go to any length to prevent the reemergence of police brutality and moral hypocrisy that have ruled them for the past generation. The women and youth behind theses micro-businesses, and the workers in the new Russian, Chinese, Brazilian, Gulf and Egyptian-financed factories seem to be united. And they grow more so each day.
Micro-entrepreneurs, new workers’ groups, and massive anti-police brutality organisations obviously do not share the same class position as Sawiris and Badrawi and the rich men in the “Council of the Wise”. Nevertheless, there are significant overlaps and affinities between the interests and politics of nationalist development-oriented groups, the newly entrepreneurial military – and the vitally well-organised youth and women’s social movements. This confluence of social, historical and economic dynamics will assure that this uprising does not get reduced to a photo opportunity for Suleiman and a few of his cronies.
A Cheshire Cat is smiling down on Suleiman’s tea party.
Paul Amar is Associate Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include: Cairo Cosmopolitan; The New Racial Missions of Policing; Global South to the Rescue; and the forthcoming Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics and the End of Neoliberalism.This article first appeared in Jadaliyya Ezine.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
While the uprising in Egypt caught most observers of the Middle East off guard, it did not come out of the blue. The seeds of this spectacular mobilization had been sown as far back as the early 2000s and had been carefully cultivated by activists from across the political spectrum, many of these working online via Facebook, twitter, and within the Egyptian blogosphere. Working within these media, activists began to forge a new political language, one that cut across the institutional barriers that had until then polarized Egypt’s political terrain, between more Islamicly-oriented currents (most prominent among them, the Muslim Brotherhood) and secular-liberal ones. Since the rise of the Islamist Revival in the 1970s, Egypt’s political opposition had remained sharply divided around contrasting visions of the proper place of religious authority within the country’s social and political future, with one side viewing secularization as the eminent danger, and the other emphasizing the threat of politicized religion to personal freedoms and democratic rights. This polarity tended to result in a defensive political rhetoric and a corresponding amplification of political antagonisms, a dynamic the Mubarak regime has repeatedly encouraged and exploited over the last 30 years in order to ensure a weak opposition. What was striking about the Egyptian blogosphere as it developed in the last 7 or so years is the extent to which it engendered a political language free from the problematic of secularization vs. fundamentalism that had governed so much of political discourse in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The blogosphere that burst into existence in Egypt around 2004 and 2005 in many ways provided a new context for a process that had begun a somewhat earlier, in the late 1990s: namely, the development of practices of coordination and support between secular leftist organizations and associations, and Islamist ones (particularly the Muslim Brotherhood)—a phenomenon almost completely absent in the prior decades. Toward the end of the decade of the 90s, Islamist and leftist lawyers began to agree to work together on cases regarding state torture, whereas in previous years, lawyers of one affiliation would almost never publicly defend plaintiffs from the other.
The most successful experiment at reaching across Egypt’s political spectrum came in 2004 with the emergence of what is called the Kifaya movement, a political formation that brought together Islamists, Muslim Brothers, communists, liberals, and secular-leftists, joined on the basis of a common demand for an end to the Mubarak regime and a rejection of the Gamal Mubarak’s succession of his father as president. Kifaya was instrumental in organizing a series of demonstrations between 2004 and 2007 that for the first time explicitly called for the president of Egypt to step down, an unheard of demand prior to that moment insomuch as any direct criticism of the president or his family had until then always been taboo, and met by harsh reprisals from the state. Kifaya not only succeeded in bringing large numbers of people of different political persuasions into the street to protest government policies and actions, they were also the first political movement in Egypt to exploit the organizing potential of the Internet, founding a number of blog sites from which to coordinate and mobilize demonstrations and strikes. When Kifaya held its first demonstrations, at the end of 2004, a handful of bloggers both participated and wrote about the events on their blogs. Within a year the number of blogs had jumped to the hundreds. Today there are 1000s of blogs, many tied to activism, street politics, solidarity campaigns, and grassroots organizing. Many of the bloggers who helped promote the Kifaya movement have played key roles in the events of the past 10 days.
One event highlighted the political potential of blogging in Egypt and helped secure the practice’s new and expanding role within Egyptian political life. It had long been known that the Egyptian state routinely abused and tortured prisoners or detainees (hence the US’s choice of Egypt in so called rendition cases). For its part, the state has always denied that abuse took place, and lacking the sort of evidence needed to prosecute a legal case, human rights lawyers and the opposition press had never been able to effectively challenge the state’s official position. This changed when a blogger named Wael Abbas, whose blog is titled al-wa’i al-masri (“Egyptian Awareness”), placed on his blog site a cell-phone recorded video he had been sent by another blogger that showed a man being physically and sexually abused by police officers at a police station in Cairo. (Apparently, the clip had been filmed by officers with the intention of intimidating the detainee’s fellow workers).
Once this video clip was placed on YouTube and spread around the Egyptian blogosphere, opposition newspapers took up the story, citing the blogs as their source. When the victim was identified and encouraged to come forth, a human rights agency raised a case on his behalf against the officers involved that eventually resulted in their conviction, an unprecedented event in Egypt’s modern history. Throughout the entire year that the case was being prosecuted, bloggers tracked every detail of the police and judiciary’s handling of the case, their relentless scrutiny of state actions frequently finding its way into the opposition newspapers. Satellite TV talk shows followed suit, inviting bloggers on screen to debate state officials concerned with the case. Moreover, within a month of posting the torture videos on his web site, Abbas and other bloggers started receiving scores of similar cell-phone films of state violence and abuse taken in police stations or during demonstrations.
This new relation between bloggers and other media forms has now become standard: not only do many of the opposition newspapers rely on bloggers for their stories; news stories that journalists can’t print themselves without facing state persecution—for example, on issues relating to the question of Mubarak’s successor—such stories are first fed to bloggers by investigative reporters; once they are reported online, then journalists then proceed to publish the stories in newsprint, citing the blogs as source, this way avoiding the accusation that they themselves invented the story. Moreover, many young people have taken up the practice of using cell-phone cameras in the street, and bloggers are constantly receiving phone film-footage from anonymous sources that they then put on their blogs.
This event played a key role in shaping the place that the blogosphere would come to occupy within Egypt’s media sphere. Namely, bloggers understand their role as that of providing a direct link to what they call “the street,” conceived primarily as a space of state repression and political violence, but also as one of political action and popular resistance. They render visible and publicly speakable a political practice—the violent subjugation of the Egyptian people by its authoritarian regime—that other media outlets cannot easily disclose, due to censorship, practices of harassment, and arrest. This includes not only acts police brutality and torture, but also the more mundane and routine forms of violence that shape the texture of everyday life. For example, blogs frequently include reporting on routine injustices experienced in public transportation, the cruel indifference of corrupt state bureaucrats, sexual harassment encountered in the streets, as well as the many faces of pain produced by conditions of intense poverty, environmental toxicity, infrastructural neglect, and so on.
[Saudis protesting their overdue land grants at Shaqra’ Municipality. Image taken from http://www.alriyadh.com]
Riyadh feels a little less stale since the Tunisian people toppled their dictator-president Zine El Abidine Bin Ali on January 15, 2011. In cafes, restaurants, and salons (majalis), friends and colleagues greet me with a smug smile, congratulations, and a ‘u’balna kulna (may we all be next). On my daily afternoon walks, I overhear Saudis of all ages and walks of life analyzing the events that led to the overthrow of the Tunisian regime. Everywhere I go, people are hypothesizing on whether the same could happen to “them,” referring to the possibility of a Saudi Arabia not headed by the Al Sauds. Although most concur that it is highly unlikely, they are nonetheless more convinced than ever of the power of the people to bring about change. They know that they can no longer sit back and wait for their government to hand them their basic political, economic and to some extent, even human rights.
It is not surprising that Saudis are jumping on the bandwagon of optimism which has swept the Arab world in the last two weeks. That they are expressing their discontent and criticism of the Saudi government in public spaces, however, is. Last week, several “gatherings” (tajamu’at) took place at government institutions in several Saudi cities. Groups of 70-100 Saudi men (no exact numbers are available) peacefully stood in front of different municipalities as well as the ministries of Education and Labor. The men were silently protesting their deteriorating living conditions, rising unemployment (in one of the strongest economies in the world), and increasingly corrupt and stagnant bureaucracy. These public protests have received little press coverage, but the fact that they have occurred for several days speaks volumes as to the increasing willingness of Saudi citizens to challenge the Saudi regime.
At the Ministry of Labor, the protesters demanded solutions to the discrimination against Saudi nationals in the hiring practices of private companies and called for the serious implementation of Saudification in the private sector. Begun in the mid-1990s, Saudification is a policy that aims to increase the numbers of Saudi men and women in the workforce. By law, private sector companies are required to hire 30% (2006) of their employees from the Saudi labor market. Most, however, have found legal loopholes to evade this law and continue to have very few Saudis on board, and mostly in low-paying jobs. Saudi Arabia today has a 15-20% unemployment rate yet it is host to 8-9 million foreign employees. At the protests in front of the Ministry of Education, Saudi teachers demanded their long-awaited raises, salaries that matched their grade qualifications, and a freeze on the closing of educational programs. Finally, those who gathered at the municipalities were tired of years of waiting for their land grants to be processed and demanded more efficient case processing and communication. In all three instances, the Saudi men (always men) called for transparency and accountability in dealing with their cases and an end to the very pervasive problem of wasta (favoritism and nepotism) within the Saudi Arabian private and public sectors.
The last several decades have shown that left-leaning politicos have been right about the nuances of the peace process.
MJ Rosenberg Last Modified: 09 Feb 2011 11:02 GMT
Israel’s President Shimon Peres (R) has consistently tried to show the international community that Israel is committed to peace with the Palestinians [Reuters]
Those of us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace camp do not enjoy being proven right — although we invariably are.
Our standard recommendation to Israel is that it should move quickly to achieve agreements with the Arab states and the stateless Palestinians before it is too late.
And the Israeli response is that there is no urgency to make peace — except on Israeli terms — because Israel is strong and the Arabs are weak.
The most egregious example of this phenomenon comes from Egypt, where in 1971 President Anwar Sadat offered to begin negotiations toward peace in exchange for a two-mile wide Israeli withdrawal from the east bank of the Suez Canal, which Israel had captured along with the rest of the Sinai Peninsula in the 1967 war.
Learning from history
The Nixon administration told the Israeli government to explore the idea because Sadat was intent on going to war if he did not get his territory back.
The peace camp in Israel and its allies here urged Israel to follow Nixon’s advice and hear Sadat out. The lobby, of course, told Nixon to mind his own business.
As for the Israeli cabinet, it told Nixon’s emissary, Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco, that it had no interest in discussing Egypt’s offer. It voted for keeping all of the Sinai Peninsula and sending Egypt a simple message: no. After all, the Egyptians had shown just four years earlier that they were no match for the IDF.
Two years later, the Egyptians attacked, and within hours all of Israel’s positions along the canal were overrun and its soldiers killed. By the time the war ended, Israel had lost 3,000 soldiers and almost the state itself. And then, a few years later, it gave up the entire Sinai anyway – not just the two-mile strip Egypt had demanded in 1971.
The peace camp was proven right. But I don’t recall anyone being happy about it. On the contrary, we were devastated. 3,000 Israelis (and thousands more Egyptians) were killed in a war that might have been prevented if the Israeli government had simply agreed to talk.
Reneging on Oslo
This pattern has been repeated over and over again. The Oslo Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which gave Israel its safest and most optimistic years in its history, collapsed after Prime Ministers Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak repeatedly refused to live up to its terms.
During the Oslo process, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority did what it was supposed to do: it combated terrorism so effectively (Hamas had launched a series of deadly bus bombings to thwart the peace process) that Netanyahu himself telephoned Arafat to thank him. By 1999, terrorism was effectively defeated in Israel. It was an amazing time, with the free and safe movement of goods and people from Israel to the West Bank and back again – not the way it is today with a towering wall separating Israelis from Palestinians and dividing Palestinians on one side from Palestinians on the other.
But the temporary end of terrorism did not achieve the transfer of any actual territory to the Palestinians. Netanyahu and Barak nickeled and dimed the Palestinians to death – actually, to the death of the peace process, which for all intents and purposes is now buried. By the time Clinton convened the Camp David summit in 2000, any good will between the two sides was gone.
One could go on and on. According to President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak could have had peace with Syria in 2000 until, at the very last minute, Barak chickened out. He was afraid of the settlers. The opportunity for full peace with Syria, which would almost certainly also mean peace with Lebanon, as well as a lowering of tensions with Syria’s ally, Iran, came again in December 2008.
Missed opportunity
The Turks had brokered a deal with the Syrians that Prime Minister Olmert celebrated with a five-hour Ankara dinner with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Olmert went home. The Turks waited for Israel’s final approval.
And then this is what happened next, according to Israeli New York University professor Alon Ben-Meir:
To the utter surprise and dismay of the Turkish government, five days after Olmert returned to Jerusalem, Israel began a massive incursion into Gaza. Ankara felt betrayed by the Israeli action and deceived by Olmert’s failure to inform the Turkish Prime Minister of Israel’s pending operation of which he, as the Prime Minister, was obviously fully aware of and could have disclosed to his Turkish counterpart while he was still in Ankara. For Mr. Erdogan, the problem was compounded not only because he did not hear from Olmert the message of peace which he eagerly anticipated, but a ‘declaration’ of war with all of its potential regional consequences.
It is hard to describe the depth of the Turks’ disappointment, not only because they were left in the dark, but because a major breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli peace process of historical magnitude was snatched away.
This incident was a major first step toward the collapse of Israeli-Turkish friendship, which – along with the relationship with Mubarak’s Egypt – was the cornerstone of Israel’s sense of security.
Who’s left? Jordan. However, Israel consistently ignores King Abdullah’s demands that it end the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza.
And then there is the US. President Obama put his prestige on the line to achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but all Israel did in response was to ridicule him and reject every suggestion the president made – no matter that Israel receives more US aid than any other country, by far.
Anyone who cares about Israel at all has to be appalled by these repeated blunders – all backed by AIPAC and its cutouts in Congress.
Future steps
When will Israel’s supposed friends learn?
Maybe never. In today’s New York Times, Yossi Klein Halevi, an influential Israeli journalist, expresses fear, almost terror, about the Egyptian revolution. He tells a “grim assumption”:
It is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power. Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.
Note how Halevi conflates Turkey with Iran (a ridiculous comparison based only on the fact that democratic Turkey opposes Israel’s blockade of Gaza) and then adds Egypt to the list.
And then there is the latest fright word, the Muslim Brotherhood. You would never know it from Halevi, but the Brotherhood is non-violent, has always opposed al-Qaeda, and condemned 9/11 and other acts of international terrorism.
Yes, they are an Islamic organization which would prefer an Egypt based on Islamic law, much as the Shas party – a significant part of Israel’s ruling coalition – pushes for an Israel based on its extreme interpretation of Torah.
Halevi (and other lobby types) may want the Muslim Brotherhood to be terrorists but, sadly for them, that is not true. And, besides, the January 25 revolution is not a Muslim Brotherhood revolution. They support it – almost all Egyptians do – but that does not make it theirs. Nor do they claim otherwise.
The bottom line: I am happy for the Egyptian people, but I am sad for Israel – not because it is genuinely threatened by this revolution but because Israel’s leaders seem determined to turn the revolution against them.
One can only hope that Israel and its lobby wake up. I hate always being proven right when it comes to Israel. I care about it too much.
MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Human rights groups allege that pro-democracy protesters have been detained or tortured in an “organised campaign”.
Last Modified: 10 Feb 2011 15:05 GMT
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo, witnessed scenes of violence during his detention by the army
The Egyptian military has been secretly detaining and torturing those it suspects of being involved in pro-democracy protests, according to testimony gathered by the British newspaper the Guardian.
The newspaper, quoting human rights agencies, put the number of people detained at “hundreds, possibly thousands,” since protests against Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, began on January 25.
While the military has said it is playing a neutral role in the political unrest, the newspaper quoted human rights campaigners as saying this was no longer the case, accusing the army of being involved in an organised campaign of disappearances, torture and intimidation.
Egyptians have long associated such crimes with the country’s much-feared intelligence and security services, but not with the army.
“Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not,” Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told the Guardian.
“It’s unusual and to the best of our knowledge it’s also unprecedented for the army to be doing this.”
The country’s army has denied the charges of illegal detention or torture.
“The armed forces denies any abuse of protesters. The armed forces sticks to the principle of protecting peaceful protesters and it has never, nor will it ever, fire at protesters,” an armed forces source told Reuters.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Safwat El Zayat, a retired general in the Egyptian military, categorically denied the allegations made in the Guardian report, saying that the report was “aimed at damaging the reputation of the army, which always stands by the people and not the regime”.
‘Foreign enemies’
The report said that the detained included human rights activists, lawyers and journalists, and that human rights groups have “documented the use of electric shocks on some of those held by the army”.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
The newspaper quoted a man who said he was detained by the army while on his way to Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests in Cairo, with medical supplies.
The man said he was accused of working with “foreign enemies”, beaten and then hauled to an army post, where his hands were tied behind his back.
In addition to hitting him, the soldiers also allegedly threatened him with rape.
Bahgat told the Guardian that it appears from the testimony of those who have been released that the military is conducting a campaign to try and break the protests.
“I think it’s become pretty obvious by now that the military is not a neutral party,” Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Cairo, told the newspaper.
“The military doesn’t want and doesn’t believe in the protests and this is even at the lower level, based on the interrogations.”
HRW says it has documented 119 cases of civilians being arrested by the military, but believes the actual number is much higher, as the army does not acknowledge the detentions.
The organisation told the Reuters news agency that it had documented at least five cases of torture, while one released detainee said he had seen at least 12 people given “electric shocks” on February 1.
‘Aggresive manner’
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo who was held by the military for several hours on February 6th, also witnessed scenes of violence during his detention.
Mohyeldin was held by the military while trying to enter Tahrir Square when he told soldiers at a checkpost that he was a journalist.
They questioned him regarding why he was there, and then, having tied his hands with plastic handcuffs, took him to a make-shift army post where he was interrogated and his equipment confiscated.
“I can tell you from what I saw and what I heard that a lot of [the detained] were beaten up, the military was dealing with them in a very aggresive manner,” Mohyeldin said.
“They were slapped, they were kicked. The military was trying to essentially subdue them.
“In essence the military was dealing with these people as prisoners of war. These were individuals who were trying to plead for their safety, for their innocence.
“Many of them were crying, saying that they were simply just caught up in the wrong moment, but the military showed no mercy.”
Mohyeldin said that some prisoners were quite badly beaten, while a soldier also used a taser gun to threaten prisoners. He said others showed evidence of having been whipped.
He said that prisoners at the post he was being held at were being treated aggresively by soldiers despite the fact that they were not being disobedient.
Mohyeldin also described how one protester, when initially detained, had claimed that he was an active member of the pro-democracy movement against Mubarak.
However, in just a few hours, the protester had broken down in tears and was willing to promise the soldiers that he would not return to Tahrir Square and that he was not really involved in protests.
All detainees who were released were made to sign a document that said that they would not attempt to return to Tahrir Square unless they obtained prior permission from the military.
Human rights groups allege that pro-democracy protesters have been detained or tortured in an “organised campaign”.
Last Modified: 10 Feb 2011 15:05 GMT
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo, witnessed scenes of violence during his detention by the army
The Egyptian military has been secretly detaining and torturing those it suspects of being involved in pro-democracy protests, according to testimony gathered by the British newspaper the Guardian.
The newspaper, quoting human rights agencies, put the number of people detained at “hundreds, possibly thousands,” since protests against Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, began on January 25.
While the military has said it is playing a neutral role in the political unrest, the newspaper quoted human rights campaigners as saying this was no longer the case, accusing the army of being involved in an organised campaign of disappearances, torture and intimidation.
Egyptians have long associated such crimes with the country’s much-feared intelligence and security services, but not with the army.
“Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not,” Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told the Guardian.
“It’s unusual and to the best of our knowledge it’s also unprecedented for the army to be doing this.”
The country’s army has denied the charges of illegal detention or torture.
“The armed forces denies any abuse of protesters. The armed forces sticks to the principle of protecting peaceful protesters and it has never, nor will it ever, fire at protesters,” an armed forces source told Reuters.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Safwat El Zayat, a retired general in the Egyptian military, categorically denied the allegations made in the Guardian report, saying that the report was “aimed at damaging the reputation of the army, which always stands by the people and not the regime”.
‘Foreign enemies’
The report said that the detained included human rights activists, lawyers and journalists, and that human rights groups have “documented the use of electric shocks on some of those held by the army”.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
The newspaper quoted a man who said he was detained by the army while on his way to Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests in Cairo, with medical supplies.
The man said he was accused of working with “foreign enemies”, beaten and then hauled to an army post, where his hands were tied behind his back.
In addition to hitting him, the soldiers also allegedly threatened him with rape.
Bahgat told the Guardian that it appears from the testimony of those who have been released that the military is conducting a campaign to try and break the protests.
“I think it’s become pretty obvious by now that the military is not a neutral party,” Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Cairo, told the newspaper.
“The military doesn’t want and doesn’t believe in the protests and this is even at the lower level, based on the interrogations.”
HRW says it has documented 119 cases of civilians being arrested by the military, but believes the actual number is much higher, as the army does not acknowledge the detentions.
The organisation told the Reuters news agency that it had documented at least five cases of torture, while one released detainee said he had seen at least 12 people given “electric shocks” on February 1.
‘Aggresive manner’
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo who was held by the military for several hours on February 6th, also witnessed scenes of violence during his detention.
Mohyeldin was held by the military while trying to enter Tahrir Square when he told soldiers at a checkpost that he was a journalist.
They questioned him regarding why he was there, and then, having tied his hands with plastic handcuffs, took him to a make-shift army post where he was interrogated and his equipment confiscated.
“I can tell you from what I saw and what I heard that a lot of [the detained] were beaten up, the military was dealing with them in a very aggresive manner,” Mohyeldin said.
“They were slapped, they were kicked. The military was trying to essentially subdue them.
“In essence the military was dealing with these people as prisoners of war. These were individuals who were trying to plead for their safety, for their innocence.
“Many of them were crying, saying that they were simply just caught up in the wrong moment, but the military showed no mercy.”
Mohyeldin said that some prisoners were quite badly beaten, while a soldier also used a taser gun to threaten prisoners. He said others showed evidence of having been whipped.
He said that prisoners at the post he was being held at were being treated aggresively by soldiers despite the fact that they were not being disobedient.
Mohyeldin also described how one protester, when initially detained, had claimed that he was an active member of the pro-democracy movement against Mubarak.
However, in just a few hours, the protester had broken down in tears and was willing to promise the soldiers that he would not return to Tahrir Square and that he was not really involved in protests.
All detainees who were released were made to sign a document that said that they would not attempt to return to Tahrir Square unless they obtained prior permission from the military.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
Hosni Mubarak ‘may step down’
Ruling party officials suggest that President Hosni Mubarak may ‘meet protesters demands’, as army monitors situation.
Last Modified: 10 Feb 2011 15:36 GMT
Ruling party officials suggest that President Hosni Mubarak may ‘meet protesters demands’, as army monitors situation.
Last Modified: 10 Feb 2011 15:36 GMT
The Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces has met to discuss the ongoing protests against the government of Hosni Mubarak, the president.In a statement televised on state television, the army said it had convened the meeting response to the current political turmoil, and that it would continue to convene such meetings.”Based on the responsibility of the armed forces and its commitment to protect the people and its keenness to protect the nation… and in support of the legitimate demands of the people [the army] will continue meeting on a continuous basis to examine measures to be taken to protect the nation and its gains and the ambitions of the great Egyptian people,” the statement, titled “Communique No. 1” said.Thurday’s meeting was chaired by Mohamed Tantawi, the defence minister, rather than Mubarak, who, as president, would normally have headed the meeting.The army’s statement was met with a roar of approval from protesters in Tahrir Square, our correspondent reported.Earlier, Hassan al-Roweni, an Egyptian army commander, told protesters in the square on Thursday that “everything you want will be realised”.Protesters have demanded that Mubarak stand down as president.Hassam Badrawi, the secretary general of the ruling National Democratic Party, told the BBC and Channel 4 News on that he expected Mubarak to hand over his powers to Omar Suleiman, the vice-president.Ahmed Shafiq, the country’s prime minister, also told the BBC that the president may step down on Thursday evening, and that the situation would be “clarified soon”.
The Reuters news agency quoted Leon Panetta, the director of the American Central Intelligence Agency, as saying there was a “strong likelihood” that Mubarak would quit on Thursday night.
Labour union strikes
The developments come as the 17th day of pro-democracy protests continued across the country on Thursday, with labour unions joining pro-democracy protesters.
Egyptian labour unions have held nationwide strikes for a second day, adding momentum to the pro-democracy demonstrations in Cairo and other cities.
Al Jazeera correspondents in Cairo reported that thousands of doctors, medical students and lawyers, the doctors dressed in white coats and the lawyers in black robes, marched in central Cairo and were hailed by pro-democracy protesters as they entered Tahrir [Liberation] Square.
The artists syndicate and public transport workers, including bus drivers, also joined the strikes, our correspondents reported.
“It’s certainly increasing the pressure on the government here,” Al Jazeera’s Steffanie Dekker, reporting from Cairo, said.
“I think it’s worth making the distinction that the strikes going on are more of an economic nature, they are not necessarily jumping on the bandwagon of the protesters in Tahrir Square.
“Many of them are not actually calling for the president to step down, but fighting for better wages, for better working conditions.”
Pro-democracy supporters across the country have meanwhile called for a ten-million strong demonstration to take place after this week’s Friday prayers.
Hoda Hamid, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo, said that the mood in Liberation Square was “one of defiance, and if we judge by what is happening today, then I think … many more people will heed that call and turn up”.
Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin in Cairo reported that at least five government buildings, including the governor’s office and the office for public housing, were set alight in two straight days of riots in the northeastern town of Port Said. The situation in the city had calmed by Thursday evening, he said.
Protest investigation
Meanwhile, an immediate investigation has been launched and possible criminal charges could be brought against the senior officer who ordered the firing on protesters during protests on January 28 protests, Moyheldin said.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
The ministry of interior also announced the sacking of the head of security in the New Valley governorate, Moyheldin said.
Also on Thursday, Mahmoud Wagdy, the interior minister, announced that the police were back at work on the streets of the capital.
Meanwhile, Suleiman, the country’s vice-president, said on Thursday that his comments to American television station ABC had been taken out of context.
In his interview, Suleiman suggested that Egyptians were “not ready” for democracy. He had also earlier said that if protesters did not enter into dialogue with the Mubarak government, the army may be forced into carrying out a coup.
According to a statement released to a government news agency, Suleiman “emphasised that some sentences in his remarks … were understood in the wrong way, especially his remarks regarding democratic transition in Egypt”.
On Wednesday, Gaber Asfour, the recently appointed culture minister, resigned from Mubarak’s cabinet for health reasons, a member of his family told Reuters.
The website of Egypt’s main daily newspaper Al-Ahram said Asfour, a writer, was under pressure from literary colleagues to leave the post.
Asfour was sworn in on January 31 and at the time he had believed it would be a national unity government, al-Ahram said.
International element
There has been a renewed international element to the demonstrations, with Egyptians from abroad returning to join the pro-democracy camp. An internet campaign is currently under way to mobilise expatriates to return and support the uprising.
Protesters are “more emboldened by the day and more determined by the day”, Ahmad Salah, an Egyptian activist, told Al Jazeera from Cairo. “This is a growing movement, it’s not shrinking.”
Meanwhile, 34 political prisoners, including members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, are reported to have been released over the past two days.
There are still an unknown number of people missing, including activists thought to be detained during the recent unrest. Rights groups have alleged that the Egyptian army is involved in illegally detaining and sometimes torturing pro-democracy protesters.
Human Rights Watch said the death toll has reached 302 since January 28.
Egypt’s health ministry has denied the figures, saying official statistics would be released shortly.
Inmiddels geruchtmakende documentaire van al-Jazeera uit 2007, over de rol van blogs en sociale media bij democratiseringsprocessen in de Arabische wereld en het Midden Oosten
“The Arab world is on fire,” al-Jazeera reported on January 27, while throughout the region, Western allies “are quickly losing their influence.”
The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a Western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator’s brutal police.
Observers compared the events to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences.
Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless it is properly tamed.
One 1989 comparison has some validity: Romania, where Washington maintained its support for Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vicious of the East European dictators, until the allegiance became untenable. Then Washington hailed his overthrow while the past was erased.
That is a standard pattern: Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Chun Doo Hwan, Suharto and many other useful gangsters. It may be under way in the case of Hosni Mubarak, along with routine efforts to try to ensure that a successor regime will not veer far from the approved path.
The current hope appears to be Mubarak loyalist Gen. Omar Suleiman, just named Egypt’s vice president. Suleiman, the longtime head of the intelligence services, is despised by the rebelling public almost as much as the dictator himself.
A common refrain among pundits is that fear of radical Islam requires (reluctant) opposition to democracy on pragmatic grounds. While not without some merit, the formulation is misleading. The general threat has always been independence. In the Arab world, the United States and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.
A familiar example is Saudi Arabia, the ideological center of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror). Another in a long list is Zia ul-Haq, the most brutal of Pakistan’s dictators and President Reagan’s favorite, who carried out a program of radical Islamization (with Saudi funding).
“The traditional argument put forward in and out of the Arab world is that there is nothing wrong, everything is under control,” says Marwan Muasher, former Jordanian official and now director of Middle East research for the Carnegie Endowment. “With this line of thinking, entrenched forces argue that opponents and outsiders calling for reform are exaggerating the conditions on the ground.”
Therefore the public can be dismissed. The doctrine traces far back and generalizes worldwide, to U.S. home territory as well. In the event of unrest, tactical shifts may be necessary, but always with an eye to reasserting control.
The vibrant democracy movement in Tunisia was directed against “a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems,” ruled by a dictator whose family was hated for their venality. This was the assessment by U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec in a July 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks.
Therefore to some observers the WikiLeaks “documents should create a comforting feeling among the American public that officials aren’t asleep at the switch”—indeed, that the cables are so supportive of U.S. policies that it is almost as if Obama is leaking them himself (or so Jacob Heilbrunn writes in The National Interest.)
“America should give Assange a medal,” says a headline in the Financial Times. Chief foreign-policy analyst Gideon Rachman writes that “America’s foreign policy comes across as principled, intelligent and pragmatic—the public position taken by the U.S. on any given issue is usually the private position as well.”
In this view, WikiLeaks undermines the “conspiracy theorists” who question the noble motives that Washington regularly proclaims.
Godec’s cable supports these judgments—at least if we look no further. If we do, as foreign policy analyst Stephen Zunes reports in Foreign Policy in Focus, we find that, with Godec’s information in hand, Washington provided $12 million in military aid to Tunisia. As it happens, Tunisia was one of only five foreign beneficiaries: Israel (routinely); the two Middle East dictatorships Egypt and Jordan; and Colombia, which has long had the worst human-rights record and the most U.S. military aid in the hemisphere.
Heilbrunn’s Exhibit A is Arab support for U.S. policies targeting Iran, revealed by leaked cables. Rachman too seizes on this example, as did the media generally, hailing these encouraging revelations. The reactions illustrate how profound is the contempt for democracy in the educated culture.
Unmentioned is what the population thinks—easily discovered. According to polls released by the Brookings Institution in August, some Arabs agree with Washington and Western commentators that Iran is a threat: 10 percent. In contrast, they regard the U.S. and Israel as the major threats (77 percent; 88 percent).
Arab opinion is so hostile to Washington’s policies that a majority (57 percent) think regional security would be enhanced if Iran had nuclear weapons. Still, “there is nothing wrong, everything is under control” (as Marwan Muasher describes the prevailing fantasy). The dictators support us. Their subjects can be ignored—unless they break their chains, and then policy must be adjusted.
Other leaks also appear to lend support to the enthusiastic judgments about Washington’s nobility. In July 2009, Hugo Llorens, U.S. ambassador to Honduras, informed Washington of an embassy investigation of “legal and constitutional issues surrounding the June 28 forced removal of President Manuel `Mel’ Zelaya.”
The embassy concluded that “there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch.” Very admirable, except that President Obama proceeded to break with almost all of Latin America and Europe by supporting the coup regime and dismissing subsequent atrocities.
Perhaps the most remarkable WikiLeaks revelations have to do with Pakistan, reviewed by foreign policy analyst Fred Branfman in Truthdig.
The cables reveal that the U.S. embassy is well aware that Washington’s war in Afghanistan and Pakistan not only intensifies rampant anti-Americanism but also “risks destabilizing the Pakistani state” and even raises a threat of the ultimate nightmare: that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of Islamic terrorists.
Again, the revelations “should create a comforting feeling—that officials are not asleep at the switch” (Heilbrunn’s words)—while Washington marches stalwartly toward disaster.
Robert Fisk: ‘Mubarak will go tomorrow,’ they cried as rocks and firebombs flew
In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, our writer hears protesters’ hopes of forcing rapid change
Robert Fisk, The Independent, 4 Febr. 2011
From the House on the Corner, you could watch the arrogance and folly yesterday of those Egyptians who would rid themselves of their “President”. It was painful – it always is when the “good guys” play into the hands of their enemies – but the young pro-democracy demonstrators on the Tahrir Square barricades carefully organised their Cairo battle, brought up their lorryloads of rocks in advance, telephoned for reinforcements and then drove the young men of Hosni Mubarak back from the flyovers behind the Egyptian Museum. Maybe it was the anticipation that the old man will go at last today. Maybe it was revenge for the fire-bombing and sniper attacks of the previous night. But as far as the “heroes” of Egypt are concerned, it was not their finest hour
The House on the Corner was a referee’s touchline, a house of late 18th century stucco with outer decorations of stone grapes and wreaths and, in the dank and derelict interior, a broken marble staircase, reeking cloth wallpaper and wooden floors, groaning under bag after bag of stones, all neatly broken into rectangles to hurl at the accursed Mubarakites. It was somehow typical that no one knew the history of this elegant, sad old house on the corner of Mahmoud Basounee Street and Martyr Abdul Menem Riad Square. It even had a missing step on the gloomy second floor with a 30ft drop that immediately brought to mind the staircase in Stevenson’s Kidnapped, and its vertiginous drop illuminated by lightning. But from its crumbling balconies, I could watch the battle of stones yesterday and the brave, pathetic attempts of the Egyptian army to contain this miniature civil war, preceding, as it does, another Sabbath day of prayers and anger and – so the protesters happily believe yet again – the very final hours of their accursed dictator. The soldiers manoeuvred through the field of rocks on the highway below, trying to position two Abrams tanks between the armies of stone throwers, four soldiers waving their hands above their heads – the Egyptian street sign for “cease fire”.
It was pathetic. The army needed 4,000 troops here to stop this battle. They had only two tank crews, one officer and four soldiers. And the forces of democracy – yes, we have to introduce a little cynicism here – cared nothing for the forbearance of the soldiers they have been trying to woo. They formed in phalanxes across the road outside the Egyptian Museum, each holding a shield of corrugated iron, many of them shouting “God is Great”, a mockery of every Hollywood Roman legion, T-shirts instead of breastplates, clubs and the police night-sticks of Mubarak’s hated cops instead of swords. Outside the House on the Corner – cheerfully telling me it belonged to anyone – stood a man holding (believe me, reader) a 7ft steel trident. “I am the devil,” he cheerfully roared at me. This was almost as bad as the horse and camel attack by the Mubarakites on Wednesday.
Five soldiers from another unit seized a tray of Molotov cocktails from the house next door – Pepsi bottles are clearly the container of choice – but that constituted the entire military operation to disarm this little freedom militia. “Mubarak will go tomorrow,” they screeched; and then, between the two tanks, at their enemies 40ft away, “Your old man is leaving tomorrow.” They had been encouraged by all the usual stories; that Barack Obama had at last called time on Mubarak, that the Egyptian army – recipients of an annual $1.3bn aid – was tired of being humiliated by the President, infuriated by the catastrophe that Mubarak had unleashed on his country for a mere nine more months of power.
This may be true. Egyptian friends with relatives among the officer corps tell me that they are desperate for Mubarak to leave, if only to prevent him issuing more orders to the military to open fire on the demonstrators.
But yesterday, it was Mubarak’s opponents who opened “fire”, and they did so with a now-familiar shock of stones and iron hub-caps. They crashed on to the Mubarak men (and a few women) on the flyover, ricocheted off the top of the tanks. I watched their enemies walk – just a few of them – into the road, the rocks crashing around them, waving their arms above their heads in a sign of peace. It was no use.
By the time I climbed down that dangerous staircase, a lone Muslim imam in a white turban and long red robe and an absolutely incredible – distinguished may be the correct word – neatly combed white beard appeared amid the stones. He held a kind of whip and used it to beat back the demonstrators. He, too, stood his ground as the stones of both sides broke around him. He was from those who would rid themselves of their meddlesome President but he, too, wanted to end the attack. A young protester was hit on the head and collapsed to the ground.
So I scampered over to the two tanks, hiding behind one of them as it traversed its massive gun-barrel 350 degrees, an interesting – if pointless – attempt to show both sides that the army was neutral. The great engines blasted sand and muck into the eyes of the stone throwers, the whining of the electrical turbine controlling the turret adding a state-of-the-art addition to the medieval crack of rocks. And then an officer did jump from the turret of one behemoth and stood with the imam and the lead Mubarakites and also waved his arms above his head. The stones still clanged off the highway signs on the flyover (turn left for Giza) but several middle-aged men held out their arms and touched each other’s hands and offered each other cigarettes.
Not for long, of course. Behind them, in the square called Tahrir, men slept beneath the disused concrete Metro vents or on the mouldy grass or in the stairwells of shuttered shops. Many wore bandages round their heads and arms. These wounds would be their badges of heroism in the years to come, proof they fought in the “resistance”, that they struggled against dictatorship. Yet not one could I find who knew why this square was so precious to them.
The truth is as symbolic as it is important. It was Haussmann, brought to Egypt by Ismail under notional Ottoman rule, who built the square as an Etoile modelled on its French equivalent, laid over the swamps of the regularly flooded Nile plain. Each road radiated like a star (much to the chagrin, of course, of the present-day Egyptian army). And it was on the Nile side of “Ismailia” square – where the old Hilton is currently under repair – that the British later built their vast military Qasr el-Nil barracks. Across the road still stands the pseudo-Baroque pile in which King Farouk maintained his foreign ministry – an institution which faithfully followed British orders.
And the entire square in front of them, from the garden of the Egyptian Museum to the Nile-side residence of the British ambassador, was banned to all Egyptians. This great space – the area of Tahrir Square today – constituted the forbidden zone, the land of the occupier, the centre of Cairo upon which its people could never set foot. And thus after independence, it became “Freedom” – “Tahrir” – Square; and that is why Mubarak tried to preserve it and that is why those who want to overthrow him must stay there – even if they do not know the reason.
I walked back last night, the people around me hopeful they could endure the next night of fire-bombs, that today will bring the elusive victory. I met a guy called Rami (yes, his real name) who brightly announced that “I think we need a general to take over!” He may get his wish.
As for the House on the Corner, well, Mahmoud Basounee Street is named after an Egyptian poet. And the stone-battered sign for the Martyr Abdul Menem Riad attached to the House on the Corner honours a man whose ghost must surely be watching those two tanks under the flyover. Riad commanded the Jordanian army in the 1967 Six Day War and was killed in an Israeli mortar attack two years later. He was chief of staff of the Egyptian Army.
From our headquarters in Doha, we keep you updated on all things Egypt, with reporting from Al Jazeera staff in Cairo and Alexandria. Live Blog: Jan28 – Jan29 – Jan30 – Jan31 – Feb1 – Feb2 – Feb3 – Feb4
6:05pm Al Jazeera continues to bring you the latest from Cairo and Alexandria. Crowds continue to defy the curfew.
6:01pm Media in Montenegro is reporting that Hosni Mubarak may find exile in their country, and that his son and close personal friends are preparing things for him to arrive there. Montenegro is where deposed Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, sought refuge.
5:47pm Al Masry Al Youm, the largest independent newspaper in Egypt, says that security forces have broken into the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood website and arrested 12 journalists working on the site.
5:38pm Latest audio report from Al Jazeera’s web producer in Cairo.
5:31pm Crowds halt the chanting and pray together in Tahrir Square.
5:22pm Video on Youtube showing a young boy in Alexandria leading a large group of pro-democracy protesters. Al Jazeera cannot verify the authenticity of the video.
5:17pm Hundreds of thousands of people still protesting in Cairo and many other cities across the country, all defying the curfew that is still in place.
5:13pm First gunshots for the day just heard and pro-democracy protesters cheer as army arrests suspected Mubarak loyalists near Tahrir Square.
4:37pm Inside Tahrir Square there are tens of thousands of people – same diverse crowd as the Tuesday demonstration, many women and children, old and young, Muslims and Copts. Many more people crossing over via Qasr al-Nile bridge.
4:30pm Al Jazeera reporter in Alexandria says that under-cover police officer was captured after the afternoon prayers – some pro-democracy protesters have made sure that he was not injured by anyone.
4:28pmRobert Fisk’s latest ‘Mubarak will go tomorrow,’ they cried as rocks and firebombs flew”.
4:23pm Senior military officer in limosine being driven around military positions near #Tahrir Square, talking to soldiers.
4:10pm Reports that group of Mubarak loyalists has grown to over 500 now. However, the situation remains largely peaceful and somewhat joyous since Friday prayers. A reader sent in this pic:
3:51pm Al Jazeera issues a statement condeming the “gangs of thugs” that stormed their office in Cairo. The office has been burned along with the equipment inside it.
It appears to be the latest attempt by the Egyptian regime or its supporters to hinder Al Jazeera’s coverage of events in the country…
It appears to be the latest attempt by the Egyptian regime or its supporters to hinder Al Jazeera’s coverage of events in the country.
In the last week its bureau was forcibly closed, all its journalists had press credentials revoked, and nine journalists were detained at various stages. Al Jazeera has also faced unprecedented levels of interference in its broadcast signal as well as persistent and repeated attempts to bring down its websites.
We are grateful for the support we have received from across the world for our coverage in Egypt and can assure everyone that we will continue our work undeterred.
3:45pm International attention remains hooked on the uprisings in Tunisia and now Egypt, but Nic Dawes, Editor of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian says there “has been little focus on the African dimension of these uprisings”.
There are certainly countries – not least among those close to Egypt – that could do with broad-based civil movements against authoritarianism. Chad is perhaps the most benighted, but the depth of its isolation and tyranny are such that it is difficult to imagine a people-power movement succeeding.
and its increasingly authoritarian president, Meles Zenawi? Or Uganda, where Yoweri Museveni is consolidating his grip on power? Or Angola, where oil revenues fatten the ruling elite and human development stalls? Or Zimbabwe? Or any of the pseudo-democracies that dot the continent”
What about Ethiopia
Elsewhere in the Mail & Guardian, online Editor Chris Roper asks if Twitter will save Africa, while blogger Khadija Patel warns that South Africans are failing “to give voice to that facet of the South African experience that strongly resonates with the Egyptians and Tunisians”.
A demonstration was held today at the Egyption embassy in Pretoria. (Source)
3:43pm Al Jazeera reporters say that numbers of Mubarak-loyalists on the 6th of October bridge has increased to over 300 now. An army tank has moved position to confront them.
3:25pmMondoweiss, a news website focused on American foreign policy in the Middle East, shows this interesting graph comparing Al Jazeera traffic to The New York Times.
3:12pm At least 200 pro-Mubarak loyalists are on the 6th of October bridge just outside Tahrir Square in Cairo.
3:10pm Al Jazeera’s reporter in Alexandria sent through this picture from the protests there. Thousands of men and women are still streaming in to join the already large crowds.
2:35pm Reports coming in that Al Jazeera’s Arabic office in Cairo has been stormed and thrashed by unknown men. More information to follow.
1.45pm: Amr Moussa, the Arab league chief, is attending the rally in Tahrir Square.
1:30pm: About 3,000 people demonstrate in support of President Mubarak in the Mohandiseen district in Giza, adjacent to Cairo.
1:14pm: Our correspondent in Cairo says pro-Mubarak gangs are not visible at all in the streets and that the army has taken extensive measures to secure the demonstration. She says imams, speaking in mosques today, have called for calm and praised the role of the army as it is working to prevent violence.
We are showing live pictures from both Alexandria and Cairo – click here
12:53pm: Prayers are over and the masses, hundred thousands of people, are chanting “We won’t go until he leaves”.
Yesterday, NevineZaki posted this picture on Twitter, saying it shows Christians protecting those praying in Tahrir Square amid violence between protesters and Mubarak supporters. She wrote “Bear in mind that this pic was taken a month after z Alexandria bombing where many Christians died in vain. Yet we all stood by each other”
Tahrir Square, Thursday
12:35pm: Our correspondent in Alexandria says tens of thousands of people have gathered in the centre of Alexandria. He says Christians and others not performing Friday prayers have formed a “human chain” around those praying to protect them from any potential disruptions.
12:26pm: Friday prayers at Tahrir Square now. The sermon preceding it called for release of political prisoners and constitutional amendments.
12:22pm: Our correspondent in Cairo says people away from the main protest area are stying inside, fearing violence. She quotes one person as saying “I can’t even trust my neighbour anymore, nowadays you never know who is supporting who.”
12:08pm: Reports say supporters of President Mubarak are still gathering around Tahrir Square.
Tanks and soldiers guard the entrance to the US embassy near Tahrir Square [EPA]
11:36am: An AFP photographer says Defence Minister Tantawi has addressed the crowd in Tahrir Square, surrounded by soldiers, who called on the protesters to sit down.
“The man [Mubarak] told you he won’t stand again,” Tantawi said, referring to the president’s announcement that he will not seek re-election in polls to be held this autumn. Tantawi also repeated a call from the Egyptian government for the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s biggest opposition group, to join a dialogue with the government.
Photo by AFP
11:28am: Protester Aida El-Kashes, on the phone from Tahrir Square, describes the situation there as calm and safe. She says all entrances to the square except the one near the Egyptian museum are open and people are getting in. The thousands of protesters who have been through the past days violence together now have bounds to each other “as a big family”, she says..
11:08am: Our reporter in Tahrir Square says protesters are checking the ID’s of people entering the area to make sure no members of the police or other security services are getting in (Egyptian IDs mention the person’s profession). She says the protesters are very welcoming to journalists.
11:02am: Our correspondent says tens of thousands of people have gathered in Tahrir Square, and many more are expected after Friday prayers.
10:50am: Egypt’s defence minister is visiting Tahrir Square today, a ministry source tells Reuters. “Field Marshal [Mohamed Hussein] Tantawi and leaders of the armed forces are currently in Tahrir Square,” the source is quoted as saying.
10:35am: A number of European leaders are meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels, discussing the situation in Egypt. Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee, covering the summit, says what happens in the EU with regards to Egypt mirrors what happened in the United States: “They were quite lukewarm to begin with … but now just like the Obama administration, they are saying that there needs to be immediate transition to democracy in Egypt in a smooth manner.”
10:09am: Our correspondent at Tahrir Square says soldiers are preventing people from getting into Tahrir Square from at least one of the entry points.
10:01am: More from our web producer in Cairo: “About 65 soldiers stationed around 6th of October bridge and the museum, wearing riot gear. Limiting access to Corniche, etc.”
9:55am: The website World Wide Tahrir calls for sit-ins to be held at Egyptian embassies “from Friday 4th Feb at 20:00 local time in your city(!!!), till Mubarak leaves”
9:50am: Our web producer in Cairo writes on Twitter: “Egyptian state TV reporting that one of its crews was attacked in Tahrir Square. Amusing thought, but is it true? Could be propaganda.”
9:45am: The editor-in-chief of Ikhwan online, the official website for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, says police and “thugs” have attacked Cairo International Media Center.
9:03am: One of our correspondent just wrote on Twitter: “Festive and Celebratory atmosphere that marked the days of the protest b4 Pro-mubarak peeps attacked is back in #tahrir”
And, about 20 minutes ago, another of our reporters wrote: “Dozens of police trucks in side streets around Pres Palace.Yes thats right police!Haven’t seen them in a while.”
8:59am: Mohammed al-Beltagi, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, tells Al Jazeera that his movement has no ambitions to run for the Egyptian presidency.
8:29am: Our correspondent writes on Twitter: “by 7am friday: chants of ‘get out’ ‘invalid’ ‘leave’ resonating louder than ever this time of day”
8:21am: Salma El Tarzi, a protester in Tahrir Square, tells Al Jazeera over the phone that the moral in the square is high and the atmosphere cheerful, “like a festival”, with thousands of people arriving.
8:01am: The curfew has now been lifted and protests are due to start at noon, after Friday prayers.
7:53am: Mona Seif, an Egyptian activist, just posted this picture from Tharir Square this morning.
7:45am: The Guardian has great pictures of protesters putting on makeshift helmets during yesterday’s clashes. Cardboard, buckets and plastic soda bottles were used to deflect the stones.
7:03am: Our producer says there appears to be a security build-up at Tahrir Square, with troops in riot gear standing next to tanks at the outskirts of the square.
6:55am: Watch our video wrapping up yesterday’s events
6:15am: Our reporter in Tahrir Square says there is an “easy calm” in Tahrir Square, as protesters prepare for renewed protests on what they call “the day of departure” for President Mubarak.
6.02am: The New York Times reports that the US administration is in talks with Egyptian officials over a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice- President Omar Suleiman. The White House has not confirmed the report.
3:23am Anti-Mubarak protester Nadine Shams tells Al Jazeera that protesters are trying to gear up for Friday’s protests while securing Tahrir Square and keeping themselves safe. She tells us that protesters fear being attacked by armed men again.
2:49am Here’s another video from Egypt’s “Day of Rage” on January 28 shows a vehicle ploughing over protesters. The person who posted the cilp claims it is a diplomatic vehicle that “ran over more than 20 people” but we can’t verify these details at this time.
2:14am One of our Web producers notes that loudspeakers inside Tahrir Square are playing loud, old-school patriotic Egyptian songs. People are clapping along.
2:08am Anti-Mubarak activist Mona Souief tells Al Jazeera that people feel that they are “past the worst.” and that if protesters could make it past the violence of the past 24 hours, than they could persevere.
2:01am Egyptian state television claims that some anti-Mubarak protesters are asking to be able to pass the barricades and leave Tahrir Square, and that that the Egyptian army has indicated that it’s ready to help protesters leave the square.
But Al Jazeera Arabic contacted some protesters, who have have denied the reports carried on Egyptian television.
1:26am Aida Seif El Dowla, founder of the El Nadim Center tells Al Jazeera how a sister organisation, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, a prominent legal aid group providing help to anti-government protesters , was raided on Thursday, with its staff of five, along with 25 volunteers, being detained.
Since early in the morning, the area … was full of thugs, who randomly rounded up people from the streets and them people in microbuses and just took them away, God knows where. And then we heard that the army had surrounded the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, and then we heard that thugs were surrounding the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, and they’re not allowing people to enter or to leave the building. And then we heard that the army – the military police – they went up into the centre, broke into it, took the equpment, took the computers, took some of the files, removed some of the sim cards from the mobile phones …
When asked if she knew where her colleagues were being kept, al Dowla said,
We don’t know. We don’t know. The fact that they have been taken by the military police means that probably being kept in some military place, not the normal police stations, depending on where they have been detained from, and so we have no access to those people, we have no knowledge of whether or not they are safe. … we have absolutely no idea where they are.
She said among those detained are representatives of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with several bloggers.
1:02am AJE correspondent reports that live shots will resume as soon as it is safe to do so, as journalists with cameras are being targeted.
12:20am Charter evacuation flights are landing all around the world as foreigners, fearing for their safety, leave Egypt.
12:16am Our live blog on the Battle for Egypt begins now and will continue for the rest of the day.
As protests sweep Arab nations and reach fever pitch in Egypt, are we seeing a revolution of Soviet bloc proportions?
Jacqueline Head Last Modified: 02 Feb 2011 09:04 GMT
The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the end of oppressive communist regimes across eastern Europe [GALLO/GETTY]
Days of mass protests in Egypt have escalated dramatically with estimates of one million people descending on Tahrir square in central Cairo, in a bid to oust the country’s long-term president.
Opposition groups are hoping that the numbers out on the streets will persuade Hosni Mubarak to realise that he no longer holds popular support in Egypt.
But the action in Egypt is being seen as part of a wider movement, a so-called “Arab revolution”, following a wave of protests in Tunisia, Lebanon and Yemen.
In Jordan on Tuesday King Abdullah sacked his government in the wake of demonstrations there.
The ripple effect, described by one commentator as the “wave of democracy finally crashing on the North African shore”, has led to comparisons with the protest movement across Eastern Europe in 1989 that spelt the demise of communism and eventually the Soviet Union.
Demand for reform
When Polish people voted in their first free elections more than two decades ago and formed the Soviet bloc’s first non-communist government, it helped spark a chain of events across the region.
Hungary also played an early role, abolishing the people’s republic and cutting down its fortified border with Austria, allowing hundreds of East Germans to cross through.
Two revolutions swiftly followed in Czechoslovakia and Romania. The “Velvet Revolution” in November 1989 saw hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters take to the streets in Prague until the Communist party was dissolved to make way for democracy.
Opposition movements in Romania saw a more bloody end, with the president Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena shot by firing squad following 10 days of violent protest.
The year’s events were epitomised by the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a symbol of oppression to many, and over the next two years, communist regimes fell in the Balkans and the Soviet Union.
While the situation in Egypt and other Arab nations is far from over, experts and commentators have drawn some parallels between the two eras.
“The way they started – the demand for reform, democracy and the mass protests in terms of sweeping movements – are similar characteristics,” Tony Saunois, secretary of the Committee for Workers International based in London, told Al Jazeera.
A number of other factors, including the failure of government to keep spirits up amid economic hardship, can also be compared with what happened in eastern Europe when people realised the new system was not working, Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War and international editor of TheEconomist, said.
“The regimes lost their soft power – it’s not more fun, or prosperous, under their rule,” he told Al Jazeera.
Another parallel is that “the climate of fear has ebbed and people no longer believe that the regime is willing to kill”.
Lack of a superpower
But while some point to the domino effect that spread across eastern Europe as being similar to the way protests and uprising are moving across the Arab world, there are also some distinct differences.
“In 1989 there was an implosion of a social system that was based on a centralised system. The Arab world doesn’t have that,” Saunois says.
“They do have state control in terms of political oppression, but … the social basis they rest on, capitalism, is different.
“The international consequences of 1989 were also different. One of them was the pushing back of Socialism – that’s not going to be replicated by the movement in the Arab world when you’ve got a world economic recession.”
The lack of backing by a major superpower also indicates a clear divide between the two, while the US strongly supported pro-democracy movements in Europe it has been more ambivalent about the protesters in Egypt.
‘More Turkey than Iran’
With the situation still open in Egypt, there are also questions as to what political movement will emerge as the strongest once, if and when, Mubarak bows out as leader.
George Joffe, lecturer at the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University, says no one yet knows what the future holds for Arab states.
“In the Arab world there’s an underlay of commonality about what’s happening, but it’s a sociological one rather than a political one,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The real demand of the people is simple – to be free of oppression. But what’s not clear is if they can agree on what the future can be”George JoffeUniversity of Cambridge
“We are not seeing any ideology destroyed, and in the Arab world there’s not one ideology, there’s many.”
He said many former Soviet states were quick to install democractic adminstrations partly because some had previously held them, such as Czechoslovakia, but also because they were part of the wider “European experience”.
“But it’s interesting to note that when you moved further east, to Belarus, to Russia, then there wasn’t such enthusiam for the democratic model.”
Joffe adds a word of caution when comparing the situation of 1989 to the present Arab revolt, because “each country is separate”, with different relations between the military, the government and opposition groups.
“The real demand of the people is simple – to be free of oppression. But what’s not clear is if clear is if they can agree on what the future can be.
“We’re standing at a very uncertain moment. There’s going to be change. No regime is going to be able to engage in the kind of oppression that we’ve seen before. But it doesn’t mean we won’t still see more autocratic regimes in the future.”
Some media outlets have highlighted concern that the uprising in Egypt could pave the way for an Iranian-style Islamic movement to seize power, but it is a suggestion quickly squashed by academics.
Omar Ashour, a lecturer in Arab politics at the University of Exeter in Britain, told Al Jazeera “the main group of persons in Egypt are young men who are disenchanted, who are pushing for a democratic society”.
“Most of the ones leading the Islamic groups are less well organised but they don’t want to confront the government and they did not support this revolution in the beginning.
“So even if they took power, we might more or less see something that is similar to Turkey rather than Iran.”
‘End to tyranny’
Despite the differences, there are some lessons from history the Egyptian people may be willing to take home with them.
Lucas says protesters fighting for democracy across the Arab world should beware the “shape-shifting of clever people in the regime”.
“A lot of old communists came back in old guises – if you look around eastern Europe now many people in power had careers that flourished in the communist era,” he said, adding that the old KGB used their connections and influence to regain power under the new regime.
Another lesson to be learnt from history, he said, is that “revolution doesn’t always mean democracy”, as illustrated by uprisings in Central Asia and Azerbaijan.
But Ashour is more optimistic.
“We are seeing already Al Jazeera has been cut from the Arab world that shows how fragile the situation is.
“I think this will be the beginning of the Arab spring and the end of an ugly era of brutality and tyranny,” he said.
Political leaders often claim a situation is so complex that any attempt to change it would be disastrous. This is not always the case. After 9/11, President George Bush offered a clear choice: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” According to President Sarkozy, the choice in Tunisia was between a friendly dictator and “a Taliban-type regime in North Africa” (1). This suits both sides: a dictator can claim to be the last bastion against militant Islam, and the Islamists can claim that they alone oppose the dictator.
But if there is a social or democratic movement, and new players, the scenario suddenly changes. The embattled authorities look out for subversive activity among the protesters. If they find it, they exploit it. If not, they invent it.
In an interview with the Tunisian ambassador to Unesco, Mezri Haddad, on 13 January (the day before Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled), the opposition leader Nejib Chebbi criticised “development in which low pay provided the only comparative advantage in international competition” and “provocative displays of illicit wealth in the cities”, and claimed that “the people are all against the regime” (2). Haddad responded: “The people will ransack your fine house in La Marsa, that is what people do in societies where there is no fear of the police … Ben Ali saved Tunisia from the fanatics and fundamentalists in 1987… He must remain in power, come what may, because the country is under threat from the fanatics and their neo-Bolshevik allies.”
A few hours later, Haddad called on the man who “saved Tunisia” to stand down. On 16 January, Chebbi became the new minister for regional and local development. Revolution in Arab nations is rare but rapid. Less than a month after Mohamed Bouazizi’s suicide drew attention to the grievances of unemployed graduates, the Trabelsi family houses in Carthage had been seized, political prisoners had been released and Tunis was full of peasants demanding the abolition of privileges.
The historic events in Tunis had a familiar, French Revolutionary feel. A spontaneous movement spreads, widely diverse social strata are brought together, absolutism is vanquished. At which point, there are two alternatives left: take your winnings and leave, or double your stakes. Generally, one section of society (the liberal bourgeoisie) tries to stem the flood; another (peasants, employees in dead-end jobs, unemployed workers, poor students) backs the tide of protest, in the hope that the ageing autocracy and the monopolists will be swept away. Some of the protestors, especially the young, do not want to have risked their lives so that others, less daring but better placed, can use the protests to their own advantage. The social system survives, minus the police and the mafia.
Extending opposition to dictatorship in the person of the Ben Ali family to opposition to economic domination by an oligarchy would not suit the tourists, the money markets or the International Monetary Fund. The only freedom they want is for tourists, trade and movement of capital. Moody’s rating agency naturally downgraded Tunisia’s bond ratings on 19 January, citing “political instability and uncertainties caused by the collapse of the previous political regime”.
France’s outstretched hand
Cairo, Algiers, Tripoli, Beijing and western chanceries were equally unenthusiastic. As mainly Muslim crowds called for liberty and equality, France had its own interpretation of the compatibility of democracy with Islam, offering Ben Ali’s failing regime “the expert assistance of our security forces”. Ruling oligarchies, Muslim, secular and Christian, always close ranks at any public unrest. The former Tunisian president claimed to support secularism and women’s rights against fundamentalism, his party was a member of the Socialist International, yet he fled. To Saudi Arabia of all places.
Imagine the outcry if police had opened fire on demonstrators in Tehran or Caracas, leaving a hundred dead. Such comparisons were rejected in principle over 30 years ago in an article by the US academic, Jeane Kirkpatrick (3), in which she claimed that pro-western “authoritarian” regimes were always preferable and more susceptible to reform than the “totalitarian” regimes that might succeed them.
President Ronald Reagan was so impressed that he appointed her ambassador to the UN. Her article, published in November 1979, examines major blows the US had suffered that year, the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua. She maintained that the Carter administration, in its efforts to promote democracy, had in both cases “actively collaborated in the replacement of moderate autocrats friendly to American interests [the shah of Iran and Augusto Somoza] with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion.” These friendly regimes had their faults. Both were “led by men who had not been selected by free elections, … who sometimes invoked martial law to arrest, imprison, exile, and occasionally, it was alleged [sic], torture their opponents.” But “they were positively friendly to the US, sending their sons and others to be educated in our universities, voting with us in the United Nations, and regularly supporting American interests and positions even when these entailed personal and political cost. The embassies of both governments were… frequented by powerful Americans. And the shah and Somoza themselves were both welcome in Washington, and had many American friends.”
Then, “viewing international developments in terms of… a contemporary version of the same idea of progress that has traumatised western imaginations since the Enlightenment”, the Carter administration made a fatal mistake: it encouraged regime change. “Washington overestimated the political diversity of the opposition (especially the strength of ‘moderates’ and ‘democrats’), … underestimated the strength and intransigence of radicals in the movement, and misestimated the nature and extent of American influence on both the government and the opposition”, preparing the way for the ayatollahs and the Sandinistas.
There is nothing new about the idea of a “dictatorship of the lesser evil”, which is pro-western and may mend its ways given endless time, or the fear of finding fundamentalists (or communists) masquerading as democratic demonstrators. But the spirit of Jeane Kirkpatrick seems to have influenced Paris more than Washington. The US was reassured by the relatively minor role of Islamists in the Tunisian uprising, enabling a broad social and political front against Ben Ali. WikiLeaks had revealed the State Department’s feelings about the “mafia-esque elite” and the “sclerotic regime” of the ruling family. The White House left them to their fate, trusting that the liberal bourgeoisie would provide a replacement friendly to western interests.
But the Tunisian uprising has had wider repercussions, notably in Egypt. For the conditions that caused it are to be found elsewhere: unequal growth, high unemployment, protest crushed by grossly overblown police forces, well-educated young people with no prospects, bourgeois parasites living like tourists in their own country. Tunisians will not solve all these problems at a stroke but they have made a start. Like the rest of us, they were told there was no alternative. Yet they have shown us that “the impossible happens” (4).
1) Tunis, 28 April 2008.(2) “L’invité de Bourdin & Co”, RMC Radio France, 13 January 2011.
(2) “L’invité de Bourdin & Co”, RMC Radio France, 13 January 2011
(3) Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorships & Double Standards”, Commentary, New York, November 1979.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in what has been a largely peaceful protest, calling for Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, to stand down.The square, which has been the focal point of protests in Egypt, saw demonstrators observe what they have termed a “Day of Departure” for the man who has been the country’s leader for the last 30 years.As the country entered its eleventh day of unrest, mass demonstrations commenced after Friday prayers.Protests were also seen in the cities of Alexandria, Mahalla and Giza.Protests continued into the night, in defiance of a curfew that has not been observed since it was first enforced last week. The newly relaxed curfew now runs from 7pm to 6am local time.One protester in Cairo told Al Jazeera that demonstrators would continue protesting until Mubarak steps down.”It’s either death, or freedom,” he said.Ahmed Shafiq, Egypt’s new prime minister, however, said on Friday that Mubarak would not be handing over powers to Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, before the September elections. In statements carried by the official MENA news agency, Shafiq “ruled out” an early exit for Mubarak.”We need President Mubarak to stay for legislative reasons,” he said.Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s defence minister, visited Tahrir Square earlier on Friday, making him the first member of the government to do so. He talked with the protesters and military commanders.Speaking on Friday in Washington, Barack Obama, the US president, said it was “clear that there must be a transition process that begins now … and leads to free and fair elections”.Obama said that a “successful and orderly transition must be meaningful and … must address the legitimate greivances of those who seek a better future”.He said that in this “time of tumult and transformation”, the US would remain a “strong friend and partner” to the Egyptian people. Standoff in CairoAl Jazeera’s online producer in Cairo reported that a gunshot was heard in the centre of the capital on Friday afternoon, but no further violence was reported.
Our online producer describes the standoff at Talaat Harb Square
Earlier, about 200 Mubarak loyalists gathered on the 6th of October Bridge, near the square, with another 200 below the bridge.
Our correspondent reported that there was a short standoff between about 300 Mubarak loyalists and pro-democracy protesters in the Talaat Harb square, which is located on a street leading to the main protest centre.
People were throwing rocks at one another, and the Mubarak loyalists were eventually driven from the square.
Our correspondents said that there were up to five layers of checkpoints at some entrances, with makeshift barricades being put up by pro-democracy protesters.
At one point, a huge cheer went up amongst protesters when a false rumour went around saying that the president had stepped down.
Our correspondents have said that pro-democracy protesters have also “overpowered” several people who were suspected of wanting to engage in violence, and delivered them to the army, who are detaining them.
Our online producer termed Tahrir Square a “fully functioning encampment, with medical camps and pharmacies”.
Army separating protesters
Soldiers on foot are very visible, and army armoured personnel carriers and tanks have taken up positions to control the 6th of October bridge entrance to the square, our correspondent said.
Another correspondent added that the army appeared to be placing itself so as to separate Mubarak loyalists from pro-democracy prosters, and another correspondent indicated that the army was detaining some Mubarak supporters in order to prevent them from reaching the main square.
“The atmosphere is not quite as triumphal as Tuesday’s rally; people then said Mubarak would be out in a matter of hours, but now most of them think it’ll be a long time,” reported Al Jazeera’s online producer from the square.
IN VIDEO
Tahrir Square echoes with ‘Go Mubarak!’ chants
He added that protesters, a diverse array of men, women and children from various economic and religious backgrounds, fear an outbreak of violence and the atmosphere remains tense.
“The feel here is that today is the final day for Mubarak, it’s time for him to go,” Gigi Ibrahim, a political activist told Al Jazeera from the square.
Some protesters have called for the crowd to begin marching towards the presidential palace.<!–IMAGEPATH,DESC,URL–>
Amr Moussa, Egypt’s former foreign minister and current secretary-general of the Arab League, also spoke to demonstrators.
Earlier, prime minister Shafiq said the interior minister should not obstruct Friday’s peaceful marches.
Al Jazeera’s offices in Cairo were attacked on Friday by “gangs of thugs”, according to a statement from the network. The office was burned, along with the equipment inside it.
Later, Egyptian security forces arrested Al Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief and another Al Jazeera journalist in the capital.
Security forcers also broke into the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s website and arrested 12 journalists there, Al Masry Al Youm, the country’s largest independent newspaper, and the Associated Press reported on Friday.
Egyptian state television has been reporting that the situation in Cairo is currently quiet and calm.
They have not shown footage of the angry protesters, though they have said that they will try to bring some protesters into their studios for interviews.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s prosecutor-general has barred Rashid Mohammed Rashid, the former trade and industry minister, from leaving the country, and has frozen his bank accounts, the state news agency MENA said on Friday.
The same measures had earlier been ordered against Habib al-Adly, the former interior minister, and Ahmed Ezz, a businessman.
State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said on Friday that an Egyptian reporter shot during clashes earlier this week had died of his wounds.
The fatality is the first reported death of a journalist during the wave of anti-government protests.
Mubarak fears ‘chaos’
On Thursday, Mubarak said he wanted to leave office, but feared there will be chaos if he did.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage.
But he added: “If I resign today, there will be chaos.”
Mubarak’s government has struggled to regain control of a nation angry about poverty, recession and political repression, inviting the Muslim Brotherhood – Egypt’s most organised opposition movement – to talks and apologising for Wednesday’s bloodshed in Cairo.
In a bid to calm the situation, Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, said on Thursday that Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition groups had been invited to meet the new government as part of a national dialogue.
The Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition actors, including Mohamed ElBaradei, have refused the offer for talks until Mubarak leaves office.
“We demand that this regime is overthrown, and we demand the formation of a national unity government for all the factions,” the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement broadcast by Al Jazeera.
Mohammed Al-Beltagi, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al Jazeera on Friday that his organisation has no ambitions to run for the presidency, while ElBaradei said that he would run “if he people ask”.
The developments come as the New York Times reports, quoting US officials and Arab diplomats, that the US administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for Mubarak to resign immediately and hand over power to a transitional government headed by Omar Suleiman.
This report, though unconfirmed by the White House, comes after Mubarak’s statements on Tuesday where he agreed to give up power in September at the end of his current term.
Bloody clashes
At least 13 people have died and scores were injured over the last two days when Mubarak loyalists launched a counter-attack on pro-democracy protesters.
The Egyptian health ministry put the number of wounded at up to 5,000 since the start of the protests.
Protesters chanted ‘He must go!’
The army took little action on Wednesday while the fighting raged in Tahrir Square over the past two days.
The interior ministry has denied it ordered its agents or officers to attack prior pro-democracy demonstrations.
Suleiman said that the government would not forcefully remove protesters. “We will ask them to go home, but we will not push them to go home,” he said.
Ahead of Friday’s mass protests, eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera that thugs, with the assistance of security vehicles, were readying to attack the square. They said protesters were preparing to confront them.
Protesters also reported finding petrol bombs on security personnel dressed in civilian clothes.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
aankondiging:
Weer demonstratie Egypte op de Dam
De bijeenkomst ‘Democratie en vrijheid in Egypte, nu!’ vindt aanstaande zaterdag 5 februari op de Dam plaats.De manifestatie uit solidariteit met de Egyptische volksopstand werd georganiseerd door de Nederlandse tak van de Egyptische ‘6 april beweging’ en de Socialistische Partij. Tweede kamerlid Harry van Bommel gaat spreken op de manifestatie.
Vandaag, zaterdag 5 februari, van 16:00 tot 17:00, is er op de Dam in Amsterdam een demonstratie voor Egypte. De organisatie is in handen van de Nederlandse tak van de Egyptische 6 Aprilbeweging en de SP. De 6 aprilbeweging, begonen in 2008, pleit voor beëindiging van de jarenlange noodtoestand in Egypte; voor persvrijheid; voor onafhankelijke rechters, voor vrije verkiezingen, met buitenlandse waarnemers en voor een nieuwe grondwet. Mohamed El Baradei is een van de meest vooraanstaande leden van de 6 Aprilbeweging.
Kom ook! Want hoewel ik niet geloof dat het in the grand scheme of things ook maar ene zak uitmaakt of wij daar nu staat of niet, is het voor het moraal van de demonstranten in Egypte buitengewoon goed om te weten dat overal ter wereld mensen hun moed prijzen en hun doelen ondersteunen – dat we met hen meeleven, al is het van ver.
Tot zover de oproep van de site van Karin Spaink. Hier nog een link naar een blogspot van de 6 april beweging: http://6aprilmove.blogspot.com/
Hieronder een kleine impressie van de Demonstratie op de Dam (5-2-2011)
Foto’s Floris Schreve:
Toespraak van Karin Spaink:
Dit is geen islamitische revolutie. Ja, de Muslim Brotherhood doet ook mee, maar niet georganiseerd. Ze zijn er gewoon als individu, net als honderdduizenden andere Egyptenaren die hun buik vol hebben van dertig jaar dictatorschap en van dertig jaar leven onder de noodtoestand: zonder persvrijheid, zonder vrije verkiezingen, zonder vrijheid van demonstratie en zonder vrije communicatie.
Dit is geen islamitische revolutie. Ik kijk al zeven dagen onafgebroken naar Al Jazeera, en nog geen enkele keer heb ik iemand Allahuh akhbar horen roepen. Wel zie ik christenen die een kring vormen rond moslims om hen tijdens hun gebed te beschermen, net als eerder moslims de Koptische kerken in Egypte beschermden nadat er een door een aanslag was getroffen. Gisteren liepen op Tahrir twee religieuze hoogwaardigheidsbekleders rond, een moslim en een katholiek: hand in hand, beiden in vol ornaat. En ze zeiden dat er meer was dat hen onderling bond dan hen scheidde.
Dit is geeninstant opstand, ontstaan in het kielzog van Tunesië. In Egypte broeit het al jaren: de 6 aprilbeweging uit 2008 is daarvan een voorbeeld. Alleen heeft niemand eerder het cordon van angst dat een dictatuur over haar onderdanen legt, lang genoeg weten te doorbreken. Dat is wat Tunesië heeft gedaan: moed geven, hoop bieden.
Dit is geen Facebook- of Twitterrevolutie. Moderne media zijn weliswaar een uitstekend medium om het nieuws naar buiten te brengen, maar Egyptische jongeren zijn al jarenlang aan het bloggen over wat ze doen, wat zij vinden en wat hen daardoor is overkomen: arrestatie, intimidatie en mishandeling. Dit is een opstand van mensen die eindelijk de middelen, de moed en de massa hebben gevonden om te zeggen: dit niet. Kefaya. Erhal!
Wat het wel is, is dit: een opstand van mensen die nu eindelijk gehoord willen worden. Een opstand van mensen die consequent vreedzaam willen blijven, ook al werden ze geconfronteerd met de harafeesh – huurlingen van het regime die met kamelen, paarden, messen en molotovcocktails de aanval openden.
Dit is een opstand van mensen die uitsluitend democratische eisen stellen: weg met de dictator, weg met de angst. Geen marteling meer, geen staat van beleg meer. We willen persvrijheid, we willen een echte grondwet, we willen vrije verkiezingen en een politie die niet corrupt is. We willen werk, we willen een vrij leven, en we willen kunnen zeggen wat we willen.
Het is ook een opstand die onze westerse stereotypen verscheurt. Egypte is geen ‘achterlijk’ land, geen land vol analfabeten, geen land dat achter de mullahs wil aanhobbelen. Egypte is een land dat vrijheid boven religie stelt, een natie wier burgers met gevaar voor eigen leven streven naar een volkomen vreedzame revolutie.
Dit is helaas ook een opstand die Amerika in haar hemd heeft gezet. Amerika zegt de democratie te willen exporteren, maar blijkt daarin plotseling akelig selectief te zijn. Revoltes in landen met regimes die haar niet bevallen, werden gretig ondersteund (denk aan de groene revolutie van 2009 in Iran), maar nu het om een Amerikaanse bondgenoot ging, drong Amerika aan op ‘stabiliteit’. Natuurlijk geeft een land dat zich van haar regime wil bevrijden, haar stabiliteit op – dat is de crux van een revolutie. Mubarak gaat immers uit zichzelf niet weg, dat bewijst hij ook nu. Het is zijn eindeloze aanblijven, zijn zucht naar behoud van de macht die de chaos veroorzaakt – zijn harafeesh, zijn jacht op journalisten, zijn blokkades van banken en benzinestations, zijn verzet om zijn volk ruimte te geven en hun rechten te honoreren.
Nee, er is geen structuur voor wat er hierna moet komen. Hoe kan dat ook? Dat is immers waar elke dictator uit alle macht voor zorgt: dat niemand anders draagvlak krijgt, dat niemand anders zich kan organiseren, dat er geen enkel alternatief voorhanden lijkt. Een dictator wil alle beschikbare ruimte innemen en plooit alles – werkelijk alles – naar zijn heerschappij. Dat er geen helder alternatief is, is nu juist het gevolg van Mubaraks regime. Verlangen dat de oppositie een kant en klare oplossing weet te bieden, is eisen dat zij in een week tijd herstellen wat hen dertig jaar lang met geweld uit handen is geslagen.
Intussen verbaas ik hoe vasthoudend en ontroerend die eindelijk losgebarsten vrijheidsdrang is. Mensen die grappen maken, die poëtisch politiek zijn. Mensen die een plein waarop dag in, dag uit honderdduizenden mensen demonstreren, weten te organiseren en schoon te houden. Die elkaar voeden, steunen en verzorgen. Die aanvallers insluiten en niet keihard terugmeppen. Die musea en bibliotheken beschermen.
El Masr – jullie verdienen alles wat je nastreeft. Dat hebben jullie ten overstaan van de hele wereld prachtig en overtuigend bewezen.
As the world watches Egyptian society transform, various interest groups jockey for position in the new political order.
Paul Amar
Last Modified: 03 Feb 2011 15:17 GMT
Anti-government protesters say they are more determined than ever to topple President Hosni Mubarak [Reuters]
The “March of Millions” in Cairo marks the spectacular emergence of a new political society in Egypt. This uprising brings together a new coalition of forces, uniting reconfigured elements of the security state with prominent business people, internationalist leaders, and relatively new (or newly reconfigured) mass movements of youth, labour, women’s and religious groups. President Hosni Mubarak lost his political power on Friday, January 28.
On that night the Egyptian military let Mubarak’s ruling party headquarters burn down and ordered the police brigades attacking protesters to return to their barracks. When the evening call to prayer rang out and no one heeded Mubarak’s curfew order, it was clear that the old president been reduced to a phantom authority. In order to understand where Egypt is going, and what shape democracy might take there, we need to set the extraordinarily successful popular mobilisations into their military, economic and social context. What other forces were behind this sudden fall of Mubarak from power? And how will this transitional military-centred government get along with this millions-strong protest movement?
Many international media commentators – and some academic and political analysts – are having a hard time understanding the complexity of forces driving and responding to these momentous events. This confusion is driven by the binary “good guys versus bad guys” lenses most used to view this uprising. Such perspectives obscure more than they illuminate.
There are three prominent binary models out there and each one carries its own baggage: (1) People versus Dictatorship, a perspective that leads to liberal naïveté and confusion about the active role of military and elites in this uprising; (2) Seculars versus Islamists, a model that leads to a 1980s-style call for “stability” and Islamophobic fears about the containment of the supposedly extremist “Arab street”; or, (3) Old Guard versus Frustrated Youth, a lens which imposes a 1960s-style romance on the protests but cannot begin to explain the structural and institutional dynamics driving the uprising, nor account for the key roles played by many 70-year-old Nasser-era figures.
To map out a more comprehensive view, it may be helpful to identify the moving parts within the military and police institutions of the security state and how clashes within and between these coercive institutions relate to shifting class hierarchies and capital formations. I will also weigh these factors in relation to the breadth of new non-religious social movements and the internationalist or humanitarian identity of certain figures emerging at the centre of the new opposition coalition.
Picking a paradigm
Western commentators, whether liberal, left or conservative, tend to see all forces of coercion in non-democratic states as the hammers of “dictatorship” or as expressions of the will of an authoritarian leader. But each police, military and security institution has its own history, culture, class-allegiances, and, often its own autonomous sources of revenue and support as well. It would take many books to lay this all out in detail; but let me make a brief attempt here. In Egypt, the police forces (al-shurta) are run by the Interior Ministry, which was very close to Mubarak and the Presidency and had become politically co-dependent on him.
But police stations gained relative autonomy during the past decades. In certain police stations this autonomy took the form of the adoption of a militant ideology or moral mission; or some Vice Police stations have taken up drug running; or some ran protection rackets that squeezed local small businesses. The political dependability of the police, from a bottom-up perspective, is not high. Police grew to be quite self-interested and entrepreneurial on a station-by-station level.
In the 1980s, the police faced the growth of “gangs”, referred to in Egyptian Arabic as baltagiya. These street organisations had asserted self-rule over Cairo’s many informal settlements and slums. Foreigners and the Egyptian bourgeoisie assumed the baltagiya to be Islamists but they were mostly utterly unideological. In the early 1990s the Interior Ministry decided “if you can’t beat them, hire them”.
So the Interior Ministry and the Central Security Services started outsourcing coercion to these baltagiya, paying them well and training them to use sexualised brutality (from groping to rape) in order to punish and deter female protesters and male detainees alike. During this period, the Interior Ministry also turned the State Security Investigations (SSI – mabahith amn al-dawla) into a monstrous threat, detaining and torturing masses of domestic political dissidents.
Autonomous from the Interior Ministry we have the Central Security Services (Amn al-Markazi). These are the black uniformed, helmeted men that the media refer to as “the police”. Central Security was supposed to act as the private army of Mubarak. These are not revolutionary guards or morality brigades like the basiji who repressed the Green Movement protesters in Iran. By contrast, the Amn al-Markazi are low paid and non-ideological. Moreover, at crucial times, these Central Security brigades have risen up en masse against Mubarak himself to demand better wages and working conditions.
Perhaps if it weren’t for the sinister assistance of the brutal baltagiya, they would not be a very intimidating force. The look of unenthusiastic resignation in the eyes of Amn al-Markazi soldiers as they were kissed and lovingly disarmed by protesters has become one of the most iconic images, so far, of this revolution. The dispelling of Mubarak’s authority could be marked to precisely that moment when protesters kissed the cheeks of Markazi officers who promptly vanished into puffs of tear gas, never to return.
Evolving military power
The Armed Forces of the Arab Republic of Egypt are quite unrelated to the Markazi or police and see themselves as a distinct kind of state altogether. One could say that Egypt is still a “military dictatorship” (if one must use that term) since this is still the same regime that the Free Officers’ Revolution installed in the 1950s. But the military has been marginalised since Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel and the United States. Since 1977, the military has not been allowed to fight anyone. Instead, the generals have been given huge aid payoffs by the US. They have been granted concessions to run shopping malls in Egypt, develop gated cities in the desert and beach resorts on the coasts. And they are encouraged to sit around in cheap social clubs.
These buy-offs have shaped them into an incredibly organised interest group of nationalist businessmen. They are attracted to foreign investment, but their loyalties are economically and symbolically embedded in national territory. As we can see when examining any other case in the region (Pakistan, Iraq, the Gulf), US military-aid money does not buy loyalty to America; it just buys resentment. In recent years, the Egyptian military has felt collectively a growing sense of national duty, and has developed a sense of embittered shame for what it considers its “neutered masculinity”: its sense that it was not standing up for the nation’s people.
The nationalistic Armed Forces want to restore their honour and they are disgusted by police corruption and baltagiya brutality. And it seems that the military, now as “national capitalists”, have seen themselves as the blood rivals of the neoliberal “crony capitalists” associated with Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal who have privatised anything they can get their hands on and sold the country’s assets off to China, the US, and Persian Gulf capital.
Thus we can see why in the first stage of this revolution, on Friday January 28, we saw a very quick “coup” of the military against the police and Central Security, and disappearance of Gamal Mubarak (the son) and of the detested Interior Minister, Habib el-Adly. However, the military is also split by some internal contradictions. Within the Armed Forces there are two elite sub-branches, the Presidential Guard and the Air Force. These remained closer to Mubarak while the broader military turned against him.
This explains why you can had the contradictory display of the General Chief of the Armed Forces, Muhammad Tantawi, wading in among the protesters to show support on January 30, while at the same time, the chief of the Air Force was named Mubarak’s new Prime Minister and sent planes to strafe the same protesters. This also explains why the Presidential Guard protected the Radio/Television Building and fought against protesters on January 28 rather than siding with them.
The Vice President, Omar Soleiman, named on January 29, was formerly the head of the Intelligence Services (al-mukhabarat). This is also a branch of the military (not of the police). Intelligence is in charge of externally-oriented secret operations, detentions and interrogations (and, thus, torture and renditions of non-Egyptians). Although since Soleiman’s mukhabarat did not detain and torture as many Egyptian dissidents in the domestic context, they are less hated than the mubahith.
The Intelligence Services (mukhabarat) are in a particularly decisive position as a “swing vote”. As I understand it, the Intelligence Services loathed Gamal Mubarak and the “crony capitalist” faction, but are obsessed with stability and have long, intimate relationships with the CIA and the American military. The rise of the military, and within it, the Intelligence Services, explains why all of Gamal Mubarak’s business cronies were thrown out of the cabinet on Friday, January 28, and why Soleiman was made interim VP (and functions in fact as Acting President).
Cementing a new order
This revolution or regime change would be complete at the moment when anti-Mubarak tendencies in the military consolidate their position and reassure the Intelligence Services and the Air Force that they can confidently open up to the new popular movements and those parties coalesced around opposition leader ElBaradei. This is what an optimistic reader might judge to be what Obama and Clinton describe as an “orderly transition”.
On Monday, January 31, we saw Naguib Sawiris, perhaps Egypt’s richest businessman and the iconic leader of the developmentalist “nationalist capital” faction in Egypt, joining the protesters and demanding the exit of Mubarak. During the past decade, Sawiris and his allies had become threatened by Mubarak-and-son’s extreme neoliberalism and their favoring of Western, European and Chinese investors over national businessmen. Because their investments overlap with those of the military, these prominent Egyptian businessmen have interests literally embedded in the land, resources and development projects of the nation. They have become exasperated by the corruption of Mubarak’s inner circle.
Paralleling the return of organized national(ist) capital associated with the military and ranged against the police (a process that also occurred during the struggle with British colonialism in the 1930s-50s) there has been a return of very powerful and vastly organized labor movements, principally among youth. 2009 and 2010 were marked by mass national strikes, nationwide sit-ins, and visible labor protests often in the same locations that spawned this 2011 uprising. And the rural areas have been rising up against the government’s efforts to evict small farmers from their lands, opposing the regime’s attempts to re-create the vast landowner fiefdoms that defined the countryside during the Ottoman and British Colonial periods.
In 2008 we saw the 100,000 strong April 6 Youth Movement emerge, leading a national general strike. And in 2008 and just in December 2010 we saw the first independent public sector unions emerge. Then just on January 30, 2011, clusters of unions from most major industrial towns gathered to form an Independent Trade Union Federation. These movements are organized by new leftist political parties that have no relation to the Muslim Brotherhood, nor are they connected to the past generation of Nasserism.
They do not identify against Islam, of course, and do not make an issue of policing the secular-religious divide. Their interest in protecting national manufacturing and agricultural smallholdings, and in demanding public investment in national economic development dovetails with some of the interests of the new nationalist capital alliance.
Thus behind the scenes of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Facebook-driven protest waves, there are huge structural and economic forces and institutional realignments at work. Egypt’s population is officially recorded at 81 million but in reality goes well beyond 100 million since some parents do not register all their children to shield them from serving in the Amn Al-Markazi or army. With the burgeoning youth population now becoming well-organized, these social and internet-coordinated movements are becoming very important.
They can be grouped into three trends. One group of new movements are organized by and around international norms and organizations, and so may tend toward a secular, globalizing set of perspectives and discourses.
A second group is organized through the very active and assertive legal culture and independent judicial institutions in Egypt. This strong legal culture is certainly not a “Western human rights” import. Lawyers, judges and millions of litigants – men and women, working-class, farmers, and elite – have kept alive the judicial system and have a long unbroken history of resisting authoritarianism and staking rights claims of all sorts.
A third group of new social movements represents the intersection of internationalist NGOs, judicial-rights groups and the new leftist, feminist, rural and worker social movements. The latter group critiques the universalism of UN and NGO secular discourses, and draws upon the power of Egypt’s legal and labor activism, but also has its own innovative strategies and solutions – many of which have been on prominent display on the streets this week.
Eygptian internationalism
One final element to examine here is the critical, and often overlooked role that Egypt has played in United Nations and humanitarian organizations, and how this history is coming back to enliven domestic politics and offer legitimacy and leadership at this time. Muhammad ElBaradei, the former director of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, has emerged as the consensus choice of the United Democratic Front in Egypt, which is asking him to serve as interim president, and to preside over a national process of consensus building and constitution drafting. In the 2000s, ElBaradei bravely led the IAEA and was credited with confirming that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapons program.
He won the Nobel Prize for upholding international law against a new wave of wars of aggression and for essentially stopping the momentum for war against Iran. He is no radical and not Egypt’s Gandhi; but he is no pushover or puppet of the US, either. For much of the week, standing at his side at the protests has been Egyptian actor Khaled Abou Naga, who has appeared in several Egyptian and American films, and who serves as Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. This may be much more a UN-humanitarian led revolution than a Muslim Brotherhood uprising. This is a very twenty-first century regime change – simultaneously local and international.
It is a good time to remind ourselves that the first-ever United Nations military-humanitarian peacekeeping intervention, the UN Emergency Force, was created with the joint support of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and US President Dwight D. Eisenhower (both military men, of course) in 1960 to keep the peace in Gaza and to stop the former colonial powers and Israel from invading Egypt in order to retake the Suez Canal and resubordinate Egypt.
Then in the 1990s, Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Boutros-Ghali articulated new UN doctrines of state-building and militarized humanitarian intervention. But he got fired for making the mistake of insisting that international human rights and humanitarian law needed to be applied neutrally and universally, rather than only at the convenience of the Security Council powers.
Yet Egypt’s relationship to the UN continues. Notably, ‘Aida Seif Ad-Dawla, one of the most articulate, brave and creative leaders of the new generation of Egyptian social movements and feminist NGOs, is a candidate for the high office of UN Rapporteur on Torture. Egyptians have a long history for investing in and supporting international law, humanitarian norms and human rights.
Egyptian internationalism insists on the equal application of human rights principles and humanitarian laws of war even in the face of superpower pressure. In this context, ElBaradei’s emergence as a leader makes perfect sense. Although this internationalist dimension of Egypt’s “local” uprising is utterly ignored by most self-conscious liberal commentators who assume that international means “the West” and that Egypt’s protesters are driven by the politics of the belly rather than matters of principle.
Mubarak is already out of power. The new cabinet is composed of chiefs of Intelligence, Air Force and the prison authority, as well as one International Labor Organization official. This group embodies a hard-core “stability coalition” that will work to bring together the interests of new military, national capital and labor, all the while reassuring the United States.
Yes, this is a reshuffling of the cabinet, but one which reflects a very significant change in political direction. But none of it will count as a democratic transition until the vast new coalition of local social movements and internationalist Egyptians break into this circle and insist on setting the terms and agenda for transition.
I would bet that even the hard-line leaders of the new cabinet will be unable to resist plugging into the willpower of these popular uprisings, one hundred million Egyptians strong.
Paul Amar is Associate Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include: Cairo Cosmopolitan; The New Racial Missions of Policing; Global South to the Rescue; and the forthcoming Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics and the End of Neoliberalism.
Tens of thousands in Tahrir Square demand that President Mubarak quit, as the ruling party’s top leadership resigns.
Last Modified: 05 Feb 2011 19:54 GMT
Demonstrators are standing their ground in Cairo a day after hundreds of thousands of people gathered to call for Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, to quit.The protests entered their twelfth day on Saturday, after the city’s Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests in Egypt, saw demonstrators observe a “Day of Departure” on Friday.About 10,000 pro-democracy protesters also gathered outside the main train station in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, Al Jazeera’s correspondent there reported.The leadership of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) resigned en masse on Saturday, according to state television.Hossam Badrawi has been appointed the new secretary-general of the party, replacing Safwat El-Sherif, a Mubarak loyalist, in that post. Badrawi, seen by many as a liberal voice in the NDP, will also replace Gamal Mubarak, Hosni Mubarak’s son, as head of the party’s policies bureau.Frank Wisner, who has acted as an envoy for Barack Obama, the US president, by carrying a message to Mubarak, has said the Egyptian president “must stay in office to steer” a process of gathering “national consensus around the preconditions” for the way forward.PJ Crowley, the US state department’s spokesman, has said, however, that Wisner was speaking as a private citizen, and that his views did not represent those of the US government.”The views he expressed today are his own. He did not coordinate his comments with the US government,” Crowley said.Obama administration officials welcomed the resignation of Gamal Mubarak, terming it a “positive” move.Despite the continuing demonstrations and the resignations, Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister, said stability was returning to the country and that he was confident a deal could be reached on constitutional reforms. At a news conference aired on state television, Shafiq suggested that the government was seeking to enter into talks with enough opposition representatives to isolate street protesters.
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage
Saturday’s protests in Cairo were calm, and protesters were seen lighting campfires across the square as night drew in.
With the exception of a standoff between two groups who were chanting slogans, there was no violence reported on Saturday.
One of Al Jazeera’s correspondents in Cairo said there were about 10,000 people in Tahrir Square and queues of people trying to get in. About 500 people joined the protesters from the port city of Suez.
Our correspondent reported that the army was “behaving as if it’s back to business as usual tomorrow [Sunday]”. He said that the military had removed checkpoints on the 6th of October bridge, allowing traffic to resume normally.
“The army is still securing the square, but their agenda appears to be isolating the protesters – keeping them safe, yes, but also minimising their impact on the surrounding areas,” our correspondent said.
General rejected
At one point, General Hassan El-Rawani, the head of the army’s central command, entered the square and appealed to protesters to leave.
They responded with chants of “We are not leaving, he [Mubarak] is leaving!”
IN VIDEO
Protesters tell army commander “We won’t go!”
Protest organisers have now called for a “Day of the Martyred” to be observed in honour of those who have died in the protests so far, while Copts in Egypt have called for Sunday prayers this week to be observed in Tahrir Square.
Security in the square remains tight, with the military engaging in negotiations with protesters to dismantle some of the barricades that they had put up.
“There is very tight security today [Saturday] because there have been all sorts of unconfirmed rumours of bombs being planted in different areas, which has caused a bit of panic,” she said.
Another of our correspondents reported that soldiers had formed a line inside the square, around 100 metres beyond the museum barricade, and are separating the protesters inside the square from those manning the barricade.
“If I had to guess, I’d say the plan is to limit the number of protesters who can get to the museum barricade and then disassemble it, so that the army can regain control of that entrance,” he said.
“It looked like there might’ve been some altercation there; protesters were hopping over the barricades to the outside.
“They’ve now formed their own human chain, facing outward, along the exterior of the barricade.”
Cabinet meeting
Meanwhile, state media reported that Mubarak met ministers responsible for the main economic portfolios in his new government on Saturday.
The meeting included the prime minister, finance minister, oil minister and the trade and industry minister. The central bank governor also attended.
On Friday, Egypt’s prosecutor-general had barred Rashid Mohammed Rashid, the former trade and industry minister, from leaving the country, and had frozen his bank accounts.
The same measures was also taken against Habib al-Adly, the former interior minister, and Ahmed Ezz, a businessman.
‘Death or freedom’
Friday’s “Day of Departure” commenced after afternoon prayers, and saw huge numbers also gather in the cities of Alexandria, Mahalla and Giza.
Opposition Demands
Hosni Mubarak must go Dissolve parliament Lift state of emergency Transitional unity cabinet Constitutional amendments Fair and transparent trials
Protests continued into the night, in defiance of a curfew that has not been observed since it was first announced last week.
The newly relaxed curfew now runs from 7pm to 6am local time, according to state television.
One protester in Cairo told Al Jazeera that demonstrations will continue until Mubarak steps down.
“It’s either death, or freedom,” he said.
Ahmed Shafiq, Egypt’s new prime minister, however, said on Friday that Mubarak would not be handing over powers to Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, before the September elections. In statements carried by the official MENA news agency, Shafiq “ruled out” an early exit for Mubarak.
“We need President Mubarak to stay for legislative reasons,” he said.
One of our correspondents said some people outside Tahrir Square are beginning to become angry because they are not going to work, they do not have money and shops are running out of food.
“Who is going to represent [the protesters]? Who is going to lead negotiations with the government? Whoever you speak to has a different idea of what is to come because the demonstrators are a very diverse group,” she said.
Speaking on Friday in Washington, Barack Obama, the US president, said it was “clear that there must be a transition process that begins now … and leads to free and fair elections”.
On Saturday, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s top religious authority, warned that anti-regime uprisings are “chaotic acts” aimed at “tearing .. apart” the Muslim world.
Journalists detained
On Saturday, authorities arrested an Al Jazeera journalist who was returning from leave in Cairo to Doha at Cairo’s international airport. He was released later in the day, along with Al Jazeera’ bureau chief in Cairo, who was detained on Friday and another journalist who was arrested three days ago.
People continue to throng to the square,despite the cold and rain [GALLO/GETTY]
One other Al Jazeera journalist remained in custody.
On Friday, Al Jazeera’s offices in Cairo were attacked by “gangs of thugs”, according to a statement from the network. The office was burned, along with the equipment inside it.
Security forces also earlier broke into the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s website and arrested 12 journalists there, Al Masry Al Youm, the country’s largest independent newspaper, and the Associated Press reported on Friday.
An Egyptian journalist wounded in earlier anti-government protests has died of his injuries, his wife told Al Jazeera on Friday.
Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, who worked with state-owned daily al-Ahram, was wounded on January 29 during anti-government protests. He is the first journalist known to have died in the unrest.
Human Rights Watch, an international rights organisation, said in a statement on Friday that of more than 30 people arrested on Thursday, international activists had been released, but that Egyptian nationals remained in custody.
Amnesty International, the international human rights group, meanwhile, has said that two of its employees have been missing since last Thursday.
The Mubarak regime has been a tool with which Israel and the US have pressured Palestinians.
Abdullah Al-Arian Last Modified: 05 Feb 2011 13:50 GMT
There is a widespread view in Egypt that the Mubarak regime has served the interests of the West [GALLO/GETTY]
Along with the laundry list of domestic grievances expressed by Egyptian protesters calling for an end to the regime of Hosni Mubarak, the popular perception of Egypt’s foreign policy has also been a focal point of the demonstrations.
Signs and chants have called on Mubarak to seek refuge in Tel Aviv, while his hastily appointed vice-president, Omar Suleiman, has been disparaged as a puppet of the US. Egypt’s widely publicised sale of natural gas to Israel at rock bottom prices has featured in many refrains emanating from the crowds.
The widespread view among Egyptians that the regime has served the interests of the West has not been helped by Israel’s call for world leaders to support Mubarak, or the apparent unwillingness by American officials to give the protests their full backing.
Plummeting status
In the shadow of the current cries to topple the Egyptian regime, the Mubarak government has had a tough time keeping its role in international affairs out of public view.
In the area where Egypt’s foreign policy apparatus has served US interests most directly, Israel’s security, the Mubarak regime’s complicity in the failure to establish a Palestinian state has become widely publicised in recent years. Its role in placing the stranglehold on the people of Gaza, in conjunction with Israel, has seen Egypt’s status in the region plummet to a level it has not reached in decades.
The Palestine Papers, the leaked internal documents of the Palestinian Authority (PA) that were recently exposed by Al Jazeera, provide further confirmation of Egypt’s role in the impasse between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
While much of the coverage of the Palestine Papers has focused on the unprecedented concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators, and how swiftly they were spurned by Israeli and American representatives, Egypt’s role as an instrument for added pressure stands out from the internal records.
As the peace process broke down over the past decade, Egypt was a party to many of the discussions and central to the security arrangements made between the PA and Israel.
Egyptian duplicity
Throughout the documents, Suleiman in particular is singled out as the point person whom Israeli and American officials could count on to execute their agenda of dividing the Palestinian factions or pressing the PA for greater concessions.
Barely a few months after the January 2006 Palestinian elections that resulted in a Hamas victory, PA leaders were already appealing for assistance in fending off their political opponents. At a meeting between leading Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and US General Keith Dayton, the latter assured the Palestinians that the American administration is committed to reinforcing the PA’s Presidential Guard to maintain Mahmoud Abbas’ authority in the face of the newly elected Hamas government.
In support of his pledge, Dayton referred to discussions with Suleiman, who committed Egypt, along with Jordan, to providing training and equipment, “even at their own expense”.
Later in the year, as the Palestinian factions were engaged in negotiations over the formation of a unity government, a European diplomat told Erekat that the American position on unifying the Palestinians was “prematurely negative”. Erekat agreed, adding that Suleiman had also been discouraging of those efforts, saying that they would not work.
In early 2007, as the siege on Gaza had crippling consequences on the lives of Palestinians, negotiators complained that Egyptian leaders were duplicitous, speaking publicly in support of allowing goods into Gaza, but in reality, “it remains blocked on the ground …. This is a general problem with the Egyptians”.
An internal report from April 2007 confirms these suspicions. The Agreement on Movement and Access states: “Although there has been political agreement by Omar Suleiman and President Mubarak on allowing exports through, this agreement has never been translated into operational reality.”
Conditions in Gaza only worsened in the months ahead, thanks in large part to the stranglehold imposed by Israel and Egypt. As Hamas assumed sole control of Gaza by preventing a coup attempt by US-backed PA forces, Egypt determined to seal off the border.
In a February 2008 meeting between Ahmed Qurei, a high-ranking PA official, and Tzipi Livni, the then Israeli foreign minister, Qurei relayed the Egyptian position conveyed to him by their leader. “President Mubarak said they’ll close down the borders after Sunday and whoever is caught on Egyptian territories will be considered illegal.”
The situation came to a stalemate in the months leading up to Israel’s December 2008 assault on Gaza that resulted in the deaths of 1,500 Palestinians, most of them civilians. As tensions were heightened, Erekat lamented to his Israeli counterpart that Suleiman was forced to cancel a meeting in the occupied territories. Amos Gilad, the director of Israeli military intelligence, speculated: “Regarding Omar Suleiman, maybe he delayed because he is afraid we will attack while he is here. It will hurt him. He will look like a collaborator.”
A tool to pressure Palestinians
The image of Egyptian officials as tools to pressure the Palestinians also emerges out of conversations between US and Palestinian officials. In late 2009, George Mitchell, Barack Obama’s envoy to the region, told Erekat that he had spoken with Suleiman and the two agreed that the PA could unilaterally declare new elections without any input from Hamas.
Furthermore, Mitchell and Suleiman agreed that any agreement would have to permanently eradicate any Hamas presence in the West Bank, while at the same time allowing the PA to resume control of Gaza, terms Hamas was sure to reject. But as Egypt was preparing a document on how the PA should proceed, Erekat assured Mitchell that: “Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] won’t say no to whatever the Egyptians present to him”.
Even when it appeared that the Egyptians were attempting to display some degree of autonomy, it became more evident in the documents that external pressure was never too far behind. Only a few weeks later, Erekat complained to US negotiators that Egypt’s latest efforts to reconcile the Palestinian factions were straying from the official line. Daniel Rubenstein, the US consul general and chief of mission in Jerusalem, responded: “I can tell you, we did put pressure on the Egyptians. I read the document. It was a disaster.”
As Erekat continued to grumble about the PA’s weakened position and Egypt’s lack of cooperation, General James Jones, the US special envoy for Middle East security, abruptly ended the meeting with his words: “It’s insulting. We’ll take care of this.”
Jones appeared to have lived up to his promise. Only three months later, in January 2010, US negotiator David Hale assured Erekat that in recent talks with Suleiman: “The Egyptians brought ideas similar to our thinking.”
In this instance, the US appeared to put pressure on the PA to accept the latest proposals by giving the impression that the US and its allies in the region were unified in their position. Hale further added of the Egyptians: “They talked with Netanyahu and think he is serious.”
‘Egypt’s number two’
Given the critical role that Suleiman has played in advancing US and Israeli objectives, it was no surprise that Mubarak chose to appoint him as vice-president on January 29, a move rejected by protesters, but reassuring to Egypt’s Western patrons. In the leaked documents, Israeli officials were already referring to Suleiman as “Egypt’s Number Two” at a time when most observers believed that Mubarak was grooming his son to be succeed him.
Among Western policymakers, it seems Suleiman remains a popular choice to replace Mubarak, as the candidate uniquely suited to maintaining Egypt’s current foreign policy, while also addressing domestic grievances expressed by protesters. That remains a distant prospect, given the unlikelihood that the Egyptian opposition would abandon its call to determine the nation’s role in regional affairs. But it also demonstrates that, unlike Tunisia, Egypt is far too critical to US objectives in the Middle East to be left to its own devices.
Whatever the outcome in Egypt, it is clear that the recent revelations will have a dramatic impact on the settlement of the Palestinian question. Already weakened by the scandal of the Palestine Papers, Erekat may now have to do without the support of an Egyptian regime he termed, “our ally, our backbone”.
In his first interview as vice-president, Suleiman decried as “unacceptable” what he called “foreign interference” in Egypt’s current turmoil. Coming from a regime whose ability to endure through the decades is owed largely to foreign interference, the irony of those words will not be lost on the Egyptian people.
Abdullah Al-Arian is a doctoral candidate in the department of history at Georgetown University.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Er is verwarring ontstaan over het standpunt van de Verenigde Staten over de positie van de Egyptische president Mubarak. Een gezant van de VS zegt dat Mubarak voorlopig moet aanblijven om leiding te geven aan de machtswisseling, maar de Amerikaanse regering zou daar anders over denken.
Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Clinton heeft steeds gezegd dat Mubarak beter meteen kan vertrekken. Gezant Frank Wisner gaf tijdens de veiligheidsconferentie in München het advies om de president nog even aan te houden. Hij had afgelopen week een gesprek met Mubarak.
Volgens Wisner, voormalig ambassadeur in Egypte, kan Mubarak zijn eigen nalatenschap bepalen. “Hij heeft zich zestig jaar van zijn leven in dienst gesteld van zijn land. Dit is het ideale moment voor hem om de weg voorwaarts te tonen”, aldus Wisner.
Persoonlijke titel
Een hoge medewerker van de Amerikaanse regering heeft tegen de New York Times gezegd dat de boodschap van Wisner niet van president Obama komt. Hij zou op persoonlijke titel hebben gesproken.
Volgens NOS-correspondent Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal zijn velen het waarschijnlijk wel eens met Wisner, maar zal vanaf nu het officiële geluid weer zijn dat Mubarak meteen moet vertrekken.
Bestuur vervangen
Mubarak heeft inmiddels het bestuur van de Nationale Democratische Partij (NDP) vervangen. Zijn zoon Gamal, die lange tijd als zijn opvolger werd gezien, verdwijnt ook uit de partijtop.
Aanvankelijk meldden verscheidene persbureaus dat Mubarak was afgetreden als partijleider, maar die berichten werden later weer ingetrokken.
De nieuwe secretaris-generaal van de NDP is Hossam Badrawi. Hij wordt gerekend tot de gematigde vleugel van de partij.
‘Eervol compromis’
Achter de schermen zou nu worden gesproken over wat wordt genoemd “een eervol compromis” om de crisis op te lossen. Dat zou erop neerkomen dat president Mubarak voor de vorm nog een aantal maanden aanblijft, maar intussen al zijn bevoegdheden overdraagt aan een overgangsregering.
Op het Tahrirplein in Caïro is het vandaag relatief rustig gebleven. Het leger heeft een klein deel van het plein vrijgemaakt, zodat het verkeer er weer op gang kan komen.
Voor morgen staan weer nieuwe demonstraties aangekondigd.
Er is enige onduidelijkheid ontstaan over de positie van de VS ten aanzien van Egypte. Zaterdag zei VS-gezant Wisner dat president Mubarak voorlopig moet aanblijven om de hervormingen in gang te zetten. Buitenlandse Zaken zei dat Wisner op persoonlijke titel sprak.
Vrijdag zei president Obama dat de machtsoverdracht nu moet beginnen. Hij riep Mubarak op de juiste beslissing te nemen, zonder daarbij expliciet te zeggen dat Mubarak nu moet aftreden.
De Egyptische oppositieleider ElBaradei zegt dat het een grote tegenslag zou zijn als de VS Mubarak toestaat een overgangsregering te leiden.
Robert Fisk: Mubarak is going. He is on the cusp of final departure
Protesters in Tahrir Square are right to be sceptical despite the apparent shake-up in Egypt’s ruling party
Sunday, 6 February 2011
A demonstrator praying before soldiers yesterday
The old man is going. The resignation last night of the leadership of the ruling Egyptian National Democratic Party – including Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal – will not appease those who want to claw the President down. But they will get their blood. The whole vast edifice of power which the NDP represented in Egypt is now a mere shell, a propaganda poster with nothing behind it.
The sight of Mubarak’s delusory new Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq telling Egyptians yesterday that things were “returning to normal” was enough to prove to the protesters in Tahrir Square – 12 days into their mass demand for the exile of the man who has ruled the country for 30 years – that the regime was made of cardboard. When the head of the army’s central command personally pleaded with the tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in the square to go home, they simply howled him down.
In his novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, Gabriel Garcia Marquez outlines the behaviour of a dictator under threat and his psychology of total denial. In his glory days, the autocrat believes he is a national hero. Faced with rebellion, he blames “foreign hands” and “hidden agendas” for this inexplicable revolt against his benevolent but absolute rule. Those fomenting the insurrection are “used and manipulated by foreign powers who hate our country”. Then – and here I use a precis of Marquez by the great Egyptian author Alaa Al-Aswany – “the dictator tries to test the limits of the engine, by doing everything except what he should do. He becomes dangerous. After that, he agrees to do anything they want him to do. Then he goes away”.
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt appears to be on the cusp of stage four – the final departure. For 30 years he was the “national hero” – participant in the 1973 war, former head of the Egyptian air force, natural successor to Gamal Abdel Nasser as well as Anwar Sadat – and then, faced with his people’s increasing fury at his dictatorial rule, his police state and his torturers and the corruption of his regime, he blamed the dark shadow of the country’s fictional enemies (al-Qa’ida, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Jazeera, CNN, America). We may just have passed the dangerous phase.
Twenty-two lawyers were arrested by Mubarak’s state security police on Thursday – for assisting yet more civil rights lawyers who were investigating the arrest and imprisonment of more than 600 Egyptian protesters. The vicious anti-riot cops who were mercifully driven off the streets of Cairo nine days ago and the drug-addled gangs paid by them are part of the wounded and dangerous dictator’s remaining weapons. These thugs – who work directly under ministry of interior orders – are the same men now shooting at night into Tahrir Square, killing three men and wounding another 40 early on Friday morning. Mubarak’s weepy interview with Christiane Amanpour last week – in which he claimed he didn’t want to be president but had to carry on for another seven months to save Egypt from “chaos” – was the first hint that stage four was on the way.
Al-Aswany has taken to romanticising the revolution (if that is what it truly is). He has fallen into the habit of holding literary mornings before joining the insurrectionists, and last week he suggested that a revolution makes a man more honourable – just as falling in love makes a person more dignified. I suggested to him that a lot of people who fall in love spend an inordinate amount of time eliminating their rivals and that I couldn’t think of a revolution that hadn’t done the same. But his reply, that Egypt had been a liberal society since the days of Muhammad Ali Pasha and was the first Arab country (in the 19th century) to enjoy party politics, did carry conviction.
If Mubarak goes today or later this week, Egyptians will debate why it took so long to rid themselves of this tin-pot dictator. The problem was that under the autocrats – Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak and whomever Washington blesses next – the Egyptian people skipped two generations of maturity. For the first essential task of a dictator is to “infantilise” his people, to transform them into political six-year-olds, obedient to a patriarchal headmaster. They will be given fake newspapers, fake elections, fake ministers and lots of false promises. If they obey, they might even become one of the fake ministers; if they disobey, they will be beaten up in the local police station, or imprisoned in the Tora jail complex or, if persistently violent, hanged.
Only when the power of youth and technology forced this docile Egyptian population to grow up and stage its inevitable revolt did it become evident to all of these previously “infantilised” people that the government was itself composed of children, the eldest of them 83 years old. Yet, by a ghastly process of political osmosis, the dictator had for 30 years also “infantilised” his supposedly mature allies in the West. They bought the line that Mubarak alone remained the iron wall holding back the Islamic tide seeping across Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood – with genuine historical roots in Egypt and every right to enter parliament in a fair election – remains the bogeyman on the lips of every news presenter, although they have not the slightest idea what it is or was.
But now the infantilisation has gone further. Lord Blair of Isfahan popped up on CNN the other night, blustering badly when asked if he would compare Mubarak with Saddam Hussein. Absolutely not, he said. Saddam had impoverished a country that once had a higher standard of living than Belgium – while Mubarak had increased Egypt’s GDP by 50 per cent in 10 years.
What Blair should have said was that Saddam killed tens of thousands of his own people while Mubarak has killed/hanged/tortured only a few thousand. But Blair’s shirt is now almost as blood-spattered as Saddam’s; so dictators, it seems, must now be judged only on their economic record. Obama went one further. Mubarak, he told us early yesterday, was “a proud man, but a great patriot”.
This was extraordinary. To make such a claim, it was necessary to believe that the massive evidence of savagery by Egypt’s state security police over 30 years, the torture and the vicious treatment of demonstrators over the past 13 days, was unknown to the dictator. Mubarak, in his elderly innocence, may have been aware of corruption and perhaps the odd “excess” – a word we are beginning to hear again in Cairo – but not of the systematic abuse of human rights, the falsity of every election.
This is the old Russian fairy tale. The tsar is a great father figure, a revered and perfect leader. It’s just that he does not know what his underlings are doing. He doesn’t realise how badly the serfs are treated. If only someone would tell him the truth, he would end injustice. The tsar’s servants, of course, connived at this.
But Mubarak was not ignorant of the injustice of his regime. He survived by repression and threats and false elections. He always had. Like Sadat. Like Nasser who – according to the testimony of one of his victims who was a friend of mine – permitted his torturers to dangle prisoners over vats of boiling faeces and gently dunk them in it. Over 30 years, successive US ambassadors have informed Mubarak of the cruelties perpetrated in his name. Occasionally, Mubarak would express surprise and once promised to end police brutality, but nothing ever changed. The tsar fully approved of what his secret policemen were doing.
Thus, when David Cameron announced that “if” the authorities were behind the violence in Egypt, it would be “absolutely unacceptable” – a threat that naturally had them shaking in their shoes – the word “if” was a lie. Cameron, unless he doesn’t bother to read the Foreign Office briefings on Mubarak, is well aware that the old man was a third-rate dictator who employed violence to stay in power.
The demonstrators in Cairo and Alexandria and Port Said, of course, are nonetheless entering a period of great fear. Their “Day of Departure” on Friday – predicated on the idea that if they really believed Mubarak would leave last week, he would somehow follow the will of the people – turned yesterday into the “Day of Disillusion”. They are now constructing a committee of economists, intellectuals, “honest” politicians to negotiate with Vice-President Omar Suleiman – without apparently realising that Suleiman is the next safe-pair-of-hands general to be approved by the Americans, that Suleiman is a ruthless man who will not hesitate to use the same state security police as Mubarak relied upon to eliminate the state’s enemies in Tahrir Square.
Betrayal always follows a successful revolution. And this may yet come to pass. The dark cynicism of the regime remains. Many pro-democracy demonstrators have noticed a strange phenomenon. In the months before the protests broke out on 25 January, a series of attacks on Coptic Christians and their churches spread across Egypt. The Pope called for the protection of Egypt’s 10 per cent Christians. The West was appalled. Mubarak blamed it all on the familiar “foreign hand”. But then after 25 January, not a hair of a Coptic head has been harmed. Why? Because the perpetrators had other violent missions to perform?
When Mubarak goes, terrible truths will be revealed. The world, as they say, waits. But none wait more attentively, more bravely, more fearfully than the young men and women in Tahrir Square. If they are truly on the edge of victory, they are safe. If they are not, there will come the midnight knock on many a door.
The key players
Hosni Mubarak
A former Egyptian air force commander who was thrust into power after Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1982, Mubarak has proved to be a ruthless and resilient President. By combining political repression at home with close relations with the US, and relatively cordial relations with Israel, he has been able to retain Egypt’s place as a pivotal voice in the Arab world. His handling of the Egyptian economy has been less successful, however.
Ahmed Shafik
Like President Mubarak, Prime Minister Shafik’s background is in the Egyptian air force, which he at one point commanded; he has also served as aviation minister. Both his military background and his reputation for efficiency as a government minister made him an obvious choice during the reshuffle forced by the protests.
Omar Suleiman
As the head of the Mukhabarat, Egypt’s secret service, Suleiman was one of the most powerful and feared men in Egypt. He also cultivated a close relationship with the US: Mukhabarat cells became one of the destinations for terror suspects who had been “renditioned” by the CIA. As Egypt’s new Vice-President, however, he hardly represents a new face for the Mubarak regime. Reports of an assassination attempt against him last week have been denied by the Egyptian authorities.
Mohamed Elbaradei
Winner of the Nobel Peace prize, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has the highest international profile of Mubarak’s potential successors. However, he still lacks a strong domestic support base in Egypt, and among the Tahrir Square protesters. It remains to be seen whether he has time to build that kind of support before Mubarak leaves.
Quotes…
“We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The President must stay in office to steer those changes.”Frank Wisner, US special envoy for Egypt
“There are forces at work in any society, and particularly one that is facing these kinds of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own specific agenda…. [That is] why I think it is important to support the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by now Vice-President Omar Suleiman.” Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State
“We need a transition of power within a constitutional framework. At this stage, we have two possible directions: either constitutional reforms or a coup d’état by the army. I don’t see another way out.”Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, secretary general of the liberal Wafd Party
“I don’t believe that we solve the world’s problems by flicking a switch and holding an election…. Egypt is a classic case in point.”David Cameron, speaking at security conference in Munich
“I think a very quick election at the start of a process of democratisation would be wrong…. If there is an election first, new structures of political dialogue and decision-making don’t have a chance to develop.”Angela Merkel, German Chancellor
Verandering komt eraan? – De ‘Arabische revolte’ in Jordanië
5 February 2011 6 views No Comment
Gastauteur: Egbert Harmsen
Wat vele jaren lang voor onmogelijk werd gehouden lijkt nu toch bewaarheid te worden: al decennialang heersende regimes in de Arabische wereld, allen gedomineerd paternalistische en autoritaire leidersfiguren die met hun eeuwige zitvlees op de stoel van de macht blijven en die het vaak zelfs presteren om hun zoon klaar te stomen voor hun opvolging, schudden op hun grondvesten. Ook de bevolking van Jordanië is aangestoken door deze protestkoorts, die daar zoals ook elders in de Arabische wereld het geval is, wordt aangejaagd door toenemende armoede, werkloosheid en gebrek aan vrijheid en burgerrechten. Maar hoever reikt dat Jordaanse protest nu eigenlijk en wat zijn de specifieke implicaties ervan?
Het tweeledige Jordaanse protest
Het begon op 7 januari jongstleden. In het stadje Tseiban, 60 km ten zuiden van de hoofdstad Amman, gingen dagloners de straat op om te protesteren. Tegen de prijsstijgingen. Tegen de privatiseringen die in het kader van een neoliberale regeringspolitiek zijn doorgevoerd. Tegen de overheidscorruptie. Binnen een week tijd sloegen deze protesten over naar andere kleine en middelgrote steden, zoals Karak in het zuiden en Irbid in het noorden. Sociaaleconomische eisen domineerden: er moest een nieuwe regering komen die er werkelijk toe bereid was om de massawerkloosheid, de hoge prijzen en de corruptie aan te pakken. Let wel: een nieuwe regering, in de zin van een ander kabinet. Met had het niet over regime change. Aan de top van de Jordaanse machtspiramide staat immers de koning. Deze heeft over alles het laatste woord, zou boven alle partijen staan en ook boven alle misstappen en wanbeleid van overheidsfunctionarissen, tot de minister-president aan toe.
De traditionele Jordaanse oppositie wordt gedomineerd door de uit de Moslim Broederschap voortgekomen Islamitisch Actie Front Partij (IAF), bestaat verder nog uit enkele kleine linkse en seculiere pan-Arabische partijen en daarnaast uit beroepsorganisaties. Deze groepen aarzelden aanvankelijk over zijn houding ten aanzien van de bovengenoemde protesten. Deze protesten werden immers geuit door leden van Jordaanse stammen die van oudsher zeer loyaal zijn aan het Hashemitische koningshuis en diens politiek. De traditionele Jordaanse oppositiepartijen werden door de Tunesische revolutie geïnspireerd om hun stem te verheffen, maar konden op eigen houtje relatief weinig demonstranten mobiliseren. Zij zochten daarom uiteindelijk toch aansluiting bij die nieuw ontstane Jordaanse protestbeweging met zijn sociaaleconomische eisen. Deze beweging, die dus begon in Tseiban, is bekend komen te staan onder de naam “Verandering komt eraan!”. Volgens politiek analist Muhammad Abu Ruman van het Center for Strategic Studies van Jordan University te Amman probeerden de traditionele oppositiepartijen daarmee ruimte te cre?eren voor hun eigen politieke eisen die vooral in de sfeer lagen van meer democratie en burgerrechten. Meer concreet willen zij, onder andere, een nieuwe kieswet die gebaseerd is op evenredige vertegenwoordiging (en de regimeloyale stammen niet langer bevoordeeld), vrijheid van vergadering en een gekozen premier.
De beweging “Verandering komt eraan!” en de traditionele politieke oppositie konden elkaar vinden in de eis tot aftreden van het kabinet van premier Samir Rifai omwille van de zo hoognodige “verandering”. “Verandering komt eraan!” voelt er echter niet voor om de politieke eisen van de oppositiepartijen over te nemen. Volgens het hoofd van de beweging, Mohammad Sneid, hebben de armen in Jordani? hun eigen prioriteiten, zoals het zeker stellen van voedsel en onderdak. Het zijn zulke eisen, in de sfeer van bread and butter issues, die de beweging aan de overheid wil overbrengen. “Politieke hervormingen vullen de maag immers niet”, meent Sneid. Leiders van traditionele oppositiepartijen, zoals Saeed Thiab van de Wihdat Partij en Munir Hamarneh van de Communistische partij, staan er echter op dat politieke hervormingen, zoals de instelling van een sterk en onafhankelijk parlement die de regering werkelijk controleert en daarmee corruptie tegen gaat, noodzakelijk zijn om sociaaleconomische verbeteringen te bestendigen. De Islamisten sluiten zich bij deze zienswijze aan. In de woorden van IAF-prominent Hamza Mansour, zoals geciteerd in de Engelstalige krant Jordan Times: “we want a government chosen by the majority of the Jordanian people and we want a balance of powers; we will protest until our demands are taken seriously”.
Nieuwe regering
Het verschil in visie tussen de nieuwe protestbeweging “Verandering komt eraan!” en de traditionele oppositiepartijen brengt ook meningsverschillen omtrent de vorming van een nieuwe regering met zich mee. Eerstgenoemde beweging wenst een “regering van nationale eenheid” die afrekent met het vrije marktgeoriënteerde beleid van het kabinet van Rifai. Die nieuwe regering dient de belangen van de tribale en provinciale achterban van de beweging te behartigen in plaats van die van het grote bedrijfsleven. Eerste prioriteit daarbij is een politiek van prijsbeheersing. De islamistische en de linkse oppositiepartijen, die hun aanhang vooral in de grote steden en de Palestijnse vluchtelingenkampen hebben, staan in principe niet afwijzend tegenover deze sociaaleconomische eisen van “Verandering komt eraan!”. Ze geven er echter de voorkeur aan zelf een beslissende stem in een nieuwe regering te hebben en vinden bovendien dat het vormen van een nieuwe regering weinig zin heeft zolang het Jordaanse politieke bestel niet in structurele zin veranderd in de richting van meer democratie.
Reactie van het regime
Geschrokken door de protesten heeft het regime initiatieven ontplooid om de protesten in het land te kalmeren. Zo bracht koning Abdallah II in het diepste geheim bezoeken aan arme streken in het land. Tevens riep hij het Jordaanse parlement op om sociaaleconomische en politieke hervormingen versneld door te voeren. Dit parlement ging zich vervolgens bezinnen op maatregelen om brandstofprijzen te verlagen en de transparantie bij het vaststellen van prijzen te bevorderen. Tevens word er gesproken over het opzetten van een nationaal fonds ter ondersteuning van de armen en van industrie?n die veel werkgelegenheid creëren. Salarissen van werknemers en gepensioneerden zijn verhoogd. De politie kreeg de opdracht zich te onthouden van geweld tegen demonstranten, en deelde zelfs water en vruchtensappen aan de laatstgenoemden uit. Op 1 februari jongstleden ging de koning er uiteindelijk toe over om de regering Rifai te ontslaan, naar zijn zeggen omdat dit kabinet enkel bepaalde particuliere belangen had gediend en het naliet om essentiële hervormingen door te voeren. Marouf Bakhit is nu aangewezen om premier te worden van een nieuw kabinet. Bakhit heeft een militaire achtergrond, heeft tevens een leidende rol gespeeld in het Jordaanse veiligheidsapparaat en diende van 2005 tot 2007 ook al als premier. De oppositiepartijen, de islamisten voorop, hebben geen vertrouwen in hem. Hij zou in het verleden slechts lippendienst aan politieke hervormingen hebben bewezen en in werkelijkheid iedere poging tot verdere democratisering hebben gefrustreerd. Hij wordt door islamistische leiders zelfs verantwoordelijk gehouden voor grootschalige verkiezingsfraude tijdens de parlementsverkiezingen van 2007.
“Verandering komt eraan!” is naar aanleiding van de vorming van deze nieuwe regering voorlopig gestopt met demonstraties. Het wil eerst het programma en het beleid van die regering afwachten alvorens het de protesten eventueel hervat. De traditionele oppositiepartijen, en in de eerste plaats de islamisten, willen echter doorgaan met de protesten en die nu richten tegen de nieuwe regering-Bakhit.
Een oude tweedeling
Het verschil in opvatting tussen “Verandering komt eraan!” en de traditionele oppositiepartijen weerspiegelt in hoge mate een al zeer oude tweedeling in de Jordaanse samenleving. Deze tweedeling valt in belangrijke mate samen met het onderscheid tussen de provincie en de grote stad en tot op zekere hoogte ook met die tussen autochtone Jordaanse bedoeïenenstammen en het Palestijnse bevolkingsdeel. Traditioneel worden het overheidsapparaat, de politiek en in het bijzonder het leger en het veiligheidsapparaat gedomineerd door mensen afkomstig uit bedoeïenenstammen. Onder hen bestaat er een sterk besef van loyaliteit aan het “Jordaanse vaderland” onder het gezag van het Hashemitische koningshuis. Onder de Palestijnen is er gemiddeld gesproken sprake van een veel sterkere afwijzende houding ten aanzien van de Jordaanse staat, die altijd weinig ruimte heeft geboden aan uitingen van Palestijns nationaal identiteitsbesef. De bevolking van de grotere steden van Jordani? wordt sterk door Palestijnen gedomineerd.
Palestijnen, maar ook verstedelijkte en modern opgeleide autochtone Jordani?rs hebben altijd aan de basis gestaan van oppositiebewegingen tegen het regime en zijn conservatieve en pro-westerse politiek.
In de jaren ’50 en ’60 ging het daarbij nog hoofdzakelijk om seculier pan-Arabisch nationalisme en om linkse stromingen. Lange tijd kon onvrede onder de bevolking worden afgekocht door een groeiende welvaart. Deze was in belangrijke mate het gevolg van economische steun aan Jordani? door de golfstaten en door westerse mogendheden, en van geldovermakingen naar het thuisland van Jordaanse migranten in de golfstaten. Vanaf het moment dat de olieprijzen in de jaren ’80 in een vrije val belandden was deze welvaartsgroei niet meer mogelijk en verarmden grote delen van de bevolking zelfs. Rellen die in 1989 uitbraken naar aanleiding van prijsstijgingen en bezuinigingsmaatregelen bracht de koning er uiteindelijk toe om de toenmalige regering naar huis te sturen, weer verkiezingen toe te staan en de bevolking de mogelijkheid te bieden om zijn onvrede langs democratische weg te uiten. Dit laatste mocht echter alleen gebeuren op voorwaarde dat men loyaal bleef aan Jordani? als staat en aan het gezag van het Hashemitische koningshuis. Onvrede met het regime en zijn beleid werd inmiddels vooral door de islamisten van met name de Moslim Broederschap vertolkt. Om deze islamistische invloed in te dammen werden in de loop van de jaren ‘90 burgerrechten weer in toenemende mate door het regime ingeperkt en werd het kiesstelsel aangepast. Het gevolg van die aanpassing was dat de gebieden waar de oppositie het sterkst was (de steden) ondervertegenwoordigd waren in het parlement ten gunste van de gebieden waar loyalisten woonden (rurale gebieden).
De bewoners van deze landsdelen zijn echter zeer kwetsbaar voor neoliberale economische beleidsmaatregelen op het vlak van privatisering, bezuiniging en marktwerking, aangezien zij sterk afhankelijk zijn van (werk in) de overheidssector. Dit verklaart waarom de beweging “Verandering komt eraan!”, die deze bewoners in hoge mate vertegenwoordigd, in zijn protesten de nadruk wenst te leggen op het economische beleid en minder geïnteresseerd is in democratisering van het politieke bestel. Binnen dat bestel neemt de bevolking van tribale en rurale gebieden immers tot op de dag van vandaag een bevoorrechte positie in. De islamistische en de linkse oppositie, die zijn achterban hoofdzakelijk in de politiek benadeelde grote steden heeft, wil nu juist wel streven naar democratische hervormingen.
Conclusie
De protesten in Jordani? wijken af van die in landen als Tunesi?, Egypte en Jemen aangezien men hier niet zo ver gaat om het vertrek van het staatshoofd (de koning) te eisen. De demonstranten houden zich aan de in Jordani? geldende politieke spelregel dat men hooguit op specifiek beleid van de regering kritiek zou kunnen uitoefenen, maar nooit op de monarchie zelf. In die zin lijkt er weinig nieuws onder de zon vergeleken met protesten en onlusten die zich eerder in het Hashemitische koninkrijk Jordani? hebben voorgedaan. De traditionele politieke en maatschappelijke verdeeldheid in het land, die zich weerspiegelt in enerzijds de nadruk op sociaaleconomisch protest van de beweging “Verandering komt eraan!” en anderzijds de nadruk op democratische hervormingen van de traditionele islamistische en linkse oppositie, zal de hegemonie van de Hashemitische monarchie enkel in stand helpen houden. Ondertussen blijft deze monarchie zichzelf het imago aanmeten dat het boven al deze partijen staat en de belangen en het welzijn van de gehele Jordaanse natie vertegenwoordigt. Dit imago stelt de monarchie in staat om desnoods een impopulair kabinet weg te sturen, de bevolking met wat beleidsaanpassingen te kalmeren en de eigen handen schoon te wassen. Mochten de huidige ontwikkelingen in Tunesi? en Egypte echter een structurele verandering in democratische zin gaan behelzen, dan is het niet uitgesloten dat ook Jordani? op een gegeven moment deze weg in zal slaan.
Egbert Harmsen heeft een achtergrond in Midden-Oosten- en Islamstudies en is daarbij gespecialiseerd in de Palestijnse kwestie, het Isra?lisch-Arabische conflict, sociale en politieke islam en Jordani?. In 1995 studeerde hij af op een doctoraalscriptie over de opvang en integratie van Palestijnen in Jordani? die tijdens en na de Golfcrisis en -oorlog van 1990/91 Koeweit waren ontvlucht. In 2007 promoveerde hij op een dissertatie getiteld “Islam, Civil Society and Social Work, the Case of Muslim NGOs in Jordan”. Na zijn promotie verichtte hij onderzoek naar islam en moslims in Nederland. Momenteel is hij werkzaam als Universitair Docent Midden-Oosten Studies aan de Universiteit Leiden.
»Een groepje demonstranten op het Tahrirplein wil juist geen dialoog met de president EPA
Toegevoegd: zondag 6 feb 2011, 03:15
Update: zondag 6 feb 2011, 04:37
De Moslimbroederschap gaat toch het gesprek aan met de Egyptische regering, zo heeft de oppositiebeweging gezegd tegen persbureau Reuters.
Tot nu toe heeft de Moslimbroederschap steeds gezegd pas te willen overleggen als president Mubarak is vertrokken.
De fundamentalistische Moslimbroeders schuiven aan bij een overleg tussen vicepresident Suleiman, verschillende oppositiepartijen en intellectuelen. President Mubarak beschuldigde de Moslimbroederschap er eerder van achter de onrust te zitten in Egypte.
Onderzoek
De groep, officieel nog altijd verboden, wil peilen in hoeverre de regering tegemoet wil komen aan de eisen van de bevolking. Ook willen ze dat er een onderzoek komt naar het geweld tegen betogers.
Achter de schermen zou er onder meer worden gesproken worden over een overgangsperiode. Vicepresident Suleiman zou dan presidentiële bevoegdheden krijgen tot aan nieuwe verkiezingen.
Verenigde Staten
Intussen is er verwarring ontstaan over de positie van de Verenigde Staten ten aanzien van Egypte. De Amerikaanse gezant Wisner zei zaterdagavond dat de Egyptische president Mubarak voorlopig aan de macht moet blijven om leiding te geven aan de machtswisseling.
Enkele uren later verklaarde het Amerikaanse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken dat Wisner niet het Amerikaanse standpunt verkondigde; Wisner sprak op persoonlijke titel, zei een woordvoerder van het Witte Huis.
Een gesprek met twee Titanen: Tariq Ramadan & Slavoj Zizek
The Muslim scholar and philosopher discuss the power of popular dissent and the limits of peaceful protest.
The revolutionary chants on the streets of Egypt have resonated around the world, but with a popular uprising without a clear direction and an unpopular leader refusing to concede, Egypt’s future hangs in the balance.
On Thursday’s Riz Khan we speak with Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek about the power of popular dissent, the limits of peaceful protest and the future of Egyptian politics.
This episode aired on Thursday, February 3, 2011
Robert Kaplan in Buitenhof
Moesson
Robert Kaplan is een van Amerika’s meest vooraanstaande publicisten over ontwikkelingen in de wereldpolitiek. Hij is een veel geciteerd schrijver die de beleidsmakers in het Witte Huis en het Pentagon goed volgen en wiens ideeën en opvattingen ingang vinden bij diverse presidenten van de VS. Onlangs publiceerde hij een nieuw boek Moesson, over de politieke en economische opkomst van landen rond de Indische Oceaan. Kaplan woonde jaren in het Midden Oosten. Vanzelfsprekend staat hij ook stil bij de recente gebeurtenissen in Egypte.
Een gesprek met Afshin Ellian over zijn eigen herinneringen aan de Iraanse revolutie van 1979. Ellian is hier genuanceerder dan wat hij normaalgesproken in zijn columns en televisieoptredens is. De vrees van Ellian is wat mij betreft begrijpelijk, gezien wat er in Iran is gebeurd. Toch kun je je afvragen of de geschiedenis zich gaat herhalen. Dat gebeurt immers vrijwel nooit. Maar zeker interessant om te bekijken:
Het onderstaande artikel van de site van Al-Jazeera English, gaat over dezelfde thematiek:
Opinion
The shaping of a New World Order
If the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system.
Mark LeVine Last Modified: 06 Feb 2011 15:07 GMT
Armed women on guard at one of Tehran’s main squares at the start of the Iranian Revolution [Getty]
I remember the images well, even though I was too young to understand their political significance. But they were visceral, those photos in the New York Times from Tehran in the midst of its revolutionary moment in late 1978 and early 1979. Not merely exuberance jumped from the page, but also anger; anger fuelled by an intensity of religious fervour that seemed so alien as to emanate from another planet to a “normal” pre-teen American boy being shown the newspaper by his father over breakfast.
Many commentators are comparing Egypt to Iran of 32 years ago, mostly to warn of the risks of the country descending into some sort of Islamist dictatorship that would tear up the peace treaty with Israel, engage in anti-American policies, and deprive women and minorities of their rights (as if they had so many rights under the Mubarak dictatorship).
I write this on February 2, the precise anniversary of Khomeini’s return to Tehran from exile. It’s clear that, while religion is a crucial foundation of Egyptian identity and Mubarak’s level of corruption and brutality could give the Shah a run for his money, the situations are radically different on the ground.
A most modern and insane revolt
The following description, I believe, sums up what Egypt faces today as well as, if not better, than most:
“It is not a revolution, not in the literal sense of the term, not a way of standing up and straightening things out. It is the insurrection of men with bare hands who want to lift the fearful weight, the weight of the entire world order that bears down on each of us – but more specifically on them, these … workers and peasants at the frontiers of empires. It is perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane.
One can understand the difficulties facing the politicians. They outline solutions, which are easier to find than people say … All of them are based on the elimination of the [president]. What is it that the people want? Do they really want nothing more? Everybody is quite aware that they want something completely different. This is why the politicians hesitate to offer them simply that, which is why the situation is at an impasse. Indeed, what place can be given, within the calculations of politics, to such a movement, to a movement through which blows the breath of a religion that speaks less of the hereafter than of the transfiguration of this world?”
The thing is, it was offered not by some astute commentator of the current moment, but rather by the legendary French philosopher Michel Foucault, after his return from Iran, where he witnessed firsthand the intensity of the revolution which, in late 1978, before Khomeini’s return, really did seem to herald the dawn of a new era.
Foucault was roundly criticised by many people after Khomeini hijacked the revolution for not seeing the writing on the wall. But the reality was that, in those heady days where the shackles of oppression were literally being shattered, the writing was not on the wall. Foucault understood that it was precisely a form of “insanity” that was necessary to risk everything for freedom, not just against one’s government, but against the global system that has nuzzled him in its bosom for so long.
What was clear, however, was that the powers that most supported the Shah, including the US, dawdled on throwing their support behind the masses who were toppling him. While this is by no means the principal reason for Khomeini’s successful hijacking of the revolution, it certainly played an important role in the rise of a militantly anti-American government social force, with disastrous results.
While Obama’s rhetoric moved more quickly towards the Egyptian people than did President Carter’s towards Iranians three decades ago, his refusal to call for Mubarak’s immediate resignation raises suspicion that, in the end, the US would be satisfied if Mubarak was able to ride out the protests and engineer a “democratic” transition that left American interests largely intact.
The breath of religion
Foucault was also right to assign such a powerful role to religion in the burgeoning revolutionary moment – and he experienced what he called a “political spirituality”, But, of course, religion can be defined in so many ways. The protestant theologian Paul Tillich wonderfully described it as encompassing whatever was of “ultimate concern” to a person or people. And today, clearly, most every Egyptian has gotten religion from this perspective.
So many people, including Egypt’s leaders, have used the threat of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover to justify continued dictatorship, with Iran as the historical example to justify such arguments. But the comparison is plagued by historical differences. The Brotherhood has no leader of Khomeini’s stature and foreswore violence decades ago. Nor is there a culture of violent martyrdom ready to be actualised by legions of young men, as occurred with the Islamic Revolution. Rather than trying to take over the movement, which clearly would never have been accepted – even if its leaders wanted to seize the moment, the Brotherhood is very much playing catch up with the evolving situation and has so far worked within the rather ad hoc leadership of the protests.
But it is equally clear that religion is a crucial component of the unfolding dynamic. Indeed, perhaps the iconic photo of the revolution is one of throngs of people in Tahrir Square bowed in prayers, literally surrounding a group of tanks sent there to assert the government’s authority.
This is a radically different image of Islam than most people – in the Muslim world as much as in the West – are used to seeing: Islam taking on state violence through militant peaceful protest; peaceful jihad (although it is one that has occurred innumerable times around the Muslim world, just at a smaller scale and without the world’s press there to capture it).
Such imagery, and its significance, is a natural extension of the symbolism of Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, an act of jihad that profoundly challenges the extroverted violence of the jihadis and militants who for decades, and especially since 9/11, have dominated the public perception of Islam as a form of political spirituality.
Needless to say, the latest images – of civil war inside Tahrir Square – will immediately displace these other images. Moreover, if the violence continues and some Egyptian protesters lose their discipline and start engaging in their own premeditated violence against the regime and its many tentacles, there is little doubt their doing so will be offered as “proof” that the protests are both violent and organised by the Muslim Brotherhood or other “Islamists”.
A greater threat than al-Qa’eda
As this dynamic of nonviolent resistance against entrenched regime violence plays out, it is worth noting that so far, Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, have had little – if anything – of substance to say about the revolution in Egypt. What they’ve failed to ignite with an ideology of a return to a mythical and pure beginning – and a strategy of human bombs, IEDs, and planes turned into missiles – a disciplined, forward-thinking yet amorphous group of young activists and their more experienced comrades, “secular” and “religious” together (to the extent these terms are even relevant anymore), have succeeded in setting a fire with a universal discourse of freedom, democracy and human values – and a strategy of increasingly calibrated chaos aimed at uprooting one of the world’s longest serving dictators.
As one chant in Egypt put it succinctly, playing on the longstanding chants of Islamists that “Islam is the solution”, with protesters shouting: “Tunisia is the solution.”
For those who don’t understand why President Obama and his European allies are having such a hard time siding with Egypt’s forces of democracy, the reason is that the amalgam of social and political forces behind the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt today – and who knows where tomorrow – actually constitute a far greater threat to the “global system” al-Qa’eda has pledged to destroy than the jihadis roaming the badlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen.
Mad as hell
Whether Islamist or secularist, any government of “of the people” will turn against the neoliberal economic policies that have enriched regional elites while forcing half or more of the population to live below the $2 per day poverty line. They will refuse to follow the US or Europe’s lead in the war on terror if it means the continued large scale presence of foreign troops on the region’s soil. They will no longer turn a blind eye, or even support, Israel’s occupation and siege across the Occupied Palestinian territories. They will most likely shirk from spending a huge percentage of their national income on bloated militaries and weapons systems that serve to enrich western defence companies and prop up autocratic governments, rather than bringing stability and peace to their countries – and the region as a whole.
They will seek, as China, India and other emerging powers have done, to move the centre of global economic gravity towards their region, whose educated and cheap work forces will further challenge the more expensive but equally stressed workforces of Europe and the United States.
In short, if the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system than the one that has dominated the global political economy for decades, especially since the fall of communism.
This system could bring the peace and relative equality that has so long been missing globally – but it will do so in good measure by further eroding the position of the United States and other “developed” or “mature” economies. If Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel and their colleagues don’t figure out a way to live with this scenario, while supporting the political and human rights of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa, they will wind up with an adversary far more cunning and powerful than al-Qa’eda could ever hope to be: more than 300 million newly empowered Arabs who are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.
Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Al Jazeera meets the vanguards of the pro-democracy protests that have flooded Cairo’s Tahrir Square for 12 days.
Al Jazeera Online Producer Last Modified: 06 Feb 2011 21:30 GMT
More than a million people have filled the area in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square [AFP]
CAIRO, EGYPT – Behind a barricaded front door across the street from the famed Egyptian Museum, through a tight, fluorescent-lit hallway crammed with a makeshift kitchen, bed and debris meant to obstruct intruders, up a winding, outdoor metal staircase with a view over a darkened back street, we find Mohammed, a smiling, skinny 23-year-old with a buzzed head and a scarf around his neck.
Mohammed and the group of mostly young men he commands on this 10th-floor rooftop exposed to the damp Cairo night are the vanguards of the pro-democracy protests that have flooded Tahrir Square for 12 days. They are the occupiers of this apartment building and its defenders against assault by supporters of Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak.
They’re a diverse crowd. Mohammed idolises Gamal Abdel Nasser, the socialist and nationalist hero of modern Egyptian politics, but elsewhere on the rooftop we find Sohail, the son of a wealthy businessman who professes no religious ideology but admires the Muslim Brotherhood’s organisational skills.
Mohammed has admitted us to their rooftop ramparts not because he is particularly fond of our company, though we all get along well, but because he no longer trusts the Egyptian media to report fairly on the story of Tahrir Square and the hundreds of thousands of protesters there who are eager to change their country’s ossified political and social system.
There on the roof, ducking behind a large satellite dish when the ever-present military helicopter circles nearby, Mohammed and Sohail offer us a nuanced look at who is protesting, what motivates them, and how a group of untrained 20-somethings came together to fend off a co-ordinated, determined attempt – likely backed by elements within the government – to crush them beneath a hail of rocks, Molotov cocktails and gunfire.
Against the thugs
The combat between anti-government protesters and Mubarak supporters around the museum on Wednesday night and Thursday morning was intense and bloody, involving thousands on either side. An Al Jazeera online producer at the barricades during the fighting witnessed two protesters being treated for critical gunshot wounds and several others who were hit by rocks or petrol bombs.
Citizen video obtained by Al Jazeera has also shown anti-government protesters apparently being hit by live gunfire after being targeted by a green laser.
After 12 hours of overnight combat, the protesters in the square managed to advance their wall of shields – metal barricades scavenged from a nearby construction site – around 200 metres from where the fighting began, and they eventually overwhelmed and defeated the outnumbered Mubarak supporters.
Mohammed and his group of around 15 men, like others that night, fought their way hand-to-hand into the apartment building they now occupy. They did so in the face of a determined opponent that was resupplied throughout the night by cars that arrived bearing more petrol bombs.
In the midst of battle, the protesters realised they needed someone to act as a leader. The nominees included those who had showed the most calm during tough situations and those who displayed the best tactical sense.
“Battle naturally creates leaders,” Mohammed said.
One man, curiously, nominated himself. Most of the others nominated Mohammed. After it was clear that Mohammed would win, the man grabbed a metal pipe and tried to attack, declaring that he was actually a member of the state security forces. The protesters quickly subdued him and dragged him off to a makeshift prison that had been established at a metro station in the centre of the square.
Like other groups, Mohammed’s crew started wearing badges – handwritten pieces of tape – stating their role and unit. Realising these could be forged, they switched to a simple password system to grant entry to the building, one that changes every 12 hours.
The rooftop leaders in the area, including Mohammed, communicate with ground-level leaders and others by mobile phone, tracking the movements of any approaching baltageya, or “thugs”.
Dozens of soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles and wearing flak jackets and ballistic helmets stand outside, keeping watch over the square and guarding the museum, but they take no action against the parallel civilian authority right next door.
The army did ask the man who owns the occupied building, as well as three others nearby, to boot the squatting protesters out, but the protesters refused, and the army has yet to act. The owner of the top-floor apartment, which Mohammed’s group found unlocked and have been using, told the young men they were free to make themselves at home as long as they didn’t ruin the place.
On the rooftop, piles of rocks await any baltageya assault. Atop a nearby building we visited earlier, another squad of protesters has wrapped rocks in petrol-soaked rags that they will ignite and use to swing and hurl the projectiles a greater distance. A stockpile of the Molotov cocktails, as they are known, left behind by retreating Mubarak supporters lies nearby.
A marriage of authority and money
Mohammed and Sohail, his 20-year-old comrade, told us a refrain about the Mubarak supporters that we had heard repeated many times in the square: If they really cared, why aren’t they still here? Why aren’t they mounting continued protests in their own square?
Indeed, aside from the police identification cards found on some of the captured Mubarak supporters, the one thing that most indicated government collusion in the violent attacks on Tahrir Square was the co-ordination with which the Mubarak crowd came and went. Often on Wednesday and Thursday, lines of male spectators would appear on the overpass above the museum barricades at odd hours – including after dark – and watch the museum barricades ominously until eventually other men behind them would begin launching rocks.
Mohammed said he had seen people at the Sayyida Zeinab metro station, south of Tahrir Square, handing out 350 Egyptian pounds per person to encourage Mubarak supporters to mass near the square. These are the same “thugs,” Sohail said, who the government unleashes on election days to overrun polling stations, guarantee access for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), and intimidate opposition voters.
It was the government’s blatant robbing of the most recent parliamentary election, held in November and December, that pushed everyone over the edge, he said. The NDP essentially won more than 90 per cent of parliament, wiping out all but one seat for the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned but semi-tolerated movement that had previously held around a fifth of the People’s Assembly.
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“The president has managed to keep power through the marriage of money and authority,” Mohammed told us.
Even before the call went out for mass protests to begin on January 25, “we could feel the effects of corruption that the country suffers from,” Mohammed said. “From unemployment to corruption to rigged elections. I can feel it myself, I am unemployed, I have a business degree, but I cannot find an appropriate job. We can feel it in our daily lives, in everyday dealings, nobody can get anything done in any government institution without paying, without bribery.”
Sohail – whose father owns a business where he can find a job and who studies at a private university for the comparatively high cost of around 10,000 pounds ($1,700) per semester – told us his aim was to “bring down the president”.
Both he and Mohammed said that a lack of dignity was the protesters’ essential grievance, and one that had succeeded in attracting people from all walks of life.
“[The government] degrades us so badly, the police used to degrade the people so much, that’s why when people took to the streets on January 28” – the violent Friday following the major street protests – “they just wanted revenge, nothing more,” he said.
Mohammed said that the demands of the youth were not “classist,” and that corruption and repression weigh on all layers of society.
“As I said, we are prepared to live on the bare minimum, as long as we feel like we have our dignity, that we are walking down the streets with our dignity,” Mohammed said. “Not like when a policeman sees me in the street and decides to make life difficult for me, asking me about my ID, and even if I have my ID and am obeying the law, I don’t have a weapon or hashish or drugs or anything, just for the sake of it he will stop me and make me pay to pass. And if you don’t pay, he will make up a charge and throw you in prison, this is how things work here.”
The West’s fears
In the first days of the Egyptian street protests, the Mubarak government quickly blamed the unrest on the Muslim Brotherhood, even though the group had stated in the days before January 25 that it would not participate.
It wasn’t a new tactic: The Egyptian leadership is fond of invoking Western fears of an “Islamist takeover”, especially since September 11, to rally support for its repressive tactics, including the continued enforcement of emergency national security laws that have been in place since the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, Mubarak’s predecessor.
Though the government is now negotiating with the Brotherhood and other opposition groups to play out a transition as long as it can, it continues to smear the protesters in the hopes of limiting their popular support. On Friday, in a one-room shop near the northern barricades , an army officer chatting with the owner told Al Jazeera that some of the protesters were “terrorists” and that they had been infiltrated by agents from other countries, including Iran.
Mohammed said that he and his comrades were well aware of the information campaign being waged against them.
“People in their homes who are sympathetic with us will no longer be,” he said. “They will think we are agents of foreign countries who are trying to affect the stability of our nation.”
If the disagreements on the rooftop are any indication, the protest movement does contain a diverse ideological array.
While Sohail admires the Muslim Brotherhood’s organisation and discipline, Mohammed blames the group for plotting to assassinate Nasser and says they try to hide their aspirations for political power.
The Brotherhood uses religious slogans to brainwash the youth, Mohammed told us. They’re fine allies now, but he doesn’t want to see them lead.
Some protesters give the Brotherhood credit for being the square’s most stalwart defenders, the ones who rarely leave and show the most bravery on the front lines. At night, much of the debate around the campfires and many of the speeches over the loudspeakers concern religion.
But Sohail wasn’t worried.
“If the president leaves, I don’t care about my political party, everyone will unite,” he told us.
Mohammed shared a similar view of the movement’s solidarity.
“There are old men, there are people over 40, there are those younger than 20, there are women. The people who are here represent a state of monopolisation throughout the whole nation,” he said.
“Everyone suffers, there isn’t one person who doesn’t suffer. Everyone down there is suffering, everyone at home is suffering, even the people who come to oppose us, those who support the president, they suffer as well, but they’ve been paid.”
Down below, next to the museum, the army had formed a cordon to prevent most of the protesters from nearing the outermost layer of barricades, where the worst fighting took place. Only the sidewalk to the side was open for foot traffic.
It was clear the government was attempting to return a sense of normalcy to the city; businesses and banks were set to open on Sunday, and the army was intent on clearing away all signs of discord but for the crowd in the square. Men in fluorescent vests even went about clearing debris and trash from the streets where protesters had died just nights before.
But as high-ranking opposition figures negotiate a transition with Mubarak’s right-hand man, former intelligence chief and newly appointed vice-president Omar Suleiman, Mohammed, Sohail, and the men on the rooftops remain dug in, hoping for a complete overhaul.
After the thugs’ attack on Wednesday, they won’t accept negotiation with Mubarak.
“He’s hiding a dagger behind his back,” Mohammed said.
A month ago most Americans could not have picked Hosni Mubarak out of a police lineup. American foreign policy, even in Afghanistan, was all but invisible throughout the 2010 election season. Foreign aid is the only federal budget line that a clear-cut majority of Americans says should be cut. And so now — as the world’s most unstable neighborhood explodes before our eyes — does anyone seriously believe that most Americans are up to speed? Our government may be scrambling, but that’s nothing compared to its constituents. After a near-decade of fighting wars in the Arab world, we can still barely distinguish Sunni from Shia.
The live feed from Egypt is riveting. We can’t get enough of revolution video — even if, some nights, Middle West blizzards take precedence over Middle East battles on the networks’ evening news. But more often than not we have little or no context for what we’re watching. That’s the legacy of years of self-censored, superficial, provincial and at times Islamophobic coverage of the Arab world in a large swath of American news media. Even now we’re more likely to hear speculation about how many cents per gallon the day’s events might cost at the pump than to get an intimate look at the demonstrators’ lives.
Perhaps the most revealing window into America’s media-fed isolation from this crisis — small an example as it may seem — is the default assumption that the Egyptian uprising, like every other paroxysm in the region since the Green Revolution in Iran 18 months ago, must be powered by the twin American-born phenomena of Twitter and Facebook. Television news — at once threatened by the power of the Internet and fearful of appearing unhip — can’t get enough of this cliché.
Three days after riot police first used tear gas and water hoses to chase away crowds in Tahrir Square, CNN’s new prime-time headliner, Piers Morgan, declared that “the use of social media” was “the most fascinating aspect of this whole revolution.” On MSNBC that same night, Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed a teacher who had spent a year at the American school in Cairo. “They are all on Facebook,” she said of her former fifth-grade students. The fact that a sampling of fifth graders in the American school might be unrepresentative of, and wholly irrelevant to, the events unfolding in the streets of Cairo never entered the equation.
The social networking hype eventually had to subside for a simple reason: The Egyptian government pulled the plug on its four main Internet providers and yet the revolution only got stronger. “Let’s get a reality check here,” said Jim Clancy, a CNN International anchor, who broke through the bloviation on Jan. 29 by noting that the biggest demonstrations to date occurred on a day when the Internet was down. “There wasn’t any Twitter. There wasn’t any Facebook,” he said. No less exasperated was another knowledgeable on-the-scene journalist, Richard Engel, who set the record straight on MSNBC in a satellite hook-up with Rachel Maddow. “This didn’t have anything to do with Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “This had to do with people’s dignity, people’s pride. People are not able to feed their families.”
No one would deny that social media do play a role in organizing, publicizing and empowering participants in political movements in the Middle East and elsewhere. But as Malcolm Gladwell wrote on The New Yorker’s Web site last week, “surely the least interesting fact” about the Egyptian protesters is that some of them “may (or may not) have at one point or another employed some of the tools of the new media to communicate with one another.” What’s important is “why they were driven to do it in the first place” — starting with the issues of human dignity and crushing poverty that Engel was trying to shove back to center stage.
Among cyber-intellectuals in America, a fascinating debate has broken out about whether social media can do as much harm as good in totalitarian states like Egypt. In his fiercely argued new book, “The Net Delusion,” Evgeny Morozov, a young scholar who was born in Belarus, challenges the conventional wisdom of what he calls “cyber-utopianism.” Among other mischievous facts, he reports that there were only 19,235 registered Twitter accounts in Iran (0.027 percent of the population) on the eve of what many American pundits rebranded its “Twitter Revolution.” More damning, Morozov also demonstrates how the digital tools so useful to citizens in a free society can be co-opted by tech-savvy dictators, police states and garden-variety autocrats to spread propaganda and to track (and arrest) conveniently networked dissidents, from Iran to Venezuela. Hugo Chávez first vilified Twitter as a “conspiracy,” but now has 1.2 million followers imbibing his self-sanctifying Tweets.
This provocative debate isn’t even being acknowledged in most American coverage of the Internet’s role in the current uprisings. The talking-head invocations of Twitter and Facebook instead take the form of implicit, simplistic Western chauvinism. How fabulous that two great American digital innovations can rescue the downtrodden, unwashed masses. That is indeed impressive if no one points out that, even in the case of the young and relatively wired populace of Egypt, only some 20 percent of those masses have Internet access.
That we often don’t know as much about the people in these countries as we do about their Tweets is a testament to the cutbacks in foreign coverage at many news organizations — and perhaps also to our own desire to escape a war zone that has for so long sapped American energy, resources and patience. We see the Middle East on television only when it flares up and then generally in medium or long shot. But there actually is an English-language cable channel — Al Jazeera English — that blankets the region with bureaus and that could have been illuminating Arab life and politics for American audiences since 2006, when it was established as an editorially separate sister channel to its Qatar-based namesake.
Al Jazeera English, run by a 35-year veteran of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, is routinely available in Israel and Canada. It provided coverage of the 2009 Gaza war and this year’s Tunisian revolt when no other television networks would or could. Yet in America, it can be found only in Washington, D.C., and on small cable systems in Ohio and Vermont. None of the biggest American cable and satellite companies — Comcast, DirecTV and Time Warner — offer it.
The noxious domestic political atmosphere fostering this near-blackout is obvious to all. It was made vivid last week when Bill O’Reilly of Fox News went on a tear about how Al Jazeera English is “anti-American.” This is the same “We report, you decide” Fox News that last week broke away from Cairo just as the confrontations turned violent so that viewers could watch Rupert Murdoch promote his new tablet news product at a publicity event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Unable to watch Al Jazeera English, and ravenous for comprehensive and sophisticated 24/7 television coverage of the Middle East otherwise unavailable on television, millions of Americans last week tracked down the network’s Internet stream on their computers. Such was the work-around required by the censorship practiced by America’s corporate gatekeepers. You’d almost think these news-starved Americans were Iron Curtain citizens clandestinely trying to pull in the jammed Voice of America signal in the 1950s — or Egyptians desperately seeking Al Jazeera after Mubarak disrupted its signal last week.
The consequence of a decade’s worth of indiscriminate demonization of Arabs in America — and of the low quotient of comprehensive adult news coverage that might have helped counter it — is the steady rise in Islamophobia. The “Ground Zero” mosque melee has given way to battles over mosques as far removed from Lower Manhattan as California. Soon to come is a national witch hunt — Congressional hearings called by Representative Peter King of New York — into the “radicalization of the American Muslim community.” Given the disconnect between America and the Arab world, it’s no wonder that Americans are invested in the fights for freedom in Egypt and its neighboring dictatorships only up to a point. We’ve been inculcated to assume that whoever comes out on top is ipso facto a jihadist.
This week brings the release of Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir. The eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is to follow. As we took in last week’s fiery video from Cairo — mesmerizing and yet populated by mostly anonymous extras we don’t understand and don’t know — it was hard not to flash back to those glory days of “Shock and Awe.” Those bombardments too were spectacular to watch from a safe distance — no Iraqi faces, voices or bodies cluttered up the shots. We lulled ourselves into believing that democracy and other good things were soon to come. It took months, even years, for us to learn the hard way that in truth we really had no idea what was going on.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 6, 2011, on page WK8 of the New York edition.
Popular uprisings are clarifying events, and so it is with the revolt in Egypt. The Mubarak regime – or some post-Mubarak continuation of it – may survive this challenge, but the illusions that have held it in place have crumbled. The protests in Tahrir Square are a message not only to Mubarak and the military regime that has ruled Egypt since the Free Officers coup of 1952; they are a message to all the region’s autocrats, particularly those supported by the West, and to Washington and Tel Aviv, which, after spending years lamenting the lack of democracy in the Muslim world, have responded with a mixture of trepidation, fear and hostility to the emergence of a pro-democracy movement in the Arab world’s largest country. If these are the ‘birth pangs of a new Middle East’, they are very different from those Condoleezza Rice claimed to discern during Israel’s war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
The first illusion to crumble was the myth of Egyptian passivity, a myth that had exerted a powerful hold over Egyptians. ‘We’re all just waiting for someone to do the job for us,’ an Egyptian journalist said to me when I reported from Cairo last year (LRB, 27 May 2010); despite the proliferation of social movements since the 1970s, the notion of a mass revolt against the regime was inconceivable to her. When Galal Amin, a popular Egyptian sociologist, remarked that ‘Egyptians are not a revolutionary nation’ in a recent al-Jazeera documentary, few would have disagreed. And until the Day of Rage on 25 January many Egyptians – including a number of liberal reformers – would have resigned themselves to a caretaker regime led by the intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, if only to save themselves from the president’s son Gamal Mubarak. The first to be surprised by the uprising were the Egyptians themselves, who – in the lyrical early days of the revolt, culminating in the ‘million-man march’ on Tahrir Square on 1 February – discovered that they were capable of taking matters into their own hands, of overcoming their fear of the police and collectively organising against the regime. And as they acquired a thrilling sense of their own power, they would settle only for the regime’s removal.
“They Want to Abort This Revolution, But We Will Win”: Interview with Nawal El Saadawi by Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman: Your feelings today in the midst of this popular rebellion against the Mubarak regime, calling on Mubarak to leave? Do you agree?
Nawal El Saadawi: We are in the streets every day, people, children, old people, including myself. I am now 80 years of age, suffering of this regime for half a century. And you remember, Mubarak is the continuation of Sadat. And both Sadat and Mubarak, you know, their regime worked against the people, men and women. And they created this gap between the poor and rich. They brought the so-called business class to govern us. Egypt became an American colony. And we are dominated by the U.S. and Israel. And 80 million people, men and women, have no say in the country.
. . . [People] told Mubarak to go. He should have gone, if he respects the will of the people. That’s democracy. Because what’s democracy? It’s to respect the will of the people. The people govern themselves. So, really, we are happy.
But what I would like to tell you: the U.S. government, with Israel and Saudi Arabia and some other powers outside the country and inside the country, they want to abort this revolution. And they are creating rumors that, you know, Egypt is going to be ruined, to be robbed, and they are also preventing — we don’t have bread now, and the shops are using this to raise the price. So they are trying to frighten us. They have two strategies: to frighten the people, so we say, “Oh, we need security, we need Mubarak,” because people are living in fear. When I go to the streets, there is no fear, you know, but when I stay at home and listen to the media, I feel, “What’s going to happen?” But when I go to the streets, to Midan Tahrir, and see the people, the young people, the old people, the men, I feel secure, and I believe that the revolution succeeded. So, they are trying to abort the power outside and inside. But we will win.
Amy Goodman: And Nawal El Saadawi, you often hear in the United States, “Is this going to be like the Iranian Revolution?” not talking about throwing out the dictator so much, but a fundamentalist revolution. Your response? Nawal?
Nawal El Saadawi: They are frightening us by the Ikhwan Muslimin . . . they tried for years to tell us that “Who protects us from the fundamentalists, like Khomeini and Iraq? It’s Mubarak.” You know, and this is not true. This revolution, the young people who started the revolution and who are continuing to protect it, they are not political, ordinary young men and women. They don’t belong to the right or the left, or Muslim. There was not a single Islamic religious slogan in the streets. Not one. They were shouting for justice, equality, freedom, and that Mubarak and his regime should go, and we need to change the system and bring people who are honest. Egypt is living in corruption, false elections, oppression of women, of young people, unemployment. So the revolution came. It was too late. This revolution is too late, but anyway, it came. So —
Amy Goodman: Nawal El Saadawi, you have been arrested how many times under previous regimes?
Nawal El Saadawi: Sadat. Sadat put me in prison only. But I came out from prison with bars to a prison with no bars. I am living in Cairo in exile. I am censored. I cannot write in Al-Ahram or the big media. I write only one article every Tuesday in Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Amy Goodman: And we only have 30 seconds, but I wanted to ask you about the role of women in this rebellion, women and girls.
Nawal El Saadawi: Women and girls are beside boys in the streets. They are — and we are — calling for justice, freedom and equality, and real democracy and a new constitution, no discrimination between men and women, no discrimination between Muslims and Christians, to change the system, to change the people who are governing us, the system and the people, and to have a real democracy. That’s what women are saying and what men are saying.
Twee verschillende beelden uit Tunesië, al hadden ze ook uit Egypte kunnen komen (althans, zoals het er nu voor staat). In Tunesië en tot nu toe ook in Egypte lijkt het leger, althans de gewone soldaten, de demonstranten (passief) te steunen, terwijl de politie en andere veiligheidsdiensten het zittende regime verdedigen.
De roep om vrijheid in de Arabische wereld –
نداء من أجل الحرية في العالم العربي
Nu in Tunesië het regime van Zine el Abidine Ben Ali door een volksopstand is verdreven, komen in Egypte, maar ook elders (zelfs in Jemen), de Arabische massa’s in beweging tegen hun veelal dictatoriale regimes. Wellicht is het te vroeg om conclusies te trekken of om deze ontwikkelingen te plaatsen, maar lijkt er in ieder geval wel op dat er, op verschillende plaatsen in de Arabische wereld, elementen uit het volk in werking treden die een eind willen maken aan de dictatuur en de corruptie en meer vrijheden opeisen. Tot nu toe ziet het er naar uit dat er sprake is van een grassroots beweging, niet van bepaalde politieke partijen, de moslimbroederschap, of door het buitenland aangestuurde krachten. Maar omdat het nog te vroeg is om er iets zinnigs over te zeggen, is het wellicht zinvoller om de ontwikkelingen gewoon te volgen en te registreren. Daarom hieronder een aantal artikelen, fragmenten uit artikelen, of links naar interessant materiaal. Naarmate de ontwikkelingen verder gaan, zal het materiaal worden aangevuld.
Laten we hopen dat alles de goede kant op gaat en dat de wanhopige zelfmoord van Mohamed Bouaziziniet voor niets is geweest. Hetzelfde geldt voor de dood van Khaled Said, die nu het icoon is geworden van de demonstranten in Egypte. In die zin zijn zij het symbool geworden van de stormachtige ontwikkelingen die zich op dit moment voltrekken. In Tunesië is er in ieder geval veel gebeurd. Het is afwachten hoe de zaken elders gaan verlopen.
Hieronder een serie artikelen of links naar bijdragen (nationaal en internationaal), die ik, om verschillende redenen, de moeite waard vind. Het materiaal zal waarschijnlijk dagelijks worden aangevuld
Hasnae Bouazza, Tunesië (14-1-2011):
“Ik begrijp jullie nu.” Een zichtbaar aangedane Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, de Tunesische Gerhard Schröder, wiens haren met de jaren almaar zwarter werden, begrijpt na 23 jaar tirannie eindelijk wat de mensen willen. Hij heeft daarom maar meteen het vliegtuig gepakt en het land verlaten.
In 1987 kwam hij via een staatsgreep aan de macht. Hij verdreef de 84 jarige Habib Bourguiba die het land al sinds de jaren 50 leidde en die sterk Westers georiënteerd was en uiterst seculier. Zo werden Tunesiërs aangemoedigd niet te vasten tijdens de ramadan. Bourguiba voerde hervormingen door en moderniseerde het land, maar ook hij kon geen afstand nemen van de macht en werd voor het leven benoemd tot hij in 1987 door Zine el Abidine werd verstoten en onder huisarrest geplaatst tot zijn dood in 2000. Tijdens zijn leiderschap werkte Bourguiba aan een decadent familiemausoleum waar hij na zijn dood is bijgezet.
Nu, 23 jaar later, is de man die zich als een verlosser presenteerde dan verdreven. Door het volk.
In alle jaren dat ik de Arabische media en ontwikkelingen bijhoud, was Tunesië het minst toegankelijke land. De binnenlandse kranten hadden elke dag weer Zinedine als hoofdnieuws en betrouwbaar nieuws vinden was lastig. Afgelopen jaar kwam ik af en toe een bericht tegen over een journalist in hechtenis of de onderdrukking, maar het was minimaal.
The Palestine Papers are as damning as the Balfour Declaration. The Palestinian “Authority” – one has to put this word in quotation marks – was prepared, and is prepared to give up the “right of return” of perhaps seven million refugees to what is now Israel for a “state” that may be only 10 per cent (at most) of British mandate Palestine. And as these dreadful papers are revealed, the Egyptian people are calling for the downfall of President Mubarak, and the Lebanese are appointing a prime minister who will supply the Hezbollah. Rarely has the Arab world seen anything like this. To start with the Palestine Papers, it is clear that the representatives of the Palestinian people were ready to destroy any hope of the refugees going home.
It will be – and is – an outrage for the Palestinians to learn how their representatives have turned their backs on them. There is no way in which, in the light of the Palestine Papers, these people can believe in their own rights. They have seen on film and on paper that they will not go back. But across the Arab world – and this does not mean the Muslim world – there is now an understanding of truth that there has not been before. It is not possible any more, for the people of the Arab world to lie to each other. The lies are finished. The words of their leaders – which are, unfortunately, our own words – have finished. It is we who have led them into this demise. It is we who have told them these lies. And we cannot recreate them any more. In Egypt, we British loved democracy. We encouraged democracy in Egypt – until the Egyptians decided that they wanted an end to the monarchy. Then we put them in prison. Then we wanted more democracy. It was the same old story. Just as we wanted Palestinians to enjoy democracy, providing they voted for the right people, we wanted the Egyptians to love our democratic life. Now, in Lebanon, it appears that Lebanese “democracy” must take its place. And we don’t like it. We want the Lebanese, of course, to support the people who we love, the Sunni Muslim supporters of Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination – we rightly believe – was orchestrated by the Syrians. And now we have, on the streets of Beirut, the burning of cars and the violence against government. And so where are we going? Could it be, perhaps, that the Arab world is going to choose its own leaders? Could it be that we are going to see a new Arab world which is not controlled by the West? When Tunisia announced that it was free, Mrs Hillary Clinton was silent. It was the crackpot President of Iran who said that he was happy to see a free country. Why was this? In Egypt, the future of Hosni Mubarak looks ever more distressing. His son, may well be his chosen successor. But there is only one Caliphate in the Muslim world, and that is Syria. Hosni’s son is not the man who Egyptians want. He is a lightweight businessman who may – or may not – be able to rescue Egypt from its own corruption. Hosni Mubarak’s security commander, a certain Mr Suleiman who is very ill, may not be the man. And all the while, across the Middle East, we are waiting to see the downfall of America’s friends. In Egypt, Mr Mubarak must be wondering where he flies to. In Lebanon, America’s friends are collapsing. This is the end of the Democrats’ world in the Arab Middle East. We do not know what comes next. Perhaps only history can answer this question.
Posted By Asef Bayat Wednesday, January 26, 2011 – 2:31 PM
The popular uprising in Tunisia has surprised many — Western observers, theArab elites, and even those who have generated this remarkable episode. Thesurprise seems justified. How could one imagine that a campaign of ordinaryTunisians in just over one month would topple a dictator who presided over apolice state for 23 years? This is a region where the life expectancy of‘presidencies’ match only the ‘eternal’ rule of its sheiks, kings, andAyatollahs who bank on oil and political rent (western protection) to hang ontotheir power and subjugate their people. But the wonder about the Jasminerevolution — and the subsequent mass protests in Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, andmore spectacularly in Egypt’s numerous cities on Jan. 25, 2011 — also comesfrom a common mistrust among the Arab elites and their outside allies about theso called ‘Arab street’ — one that is simultaneously feared and pitied for its‘dangerous irrationality’ and ‘deplorable apathy.’
But history gives us a more complex picture. Neither ‘irrational’ and proneto riots nor ‘apathetic’ and ‘dead,’ the Arab street conveys collectivesentiments and dissent expressed by diverse constituencies who possess few orno effective institutional channels to express discontent. The result is astreet politics where Arabs nonetheless find ways to express their views andinterests. Today the Arab street is shifting. With new players and meansof communication, it may usher some far reaching changes in the region’spolitics. Verder lezen op:http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/26/a_new_arab_street
Al Jazeera travels to the birthplace of Tunisia’s uprising and speaks to Mohamed Bouazizi’s family.
Yasmine Ryan Last Modified: 20 Jan 2011 15:00 GMT
A town not previously recognised outside of Tunisia is now known as the place where a revolution began [Al Jazeera]
In a country where officials have little concern for the rights of citizens, there was nothing extraordinary about humiliating a young man trying to sell fruit and vegetables to support his family.
Yet when Mohamed Bouazizi poured inflammable liquid over his body and set himself alight outside the local municipal office, his act of protest cemented a revolt that would ultimately end President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year-rule.
Local police officers had been picking on Bouazizi for years, ever since he was a child. For his family, there is some comfort that their personal loss has had such stunning political consequences.
“I don’t want Mohamed’s death to be wasted,” Menobia Bouazizi, his mother, said. “Mohamed was the key to this revolt.”
Simple, troubled life
Mohamed Bouazizi was 10 years old when he became the main provider for his family, selling fresh produce in the local market. He stayed in high school long enough to sit his baccalaureate exam, but did not graduate. (He never attended university, contrary to what many news organisations have reported).
Bouazizi’s father died when he was three years old. His elder brother lives away from the family, in Sfax. Though his mother remarried, her second husband suffers from poor health and is unable to find regular work.
IN VIDEO
Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin profiles the man whose suicide launched a revolution
“He didn’t expect to study, because we didn’t have the money,” his mother said.
At age of 19, Mohamed halted his studies in order to work fulltime, to help offer his five younger siblings the chance to stay in school.
“My sister was the one in university and he would pay for her,” Samya Bouazizi, one of his sisters, said. “And I am still a student and he would spend money on me.”
He applied to join the army, but was refused, as were other successive job applications. With his family dependant on him, there were few options other than to continue going to market.
By all accounts, Bouazizi, just 26 when he died earlier this month, was honest and hardworking. Every day, he would take his wooden cart to the supermarket and load it would fruit and vegetables. Then he would walk it more than two kilometres to the local souk.
Police abuse
And nearly everyday, he was bullied by local police officers.
“Since he was a child, they were mistreating him. He was used to it,” Hajlaoui Jaafer, a close friend of Bouazizi, said. “I saw him humiliated.”
The body of the man who started a revolution now lies in a simple grave, surrounded by olive trees, cactuses and blossoming almond trees.
The abuse took many forms. Mostly, it was the type of petty bureaucratic tyranny that many in the region know all too well. Police would confiscate his scales and his produce, or fine him for running a stall without a permit.
Six months before his attempted suicide, police sent a fine for 400 dinars ($280) to his house – the equivalent of two months of earnings.
The harassment finally became too much for the young man on December 17.
That morning, it became physical. A policewoman confronted him on the way to market. She returned to take his scales from him, but Bouazizi refused to hand them over. They swore at each other, the policewoman slapped him and, with the help of her colleagues, forced him to the ground.
The officers took away his produce and his scale.
Publically humiliated, Bouazizi tried to seek recourse. He went to the local municipality building and demanded to a meeting with an official.
He was told it would not be possible and that the official was in a meeting.
“It’s the type of lie we’re used to hearing,” said his friend.
Protest of last resort
With no official wiling to hear his grievances, the young man brought paint fuel, returned to the street outside the building, and set himself on fire.
For Mohamed’s mother, her son’s suicide was motivated not by poverty but because he had been humiliated.
“It got to him deep inside, it hurt his pride,” she said, referring to the police’s harassment of her son.
The uprising that followed came quick and fast. From Sidi Bouzid it spread to Kasserine, Thala, Menzel Bouzaiene. Tunisians of every age, class and profession joined the revolution.
In the beginning, however, the outrage was intensely personal.
“What really gave fire to the revolution was that Mohamed was a very well-known and popular man. He would give free fruit and vegetables to very poor families,” Jaafer said.
Tunisian president paid a visit to Bouazizi in hospital [AFP]
It took Ben Ali nearly two weeks to visit Mohamed Bouazizi’s bedside at the hospital in Ben Arous. For many observers, the official photo of the president looking down on the bandaged young man had a different symbolism from what Ben Ali had probably intended.
Menobia Bouazizi said the former president was wrong not to meet with her son sooner, and that when Ben Ali finally did reach out to her family, it was too late – both to save her son, and to save his presidency.
He received members of the Bouazizi family in his offices, but for Menobia Bouazizi, the meeting rang hollow.
“The invite to the presidential palace came very late,” she said. “We are sure that the president only made the invitation to try to derail the revolution.”
“I went there as a mother and a citizen to ask for justice for my son.”
“The president promised he would do everything he could to save our son, even to have him sent to France for treatment.”
The president never delivered on his promises to her family, Menobia Bouazizi said.
Contagious uprising
But by the time Menobia Bouazizi’s son died of his burns on January 4, the uprising had already spread across Tunisia.
Fedya Hamdi, the last police officer to antagonise the street vendor, has since fled the town. She was reportedly dismissed, but her exact whereabouts are unknown.
Meanwhile, the body of the man who started a revolution now lies in a simple grave outside Sidi Bouzid, surrounded by olive trees, cactuses and blossoming almond trees.
He is sorely missed by his family, whose modest house is now one of the busiest in Sidi Bouzid, with a steady flow of journalists who have only just discovered the town where it all began.
“He was very sincere,” Basma Bouazizi, his shy 16-year-old sister, said. “We are like soulless bodies since he left.”
“We consider him to be a martyr,” Mahmoud Ghozlani, a local member of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), said in an interview metres away from the spot where the street vendor set himself on fire.
Proof itself of the progress made in four short weeks: such an interview with an opposition activist on the streets of Sidi Bouzid would not have been possible until the day Bouazizi inspired the revolt.
From day one, the people of Sidi Bouzid broke through the media blackout to spread word of their uprising.
Yasmine Ryan Last Modified: 26 Jan 2011 14:39 GMT
Regions like Sidi Bouzid – where the uprisings began – were neglected by former Tunisian president Ben Ali, who tended to focus on developing the northern, tourist-rich regions of the country [Getty]
Sidi Bouazid, Tunisia – The people of Sidi Bouzid overcame heavy censorship and police repression to ensure that their uprising did not go unnoticed in silence.
Protesters took to the streets with “a rock in one hand, a cell phone in the other,” according to Rochdi Horchani – a relative of Mohamed Bouazizi – who helped break through the media blackout.
Since the same day of the self-immolation of the 26-year-old street vendor that triggered riots causing the Tunisian leadership to flee the country, family members and friends used social media to share the news of what was happening in Sidi Bouzid with international media.
Breaking through the media blackout
Mohamed Bouazizi was not the first Tunisian to set himself alight in an act of public protest.
Abdesslem Trimech, to name one of many cases occurred without any significant media attention, set himself ablaze in the town of Monastir on March 3 after facing bureaucratic hindrance in his own work as a street vendor.
Neither was it evident that the protests that begin in Sidi Bouzid would spread to other towns. There had been similar clashes between police and protesters in the town of Ben Guerdane, near the border with Libya, in August.
The key difference in Sidi Bouzid was that locals fought to get news of what was happening out, and succeeded.
“We could protest for two years here, but without videos no one would take any notice of us,” Horchani said.
On December 17, he and Ali Bouazizi, a cousin of Mohamed Bouazizi, posted a video of a peaceful protest led by the young man’s mother outside the municipality building.
That evening, the video was aired on Al Jazeera’s Mubasher channel. Al Jazeera’s new media team, which trawls the web looking for video from across the Arab world, had picked up the footage via Facebook.
Tunisian media, in contrast, ignored the growing uprising until Nessma TV broke the silence on December 29.
And aside from a solid core of activists, most Tunisians did not dare repost the videos on Facebook or even to “like” them, until president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s final hours.
Yet even if a muted majority did not actively share news of the protests online until mid-January, Tunisia’s 3.6 million internet users – a third of the population, one of the highest penetration rates on the African continent, according to Internet World Stats – were able to follow news of the uprising on social media thanks to a solid core of activists.
Throughout the uprising, Tunisian protesters relied on Facebook to communicate with each other. Facebook, unlike most video sharing sites, was not included in Tunisia’s online censorship.
Non-internet users kept abreast of the protests via satellite news channels including Al Jazeera, France 24 and, playing catch-up on its competitors, Al Arabiya.
The hashtags on Twitter tell the tale of how the uprising went from being local to national in scope: #bouazizi became #sidibouzid, then #tunisia.
Media wars get physical
The Tunisian authorities in the region tried every means possible to thwart the flow of videos. There were internet and power outages in Sidi Bouzid and neighbouring towns.
Bloggers, web activists and a rapper who had published a song criticising the government on YouTube were arrested on January 7.
In spite of the attempts to silence them, people went to extreme lengths to make sure their videos were posted on the web.
Ali Bouazizi still has a black eye where police struck him in retaliation for his videos.
From the courtroom to Facebook
Dhafer Salhi, a local lawyer who witnessed Mohamed Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation, said he asked the head of police to meet with the young man’s family that day to try to defuse the anger on the street.
“I told [the head of police] that if you don’t get [the Bouazizi family] in, the country will be burned,” Salhi said. “He refused, by arrogance and ignorance.”
Frustrated by the lack of accountability by officials, Salhi became an active participant in the protests.
The lawyer used Facebook to organise protests, sending out invites to his friends.
He was one of the web activists targeted by the Tunisian authorities in the phishing operation. They managed to hijack his Facebook account, but Salhi simply created a new account.
Protesters get organised
The protests that erupted in Sidi Bouzid were indeed spontaneous, yet they were marked by a level of organisation and sophistication that appears grounded in the sheer determination of those who participated in them.
The Sidi Bouzid branch of the UGTT was engaged in the uprising from day one.
While the national leadership of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) is generally viewed as lacking political independence from the ruling class, its regional representatives have a reputation for gutsy engagement.
“The major driving force behind these protesters is the Sidi Bouzid union, which is very strong,” said Affi Fethi, who teaches physics at a local high school.
For Fethi, it was when police killed protesters in nearby towns including Menzel Bouziane and Regueb that the regional protests became a nationwide uprising.
“The person who helped this revolt the most is Ben Ali himself,” he said. “Why didn’t he make [the police] use rubber bullets?”
Everyone interviewed for this article agreed that no opposition party – to the extent that independent parties existed under Ben Ali’s rule – was involved in co-ordinating the early protests, or even in offering moral support.
Grassroots members of some opposition movements did, however, play an active role as individual activists (Ali Bouazizi, for instance, is a member of the Progressive Democratic Party).
Watching the political theatre from afar
Students, teachers, the unemployed and lawyers joined forces in Sidi Bouzid and neighbouring towns, braving torture and arrest.
Nacer Beyaou, a student, said the uprising was about freedom and employment.
The people of Sidi Bouzid feel their region is neglected, he said, and suffer from “abject destitution”.
Yet now that the political momentum has moved to the capital, many locals fear that their region is once again being sidelined.
“They’ve forgotten about us completely. There’s not a single minister from Sidi Bouzid,” the student said.
Summing up the combination of poverty and humiliation that many people in Sidi Bouzid say pushed them to rise up in protest, another man put it this way:
“Every day I ask my father to give me one dinar [70 cents], and I’m thirty years old.”
A sign of the uncertainty that many are feeling here, the man was forthright in his political views, but said he preferred not to give his name “in case Ben Ali comes back”.
Now that the politicians in Tunis have taken over, he said it was like sitting back and watching the theatre.
With the initial euphoria that came when Ben Ali fled the country fast fading, the question here is whether or not there will be any tangible political and economic gains for Sidi Bouzid in the “new” Tunisia.
Yunus Khazri has lived half his life outside Tunisia. When he was a young man, he left his native country for Paris hoping to liberate himself from what he experienced as a suffocating and conservative context. His father was an Imam and he was among the few in his family who had a passion for texts, so he was trained in Islamic theology and law by his father and studied Islamology in France. Shortly after his arrival in France, Ben Ali came to power in Tunisia. At that time, Yunus was worried and could not know that he would not return to his country for many years. Today, he feels proud to be a Tunisian. When I visited him in his house in Amsterdam, he could not have looked happier.
“I hope that they know what they’re doing. Of course, I am worried that this revolution could turn out very badly, but at the moment I am very hopeful. In Tunisia, people just want more freedom. We don’t have a terrifying ideological leader – we are Muslims but not Islamists – and are not looking to impose only one view. The people just want democracy, something that will hopefully inspire other Arab countries. Some say that it is better to live in poverty than to live under Ben Ali. This is really essential. It’s an insight about human dignity and the importance of freedom. In the beginning, he wasn’t that terrible but later on things changed for the worse. In the West, no one paid much attention to Tunisia. If something happens in for example Iran, the entire media writes about it. But in the case of Tunisia, no one cared really. Moreover, even though a dictator was running the country, Tunisia was an ally of the West. President Chirac once even said that in Tunisia there is enough food, education and no war, so people should stop complaining. But the opposition in France thought differently and today we see that reality resists such discriminating simplifications. People are not satisfied with just bread. They too want what everybody has in rich countries such as France: freedom! Liberté! Tunisia is a country where an individual such as Mohamed Bouazizi, who set himself on fire in a desperate act of protest, can become a symbol of resistance against the status quo. He and they are a phoenix that will rise from the ashes.”
As Yunus and I were looking at Youtube videos of the events unfolding in Tunisia his niece Lobna, who lives there, called him. Lobna is a young undergraduate student. She studies French and Yunus is very proud that the girls in his family can educate themselves more than in the past. “Now we are independent!” she said enthusiastically. It was hard not to hear how happy and emotional she was. Yunus showed me a picture of her as a teenager, holding an electric guitar. “Young people like rap music, but to me it sounds awkward. Times are changing and they should create new words and a new language. They should not wait for their elders. Thank God for the Internet! Thanks to the new social media, the dictator cannot hope to control everything, for example these new forms of music. For the first time, I really feel proud to be a Tunisian. Of course it is terrible that people have already been killed, but unfortunately freedom is not free. I’m not saying this to justify their deaths for a greater cause. It’s just an unfortunate truism that needs to be learned again and again. Today, I am so happy that these young people have the courage to resist the dictator. Today, I feel as if my dignity as a person has been restored.”
Yunus even opened a bottle of champagne for us to drink and celebrate the resistance in Tunisia. In his enthusiasm he couldn’t help reading a verse from the Qur’an (16: 67): “And from the fruits of the palm trees and grapevines you take intoxicant and good provision. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who reason.”
TUNIS – De Tunesische oppositieleider Moncef Marzouki rekent erop dat de Egyptische president Hosni Mubarak aftreedt. ,,Egypte zal in het komende jaar een nieuwe president hebben. En dat zal niet opnieuw Mubarak zijn of zijn zoon”, zei de mensenrechtenactivist Marzouki op de Duitse radio.
”Ik ben er zeker van dat er geen nieuwe kandidatuur komt van Mubarak of een machtsoverdracht aan zijn zoon.”
De 65-jarige Marzouki leidt de Congres Partij voor de Republiek (CPR). De partij zet zich in voor een democratisch Tunesië en was verboden onder president Ben Ali. De president is deze maand het land ontvlucht wegens aanhoudende betogingen van de ontevreden bevolking.
Hij verwacht ook dat de leider van Algerije zal vallen, terwijl die van Syrië in moeilijkheden komt. ”Een lente van democratie in de Arabische wereld”, zei hij.
Anti-government protestors clash with riot police in Cairo in the challenge to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Photograph: Ben Curtis/APCaught off guard by the escalating unrest in Egypt, the Obama administration is desperate to avoid any public appearance of taking sides. But Washington’s close, longstanding political and military ties to President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, plus annual financial support worth about $1.5bn, undermine its claims to neutrality.
While the US favours Egyptian political reform in theory, in practice it props up an authoritarian system for pragmatic reasons of national self-interest. It behaved in much the same way towards Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1980s, when Iraq was at war with Iran. A similar tacit bargain governs relations with Saudi Arabia. That’s why, for many Egyptians, the US is part of the problem.
Like tottering tightrope walkers, the balancing act performed by Barack Obama and the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has been excruciating to watch. When the protests kicked off, Clinton urged all parties “to exercise restraint”. This phrase is useful when politicians are unsure of their ground.
Clinton also struck a lopsided note. “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people,” she said. Against a backdrop of street battles, beatings-up, teargas, flying bricks, mass detentions and attempts to shut information networks, her words sounded unreal, even foolish.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the establishment rebel who joined the protests, was flabbergasted. “If you would like to know why the United States does not have credibility in the Middle East, that is precisely the answer,” he said.
Clinton’s emphasis shifted the next day, as if to correct the balance. Mubarak must allow peaceful protests, she said. “I do think it’s possible for there to be reforms and that is what we are urging and calling for.”
Today she said: “We are deeply concerned about the use of violence by Egyptian police and security forces against protesters. We call on the Egyptian government to do everything in its power to restrain security forces.” Still she tried to face both ways: “At the same time, protesters should also refrain from violence and express themselves peacefully.”
Obama maintained he had “always” told Mubarak that reform was “absolutely critical”. But he also wobbled back in the other direction, saying the Egyptian leader was a good friend. “Egypt’s been an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues. Mubarak has been very helpful,” Obama said.
Amid the juggling, one fact may be pinned down: the US would not welcome Mubarak’s fall and the dislocation a revolution would cause in Egypt and across a chronically unstable region. Gradual reforms of the kind Clinton discussed in a recent speech in Doha about the Arab world, and a competitive presidential election this autumn, would probably be Washington’s preferred prescription. As matters stand now, this is the least likely outcome.
Either the regime will suppress the unrest, possibly by ever more brutal means, as happened in Iran in 2009; or the uprising will spiral out of control and the regime will implode, with unpredictable consequences, as in Tunisia. In this latter scenario, one outcome could be a military takeover in the name of national salvation. It has happened before in Egypt, in 1952, when the Free Officers Movement forced King Farouk to abdicate. If it happened again, the US might be expected to endorse it.
That’s because, in the final analysis, the US needs a friendly government in Cairo more than it needs a democratic one. Whether the issue is Israel-Palestine, Hamas and Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, security for Gulf oil supplies, Sudan, or the spread of Islamist fundamentalist ideas, Washington wants Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous and influential country, in its corner. That’s the political and geostrategic bottom line. In this sense, Egypt’s demonstrators are not just fighting the regime. They are fighting Washington, too.
Een bijzonder filmpje dat ik kreeg toegestuurd door een Iraakse vriend
Demonstratie in Amsterdam (Dam), 1-2-2011 (foto Floris Schreve)
A man held an Egyptian flag during a massive rally in Tahrir Square on Tuesday in Cairo. More Photos »
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: February 1, 2011 (New York Times)
Cairo – In a test of wills that seemed to be approaching a critical juncture, more than 100,000 people crammed into Cairo’s vast Tahrir Square on Tuesday, seeking to muster a million protesters demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Their mood was jubilant, as though they had achieved their goals, even though Mr. Mubarak remained in power a day after the Egyptian military emboldened the protesters by saying they would not use force against them and the president’s most trusted adviser offered to negotiate with his adversaries.
There were reports that the government was seeking to choke off access to the capital to thwart the demonstrators’ ambitions for the most decisive show of strength so far. But the scale of the protest was far bigger and more tumultuous than in the previous week, suggesting that the authorities had been unable to prevent the uprising from reaching what had been seen by all sides as a potential turning point. Tens of thousands of people also took to the streets of Alexandria, Egypt’s second city north of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast.
Events around the region have taken unpredictable turns in recent weeks. On Tuesday afternoon, King Abdullah II of Jordan, a small and generally stable nation, made the surprise announcement that he had dismissed the government in response to protesters’ demands for greater freedoms.
The crowd in Cairo offered a remarkable tapestry of Egypt’s society, from the most westernized to the most traditional, from young women with babies to old men with canes. “Look at the faces of the old men — they are young again,” said Ahmed Zemhom, 37, a former math teacher who makes a living as a cab driver.
Seeking to impose some kind of order, the military set up checkpoints to search people entering the square, presumably for hidden weapons, separating them by gender so that women could be patted down only by other females. But there were no immediate reports of clashes, and little sign of any security police.
The fast-moving developments appeared to weaken Mr. Mubarak’s grip on power just two weeks after a group of young political organizers called on Facebook for a day of protest inspired by the ouster of another Arab strongman, in Tunisia.
A Western diplomat, who spoke in return for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Monday night’s moves by the military were believed to be part of choreographed maneuvers by the most senior people around Mr. Mubarak to set the stage for his eventual exit.
If that belief is borne out by events, however, it remained to be seen whether protesters would be satisfied by Mr. Mubarak’s departure or would demand more far-reaching change, as demonstrators in Tunisia did after its strongman president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled in mid-January.
In Tahrir, or Liberation, Square, the chants of the huge crowd suggested that the demonstrators would not stop at Mr. Mubarak’s departure. “The people of Egypt want the president on trial,” some chanted for the first time, while others chorused: “The people of Egypt want the government to fall.”
“Nobody wants him, nobody,” said El-Mahdy Mohamed, one of the demonstrators. “Can’t he see on the TV what’s happening?”
As opposition groups sought to stake out positions, Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a Nobel laureate who has emerged as a potential rallying point for opposition, said on Tuesday that Mr. Mubarak must leave the country before any dialogue can start between the opposition and the government, Reuters reported.
“There can be dialogue but it has to come after the demands of the people are met and the first of those is that President Mubarak leaves,” he told Al Arabiya television. “I hope to see Egypt peaceful and that’s going to require as a first step the departure of President Mubarak. If President Mubarak leaves, then everything will progress correctly.”
His words were apparently a first response to an offer of talks on Monday night by Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s right-hand man and newly appointed vice president.
By Tuesday morning, as a formal curfew that many have ignored was lifted, vast crowds flooded into Tahrir Square — a plaza that for some has assumed some of the symbolic importance of Tiananmen Square in Beijing during pro-democracy demonstrations there in 1989.
But, in marked contrast to those events, the military’s promise not to use force has emboldened demonstrators sensing that the political landscape of the country has shifted as decisively as at any moment in Mr. Mubarak’s three decades in power. The military seemed to aggressively assert itself as an arbiter between two irreconcilable forces: a popular uprising demanding Mr. Mubarak’s fall and his tenacious refusal to relinquish power.
And even as the square itself filled up, rivers of protesters flowed from side streets.
Overnight, soldiers boosted their presence around the square, with tanks and armored personnel carriers guarding some of its entrances and stringing concertina wire to block off some streets. The black-clad police — reviled by many protesters as a tool of the regime — also seemed to have been deployed in larger numbers, though not on the same scale as when the protests started a week ago.
News reports said the authorities had sought to isolate Cairo from the rest of the country, throwing up roadblocks on main highways and canceling train and bus services to prevent demonstrators from reaching the city. There was no official confirmation of the report but witnesses said many people who had been stopped at roadblocks simply walked into the center of Cairo.
In a further token of the paralysis of normal business, news reports said, the Cairo stock exchange announced that it would remain closed for a fourth successive day on Wednesday.
Thousands of foreigners have fled the capital, around 1,200 of them on evacuation flights arranged by the American Embassy that began on Monday. By mid-afternoon on Tuesday, two more flights chartered by the State Department had left Cairo for Istanbul, while passengers were boarding other planes for Athens and Larnaca, Cyprus, officials said. Many more flights were likely on Wednesday.
How far Mr. Mubarak is offering to bend in negotiations remains to be seen, and it appeared to be too soon to write off the survival of his government. In Washington, the State Department on Monday dispatched a veteran diplomatic troubleshooter, Frank Wisner, a former ambassador in Cairo and elsewhere, to meet Mr. Mubarak and other officials.
In a further diplomatic twist, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — whose country is often held up as a model of Western-style democracy within a predominantly Islamic nation — canceled a visit to Egypt planned for next week, urging Mr. Mubarak to “listen to people’s outcries and extremely humanistic demands” and to “meet the freedom demands of people without a doubt,” Reuters reported.
The week-old uprising here entered a new stage about 9 p.m. on Monday when a uniformed military spokesman declared on state television that “the armed forces will not resort to use of force against our great people.” Addressing the throngs who took to the streets, he declared that the military understood “the legitimacy of your demands” and “affirms that freedom of expression through peaceful means is guaranteed to everybody.”
A roar of celebration rose up immediately from the crowd of thousands of protesters still lingering in Tahrir, or Liberation, Square, where a television displayed the news. Opposition leaders argued that the phrase “the legitimacy of your demands” could only refer to the protests’ central request — Mr. Mubarak’s departure to make way for free elections.
About an hour later, Mr. Suleiman, the vice president, delivered another address, lasting just two minutes.
“I was assigned by the president today to contact all the political forces to start a dialogue about all the raised issues concerning constitutional and legislative reform,” he said, “and to find a way to clearly identify the proposed amendments and specific timings for implementing them.”
The protesters in the streets took Mr. Suleiman’s speech as a capitulation to the army’s refusal to use force against them. “The army and the people want the collapse of the government,” they chanted in celebration. Even some supporters of Mr. Mubarak acknowledged that events may have turned decisively against him after the military indicated its refusal to confront the protesters.
There were some faint dissident voices, however. In Alexandria on Tuesday, young women handed out leaflets to motorists in Alexandria urging people not to attend Tuesday’s demonstrations. “Do not turn yourselves over to outside forces trying to create chaos in our country,” the leaflets said. The argument seemed unlikely to dissuade protesters who had set up tents in front of the Misr train station in central Alexandria.
Mr. Mubarak’s previously unquestioned authority had already eroded deeply over the preceding three days. On Friday, hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilian protesters routed his government’s heavily armed security police in a day of street battles, burning his ruling party’s headquarters to the ground as the police fled the capital. On Saturday, Mr. Mubarak deployed the military in their place, only to find the rank-and-file soldiers fraternizing with the protesters and revolutionary slogans being scrawled on their tanks.
And on Sunday, leaders of various opposition groups met to select Mr. ElBaradei to negotiate for them in anticipation of talks with Mr. Mubarak about forming a transitional unity government — an idea Mr. Mubarak’s surrogate embraced Monday.
Mr. Mubarak’s government came under pressure from another front as well: the swift deterioration of the economy. The protests, and the specter of looting that followed the police withdrawal, have devastated tourism, the source of half of Egypt’s foreign income, and shut down transportation.
On Monday foreign embassies scrambled to book charter flights to evacuate their citizens as thousands of people jammed the Cairo airport trying to flee the country. International companies, including those in the vital oil and natural gas industries, shuttered their operations.
As late as midday, however, Mr. Mubarak seemed to be trying to wait out the protesters. He appeared on television soberly shaking the hands of a new roster of cabinet ministers in a public demonstration that even though protesters may control the streets, he remained head of state.
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from London . Reporting was contributed by Mona El-Naggar, Kareem Fahim, Anthony Shadid and Robert F. Worth from Cairo; and Nicholas Kulish from Alexandria.
In de angst voor de islamisten openbaart zich een diepgeworteld wantrouwen of democratie en islam wel kunnen samengaan.
Een spook waart door het Midden-Oosten. In Egypte komt het volk in opstand tegen een autoritair regime dat duizenden politieke gevangenen in de cel heeft gegooid. Een regime dat politieke tegenstanders martelt. Een regime dat maling heeft aan de vrijheid van meningsuiting en zonder pardon televisiekanalen en het internet afsluit.
Elke democraat zou moeten juichen bij deze revolutie. Zoals de in Amerika woonachtige Egyptische journaliste Mona Eltahawy (volg haar! @monaeltahawy) in een tweet schreef: Moebarak is de Berlijnse muur. ‘Down, down, down with him.’ Hierin klinkt de hoop door van een omwenteling die het hele Midden-Oosten zal bevrijden.
Retoriek
En toch regeert bij velen niet de hoop, maar de angst. De angst dat in Egypte straks islamisten aan de macht komen. Het is een echo van de retoriek waarmee Mubarak al jarenlang zijn ijzeren greep op Egypte rechtvaardigt. Hij presenteert zich als het laatste bastion tegen een tweede Iran aan de Nijl. Het is de retoriek waarmee hij miljarden steun van de Amerikanen heeft binnengeharkt.
Het is niet moeilijk om deze angst voor de politieke macht van islamisten te voeden. Uit een opiniepeiling van Pew Research van vorig jaar blijkt dat ruim driekwart van de Egyptisch moslims voorstander is van steniging als straf voor overspel en van het afhakken van handen van dieven. Van de Egyptische moslims is 85 procent voorstander van een grote rol van de islam in de politiek. Het zijn cijfers die velen doen huiveren. Maar uit dezelfde opiniepeiling blijkt ook dat een grote meerderheid van de Egyptische moslims zich keert tegen Al Qaida en dat vooral onder jongeren een meerderheid niks moet weten van Hezbollah of Hamas.
Praktisch
Het is waar dat de Moslim Broederschap een straf georganiseerde oppositiebeweging is. Maar de Moslim Broederschap staat absoluut niet op één lijn met de machthebbers in Iran. Het is een teken aan de wand dat ze hun steun hebben uitgesproken aan de seculiere ElBaradei als vertegenwoordiger van de oppositie. Bovendien is het opvallend dat in deze opstand de Moslim Broederschap niet het voortouw heeft. De leuzen en eisen zijn niet religieus, maar praktisch: Mubarak moet aftreden. Het gaat deze activisten niet om de kleding van de vrouwen, maar om vrijheid, banen en brood.
In de angst voor de islamisten openbaart zich een diepgeworteld wantrouwen of democratie en islam wel kunnen samengaan. Mensen die geloven dat dit onmogelijk is presenteren zich graag als realisten. Zij durven de pijnlijke waarheid onder ogen te zien. Maar die pijnlijke waarheid leidt ook tot pijnlijke politieke conclusies. Het betekent namelijk dat landen waarvan de meerderheid van de bevolking moslim is, maar in twee smaken komen. Of een autoritair regime houdt met behulp van het leger de islamitische massa in bedwang of de islamitische meerderheid laat zich gelden en dan komt er een tweede Iran. De naïviteit van deze zogenaamde realisten is dat ze denken dat die autoritaire strategie op lange termijn houdbaar is.
Derde weg
De protesten in Egypte voeden de hoop dat er een derde weg mogelijk is. Een democratische rechtsstaat waar islamitische politieke partijen niet verboden zijn, maar waar die partijen zich wel conformeren aan de spelregels van de democratische rechtsstaat, zoals de vrijheid van godsdienst, de vrijheid van meningsuiting en de bescherming van minderheden. Mensen die geloven dat zo’n derde weg, zo’n Arabische lente mogelijk is, zoals de Arabiste Petra Stienen die het boek schreef Dromen van een Arabische Lente, worden vaak weggezet als naïeve dromers.
Er is inderdaad geen garantie dat deze derde weg in Egypte zal overwinnen. Maar waarom wordt hoop als emotioneel afgeserveerd en angst als realistisch verkocht? Angst is ook een emotie en Egypte laat zien dat wie zich door angst laat leiden, kiest voor een strategie die onhoudbaar en dus naïef is.
Spook
Er waart een spook door Egypte. En iedereen die zich wijs maakt dat dit een islamistisch spook is, doet zichzelf tekort. Hij doet de democratische krachten in Egypte tekort. Hij doet de jongeren tekort die de straat op gaan, omdat ze wel naar de universiteit zijn geweest, maar nu geen baan kunnen vinden. Hij doet de politieke gevangenen tekort die vanwege hun opvattingen jarenlang gevangen hebben gezeten. Hij doet de mensen tekort die dag na dag het uitgaansverbod aan hun laars lappen om op het plein van de bevrijding de naam van dat plein eer aan te doen.
It is no longer a question of whether Egypt is going to change, for it is changing. The question is about the limits of this change: how will it take place? At what frequency? To what extent? Are we faced with a partial reform of the regime or are we on the path to a full-fledged transformation? One might say that some change has taken place through the wave of protests that is invading Egypt. The issue of legacy [of the presidency to Jamal Mubarak] is not on the table anymore, as shown by the appointment of Omar Suleiman as Vice-President. The structure of the government that was announced yesterday and the absence of businessmen in it also enter within the same context. What is taking place in the ruling party confirms this trend.
In light of the current situation, it can also be said that it is entirely unlikely that President Husni Moubarak will be a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections next fall. The events also imposed a third point, which is the acknowledgment from inside the regime itself that the last legislative elections were rigged on a large scale. The fall of Ahmed Ezz from his position in the party was like an admission of the validity of the accusations that were made against these elections. The fourth point is the increased conviction that it is impossible to exit the current crisis except through a broad national dialogue that would translate the decision to listen to people. Dialogue means being ready to at least look into the amendments to the constitution that are being demanded by the opposition.
Thus, the participants in the protests can say that their movement has imposed some change on the situation that has been in the country for three decades. The decision-maker realized that it is impossible to deal with the emerging situation with the security tools. The appointments were a clear recognition. The regime certainly preferred the return of calm and the imposition of security before making any change or appointment. But it concluded that going back to the previous methods is impossible. What is happening is completely new and unprecedented and cannot be treated with the medication that belongs to a bygone era.
The time factor holds exceptional importance in such great crises. Sometimes hours or days are spent in hesitation, cautiousness, or trying to renew the wager on an old lexicon or in fear. Time is golden in great crises. You might have to accept on Thursday what is worse than what you rejected on Monday. And what is accepted on Thursday might be outdone by time on Saturday, as the voice of the street burns phases and half solutions.
The protest movement made Egypt enter a transitory phase. The question is about who is leading this phase and what are its reins. Here, we must turn to the army, from which ranks the President has come for sixty decades. The past few days have shown that the army, which dealt very wisely with the protests movement, has great acclaim in the country. We saw the protestors welcome and greet the army tanks and write some of their demands on them. The army refrained from repressing the protests movement, but this absolutely doesn’t mean that it decided to fully bow to the street movement and that it will be ready to accept the determination of the regime’s future in the street itself.
It is evident that the recent appointments did not convince the protestors. Any success of the one-million-person protest that protestors called for organizing today will mean the draining of any positive impact that the appointments could have made. The success will raise the ceiling of demands and push them towards the claim for turning the page immediately. The attention is shifted towards the army and its readiness to accept a full change that goes beyond the president to encompass the regime itself. The army might consider such change to hold some risks in the absence of a clear leadership by the opposition and in the absence of a great, effective, and accepted opposition force with which the army can reach a settlement, and which would not cause a change in the regime’s foundations and Egypt’s position.
Egypt is approaching the hour of the decisive test. It is most probable that some generals are looking at their watches. The phase of overthrows is over, but the loss of the game from the army’s hands will be dangerous. Hence, a “road map” is needed to come out of the crisis, one that is based on listening to people and setting stability regulators for a transitory phase that has clear features and goals.
Violence erupts in Alexandria shortly after Egyptian president’s speech offering a mixture of concessions and defiance.
Al Jazeera Online Producer Last Modified: 02 Feb 2011 01:40 GMT
Mubarak’s televised announcement came after eight days of unprecedented nationwide protests [EPA]
CAIRO, EGYPT – Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has announced in a televised address that he will not run for re-election but refused to step down from office – the central demand of millions of protesters who have demonstrated across Egypt over the past week.His announcement follows a week of protests, in which millions of people have taken to the streets in Cairo and elsewhere.Mubarak seemed largely unfazed by the protests during his recorded address, which aired at 11pm local time on Tuesday.Shortly after his speech, clashes broke out between pro-Mubarak and anti-government protesters in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported.
Rock-throwing youths at the city’s Mahatit Masr Square scattered as automatic gunfire rang out and a tank advanced towards them before halting and then withdrawing. There was no sign of any casualties.A protester identified as Eslam Kamal played down the seriousness of the incident.”An argument erupted out of overexcitement,” he said.”The army acted wisely … and started to separate the two groups.”Mubarak’s words were unlikely to carry much weight with the protesters at Cairo’s Tahrir, or Liberation, Square: they resumed their “Leave, Mubarak!” chant shortly after his speech, and added a few new slogans, like “we won’t leave tomorrow, we won’t leave Thursday …”Mubarak mentioned the protests at the beginning of his speech, and said that “the young people” have the right to peaceful demonstrations.But his tone quickly turned accusatory, saying the protesters had been “taken advantage of” by people trying to “undermine the government”.Until now officials had indicated Mubarak, 82, was likely to run for a sixth six-year term of office. But in his address on Tuesday, Mubarak said he never intended to run for re-election.”I will use the remaining months of my term in office to fill the people’s demands,” he said.That would leave Mubarak in charge of overseeing a transitional government until the next presidential election, currently scheduled for September.Economy and jobsMubarak promised reforms to the constitution, particularly Article 76, which makes it virtually impossible for independent candidates to run for office. And he said his government would focus on improving the economy and providing jobs.”My new government will be responsive to the needs of young people,” he said. “It will fulfil those legitimate demands and help the return of stability and security.”
Cairo: More than a million people gathered in and around Tahrir Square
Alexandria: Hundreds of thousands of protestersmarched in the city
Sinai: Around 250,000 protesters rallied
El-Mahalla el-Kubra: Up to 250,000 people demonstrated
Hundreds of thousands also marched in Port Said, Suez, and Menya
Mubarak also made a point of saying that he would “die in this land” – a message to protesters that he did not plan to flee into exile like recently deposed Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said: “It is clear that President Mubarak is in denial over his legacy.”Until Friday we are probably going to watch a major escalation of tension in events both between the demonstrators on the one hand and the regime of Mubarak on the other.”Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian opposition figure who returned to Cairo to take part in the protests, said Mubarak’s pledge not to stand again for the presidency was an act of deception.ElBaradei, a Nobel peace prize winner as head of the UN nuclear agency, said if Mubarak did not heed the call to leave power at once, he would be “not only a lame-duck president but a dead man walking”.”He’s unfortunately going to extend the agony here for another six, seven months. He continues to polarise the country. He continues to get people even more angry and could [resort] to violence,” ElBaradei said.Indeed, none of the protesters interviewed by Al Jazeera earlier today said they would accept Mubarak finishing his term in office.”He needs to leave now,” Hassan Moussa said in Tahrir Square just hours before Mubarak’s announcement.”We won’t accept him leaving in September, or handing power to [newly installed vice-president] Omar Suleiman. He needs to leave now.”Waiting gameThe protests continue to feel like a waiting game – as if Mubarak is hoping to simply outlast the crowds amassed at Tahrir Square.”When the people of a nation decide something, then it will happen,” Abdullah Said Ahmed, a student from Al-Azhar University, said. “The United States chooses its leaders. We’re going to choose ours. Our patience can do anything.”
Our producer in Egypt reports on the latest developments
Saber Shanan said: “I’ll stay here until I die or until the system changes.”Mubarak’s announcement came after pressure from the US administration, which urged him not to seek re-election.Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt, met Mubarak on Monday and reportedly told him not to extend his time in office.In remarks to the media at the White House on Tuesday evening, Barack Obama, the US president, said he had spoken with Mubarak who he said “recognises that the status quo is not sustainable and a change must take place”.Obama said he told Mubarak that an orderly transition must be meaningful and peaceful, must begin now and must include opposition parties.Obama emphasised, however, that “it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders”.
Corruptie, politiegeweld, onderdrukking. Stuk voor stuk reden om de straat op te gaan. Maar voor massaprotest is een prikkel nodig. Een concreet incident dat raakt aan gedeeld ongenoegen.
Politieslachtoffer Khaled Said werd het symbool van de protesten in Egypte. Maar de drijvende kracht achter de symbolisering van Said wil geen bekendheid, laat staan roem. Op 6 juni 2010 werd de 28-jarige Said door agenten doodgeschopt voor een internetcafé. De reden was waarschijnlijk een filmpje, waarop Said laat zien hoe de politie drugsgeld onderling verdeelt. De moord maakte van Said echter nog geen symbool. Daarvoor was meer nodig.
‘El Shaheeed’ noemde een datum
Degene die van Khaled Said een icoon maakte is een persoon die schuilgaat achter het internetaccount ‘El Shaheeed’, Arabisch voor ‘de martelaar’. Hij (het kan ook een ‘zij’ zijn) beheert een website en zowel een Arabische als een Engelse Facebook-pagina. De pagina’s heten ‘We are all Khaled Said’, we zijn allemaal Khaled Said.
Het doel was aanvankelijk een internetprotest tegen politiegeweld, maar na de protesten in Tunesië en de val van president Ben Ali werd het initiatief concreter en fysieker. El Shaheeed noemde een datum, dinsdag 25 januari. Nooit eerder demonstreerden zoveel mensen op straat tegen het regime van president Mubarak.
Of El Shaheeed de protesten van 25 januari op zijn conto kan schrijven is de vraag. Zeker is wel dat hij 375.000 volgers heeft. Als El Shaheeed iets schrijft verschijnt het op de Facebook-pagina’s van 375.000 mensen, voornamelijk Egyptenaren.
Facebook als vliegwiel, meer niet
In een interview met Newsweek – via Gmail Chat – is El Shaheeed bescheiden over zijn rol. Hij geeft niet echt orders, maar investeert in de interactie met zijn fans op Facebook. Discussies, peilingen, berichten doorplaatsen. Ook kunnen bezoekers via zijn pagina’s protestflyers downloaden, zodat de mensen die geen internet hebben toch bereikt worden. “Het is mijn taak om mensen te motiveren, te informeren en hen aan te moedigen deelgenoot te worden van dit evenement. Niet slechts verslaggeving.” Hij hoopt op een vliegwieleffect: door mensen klaar te stomen voor het protest wordt het protest onstuitbaar. El Shaheeed heeft nooit persoonlijke details van zichzelf weggegeven. En dat wil hij zo houden, zelfs als het doel bereikt is en hij niets heeft te vrezen.
Het succes van El Shaheeed is deels te danken aan zijn taalgebruik. Hij vermijdt al te politieke en religieuze uitspraken. Dat drijft groepen alleen maar uiteen, vindt hij. Het Egyptische volk moet samen optrekken. “Hij praat niet tegen de mensen”, zegt een activist over hem. “Hij praat met de mensen.”
‘Deze revolutie is van iedereen’
Volgens het populaire blog The Daily Beast is El Shaheeed met zijn honderdduizenden volgers de grootste mensenrechtenbeweging in het land. En ook The Wall Street Journal ziet in hem de organisator van de protesten.
Maar El Shaheeed is de laatste die de eer op zal strijken. “Dit gaat niet over mij”, zei hij tegen Newsweek. “Dit gaat over de mensen van Egypte. Ik wil straks mijn echte leven terug. Ik wil geen roem. Het was nooit mijn intentie dit te starten.” Met ‘dit’ bedoelt hij de massale betogingen op straat.
De betogingen stoppen kan hij niet, wil hij niet. Toen de regering internet afsloot – en El Shaheeed zijn Facebook-pagina’s niet kon bijwerken – gingen de protesten namelijk gewoon door. Als El Shaheeed dit al in gang heeft gezet, dan heeft hij zichzelf inmiddels overbodig gemaakt.
Vandaag, tijdens het grootste protest tot nu toe, is El Shaheeed weer aan het communiceren met zijn volgers. Vanmiddag richtte hij zich even tot journalisten. “Ik krijg maar vragen over mijn ideologie. Maar ik heb er geen één!”, schreef hij. “Deze revolutie is van iedereen. En iedereen zou er aan deel moeten nemen.”
Een ‘Nieuw Revolutionair’ clipje op Youtube, zoals er inmidddels al veel van zijn gemaakt
The events in Tunisia and Egypt have riveted the region and the world. The eruptions of people power have shaken and taken down the seeming unbreakable edifices of dictatorship. (At the time of writing Mubarak has not formally acknowledged that he has been toppled, but the force of the movement is too powerful and determined to fathom any other outcome). Events are moving at breakneck speed and a new narrative for the future is swiftly being written. In the throes of a changing future it merits returning to the stories of two young men, the two faces that stoked the flames of revolution thanks to the persistence of on-line citizen activists who spread their stories. For in the tragic circumstances surrounding their deaths are keys to understanding what has driven throngs of citizens to the streets.
Mohammed Bouazizi has been dubbed “the father of Arab revolution”; a father indeed despite his young years and state of singlehood. Some parts of his life are by now familiar. This 26 year old who left school just short of finishing high school (he was NOT a college graduate as many new stories have been erroneously reporting) and worked in the informal economy as a vendor selling fruits and vegetable to support his widowed mother and five younger siblings. Overwhelmed by the burden of fines, debts, the humiliation of being serially harassed and beaten by police officers, and the indifference of government authorities to redress his grievances, he set himself on fire. His mother insists that though his poverty was crushing, it was the recurrence of humiliation and injustice that drove him to take his life. The image associated with Mohammed Bouazizi is not that of a young man’s face, but of a body in flames on a public sidewalk. His self-immolation occurred in front of the local municipal building where he sought, but never received, justice.
The story of 28 year old Egyptian, Khaled Said, went viral immediately following his death by beating on June 6, 2010. Two photos of him circulated the blogosphere and social networking sites. One was a portrait of his gentle face and soft eyes coming out of a youthful grey hooded sweatshirt; the face of an everyday male youth. The accompanying photo was of the bashed and bloodied face on the corpse of a young man. Though badly disfigured, the image held enough resemblance to the pre-tortured Khaled to decipher that the two faces belonged to the same person. The events leading to Khaled’s killing originated when he posted a video of two police officers allegedly dividing the spoils of a drug bust. This manner of citizen journalism has become commonplace since 2006. Youths across the region have been emboldened by a famous police corruption case of 2006. An activist posted a video on YouTube of two police officers sodomizing and whipping a minibus driver, Emad El Kabeer. It not only incensed the public and disgraced the perpetrators, but led to their criminal prosecution. On June 6, 2010, as Khaled Said was sitting in his local internet café in Alexandria two policemen accosted him and asked him for his I.D. which he refused to produce. They proceeded to drag him away and allegedly beat him to his death as he pleaded for his life. The officers claimed that Khaled died of suffocation when he tried to swallow a package of marijuana to conceal drug possession. But the power of photographic evidence combined with eyewitness accounts and popular knowledge of scores of cases of police brutality left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was senselessly and brutally murdered by the very members of the police that were supposed to protect them. The court case of the two officers is ongoing.
Mohammed Bouazizi was not the first person to resort to suicide by self immolation out of desperation, there has been an alarming rise in such incidents in different Arab countries. And Khaled Said is sadly one of scores of citizens who have been tortured, terrorized, and killed by police with impunity. But the stories of these two young men are the ones that have captured the popular imagination, they have been game changers.
Cartoon from the Facebook Group We are all Khaled Said
For the youth of Egypt and Tunisia, the largest cohort of young people ever in their countries, the martyrdoms of Khaled Said and Mohamed Bouaziz represent an undeniable tipping point, the breaking of the fear barrier. The youth have banned together as a generation like never before and are crying out collectively, “enough is enough!” to use the words of a 21 year old friend, Sherif, from Alexandria. The political cartoon of Khaled Said in his signature hoodie shouting to the Intelligence Chief, also popularly known “Torturer in chief” and now Mubarak’s Vice President, to “wake up Egypt” perfectly exemplifies this mood (from the Facebook group, We are all Khaled Said). No longer will the youth cower to authority figures tainted by corruption and abuses. These illegitimate leaders will cower to them. The order of things will change.
And so on January 25, 2011, inspired by the remarkable and inspiring revolution in Tunisia that toppled the twenty-three year reign of the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptian youth saw it was possible to topple their dictator, Hosni Mubarak, of 31 years. Activists used different on-line platforms, most notably the April 6 Youth Movement and the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook group to organize a national uprising against “Torture, Corruption, Poverty, and Unemployment.”
It is not arbitrary that civil rights, as exemplified in torture and corruption (recall Khaled Said), topped the list of grievances, followed by economic problems. For youth unemployment and underemployment will, under any regime, be among the greatest challenges of the times.
Banner of the Egyptian uprising
No one could have anticipated that this initial call would heed such mass and inclusive participation. Youths initially came to the streets braving tanks, rubber bullets, tear gas (much of which is made in the US and part of US military aid, incidentally), detention, and even death. And they were joined by citizens of all persuasions and life stages; children, youth, elderly, middle aged, female, male, middle class, poor, Muslim, Christians, Atheists.
Contrary to a number of commentators in news outlets in North America and parts of Europe the two revolutions overtaking North Africa are not motivated by Islamism and there are no compelling signs that they will be co-opted in this direction. Such analyses are likely to be either ideologically driven or misinformed. In fact, Islam has not figured whatsoever into the stories of Bouazizi and Said. These are inclusive freedom movements for civic, political, and economic rights. To understand what is driving the movement and what will invariably shape the course of reforms in the coming period we need to return to these young men. Their evocative if tragic deaths speak reams about the erosion of rights and accountability under decades of corrupt dictatorship, about the rabid assault on people’s dignity. They remind us of the desperate need to restore a political order that is just and an economic order that is fair. Mohamed Bouazizi and Khaled Said have unwittingly helped to pave a way forward, and to point the way to the right side of history.
Linda Herrera is a social anthropologist with expertise in comparative and international education. She has lived in Egypt and conducted research on youth cultures and educational change in Egypt and the wider Middle East for over two decades. She is currently Associate Professor, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is co-editor with A. Bayat of the volume Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global North and South, published by Oxford University Press (2010).
The Egyptian peoples’ revolution against their government forces to the fore the unfortunate reality that America’s friendship is an illusion created for its own benefit, a strategy, if you will, that creates a mirage of trust, compassion, and good will for the people while it disfranchises them from power, enriches the “inner circle,” establishes a brutal police force to control them, providing thereby a resident dictator that will do the bidding of America’s military-industrial complex to sustain its enormous need for on-going wars and a budget that saps the wealth of the nation itself. Mark that Egypt’s military spends 6 billion a year to maintain its million soldiers and absorbs another 1.3 billion of U.S “aid” to buy American warplanes, tanks, and helicopters. Virtually nothing is left for humanitarian needs or domestic relief. The people have had enough.
Consider Iran, perhaps our most graphic undemocratic entrance into the greater middle-east. Our CIA assassinated the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed our own “beholden” King, the Shah of Iran. He in turn created the SAVAK police to control the people enriching his benefactors by using American tax dollars to buy weapons from United States munitions’ industries. Clever, even demonic. But the Iranian people revolted. Twenty five years of undemocratic, dictatorial rule beneficial to U.S. and Israeli interests if understood in weapons sales and oil to say nothing of the Shah’s recognition of our puppet state, but disastrous for the Iranian people and America that now sees Iran as a major enemy in the mid-east. But we do not learn.
Now, Mubarak’s 30 year strangulation of the Egyptian people appears to be unraveling while our administration and the Netanyahu governments look on in disbelief and fear. What do we do with our 1.5 billion that has served our dictator yearly for these many decades as a guarantee of peace with Israel? To whom will it go if, as Eli Shaked observes above, the “inner circle” alone in Egypt supports that agreement and they too are deposed? The Muslim Brotherhood? Mohammad ElBaradei? The Egyptian military? An “existential” quandary certainly! Israel’s Michael Ledeen, writing in Pajamas Media, states “Mohammed ElBaradei is one of the last men I would choose for leading Egypt to a ‘peaceful transition’ to greater democracy. He doesn’t like America and he’s in cahoots with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
How does America protect its client state of Israel now? Consider what happens if Mubarak is dethroned: nearly half of Israel’s natural gas is imported from Egypt, gas needed by its own population as well as its military; Israel’s military planning relies on Mubarak’s government and its complicity in guarding the southern border of Gaza much to the dismay of the Egyptian people, a border that has already been punctured by escaped Hamas prisoners who have fled home through the tunnels; changes could be made in the control of the Suez Canal to the detriment of Israel, and, perhaps most importantly, Jordan and Saudi Arabia could become the next dominoes to fall toward Israel leaving it isolated in a landscape dominated by people unfriendly to it because of its undemocratic subjugation of the Palestinian people.
It’s enlightening to peep in on the Daily Alert, the daily report prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. If anything reflects the mindset of the lobbies that support unconditionally the Israeli state, it’s this Alert. Given the conditions outlined above from both Iran under the Shah and Egypt under Mubarak in their respective alliances with the U.S. and Israel, one might expect some reflection on what drives people into the streets to overthrow their governments.
Obviously the conditions created by the American strategy of shoring up dictators guarantees a steady rise in citizen anger against the regime and, concurrently, a rising hatred for the power that feeds the dictator while suppressing the people. America’s interest resides in its weapons sales that seed internal conflicts and manufactured “wars” against neighbors as we witness in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s why we have in excess of 737 military installations around the globe supported by 1,840,062 military and domestic personnel; it’s why we strategize to turn factions in a country against each other; it’s why we want Israel to exist, to foster unrest in the mid-east as it stealthily grabs more and more land from its neighbors claiming they are victims of Arab aggression to wipe Israel off the map; it’s why we need an overwhelming presence in the mid-east with Israel serving as our largest military base to ensure that our industrial complex controls the oil and gas that’s needed to maintain our dominance in the world markets; unfortunately, it’s also why America has become the most hated nation on the planet because its propaganda expressing freedom and liberty, human rights and democracy for all is now understood to be a lie, a fabrication of deceit designed to dehumanize not liberate, to subjugate not free, to enslave not acknowledge, with respect, the dignity of the individual.
The Alert responds to the reality above because the audience they serve is a recipient of America’s largesse; indeed, their Israel is the recipient of more federal aid than any other nation coming to an estimated 1.8 trillion “including special trade advantages, preferential contracts, or aid buried in other accounts.” (“The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Thomas Stauffer, Washington Report on Middle East). What does Israel do with all this money?
Most importantly it buys U.S. weapons from private corporations with tax dollars to create the fourth largest military in the world (Israel estimate) to protect 6 million people, the vast majority foreigners to the land, while it subjugates approximately 4 million Palestinians under occupation stealing their land so that only 22% remains, and, in addition, lays siege to Gaza for the past three years causing an estimated 60% unemployment and forces 80% to live in poverty. This siege includes all access and possession of the natural gas and oil reserves that exist off of the Gaza coast thus depriving the Palestinian people of approximately 3500 billion cubic meters of gas deposits and 1.8 billion barrels of oil. (“Arabs keep out! Israel lays claim to all the resources,” Veterans Today, Manlio Dinucci, Voltairenet.org). Additionally, the IDF has destroyed the infrastructure, restricted water consumption drastically, sabotaged electricity to the area, and prevented entrance for medical supplies and basic food stuffs, suffocating the people in intolerable conditions and in complete disregard for international law. And in one of the most recent atrocities perpetrated by this true “friend” of America, it invaded Gaza killing over 1400, decimating homes, schools, storage facilities, hospitals, and UN buildings in a slaughter seen and heard around the world.
It is not lost on the Arab world, or the rest of the world for that matter, that Israel’s “democracy” is exclusive and totally unique in the world. Nor is it lost on the Arab world that Israel exists because America subsidizes its existence and gives it the means to occupy and subjugate while it touts to the world that it believes “that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and free of corruption; and the freedom to live as you choose. These are human rights, and we support them everywhere.”
Interestingly enough, despite the evidence listed above, nothing in the Alert papers suggests that Israel should reconsider its policy of military force and occupation. Indeed, even with the disclosure of the Palestine Papers released by Wikileaks that describes in horrific detail the collaboration of American diplomats with Israeli counterparts to undermine by bribery and coercion the Palestinian negotiators, Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat, displaying for all to see the duplicity of America and Israel as they manipulate the peace process to achieve their ends, regardless of the illegality or injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people, Israel finds no need to reconsider its approach to the Arab world.
Rather, they emphasize what Netanyahu proclaims, that all their European friends must defend Mubarak lest the unrest come to haunt Israel. That the Egyptian people have expressed their anger at the undemocratic, dictatorial policies of his regime means nothing to Israel, that bastion of democratic values, which calls upon the U.S. Congress and the state department to back Mubarak lest conditions force Israel into a confrontation with the Egyptian military, the one supplied by America and ranked as number 10 in the world. How ironic: American F-16s fighting American F-16s above the Sinai.
Perhaps our Congress might reflect on what America has become since it spawned the rogue state of Israel into this militaristic monster that conceives of force as the only solution to international conflicts. Perhaps it might consider that it, too, should learn something from the Egyptian people who see virtue in true freedom of expression, value in the rights of humankind, and respect and dignity in being part of the government, not its slave. Perhaps our Congress should see the world they have created for this illusionary democracy, where a cauldron of millions live on two dollars a day, where children starve, mothers are famished, the old and the infirm deprived of joy at the very end of their lives, the young made fodder for the elite who rule the world, a world of misery and despair made possible by our corporate complex of munitions manufacturers that suck the lifeblood of the masses to enrich their own. Perhaps, then, they can face themselves and ask,
What manner of men can distance themselves from their kin?
What beast of prey have they become to devour so many
Without compassion or remorse, able to wield
Weapons of unimaginable force against unseen foes,
Who hear the screaming cry of the angel of death
Hurtling from the sky,
Where life itself should be the only force:
The warmth of the sun, the gentle cooling rain,
The promise of spring, the hope that comes again.
William A. Cook is Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California where he served for 13 years as Vice President for Academic Affairs before assuming his faculty position in 2001. Prior to coming to California, he served as a Dean of Faculty, Chair of Department of English and faculty member at institutions large and small, public and private in four eastern states. He is an activist and a writer for numerous Internet publications including Counterpunch, Salem-News.com, Pacific Free Press in British Columbia, Dissident Voice and Information Clearing House, serving as senior editor for MWC News out of Canada, and contributing editor at the Palestine Chronicle, the Atlantic Free Press in the Netherlands, and the World Prout Assembly, his polemics against the Bush administration and the atrocities caused by Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert in Israel, now our 51st state, have been spread around the Internet world and translated into French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Italian. Cook also serves on the Board of the People’s Media Project, interviews on radio and TV in South Africa, Canada, Iran and the United States and contributed for five years yearly predictions to the Hong Kong Economic News. This volume follows his Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: The Rape of Palestine and continues his scourge against the hypocrisy, deceit, and destructive policies that have characterized American mid-east policy and its destructive alliance with the Zionist forces that have turned Israel into an apartheid state determined to destroy the Palestinian people.In addition to his polemics, he writes plays (The Unreasoning Mask, co-authored with his wife, D’Arcy, and The Agony of Colin Powell), satires (see “Advancing the Civilized State: Inch by Bloody Inch” in The Rape), and poetry (Psalms for the 21st Century). His most recent fictional work creates a morality tale based upon real life figures that haunt our lives, The Chronicles of Nefaria He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com..
The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction is a collection of voices from around the world that establishes in both theoretical and graphic terms the slow, methodical genocide taking place in Palestine beginning in the 1940s, as revealed in the Introduction. From Dr. Francis A. Boyle’s detailed legal case against the state of Israel, to Uri Avnery’s “Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing,” to Richard Falk’s “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust,” to Ilan Pappe’s “Genocide in Gaza,” these voices decry in startling, vivid, and forceful language the calculated atrocities taking place, the inhumane conditions inflicted on the people, and the silence that exists despite the crimes, nothing short of state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians.
Rights NGO claims that Israeli planes carrying crowd dispersal weapons have arrived in Egypt
The International Network for Rights and Development has claimed that Israeli logistical support has been sent to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak to help his regime confront demonstrations demanding that he steps down as head of state. According to reports by the non-governmental organisation, three Israeli planes landed at Cairo’s Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds.
In the statement circulated by the International Network, it was disclosed that Egyptian security forces received the complete cargoes on three Israeli planes which were, it is claimed, carrying an abundant supply of internationally proscribed gas to disperse unwanted crowds. If the reports are accurate, this suggests that the Egyptian regime is preparing for the worse in defence of its position, despite the country sinking into chaos.
On Sunday 30 January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israeli government ministers in a public statement saying: “Our efforts aim at the continued maintenance of stability and security in the region… and I remind you that peace between the Israeli establishment and Egypt has endured for over three decades… we currently strive to guarantee the continuity of these relations.” Netanyahu added, “We are following the events unfolding in Egypt and the region with vigilance… and it is incumbent at this time that we show responsibility, self-restraint and maximum consideration for the situation… in the hope that the peaceful relations between the Israeli establishment and Egypt continue…”
The Israeli prime minister urged Israeli government ministers to refrain from making any additional statements to the media.
And, of course America’s hands are far from clean in all of this…..
American made tear gas in Cairo and the West Bank
Posted by Joseph Dana
People in the street confronting police and army soldiers with revolutionary aspirations. Some youth throw stones in symbolic acts of resistance as the elders try to calm down their rage and focus on chants of unity. Armed forces reply with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. This is a regular occurrence in the West Bank in villages like Nabi Saleh, Ni’ilin and Beit Umar. Over the past week, it has been unfolding on the streets of Cairo, Suez and Alexandria as well. From Ni’ilin to Cairo, the tear gas that is being employed against demonstrations is made in the United States. The story of American made tear gas in Egypt has recently entered the chaotic international news cycle to the dismay of the American government. But journalists have been focusing only on the fact that the tear gas is supplied by the United States.Tweets and media reports from Egypt are full of photos of and references to tear gas canisters “Made in the USA” and produced by Combined Systems Inc. in Jamestown, Pennsylvania.
The Israeli army regularly uses high velocity tear gas canisters against unarmed demonstrations in the West Bank. The Egyptians armed forces and police have so far refused to employ high velocity canisters based on the fact there have been no reports from the ground of their existence in the demonstrations. In Israel, high velocity canisters have resulted in the death of Bassem Abu Rahmah in 2009 and the critical wounding of American Citizen, Tristan Anderson. Recently, the canisters have been used in the village of Nabi Saleh, with grave results.
Demonstrator Moments After Being Hit Directly with a Tear Gas Projectile. Picture Credit: Joseph Dana/popularstruggle.org
Standard aluminum tear canisters, which are being used in Egypt, have injured thousands in the West Bank over the past eight years of demonstrations against the Separation Barrier. Soldiers regularly break army regulations and fire canisters directly at protesters– turning the canister into a large bullet– and almost never face punishment. Three weeks ago, a soldier fired a tear gas canister directly at me from a distance of 15 meters in Beit Ummar. Luckily I was able to get out of the way. Last summer, an American Jew was not as lucky as me and lost her eye in a demonstration when a tear gas canister was fired directly at her head. The soldier who fired the canister was cleared of any wrongdoing.
According to international coverage of the demonstrations in Egypt, there has been little coverage of police or army using tear gas canisters as large bullets. As the demonstrations slow down, more evidence could emerge that tear gas canisters were used offensively as they are used in the West Bank. However, it seems unlikely given the fact that there have been almost no reports about this to come out of Egypt in the past seven days.
The United States provides countries all over the world with military products with little regard of how the products are used. When it comes to tear gas, the issue is not that the United States is providing Israel and Egypt with the tear gas. The issue is how the gas is used and who it is used against. It is legitimate for a state to use tear gas in crowd control situations. It is not legitimate to use tear gas canisters as large bullets with the intention to kill or injure protesters.
Teheran, februari 1979. Op het vliegveld Mehrabad stapt uit een Amerikaans militair vliegtuig de Amerikaanse vier sterrengeneraal Robert Huyser. Generaal Husyer (1924-1997) is in opdracht van de Amerikaanse president Jimmy Carter in Teheran om de Iraanse militairen en de mannen van ayatollah Khomeini, de leider van de Iraanse revolutie, te spreken. ‘Mission to Tehran’ zou de laatste missie van een Amerikaanse generaal in Teheran blijken.
Volgens de Sjah was dit een mysterieuze missie. Achteraf begreep hij dat Carter reeds in Parijs contacten had laten leggen met de Khomeini. Maar wat deed Husyer in Teheran? Wat was zijn missie? Huyser ging rechtstreeks met de Iraanse legerleiding spreken. Daarnaast sprak hij met Mehdi Bazargan (1907-1995) die net terug was uit Parijs. In Parijs voerde Bazargan gesprekken met Khomeini.
Vrije verkiezingen
Bazargan was de leider van de Iraanse religieuze liberalen die hun lot in handen van Khomeini hadden gelegd. Hij zou een paar weken later de eerste minister-president van Khomeini worden. Religieuze liberalen werkten samen met Khomeini, terwijl de seculiere liberalen onder leiden van Shapour Bakhtiar (1915-1991) een liberaal kabinet hadden gevormd om de vrije verkiezingen te organiseren.
In hun ogen was de revolutie al gewonnen. Bakthiar hief de SAVAK, de geheime dienst van Sjah, op. Bazargan zal niet langer dan een jaar kunnen regeren. Hij wordt afgezet. En later zullen velen van zijn vrienden worden gevangen genomen. Het liberalisme, een westers fenomeen, was in welke vorm dan ook tegen de islam en moest worden uitgeroeid, aldus imam Khomeini.
Volgens de Sovjetkrant Pravda was generaal Huyser in Teheran bezig om een staatsgreep voor te bereiden. Maar in werkelijkheid was hij bezig om het bevriende leger, het Iraanse leger, te redden door een pact aan te gaan met Khomeini.
Neutraal
Generaal Huyser heeft twee zaken kunnen bewerkstelligen: de Sjah moest weg en het Iraane leger moest zich neutraal verklaren tegenover de demonstranten, de aanhanger van Khomeini. In de ogen van Carter zou het behoud van het Iraanse leger ertoe kunnen leiden dat indien Khomeini tot een Fidel Castro transformeert, het leger een staatsgreep kan plegen.
Waarom waren de Amerikanen zo optimistisch? Uit de Amerikaanse documenten is gebleken dat ‘there was clearly no hint of clerical despotism’. Dit dachten de Amerikanen gedurende de maanden januari en februari 1979.
Vandaag heeft het Egyptische leger zich neutraal verklaard tegenover de demonstranten en de Moslimbroederschap. Dit hebben ze ongetwijfeld gedaan in opdracht van de Amerikaanse president Barack Obama. Mubarak is al finished. Wellicht gaat hij nog enig verzet plegen voordat hij Egypte levend of dood verlaat. En Mohammad ElBaradei?
Religieus liberaal
In het beste geval is hij de Mehdi Bazargan van Egypte. Wie is dat? Bazargan was een religieus liberaal die de seculiere liberalen verraadt in ruil voor macht. Maar uiteindelijk belandde Bazargan in Dar Alkufr, het huis van ongeloof.
In het slechtste geval verandert hij in een mengsel van het nationalisme en islamisme, treedt hij in de voetsporen van Saddam Hussein en Jamal Abdol Nasser, en zal hij zich keren tegen Israël en Amerika. Met alle gevolgen van dien voor de regio én de wereld. ElBaradei zal zeker worden gesteund door Khameini, de leider van het islamitische Iran.
De Iraanse staatsmedia waarschuwen de Amerikanen dat ze de nalatenschap van de Egyptische Farao, president Mubarak, niet meer kunnen redden. Wat komt na een autoritair regime in Egypte? Chaos of het islamisme?
Jihadisten
En de democratie en de Arabische lente? Ja, de Arabische lente heb ik al gezien; zelfs de doden, mummies waren niet veilig voor de oprukkende plunderaars, de toekomstige jihadisten. Toevallig moest ik denken aan Irak. Wellicht zal het leger nadat een plein in Caïro naar Mohammad Atta wordt genoemd, een militaire junta willen vestigen. Dan zijn we weer terug naar het Egypte van Mubarak.
Vrienden, er komt geen lente in de Arabische wereld. Een storm is op komst.
Tot zover Afshin Ellian. Hoewel ik het met het meeste niet eens ben (want waarom was de missie van Bush in Irak wel goed? Mogen er alleen door Amerika georkestreerde democratische omwentelingen plaatsvinden? Daar heeft ook Iran prettige ervaringen mee, zie Mosadegh, Ellian welbekend), kan ik een ding nog wel begrijpen. Afgelopen weekend sprak ik een Iraanse dichter die precies hetzelfde zei. Dat was inderdaad de ervaring met het verdrijven van de Shah. Die vrees lijkt mij vanuit Iraans perspectief legitiem en het is iets waar zeker rekening mee moet worden gehouden. Maar wat mij betreft is het antwoord niet om dan maar dictators in stand te houden. Juist de ervaring met Mossadegh laat zien dat dan de uiteindelijke klap nog veel heviger en vooral meer anti-westers kan worden, zie de gebeurtenissen in Iran. Hopelijk worden deze fouten nu niet weer gemaakt (zie nu ook Israëls steun aan Mubarak).
Zie ook Hans Jansen op Hoeiboei, Mubarak. Verder maakt men zich op Hoeboei, in de beste traditie van de ministeries van informatie in het Midden Oosten, of onze goeie oude communistische krant ‘De Waarheid’ (die toen de opstand in Hongarije in 1956 werd neergeslagen door de Russen opende met de schreeuwende kop ‘Nasser sluit het Suez kanaal’), vooral druk over ‘Boer zoekt Vrouw’. Zie Feit en Fictie. Overigens een mooie dubbelzinnige titel, maar die slaat dan vooral op de fictie van de Nederlandse Bauerntum Romantik, waarin de Hoeiboeiers zich graag mogen wentelen als er opeens uit de echte wereld signalen doorkomen dat er in de Arabische wereld voor meer vrijheid en democratie gedemonstreerd wordt. Dat kan natuurlijk niet, want dat past niet in het idee-fixe der verlichte Hoeiboeigeesten. Overigens krijgt het fenomeen ‘Handen schudden’, een van de kernwaarden van de Verlichting (had boegbeeld van diezelfde Verlichting Rita Verdonk daar niet al eens op gewezen?), op dit moment wel uitgebreide aandacht, zie http://hoeiboei.blogspot.com/2011/02/laat-me-raden.html. Ik heb er maar een kwalificatie voor: puur escapisme! ‘Het land van ooit’, vrij naar Ayaan Hirsi Ali 😉 (maar dan net een beetje anders)
Tot zover de Ellians, de Jansens en het gehoeiboei over urgente kwesties als hoofddoekjes, handenschudden en onze beschaving en Verlichting en vooral ònze cultuur waarvan ‘Boer zoekt Vrouw’ het absolute hoogtepunt is. Terug naar Egypte zelf:
VK urgent AMSTERDAM/CAÏRO – De dag na de miljoenenmars is de sfeer in Caïro explosiever dan ooit. Lees de laatste ontwikkelingen, tweets ter plaatse en volg updates van onze correspondent Rob Vreeken ter plaatse.
Rob Vreeken
23.01 uur Volgens een dokter ter plaatse zijn er nog veel meer gewonden gevallen bij de rellen vandaag. Hij spreekt over meer dan 1.500, meldt Reuters.
22.54 uur Ook tegen middernacht is het nog altijd onrustig in Caïro. Het Tahrirplein staat nog altijd vol met mensen. Demonstranten vrezen actie van de politie nu zij denken dat het leger hen niet langer zal beschermen. Maar toch een grootscheepse aanval van een van beide kanten lijkt het ook niet te komen. Veel demonstranten zullen waarschijnlijk weer de hele nacht op het plein blijven.
22.37 uur Het aantal doden dat gevallen is tijdens de ongeregeldheden vandaag in Caïro is opgelopen naar drie. Dat heeft de minister van Volksgezondheid gezegd op de Arabische televisiezender Al Alabiya.
Op het Tahrirplein staan betogers inmiddels nog altijd tegenover Mubarak-aanhangers. Op televisie is te zien dat beide partijen elkaar bestoken met Molotovcocktails. Het lijkt er niet op dat de demonstranten van plan zijn naar huis te gaan, waartoe vice-president Suleiman had opgeroepen.
22.21 uur Het aantal betogers op het Tahrirplein (Bevrijdingsplein) is woensdagavond laat aanzienlijk geslonken, maar het plein is zeker nog niet leeg. De nog resterende demonstranten gaan pas weg als Mubarak per direct opstapt. Omstanders brengen de volhardende betogers in het donker eten en drinken, meldt Al Jazeera. Er zijn geruchten dat het leger vanavond nog wil ingrijpen, en het plein wil schoonvegen.
21.48 uur De Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Hillary Clinton heeft vandaag gesproken met de Egyptische vice-president Suleiman. Zij heeft benadrukt hoe belangrijk het is dat degenen die het geweld in Caïro aanwakkerden, daarvoor verantwoordelijk worden gehouden, en dat de machtsoverdracht nu moet beginnen.
21.24 uur Het lijkt weer onrustiger te worden in de Egyptische hoofdstad Caïro. Op de televisiezenders Al Jazeera en CNN is te zien hoe nog steeds veel mensen zich hebben verzameld op het Tahrirplein. Er zijn schoten gehoord, en vanaf omringende daken worden molotovcocktails gegooid. De betogers houden zich niet aan de avondklok, maar protesteren door.
21.02 uur Het aantal gewonden van de rellen van vandaag is gestegen tot 611, volgens de minister van Volksgezondheid.
20.52 uur De Egyptische vice-president heeft alle demonstranten opgeroepen naar huis te gaan en de avondklok in acht te nemen om zo de rust te bewaren. Hij benadrukte dat zijn oproep zowel bedoeld is voor tegenstanders van Mubarak als voor zijn aanhangers. Volgens de vice-president kan er pas een dialoog met de oppositie plaatsvinden als de protesten zijn afgelopen.
20.50 uur De Egyptische oppositieleider Mohammed ElBaradei heeft het leger opgeroepen een einde te maken aan de aanvallen van aanhangers van president Hosni Mubarak op antiregeringsbetogers. Het leger moet ingrijpen om de levens van burgers beschermen, zei ElBaradei woensdagavond tegen de Arabische nieuwszender al-Jazeera, die in Egypte al enkele dagen niet meer te ontvangen is.
20.26 uur Volgens Mark Rutte zijn in Egypte ‘snelle en praktische hervormingen op politiek, sociaal en economisch terrein’ nodig. Hij zal dat vrijdag bepleiten op de Europese top in Brussel, zo liet zijn woordvoerder woensdag weten.
20.22 uur Barack Obama heeft gisteravond ook gesproken met koning Abdullah van Jordanië over de situatie in Egypte.
20.06 uur Ook NOS-correspondente Nicole Le Fever meldt dat het weer rustiger wordt in de stad. ‘Er zijn al een tijdje geen gevechten geweest of schoten gelost. Ook zijn de brandjes geblust. Maar de sfeer is nog wel zeer gespannen.’
19.47 uur Het lijkt weer iets rustiger te worden in de Egyptische hoofdstad. Er zijn weinig berichten meer van schietpartijen of branden in de stad.
19.31 uur De Amerikaanse president Barack Obama heeft de Egypische president Hosni Mubarak ‘duidelijk overgebracht’ dat ‘de tijd voor verandering is gekomen’. Dat heeft de woordvoerder van het Witte Huis gezegd.
19.09 uur De belangrijke functionaris uit het bericht hieronder zegt ook dat een loyale aanhanger van Mubarak de pro-Mubarak aanhangers vandaag de straten opstuurde om de Egyptische betogers te intimideren.
19.07 uur Een belangrijke Amerikaanse functionaris denkt dat er onder de vertrouwelingen van Mubarak debat heerst of de president niet meer zou moeten doen, om aan de eisen van de betogers tegemoet te komen, meldt persbureau Reuters. Het geweld op de straten zou ertoe kunnen leiden dat ook het leger de druk daartoe verhoogt.
19.04 uur Volgens de minister van Volksgezondheid zijn de gewonden geraakt door stenen of andere projectielen. Schotwonden zijn er niet gemeld.
18.49 uur: De Egyptische minister van Volksgezondheid heeft op de staatstelevisie gemeld dat er vandaag één dode en 403 gewonden zijn gevallen.
18.46 uur: Ook CNN meldt niet schoten en molotovcocktails op het Tahrirplein, en in de omliggende straten.
18.35 uur: Er is onduidelijkheid over de ernst van de situatie in Caïro. Grote nieuwsstations melden dat het rustiger wordt, maar Volkskrantverslaggever Rob Vreeken meldt dat er zojuist recht voor zijn hotel nog geschoten werd. Ook is daar veel geschreeuw en lawaai op straat. Het Tahrirplein is erg groot, dus als er aan de ene kant van het plein iets gebeurd, is dat aan de andere kant van het plein niet eens te zien.
18.16 uur: Even teruglezen wat er vandaag allemaal is gebeurd? Lees hier een overzicht van de gebeurtenissen van vandaag.
18.14 uur: De rust lijkt nog meer terug te keren in Caïro. Zelfs Al Jazeera is nu aan het terugblikken.
18:00 uur: Twee Molotov cocktails zouden zijn gegooid op de stoep van het Nationaal Museum.
17.44 uur: Op het Tahrirplein zelf zijn nu een stuk minder mensen en is het betrekkelijk kalm. In de straten rondom het plein is het nog wel onrustig
17.38 uur: Ook persbureau AFP meldt dat er vandaag minimaal 500 gewonden zijn gevallen op en rond het Tharirplein. AFP baseert haar cijfers op gegevens van de medische instanties.
17.25 uur: In de tweede stad van Egypte, Alexandria is het vandaag niet tot confrontaties gekomen, zo meldt CNN.
17.14 uur: De waterkanonnen zijn inderdaad gebruikt om de vlammen van vier brandbommen, te doven, meldt Reuters. CNN spreekt van Molotov cocktails.
17.04: Reactie Catherine Ashton, de hoge vertegenwoordiger van Buitenlandse Zaken van de EU op Al Jazeera:
‘Het is essentieel dat er geen geweld wordt gebruikt. Mubarak moet een plan laten zien. Hij moet in contact komen met de Egyptenaren, zodat er een ordentelijke transitie kan plaatsvinden. Het moet weer kalm worden. Als het volk verandering wil, moet de regering daar naar luisteren.’
16.58 uur: Er worden waterkanonnen ingezet, Het is nog niet duidelijk of ze worden gebruikt om het plein schoon te vegen of om kleine brandjes te blussen.
16.46 uur: Voor het eerst proberen ambulances het plein te bereiken. Al Jazeera spreekt inmiddels van vijfhonderd gewonden.
16.42 uur: Terwijl de duisternis invalt op het Tahrirplein duurt de chaos voort. Supportest van Mubarak zouden grote stenen blokken vanaf daken van gebouwen gooien, meldt persbureau AFP. Al Jazeera heeft beelden laten zien van een brandend object dat van een gebouw werd gegooid.
16.39 uur: De VS roepen beide partijen nogmaals op om geen geweld te gebruiken.
16.34 uur: OppositieleiderELBaradei roept het Egyptische leger op om in te grijpen. ‘Ze moeten Egyptische levens beschermen’, aldus ELBaradei.
16.27 uur: Volgens nieuwszender Al Jazeera rollen er tanks het Tahrirplein op. Het leger blijft ontkennen dat er schoten zijn gevuurd, maar een verslaggever ter plaatse kan ze horen.
16.03 uur: Amerika laat in een officiële reactie weten dat het ‘bezorgd is dat journalisten worden aangevallen’. Premier David Cameron van het Verenigd Koninkrijk stelt dat het ‘gebruik van geweld door het regime onacceptabel is’.
Secretaris-Generaal van de VN Ban Ki-moon laat weten dat hij ‘ernstig bezorgd is om het geweld in Egypte’.
16.00 uur: Terwijl de avondklok ingaat en de chaos onverminderd doorgaat, ontkent het leger schoten te hebben gelost. Andere media melden dat het gaat om waarschuwingsschoten.
15.54 uur: RTL-correspondent in Caïro Roel Geeraerdts meldt dat de neergestoken journalist van Al-Arabiya zou zijn overleden.Geeraerdts en zijn cameraman zijn ook belaagd, toen ze in een buitenwijk van de Egyptische hoofdstad aan het filmen waren.
15.48 uur: Er lijkt nu nu ook met traangas te worden geschoten. Volgens Al Jazeera doet het leger dit, omdat het mensen wel bewegen naar huis te gaan. Over een kwartier gaat de avondklok in, er cirkelt een helikopter boven het Tahrirplein. Er zijn enorme witte traangas-wolken.
15.47 uur: Ook de Egyptische staatstelevisie doet nu verslag van het Tahrirplein.
15.29 uur Verslaggever Rob Vreeken
‘Ik hoorde zojuist geweerschoten op het Tahrirplein. Het geluid komt uit de buurt van Talaat Harb. Er is heel veel gejoel en geschreeuw. Er is geen sprake van traangas.
‘De anti-Mubarakmensen staan nog steeds op het plein. Ik sta nu op mijn balkon met uitzicht op het plein. Het is buiten te gevaarlijk.
‘Over een uur valt de duisternis over het plein. Dan wordt de sfeer vaak nog grimmiger.’
15.25 uur: Reuters meldt dat het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken van Egypte niet wil dat de Verenigde Staten zich met de interne politieke aangelegenheden bemoeien.
15.17 uur: Een vrouwelijke anti-Mubarakbetoger vertelt aan Al Jazeera: ‘De hele week zijn er geen gewonden geweest en ging alles goed. Nu is het zo chaotisch. Er zijn hier duizenden vrouwen en kinderen. Ze proberen ons af te sluiten, maar wij geven niet op. We gaan door.’
Update:
Nu zouden de drie legervoertuigen weer door anti-Mubarakbetogers zijn overgenomen. Dat geeft maar weer aan hoe diffuus en chaotisch de situatie is.
15.11 uur: De Egyptische overheid ontkent dat er politiemannen in burger actief zijn onder de pro-Mubarakbetogers.
15.05 uur: Er lijken geweerschoten te klinken op het Tahrirplein. Dat zouden waarschuwingsschoten kunnen zijn. Drie legervoertuigen zijn overgenomen door pro-Mubarak activisten, meldt Al Jazeera.
15.01 uur: De EU roept Mubarak op om de transitie van de macht ‘zo snel mogelijk’ te starten.
14.56 uur: De Moslim Broederschap laat weten ‘niet toe te staan dat Mubarak tot september aanblijft als staatshoofd’. ElBaradei noemt de huidige chaos ‘criminele daden door een crimineel regime’.
14.50 uur: Ook CNN praat weer over gevechten. Al Jazeera stelt zelfs dat supporters van Mubarak machetes bij zich hebben. Het leger grijpt nog steeds niet in.
14.45 uur: Volgens CNN wordt er niet meer met stenen gegooid op het Tahrirplein, maar zingen de verschillende groeperingen samen ‘we zijn allen één’. Andere media bevestigen dit nog niet.
14.44 uur: Sterverslaggever Anderson Cooper van CNN zou een aantal keer op zijn hoofd zijn geslagen door pro-Mubaraksupporters, meldt The Guardian.
14.36 uur: Het kabaal op en rond het Tahrirplein is oorverdovend. Verslaggevers komen maar moeilijk boven de herrie uit. Mensen schreeuwen, er klinken toeters. Iedereen rent woedend achter elkaar aan.
14.33 uur: Volgens de oppositie bevinden zich veel politie-agenten in burger onder de aanhangers van Mubarak. Het leger grijpt nog steeds niet in.
14.27 uur: Reuters spreekt inmiddels van tientallen gewonden. Al Jazeera houdt het op ‘minstens honderd in het afgelopen uur’.
14.23 uur: Ondertussen zendt de Egyptische staatstelevisie beelden uit van vreedzame pro-Mubarak betogingen.
14.22 uur: Al Jazeera meldt dat een verslaggever van Al Arabya is neergestoken. Ook zouden de pro-Mubarakbetogers op zoek zijn naar verslaggevers van Al Jazeera. Volgens The Guardian zijn een aantal Spaanse journalisten omsingeld door aanhangers van Mubarak.
14.16 uur: Tweets van verslaggever Dan Nolen van Al Jazeera:
‘Acht mannen op een paard + één op een kameel reden net in op de muur van anti-regeringsbetogers. Geschifte toestanden die ik nog nooit heb meegemaakt!’ ‘De regeringstroepen grijpen nog niet in.’
14.11 uur: Oppositieleider ELBaradei heeft zijn oproep herhaald dat Mubarak nu moet opstappen. Hij beschuldigt de regering van het ‘bang maken van de bevolking’.
14.10 uur: Inmiddels is op beelden te zien dat de situatie steeds verder uit de hand loopt. Overal raken mensen slaags met elkaar. Het is vaak onduidelijk wie bij welke groepering hoort. Overal rennen mensen, het lawaai is enorm, de sfeer enorm opgewonden.
14.00 uur: Reuters meldt dat er tien gewonden zijn gevallen op het Tahrirplein, waar rookbommetjes zijn afgegaan. Inmiddels rijden demonstranten op zo’n vijftig kamelen en paarden het plein op. Al Jazeera meldt dat het om gewapende pro-Mubarak aanhangers gaat, die ‘joden en leugenaars’ naar journalisten schreeuwen.
13.54 uur: Rob Vreeken:
‘De aanhangers van Mubarak zijn weer van het Tahrirplein verdwenen. Er waren schermutselingen en ze waren ver in de minderheid.
‘De sfeer is totaal anders dan gisteren, toen het eigenlijk één groot feest was.’
13.45 uur: Ook in de zijstraten van het Tahrirplein zijn voor- en tegenstanders slaags geraakt.
13.38 uur: Al Jazeera spreekt van chaotische toestanden op het Tahrirplein. Volgens een verslaggeefster wordt er volop met stenen naar elkaar gegooid en is er sprake van een paniekerige situatie, waarbij honderden mensen opeens in paniek probeerden weg te vluchten.
Veiligheidstroepen laten zich vooralsnog niet zien, hoewel er wel geruchten zijn dat de politie de pro-Mubarakgroepen steunen.
13.29 uur Correspondent Rob Vreeken vanaf het Tahrirplein:
‘De sfeer hier is uiterst gespannen. Opeens is er van alles aan de hand. Een klein half uur geleden kwam een groepje van zo’n 200 pro-mubaraksupporters het plein om marcheren. Ze staan met z’n allen op een verhoging, roepen leuzen en dragen foto’s van Mubarak.
‘De anti-Mubarak’ers staan daar in grote getale omheen. De mensen zijn slechts gescheiden door een ring van vrijwilligers. De politie is nergens te bekennen. Het is een uiterst opgefokte situatie.
‘In tegenstelling tot gisteren zijn er nu wel een aantal gewonden, die worden weggedragen naar de moskee. Ook worden er onruststokers uit de menigte geplukt. Nu liggen er zo’n vijf arrestanten op een hoopje voor me in een zijstraatje.
‘Dit moet wel uit de hand lopen. Er is een grote kans op provocaties.’
13.22 uur: De Britse premier David Cameron roept op tot een ‘snelle transitie van de macht’ in Egypte. ‘De transitie moet snel en geloofwaardig zijn en het moet nu starten’, zo zei Cameron tegen het Britse parlement. ‘Hoe sneller het tijdspad, hoe meer kans op stabiliteit.’
13.19 uur: Voor- en tegenstanders van de Egyptische president Hosni Mubarak zijn vandaag op het Tahrir-plein in Caïro met elkaar slaags geraakt. Een fotograaf van AP zag dat mensen elkaar te lijf gingen met stokken. Er is een onbekend aantal gewonden gevallen.
De inmiddels alweer tachtig jaar oude beroemde Egyptische arts, schrijfster, feministe en voormalig presidentskandidate Nawal al-Saadawi heeft zich bij de demonstranten gevoegd. Ze wordt door het NOS journaal geïnterviewd, al heeft heeft men bij het journaal niet door met welke prominent ze te maken hebben, althans het wordt niet verder uitgelegd (zie ook Stan van Houcke)
THE EGYPTIAN MOVEMENT FOR CHANGE (EMC) also referred to as Kefaya (enough) was announced in 2004. Almost immediately its importance to Egyptian political life was recognized, though not understood. Both Egyptian and Western analysts have mischaracterized the movement. Interpretations have been either too narrow, focusing on specific details and ignoring the movement’s broad vision or too broad, mistaking Kefaya for a generic social movement in the Western mode. All such approaches fail to grasp Kefaya’s real contribution. This paper argues that Kefaya’s significance lies in its transformative potential as a broad political force of a new type that is uniquely suited to the needs of the moment in Egypt. It is at once a cross-ideological force that has the potential, in the long run, of creating a new mainstream and, at the same time, a movement of a new kind that is creating a distinctive and promising form of politics for Egypt.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Egypt’s political system has reached a dead end. The opposition political parties are locked in their headquarters, unable to communicate with the public. Virtually acquiescing to the siege of an arsenal of restrictive laws, those political parties have for years suffered from an increasingly diminishing membership, lack of operational funds, and internecine internal feuds.
The “illegality” of the Muslim Brothers (MB) has paradoxically liberated that organization from restrictions that come with governmental licensing. However, the ideology, posture, secrecy and political tactics of the grassroots-based MB all engender the mistrust of many political forces, including some Islamists. At the same time, the secularist-Islamist polarization hinders the possibility of reaching any meaningful consensus on critical issues. This blockage is not lost on the regime, the clear beneficiary of such divisions among its adversaries, and it does not augur well for the future of the Brotherhood in a lead role in shaping Egyptian political life.
With seething political discontent on the one hand and ideologically based mistrust among oppositional political forces on the other, Egypt needs today, more than ever, a new form of politics that pulls together diverse forces from across the political spectrum to forge a new national project. Amidst this political disarray, a new generation of Egyptians holds the promise for transforming politics in Egypt. They have found a home and an instrument in Kefaya and, in the process have invented a new form of politics. Their innovations are historically grounded in the specifics of Egypt’s political life in recent decades. Unique Egyptian circumstances have shaped their experiences, aspirations, and vision for the future.
Throughout more than a decade, this group of activists and intellectuals have interacted across ideological lines to reach common ground. Kefaya emerged as one manifestation of these efforts and an important illustration of the possibilities of this new politics. While such collaborative work across ideological lines is not unique in democratic experiences around the world, Kefaya represents the first successful effort of that new kind of politics in modern Egyptian history.
This essay is based on primary sources including open-ended interviews, statements, newspaper articles and reports, as well as unpublished documents, is composed of three main parts. The first part explains in more detail the reasons why Kefaya has been widely mischaracterized; the second illustrates why and how Kefaya represents a new force with the potential of creating a new mainstream; and the third explores the new politics invented by Kefaya.
In any assessment of Kefaya, analysis must proceed on two levels. The first deals with Kefaya as a protest movement and the second looks at it as a manifestation of a more important phenomenon, namely the new form of interactive politics across ideological lines that is behind it. This paper argues that only by taking into account the innovative dimensions of the Kefaya experience, highlighted by the second level of analysis, can an accurate measure of Kefaya’ s real contribution be made.
MISUNDERSTANDING KEFAYA
Since its early days, there have been various critical interpretations of Kefaya by politicians and intellectuals alike, at times citing deficiencies in the movement’s profile, actions and approach, while at other times dismissing the movement outright as being a “foreign puppet” or the past-time of “a bunch of kids”. The most serious and widely noted critique of Kefaya is that it has been essentially an “elitist” protest movement targeting President Mubarak personally without putting forward an alternative candidate or articulating a constructive vision for political transformation. (1)
The critique along these lines has gained more momentum after the 2005 Presidential Election. Since Kefaya’s main slogan was the rejection of a fifth term for Mubarak as well as the succession of his son, the argument goes, Kefaya lost its raison d’etre with the end of the election. “Except for rejecting the election results, symbolized by the slogan of “Batel” (invalid) nothing new was produced.” When Kefaya played a leading role in the formation of the National Front for Change on the eve of the subsequent parliamentary elections, it was criticized as “passing the torch to the old opposition parties, the very same entities whose inaction it has been formed to face.” (2) The EMC has been “dragged into sitting together with the leaders of the tamed opposition, instead of putting forward a demand for changing the electoral system.” (3)
»De twee kampen op het Tahrirplein in Caïro vanmorgen APTN Toegevoegd: donderdag 3 feb 2011, 10:33
Update: donderdag 3 feb 2011, 12:47
Voor de tiende dag op rij wordt in Egypte gedemonstreerd tegen president Mubarak. Het Tahrirplein, dat de afgelopen dagen in handen was van de demonstranten, lijkt nu te zijn overgenomen door de voorstanders van Mubarak. Overzicht van de gebeurtenissen van vandaag (een kaart van het centrum van Caïro staat onderaan deze pagina).
12.44 uur: NOS Cameraman nog niet in hotel
Egyptische autoriteiten meldden eerder dat NOS cameraman Eric Feijten door de douane is en al in het hotel is aangekomen. Maar de NOS ploeg ter plaatse heeft nog geen contact met hem gehad, Eric Feijten is nog niet in het hotel gesignaleerd.
12.34 uur: ‘Buitenlandse journalisten doelwit’
NOS correspondent Nicole le Fever meldt dat buitenlandse journalisten doelwit zijn van aanhangers van president Mubarak. “Ze worden hard aangepakt”, zegt ze.
NOS cameraman Eric Feijten is terecht. Feijten werd vannacht rond twee uur op het vliegveld van Caïro tegengehouden, zijn apparatuur werd in beslag genomen en enkele uren lang was er geen contact met hem. Feijten is inmiddels door de douane en onderweg naar het NOS team bij het Tahrirplein.
12.20 uur: ‘Tanks in actie’
De Arabische televisiezender Al Jazeera en persbureau Reuters melden dat tanks van het Egyptische leger in actie zouden zijn gekomen. Volgens berichten die bij Al Jazeera binnenkomen, duwen de tanks aanhangers van Mubarak weg van het Tahrirplein, waar de tegenstanders zich hebben verschanst.
12.05 uur: ‘Militairen vormen keten’
Een verslaggever van Al Jazeera meldt dat Egyptische militairen een menselijke keten hebben gevormd tussen de groepen betogers. Het leger probeert voorstanders van Mubarak te beletten bij de tegenstanders op het Tahrirplein te komen. Toch houden tegenstanders van Mubarak rekening met geweld, ze hebben barricades opgeworpen.
11.51 uur: Hezbollah-gevangen ontsnapt
Een groep van 22 Hezbollah-gevangenen in Egypte heeft gebruik gemaakt van de chaos in Egypte: ze zijn ontsnapt. Dat meldt de Egyptische krant al Rai. De mannen waren veroordeeld voor het plegen van aanslagen in Egypte. Ze zijn inmiddels terug in Libanon, de thuisbasis van Hezbollah.
11.39 uur: Mubarak-aanhang snijdt aanvoer af
Gewapende aanhangers van president Mubarak proberen de bevoorrading van de betogers op het Tahrirplein af te snijden. Getuigen melden op de Arabische zender Al Jazeera dat groepjes Mubarak-aanhangers op alle wegen die naar het plein leiden mensen tegenhouden die voedsel en water naar het plein proberen te brengen.
11.34 uur: EU wil snelle overgang
Frankrijk, Groot-Brittannië, Duitsland, Italië en Spanje hebben in een gezamenlijke verklaring opgeroepen tot een onmiddelijke overgang naar een nieuwe regering in Egypte. De EU-landen maken zich zorgen over het geweld in Egypte.
11.31 uur: Premier geeft persconferentie
De Egyptische premier Shafiq geeft ‘zometeen’ een persconferentie, meldt de Arabische televisiezender Al Jazeera.
11.20 uur: Oppositieleiders willen niet praten
Mohamed ElBaradei en de Islamitische Broederschap hebben een uitnodiging van premier Shafiq om te onderhandelen, afgewezen. Ze willen pas gaan praten met de regering als Mubarak is opgestapt en er een einde is gekomen aan het geweld op het Tahrirplein. Andere, kleinere oppositiebewegingen zouden wel op de uitnodiging zijn ingegaan.
11.16 uur: VN personeel geëvacueerd
Volgens persbureau AP gaat de VN 350 personeelsleden uit Egypte evacueren. De VN zet twee toestellen in om het personeel naar Cyprus over te brengen. De eerste vlucht komt naar verwachting om 13.00 uur aan op het vliegveld van Larnaca.
11.03 uur: ‘Premier biedt excuses aan’
De Arabische televisiezender Al Jazeera meldt dat de Egyptische premier Ahmed Safiq zijn excuses heeft aangeboden voor het geweld van afgelopen nacht rond het Tahrirplein in Caïro. De premier heeft een onderzoek naar de gebeurtenissen beloofd.
10.54 uur: cameraman NOS aangehouden
Cameraman Eric Feijten van de NOS is vannacht op het vliegveld van Caïro aangehouden. Zijn apparatuur is in beslag genomen. Sinds vijf uur vanmorgen heeft de NOS geen contact met hem kunnen krijgen.
10.49 uur: Gewapende aanhangers Mubarak onderweg
Persbureau Reuters meldt dat een groep gewapende aanhangers van Mubarak onderweg is naar het Tahrirplein. Ze zouden messen bij zich hebben.
10.34 uur: Leger scheidt betogers
Persbureau Reuters meldt dat het Egyptische leger voor het eerst sinds het begin van het geweld rond het Tahrirplein in actie is gekomen. Militairen hebben zich opgesteld tussen aanhangers en tegenstanders van Mubarak, in een poging een bufferzone te creëren. De twee groepen staan nu op ongeveer tachtig meter afstand van elkaar.
09.23 uur: Journalisten mishandeld
Buitenlandse journalisten op en rond het Tahrirplein zijn mishandeld door Mubarak-aanhangers. Sommige journalisten werden gearresteerd nadat ze waren mishandeld. Ook GPD-correspondent Harald Doornbos werd aangevallen. “We werden in een taxi opeens omsingeld en door aanhangers van Mubarak uit de taxi gesleurd. Ze zetten ongeveer letterlijk machetes op onze keel. Het zag er heel slecht uit. We zijn door een soldaat gered, hij probeerde ons te beschermen en we zijn uiteindelijk door het leger ontzet. Ik zit al lang in dit vak van crisisverslaggeving, maar dit is me nog nooit overkomen.”
Op het Tahrirplein in Caïro hebben aanhangers van president Mubarak vannacht geschoten op anti-regeringsbetogers. In de rechtstreekse uitzending van de Arabische nieuwszender al-Jazeera waren minutenlang schoten te horen.
Bij ongeregeldheden op het Tahrirplein zijn volgens de minister van Gezondheid de afgelopen nacht vijf doden en dertien gewonden gevallen. “De meeste slachtoffers vielen toen er gegooid werd met stenen en mensen met stokken en metalen buizen werden aangevallen. Vanmorgen rond het ochtendgloren werd ook geschoten op het plein.” Volgens de minister zijn er in totaal 836 mensen gewond geraakt bij de protesten. Daarvan liggen nog 86 mensen in het ziekenhuis.
First Posted: 02/ 2/11 04:40 AM Updated: 02/ 2/11 01:09 PM
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda, said on Wednesday he will not seek to extend his presidency in a move that would end his three-decade rule when his current term expires in 2013.
Eyeing protests that brought down Tunisia’s leader and threaten to topple Egypt’s president, Saleh also vowed not to pass on the reins of government to his son, but asked the opposition to hold down on protests.
“I present these concessions in the interests of the country. The interests of the country come before our personal interests,” Saleh told his parliament, Shoura Council and members of the military.
“No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock,” he said, making reference to ruling party proposals to institute term limits that had been seen as allowing him to run again.
His remarks came a day before a planned large rally, dubbed a “Day of Rage,” organized by the opposition that was seen as a barometer of the size and strength of the Yemeni people’s will to follow Egypt and Tunisia in demanding a change of government.
“I call on the opposition to freeze all planned protests, rallies and sit-ins,” Saleh said.
Domestic and foreign journalists have come under siege amid the turmoil in Egypt.
Al Jazeera’s online producer Last Modified: 03 Feb 2011 13:34 GMT
As the situation intensifies in Egypt, journalists are increasingly targeted [AFP]
Journalists in Egypt – domestic and foreign – are increasingly under siege, with Egyptian authorities detaining reporters and gangs of young men roaming the streets looking for anyone with camera equipment.
Some of the pressure has come from the government: Six Al Jazeera journalists were detained for several hours earlier this week, and while they were eventually released, their equipment remains with the police.
Two New York Times reporters were reportedly arrested – or “taken into protective custody”, as the government termed it.
Spotters stand outside many hotels, watching balconies with high-powered binoculars. When they see balconies with camera equipment or photographers, they use radios to call in the details.
Egyptian police sources say that information from those spotters has been used to conduct several raids on journalists’ hotel rooms in recent days.
And the government has reportedly pressured several hotels not to extend the reservations of foreign journalists.
But most of the intimidation and violence has come from unofficial sources: Young men loiter outside the hotels where many reporters are staying, shouting at (and sometimes attacking) anyone with equipment.
Hotel lobbies are filled with journalists and camera crews wearing bandages, and many have been restricted to watching the events in Tahrir Square from their hotel balconies.
Egyptian state television has actively tried to foment the unrest by reporting that “Israeli spies” have infiltrated the city – which explains why many of the gangs who attack reporters shout “yehudi!” (“Jew!”).
The area around Tahrir Square has become a virtual no-go zone for camera crews, which were assaulted on Wednesday almost as soon as they entered the area controlled by supporters of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Several of them were mistaken for Al Jazeera crews, and were chased off by young men wielding sticks and chanting, “Jazeera! Jazeera!”.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said his crew was also assaulted on Tuesday night after being mistaken for an Al Jazeera crew.
A reporter for the Al Arabiya network was kidnapped for several hours during Wednesday’s protest.
The violence has come exclusively from the Mubarak supporters: There have been no reports of pro-democracy demonstrators attacking or intimidating the media.
Egyptian journalists, too, have been the victims of angry mobs, all of them affiliated with the pro-Mubarak crowd. Sarah El Sirgany, an editor with the Daily News Egypt, tweeted that her brother was assaulted while trying to protect a group of reporters attacked by an angry mob.
An Al Jazeera reporter was held at knifepoint by a group of young men on Thursday morning. One man’s face was still bloodied from the previous night’s fighting.
Bloggers, too, have become targets: The popular Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey has reportedly been arrested (it’s unclear by who).
The regime sends in the thugs Feb 2nd 2011, 21:29 by M.R. | CAIRO
IN MEDIEVAL times, Egypt’s sultans recruited tough guys from the ranks of Cairo’s poorest. These barefoot gangs acted as a second-tier police force. In times of social peace the harafeesh, as they were known, could be enlisted to cheer the sultan during his parades. If some rival upstart threatened the ruler’s sleep, he would send in this rabble to wreck their wedding parties or sack their palaces. And if one of the city’s quarters acted rebellious the harafeesh would invade, smash its shops and deliver a good hiding to the inhabitants.The charge upon protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square today by pro-Mubarak mobs looked rather like a similar tactic. After the failure of Mr Mubarak’s regular police to stanch the protests, and the refusal of his army to do the job, the president’s men appear to have resorted to a hired mob, bolstered by trained police thugs, to make a last try. In one episode of a battle that lasted from the early afternoon into the evening, a dozen horse and camel riders made the mistake of charging into the anti Mubarak crowd. It turned out they had been hired by a member of Mr Mubarak’s party representing the district near the Giza pyramids. These men apparently blame the pro-democracy folk for causing unrest, and interrupting the tourist traffic that is their livelihood.There are other medieval aspects to Cairo these days. The citizens’ patrols that now man local barricades, in the absence of police, arms themselves with sticks, knives and clubs. In the posh district of Zamalek, these are as likely to be golf clubs or cricket bats as two-by-fours. For extra measure, local Harley Davidson enthusiasts patrol around on their expensive motorbikes, looking mean in leather and barking into walkie talkies. As one banking executive sighed, while doing his volunteer three-hour shift to guard his building, “So this is the primitive state this regime has reduced us to, standing in front of our houses with sticks to guard our property?”
Opinion
Tahrir: Shock and awe Mubarak style
Pro-Mubarak thugs weren’t enough to deter the calls of democracy from the crowds gathering in Tahrir square.
Al Jazeera writer in Cairo Last Modified: 03 Feb 2011 14:29 GMT
Pro-Mubarak activists clashed with pro-democracy supporters yesterday, with many in the pro-Mubarak camp accused of working for government ministries, including police forces [Getty]
Between the Monday of January 31 until Hosni Mubarak’s quaint speech late in the night night (1 February), the pro-democracy protest in Tahrir Square was the most diverse gathering that I have ever witnessed in Egypt.
In normal times, Cairo is devoid of socially porous spaces where people of all classes can mix comfortably. The crowds in Tahrir Square, larger each night since the ministry of interior’s security force was broken on January 28th, created a spontaneous Bohemia.
As befits the label given to the uprising – thaurat al-shabab (revolt of the youth) – there were plenty of mid-teens to early 30s men and women in the pro-democracy camp. But with them were children, the elderly, the ultra-pious and the slickest cosmopolitans, workers, farmers, professionals, intellectuals, artists, long-time activists, complete neophytes to political protest, and representatives of all political persuasions outside the National Democratic Party, whose headquarters were sacked and burned last Friday, and still emitting a faint ashy smell by Monday.
A well-adjusted mob
The behaviour of the crowd was impeccable. Volunteers manned all entry points to the Square, checking the identity cards of everyone who entered. Egyptian identity cards state the profession of their holders, hence anyone whose card indicated that he worked for the ministry of interior was barred from entering the Square.
The goal was to prevent government-sponsored incitement, ensuring that the atmosphere would remain purposeful and free of violence. That goal was entirely fulfilled up to the moment of Mubarak’s speech.
Until Mubarak offered his dubious “concessions”, the crowd was euphoric, but at the same time firmly grounded in its mission to effect deep-rooted changes to Egyptian political practise.
There is no doubt that Egyptians were substantially united in their conviction that the Mubarak regime must end; in the current environment, remaining support for Mubarak is motivated more by material interests than by conviction.
As the world knows very well, immediately after Mubarak’s speech his supporters began to attack the demonstration.
Releasing the hounds
The attacks were already underway by the early hours of Wednesday morning (February 1, 2011), and as all news sources – save Egyptian state media – have reported, attacks on the pro-democracy protesters have increased in intensity throughout Wednesday (2 February) and continuing on into Thursday.
The regime’s shock troops have certainly used “white weapons” – knives and other sharp objects, chains or other bits of metal that can maim – but there are also reports that they have used propane gas tanks, Molotov cocktails, tear gas and possibly even live ammunition.
What the army is doing is unclear, but there is no doubt that it has not protected the pro-democracy demonstrators.
It is true, as many news sources have reported, that the pro-Mubarak forces include an element of criminals that have long been employed by the regime to break up demonstrations and intimidate elections.
There is also no doubt that members of the defeated Central Security Forces were among the shock troops used by the regime in its counterattack against the pro-democracy movement.
But the waves of pro-Mubarak demonstrators marching through downtown Cairo toward Tahrir Square on Wednesday were not entirely devoid of ordinary Egyptian citizenry. It is likely that not all of these citizens are acting out of conviction. There are reports that government ministries have told public-sector employees that their jobs depend on supporting the regime.
Aside from these semi-coerced supporters of Mubarak, there are people who have always regarded the pro-democracy movement as troublemakers on the grounds that the order maintained by the regime’s security apparatus is more valuable than the cost paid in curtailed civil liberties.
It must be emphasised that the sum of all these elements of pro-Mubarak sentiment is remarkably more socially homogeneous than the pro-democracy movement.
Cunning and motives
Of course there are tacitly pro-regime supporters witnessing events from afar. But of those who are willing to put their bodies on the line – as the pro-democracy movement has done – the social profile is overwhelmingly male and lower to lower-middle class.
The bottom line is that while it may be true that support for the regime has a broader social base than the stereotype of “criminals and semi-coerced public sector employees” suggests, there is at the same time no political philosophy animating the pro-regime supporters.
If the rule of Mubarak and/or the National Democratic Party survives the pro-democracy uprising, it will be purely through force.
The motivations of the pro-democracy movement, by contrast, are undoubtedly more diverse than the euphoric atmosphere of Monday and Tuesday suggest.
The elephant in the room though is the Muslim Brotherhood. The MB has thus far played a skillful political game of supporting the pro-democracy movement without trying to lay claim to it – far more skillful, for example, than Mohamed ElBaradei’s relatively amateurish interventions.
In truth the driving force of the pro-democracy movement is emphatically not the Muslim Brotherhood. As everyone knows, the Muslim Brotherhood is a powerful force in Egyptian politics, but there are generational and social divisions within the movement which may in fact make a Muslim Brotherhood power grab unfeasible, assuming that it actually aspires to such a goal.
The pro-democracy uprising was propelled by a non-partisan coalition of young activists, who at long last tapped into a current of popular revulsion at the police-state techniques that the regime used to maintain its grip on power.
Whose public interest?
The opposition parties have a role to play in creating an alternative to Mubarak’s rule. They are not necessarily well prepared to play this role after decades of hopeless marginalisation by the ruling NDP.
In order to bring about structural change to Egyptian politics they will have to focus not on the social context that makes regime’s downfall possible (police state suppression, unemployment and poverty), but on Egypt’s laws and constitution.
An end to torture as a primary tactic for maintaining the regime’s power will require reforms in a legal system that combines powers of criminal prosecution with police investigation. These two functions are separate in the legal systems of Europe and the United States, but combined in Egypt and in many socialist countries.
The result in Egypt is that the office of public prosecutor (al-niyaba al-‘amma) has the authority to gather evidence in the criminal cases that it pursues. This would be considered an obvious conflict of interest in the United States.
In Egypt it means that a prosecutor who represents “the public interest” (aka the state) possesses powers of police investigation. This leads to systematic torture justified on grounds of it being “in the public interest”.
It is no coincidence that when the power of the state was broken on the “day of rage” (January 28th), the pro-democracy protesters attacked many police stations throughout the country.
Police stations, not just the ministry of interior’s Central Security Forces, were targeted because the Egyptian public has been subject to systematic torture by a police-judiciary nexus throughout the 30 years of Mubarak’s rule.
The minimum demands of the pro-democracy movement must include that the prosecution function be separated from the function of police investigation. The rule of law executed by an independent judiciary would be the best guarantor of civil liberties in Egypt.
Assembling a new future
After that, more obvious demands follow.
The current People’s Assembly (maglis al-sha’b) must be abolished on the grounds that its election was blatantly fraudulent; it cannot under any circumstances be allowed to direct the course of reform.
Mubarak’s speech on Tuesday in fact called for the “reform” of the constitution by the People’s Assembly. This is impossible while the People’s Assembly consists entirely of representatives “elected” in the hopelessly compromised elections held just a few weeks ago at the end of 2010.
The only feasible exit from the current confrontation between Mubarak’s thugs and the pro-democracy movement is the appointment of a national unity government constituted from a broad spectrum of the opposition parties, on the condition that articles 76 and 77 of the Egyptian constitution be reformed (specifically, the articles stipulating that the president can run for successive terms and narrowing the conditions under which a candidate can stand for the presidency to the point that almost nobody can mount a campaign against the party in power).
In practical terms, the current parliament must be dismissed, and the constitution must essentially be re-written.
The validity of the old constitution is in any case dubious in light of the experience of thirty years of living under the “emergency law” that was in force since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
Egypt’s laws must be reconstituted from scratch. If, that is, the pro-democracy movement survives the regime’s crude attempts to snuff it out by force.
The next big demonstration by the pro-democracy forces is scheduled for Friday. The army could stop it if the regime orders it to and the soldiers obey their orders – I doubt the regime’s thugs are strong enough to do the job by themselves.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
As Islamist Group Rises, Its Intentions Are Unclear
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: February 3, 2011
WASHINGTON — After maintaining a low profile in protests led largely by secular young Egyptians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition force, appeared to be taking a more assertive role on Thursday, issuing a statement asking for President Hosni Mubarak to step aside for a transitional government.
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“We demand that this regime is overthrown, and we demand the formation of a national unity government for all the factions,” the Brotherhood said in a statement broadcast by Al Jazeera.
The Obama administration has spoken cautiously about the future role of the Brotherhood, which has long been banned by Mr. Mubarak’s government, saying only that all parties must renounce violence and accept democracy. But one of the few near certainties of a post-Mubarak Egypt is that the Muslim Brotherhood will emerge as a powerful political force.
The unanswered question, according to experts on the region, is whether that will prove a manageable challenge for the United States and Israel or a catastrophe for American interests in the Middle East.
The Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is the oldest and largest Islamist movement in the world, with affiliates in most Muslim countries and adherents in Europe and the United States.
Its size and diversity, and the legal ban that has kept it from genuine political power in Egypt for decades, make it hard to characterize simply. As the Roman Catholic Church includes both those who practice leftist liberation theology and conservative anti-abortion advocates, so the Brotherhood includes both practical reformers and firebrand ideologues.
Which of those tendencies might rise to dominance in a new Egypt is under intense discussion inside the Obama administration, where officials say they may be willing to consult with the Brotherhood during a political transition.
Bruce Riedel, a veteran observer of the Muslim world at the Brookings Institution, said the United States had no choice but to accept the group’s role.
“If we really want democracy in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is going to be a big part of the picture,” said Mr. Riedel, who was the Egypt desk officer at the Central Intelligence Agency when Mr. Mubarak came to power in 1981. “Rather than demonizing them, we ought to start engaging them now.”
American politicians and pundits have used the Brotherhood as a sort of boogeyman, tagging it as a radical menace and the grandfather of Al Qaeda. That lineage is accurate in a literal sense: some Qaeda leaders, notably the terrorist network’s Egyptian second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, have roots in the organization. But Qaeda leaders despise the Brotherhood because it has renounced violence and chosen to compete in elections.
“The Brotherhood hates Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda hates the Brotherhood,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “So if we’re talking about counterterrorism, engaging with the Brotherhood will advance our interests in the region.”
Mr. Hamid said the Muslim Brotherhood’s deep hostility to Israel — which reflects majority public opinion in Egypt — would pose difficulties for American policy. Its conservative views on the rights of women and intolerance of religious minorities are offensive by Western standards. But he said that the group was far from monolithic and that it was divided between those who would never accept Israel’s right to exist and those who accepted a two-state solution in which Israel and Palestine exist side by side.
“Yes, in their heart of hearts, they hate Israel,” Mr. Hamid said. “But they know they have to live in this world and respect the geopolitical scene.”
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by an Egyptian schoolteacher and imam, Hassan al-Banna, as a grass-roots association whose goal was to promote the reform of Muslim society by a greater adherence to Islam, through preaching, outreach and the provision of social services.
“It was a bottom-up, gradual process, beginning with the individual and ultimately reaching all of society,” said Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, a political scientist at Emory University and the author of “Mobilizing Islam,” a 2002 book on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. “It’s roughly analogous to the evangelical Christian goal of sharing the gospel. Politics were secondary.”
But Mr. Banna did speak of jihad, too, as a struggle against colonialism and Zionism, Ms. Wickham said. Quotations from the Brotherhood’s founder have been highlighted in recent years by Western critics who portray the movement as a militant threat.
In the 1970s, after years of brutal repression by the state, the Egyptian president at the time, Anwar el-Sadat, permitted the Brotherhood to operate quietly and to open a Cairo office, and the Brotherhood formally renounced violence as a means of achieving power in Egypt. The group did not, however, reject violence in other circumstances, and its leaders have endorsed acts of terrorism against Israel and against American troops in Iraq.
A prominent Brotherhood thinker, Sayyid Qutb, who was imprisoned by the Egyptian government and executed in 1966, was an important theorist of violent jihad and a spiritual progenitor of Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical preacher now hiding in Yemen. But the Brotherhood took a different direction after Mr. Qutb’s death, and Qaeda leaders came to hold the organization in contempt.
A milestone in the Brotherhood’s evolution in Egypt came in 1984, when its leaders decided to compete in parliamentary elections. Since then, it has been alternately tolerated and repressed in Egyptian politics, where most estimates of its actual support begin at 20 percent of the electorate.
“The paradox has been that the better the Brotherhood performs, the more repression it has attracted,” Ms. Wickham said. After it won 88 seats in Parliament in the 2005 elections, Mr. Mubarak’s government responded with a new crackdown.
In an interview just before the current wave of protests began in Egypt, Essam el-Erian, a leading figure in the Brotherhood, said the group did not seek to monopolize power. “We want an atmosphere for fair competition now that can allow us to compete for power in the future,” Mr. Erian said. “And we want stability and freedom for people, not chaos.”
The Brotherhood, whose leaders are mostly much older than the protest organizers, joined the demonstrations only after they were under way. The hesitancy may reflect in part the grim history of the state’s ruthlessness, said Abdel Halim Qandil, the general coordinator of Kifaya, a secular opposition movement.
I’ve just left the presidential palace in Cairo where I sat down for an exclusive 30-minute interview with President Hosni Mubarak.
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He told me that he is troubled by the violence we have seen in Tahrir Square over the last few days but that his government is not responsible for it. Instead, he blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political party here in Egypt.
I asked President Mubarak about the violence that his supporters launched against the anti-government protesters in Liberation Square.
Tune in for a special one-hour “Nightline” with ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour reporting from Cairo TONIGHT at 11:35 p.m. ET.
He told me, “I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.”
I asked how he felt after giving the speech Monday night, saying he would not run for president again, and he told me he felt relief.
ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour with
When I asked him what he thought seeing the people shouting insults about him and wanting him gone, he said, “I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt.”
The interview took place on day when the mood here is getting increasingly tense. This afternoon, my ABC News team and I left our offices in three cars and started a drive to the Presidential Palace.
Obama ended last year’s State of the Union address by vowing not to quit in the face of challenges [GALLO/GETTY]
Please read the second update (2/2/11) at the end of this article.
The democracy protests that swept Tunisian President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali from power are going viral, but sadly President Obama and other Western leaders seem immune.
Indeed, it is quite likely that the president and his colleagues in Europe are as frightened of the potential explosion of people power across the Middle East and North Africa as are the sclerotic autocratic leaders of the region against whom the protests are being directed.
The question is, why?
Why would Obama, who worked so hard to reach out to the Muslim world with his famous 2009 speech in Cairo, be standing back quietly while young people across the region finally take their fate into their own hands and push for real democracy?
Shouldn’t the president of the United States be out in front, supporting non-violent democratic change across the world’s most volatile region?
The known knowns
The answer, as is increasingly the case, comes from the ever-growing cache of leaked documents from WikiLeaks and other sources that are providing inside evidence of America’s true interests and intentions in the Middle East.
Specifically, as The Palestine Papers revealed by al Jazeera demonstrate (and which I will analyse in more detail in my next column), the US under Obama-as much if not more so than under his predecessor-demands that leaders remain in place who will do its bidding even if it means subverting the will of the citizens of a country and maintaining a system that manifestly harms their interests.
Thus the administration at least twice threatened to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority if elections were called and anyone other than Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad remained in power.
And it actively works with Israeli and Palestinian security services to deny the democratic will of Palestinians.
What is clear, then, is that Obama not only prefers the status quo, but the United States will actively subvert democracy in order to ensure that governments that will follow its policies remain in power.
If the administration has taken such an anti-democratic line with Palestinians, imagine how it must feel about the protests that have just exploded in Egypt, where substantive democratic change and a truly representative government would no doubt be far less amenable to US policies and strategic objectives regarding Israel and the war on terror than is Mubarak’s.
Such a position is as tragic as it is stupid, as the president has been offered an unprecedented and until a few weeks ago unimaginable opportunity to back radical but peaceful change that is not stained by Western intervention in a region that everyone believes must undergo such change in order to prevent it becoming even more of a hotbed for terrorism and anti-Western sentiments.
There is no one in the intelligence community who does not know this, and as the numerous diplomatic cables brought to light by WikiLeaks have revealed, our diplomats across the region are equally aware of the corrosive effects of rampant government corruption, violence and authoritarianism on their societies as well.
The tyranny of the status quo
So the question really needs to be asked – whose interests is President Obama serving by remaining silently supportive of the status quo when he could, and by any measure, should, be lending vocal, public support for the peoples of the Arab world as they finally rise up against their leaders?
Is it companies like Lockheed Martin, the massive defence contractor whose tentacles reach deep into every part of the fabric of governance (as revealed by William Hartung’s powerful new book, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military Industrial Complex)?
Is it the superbanks who continue to rake in profits from an economy that is barely sputtering along, and who have joined with the military industrial complex’s two principal axes-the arms and the oil industries-to form an impregnable triangle of corrupt economic and political power?
It’s hard to think of any other candidates at the present time.
Tonight in his State of the Union address the world will learn whether President Obama has any of his once celebrated vision, courage and audacity left in him, or if he’s been so thoroughly beaten down by the forces that actually run Washington that he can barely muster support for the young people around the Arab world who are increasingly saying “Kefaya“, Enough!, to their governments, and the larger global system that has kept them in power for so long.
It’s probably too much to ask the President to say “Kefaya” to the forces that have so circumscribed his once progressive vision.
But it would be nice if he could at least offer a few words of support to the people of Tunisia, and now Egypt and other countries across the region, who are actually following the example of the United States and fighting for their freedom.
Update: In his State of the Union speech, the President did not mention Egypt at all. He did mention Tunisia, declaring “we saw the desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator. And tonight, let us be clear: The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.
“That is a nice sentiment, but it’s both a “day late,” since the revolution has already succeeded, and glaring in its omission of Egypt, whose capitol was burning as he made the speech. Indeed, earlier in the day Secretary of State Clinton declared, “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” If this is Obama’s official policy, then the intifada in Egypt risks becoming a revolution against the US as much as against Mubarak, with far reaching consequences across the Muslim world.
Update II (2/2/11): As I write this, the curfew in in Cairo has prevented my flight from arriving there. For the last week President Obama has apparently worked with the leadership of Egypt to formulate a plant to ease Mubarak out while retaining the existing political-military-security structure in place. It must be remembered here that the tanks in Egypt’s streets are American made Abrams; the planes that buzzed Tahrir square are paid for by American tax dollars. The newly appointed Vice President, Omar Suleiman, isn’t just the former intelligence chief, but is someone who personally supervised the detention and torture of victims of CIA-rendition. He is, as much as Mubarak, “America’s man.”
The evidence strongly points to the attacks on protesters as being regime-authorised and organised– Unorganised mobs don’t truck in camels and horses from the pyramids or arrive by the busload. The frightening part is, it is highly unlikely that US intelligence officials weren’t aware of Mubarak’s and Soliman’s plans to foment chaos and violence, order the army to stand by while it unfolded, and then have them call for protesters to leave, thus providing a pretext for further violence against protesters. And yet Obama has continued to resist endorsing the protesters’ call for his immediate resignation.
These are the wages of Obama’s unwillingness to take a direct, early, public and forceful stand in full support of the pro-democracy movement. His wavering and sending back-door diplomats only gives the impression that the US is either working with the regime to help quash the protests and enable Mubarak to stay on long enough to ensure a new government continues to follow American policies, or at the very least has done nothing to stop this process from unfolding.
But Egyptians will remember this, and whether or not Mubarak succeeds in holding on to power till the fall, it is likely that the Egyptian people will hold President Obama and the United States at least partly responsible for the bloodshed that is threatening to destroy their revolution.
Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
White House, Egypt Discuss Plan for Mubarak’s Exit
By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER
Published: February 3, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.
Even though Mr. Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are continuing talks about a plan in which, Mr. Suleiman, backed by Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the Defense Minister, would immediately begin a process of constitutional reform.
The proposal also calls for the transitional government to invite members from a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the country’s electoral system in an effort to bring about free and fair elections in September, the officials said.
Senior administration officials said that the proposal is one of several options under discussion with high-level Egyptian officials around Mr. Mubarak, though not him directly, in an effort to convince him to step down now.
The officials cautioned that the outcome depended on several factors, not least of all the mood of the protesters on the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities and the dynamics within the Egyptian government. Some officials said there was not yet any indication that either Mr. Suleiman or the military were willing to abandon Mr. Mubarak.
The Egyptian government will be tested again by massive new protests on Friday, which the demonstrators were calling the “day of departure” for Mr. Mubarak, when they plan to march on the presidential palace. The military’s pledge not to fire on the Egyptian people will be tested as well.
The discussions about finding a way out of the crisis in Cairo comes amid new questions about whether American spy agencies, after the collapse of the Tunisian government, adequately warned the White House and top lawmakers about the prospects of an uprising in Egypt.
During a Senate hearing on Thursday, both Democrats and Republicans pressed a senior Central Intelligence Agency official about when the C.I.A. and other agencies notified President Obama of the looming crisis, and whether intelligence officers even monitored social networking sites and internet forums to gauge popular sentiment in Egypt.
“At some point it had to have been obvious that there was going to be a huge demonstration,” said Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She said that intelligence agencies never sent a notice to her committee about the growing uprising in Egypt, as is customary for significant global events.
Stephanie O’Sullivan, the C.I.A. official, responded that the agency has been tracking instability in Egypt for some time and had concluded that the government in Cairo was in an “untenable” situation. But, Ms. O’Sullivan, “We didn’t know that the triggering mechanism would be.”
Even as the Obama administration is coalescing around a Mubarak-must-go-now posture in private conversations with Egyptian officials, Mr. Mubarak himself remains determined to say until the elections in September, American and Egyptian officials said. His backers forcibly pushed back on Thursday against what they viewed as American interference in Egypt’s internal affairs.
“What they’re asking cannot be done,” one senior Egyptian official said, citing clauses in the Egyptian constitution that bars the vice president from assuming power. Under the constitution, the speaker of Parliament would succeed the president. “That’s my technical answer. My political answer is they should mind their own business.”
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour of ABC News, Mr. Mubarak said that he was “fed up” with being president but that he could not step down for fear of sowing chaos in the country. Because of the fervor in Egypt, one Obama administration official said, Mr. Mubarak’s close aides expressed concern that they weren’t convinced that Mr. Mubarak’s resignation would satisfy the protesters.
“The worry on Mubarak’s part is that if he says yes to this, there will be more demands,” said Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “And since he’s not dealing with a legal entity, but a mob, how does he know there won’t be more demands tomorrow?”
A number of high-level American officials have reached out to the Egyptians in recent days. While administration officials would not give details of alternative scenarios, they made it clear that their preferred outcome would be Mr. Suleiman as the transitional figure.
Vice President Biden spoke by phone to him on Thursday, the White House said in a statement, urging that “credible, inclusive negotiations begin immediately in order for Egypt to transition to a democratic government that addresses the aspirations of the Egyptian people.”
Mr. Biden’s phone call came after a mission by Mr. Obama’s private emissary, Frank G. Wisner, was abruptly ended when Mr. Mubarak, angry at Mr. Obama’s toughly worded speech Tuesday night, declined to meet with the envoy a second time, official said.
Defense secretary Robert M. Gates has made three calls since the weekend to Egypt’s powerful defense minister, Field Marshal Tantawi, who served on the coalition side in the 1991 Gulf War. Pentagon officials declined on Thursday to describe the specifics of the calls, but indicated that Mr. Gates’ messages were focused on more than urging the Egyptian military to exercise restraint.
“Officials familiar with the dialogue between the administration and Cairo say that American officials have told Egyptian officials that if they support another ‘strong man’ to replace Mr. Mubarak — but without a specific plan and timetable for moving toward democratic elections — the U.S. Congress might react by freezing military assistance. On Thursday, the Senate passed a resolution calling on Mr. Mubarak to begin the transfer of power to an “inclusive, interim caretaker government.”
American officials have pointed to the Anthony H. Cordesman, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that a transition government of Mr. Suleiman and the military, with pledges to move toward democratic elections, was in his mind “the most probable case.” But he said the administration had to proceed with extreme caution.
“Everybody working this issue knows that this is a military extremely sensitive to outside pressure,” he said.
, adding that Even as the administration ratcheted up the pressure on Egypt, it has reaffirmed its support for other Arab allies facing popular unrest. The White House released a statement saying that President Obama called President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen on Wednesday to welcome Mr. Saleh’s recent “reform measures” –the Yemeni President promised not to run again in 2013.
And on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called King Abdullah of Jordan to say the United States looked forward to working with his new Cabinet—recently announced–and to underline the importance of the relationship between Jordan and the United States.
Philip J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, declined to say whether Mrs. Clinton had enlisted him in an effort to ease out Mr. Mubarak. But he praised the king for responding to the unrest in Jordan. “He’s doing his best to respond to this growing aspiration,” Mr. Crowley said. “And we appreciate the leadership he’s shown.”
Endit
Elisabeth Bumiller, Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker contributed reporting
CAÏRO – De 6 April Beweging werd in 2008 opgericht op internet om stakende arbeiders in de industriestad Mahalla al-Kubra te helpen. Een beweging van jongeren uit de Egyptische middenklasse, die plots strijden om de macht in het land.
De ‘Facebookgeneratie’ die de drijvende kracht is achter de democratische opstand in Egypte, is in werkelijkheid een losvaste groep, met een lemma op Wikipedia en een naam die bij voorbaat geschiedenis lijkt te willen schrijven: de 6 April Beweging.
Deze groep deed, samen met een Facebooknetwerk dat zich ‘Wij zijn allen Khaled Said’ noemt, de oproep uitgaan voor de eerste betoging op het Tahrirplein, dinsdag 25 januari. Het was bedoeld als een soort flashmob - waarbij een grote groep personen uit het niets bij elkaar lijkt te komen -, maar het pakte veel groter uit dan de organisatoren hadden gedacht. Het gaf deze jongeren uit de middenklasse, maar weldra burgers van alle leeftijden en standen, plotseling het idee: wat de Tunesiërs konden, kunnen wij ook.
Verantwoordelijkheid
De 6 April-jongens zagen hun kans, maar beseften meteen hun verantwoordelijkheid. Binnen een etmaal was hun actie veranderd in een acute uitdaging aan het regime van Hosni Mubarak. Voor vrijdag de 27ste werd een grote demonstratie aangekondigd, opnieuw op het Tahrirplein. Er moest razendsnel een volwassen alternatief voor de regering-Mubarak worden gesmeed.
Oppositiegroep na oppositiegroep haakte, het momentum voelende, in na die cruciale dinsdag. Vorige week donderdag al vond het eerste beraad plaats tussen vertegenwoordigers van de 6 April Beweging en leiders van de belangrijkste oppositiegroepen – zowel oude partijen als de nieuwe National Association for Change (NAC) van Nobelprijswinnaar Mohamed ElBaradei.
Het gezicht
Meteen al werd bepaald dat hij het gezicht zou worden van de zich uitkristalliserende anti-Mubarak-coalitie. De jongeren blijven echter een hoofdrol spelen in de beweging.
Volgens een reconstructie in The New York Times is al een schaduwparlement samengesteld en is een lijst opgesteld met tien namen van personen die zouden kunnen deelnemen aan een regering van nationale eenheid, die een nieuwe Grondwet en verkiezingen moet voorbereiden.
Voor de Westerse wereld lijken stevige Arabische regimes een belangrijker doel om eigen belangen te dienen dan dat er wordt geluisterd naar de angst, onvrede en belangen van gewone burgers.
Er is een politieke aardbeving gaande in het Midden-Oosten. Hoewel het lastig is voorspellingen te doen, is een ding zeker, recente ontwikkelingen zullen blijvende impact hebben op de regio en het beleid van Westerse landen, inclusief de VS en Europa ten aanzien van de Arabische wereld.
Angst
Voor de Westerse wereld lijken stevige Arabische regimes een belangrijker doel om eigen belangen te dienen dan dat er wordt geluisterd naar de angst, onvrede en belangen van gewone burgers. Zij leefden tussen een sociaal-economisch minimum dat net voldoende was om geen honger te hebben en de angst voor repressief optreden van hun machthebbers. Het is een Westers sprookje om te denken dat jonge mensen dit blijven accepteren en toont een gebrek aan lange termijn visie.
Door de financiële en economische crisis en oplopende voedselprijzen is dat veranderd. Met behulp van nieuwe technologieën, het falen van officiële censuur en een hele jonge boze bevolking is de angst voor repressie doorbroken. Het betrekkelijke gemak waarmee in Tunesië de belangrijkste machthebber het land moest verlaten, toonden hen dat doorzetten resultaat oplevert. Bovendien inspireert de kracht van gewone mensen, hele volksstammen die gekluisterd achter de laptop of de TV deze ontwikkelingen nauwgezet volgen.
Voorbeeld
De opkomst van mobiele technologieën, sociale media die formele censuur omzeilen, en de aandacht van satelliet zenders voor de gewone man of vrouw, maakte Tunesië een voorbeeld voor omringende landen.
Dezelfde trends zijn ook waarneembaar in Egypte, Algerije en Jordanië. En zijn niet onopgemerkt in andere Arabische landen als Libië, Marokko en Syrië. Met de onthulling van de slaafsheid van de Palestijnse Autoriteit na het uitlekken van onderhandelingsmemo’s via Al-Jazeera, de zogenaamde Palestine Papers, werd nog eens het onvermogen getoond van regeringsleiders om te luisteren naar haar eigen jonge bevolking. Zwart op wit viel te lezen op welke wijze de Palestijnse Autoriteit in hun handelen afhankelijk zijn van hun donoren ten koste van hun eigen mensen.
Om meteen een einde te maken aan een ander Westers sprookje: Democratie gaat niet uitsluitend om verkiezingen maar om de mogelijkheid van gewone mensen verantwoording af te dwingen. Regeringsleiders moeten uitleggen waarom hun land ervoor staat zoals het ervoor staat en de keuzes maakt, die het maakt. De enorme financiële en militaire steun die deze regimes de afgelopen decennia hebben mogen ontvangen van Westerse landen, maakte deze regimes niet verantwoordingsplichtig aan hun eigen mensen maar aan hun bondgenoten.
Schamel
Terwijl de Amerikaanse overheid met flinke sommen geld en militaire steun regimes als Egypte ($ 2 miljard per jaar) zonder randvoorwaarden blijvend ondersteunt, maakt de EU zich vooral druk over immigratie en terrorismebestrijding en gaf wat politieke hervormingen betreft niet thuis. Zo had de EU bijna een miljard beschikbaar voor het tegengaan van immigratie en een schamele tien miljoen ter bevordering van mensenrechten in de regio. Ook als het gaat om diplomatie en politieke druk waren Europese regeringsleiders vooral bezig met migratie, terrorisme en het mislukte vredesproces en was het volledig stil als het ging om het repressieve karakter van Arabische regimes.
Arabische mensenrechten activisten denken dat Europese retoriek over hervormingen meer te maken heeft met het dienen van een Amerikaanse agenda dan dat het echt gaat om de steun van bewegingen van onderop. Vooralsnog betekent het gebrek aan Westerse zelfkritiek ten aanzien van dit buitenlandse beleid weinig concrete verandering.
Islamisten
Het is niet verwonderlijk dat als het om de toekomst van Egypte gaat, de Amerikaanse president eerst praat met spelers als Saudi Arabië, Turkije en Israël om opvolging te organiseren, in plaats van echt te begrijpen waarom de gewone Egyptische man of vrouw, de straat opgaat. Hoewel het Westen vooral bang is dat islamisten aan de macht zouden kunnen komen, heeft juist die angst er voor gezorgd dat de diversiteit aan meningen de afgelopen decennia in de Arabische wereld de kop is ingedrukt.
Het is daarom in het belang van mensenrechten en stabiliteit dat de politiek meer zijn oor te luisteren legt bij de gewone man en vrouw in de Arabische straten. Het is niet genoeg om als Nederlandse overheid een paar mensenrechten organisaties te steunen in het Midden-Oosten. We moeten de mensen daar versterken om hun wens voor verantwoording en inspraak gehoord te krijgen en te realiseren. Wat het gevolg ook moge zijn voor ons. Op de lange termijn is dit het beste voor iedereen.
Arjan El Fassed is Tweede Kamerlid en woordvoerder buitenlandse zaken en ontwikkelingssamenwerking van GroenLinks
The government has called opposition parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, for talks [AFP]
Chants urging President Hosni Mubarak to leave are reverberating across Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests in Egypt, where hundreds of thousands have gathered for what they have termed the “Day of Departure”.
As the country entered its eleventh day of unrest, mass demonstrations commenced after Friday prayers.
Thousands gathered in the city of Alexandria, holding up placards and chanting “He must go!” an Al Jazeera correspondent there reported. Three thousand people also joined demonstrations in Giza.
“The feel here is that today is the final day for Mubarak, it’s time for him to go,” Gigi Ibrahim, a political activist told Al Jazeera from Tahrir [Liberation] Square.
“This whole process has been about who is more determined and who is not willing to give up. And everyday [the protesters] get more and more determined,” Ibrahim said.
Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s defence minister, also visited the square earlier on Friday. He talked with the protesters and other military commanders.
Amr Moussa, Egypt’s former foreign minister and current secretary-general of the Arab League, also visited the square.
Earlier, Ahmed Shafiq, Egypt’s new prime minister, said the interior minister should not obstruct Friday’s peaceful marches. And Mubarak, on his part said he wanted to leave office, but feared there will be chaos if he did.
But he added: “If I resign today, there will be chaos.”
Mubarak’s government has struggled to regain control of a nation angry about poverty, recession and political repression, inviting the Muslim Brotherhood – Egypt’s most organised opposition movement – to talks and apologising for Wednesday’s bloodshed in Cairo.
Transition government
Protesters chanted ‘He must go!’
In a bid to calm the situation, Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, said on Thursday that the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition political movement, and others had been invited to meet the new government as part of a national dialogue.
An offer to talk to the banned but tolerated group would have been unthinkable before protests erupted on January 25, indicating the gains made by the pro-democracy movement since then.
But sensing victory, they have refused talks until Mubarak goes.
Opposition actors including Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN nuclear watchdog head, and the Muslim Brotherhood said again that Mubarak, who wants to stay on until elections scheduled for September, must go before they would negotiate with the government.
“We demand that this regime is overthrown, and we demand the formation of a national unity government for all the factions,” the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement broadcast by Al Jazeera.
The government’s overture came after Shafiq, the prime minister, apologised for Wednesday’s violence and the breakdown in law and order.
Shafiq also said he did not know who was responsible for the bloodshed, blamed by protesters on undercover police.
In an important move, Mohammed Al-Beltagi, a leading member of Muslim Brotherhood, told Al Jazeera on Friday that his organisation has no ambitions to run for the presidency.
The developments come as the New York Times reports, quoting US officials and Arab diplomats, that the US administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for Mubarak to resign immediately and hand over power to a transitional government headed by Omar Suleiman, the newly appointed vice-president.
This report, though unconfirmed by the White House, comes after Mubarak’s statements on Tuesday this week, where he agreed to give up power in September at the end of his current term.
Mohamed Talaat El-Sadat, brother of the late Egyptian president Anwar El-Sadaat has backed Suleiman for the top post. He told Al Jazeera on Friday that he supported the youth revolution but did not want Egypt to go to civil war.
“We don’t want chaos and call for meeting [the] demands of demonstrators who should stay at Tahrir Square,” he said, adding “I expect Mubarak will voluntarily and openhandedly step down and transfer power to Omar Suleiman.”
Bloody clashes
Click here for more on Al Jazeera’s special coverage.
At least 13 people have died and scores were injured, most over the last two days when Mubarak loyalists launched a counter-revolution on pro-democracy protesters.
The army took little action while the fighting raged in Tahrir Square over the past two days. However, there was a more visible military presence on Thursday; but this did not prevent new clashes.
The interior ministry has denied it ordered its agents or officers to attack prior pro-democracy demonstrations.
Vice president Suleiman told ABC Television that the government would not forcefully remove protesters. “We will ask them to go home, but we will not push them to go home,” he said.
Ahead of Friday’s mass protests, eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera that thugs, with the assistance of security vehicles, were readying to attack Tahrir Square. They said protesters were preparing to confront them.
Protesters also reported finding petrol bombs on security personnel dressed in civilian clothes.
An Al Jazeera correspondent, who spent Thursday night in Tahrir Square, said “the numbers did not die down one bit” through the night. He added that there was an atmosphere of defiance among all the protesters he had spoken to.
The army’s role in shaping events is crucial. Only on Thursday did soldiers set up a clear buffer zone around the square to separate factions after having stood by. That did not prevent new clashes as opposing groups pelted each other with rocks.
Though less numerous than earlier in the week, there were demonstrations on Thursday in Suez and Ismailia, industrial cities where inflation and unemployment have kindled the sort of dissent that hit Tunisia and which some believe could ripple in a domino effect across other Arab police states.
“The Brotherhood was rebuilt over the last three decades as a social religious movement,” Mr. Qandil said. “They are having difficulty transforming that into a political movement.”
Mr. Qandil nonetheless estimated that in a free election, the Brotherhood would win about a third of the seats in Parliament, support that he suggested might ebb as competing parties gained attention.
Asked about the Muslim Brotherhood, Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said Monday that the United States would work with any group that showed “adherence to the law, adherence to nonviolence, and a willingness to be part of a democratic process, but not use that democratic process to simply instill yourself into power.” Some experts on the Brotherhood say the group has met the requirements of nonviolence and participation in elections in Egypt for decades.
But even among specialists, the degree of uncertainty about the Brotherhood’s future is striking. Several admitted they could not say for sure whether participation in government would have a moderating effect on the group, or whether moderation might prove to have been a convenient false front to be cast off if the group attained real power.
Skeptics point to the example of the Palestinian group Hamas, the Brotherhood offshoot that has often used terrorism. Ms. Wickham, of Emory, said Hamas was a national resistance that was fighting Israeli occupation and thus was not a model for a future Egyptian Brotherhood.
But she admitted that after 20 years of studying the group, whose internal deliberations are secret, she found it difficult to predict what it might do after Mr. Mubarak left power. Is the Brotherhood willing to be one party among equals in Egyptian politics, or is it merely biding its time before seeking a monopoly?
The answer is elusive, Ms. Wickham said, even though the Brotherhood “has a 30-year behavior as actors in a competitive political process.” That is why it is crucial, she said, that Egypt’s electoral laws and Constitution be rewritten during a transition, as widely discussed, to prevent any party from seizing absolute control.
“Institutional checks and balances are critical,” she said.
David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo, and Michael Slackman from Berlin
Een ontluisterende discussie tussen de arabist Hans Jansen (overigens een oud-docent van mij uit Leiden) en Joris Luyendijk bij Pauw & Witteman, op 17 november 2010, HIERte bekijken. Toelichting is denk ik niet nodig.
Noot van de redactie:volgens NOS Fact Check is de opmerking van Hans Jansen dat Ahmed Marcouch als stadsdeelvoorzitter van belastinggeld islamitische predikanten liet overvliegen onjuist.
——-
In het boek De onzichtbare Ayatollah schrijft arabist Hans Jansen over zijn rol in het proces Wilders. De advocaat van Wilders, Bram Moszkowicz, diende een wrakingsverzoek in omdat de rechters in het proces weigerden om Hans Jansen als getuigen te horen. Het wrakingsverzoek werd toegewezen, omdat de rechters volgens de wrakingskamer niet goed duidelijk hadden gemaakt waarom Jansen niet mocht worden gehoord. Daardoor moet het hele proces worden overgedaan.
Drie dagen voordat Jansen als getuige-deskundige voor de verdediging zou worden gehoord, was hij op een diner aanwezig waar ook Tom Schalken aanwezig was. Schalken, raadsheer bij het gerechtshof in Amsterdam, had meegeschreven aan de beschikking die het Openbaar Ministerie beval Wilders te vervolgen, ondanks het oordeel van het OM zelf dat hij niet vervolgd moest worden. Dat maakte de arabist bekend op zijn blog.
Naast zijn rol in het Wilders-proces, schrijft Hans Jansen in De onzichtbare Ayatollah over de zaak Nekschot en politieke showprocessen in Egypte.
Voor mijn afstudeerscriptie over hedendaagse kunstenaars uit de Arabische wereld die wonen en werken in Nederland schreef ik, naast de ontwikkeling van de moderne kunst in de Arabische wereld zelf, de verschillende redenen van waarom deze kunstenaars zich in Nederland hebben gevestigd en het meer theoretische kader, ook een aantal portretten van individuele kunstenaars. Eerder heb ik op dit weblog al een fragment gepubliceerd over het gedachtegoed van Edward Said en zijn polemiek met Kanan Makiya (vooral van belang voor de theoretische achtergrond). Het leek mij aardig om hier drie individuele kunstenaars te presenteren, uit drie verschillende landen, van verschillende generaties en elk met een verschillende reden voor hun vestiging in Nederland. Achnaton Nassar uit Egypte kwam naar Nederland om zijn opleiding te vervolgen en is uiteindelijk hier gebleven. Qassim Alsaedy uit Irak kwam naar Nederland als politiek vluchteling. Rachid Ben Ali, de jongste, komt uit een achtergrond van Marokkaanse migranten. Er ruim boven de honderd kunstenaars uit de Arabische wereld in Nederland actief. En natuurlijk, zoveel kunstenaars, zoveel individuen, persoonlijkheden en stijlen. Deze gedifferentieerdheid heb ik ook altijd centraal gesteld, al was het maar om duidelijk te maken dat er niet iets van een typische ‘Arabische moderne kunst’ bestaat , of een typisch ‘Nederlandse Arabische kunst’. De hier besproken drie voorbeelden laten dat duidelijk zien. Wel is het zo dat alle drie markante voorbeelden zijn van een boeiende culturele kruisbestuiving, die tot voor kort onzichtbaar was en sinds enige tijd weer sterk onder druk is komen te staan. Overigens als je wat zou willen zeggen over hoe deze kunstenaars zich tot de traditie van hun land van herkomst verhouden (in ieder geval tot de moderne kunst, zoals die in de twintigste eeuw tot ontwikkeling is gekomen in respectievelijk Egypte, Irak en Marokko) dan zou je kunnen stellen dat Qassim Alsaedy van deze drie het meest in de traditie past van de moderne Iraakse kunst. Wie meer voorbeelden heeft gezien zou dat vrij makkelijk kunnen herkennen, zij het dat Qassim wel een heel sterke persoonlijke stijl heeft. Achnaton Nassars abstracte werk past zeker in een bredere ontwikkeling van de kunst van de Arabische wereld, zoals hij bijvoorbeeld de traditie van de lettertekens verwerkt. Maar ook zijn stijl is strikt persoonlijk. Het werk van Rachid Ben Ali, hoewel zijn achtergrond wel degelijk een rol speelt, staat eigenlijk geheel los van de moderne kunst in Marokko zelf, maar Rachid is pas kunstenaar geworden in Nederland en dus niet direct beïnvloed door de belangrijke Marokkaanse kunstenaars als Farid Belkahia, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Mohammed Abouellouakar of Fouad Belamine, hoewel hij te kennen heeft gegeven zeker bewondering te hebben voor de laatste en wellicht is er iets van een oppervlakkige verwantschap. Het belangrijkste in dit verband is dat deze kunstenaars drie bijzondere individuen zijn, die alledrie op hun eigen manier een bijzondere verrijking betekenen voor het culturele leven in ons land. Deze teksten zijn geschreven in 2001 (de interviews die ik met de kunstenaars had zijn uit 2000 en 2001), dus wellicht alweer verouderd. Vanzelfsprekend hebben deze drie kunstenaars zich sinds die tijd weer verder ontwikkeld. Toch denk ik dat het nog veel van deze drie portretten in grote lijnen nog redelijk volstaan. Het zijn drie losse fragmenten uit het tweede hoofdstuk van mijn scriptie, over drie verschillende kunstenaars, met verschillende achtergronden en werkwijzen en uit drie verschillende landen.
Wel zijn er wat extra afbeeldingen toegevoegd, ook van recenter werk (dus van ruim nadat ik deze teksten geschreven had).
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, olieverf op paneel, 1992
Achnaton Nassar
‘Achnaton’ Wahib Mahmoud Abou Nassar werd in 1952 geboren in Qena, Egypte. Hij volgde in eerste instantie zijn kunstenaarsopleiding aan de universiteiten van Alexandrië en Cairo. Hier werd hij opgeleid in de islamitische traditie, waarbij het Arabische alfabet als uitgangspunt diende. Nassar vond dit te beperkt. De drang om zich verder te ontwikkelen dreef hem naar Europa. Na een studie architectuur in het Griekse Saloniki deed Nassar zijn toelatingsexamen voor de Rijksacademie, te Amsterdam. De tekeningen die hij inleverde voor zijn toelating werden door de docenten wat vreemd gevonden. Het werk was geïnspireerd op de Islamitische kalligrafie, een manier van werken die hier volledig onbekend was. De docenten van de Rijksacademie besloten Nassar een tweede kans te geven. Hij kreeg een schetsboek en een potlood met de opdracht tekeningen te maken op de Albert Cuypmarkt. De resultaten werden als zeer goed beoordeeld en Nassar werd ruimschoots toegelaten tot de Rijksacademie. Na zijn studietijd keerde Nassar voor een paar jaar terug naar Egypte. Lang heeft zijn vertrek niet geduurd, al snel ging hij weer naar Nederland om zich in Amstelveen definitief als kunstenaar te vestigen. Sinds die tijd is hij zeer actief geweest. Hij nam deel aan belangrijke tentoonstellingen als Het Klimaat en Het land dat in mij woont. In 1993 won hij de Europaprijs voor de schilderkunst in Oostende.
Het omvangrijke oeuvre van Nassar is van een grote stilistische diversiteit. Hij werkt zowel figuratief als abstract, hij schildert en tekent, of werkt met collages en een enkele keer met een installatie. Soms nemen zijn werken op een politieke manier stelling, een andere keer zijn het lyrische abstracties. Opvallend is Nassars gebruik van ironie, dat hij als stijlmiddel op een buitengewoon uitbundige wijze toepast in zijn figuratieve werk. Hierbij put hij uit veel verschillende bronnen zoals, de Nederlandse en de Arabische kunstgeschiedenis, volkscultuur, reclamebeelden en kitschobjecten. Het omvangrijke oeuvre van Nassar is van een grote stilistische diversiteit. Hij werkt zowel figuratief als abstract, hij schildert en tekent, of werkt met collages en een enkele keer met een installatie. Soms nemen zijn werken op een politieke manier stelling, een andere keer zijn het lyrische abstracties. Opvallend is Nassars gebruik van ironie, dat hij als stijlmiddel op een buitengewoon uitbundige wijze toepast in zijn figuratieve werk. Hierbij put hij uit veel verschillende bronnen zoals, de Nederlandse en de Arabische kunstgeschiedenis, volkscultuur, reclamebeelden en kitschobjecten. Een duidelijk voorbeeld is Zonder Titel uit 1995 (afb. 43). Men ziet de poort van een gebouw, dat onmiskenbaar Arabische trekken vertoont, met daarvoor een uitstalling van een verzameling schoenen . Ogenschijnlijk gaat het hier om een moskee en zijn de schoenen van degenen die binnen aan het bidden zijn. Bij nadere bestudering klopt dit beeld niet helemaal. De schoenen blijken Hollandse klompen te zijn. De poort is niet versierd met Islamitische decoraties, hij blijkt overladen te zijn met Delfts blauwe kitsch-tegeltjes. Waar gaat het hier om? Is dit een moskeepoort of iets anders? Gaat dit werk over de Islam of zegt het vooral iets over ons?
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, acryl op paneel, 1995
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, acryl op paneel, 1995-2000
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, acryl op (dubbelzijdig) paneel, 1996
Als geen ander is Nassar een meester in het maken van beeldgrappen. Dit geldt vooral voor zijn figuratieve werk. Tekenend is bijvoorbeeld Zonder Titel, 1995 (afb. 44). Het beeld verwijst naar het bankbiljet voor duizend gulden, waarop de kop van Spinoza staat uitgebeeld. Door kleine ingrepen is het beeld van betekenis veranderd. Het gebruikelijke 1000 gulden is vervangen met 1001 Nacht en De Nederlandsche Bank is veranderd in De Wereldliteratuurbank. Het biljet is getekend door president N. Mahfouz op 22 juli 1952, de dag van de Egyptische revolutie en bovendien Nassars geboortedag. Een opmerkelijk detail zijn de met goudverf aangebrachte lijnen in het gezicht van Spinoza. Deze lijnen, die lopen vanaf het profiel van de neus via de rechter wenkbrauw naar het rechteroog, vormen het woord Baruch in het Arabisch, Spinoza’s voornaam (achtereenvolgens de letters Ba, Alif, Ra en Kha). Op deze wijze plaatst Nassar een Nederlands symbool als het duizend gulden biljet in een nieuwe context. Spinoza was immers in zijn tijd ook een vreemdeling, namelijk een nazaat van Portugese Joden. Met een werk als dit stelt Nassar belangrijke vragen over nationale versus hybride identiteit en maakt hij een statement over de betrekkelijkheid van symboliek als een statisch referentiepunt van nationale identificatie. Een ander typerend voorbeeld is de symbolische verbeelding van twee leeuwen. Rechts zien wij de Ottomaanse leeuw, links de Nederlandse leeuw, gerepresenteerd in de vorm van de kaart van Nederland, wat in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw zeer gebruikelijk was. Opmerkelijk is dat de Nederlandse leeuw is weergegeven tegen een achtergrond van Delfts Blauwe tegeltjes (afb. 45). Toch gaat het hier niet om het traditionele Delftse aardewerk; de tegels bevatten afbeeldingen van een zelfportret van Rembrandt, de naam van Allah in het Arabisch, logo’s van Nederlandse bedrijven en zelfs een streepjescode. Hoge kunst, volkscultuur, commercie en kitsch geven gezamenlijk een ironisch beeld van het begrip ‘Nederlandse identiteit’.
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, acryl op hout, 1995 -object voor de tentoonstelling ‘Het land dat in mij woont’, Gate Foundation, Amsterdam, en het Museum voor Volkenkunde (nu Wereldmuseum), Rotterdam, 1995
Bovenstaande afbeeldingen: Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel,triptiek, olieverf op doek, 1995-2001
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel. Pastel op papier 2000. De slootjes vormen het woord ‘Allah’ in Arabisch schrift
Achnaton Nassar, zonder titel, dekbedovertrek, 1997. Het terugkerende ‘ornament’ tussen de molentjes vormt wederom het woord ‘Allah’ in Arabisch schrift, zij het in een meer kalligrafische vorm dan het voorgaande voorbeeld
De thematiek van Nassars figuratieve werk doet enigszins denken aan de serie Reconquista van Nour-Eddine Jarram (zie bijvoorbeeld hier). Toch gaat hij hierin veel verder en maakt hij meer gebruik van beelden uit de massacultuur. De essentie van zijn werk ligt in het feit hoe de een naar de ander kijkt en de ander weer naar de een. Het werk van Nassar getuigt van een snelle associatieve intelligentie, waardoor hij in staat is de meest bizarre verbanden te leggen. Hiermee legt hij bepaalde thema’s bloot, die zonder zijn werk verborgen zouden blijven. De ‘Oosterling’ kijkt naar de ‘Westerling’ volgens een bepaald mechanisme, maar Nassar heeft vooral dit thema in omgekeerde richting verwerkt: wat is de cultureel bepaalde blik van het ‘Westen’ naar de ‘Oriënt’? Met zijn beeldinterventies maakt hij grote associatieve sprongen door de geschiedenis en van de ‘hoge’ kunst naar de populaire cultuur. Hij ontmaskert hiermee een heel corpus van ideeën en vooroordelen, aangaande neokolonialisme en vals exotisme. Edward Said spreekt in dit verband van oriëntalisme, maar hier zal in hoofdstuk 4 nog uitgebreid op worden teruggekomen. (zie voor dat specifieke gedeelte uit mijn vierde hoofdstuk het andere fragment uit mijn scriptie dat op dit blog is gepubliceerd ‘Edward Said, Orientalism en de post-koloniale denkrichting’, hier te lezen).
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, gemengde technieken op papier, 1992
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder Titel, gemengde technieken op papier, 1998/99
Achnaton Nassar, Zonder titel, gemengde technieken op papier, 2000
Achnaton Nassar, zonder titel, collage, 2001
Nassars tekeningen zijn van een geheel andere aard. Eigenlijk vormen deze de ruggengraat van zijn omvangrijke oeuvre. De tekeningen zijn in regel abstract, vaak zowel geïnspireerd op de natuurlijke vormen die hij aantreft in het Amsterdamse bos, waar hij vlakbij woont, als op de kalligrafische traditie waarin hij oorspronkelijk is opgeleid (afb. 46). Opvallend is de enorme hoeveelheid technieken die hij voor deze tekeningen inzet. Zo werkt hij met houtskool, pen en inkt, acrylverf, krijt, gouache en pastel en maakt hij ook gebruik van collages. In zijn meest recente tekeningen is hij sterk met het thema ‘sluiers’ bezig (afb. 47). Over de organische structuren die soms de vorm aannemen van een soort minaret, hangt vaak een nevelige sluier, van een onbestemde materie. Het zou hier net zo goed om zijde kunnen gaan als om haar of spinrag. Met werken als deze laat Nassar zich van zijn meest poëtische kant zien.
Zonder titel, gemengde technieken op papier/collage, 1996
Achnaton Nassar, zonder titel, gemengde technieken op papier, 1998-1999
zie ook mijn catalogustekst van de tentoonstelling ‘Saskia en Hassan gaan trouwen; Achnaton Nassar, een kunstenaar uit twee culturen’, Univeriteitsbibliotheek Leiden, 2001
Qassim Alsaedy
Qassim Alsaedy (Bagdad, 1949) studeerde van 1969 tot 1974 aan de kunstacademie van Bagdad, waar hij werd opgeleid door Faik Hassan en Shakir Hassan Al Sa’aid. Hoewel hij in de jaren zeventig een goede reputatie had weten op te bouwen in Irak, heeft hij daar, vanaf het begin van de jaren tachtig, niet meer geëxposeerd in de officiële instellingen. Dit laatste is niet zo vreemd; door zijn onafhankelijke opstelling was Alsaedy al vaker in conflict gekomen met het Baathregime en moest hij een aantal keren in de politieke gevangenis zijn tijd doorbrengen, in dit geval ‘al-Qasr an-Nihayya’, het beruchte ‘Paleis van het Einde’. In de jaren tachtig sloot hij zich aan bij de Koerdische rebellen, waar hij overigens ook als kunstenaar actief was. Hij exposeerde daar zelfs in tenten, voor de guerrillastrijders en de gevluchte dorpelingen, tijdens de zogenaamde Anfal operaties, de beruchte campagnes met chemische wapens van Saddam Hoessein tegen de Koerden in Noord Irak in de jaren tachtig. Naar aanleiding van deze periode maakte hij een aantal zeer indrukwekkende werken. Alsaedy: ‘I joined the movement which was against the regime. I worked there also as an artist. I exhibited there and made an exhibition in a tent for all these people in the villages, but anyhow, the most amazing was the Iraqi regime uses a very special policy against Kurdistan, against this area and also against other places in Iraq. They burned and sacrificed the fields by using enormous bombings. So you see, and I saw it by myself, huge fields became totally black. The houses, trees, grass, everything was black. But look, when you see the burned grass, late in the season, you could see some little green points, because the life and the beauty is stronger than the bastards. The life was coming through. So you saw black, but there was some green coming up. For example I show you this painting which is extremely black, but it is to deep in my heart. Maybe you can see it hardly but when you look very sensitive you see some little traces of life. You see the life is still there. It shines trough the blackness. The life is coming back’.
Qassim Alsaedy, Black Field, olieverf op doek, 1999
Toen het hem eind jaren tachtig te moeilijk werd om zich in het Koerdische gebied te handhaven, besloot hij naar Libië te emigreren. In eerste instantie trok een bestaan in een asielzoekerscentrum in een West Europees land hem niet. Alsaedy: “I am an artist who still can work. I really believe that you have to fight for your last square meter to stand on. So Lybia was my only possibility. Maybe it was a kind of destiny”. In Libië werd Alsaedy docent aan de kunstacademie van Tripoli. Ook voerde hij een groot muurschilderingenproject uit. Tegen zijn eigen verwachting in kreeg hij toestemming voor zijn plannen. Zoals hij het mij vertelde: “I worked as a teacher on the academy of Tripoli, but the most interesting thing I did there was making many huge wallpaintings. The impossible happened when the citycounsel of Tripoli supported me to do something like that. I had always the dream how to make the city as beautiful as possible. I was thinking about Bagdad when I made it. My old dream was to do something like that in Bagdad, but it was always impossible to do that, because of the regime. I believe all the people in the world have the right on freedom, on water, on sun, on air, but also the right on beauty. They have the right on beauty in the world, or in their
Qassim Alsaedy, Remembrance, olieverf op doek, 1999
Qassim Alsaedy, Touches, olieverf op doek, 1998.
lives. So one of my aims was to make wallpaintings and I worked hard on it. They were abstract paintings, but I tried to give them something of the atmosphere of the city. It is an Arabic, Islamic city with Italian elements. I tried to make something new when I studied the Islamic architecture. I worked on them with my students and so something very unusual happened, especially for the girls, because in our society it is not very usual to see the girls painting on the street. It was a kind of a shock, but in a nice way. It brought something positive”. Alsaedy verbleef zeven jaar in Libië. Toch bleef zijn situatie daar erg onzeker. In 1994 vluchtte hij naar Nederland. Thematisch verwijst ook Qassim Alsaedy naar het oude Mesopotamië. Interessant is bij hem niet dat hij dit doet, maar hoe hij dit thema heeft verwerkt. Centraal staan voor hem de oude inscripties en sporen op muren, als tekens van menselijk leven en beschaving. Hierin doet hij enigszins denken aan zijn leermeester Shakir Hassan Al Sa’aid (zie voorbeeld), hoewel hun uitgangspunten heel verschillend zijn. Verwees Al Sa’aid vooral naar het Islamitische erfgoed, Alsaedy tracht met zijn werken een organische verbinding met het verleden
Qassim Alsaedy, Rythms in Blue, olieverf op doek, 1997
aan te gaan. Voor hem bestaat de relatie met het verleden uit een cyclisch proces, waarmee hij in permanente interactie staat. De oude Mesopotamische culturen waren immers gebouwd van klei. Deze klei is vergaan tot stof en verwaaid met de wind. Het is de stof die je inademt, of die in de rivier terecht komt, om weer opnieuw in klei te veranderen. Alsaedy: “It is on your clothes and in your breath, in your blood and in your memory”. Alsaedy is ook buitengewoon gefascineerd geraakt door de prehistorische rotsschilderingen van de oude Sahara culturen. Hij kwam hiermee in aanraking toen hij in Libië woonde. Hele generaties krasten daar hun ‘boodschappen’ op de rotsmuren, laag over laag. Alsaedy vergelijkt dit met zijn eigen werkproces. Ook hij ‘krast’ zijn abstracte tekens in de dikke olieverflagen van zijn schilderijen (afb. 67 en 68 ). Zijn tekenschrift is iets dat hij al van jongs af aan heeft meegekregen. Naast het feit dat hij veel tijd heeft doorgebracht tussen de ruïnes van Babylon, communiceerde hij op een soort ‘schriftelijke’ manier veel met zijn moeder. Zij was immers analfabeet, maar ontwikkelde een soort eigen ‘spijkerschrift’ om zich te uiten. Nu Alsaedy in ballingschap leeft zijn zijn doeken ook een soort boodschappen aan haar. Alsaedy in een kort statement over zijn werk: “Ik probeer boodschappen te schilderen aan mijn geliefde maar verwonde vaderland, de verloren vlinders uit mijn jeugd, aan mijn moeder die een slechte relatie heeft met het alfabet en aan Babylon dat ik zo verschrikkelijk mis”. Het afgebeelde Rythms in Blue uit 1997 (ab. 69) is hier een goed voorbeeld van. Van dichtbij bekeken is het werk een wirwar van krassen en tekens, met hier en daar een vage vlek. Bij een beschouwing van iets meer afstand wordt de structuur van het schilderij zichtbaar. Opvallend is de dominante piramidevorm, een verbeelding van de Dom van Utrecht. Alsaedy schilderde dit werk immers in zijn hoge flat in Bilthoven, van waar hij een panoramisch uitzicht heeft op Utrecht. Tegelijkertijd schijnen er andere vormen door de vele verflagen. Twee lichte vlekken suggereren twee koepels. Het zijn Alsaedy’s herinneringen aan Bagdad. Kijkend naar Utrecht en denkend aan Bagdad, dit gegeven heeft hij met dit abstracte werk tot uitdrukking gebracht.
Qassim Alsaedy, Rhythms in White, assemblage van dobbelstenen, 1999
Qassim Alsaedy, Rhythms, spijkers op hout, 1998
Op dit moment houdt Alsaedy zich bezig met een interessant tekeningenproject. Met pen en penseel brengt hij met inkt zijn tekeningen aan op doorschijnend papier. Door al deze papieren op elkaar te leggen ontstaat er weer een nieuw geheel van lagen van beelden, tekens, schaduwen en herinneringen. Op termijn hoopt hij deze reeks in boekvorm te kunnen uitgeven (zie hier inmiddels drie voorbeelden, of onderstaande afbeelding, FS 2009). Internationaal exposeerde Alsaedy in Syrië, Tunesië, de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten (de Sharjah Biënnales van 1997 en 2001), België, Duitsland, Frankrijk en Zweden. Qassim Alsaedy woont nog altijd in Bilthoven. Sinds twee jaar heeft hij zijn atelier in De Bilt. Binnen Nederland participeerde hij in de tentoonstelling Versluierde Taal in Rijswijk in 1999 en aan de groepsexpositie van Irakese kunstenaars in Den Haag in 2000. Daarnaast heeft hij een aantal keren geëxposeerd in Hilversum en Utrecht.
Tot zover de oorspronkelijke tekst uit mijn scriptie. Toen ik Qassim in 2000 leerde kennen was hij in Nederland nog nauwelijks bekend. Dat is inmiddels veranderd. Vanaf 2001/2002 begon zijn werk in de Utrechtse kunstwereld steeds meer op te vallen. Uiteindelijk kwam hij ook in het vizier van Frank Welckenhuysen, gerenommeerd kunstexpert en galerie-houder (hij is ook bekend van het televisieprogramma ‘Tussen kunst en kitsch’, waarin hij voornamelijk als expert van negentiende en twintigste eeuwse kunst optreedt). Inmiddels is Qassim een van zijn vaste kunstenaars en exposeert regelmatig in zijn galerie in het oude centrum van Utrecht (zie link). Vanuit die positie heeft Qassim zijn vleugels steeds verder uitgeslagen en exposeert hij in binnen en buitenland. In Nederland was zijn belangrijkste hoogtepunt tot nu toe een grote solo-expositie in het Flehite Museum in Amersfoort in 2006. Deze werd geopend door de nieuw aangetreden ambassadeur van Irak, ZE dhr. Siamand Banna (vanzelfsprekend de nieuwe vertegenwoordiger van het ‘post-Saddam’ Irak in Nederland). Qassim geldt nu als een van de bekendste Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederland en wordt in steeds meer publicaties gezien als een kwalitatief hoogstaande en zeer uitgesproken voorbeeld van een Nederlandse kunstenaar met een migranten achtergrond. Ook in internationaal verband valt zijn naam steeds vaker als een belangrijke representant van de Iraakse eigentijdse kunst. In die zin is er voor hem zelf een heleboel veranderd sinds ik hem leerde kennen en bovenstaande tekst schreef.
Enkele details uit Alsaedy’s tekeningenboekjes uit 2001 (zie hier voor meer)
Qassim Alsaedy, Saltwall, olieverf op doek, 2005
Qassim Alsaedy, uit de serie Faces of Baghdad, assemblage van metaal en lege patroonhulzen op paneel, 2005 (geëxposeerd op de Biënnale van Florence van 2005)
Qassim Alsaedy, uit ‘Last Summer in Baghdad’, assemblage van kleurpotloden op paneel, 2003
Qassim Alsaedy, Who said no?, installatie Flehite Museum Amersfoort, 2006
Qassim Alsaedy, Baghdad of pain & hope, installatie Flehite Museum Amersfoort, 2006
enkele impressies uit Qassims atelier (maart 2011)
Zie ook op dit blog mijn interview met Qassim Alsaedy, waar ook links zijn opgenomen naar andere sites en artikelen en ook televisie uitzendingen over deze kunstenaar. Ook is op dit blog een groot artikel opgenomen van Lien Heyting, oorspronkelijk verschenen in het Cultureel Supplement van NRC Handelsblad, aan de vooravond van de Amerikaanse aanval op Irak. Voor dit arkel interviewde zij Qassim, de Iraakse kunstenaar Nedim Kufi en mijzelf (nav een lezing een paar weken daarvoor). Over de geschiedenis van de moderne kunst van Irak en de Iraakse diaspora (waaronder ook aandacht voor Qassim), zie het artikel dat ik schreef voor het tijdschrift ‘Zemzem, over het Midden Oosten, Noord Afrika en Islam’, maar ook op dit blog verschenen.
Rachid Ben Ali
Een kunstenaar die plotseling is doorgebroken in de gevestigde Nederlandse kunstcircuits is de uit Marokko afkomstige schilder Rachid Ben Ali. Zo was hij te zien in het Groninger Museum en exposeerde hij in New York. In het najaar 2000 kocht het Stedelijk Museum twee doeken van hem, waarvan er een te zien was in het Stedelijk Paleis, de tentoonstelling die werd samengesteld door koningin Beatrix (2000-2001). In 2001 had hij een grote solo-expositie in het Wereldmuseum, te Rotterdam. Als kind onderging hij een ooroperatie die van beslissende betekenis was voor zijn verdere levensloop; Ben Ali werd immers doofstom geboren. In Nederland volgde hij kortstondig enkele opleidingen. Nadat hij voor een korte tijd studeerde aan de modeacademie van Antwerpen en de kunstacademie van Arnhem, vestigde hij zich als kunstenaar in Amsterdam.
Rachid Ben Ali, Zonder titel, gemengde technieken op doek, 2000
Ben Ali werkt in een stijl die het midden houdt tussen figuratie en abstractie, hoewel er een ontwikkeling valt waar te nemen dat zijn werken in de loop van zijn korte werkzame periode als kunstenaar steeds abstracter zijn geworden. Ben Ali begint aan een abstracte ondergrond.Hierin gaat hij zeer emotioneel te werk. Vaak smeert hij de verf letterlijk met zijn
Rachid Ben Ali, Zonder titel, gemengde technieken op doek, 1999
handen op het doek. Later brengt hij figuren aan. Ook maakt hij veel gebruik van teksten, zowel in het Nederlands, het Engels of het Arabisch (zie bijv. afb. 81, 82, 83 en 84). Volgens de kunstcriticus Wim van der Beek moeten deze teksten vooral worden begrepen als beeldelementen. Het zijn een soort ‘richtingaanwijzers’ in het totaalbeeld. Toch is het mij opgevallen dat hij vaak teksten gebruikt die hem direct raken. Ben Ali put hiervoor direct uit alles wat hij dagelijks tegenkomt en hem emotioneel raakt. Het gaat hier niet om de literaire waarde, het zijn elementen die versterken wat hij op dat moment te zeggen heeft. Zijn werk heeft namelijk een sterk narratief karakter; ieder werk heeft zijn eigen verhaal. Met zijn hevig geëmotioneerde werken, bestaande uit schilderijen, tekeningen en collages, wil Rachid Ben Ali de wereld doorgronden zoals hij die waarneemt. Zijn werk is altijd een reactie op zijn omgeving. Hierbij spelen zowel de eigen waarneming als de bijbehorende emoties en onderbewuste associaties een belangrijke rol. Dit gebeurt op een compromisloze wijze, zonder vals effectbejag of maniërisme. “In mijn werk kan ik niet liegen. Alleen als je volslagen eerlijk bent kun je deuren openen die anders gesloten blijven”. In eerste instantie speelde zijn homoseksualiteit een belangrijke rol in zijn werk. Zijn doeken werden vaak overheerst door figuren, waarvan de genitaliën zeer expliciet werden weergegeven. Een duidelijk voorbeeld hiervan is een werk uit 1999 (afb. 80). In de korte tijd daarna verbrede hij zijn thematiek en richtte hij zich meer op de actualiteit. Belangrijk is voor hem het persoonlijke verhaal.
Rachid Ben Ali, zonder titel, gemengde technieken op doek, 2001
Ben Ali’s werk gaat nooit over grote politieke thema’s, althans niet op een directe manier. Zijn interesse gaat meer uit naar het persoonlijke en het individuele. Toch komen de belangrijke politieke vragen van deze tijd vaak op een indirecte manier aan de orde. De dood van Palestijnse kinderen (afb. 83), een bewerkte foto van een illegale vluchteling, of de geboorte van een misvormd kind dat op zal groeien in een wereld zonder mogelijkheden om zich in het bestaan te redden, het zijn allemaal kwesties die veel te maken hebben met de wereld waarin wij nu leven. Rachid Ben Ali uit zijn engagement echter op een menselijke schaal en toont zijn betrokkenheid vooral met de menselijke gebeurtenissen van de geschiedenis.
Ben Ali’s Marokkaanse afkomst speelt wel degelijk een rol in zijn werk, zij het niet in formele zin. Het gaat hem niet om stilistische verwijzingen naar de Arabische cultuur. “Ik wil schilderen wat er in de hoofden van al die vaders zit. Het is onzinnig om alles wat uit Marokko komt te associëren met exotische kleuren. Ook daar is net zo veel zwart en wit te vinden in het innerlijk van de mensen als hier”. De ‘Vader’ is een belangrijk thema in het werk van Rachid Ben Ali. Het gaat hem hierbij niet om een specifiek persoon als wel om een universeel symbool, van de gedesoriënteerde migrant. Collages van oude landkaarten, waarover gezichten zijn geschilderd en bewerkt met glasverf, brengen dit gegeven tot uitdrukking (zie afb. 110). De landkaarten van lang geleden verwijzen naar een wereld die er niet meer is. De figuren op deze werken lijken soms op dolende zielen die, losgerukt van alles wat hen dierbaar is, in een onzekere realiteit wanhopig op zoek zijn hun eigen weg te vinden. De ‘Vader’ wiens grootste wens het is om terug te keren, bevindt zich, gebonden door de omstandigheden, in een onmogelijke positie. Het gegeven van ontworteling is echter slechts een gedeelte van zijn thematiek. Door een permanent proces van waarneming en introspectie vindt hij in zijn werk mogelijke antwoorden op de vraag wat zijn plaats is in het hier en nu. Bewust van zijn eigen achtergrond weet hij zich staande te houden in de chaos van het heden, waar hij vaak aanloopt tegen een omgeving van geestelijke leegheid of totale fragmentatie en verwarring.
Rachid Ben Ali, zonder titel, acryl op doek, 2001
“Het verleden is een land waaruit wij allen zijn geëmigreerd”, stelt Salman Rushdie in zijn essay Imaginary Homelands. Rachid Ben Ali visualiseert dit thema op een indringende manier. Hij toont ons dat wij eigenlijk allen migranten zijn in een snel veranderende wereld, waarin begrippen als plaats, herkomst en identiteit steeds meer inwisselbaar zijn geworden. Ontworteling versus identiteit, het zijn de twee polen waartussen Rachid Ben Ali zich beweegt. Een totale remigratie is een onmogelijkheid, een totale desoriëntatie evenmin. De weg hiertussen is een welhaast schizofrene zoektocht, maar het levert ook beelden op die van een grote zeggingskracht getuigen. Het werk van Ben Ali lijkt enigszins op dat van Jean Michel Basquiat, waar hij ook al een aantal keren mee is vergeleken. Ook hij was een migrant, die in het grote New York zichzelf moest zien te redden en deze strijd omzette in een zeer originele beeldtaal. Toch gaat deze vergelijking wat mij betreft niet geheel op. Het werk van Rachid Ben Ali is in psychologisch opzicht complexer en is thematisch in een veel sterkere mate meerduidig. Met zijn werken raakt hij een universele problematiek van ontwrichting. Tegelijkertijd zijn zijn voor velerlei uitleg vatbare doeken reflecties op de verschillende achtergronden van zijn culturele bagage en persoonlijke geschiedenis.
de bovenstaande drie tekeningen/collages maakte Rachid Ben Ali in het najaar 2001, direct na de aanslagen van 11 september
Rachid Ben Ali, Bloothed, installatie, het Domein, Sittard, 2002
Drie detailfoto’s van Ben Ali’s installatie Bloothed.
idem
Rachid Ben Ali, Zonder titel, acryl op doek, 2007 (bron)
Verder is er over Rachid Ben Ali veel terug te vinden op internet, vooral veel gediscussieer over het mogelijk controversiële karakter van zijn recentere werk. Wie verder wil lezen kan het beste gewoon zijn naam googlen. Dit artikel is zeker een goede introductie op zijn meer recente ontwikkelingen, waarin bovendien weer een heleboel links zijn opgenomen. Dat Ben Ali met zijn werk veel losmaakt (wat mij betreft alleen maar ten goede, zowel naar de Nederlandse kant als de Marokkaanse kant), blijkt wel uit de verschillende discussies op internet, zoals hier. Overigens heeft ook het werk van Achnaton Nassar een keer tot een (onterechte) controverse geleid, waarin ikzelf mij genoodzaakt voelde om ook mijn zegje te doen, dat weer leidde tot een aardige botsing met dhr. Klaas Wilting, de toenmalige woordvoerder van de politie Amsterdam/Amstelland. Een surrealistische discussie op de radio vond plaats tussen dhr. Wilting en Prof. Dr. P.S. van Koningsveld, hoogleraar islamologie aan de Universiteit Leiden, die het Wilting niet gemakkelijk maakte. Een weerslag deze kwestie is nog te vinden in dit artikel uit Trouw. Mijn eigen verslag van de gebeurtissen heb ik in mijn scriptie verwerkt. Dat fragment is hier te lezen
Over meer materiaal gelieerd aan mijn scriptie heb ik een keer een appart item gemaakt, met links naar andere artikelen, radio en televisie uitzendingen. Daar komen ook een paar andere markante kunstenaars aan bod (zoals Ziad Haider en Aras Kareem uit Irak en Nour Eddine Jarram uit Marokko). Zie daarvoor dit eerdere blogartikel.
Saddam Hoessein (uitvoering Khalid al-Rahal en Mohammed Ghani Hikmat), The Victory Arch, Bagdad, 1989.
Saddams triomfboog voor zijn ‘overwinning’ op Iran. Hoewel uitgevoerd door twee van Iraks prominentste beeldhouwers (die zich hiermee sterk hebben gecompromitteerd aan het regime van Saddam, zeker in de ogen van mijn gevluchte Iraakse vrienden) is het ontwerp van Saddam zelf. Hij maakte hier zelfs een schetsje voor en verraste hiermee iedereen met zijn artistieke ambities (zie afb. hieronder).
De kolossale armen in de uiteindelijke uitvoering zijn uitvergrotingen op reusachtige schaal van afgietsels van de armen van de dictator zelf. De vreemde ‘pindanetten’ die aan de handvatten van de zwaarden zijn bevestigd, bevatten elk duizenden echte Iraanse oorlogshelmen, meegenomen van het front, veelal voorzien van kogelgat, met de bloedspatten er nog op.
De boog werd overigens in duplicaat gebouwd. Beide bogen staan aan de uiteinden van een reusachtig paradeterrein, midden in Bagdad. ‘Neurenberg and Las Vegas melted into one’, zo omschreef de dissidente schrijver Kanan Makiya deze bizarre creatie, in buitenissigheid slechts te vergelijken met het paleis van Ceausescu in Boekarest of met de postzegel van Idi Amin, die een drol draait op de kaart van Europa. Zie verder het volgende youtube filmpje. Let vooral op de vele invaliden die als een verplicht nummertje onder de triomfboog (hoger dan de Arc de triomphe in Prijs) van de grote leider, ‘paraderen’. Dit alles voor een overwinning die nooit heeft plaatsgehad, de oorlog eindigde immers in een patstelling. Ik ken veel veteranen uit deze oorlog, maar deze was bij niemand populair. Dat maakt het allemaal nog grotesker. Te zien onder de volgende link:
de schets van Saddam, op de uitnodiging voor de officiële opening van het monument
Net zo onthullend is de documentaire ‘Uncle Saddam’, waarvan een fragment hieronder. Naast wederom de overwinningsboog ook een blik in zijn paleizen. Te bekijken onder deze link:
Over hoe het zover heeft kunnen komen, wat nu eigenlijk de ideologie van Saddam was en de Ba’thpartij (hoor je zelden iets over), welke positie Irak in nam in de Koude oorlog en hoe het zat met de steun van de CIA voor de Ba’thpartij, of de verhoudingen tussen Saddam en het westen altijd zo slecht zijn geweest, hoe het land Irak is ontstaan na de Eerste Wereldoorlog en welke (belangen)afwegingen daarbij een rol hebben gespeeld en hoe het nu precies zit met ‘oliebelangen’ (wel of geen motief voor inavsie), zie het door mij geschreven historisch overzicht, via link naar mijn blog buiten hyves:
De afbeeldingen van het monument zijn afkomstig uit Samir al-Khalil (pseudoniem van Kanan Makiya), ‘The Monument; art, vulgarity and responsibillity in Iraq’, Londen, 1991
Als er nog misverstanden bestaan over in welke ideologische hoek het Ba’thisme is te plaatsen, bekijk dan zeker deze onthullende Belgische neo-Nazi website. Met veel sympathie voor deze stroming weten ze het daar verrassend goed uit te leggen. Interessant om te zien hoe de betrekkelijk onbekende geestelijke vader van de Ba’th en Saddams ideologische leermeester, de Christelijke Syrier Michel Aflaq, in deze kringen als een held vereerd wordt:
Michel Aflaq (Damascus 1910-Parijs 1989), de in het westen betrekkelijk onbekende, maar zeker niet onbelangrijke stichter van de Pan Arabische Ba’thpartij (de Socialistische Leiderspartij van de Arabische Herrijzenis, oftewel al-Hizb al-Ba’th al-Wadah al-Arabi al-Ishtiraqiyyat, Arabic Ba’thist Socialist Leadersparty, ABSLP). In Irak werd hij onder Saddam als een belangrijk persoon geëerd, zie het in Italië geproduceerde monument voor de geestelijke vader van het Ba’thisme (afb. hieronder), door de eveneens in Italië wonende maar voor het het regime werkende kunstenaar Ali al-Jaberi (in de jaren tachtig, toen Saddams Irak nog ‘pro-westers’ was). Citaat: ‘“Nationalism is love before anything else. He who loves doesn’t ask for reasons. And if he were to ask, he would not find them. He who cannot love except for a clear reason, has already had this love wither away in himself and die”. Hoezeer Michel Aflaq was geïnspireerd door het Europese fascisme blijkt uit twee andere citaten: “The Leader, in times of weakness of the ‘Idea’ and its constriction, is not one to substitute numbers for the ‘Idea’, but to translate. numbers into the ‘Idea’; he is not the ingatherer but the unifier. In other words he is the master of the singular ‘Idea’, from which he separates and casts aside all those who contradict it”, en “In this struggle we retain our love for all. When we are cruel to others, we know that our cruelty is in order to bring them back to their true selves, of which they are ignorant. Their potential will, which has not been clarified yet, is with us, even when their swords are drawn against us” (‘Fi sabil al-Ba’th’, Damascus, 1941, bron: Kanan Makiya, ‘Republic of Fear’ University of California Press, 1989, p. 234)
Monument voor Michel Aflaq, door de in Italie wonende, maar regime-gezinde Iraakse kunstenaar Ali al-Jaberi, geplaatst in Bagdad
Saddam met speciaal gezant van de regering Reagan Donald Rumsfeld in 1983, ten tijde van de Irak Iran oorlog. Later beweerde Rumsfeld zich deze reis naar Bagdad niet meer te kunnen herinneren. Zie ook deze uitzending van Netwerk.
De leiders van de eerste republiek na de staatsgreep van 1958, die een einde aan de monarchie maakte. Rechts Generaal Abdul Karim Qasim (president 1958-1963) en links generaal Abdul Rahman Arif (president 1963-1966).
Koning Faisal I, het eerste staatshoofd van Irak, van 1920 tot 1933 (bekend uit Lawrence of Arabia)
De jonge Koning Faisal II (geb. 1935), de laatste koning van Irak, die in 1958 samen met de rest van de koninklijke familie standrechtelijk werd geëxecuteerd, tijdens de staatsgreep van het Iraakse leger.
Saddam (als vice-president) met Generaal Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr, de eerste Ba’th president van Irak (van 1968 tot 1979)
Levensloop Saddam Hoessein (al-Awya, 28 april 1937 – Bagdad, 30 december 2006), president van Irak van 1979 tot 2003
Detailkaart Shatt al-Arab (de samensmelting en monding van de Eufraat en de Tigris, bron: Google Earth) en grensgebied Iran en Koeweit. Duidelijk is te zien dat de vaargeulen van de Shatt al-Arab en Umm Qasr (door de overigens onbewoonde eilanden Warba en Bubiyyan toe te wijzen aan Koeweit) door de respectievelijk Iraanse en Koeweitse territoriale wateren lopen. Deze constructie was het bewuste resultaat van een Brits verdrag en de stichting van Koeweit in 1871, om de uitvoer naar de Perzische golf te controleren en de Osmaanse Mesopotamische provincies de pas af te snijden door de Shatt al-Arab klem te zetten tussen het nieuwe emiraat en het toenmalige Perzische Rijk. Later zou dit de belangrijkste reden voor Saddam (net als President Qasim en zijn poging tot annexatie van Koeweit in 1961) zijn om eerst Iran aan te vallen en daarna Koeweit, om Irak een vrije toegang tot de zee te verschaffen. De vrije afvoer van of de toegang tot olie is de belangrijkste rode draad uit de Iraakse geschiedenis, waar vele oorlogen om zijn gevoerd en talloze slachtoffers zijn gevallen.
Historisch overzicht Irak
1920- Val van het Osmaanse Rijk en stichting van de staat Irak onder Brits mandaat. Drie Osmaanse provincies, Mosul (overwegend Koerdisch, Turkomaans en Assyrisch), Bagdad (overwegend Arabisch Soennitisch) en Basra (Arabisch Shiietisch), worden nogal geforceerd bij elkaar gevoegd. Wel omvatten deze gebieden min of meer het historische Mesopotamië (het Arabische woord ‘iraq betekent rivierenland , of eigenlijk tussen oevers wat uiteindelijk op hetzelfde neerkomt als het Griekse meso-potamos, wat tussen rivieren betekent). Irak wordt een monarchie onder de Hashemitische koning Faisal I, de zoon van de Sharif van Mekka en een van de leiders van de Arabische strijd tegen de Turken, maar als koning in feite een zetbaas van de Britten. Hoewel de Britten en de Fransen de steun van de Arabieren min of meer hadden ‘gekocht’ met de belofte van zelfbeschikking voor na hun strijd tegen het Osmaanse Rijk tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog, wordt de Arabische wereld ‘verdeeld’ tussen Frankrijk en Engeland, middels het geheime Sykes/Picot akkoord uit 1916. Hierin wordt beklonken dat Syrië en Libanon naar Frankrijk gaan, terwijl Palestina, Trans-Jordanië en Irak onder Britse invloed komen te staan (de provincie Basra zou, volgens het oorspronkelijke plan, koloniaal bestuurd worden als bijvoorbeeld India, terwijl de rest van de mandaatgebieden onder sterke Britse invloedsfeer zou komen te staan). Voor de Iraqi’s is dit een hele vreemde ervaring. Bagdad bijvoorbeeld had van oudsher immers meer contacten met het Syrische Aleppo, dan met het Shiietische Basra en het Koerdische noorden. De gewone Iraqi’s in Bagdad, maar ook elders in het land, begrijpen hier dus helemaal niets van en komen meteen in opstand tegen de Britse hegemonie. In 1920 is er sprake van massale betogingen en gewapende acties tegen de Britse bezetters, in de zogenaamde ‘Eerste Intifadah’. Deze opstand wordt met veel geweld door de Engelsen onderdrukt, o.m. door terreurbombardementen uit de lucht en het inzetten van gifgas. Het is voor het eerst in de wereldgeschiedenis dat er gifgas wordt ingezet tegen een burgerbevolking. Een sterk supporter van deze nieuwe methodes is de pas aangetreden Britse minister van koloniën, Sir Winston Churchill.
Hoe de Britten dachten over het bestuur van Irak blijkt uit de memoires van Getrude Bell (1868-1926), de Britse gezant voor Arabische aangelegenheden (die zich overigens wel, voor zover mogelijk, heeft ingezet voor de werkelijke belangen van de Arabieren, samen met T.E. Lawrence, beter bekend als ‘Lawrence of Arabia’). Zij beschrijft een conversatie tussen drie niet bij naam genoemde Britse diplomaten, op de vredesconferentie van Cairo in 1921, als volgt: “This country will be badly governed”, “Why should it not be badly governed?”, “It ought to be badly governed”. Volgens de kritische Saddam-biograaf Said Aburish vormde deze schandelijk neerbuigende houding (Aburish spreekt zelfs van ‘this criminal attitude’) het begin van een historische kettingreactie die de grote tragedies van het Irak van de twintigste eeuw heeft mogelijk gemaakt, tot en met de Ba’thdictatuur van Saddam Hoessein. Desalniettemin was koning Faisal I (aan de macht gekomen door de grote inzet van Getrude Bell en T.E. Lawrence), itt. zijn twee opvolgers, zeker geen onbekwame leider. Hij had uiteindelijk het beste voor met het Iraakse volk (de kroon accepteerde hij zelfs met tegenzin, zeker omdat hij geen geboren Iraqi was, maar hij vond dat hij uiteindelijk zijn verantwoordelijkheid moest nemen, om nog iets te kunnen betekenen), maar hij had alleen, achteraf gezien, te weinig manoeuvreerruimte voor een eigen politieke koers. Wat hij wel voor elkaar heeft gekregen is dat Irak een sterk leger ontwikkelde, omdat hij oprecht vond dat Irak zichzelf zou moeten kunnen verdedigen, nu het zo’n speelbal was geworden van allerlei buitenlandse belangen. Naderhand beschouwd heeft dit leger voor vele grote rampen gezorgd, maar dat kon de in 1933 overleden Faisal op dat moment natuurlijk niet weten.
1932-‘Officiele onafhankelijkheid’ van Irak en toetreding tot de Volkenbond. Ondanks de nationalistische maar vrijblijvende retoriek van de in 1933 aangetreden half analfabete, zeer impulsieve en daardoor volstrekt onbekwame koning Ghazi, blijft Irak door ‘vriendschapsverdragen’ sterk aan de Britse belangen gebonden. Zo kan het geen zelfstandige buitenlandse politiek voeren, bezetten de Britten een aantal cruciale legerbases en blijft de olie-industrie in Britse handen, middels de Iraqi Petrolium Company, waarin het Britse Shell het meerderheidsaandeel bezit. Van een werkelijke onafhankelijkheid is dus geen sprake.
1936- In samenspraak met koning Ghazi pleegt de nationalistische generaal Bakr Sidqi een staatsgreep. Doel is om de Britten te verdrijven. Hikmet Suleiman wordt de premier van de nieuwe nationalistische regering. In 1937 wordt Bakr Sidqi echter vermoord door pro-Britse krachten in het Irakese leger en wordt Hikmet Suleiman afgezet.
Omstreeks 1937- 1939 Geboorte van Saddam Hoessein in het bedoeienen gehucht Al Awya (awya(t) betekent in het Arabisch ‘kronkelig’ of ‘niet recht door zee’, maar al-awya kan als plaatsnaam zeker vertaald worden als boevengehucht, ‘Crooktown’ volgens Said Aburish), vlakbij de stad Tikrit. Hoewel Soennitisch, vertegenwoordigt Saddam, vanwege zijn afkomst uit de Abdu Nassir clan (geconcentreerd rond Tikrit en Ramadi), de absolute onderklasse van de toen nog sterk tribale en aristocratische Irakese samenleving, in die dagen gedomineerd door een aantal vooraanstaande Soennitische families.Over zijn exacte geboortejaar bestaat onzekerheid, omdat er in die tijd geen ordentelijke burgerlijke stand bestond voor deze ‘achtergebleven’ tribale gehuchten. Waarschijnlijk is de latere dictator van Irak in 1939 geboren, al heeft hij zelf zijn geboortejaar veranderd in 1937. Dit, omdat hij getrouwd was met zijn waarschijnlijk oudere nicht Sayyida Tulfah al-Tikriti (zijn eerste vrouw en moeder van o.m Uday en Qusay), geboren in 1938, en volgens de locale tribale tradities zou het immers buitengewoon vernederend zijn om met een oudere vrouw in het huwelijk te stappen. Saddam heeft later overigens zijn achternaam laten veranderen in ‘al-Tikriti’. Zijn oorspronkelijke en volledige naam: ‘Saddam (Ystidam, Sadmah of as-Siddam in het standaard-Arabisch. Saddam is locaal dialect uit de omgeving van Tikrit) Husayn al-Majid al-Awyat’ betekent letterlijk (naar mijn eigen vertaling, maar met wat hulp van anderen): ‘Hij die verplettert (of ‘de verpulveraar’), zoon van Hoessein al-Majid uit Boevenoord’, een weinig flatteuze en ietwat ‘Don Corleone-achtige’ naam voor een president, al typeert het de persoon wel.
1939- Koning Ghazi overlijdt bij een auto-ongeluk. Deze doodsoorzaak is nog altijd omstreden. Volgens verschillende anti-koloniale Iraakse krachten (de latere Ba’thi’s, de nationalisten en de communisten) zat de Britse geheime dienst hierachter, vanwege zijn toegenomen populistische nationalisme, waardoor Ghazi een grote populariteit genoot bij de bevolking (zie de affaire Bakr Sidqi). Ghazi wordt opgevolgd door de minderjarige koning Faisal II. De zeer impopulaire maar uitgesproken pro-Britse prins Abd al-Ilah wordt als regent aangesteld.
1941- Pro-Nazistische staatsgreep van generaal Rashid Ali Al Kailani, en de ‘Gouden vierhoek’, zoals de nazistisch georiënteerde officieren zichzelf omschrijven. Hun belangrijkste steunpilaar is de voor de Britten naar Bagdad uitgeweken Groot-moefti van Jeruzalem Haj Amin al-Husayni, die warme persoonlijke relaties onderhield met Hitler en verschillende Nazi kopstukken als Hermann Goerring en Baldur von Shirach. De monarchie wordt afgeschaft, maar in hetzelfde jaar door de Britten weer hersteld, middels een groot militair offensief. Luchtsteun van Nazi Duitsland blijft uit, waardoor Rashid Ali zonder al te veel moeite verdreven wordt. De Britten bezetten het land. Een klein, maar niet onbelangrijk detail is dat een van de betrokken militairen, Khairallah Tulfah, die ondanks zijn eenvoudige komaf het had gebracht tot onderofficier, na vijf jaar gevangenisstraf oneervol wordt ontslagen uit het leger. Hij wordt onderwijzer in Tikrit en schrijft het nazistisch geïnspireerde pamflet: ‘De drie dingen die door God nooit geschapen hadden mogen worden; Perzen, Joden en vliegen’. Deze marginale randfiguur was de oom, voogd en latere schoonvader van Saddam Hoessein en wellicht de meest vormende persoon uit de jeugd van de latere dictator.
Ook na de Tweede Wereldoorlog wordt de Britse bezetting min of meer in stand gehouden. De coup van de Gouden Vierhoek is echter een belangrijke inspiratiebron voor de oprichting van de Ba’thpartij in Syrië in 1947 (Ba’th betekent in het Arabisch herrijzenis of Renaissance). Belangrijkste ideoloog is de Syrische christen Michel Aflaq (1910-1989). Aflaq, die in de jaren dertig aan de Sorbonne Universiteit in Parijs studeerde, raakte zeer onder de indruk van Adolf Hitler en Benito Mussolini (zo liet hij zichzelf weleens ‘Il Duce’ noemen), waarop hij zijn latere ideeën baseerde, die hij uiteenzette in Fi Sabil al-Ba’th, Damascus, 1941, het ‘oergeschrift’ van het Ba’thisme. Hierin omschreef hij de kern van zijn ideologie onder meer als volgt: “Nationalism is love before anything else. He who loves doesn’t ask for reasons. And if he were to ask, he would not find them. He who cannot love except for a clear reason, has already had this love wither away in himself and die”. Hoezeer Michel Aflaq was geïnspireerd door het Europese fascisme blijkt uit twee andere citaten: “The Leader, in times of weakness of the ‘Idea’ and its constriction, is not one to substitute numbers for the ‘Idea’, but to translate. numbers into the ‘Idea’; he is not the ingatherer but the unifier. In other words he is the master of the singular ‘Idea’, from which he separates and casts aside all those who contradict it”, en “In this struggle we retain our love for all. When we are cruel to others, we know that our cruelty is in order to bring them back to their true selves, of which they are ignorant. Their potential will, which has not been clarified yet, is with us, even when their swords are drawn against us”. Hoewel er zelfs nu nauwelijks aandacht is besteed, in ieder geval de Nederlandstalige media, aan de ideologische wortels van de Ba’thpartij, laat staan aan een weliswaar intellectuele maar obscurantistische denker als Michel Aflaq (behalve in een recente uitvoerige publicatie van de Vlaamse VRT journalist Jef Lambrecht, De zwarte wieg; Irak, nazi’s en neoconservatieven, uit 2003), blijkt uit vrijwel alle toespraken van Saddam Hoessein hoezeer hij door zijn ideologische leermeester beïnvloed was. “It was Mr. Aflaq who created the party, not I”, zei hij bijvoorbeeld in een van zijn laatste speeches, vlak voor zijn val op 9 april 2003. Veel Iraakse ballingen spreken immers niet voor niets van de ‘Aflaqite Republic’ wanneer zij de ‘Saddamistische staat’ bedoelen. Verder spreken de vele in Bagdad opgerichte groteske monumenten ter ere van Michel Aflaq voor zich.
1948 en 1952- In 1948 wordt in het Engelse Portsmouth door de Iraakse regering, in de persoon van premier Nuri al Sa’id (de machtigste Iraakse politicus onder de monarchie), een overeenkomst met de Britten gesloten over de olie-industrie. Feitelijk komt het er op neer dat de Britse belangen veilig worden gesteld (en natuurlijk de belangen van de toenmalige heersende elite van Irak). Een grote meerderheid van de Iraakse bevolking accepteert dit niet en komt in opstand, in de zogenaamde al-Wathbah Intifadah. Deze opstand wordt bloedig neergeslagen. Wanneer in 1952 deze overeenkomst wordt verlengd volgt er een nog veel grotere Intifadah (voor de Iraqi’s bekend als De Intifadah). Een jaar lang ligt het hele land plat door algemene stakingen, met name in de olie-industrie en de spoorwegen. De drijvende kracht achter de onlusten is de Irakese Communistische Partij (ICP), die een sterke machtsbasis heeft in het olierijke Shiietische zuiden, vooral in Basra, de tweede stad van Irak. Hoewel officieel verboden (zo werd de oprichter Fahd in 1948 door de Britse geheime dienst vermoord) was deze in 1934 opgerichte partij, ooit de oudste en meest invloedrijke Marxistische beweging van het hele Midden-Oosten. Ook had de ICP een grote aanhang onder de toen nog talrijke Irakese joden, die echter na 1948 en na de latere Ba’threvolutie van 1968 grotendeels naar Israël zijn gevlucht (de van oorsprong Irakese Israëlische filmmaker Samir heeft een indrukwekkende documentaire gemaakt over de vergeten geschiedenis van de Iraakse Joodse communisten, Forget Baghdad, een van de winnaars van het IDFA 2002, Amsterdam).
1953- Koning Faisal II bestijgt op achttienjarige leeftijd de Irakese troon. Hoewel hij weinig de kans heeft gehad tot zijn zonder meer tragische dood in de revolutie van 1958, blijkt dat hij zich niet weet te ontpoppen tot een goede en verstandige leider van Irak (wat zijn grootvader Faisal I zeker wel was, ondanks de door de Britten opgelegde beperkingen). De machtigste personen van Irak blijven de door het volk gehate prins Abd al-Ilah, de ‘meesterintrigant’ Nuri al-Sa’id en op de achtergrond natuurlijk de Britten.
1955- Premier Nuri al-Sa’id sluit het zogenaamde ‘Bagdadpact’ met Turkije en Pakistan, onder auspiciën van de Britten en met sterke steun van de VS. Doel is om de invloed van de Sovjet Unie in het Midden Oosten tegen te gaan. De ‘Pan-Arabische’ nationalistische Egyptische president, Gamal Abd an-Nasser (die een sterke steun genoot van de Sovjet Unie), begint een agitatiecampagne tegen het Bagdadpact. Het Iraakse leger en verschillende oppositiekrachten, zowel de ‘rechtse nationalisten’ (waaronder de marginale maar militante Pan-Arabische Ba’thpartij’ van de Syriërs Michel Aflaq, Salah Eddine al-Bitar en Sati Husri), als de ‘linkse’ Irakese Communistische Partij, kunnen zich goed vinden in de retoriek van Nasser.
Zij zagen hun eigen regeringsleiders als stromannen van de westerse belangen en vijandig tegenover het ideaal van de ‘Pan-Arabische eenheid’, al dan niet volgens socialistisch model (daarover waren de meningen zeer verdeeld). Voorts wil de Irakese oppositie, zowel ‘links’ als ‘rechts’, een eventuele interventie als de coup van 1953 in buurland Iran vermijden. De eerste democratisch gekozen premier van Iran, de liberaal nationalistische Dr. Mohammed Musaddiq, wilde in 1951de olie-industrie nationaliseren, maar werd door een CIA gesteunde staatsgreep in 1953 afgezet. De Shah kon vanuit zijn ballingschap in Londen terugkeren, om zijn autoritaire, antidemocratische, maar pro-westerse bewind weer te herstellen.
1958- De Iraakse onafhankelijkheidsrevolutie die leidt tot de invoering van de Republiek Irak. Het leger grijpt de macht, middels de groep van de ‘Vrije officieren’, naar voorbeeld van Nasser, die onder de noemer ‘Vrije officieren’ koning Farouk in 1952 van de troon stootte en de Britse invloed eveneens wist uit te bannen. Koning Faisal II, de voormalige regent prins Abd al-Ilah en de pro-Britse premier Nuri al-Sa’id worden op een gruwelijke wijze vermoord. Praktisch de hele koninklijke familie wordt uitgeroeid, op een paar in het buitenland wonende telgen na. De prins en Londense bankier Sharif Ali Bin al-Hoessein, nu actief in het overkoepelende oppositieorgaan INC en aanvoerder van de Irakese ‘Constitutional Monarchy Party’, is bijvoorbeeld een van de weinige overlevenden. De Britten worden verdreven en raken hierdoor Irak voor goed kwijt. Onder leiding van brigadegeneraal Abdul Karim Qasim wordt er een militaire junta geïnstalleerd die sterk op de Sovjet Unie is gericht. Irak treedt uit het Bagdadpact, waardoor dit pact betekenisloos wordt en daarna wordt opgeheven. De toen nog machtige maar clandestiene Irakese Communistische Partij krijgt beperkte politieke vrijheden. De olie-industrie wordt genationaliseerd. Hierdoor bloeit de economie van Irak op. De belangrijkste doelstelling van president Qasim is om Irak te moderniseren, een programma dat hij met keiharde hand uitvoert. Politieke tegenstanders van het regime worden vervolgd, gemarteld en geëxecuteerd. Uit Qasims regeringsperiode dateren ook de eerste gewapende acties tegen de Koerdische separatisten van Mullah Mustafa Barzani. De Irakese intellectuele elite begint, vanwege de toegenomen repressie, geleidelijk aan het land te verlaten. President Qasim is de belangrijkste initiatiefnemer tot de oprichting van de OPEC, iets wat door de westerse mogendheden met lede ogen wordt aangezien. Hoewel Qasim een harde dictator was is hij achteraf gezien wellicht het meest populaire staatshoofd van Irak geweest gedurende de twintigste eeuw.
Verder doet Qasim in 1961 een poging om het Emiraat Koeweit op te eisen, toen net onafhankelijk geworden van Engeland. Koeweit was ooit door de Britten als een aparte entiteit gevestigd (al in 1871), om het toen nog Osmaanse Irak de toegang tot de Perzische Golf te belemmeren (de monding van Eufraat en de Tigris, de Shatt al-Arab, werd immers gedeeld met Iran, in 1871 nog het Perzische Keizerrijk van de Kadjaren (niet te verwarren met de latere Pahlavi’s, van de laatste Shah. Na het ontstaan van de moderne staat Irak is over de Shatt al-Arab een voortdurende strijd gevoerd, tussen het ‘revolutionaire Perzië’ van de Pahlavi’s en de achtereenvolgende regimes in Bagdad). Door de Britse politiek, inzake Koeweit, werd voorkomen dat het olierijke gebied van Irak, ook als hier in de toekomst een nationale staat zou ontstaan, een regionale economische ‘supermacht’ zou worden, vanwege de olie-export. Hoewel, kijkend naar de kaart ( zie bovenstaande afb.) Irak een vrije toegang tot de Perzische golf lijkt te hebben, behoren alle territoriale wateren en vaargeulen aan Koeweit of Iran (de cruciale eilanden, Warba en Bubiyyan, vlak voor de kust van de Irakese havenstad Umm Qasr, zijn toentertijd welbewust toebedeeld aan Koeweit). Qasim doet een poging om deze blokkade op te heffen maar faalt. De vestiging van een grote Britse troepenmacht in Koeweit (later vervangen door troepen van de Arabische Liga) laten de Irakese president van zijn claim afzien.
1959- Mislukte moordaanslag op president Qasim. Een van de plegers is de jonge Saddam Hoessein, op dat moment een huurmoordenaar in dienst van de toen nog steeds marginale, maar radicaal nationalistische en vooral zeer anticommunistische Ba’th militie. Hij vlucht achtereenvolgens naar Syrië en Egypte. In deze tijd wordt hij ‘ontdekt’ door de ideologische leider van de Ba’th Michel Aflaq (waarvan hij het een en ander krijgt aan politieke scholing), wat het begin is van zijn weg naar de top van de Pan-Arabische Ba’thbeweging. In Cairo leggen Irakese Ba’thi’s contact met de CIA. De Amerikanen staan hier welwillend tegenover, omdat zij vrezen voor de vorming van een communistische staat in het olierijke hart van het Midden-Oosten. Saddam Hoessein is in die tijd een graag geziene gast op de Amerikaanse ambassade van Cairo.
1963- Staatsgreep van de Irakese tak van de Ba’thpartij (‘Arabic Ba’thist Socialist Leadersparty’, ABSLP, die toen nog niet meer dan driehonderd leden kende), met behulp van de CIA. President Qasim wordt geëxecuteerd. Met name de communisten worden massaal afgeslacht. In Bagdad worden er vele politieke moorden gepleegd zoals nog nooit tevoren in Irak gezien was, niet in de laatste plaats opgedragen door Saddam Hoessein, toen leider van de Nationale Garde (Haras al-Qawmi), de paramilitaire tak van de Ba’thpartij. Het vroegere koninklijke paleis wordt ingericht als gevangenis. In dit zogenaamde ‘al-Qasr an-Nihayyah’ (het ‘Paleis van het Einde’) sterven vele Iraki’s de marteldood. De terreur van de rechts-radicale Ba’thi’s is echter zo extreem dat het leger, waarin vooral ‘conservatieve’ krachten een rol spelen en dus tegenstander van het radicalisme van de Ba’thpartij, hetzelfde jaar ingrijpt en hen de macht ontzegt. De nieuwe president van Irak wordt de ‘Nasseristische’ generaal Abd Al-Rahman Arif. Prominente Ba’thi’s, zoals Saddam Hoessein, worden gevangen gezet. Arif begint voorzichtige democratische politieke hervormingen. De modernisering van Irak, begonnen onder Qasim, wordt met harde hand voortgezet. In 1966 komt Abd Al-Rahman Arif om bij een helikopterongeluk en wordt opgevolgd door zijn broer Abd as-Salam Arif. Hij ontslaat de liberale premier Abdul Al Bazzaz, waardoor er een einde komt aan het geleidelijke democratiseringsproces.
1967-Nederlaag tegen Israël. Overal in de Arabische wereld laaien hevige gevoelens van frustratie en nationalisme op. Irak maakt hierop geen uitzondering. Onder druk van de publieke opinie laat president Arif vele radicale Arabische nationalisten vrij, waaronder kaderleden van de Ba’thpartij.
1968- De tweede Ba’th-coup, de zogenaamde ‘Bloedeloze Revolutie’, of ‘Glorieuze 17 juli Revolutie’, wederom met steun van de CIA (de contactman tussen de Ba’thi’s en de Amerikanen was een zekere Lloyd Anderson, gevierd CIA agent). Zonder al te veel geweld veroveren de Ba’thi’s het presidentiele paleis en wordt Abd as-Salam Arif op een vliegtuig naar het buitenland gezet. Generaal Ahmed Hasan Al Bakr wordt de eerste Ba’th president van Irak. Saddam Hoessein wordt vice-president van de ‘Revolutionaire Commando Raad’ van de Ba’thpartij, maar al snel ook vice-president van het land. Saddams eerste politieke daad in deze functie is de publieke ophanging van dertig Irakese joden in 1969, op grond van vermeende spionage voor Israël. Overigens laten de Ba’thi’s, direct na de coup, hun pro-Amerikaanse koers varen en oriënteren ze zich op de Sovjet Unie. De communisten krijgen een regeringspost aangeboden in het zogenaamde ‘Progressief Nationaal Front’, samen met de Marxistische ‘Popular Union of Kurdistan’ (de Koerdische Volksunie, oftewel PUK). Een aanzienlijk deel van de Communistische Partij weigert echter om met de Ba’th samen te werken. Zij gaan ondergronds en plegen in de loop van de jaren zeventig veel aanslagen op Ba’thistische doelen (voornamelijk de volgelingen van de in 1970 geëxecuteerde dissidente communist Aziz al Hajj, die onder ballingen in Nederland nog steeds een grote aanhang heeft). De coalitie met de ‘pro-Russische’ factie van de communistische partij levert Irak een goede relatie met de Sovjet Unie op, hoewel er in die tijd ook hechte banden zijn met Frankrijk (zo leverde Frankrijk de Mirage vliegtuigen, essentieel voor de Irakese luchtmacht en verschafte het de onderdelen voor de Irakese kerncentrale van Osirak, in 1981 door Israël gebombardeerd). De toenmalige Franse premier Jacques Chirac omschreef in de jaren zeventig Saddam Hoessein overigens als en ‘Arabische de Gaulle’. Dit ingewikkelde gegoochel met koude oorlogsmachten kan voor een buitenstaander vreemd overkomen, maar begrepen moet worden dat Irak in die tijd, samen met Indonesië en India, de voorzitter was van de zogenaamde ‘Unie van Ongebonden Landen’ (gezien in de context van de koude oorlog). Bovendien bestaat er in de Irakese politieke traditie de gewoonte om gelegenheidscoalities te sluiten. Zo sloten bijvoorbeeld de twee belangrijkste Koerdische partijen, de PUK en de KDP, bij tijd en wijle een pact met de Ba’thpartij, om de concurrent dwars te zitten. Verder waren verschillende mogendheden natuurlijk buitengewoon gretig naar goede betrekkingen met Irak vanwege de grote oliereserves, iets wat in de hele geschiedenis van Irak in de twintigste eeuw altijd een belangrijke rol heeft gespeeld.
De vice-president Saddam Hoessein krijgt in de loop van de jaren zeventig echter steeds meer macht, ten koste van president Hasan Al Bakr. Met name de veiligheidsdiensten staan volledig onder zijn controle, zoals de ‘Mukhabarat’, de beruchte Irakese geheime dienst (vooral opgeleid door de Russische KGB, de Oost-Duitse Stasi en de Roemeense Securitate). Het ‘Paleis van het Einde’ wordt weer in ere hersteld. Overigens begint Saddam in deze tijd al aan zijn gewoonte om binnen een veiligheidsdienst weer een nieuwe op te bouwen, om de bestaande organisatie te controleren. Zo wordt er binnen de Mukhabarat de ‘Amm al-Khass’ opgericht, om naar verloop van tijd weer gecontroleerd te worden door de ‘Amm al-Amm’. De tijdens de afgelopen Irakoorlog veelbesproken ‘Fedayyeen Saddam’ is hier in feite het laatste uitvloeisel van. Uiteindelijk worden de ICP en de PUK uit het Progressief Front gezet. Op last van Saddam Hoessein worden de communisten massaal vervolgd, zelfs tot in het buitenland, waarbij vele kopstukken van de vroegere ICP worden geliquideerd (bijv. in een beruchte moordaanslag in een Londens ziekenhuis). Ook wordt de top van de radicaal Shiietische islamitische ‘Dawa-partij’ (de ‘moeder aller Hizbollahs’) volledig uitgeroeid. De leider van de Dawa, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr as-Sadr, de oom van de geestelijk leider Muqtada as-Sadr, die tegenwoordig veel van zich doet spreken, wordt vermoord middels het inslaan van een spijker in zijn schedel. Vele Shiieten worden de grens over gezet naar Iran, vanwege hun gebrekkige ‘loyaliteit’ aan de ‘Arabische zaak’. Het zouden immers geen ‘pure Arabieren’ zijn, maar ‘Perzische verraders’. Aangetekend moet worden dat de meeste Iraakse Shiieten volstrekt seculier zijn, tot op de dag van vandaag, althans dat persoonlijke religieuze overtuigingen niet politiek gebruikt mogen worden (de overgrote meerderheid van de Irakese Shiietische clerus deelt deze mening. De in 1991 overleden en waarschijnlijk door Saddam vermoorde Groot Ayatollah Abdel Kassem Al Khoey van Najaf, voorganger van de huidige Groot Ayatollah Ali Seyyed Sistani, stond immers bekend als een zeer verlicht en liberaal denker). Zo hadden de communisten bijvoorbeeld de grootste aanhang onder de Shiietische bevolkingsgroep. Irak verandert in de jaren zeventig echter in een politiestaat, waarin niets anders meer getolereerd wordt dan de ideologie van de Ba’th. Dictatoriaal bestuurde buurlanden, zoals het Saoedi-Arabië van het Wahabitische koningshuis, het Iran van de Shah en het Syrië van president Hafez al-Assad (waar N.B. de Ba’thpartij ook aan de macht is), vallen hierbij in het niet. Kanan Makiya, Iraks belangrijkste dissidente schrijver, heeft al in de jaren tachtig overtuigend aangetoond, in zijn indrukwekkende relaas Republic of Fear (vooralsnog het grote standaardwerk over het Irak van de Ba’thpartij), dat de Irakese Ba’thistische staat veel meer overeenkomsten had met het Duitsland van Adolf Hitler en de Sovjet Unie van Josef Stalin dan met een doorsnee ‘derdewereld dictatuur’.
Wel maakt Irak in de loop van de jaren zeventig een grote economische bloei door en geldt het als een van de meest ontwikkelde landen van de regio. Verschillende ontwikkelingsprogramma’s zijn buitengewoon succesvol, vooral het grootschalige onderwijsproject. In 1977 ontvangt Saddam Hoessein zelfs een onderscheiding van de UNESCO (de zogenaamde ‘Kropeska Award’) voor zijn strijd tegen het analfabetisme, met name met dat van vrouwen. Er moet echter worden aangetekend dat dit een feitelijke voortzetting is van het beleid van de presidenten Qasim en de gebroeders Arif (de politiek van modernisering middels de ‘ijzeren vuist’).
1971-1975 Conflict met Iran en de Koerden. De pro-westerse Iraanse Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, ziet zijn kans schoon en eist van het door de vele revoluties verzwakte Irak de strategische waterweg naar de Perzische Golf op, de Shatt Al Arab, de gedeelde grens met Iran. Voorheen werd deze strategische uitvoerroute van olie min of meer gedeeld. Tegelijkertijd beginnen de Koerden in het noorden, met steun van de Shah en de Verenigde Staten, een guerrillaoorlog tegen het onderdrukkende Ba’thbewind in Bagdad (hoewel de CIA uitgebreide steun had geleverd aan de machtsgreep van de Ba’th waren zij op dat moment weer een beetje uitgekeken op deze beweging, vanwege de steeds betere betrekkingen met de Russen). De Iraakse regering slaagt er niet in om zonder meer de strijd te winnen van de KDP (Koerdistan Democratische Partij, dus niet ‘Koerdische’ omdat er ook veel christelijke groeperingen bij betrokken zijn) van Mullah Mustafa Barzani en zijn ‘Peshmerga’s’ (de Koerdische partizanen). Uiteindelijk weet vice-president Saddam Hoessein een compromis met de Shah te sluiten. Dit wordt beklonken in het ‘Verdrag van Algiers’ in 1975. De rechten over de Shatt al-Arab gaan naar Iran, terwijl Iran en Amerika de Koerdische opstand laten vallen. Vertegenwoordiger van Amerika is Henry Kissinger, de toenmalige minister van Buitenlandse Zaken. De Koerden noemen het Verdrag van Algiers nog altijd het ‘Eerste Verraad van Amerika’. Grote delen van de Koerdische bevolking worden gedwongen hun dorpen te verlaten en naar kampen in Zuid Irak gedeporteerd, in de beruchte ‘herhuisvesting programma’s’. Dit ter bevordering van de ‘Revolutionaire Arabiserings-campagne’ van het noorden, waarbij vele Arabische Soennieten (waaronder vooral veel Ba’th loyalisten) op grote schaal gedwongen worden te verhuizen naar overwegend Koerdische steden, als Mosul en Kirkuk.
1979- Saddam Hoessein wordt president van Irak. Ahmed Hasan Al Bakr wordt, vanwege zijn ‘zwakke gezondheid’, rigoureus met pensioen gestuurd. Er volgt een zuivering binnen de top van de Ba’thpartij, waarbij zo’n driehonderd prominente partijleden het leven laten. De ‘Pan-Arabische’ en ‘linkse’ krachten binnen de Ba’thpartij worden volledig geëlimineerd. Op het voor deze gelegenheid speciaal bijeengeroepen partijcongres, spreekt Saddam Hoessein de historische woorden: “Wij hebben geen Stalinistische methodes nodig om ons van verraders te ontdoen; wij hebben onze eigen Ba’thmethodes”. Videobeelden van dit congres worden, naast uitgezonden op de Irakese staatstelevisie, naar de verschillende Ba’thorganisaties in Arabische landen gestuurd (Syrië, Jordanië, Libanon en Egypte), zodat er geen twijfel meer kan bestaan wie nu de leider van de beweging is. Saddam eist van de zijn getrouwe partijleden dat ze persoonlijk de executies uitvoeren, zodat zij zich geheel aan hem binden en dus medeschuldig zijn. Onder hen bevinden zich o.m. Saddams halfbroers Barazan, Watban en Sabawi, zijn neef en broer van zijn vrouw Adnan Khairallah Tulfah (op last van Saddam in 1989 uiteindelijk vermoord), zijn achterneef Ali Hassan al-Majid (‘Ali Chemicali’), Taha Yassin Ramadan, Izzat Ibrahim al-Dhoury, Mohammed Said as-Sahaf (de laatste Iraakse minister van Informatie) en Tariq Aziz. Rond Saddam Hoessein ontstaat er een persoonlijkheidscultus die in de tweede helft van de twintigste eeuw slechts haar equivalenten kent in het China van Mao Zedong, het Noord Korea van Kim Il Sung en het Roemenië van Nicolae Ceaucescu.
1980-1988 Irak/Iran oorlog, de eerste golfoorlog. Irak valt Iran binnen. Saddam Hoessein grijpt zijn kans om van het door de Islamitische Revolutie verzwakte Iran de rechten over de Shatt Al Arab weer op te eisen (die Irak was kwijtgeraakt door het verdrag van Algiers in 1975). Voorts wil hij de etnisch Arabische en olierijke provincie Khuzestan ‘bevrijden’ (‘Arabistan’, volgens de Ba’th retoriek). De nieuwe Iraanse ‘islamistische’ revolutionaire leider, de Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, roept echter een Heilige Oorlog uit tegen het ‘Goddeloze Socialistische Ba’thregime in Bagdad’, waardoor hij de oorlog onnodig lang heeft gerekt. Als legitimatie van zijn kant roept hij op tot de ‘bevrijding’ van de onderdrukte Shiietische bevolking van Zuid-Irak. Aanvankelijk voert Saddam Hoessein zelf het opperbevel over de strijdkrachten uit. Toch blijkt hij zijn strategische gaven sterk te overschatten. Uiteindelijk is Iran steeds meer aan de winnende hand en dwingt een aantal Irakese generaals Saddam om de strategische beslissingen aan hen over te laten, om nog te redden wat er te redden valt. Saddam geeft hier noodgedwongen aan gehoor, hoewel na de oorlog al deze generaals om het leven worden gebracht. Een van de grote helden uit dit conflict is generaal Maher Abdul al-Rashid geweest. Hij dwong Saddam, met getrokken revolver, om het opperbevel naast zich neer te leggen, en de leiding aan hem over te dragen. Dankzij hem hebben zich er minder grote excessen afgespeeld tijdens deze oorlog dan Saddam wellicht van plan was. Generaal al-Rashid is na de oorlog echter vermoord door de Mukhabarat. Zijn positie is in veel opzichten vergelijkbaar met die van Maarschalk Zjoekov van het Rode Leger onder Stalin tijdens WO II, die aanvankelijk ten koste van Stalin het opperbevel voerde, maar later eveneens werd weggezuiverd.
Overigens waren de meeste van deze generaals afkomstig uit de traditionele officierenklasse van de Irakese samenleving, die ook in de tijd van het Osmaanse Rijk de bestuurlijke elite van Irak vormden (onder de Sultan kwam het ambtelijke apparaat traditioneel uit deze in regel ‘conservatieve’ aristocratische klasse voort). Hoewel Soennitisch Arabisch, had deze maatschappelijke bovenlaag het weinig op met de ‘riool-elite’ (deze term is ontleend aan de Britse historicus Allan Bullock, uit zijn beroemde dubbelbiografie van Hitler en Stalin, maar zeker ook toepasbaar voor het Irak van die tijd) van de Ba’thpartij en de kliek rond Saddam Hoessein, vooral afkomstig uit de ‘achtergebleven’ gebieden van Tikrit, Fallujah, Baquba en Ramadi, in het gebied van de nu veelbesproken ‘Soennitische driehoek’. Er bestond dus nogal een verschil tussen het reguliere leger en gewapende partij activisten, als de ‘Republikeinse Garde,’ de ‘Speciale Republikeinse Garde’ en de latere ‘Fedayyeen Saddam’ (de vergelijking met bijvoorbeeld de aan de Nazi partij gebonden Waffen SS enerzijds en de reguliere Wehrmacht anderzijds gaat in dit geval zeker op).
Irak wordt , vanwege de steeds groter wordende verliezen, uitgebreid gesteund door Amerika. De VS willen wraak nemen op Iran na de dramatisch verlopen gijzelingsactie van de Amerikaanse ambassade in Teheran, tijdens de islamitische revolutie. Naast het verstrekken van satellietfoto’s van de Iraanse stellingen, ontvangt Irak preparaten voor biologische wapens (bijv. anthrax, hoewel zeventig procent van de basismaterialen van de chemische wapens, zoals de gifgassen tabun en sarin, afkomstig waren uit Duitsland en zelfs voor een klein deel uit Nederland, geleverd door handelaar in chemicaliën Frans van Anraath, maar onder verantwoordelijkheid de toenmalige staatssecretaris van buitenlandse handel Frits Bolkestein, die in 1983 namens het kabinet Lubbers I een lucratieve handelsdeal sloot met het Iraakse Ba’th regime), met goedkeuring van de Amerikaanse regering, in een tijd dat Irak al chemische wapens had ingezet op Iraanse troepen (overigens op expliciet bevel van Saddam Hoessein; de Irakese legertop was hier immers uitgesproken tegen). De speciale gezant van de regering Reagan voor Saddam Hoessein is Donald Rumsfeld, de huidige Amerikaanse minister van defensie. De Irak/Iran oorlog kost een miljoen slachtoffers aan beide kanten. Uiteindelijk leidt deze oorlog slechts tot een patstelling, zonder dat een van beide partijen iets heeft bereikt.
Wel roept Saddam na afloop de overwinning uit. Hij laat hiervoor zelfs een kolossaal monument oprichten, de zogenaamde Victory Arch, het monument van de gekruiste zwaarden, uitgevoerd door twee van Iraks beroemdste beeldhouwers (Khalid al-Rahal en Mohammed Ghani Hikmet), maar ontworpen door Saddam Hoessein zelf. Een veelzeggend detail is dat er in dit ‘kunstwerk’ echte helmen zijn verwerkt van gesneuvelde Iraanse soldaten, meegenomen van het front en allen voorzien van een kogelgat.
1988- Het jaar van de ‘Anfal operaties’, de genocide campagne op de Koerden. Saddam Hoessein neemt wraak op de Koerden op ongekende schaal, omdat zij zich de afgelopen jaren grotendeels achter Iran hadden opgesteld. Door de Koerden van Noord Irak wordt de ‘Anfal’ (oorspronkelijk een Soera uit de Koran, door de Ba’thi’s als codenaam gebruikt voor deze genocide) gezien als de ‘Holocaust’ op het Koerdische volk. 180.000 Koerden komen om, de meerderheid door massa-executies, maar een groot gedeelte ook door gifgasaanvallen, waarvan de getroffen stad Halabdja het meest berucht is geworden, omdat dit uitgebreid is geregistreerd door de internationale pers. Dit geschiedde overigens met gas dat uit Duitsland afkomstig was. Hoe belangrijk Halabdja en de minder bekende vergaste stad Goeptapa (waar geen beelden van bestaan, maar slechts enkele getuigenverklaringen) en vele dorpen die ook een gifgasaanval over zich heen hebben gehad ook geweest zijn, blijft de kern van de Anfal toch de massale liquidatie van hele Koerdische gemeenschappen, die de dood vonden in massagraven in het zuiden van Irak. Nadat de inwoners van complete dorpen werden geconcentreerd in militaire forten langs de Iraanse grens (zoals in het beruchte Fort Koratoe, dat als ‘doorgangskamp’ functioneerde), werden deze vervolgens naar de zuidelijke woestijn afgevoerd, vlakbij de Saoedische grens, waar zij de dood vonden in massagraven, met name in de afgelegen woestijngebieden van de provincie al-Muthanna, waar overigens nu Nederlandse militairen zijn gestationeerd. Vreemd genoeg horen wij hier niets over in de Nederlandse media, terwijl juist hier Saddams grootste massagraven liggen. Getuigen zijn er namelijk genoeg. Saoedische grensbewoners hebben inmiddels vele verklaringen afgelegd over het geknal van deze massa-executies. Ook is een Irakese Bedoeienen familie (Arabisch dus) erin geslaagd om een nog levend Koerdisch slachtoffer uit een massagraf te halen, bij wie hij kon onderduiken. Het betrof de toenmalige twaalf jaar oude Koerdische jongen ‘Taimoer’ (pseudoniem), nu een van de belangrijkste getuigen in de kwestie ‘Anfal’.
Saddam Hoessein benoemt zijn achterneef, ‘Generaal’ Ali Hassan al-Majid (‘Ali Chemicali’, vandaar deze bijnaam, overigens oorspronkelijk slechts een locale politieagent uit Tikrit) tot gouverneur van Koerdistan, om deze volkerenmoord te voltrekken. Een grote tragedie is dat vele Koerden zelf hebben meegewerkt aan deze genocide. Zij vormen de beruchte ‘Djash milities’, loyaal aan de Ba’th, en assisteren in de massamoord op hun eigen volksgenoten (‘Djash’ betekent ‘ezelsveulen’ in het Koerdisch). In het Amerikaanse congres gaan veel stemmen op om Irak, na ‘Halabdja’ (de totale impact van de Anfal was toen nog in het Westen onbekend), te boycotten. Bush senior spreekt echter zijn presidentiele veto uit. Irak is immers een begunstigde handelspartner. Verder schrijft in 1989 het Army War College in Washington een ‘analyse’, waarin getracht wordt aan te tonen dat de vergassing van Halabdja het werk van Iran was.
1990-1991 De Koeweitcrisis en de tweede golfoorlog. Irak valt Koeweit binnen. Hoofdreden van deze invasie is de Irakese beschuldiging aan Koeweit dat het de olieprijzen zou devalueren, tegen de OPEC afspraken in. Verder zit Irak met een enorme schuldenlast na de desastreuze oorlog met Iran. Ook speelt de oude claim op Koeweit een rol, althans voor de legitimatie van deze inval (zoals die van president Qasim uit 1961, maar ook al eerder door de Hashemitische koningen, om de eilanden Warba en Bubiyyan, die de Irakese kust blokkeren, inzake de vrije afvoer van olie. Saddam stelt Ali Hassan al-Majid aan als gouverneur van Koeweit. Onder zijn leiding wordt het steenrijke oliestaatje binnen een half jaar volkomen leeggeplunderd. Honderden Koeweiti’s worden vermoord. Hoewel Amerika willens en wetens het verhaal de wereld in stuurt dat de Irakezen op grote schaal couveuse baby’s zouden hebben vermoord (dit verhaal bleek achteraf een propagandistische leugen), verklaart een niet onbelangrijke ooggetuige (de Koeweitse mensenrechtenactivist en verzetsstrijder Khalid Nasir as-Sabah, een lid van de koninklijke familie, maar die zich altijd heeft verzet tegen de dictatuur van zijn eigen verwanten en meermalen is opgekomen voor de rechten van bijvoorbeeld de zwaar gediscrimineerde Palestijnse minderheid in zijn land)dat Koeweit binnen de kortste keren was veranderd in een soort bizarre kruising van een ‘slachthuis en een schijthuis’. Internationaal onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat de helft van de Koeweitse bevolking nog steeds lijdt aan ernstige psychologische aandoeningen, veroorzaakt door de trauma’s van de invasie van 1990.
Hoewel het Ba’thbewind voor die tijd de mensenrechten niet minder schond, is de wereld opeens te klein om Saddam Hoessein scherp te veroordelen. President Bush en de Britse premier Margaret Thatscher staan aan de voorste linies. Onder leiding van Amerika wordt er een mondiale coalitie gevormd ter ‘bevrijding van Koeweit’, hoewel Koeweit voor die tijd zuchtte onder de dictatuur van de Emirdynastie as-Sabah. Saillant is bijvoorbeeld dat de Koeweitse vrouwenbeweging na de golfoorlog hoopvol steun zocht bij de Amerikaanse regering. Zij kregen echter nul op het rekest, omdat de Koeweitse vrouwen simpelweg niet meer interessant waren.
Met een groot militair offensief verdrijft Amerika Irak weer uit Koeweit. Hoewel Saddam Hoessein de overwinning uitroept in de ‘Umm al-Marik’ (de ‘Moeder aller Veldslagen’), wordt binnen twee maanden het Iraakse leger verpletterend verslagen. Ondanks de suggestie van generaal Norman Schwarzkopf op zijn beroemde persconferenties dat het om een ‘schone oorlog’ gaat, is de gehele infrastructuur van Irak kapotgebombardeerd (ziekenhuizen, elektriciteitscentrales, bruggen over de grote rivieren en waterzuiveringsinstallaties), met rampzalige gevolgen voor de bevolking. Verder is er door de Amerikanen, willens en wetens, verarmd uranium gebruikt. Naast dat vele Amerikaanse golfoorlogveteranen hier nog grote problemen van ondervinden (het zogenaamde ‘golfoorlogsyndroom’), worden er tot op de dag van vandaag in de regio van Basra opvallend veel zwaar gehandicapte kinderen geboren.
Ook vindt er, na de militaire nederlaag, de zogenaamde ‘Grote Intifadah’ plaats. Deze begint in Basra, op initiatief van het Irakese leger, dat halsoverkop Koeweit is ontvlucht. Het startsein van deze Intifada wordt gegeven door de legendarische tankcommandant Abu Haidar, die zijn mannen de opdracht geeft om het grote portret van Saddam op het centrale Sa’ad plein in Basra aan puin te schieten. Abu Haidar is waarschijnlijk gevallen tijdens de Intifadah. Het Iraakse volk komt massaal in opstand tegen het gehate Ba’thbewind van Saddam Hoessein, aangemoedigd door George Bush sr: “But there is another way to stop the bloodshed. The Iraqi military forces and the civilians have now the chance to get rid of their brutal dictator and force him to step aside. This is the day of the Iraqi people”. De Iraakse bevolking van vooral het noorden en het zuiden, maar zelfs ook in Bagdad, geeft gehoor aan deze oproep, in de veronderstelling dat de Amerikaanse troepen steun zullen bieden. Vijftien van de achttien provincies vallen in handen van de rebellen. Op het laatste moment besluit Amerika echter om zich buiten het conflict te houden. De regering in Bagdad slaat de Intifadah in het zuiden neer, wederom onder leiding van Ali Hassan al-Majid, en onder toeziend oog van de Amerikaanse troepen, die geen vinger uitsteken om de wanhopige bevolking te hulp te schieten. Cruciaal in de onderdrukking van de Intifadah is dat Norman Schwarzkopf de Iraakse autoriteiten toestemming geeft gevechtshelikopters in te zetten. Hiermee geeft hij de helpende hand aan Saddam om zijn eigen burgerbevolking af te slachten. Tienduizenden Iraakse burgers (volgens sommige schattingen zelfs meer dan honderdduizend) worden vermoord. De rottende lijken blijven willens en wetens in de straten liggen van de grote Shiietische steden als Karbala, Najaf, Hilla, Babylon, Amara, Diwanniyyah, Sammawah, Nassiriyah en Basra, als afschrikkingseffect. Een gruwelijk detail is dat de Iraakse staatstelevisie na afloop video-opnames uitzendt, waarop te zien is hoe Ali Hassan al-Majid in Basra persoonlijk gevangenen martelt en executeert (zo laat hij hen een glas benzine leegdrinken om vervolgens een explosieve kogel af te vuren, waardoor zijn gevangenen levend in brand vliegen en hun lichamen exploderen). Dit ter waarschuwing aan de hele Iraakse bevolking.
Een groot aantal Shiieten slaat op de vlucht en wordt door de Amerikanen naar Saoedie Arabië afgevoerd. Daar worden zij overgedragen aan de Saoedische autoriteiten die hen in gevangenenkampen in de woestijn opsluit (de kampen Rafha en ath-Thawira), onder een gruwelijk regime. Marteling, dwangarbeid, willekeur en hongersnood zijn aan de orde van de dag. Vrouwen worden regelmatig als prostituees verkocht en de Saoedische kampbewakers zien er geen probleem in om voor flessen whisky gevangenen te verkopen aan de Iraakse Mukhabarat. Jarenlang verblijven zij daar, vergeten door de rest van de wereld (voor de VS had deze groep geen prioriteit meer, terwijl zij, samen met de Saoedische regering, als enige op de hoogte waren van het bestaan van deze kampen, alsmede van wat zich daar werkelijk afspeelde). Uiteindelijk weet een van deze ‘gevangenen’ in 1995 te ontsnappen en via het kantoor van BBC World in Riyadh de VN in te schakelen en worden deze 60.000 ‘vluchtelinggevangenen’ bevrijd door de UNHCR en toegewezen aan verschillende westerse landen, hoewel er tot tenminste 2001 nog altijd mensen in deze kampen werden vastgehouden die daar als slaven werden behandeld. Een aantal van deze vluchtelingen verblijft tegenwoordig in Nederland. Overigens is, sinds een paar jaar, een aantal veteranen van Rafha en ath-Thawira, die verspreid over de hele wereld wonen, bezig met het voorbereiden van een internationale aanklacht tegen, naast natuurlijk de kopstukken van de Ba’thpartij, de regeringsfunctionarissen van zowel Saoedie Arabië als de Verenigde Staten die verantwoordelijk waren voor deze politiek.
Ook de Koerden in het noorden worden tijdens de opstand in de steek gelaten. Er volgt een exodus van twee miljoen Koerden uit de grote steden. Beelden van naar de bergen gevluchte uitgehongerde Koerden aan de Turkse grens gaan de hele wereld over en wekken vooral een mondiaal afgrijzen op. In dit verband wordt er door de Koerden vaak gesproken van het ‘Tweede Verraad van Amerika’ (het ‘Eerste Verraad’ vond plaats in 1975, na het verdrag van Algiers). Wel slagen de Koerden erin om overvolle vrachtwagens, gevuld met documenten uit de kantoren van de Ba’thpartij en de Mukhabarat van Koerdische steden als Mosul, Kirkuk, Irbil, Suleimanya, Zakho en Dohuk, naar het buitenland te smokkelen, waardoor voor het eerst het ‘bureaucratische bewijs’ aan de wereld wordt getoond dat de Anfal als centraal georganiseerde genocide campagne wel degelijk heeft plaatsgevonden (achttien ton gewicht aan papier volgens Human Right Watch). In het westen bestonden er nog altijd twijfels, afgezien van ‘Halabdja’ (waar televisiebeelden van bestaan), hoewel met name in Amerika vaak is gesuggereerd dat dit het werk van Iran was, zie het rapport van het Army War College uit 1989. Nadat Irak Koeweit was binnengevallen zijn de twijfelachtige argumenten van dit rapport overigens klakkeloos overgenomen door linkse oorlogstegenstanders als Edward Said (hoewel hij hier later op is teruggekomen en zijn spijt heeft betuigd), Ramsey Clarke en zelfs zeer recent door oud CIA man Stephen Pelletiere (in voorjaar 2003 en zelfs verschenen op de opiniepagina van de NRC). Ook de propagandamachine van de Ba’thpartij heeft zich, ironisch genoeg, vaak bediend van deze ‘Amerikaanse argumenten’, hoewel ‘Ali Chemicali’ zelf op band heeft toegegeven dat er wel ‘iets’ is gebeurd. “180.000 is een leugen, het zijn er hooguit 100.000 geweest”, riep ‘Saddams bloedhond’ Ali Hassan al-Majid zeer geagiteerd, maar gelukkig wel geregistreerd, aan een onderzoekscommissie van de VN. Nog een andere op band geregistreerde uitspraak van Ali Chemicali uit 1987, binnen de Revolutionaire Commando Raad die onder strikte controle van Saddam Hoessein staat, is: “We pakken die Koerden met gifgas. De hele wereld zal wel protest voeren maar dat kan ons niets schelen”.
Human Right Watch houdt nog altijd vast aan het cijfer 180.000 vermoorde Koerden , wat ook is vastgesteld door de Koerdische oppositie partijen, de PUK en de KDP, gebaseerd op lijsten van verdwenen personen. Recente opgravingen van massagraven lijken dit aantal bevestigen. De belastende documenten zijn door het Iraq Research and Documentation Project van de Harvard Universiteit, dat onder leiding staat van Kanan Makiya, voor een belangrijk deel op internet gezet, waardoor er eigenlijk geen discussie meer mogelijk is over deze kwestie. De Anfal heeft gewoon plaatsgevonden, hoezeer zowel ‘links’ als ‘rechts’ hebben getracht om dit historische drama te ontkennen, ten behoeve van de eigen politieke agenda.
1991-2003 Irak is getroffen door sancties van de VN. Hoewel de bevolking er sterk onder te lijden heeft, blijft het regime stevig in het zadel zitten. Het profiteert zelfs van de sancties, vanwege de hoge inkomsten uit de oliesmokkel (gecoördineerd door Saddams oudste zoon Uday), terwijl de bevolking verhongert, en daardoor te verzwakt is om een nieuwe opstand te beginnen. In Irak voltrekt zich een humanitaire ramp. Volgens UNICEF en de VN functionarissen die verantwoordelijk waren voor het ‘Oil for Food Programm’ (achtereenvolgens de Ier Dennis Halliday, de vroegere plaatsvervangend secretaris generaal van de VN, en de Duitse topdiplomaat Hans von Sponeck), sterven er een miljoen kinderen aan de directe gevolgen van het embargo. Tot 1998 worden er wapeninspecties gehouden, totdat de wapeninspecteurs het land worden uitgezet. Of Irak na die tijd nog massavernietigingswapens bezit of heeft kunnen verkrijgen, is onder de voormalige inspecteurs een omstreden kwestie.
In de loop van de jaren negentig pleegt Saddam Hoessein nog een daad van genocide. Deze keer betreft het de zogenaamde ‘moeras-Arabieren’. Dit volk leeft al millennia lang in de moerasdelta van de Eufraat en de Tigris (tot voor kort een internationaal beschermd natuurgebied), met behoud van eigen tradities, taal en cultuur, en wordt door veel taalkundigen, archeologen en historici zelfs gezien als een laatste restant van de oude Mesopotamische culturen. Naast de Islam kent deze bevolkingsgroep nog altijd pre-islamitische en zelfs pre-christelijke religies, zoals de ‘Manday’ (de volgelingen van Johannes de Doper, met een geheel eigen Heilig Boek, opgesteld in het oud-Aramees) en aanhangers van de oud-Perzische Zoroaster-cultus. Saddam besluit de moerassen droog te leggen en hele dorpen uit te moorden, of te deporteren. In dit geval is er sprake van een humanitair drama, maar ook van een unieke ecologische en culturele ramp.
In ballingschap verenigen een aantal Irakese oppositiepartijen zich in het Iraqi National Congress (INC) dat onder leiding staat van de in Engeland en Amerika opgegroeide wiskundige en bankier Ahmed Chelaby. Deze organisatie wordt in 1993 opgericht in Salahuddin (Koerdistan), maar heeft haar hoofdkwartier eerst in Wenen, later in Londen. Belangrijkste tegenhanger wordt in de loop van de jaren negentig het zogenaamde Al Wifaq Al Watani (Iraqi National Accord, INA) van Ayad Allawi, dat vooral uit ex-generaals, Arabische nationalisten en afvallige Ba’thi’s bestaat. Beide groepen worden om beurten door Amerika gesteund. Het INA tracht in 1996, met behulp van de CIA , zelfs een staatsgreep te plegen. Het complot wordt echter voortijdig ontdekt door Saddams Mukhabarat en alle agenten van INA binnen Irak worden om het leven gebracht. Een andere belangrijke oppositiekracht is de ‘Supreme Councel for Islamic Revolution in Iraq’ (SCIRI) van de recent vermoorde Ayatollah Sayyid Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim, die tot voor kort in Iran zetelde. Deze groepering beschikt ook over een eigen legermacht, de zogenaamde Badr Brigade, die herhaaldelijk de grens oversteekt om aanvallen te plegen op Ba’thistische doelen. De eens zo invloedrijke Irakese Communistische Partij blijkt in de jaren negentig nauwelijks meer een factor van betekenis te zijn, al heeft deze, bijvoorbeeld onder ballingen in Nederland, een opvallend grote aanhang, vooral onder kunstenaars.
In Koerdistan krijgt een smalle strook zelfbestuur, geregeerd door de ‘nationalistische’ KDP (westelijke gedeelte) van Massoud Barzani (de zoon van Mullah Mustafa Barzani) en de ‘Marxistische’ PUK (oostelijke gedeelte) van Jalal Talabani, onafhankelijk van het regime in Bagdad, hoewel zij tot 1994 afwisselend om hulp hebben gevraagd aan Saddam Hoesseins Republikeinse Garde om de tegenpartij uit te schakelen. Tot 1996 is er zelfs sprake van een Koerdische burgeroorlog. Andere partijen in dit conflict zijn de oude pro-Ba’thistische Djash milities, de Shiietische ‘Faili-Koerden’, die een kleine minderheid vormen en de Soennitische islamistische Koerdische IMIK (Koerdische Islamitische Eenheidsbeweging), waarvan de radicale afsplitsing al-Ansar al-Islam van Mullah Krekar het meest bekend is geworden. Na die tijd heeft Koerdistan zich echter kunnen ontwikkelen tot een min of meer functionerende democratische staat, met een betrekkelijke economische groei, ondanks de sancties. Aangetekend moet worden dat het vooral om een ‘zwarte economie’ gaat, omdat ook Koerdistan onder het embargo valt.
2003 – De derde golfoorlog. Binnen drie weken is er afgerekend met het Ba’thregime. Hoofdoorzaak van deze snelle overwinning is dat de meerderheid van de Iraakse soldaten niet wilde vechten voor het zichzelf gediskwalificeerde regime van Saddam Hoessein. Net voor de eerste aanval was al eenderde van het reguliere leger gedeserteerd, maar tijdens de oorlog moeten het er veel meer geweest zijn, ondanks het buitensporige geweld van de Amerikanen. Het verzet dat gepleegd gedurende de oorlogsweken werd was voornamelijk het werk van partijgebonden organisaties als de Republikeinse Garde, de Mukhabarat en de Fedayyeen, als van buitenlandse Arabische vrijwilligers. De meeste Iraqi’s lieten de coalitietroepen passeren en wachtten gelaten af. Van een absolutistische dictatuur is Irak veranderd in een totale anarchie. Aanvankelijk bestond er een grote euforie onder de overgrote meerderheid van de bevolking, maar men weet nog steeds niet wat men van de nieuwe overheersers moet vinden. De eerste tekenen zijn ongunstig. Veel Iraakse ballingen die weer hun land hebben bezocht, maar ook westerse hulpverleners, wijzen bijvoorbeeld op de strenge censuur van de nieuwe Iraakse pers door de Amerikanen. Van de beloofde nieuwe vrijheid komt, voorlopig althans, weinig terecht. Massavernietigingswapens zijn er niet gevonden, maar des te meer massagraven. Voor het eerst zijn een aantal graven van de Anfal geopend (de grootste nog niet). Organisaties als Amnesty International en Human Right Watch zijn, samen met vele Iraake vrijwilligers, bezig om de menselijke schade van vijfendertig jaar Ba’thoverheersing op te nemen. Irak blijft voorlopig bezet door de Amerikanen, met de onduidelijke toezegging dat het land op termijn weer haar autonomie zal verkrijgen. Wel is er een Regeringsraad aangesteld die verrassend representatief is. Zo zijn bijvoorbeeld de communisten en de Shiietische islamisten vertegenwoordigd, niet bepaald de natuurlijke bondgenoten van Amerika. Aangetekend moet worden dat dit niet op het conto van Paul Bremer kan worden geschreven, maar dat dit dankzij de inzet van de inmiddels vermoorde VN gezant Sergio Vieira de Mello tot stand is gekomen. Eerder ondanks de Amerikanen dan dankzij de Amerikanen. De Regeringsraad heeft overigens weinig bevoegdheden, hoewel er een trend is waar te nemen zij steeds meer een onafhankelijke koers tracht te varen en haar macht probeert uit te breiden, ten koste van de Amerikaanse bezettingsautoriteit. Een goed voorbeeld is een conflict tussen de Raad en Paul Bremer over de bombardementen van Israël op Syrië, najaar 2003. De Regeringsraad veroordeelde deze bombardementen unaniem, terwijl Amerika achter Israël bleef staan. Paul Bremer (wellicht na instructies uit Washington)bestond het zelfs om de inmiddels alom geprezen voorlopige minister van Buitenlandse Zaken van Irak, Hoshyar Zebari (in de Raad vertegenwoordiger van de Koerdische KDP, maar die er verder in zijn eentje voor heeft gezorgd dat de top van de Arabische Liga de voorlopige regering van Irak erkent, wat gezien mag worden als een uitzonderlijk grote diplomatieke prestatie) op het matje te roepen. Zebari heeft echter namens de hele Raad voet bij stuk gehouden. Ironisch gezien heeft deze kwestie het gezag van de verder zo verdeelde Regeringsraad versterkt en is het respect voor deze Raad, zowel bij de Iraake bevolking als bij de niet onbelangrijke Arabische Liga, aanzienlijk toegenomen. Verder zegt dit conflict veel over de Amerikaanse neoconservatieve illusies dat een ‘democratisch Irak’ plotseling ‘pro-Israël’ zou worden.
Hoewel Bremer verder de naam heeft van iemand die in regel veel overlegt en goed luistert naar zijn Irakese adviseurs (al bestaat er onder de Iraqi’s ook zeer zware kritiek), dreigen de Amerikaanse autoriteiten de goodwill te verliezen van zelfs de meest welwillende en pro-democratische Iraakse krachten (zelfs van degenen die positief tegenover de oorlog stonden, omdat zij simpelweg van de Ba’th bevrijd wilden worden). Hoewel dit aspect vrijwel geen aandacht krijgt in de westerse pers, kan mijns inziens dit probleem niet genoeg onderschat worden. De oorzaak hiervan is dat het onduidelijk is hoeveel werkelijke macht Paul Bremer eigenlijk heeft. Volgens de mij bekende tijdelijk teruggekeerde Iraakse ballingen ligt de feitelijke macht vooral in handen van consultants en Amerikaanse bedrijven, die de herverkiezing van George W. Bush financieren, zoals Halliburton, Bechtel, Vinell en de Carlyle Group. Een mij bevriende Iraakse journalist, Ismael Zayer, nu hoofdredacteur van ‘as-Sabah’ (‘de Morgen’), een van de eerste ‘vrije kranten’ van Irak, maar met enige ondersteuning van de Amerikanen, werd het zelfs door Amerikaanse functionarissen verboden om computers aan te schaffen voor zijn redactie, waardoor het werk van een kritische en onafhankelijke krant willens en wetens werd gesaboteerd. Uiteindelijk heeft hij twintig computers uit eigen zak clandestien aangeschaft op de zwarte markt in Bagdad, om toch zijn werk te kunnen doen. Mijn verdere bronnen vertellen mij dat er in feite een grote uitverkoop wordt georganiseerd van de potentiële rijkdommen van Irak, over de rug van de werkelijke belangen van de Iraakse bevolking heen. Voor zover ik het kan inschatten, en met mij zowel vele Irakezen zelf als zeer terzake kundige westerse hulpverleners (dit is ook de mening van de Britse historicus Charles Tripp, die een standaardwerk over de geschiedenis van Irak schreef), vormt dit een precedent voor nog grotere rampen in de nabije toekomst, dan het zogenaamde terrorisme probleem dat we nu kennen. Uiteindelijk zal het Irakese volk dit immers niet accepteren en zou het tot een opstand kunnen leiden, waarbij de huidige problemen in het niet vallen. Extreme politiek (zie de memoires van Getrude Bell, van de conferentie van Cairo uit 1921) lokken nu eenmaal nog veel extremere reacties uit, zoals bijvoorbeeld een Ba’thpartij of een Saddam Hoessein. De Amerikanen zouden er goed aan doen om lering te trekken uit de ervaringen van de Britten uit de periode 1920-1958, zoals Charles Tripp dit onlangs op een lezing in Amsterdam betoogde. Een herhaling van bijvoorbeeld de al-Wathbah Intifadah uit 1948, lijkt mij niet echt handig (en dan druk ik mij heel eufemistisch uit).
Overigens blijft het huidige probleem van terrorisme nog altijd een groot gevaar. De Ba’thpartij is ontbonden, maar waar onvoldoende rekening mee is gehouden, is dat de Ba’thistische organisatie altijd haar zogenaamde ‘cellenstructuur’ heeft behouden, in precies dezelfde vorm zoals deze ooit bedacht was door Michel Aflaq en Salah Eddine al-Bitar in 1947 (naar voorbeeld van Lenins Bolsjevistische partij, van voor de Russische Revolutie). De bewering van Donald Rumsfeld dat Saddam wel snel gepakt zou kunnen worden, omdat hij, in tegenstelling tot Osama Bin Laden, niet gewend zou zijn aan een leven als guerrilla-strijder, kan als volslagen onzinnig terzijde worden geschoven. Enige kennis van zijn levensloop leert dat Saddam Hoessein vanaf zijn tienerjaren vooral een revolutionair strijder was, die heel goed weet hoe men in de illegaliteit moet opereren (zie de periode 1959-1968). Saddam is zijn hele leven een beroepsrevolutionair geweest, zelfs toen hij aan de macht was. BBC journalist en ervaren Irak bezoeker John Simpson haalt de woorden aan van Wafiq as-Sammarai, het inmiddels gevluchte hoofd van de Irakese militaire inlichtingendienst, over Saddams positie in oa. de oorlog van 1991: “He enjoyed it, even when he was on the top of his power. He knows what it is to be hunted”. Hoewel het grootste deel van de top van de Ba’thpartij inmiddels gearresteerd of dood is (bijvoorbeeld Saddams zonen Uday en Qusay), blijft het grote gevaar bestaan dat de Ba’th als organisatie vitaal genoeg is om vernietigend terug te slaan, al dan niet onder leiding van de voortvluchtige Saddam Hoessein of de eveneens voortvluchtige beruchte vice-president, partij activist en revolutionair van het eerste uur, Izzat Ibrahim al-Dhoury. Voeg hierbij het onzalige besluit van Paul Bremer om het complete reguliere Irakese leger te ontslaan (dat voor het grootste deel niet uit partij activisten bestond, sterker nog veel generaals hebben Saddam gewetensvol voor bepaalde misdaden enigszins kunnen afremmen, zowel in Iran als Koeweit en zelfs wat betreft de Koerden, zie bijv. de kwestie generaal Maher Abdul al-Rashid uit de Irak/Iran oorlog), zodat een van de machtigste legers van het Midden Oosten ooit nu werkeloos thuis zit, goed en wel getraind maar zonder enig uitzicht op een nieuw perspectief. Een recept voor nieuwe ongelukken is geboren. Verder bestaat er ook het risico van een soort ‘Afghanistan-scenerio’ (qua vechtende tribale groeperingen), hoewel er direct kan worden tegengeworpen dat Irak en Afghanistan weinig op elkaar lijken. Afghanistan is immers het nog meest rurale land ter wereld, terwijl Irak juist een sterke geürbaniseerde samenleving kent.
De wrange ironie is dat Irak mede is aangevallen in het kader van de oorlog tegen het terrorisme. Nu hield Saddam, met zijn Ba’thistische schrikbewind, de islamistische terreurgroepen juist met ijzeren vuist onder de duim. Hoewel er vaak is gesuggereerd dat Saddam contacten onderhield met Al Qaida, is dit nooit bewezen en historisch gezien zelfs zeer onwaarschijnlijk. De ideologie van de Ba’th en die van Al Qaida staan, in de Arabische context, zelfs lijnrecht tegenover elkaar. De ideologen van Saddam waren immers Sati Husri, Michel Aflaq en Salah Eddine al-Bitar, rechts-radicale nationalistische secularisten, terwijl de leer van Osama Bin Laden vooral gebaseerd is op het gedachtegoed van Jamal ad-Dine al-Afghani, Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna en Sayyid Qutb, die de filosofische grondslag leverden van het Soennitische fundamentalisme (eigenlijk ‘islamisme’). Al Qaida is in Saoedie Arabië zelfs oorspronkelijk opgericht uit vrees voor een Ba’thistische overheersing van het Arabische schiereiland, na de Iraakse invasie van Koeweit in 1990. Nu Irak in een grote anarchie is veranderd is het juist een broedplaats geworden van vele islamistische terreurbewegingen. Het resultaat hiervan zien wij bijna dagelijks op het nieuws.
De toekomst is uiterst onzeker. Wat de geschiedenis ons in ieder geval kan leren is dat buitenlandse bezetting of inmenging in Irak meestal hoogst ongelukkig heeft uitgepakt. Toch zou de vrede in Irak gewonnen moeten worden, het liefst met brede internationale steun, zonder allerlei deelbelangen, gemanipuleer, uitbuiting of verborgen agenda’s. In dit moeizame proces dienen in de eerste plaats de belangen van de Iraqi’s zelf centraal te staan. Het Irakese volk heeft in de twintigste eeuw immers genoeg geleden en verdient zo langzamerhand een rechtvaardige orde.
Floris Schreve
Literatuur en andere bronnen:
Said K. Aburrish, Saddam Hussain; the politics of revenge, Bloomsbury Publishing, Londen, 2000.
Hanna Batatu, The old social classes and revolutionary movements in Iraq; a study of Iraq’s old landed and commercial classes and of its communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1978.
Bert Cornillie, Hans Declerq (ed.), In de schaduw van Saddam; het Koerdische experiment in Irak, Bulaaq/van Halewyck, Amsterdam, Leuven, 2003
Con Coughlin, Saddam; biografie van een dictator, het Spectrum, Utrecht, 2002 (oorspr. titel Saddam; the secret world, Macmillan, Londen, 2002).
Fran Hazelton (ed.), Iraq since the Gulf War; prospects for democracy, Zed Books, Londen, 1994
Samir Al Khalil (pseudoniem van Kanan Makiya), Republic of Fear; the politics of modern Iraq, University of California Press, 1989 (repr. 1998).
Samir Al Khalil, The Monument; art, vulgarity and responsibility in Iraq, Andre Deutch, Londen, 1991.
Jef Lambrecht, De zwarte wieg; Irak, nazi’s en neoconservatieven, Houtekiet, Antwerpen, Amsterdam, 2003.
Kanan Makiya, Verzwegen wreedheid; nationalisme, dictatuur, opstand en het Midden-Oosten (oorspr. titel Cruelty and Silence, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1993), Bulaaq/Kritak, Amsterdam, Leuven, 1994.
John Simpson, The wars against Saddam; taking the hard road to Baghdad, Macmillan, Londen, 2003.
Charles Tripp, A history of Iraq, Cambridge University Press, 2000 (in 2002 in het Nederlands verschenen onder de titel Irak; een geschiedenis, Bulaaq, Amsterdam).
Wat betreft de documentatie over de Anfal-operaties, begane oorlogsmisdaden in Koeweit en de onderdrukking van de Intifadah van 1991kan ik verwijzen naar de website van het Iraq Research and Documentation Project (IRDP), van Kanan Makiya en de bekende Irakese hoogleraar sociologie Faleh Abdul Jaber, van de Harvard Universiteit:: http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~irdp/
De in Nederland wonende Irakese schrijver Mowaffk al-Sawad (Basra, 1971) schreef een indrukwekkend relaas over zijn ervaringen in het Saoedische kamp ath-Thawira, waarin hij met medewerking van de Amerikanen terechtkwam na de Intifadah van 1991, Stemmen onder de zon, de Passage, Groningen, 2002. Foto’s van hongerstakingen en andere acties van de gevangenen van Rafha en ath-Thawira zijn te vinden op de website van de Iraakse Communistische Partij: http://www.iraqcp.org/rafha/index.htm
Over de gevolgen van het embargo, zie het beroemde artikel van Edward Said, Apocalyse now, al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo, 28-1-1997. Dit artikel is terug te lezen op: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/1.16.html
Buitengewoon boeiend is het VPRO radio-interview met VRT journalist Jef Lambrecht nav zijn boek De zwarte wieg; Irak, nazi’s en neoconservatieven, over de ideologische wortels van de Ba’thpartij. Terug te luisteren op: http://www.vpro.nl/programma/ochtenden/afleveringen/13914808/
Een goede televisie-uitzending over de relatie tussen Amerika en de landen rond de Perzische Golf is een aflevering van het geschiedenisprogramma Andere Tijden (NPS/VPRO) van 7-1-2003, Nederland 3: http://www.vpro.nl/geschiedenis/anderetijden/index.shtml?4158511+2899536+8106725+9842819
Een andere buitengewoon verhelderende televisie uitzending is een documentaire van Zembla (Vara/NPS), aflevering Kanonnenvoer van Saddam (5-12-2002, Nederland 3). Het betreft uitgebreide interviews met nauw betrokken functionarissen bij het internationale Irakbeleid van de afgelopen twaalf jaar, zoals Peter van Walsum, Scott Ritter, Dennis Halliday en Hans von Sponeck. Ook blikken veel in Nederland wonende Irakezen terug op hun belevenissen van tijdens de onderdrukking van de Intifadah van 1991 en geven zij hun visie op de aanloop tot de oorlog van 2003. Aan het woord komen oa. de Koerdische journalist en politicoloog Mariwan Kani, de schrijver Mowaffk al-Sawad, de dichter Naji Rahim, beide veteranen van de 1991 Intifadah in het zuiden en van het Saoedische kamp ath-Thawira, de voormalige officier Mohammed Witwit (daar nog vermomd en onder de schuilnaam Jafar), leider van de opstandelingen in Babylon, en de hoogleraar economie Isam al-Khafaji. In deze documentaire worden een paar zeer interessante dingen gezegd. Peter van Walsum poneert het eigenlijk enige goede argument ‘voor oorlog’ (‘er zijn uitzonderlijke situaties denkbaar dat oorlog humaner is dan sancties’), terwijl Isam al Khafaji (hoewel zelf zeker geen medestander van de Amerikaanse neoconservatieven, toch vaak door het Pentagon is geraadpleegd als prominente intellectuele Iraakse adviseur) de naar mijn mening enige juiste analyse geeft van de werkelijke motieven van Amerika om Irak aan te vallen, iets wat ik verder in de Nederlandse media zo node heb gemist. Terug te zien op: http://redir.vara.nl/tv/zembla/welcome2.html?20021205/zembla
Zeer aanbevelenswaardig is de uitzending van VPRO’s Tegenlicht, aflevering Wat moet ik weten om de oorlog te begrijpen? (Nederland 3, 30-3-2003). Het betreft een gesprek tussen de wetenschappers Erik-Jan Zurcher (hoogleraar Turkse taal en cultuur, UL), H.W. von der Dunk (emeritus hoogleraar westerse cultuurgeschiedenis, UU) en Paul Aarts (docent internationale betrekkingen van het Midden-Oosten, UvA) over de laatste Irak-oorlog. Online is deze aflevering terug te zien op: http://info.vpro.nl/info/tegenlicht/index.shtml?7738514+7738518+7738520+11198995 – loadvariables
Om met een kleine aardigheid af te sluiten; het is inmiddels bewezen dat Saddam Hoessein gebruik maakte van dubbelgangers. Dit is aangetoond door de Duitse forensische arts, Dr. Dieter Buhmann. BBC journalist John Simpson heeft hem voor in zijn boek uitgebreid geraadpleegd. Wie dit op televisiebeelden wil zien, kan ik een reportage van Nova aanraden (gekocht van de Duitse ZDF) van 27-9-2002. Online te zien op: http://www.novatv.nl/index.cfm?cfid=13897380&cftoken=76391653&ln=nl&fuseaction=videoaudio.details&reportage_id=1118
Hier een documentaire van History Channel, waarin 4500 jaar geschiedenis van Mesopotamië/Irak wordt samengevat in anderhalf uur:
alle kunstenaars die op dit blog ter sprake zijn gekomen of om wat voor reden dan ook worden genoemd, aangevuld met kunstenaars die ik ken of die ik interessant vind (van grote namen tot onbekend)
The Syrian People know their Way
الشعب السوري عارف طريقه Syrisch kunstenaarscollectief (grotendeels anoniem) die zich bezighouden met geëngageerde kunst
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Wafaa Bilal,
zie ook http://iearresidencies.wikispaces.com/file/view/WafaaBilalText.pdf of http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2007/wafaa_bilal
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Factor (IKON)
uitzending over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederland en hun verhaal over het voormalige Iraakse regime
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On Global/Local Art
my articles on contemporary international art in English
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Out of Mesopotamia; Iraakse kunstenaars in ballingschap
artikel in Leidschrift, vakgroep geschiedenis, Universiteit Leiden, Van Mozart tot Saddam; de maatschappij verbeeld in de kunst, Jaargang 17, nummer 3, december 2002
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hedendaagse kunst en cultuur uit de niet-westerse wereld in Nederland en internationaal
'Zijn we op weg naar een Wereldkunst?'
een nog altijd relevante introductie op deze thematiek door Sebastian Lopez en Paul Faber uit 1989 (bij de tentoonstelling Double Dutch)
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Al Galidi
website van de Nederlandse/Iraakse dichter, schrijver en columnist Al Galidi
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al-Sabah al-Jedid (English page)
de Engelse pagina van de Iraakse krant al-Sabah al-Jedid (De Nieuwe Morgen) van hoofdredacteur Ismael Zayer, die lange tijd in Nederland verbleef, en de Nederlandse journaliste Anneke van Ammelrooy
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Bagdad in Amsterdam
een mooi initiatief van de in Nederland wonende kunstenaar Amjad Kawish Alfrajje, om een aantal collega’s van hem uit Irak hier te exposeren en aandacht te vragen voor de situatie voor kunstenaars in Irak, na de Amerikaanse inval
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Baghdad Out
Een (vanuit Nederland) gerunde website voor Iraakse culturele activiteiten wereldwijd
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Belgische Iraakse Vriendschaps Vereniging
inmiddels half terziele website van een groep Belgen en Belgische Iraki’s, waar, naast respectabele anti-oorlogsstandpunten, soms met verbijsterend veel sympathie over het Ba’thregime werd geschreven
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Control Room al-Jazeera
een documentaire over de werkwijze van al-Jazeera, dat wat mij betreft op een bewonderenswaardige wijze laveert tussen de ondemocratische Arabische regimes enerzijds en de Amerikaanse pressie anderzijds
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Factor (IKON)
uitzending over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederland en hun verhaal over het voormalige Iraakse regime
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Festival Farida & Mohamed Gomar
korte film rond het concert van de beroemde Iraakse zangeres Farida Mohamed Ali en het Iraqi Maqam Ensemble in het Concertgebouw dat ik ook bijwoonde in 2011. Ook een paar interviews met Iraakse vrienden van mij.
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Gilles Kepel, The Middle East in Crisis
Lecture of the famous French scholar in Middle Eastern Studies Gilles Kepel at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2010
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Iraqi LGTB
For Human Rights in Iraq- LGTB Rights Group
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Ismael Zayer, Het geheugen van de Iraakse moderne kunst
introductie geschreven ter gelegenheid van de expositie van 28 in Nederland wonende Iraakse kunstenaars, in het Gemeentehuis van Den Haag (organisatie Babil voor Kunst en Literatuur)
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MetaMap Saddam Hussein 1937-2007
a visual navigator to on-line representations of power & violence in graphs, maps and ceremony, by Tjebbe van Tijen/Imaginary Museum Projects, October 2006
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Michael Brooks, Saddam's brain
Een zinnig artikel in een verschrikkelijk blad (The Weekly Standard, het lijfblad van de Neocons). Maar toch een goede uitleg van de ideologie van de Ba’thpartij en haar oprichter, Michel Aflaq
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Modern Art Iraq Archive
The Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA) is a resource to trace, share, and enable community enrichment of the modern art heritage of Iraq- initiated by Nada Shabout
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No End in Sight; the occupation of Iraq
een ontluisterende documentaire van Charles Fergusson over de rampzalige Amerikaanse politiek in Irak na de verdrijving van Saddam (10 delen)
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On Global/Local Art
my articles on contemporary international art in English
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Rendez-vous in Bagdad
Reisverslag van een groep Belgische intellectuelen, die in de jaren negentig naar Bagdad gingen en zich volledig hebben laten inpakken door het Iraakse regime
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The Battle for Saddam (2007) (1/3)
“Critically acclaimed director Esteban Uyarra has been in Baghdad since September 2005 following the trial of Saddam Hussein behind-the-scenes. As the only ones Team Productions daily follows the trial against the former Iraqi ex-dictator in the courtro
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William S. Ellis, ‘The New Face of Baghdad: Iraq at War’
National Geographic (January 1985). Een onthulend artikel over Saddams Irak uit National Geographic in de tijd dat Saddam nog een vriend van Amerika was. Saddams grote propaganda-monumenten en andere projecten, maar ook de Iraakse kunstscene komen uitgebr
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Modern Art Iraq Archive
The Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA) is a resource to trace, share, and enable community enrichment of the modern art heritage of Iraq- initiated by Nada Shabout
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Nafas Art Magazine
Contemporary art from Islamic influenced countries and regions
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Suze in the City
blog van Suze Morayef over street art en gaffiti in Cairo, Beirut, Tripoli en andere Arabische hoofdsteden tijdens en na de revoluties
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Al Haq
Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in Ramallah, West Bank. Established in 1979 to protect and promote human rights and the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the organisation has spe
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From occupied Palestine
veel zinvolle artikelen uit en over de bezette gebieden van diverse auteurs (waaronder de beroemde correspondente van de Haáretz in Gaza, Amira Hass)
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Gate 48
Platform voor kritische Israëli’s in Nederland
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Gaza, een jaar later
documentaire over Gaza (17-01-2010, NIO), een jaar na de Israëlische aanval
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Geert Wilders very own two state solution
de Israëlische kwaliteitskrant Ha’aretz over Geert Wilders- Laat meteen zien hoe Wilders, zg een grote vriend van de Joodse staat, zich ook in Israël positioneert
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George Sluizer, 'Gooi een atoombom op de Palestijnen' (documentaire, 1983)
Documentaire van George Sluizer en Fred van Kuijk waarin een portret geschetst wordt van twee Palestijnse families die eind 1948 van Israël naar Beiroet in Libanon vluchtten. Beide families werden twee keer eerder (1974 en 1977) door Sluizer en Van Kuijk
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Hard Crossings
We follow Palestinians as they navigate the Israeli checkpoints that have become a frustrating feature of daily life (Al Jazeera)
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Hasbara Handbook
Een interessant inkijkje in de Israëlische propaganda-machine (de basiscursus voor pro-Israël propagandisten)
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Het ontstaan van Israël volgens The New Historians
interessant artikel uit het Historisch Nieuwsblad over ‘the New Historians’ (Pappé, Morris, Schlaim ea) die de ontstaansmythe van Israël ter discussie stellen
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In de Ban van Israël (Tegenlicht, VPRO, 17-10-2011)-
over de onvoorwaardelijke Nederlandse steun aan Israël, vooral van de huidige regering, Met Thomas von der Dunk, Petra Stienen, Maarten Jan Hijmans en Willem Beelaerts van Blokland. Ook de beroemde historicus Ilan Pappe komt aan het woord
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Iran Comité
actiegroep met meer (of vooral andere) agendapunten dan mensenrechten in Iran. Een blik op lijst bestuursleden en de agenda van activiteiten zegt genoeg.
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Ironcomb
Een ijzeren vuist voor Israël uit het lommerrijke Amsterdam-Zuid (van de vroegere buren van Gretta Duisenberg)
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Israel Facts
site van de op de Westbank wonende Nederlandse aannemer Yochanan Visser, die de Nederlandse media in de gaten houdt op al te kritische opmerkingen naar Israël
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Israel-Palestina Info
een ‘objectieve’ site van het duo Ratna Pelle & Wouter Brassé, zo’n beetje de meest overijverige pro-Israël activisten/propagandisten/bloggers/ingezonden brievenschrijvers van Nederland
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Khamakarpress.com
Nieuws over Islam, moslims, Arabische lente en Palestina
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Krantenonderzoek NRC
Een krankzinnig ‘onderzoek’ van de radicale pro-Israël activiste Ratna Pelle, ism de ‘Stichting W.A.A.R.’ naar de vermeende subjectiviteit van NRC Handelsblad inzake het Israëlisch Palestijnse conflict.
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MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Insitute)
Amerikaanse pro-Israëlische organisatie, die zoveel mogelijk de Arabische wereld tracht zwart te maken, door de extreemste artikelen in het Engels te vertalen en ze als ‘mainstream’ te presenteren
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Mohammed Othman
de weblog van de Palestijnse mensenrechtenactivist Mohammed Othman met veel confronterend materiaal over de bezette gebieden
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Mondoweiss
Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective
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Mustafa Barghouthi
site van de Palestijnse mensenrechtenactivist Mustafa Barghouthi
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Nir Baram
een hoopgevend geluid uit Israël zelf, van schrijver Nir Baram (toespraak op een Israélische vredesdemonstratie nav de kwestie Gaza Flotilla)
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Palestine Link
Palestine Link is an initiative by Palestinians in the Netherlands. It is a genuine independent voice and a professional resource and service center.
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Stan van Houcke, 'Autisme in Nederland'
Een zeer tot nadenken stemmend artikel van Stan van Houcke over ‘onze’ worsteling en ‘ons’ onbegrip van wat er onder moslims en in de islamitische wereld speelt
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Stan van Houcke, De Oneindige Oorlog
serie interviews met spraakmakende (vooral Joodse en Arabische) intellectuelen over het eindeloze Midden Oostenconflict
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Stop de Verdraaiing
Een wat klunzige ‘Hasbara’ blog van de radicale Pro-Israël activist/reaguurder Mike Bing, die verwoede pogingen doet allerlei ‘feitelijke onjuistheden’ ten nadele van Israël op te sporen en aan de schandpaal te nagelen. En hij gebruikt speciale apparaat
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The Iron Wall
documentaire van Mohammed Alatatar over de bezetting en de muur
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The Israel advocacy Handbook
een variant op het Hasbara-Handboek, van Ami Isseroff, de goeroe van enkele op dit blog besproken extremistische pro-Israël activisten in Nederland
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The Israel Project’s Secret Hasbara Handbook Exposed
een interessante kijk op de Israëlische Hasbara (uitleg) propganda-machine op Tikun Olam, de site van de kritische Zionist Richard Silverstein (VS) -een verstandig geluid, aanrader!
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The Israel's Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary
een recenter, oorspronkelijk geheim, maar sinds enige tijd openbaar Hasbara Handboek, waarin met pakkende sjablonen wordt uitgelegd hoe je een bezetting moet verkopen.
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Tora Yeshua
Blog van de islamofobe, godsdienstwaanzinnige, extreemrechtse en volgens mij schizofrene ‘Joods Christelijke Pastor’ Ben Kok, tevens beroepsreaguurder op Hoeiboei, het Vrije Volk, etc.
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W.A.A.R. net
Pro-Israëlisch lobbyclubje, van oa Ratna Pelle, dat de media ‘kritisch’ volgt. Staat voor precies het tegenovergestelde van wat de naam doet suggereren
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West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
een orkest, opgericht door Edward Said en de wereldberoemde Israëlische dirigent Daniel Barenboim (ook actief in de Israëlische vredesbeweging), voor jonge Palestijnse en Israëlische musici
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10 jaar na 9/11
In deze tweede reeks van de serie LUX met internationale denkers & doeners overstijgen we de zwartgalligheid en het maatschappelijk onbehagen in de zompige polder en bieden we uitzicht op nieuwe kansen en zelfverzekerd optimisme. In LUX geen fact free
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Afshin Ellian in NRC
geldt weer hetzelfde voor als wat ik opmerkte bij zijn duo-column met Leon de Winter. Eigenlijk nooit mee eens, maar ik volg het wel
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali weblog
Niet eens van Ayaan zelf, maar van allerlei ‘fans’ die deze site gebruiken om ‘de islam’ en ‘asielzoekers’ (was Ayaan er zelf niet een?) stevig onder vuur te nemen. Ook vaak erg enthousiast over Rita Verdonk (en dat uit Ayaans naam! ;)
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‘Islamofobie heeft overeenkomsten met vooroorlogs antisemitisme’
Ineke van der Valk doet al jarenlang onderzoek naar racisme en etnische diversiteit. Ze was werkzaam bij de Anne Frank Stichting en de Universiteit van Amsterdam en werkte mee aan de Monitor Racisme & Extremisme, een onderzoeksproject van de Anne Fran
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Bang voor Eurabië
een goed en nuchter artikel van Binnert de Beaufort over de Eurabië-theorie van Bat Ye ‘or
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Bart Jan Sruyt, 'Wilders, de PVV, de Apocalyps en Breivik'
een bespiegeling van Bart Jan Spruyt over een mogelijke (indirecte) relatie tussen de opvattingen en uitingen van Wilders en de daden van Anders Breivik, die naar eigen zeggen door Wilders geïnspireerd zou zijn
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Bernard Lewis, The Roots of the Muslim Rage
The Atlantic Monthly, september 1990. Het beroemde/beruchte artikel van de oriëntalist Bernard Lewis, dat de belangrijkste inspiratiebron was voor Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations
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Bijbel/Koran
een hele leuke en inhoudelijk goede site van de Wereldomroep en de Ikon waar het mogelijk is om op verschillende thema’s de Bijbel en de Koran met elkaar te vergelijken
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De Edmund Burke Stichting
(conservatieve denktank) Hoewel niet beperkt tot het issue multiculturalisme, toch een belangrijke speler in het Nederlandse debat
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Dhimmitude.org
website van de, inmiddels ook in Nederland invloedrijke (zie Wilders, Hans Jansen en sites als Hoeiboei) anti-islamcomplotdenkster Bat Ye’or (van de Eurabië-theorie)
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discussie tussen Tariq Ramadan en Paul Scheffer
een constructief gesprek op niveau tussen twee markante denkers over de multiculturele samenleving, georganiseerd door de Iraanse kunstenares Soheila Najand (Interlab). Zelf zat ik in het publiek en heb dit toen als een buitengewoon zinnige discussie erv
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Eurabië blog
Blog rond het paranoïde gedachtegoed van de anti-islam activiste Bat Ye’or (Giselle Littman)
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Eurabië punt nl
extreemrechtse website waarop Bat Ye’or, Robert Spencer, columns van Afshin Ellian, Hans Jansen en veel pro-Israël moeiteloos worden gecombineerd met de Wodansknoop van de Heel-Nederlandse Delta Stichting.
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Ex Ponto
ex Ponto is een journalistiek magazine dat op internet verschijnt. Het merendeel van de artikelen wordt door vluchteling-journalisten en andere migranten geschreven. Met Nederlandse journalisten als gast
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Factsheed Fitna
doorlichting van Fitna door de islamdeskundigen Fred Leemhuis, Ruud Peeters, ea.
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Faith Freedom International (maar niet voor iedereen ;)
islambashingsite, in eigen woorden: FAITH FREEDOM INTERNATIONAL is de stem van de waarheid. We hebben slechts één doel : de haat stoppen, de leugens van Islam blootleggen en het moslimexpansionisme aan banden leggen
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Fitna ontleed
een analyse van Fitna beeld voor beeld van de Volkskrant
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Geert Wilders very own two state solution
de Israëlische kwaliteitskrant Ha’aretz over Geert Wilders- Laat meteen zien hoe Wilders, zg een grote vriend van de Joodse staat, zich ook in Israël positioneert
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Gilles Kepel, The Middle East in Crisis
Lecture of the famous French scholar in Middle Eastern Studies Gilles Kepel at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2010
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Hans Jansen (arabist)
Zo langzamerhand een beetje de ‘rechtsbuiten’ onder de Nederlandse arabisten. Niet vaak (meer) mee eens, maar toch interessant om te volgen
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Hans Jansen vs Joris Luyendijk
een onthullend en memorabel debat tussen Hans Jansen en Joris Luyendijk bij Pauw & Witteman op 17 november 2010 (fragment). Volledig debat hier: http://ra.2see.nl/hans-jansen-ontmaskert-zichzelf
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Hans Jansen, Anton Constandse lezing- deel 1 (totaal 5 delen)
een alarmitisch betoog tegen ‘het gevaar van de islam’- totaal niet mee eens, maar wel een retorisch meesterwerkje (en vaak erg geestig). Daarom interessant om aan te tonen wat er niet aan deugt
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Het Vrije Woord
Rechts populistische onzinwebsite, waar, in naam van Pim Fortuyn, oa Human Rights Watch een ‘dubieuze organisatie’ wordt genoemd en Likoed Nederland het forum vult
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International Free Press Society
een genootschap van ‘islamcritici’ die vinden dat hun vrijheid van meningsuiting onder druk staat. Vooral interessant om de who is who van de internationale coterie waar Wilders nu ook toe behoort goed door te spitten
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Krapuul.nl
Krapuul is een podium waarop sinds juni 2009 artikelen worden gepubliceerd die een bijdrage kunnen leveren aan de inhoudelijke discussie over normen en waarden, de sociale cohesie en de fundamentele rechten en vrijheden van alle Nederlanders en mensen die
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Leon Heuts, Osama Bin Ladens filosoof
Filosofie Magazine (over Sayyid Qutb, een van de grondleggers van het hedendaagse moslimfundamentaisme/islamisme)
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Naema Tahir, Geloof en de rechtsstaat
kraakheldere Buitenhofcolumn van Naema Tahir. Eigenlijk volkomen voor de hand liggend, maar toch noodzakelijk in het nogal vertroebelde debat
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Sayyid Qutb, Milestones/Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq/معالم في الطريق
Sayyid Qutbs belangrijkste geschrift uit 1965 online (Engels). Milestones is een van de belangrijkste manifesten van de milante islamistische beweging en inspiratiebron voor bijv. Bin Laden
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Selefie Nederland
Uitgesproken orthodoxe Islamitische site. Voor wie het wil weten, dit is ongeveer wat ‘ze’ vinden (zeer informatief). Vooral veel vroomheid, geen extremisme
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Sjoerd de Jong, Gelijker dan de rest
Cultuurrelativisme en de ware westerse normen, NRC Handelsblad 04-10-2002 (met oa een kritische bespreking van Paul Cliteurs ‘Moderne Papoea’s’)
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Stan van Houcke, 'Autisme in Nederland'
Een zeer tot nadenken stemmend artikel van Stan van Houcke over ‘onze’ worsteling en ‘ons’ onbegrip van wat er onder moslims en in de islamitische wereld speelt
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Stan Verdult
interessante boekrecensies mbt de islam en Midden Oosten
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The Brussels Journal-The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
bonte verzameling van oa ook hier veel besproken rechtse auteurs, zoals de antroposoof Jos Verhulst (met een voorliefde voor Holocaustontkenners), de homofobe PVV adviseur Paul Belien en de Noorse anti-islamblogger Fjordman
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The real Geert Wilders
exposes his essentialist and manichean views in a speech for The International Free Press Society/David Horowitz Freedom Center in Beverly Hills, April 4, 2009
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Tora Yeshua
Blog van de islamofobe, godsdienstwaanzinnige, extreemrechtse en volgens mij schizofrene ‘Joods Christelijke Pastor’ Ben Kok, tevens beroepsreaguurder op Hoeiboei, het Vrije Volk, etc.
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Wilders, the Movie
Onderhoudende documentaire van Joost van der Valk (VPRO 2010) over Wilders. Zeker aardig om te bekijken, al is de film niet heel onthullend.
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Wilders; profeet van de angst
Zembla, 25-04-2010. Terwijl de integratieproblemen van moslims in Nederland juist afnemen radicaliseert Geert Wilders steeds verder in zijn uitspraken over de islam. Zijn donkere angstfantasieën over de oprukkende islam en zijn dromen over oorlog en depo
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Worst of Wilders; Provoking Extremities
een Engelsetalige compilatie van de handel en wandel van onze meest besproken en controversiële volksvertegenwoordiger, ook in het buitenland (14 delen)
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On Global/Local Art
my articles on contemporary international art in English
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nieuwe ontwikkelingen en initiatieven voor democratisering in de Arabische wereld en het Midden Oosten
'I have lost my son, but I am proud of what he did'
Interview met de moeder van Mohamed Bouazizi (in The Guardian), wiens zelfmoord uiteindelijk leidde tot de val van het regime Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in Tunesië
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'Zenga zenga'
eerste half uur van de krankzinnige speech van Muammar al-Qadhafi, op Al Jazeera (met simultaanvertaling in het Engels)
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Blogging on the Nile
Inmiddels legendarische documentaire van Al-Jazeera English uit 2007 over het activisme voor meer democratie in de Arabische wereld via facebook, twitter en blogs
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De Libische PR en Westerse intellectuelen (Tegenlicht)
een ontluisterend interview met de, ook door mij bewonderde, beroemde politicoloog Benjamin Barber over zijn activiteiten voor de Monitor Group van Saif Qadhafi (BBC)
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Interview met Wael Ghonim
een medewerker van google en (tegen wil en dank) door zijn internetactiviteiten de motor achter de Egyptische jongerenbeweging die leidden tot de demonstraties op het Tahrir-plein
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Jadaliyya Interview with Ali Ahmida (Libië)
One of the most interesting sites with updates and backgrounds on the revolts in the Arab world is Jadaliyya.com. Today they published their first interview conducted by Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat with one of the leaders of the Libyan uprising: Ali
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Jadaliyya.com
Jadaliyya is an independent Ezine produced by ASI (Arab Studies Institute), a network of writers associated with the Arab Studies Journal (www.ArabStudiesJournal.org).
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Marathoninterview met Koos van Dam, VPRO, donderdag 29 december 2011 20:00 Radio 1
De Nederlandse topdiplomaat Nikolaos (Koos) van Dam (1945) is de afgelopen 22 jaar ambassadeur geweest op vijf posten: Irak, Egypte, Turkije, Duitsland en Indonesië. Daarvoor werkte hij al als diplomaat in Libanon en Libië. Hij studeerde politieke en so
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Mona Eltahawy
website van de Egyptische/Amerikaanse journaliste Mona Eltahawy, een van de meest spraakmakende rapporteurs van de nieuwe democratische opleving
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Mondoweiss
Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective
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Suze in the City
blog van Suze Morayef over street art en gaffiti in Cairo, Beirut, Tripoli en andere Arabische hoofdsteden tijdens en na de revoluties
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Tariq Ali (Al Jazeera)
Een gesprek met de beroemde Pakistaanse historicus Tariq Ali over de recente gebeurtenissen in het Midden Oosten. Daarna een gesprek met Zalmay Khalilzad, vmlg US ambassadeur bij de VN, in Irak en Afghanistan
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The political power of literature (Al Jazeera)
een gesprek met de schrijvers Ahdaf Soueif (Egypte) en Hisham Matar (Libië) over de gebeurtenissen in hun land. De beroemde Chileense schrijver Ariel Dorfman (van Death and the Maiden) blikt terug op de situatie onder het bewind van Pinochet
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The Power of literature (Al Jazeera)
over de rol van literatuur- een gesprek met de schrijvers Ahdaf Soueif (Egypte), Hisham Matar (Libië) en het commentaar van een veteraan uit een andere tijd Ariel Dorfman (Chili)
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The Syrian People know their Way
الشعب السوري عارف طريقه Syrisch kunstenaarscollectief (grotendeels anoniem) die zich bezighouden met geëngageerde kunst
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Witness: Little Dictator (Al Jazeera)
Mooie documentaire over de dilemma’s van de makers van Top Goon, het clandestiene satirische programma dat het regime van Assad op de hak neemt
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Antroposofie en Apocalypse
weblog van Kees Kromme (onder pseud. Cheese Curve), die vaak op deze site heeft gereageerd. Bijzonder Ahrimanvrezend! Maar ja, de ‘Apocalypse’ is nakende ;)
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antroposofie in de pers
weblog van Michel Gastkemper (oa van de nieuwe Rudolf Steinervertalingen, die onze discussies regelmatig volgt en heeft besproken)
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De Hokjesman (VPRO)
Gefascineerd door de heersende hokjesgeest gaat programmamaker Michael Schaap op veldonderzoek binnen de leefwereld van aansprekende Nederlandse subculturen.
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Geen sprake van
pamflet van de ‘rechtzinnige’ antroposofen Willem Frederik Veltman, Mees Meeussen, Walter Heijder en Robert Jan Kelder, die vonden dat de van Baarda-commissie te ver ging
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Gie ten Berghe, De uitbuiting van de Holocaust
Omdat op dit blog antroposofen die de Holocaust ontkennen ter sprake komen, hier een uitstekende weerlegging van hun argumenten (met dank aan Michel Gastkemper, die dit verhaal eerder in stelling bracht tegen Jos Verhulst en companen)
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Guns, Germs and Steel
documentaire over de gelijknamige studie van Jared Diamond. De van Baarda-commissie meent in zijn werk een rechtvaardiging voor Steiners rassentheoriën te vinden (p. 422-423). Diamond zegt: ‘any assumption based on race is absurd’. Maar oordeel zelf.
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KRO Heb ik genoeg; Karin leeft als antroposoof
Karin de Groot duikt in de antroposofie en laat zich onderdompelen. Vooral heel empathisch (en daardoor informatief), maar totaal niet kritisch. Antroposofie van de zonnige kant
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Loek Dullaart, De wereldregering in wording.
niet racistisch maar wel typische antroposofische paranoia van hetzelfde soort als de Brug. Alle 9/11 claims uit dit stuk zijn overigens eerder overtuigend weerlegd (zie bijv. Zembla Het complot van 11 september).
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Ramon de Jonghe
Blog van de Belgische auteur en kritische ‘Steinerschoolwatcher’ Ramon de Jonghe (zie ook www.steinerscholen.com )
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Ramon de Jonghe
blog van Ramon de Jonghe (België, ook van Steinerscholen.com), met wie ik veel ben opgetrokken in de racisme-kwestie in de antroposofie
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Ridzerd van Dijk
(pro)antroposofisch weblog met oa de Grote Rudolf Steiner Citaten Encyclopedie
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Robert Jan Kelder: Het Nieuwe Voorzittersschap.blogspot
Van de zeer orthodoxe antroposoof Robert jan Kelder, die het, net als ik, zeer oneens is met het van Baarda-rapport, alleen om precies de tegenovergestelde reden. Volgens hem is er qua racisme in het werk van Steiner niets aan de hand, volgens het rapport
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Rudolf Steiner, De Volkszielen (4 & 6)
de vierde en de zesde voordracht in de Nederlandse vertaling van Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, GA 121 (vert. van J. Jonker-Driessen, uitgave Vrij Geestesleven, 1983)
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Schwarz-Weiß-Konstruktionen im Rassebild Rudolf Steiners
von Jana Husmann-Kastein, M.A. Kulturwissenschaft und Gender Studies, ist assoziiertes Mitglied des Graduiertenkollegs “Geschlecht als Wissenskategorie” der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
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Steinerscholen.be (Ramon de Jonghe)
website van Ramon de Jonghe (België), waar ik de nodige bijdragen heb geleverd aan de discussie over antroposofie en racisme
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The Brussels Journal-The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
bonte verzameling van oa ook hier veel besproken rechtse auteurs, zoals de antroposoof Jos Verhulst (met een voorliefde voor Holocaustontkenners), de homofobe PVV adviseur Paul Belien en de Noorse anti-islamblogger Fjordman
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tijdschrift 'de Brug'
Het meest extreme voorbeeld van antroposofie en racisme (Holocaust negationisme) dat ik ken, door mij vaak onder vuur genomen. Zie ook www.vrijgeestesleven.be
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Vrij Geestesleven.be
Belgische antroposofische website met openlijk Neo-Nazi materiaal en met vele verwijzingen naar (illegale) downloads van Holocaust-ontkennings lectuur.
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Sayyid Qutb, Milestones/Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq/معالم في الطريق
Sayyid Qutbs belangrijkste geschrift uit 1965 online (Engels). Milestones is een van de belangrijkste manifesten van de milante islamistische beweging en inspiratiebron voor bijv. Bin Laden
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sites mbt homoseksualiteit, van emancipatie, belangenorganisaties tot ongecompliceerd uitgaan, die mijn sympathie/instemming/ voorkeur hebben
Secret Garden
Secret Garden is een Stichting van homo-/bi-seksuelen/lesbische/transgender moslims en sympathisanten, gevestigd in Amsterdam
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Strijders voor de liefde
Documentaire in het kader van de Gay Pride waarin Sipke Jan Bousema in binnen- en buitenland op zoek gaat naar de mannen en vrouwen die een dagelijkse strijd moeten leveren om hun liefde openlijk en veilig te mogen uiten.
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The Celluloid Closet
documentaire van Rob Epstein en Jeffrey Friedman (1995) over de representatie van homoseksualiteit en homoseksuelen in Hollywoodfilms door de jaren heen
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ABC Tree House
De expositieruimte van de American Book Center in Amsterdam, waar wat mij betreft vaak zeer interessante en sympathieke tentoonstellingen worden georganiseerd. Ook een goed platform voor kunstenaars uit het Midden Oosten in Nederland!
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Art above all
tentoonstelling uit 2004 van kunstenaars uit het Midden Oosten (zowel Iran, verschillende Arabische landen als Israël) in ABC Treehouse. Een aantal van deze kunstenaars zijn op dit blog uitgebreid ter sprake gekomen
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Ayaan Hisrsi Ali vs Tariq Ramadan
‘schreeuwdebat’ tussen Ayaan Hirsi Ali en Tariq Ramadan op CNN, olv Christiane Ananpour (op de VK blog van Lucas Lay)
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Checkpoint
Israeli Documentary Directed by Yoav Shamir (over de Israëlische bezetting van Palestijns land)
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Control Room al-Jazeera
een documentaire over de werkwijze van al-Jazeera, dat wat mij betreft op een bewonderenswaardige wijze laveert tussen de ondemocratische Arabische regimes enerzijds en de Amerikaanse pressie anderzijds
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De Avonden (VPRO)
over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederlandse ballingschap (met mijzelf en de Iraakse Koerdische kunstenaar Aras Kareem)
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Een oud spotje van de CD van Janmaat
Vergelijk met Wilders of zelfs een deel van de mainstream nu! Terwijl Janmaats partij nog voortkwam uit de echt Neo Nazistische Nederlandse Volks Unie
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Esther Schreuder
blog van curator/kunsthistorica Esther Schreuder
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EUMAN
European Union Migrant Artists Network (Helsinki)- veel Iraakse kunstenaars
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Ex Ponto
ex Ponto is een journalistiek magazine dat op internet verschijnt. Het merendeel van de artikelen wordt door vluchteling-journalisten en andere migranten geschreven. Met Nederlandse journalisten als gast
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Factor (IKON)
uitzending over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederland en hun verhaal over het voormalige Iraakse regime
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Gilles Kepel, The Middle East in Crisis
Lecture of the famous French scholar in Middle Eastern Studies Gilles Kepel at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2010
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Jadaliyya.com
Jadaliyya is an independent Ezine produced by ASI (Arab Studies Institute), a network of writers associated with the Arab Studies Journal (www.ArabStudiesJournal.org).
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Jesus Camp
documentaire van Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing 2008. Over de Christenfundamentalisten in Amerika
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recensie Edward Saids 'Orientalism'
een buitengewoon genuanceerde en zinnige bespreking van Edward Saids Orientalism, door Stan Verdult. Zie zeker ook zijn andere besprekingen van aanverwante werken (links in de linkerkantlijn)
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Sayyid Qutb, Milestones/Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq/معالم في الطريق
Sayyid Qutbs belangrijkste geschrift uit 1965 online (Engels). Milestones is een van de belangrijkste manifesten van de milante islamistische beweging en inspiratiebron voor bijv. Bin Laden
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streamtime.org
veel interessant nieuws uit het Midden Oosten, vooral Irak
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The Brussels Journal-The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
bonte verzameling van oa ook hier veel besproken rechtse auteurs, zoals de antroposoof Jos Verhulst (met een voorliefde voor Holocaustontkenners), de homofobe PVV adviseur Paul Belien en de Noorse anti-islamblogger Fjordman
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Wilders; profeet van de angst
Zembla, 25-04-2010. Terwijl de integratieproblemen van moslims in Nederland juist afnemen radicaliseert Geert Wilders steeds verder in zijn uitspraken over de islam. Zijn donkere angstfantasieën over de oprukkende islam en zijn dromen over oorlog en depo
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Wonderland deel 1
driedelige documentaire over de opkomst en de neergang van het ‘politieke correcte denken’ in Nederland van Robert Oey. Mooi gemaakt en nog altijd onthullend.
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» De begrafenis van de Tunesiër Mohammed Bouazizi AFP
<!– tekst uitklappen [ + ] –>
An Egyptian demonstrator uses his shoe to hit a picture of President Hosni Mubarak during a protest in Cairo. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty ImagesWhat cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in 
Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris
![[Image from unknown archive]](https://i0.wp.com/www.jadaliyya.com/content_images/3/sm2.jpg "[Image from unknown archive]")
[Image from unknown archive]![[Saudis protesting their overdue land grants at Shaqra' Municipality. Image taken from www.alriyadh.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.jadaliyya.com/content_images/3/SaudisProtestingDelinquentLandGrantatShaqraMunicipality.jpg "[Saudis protesting their overdue land grants at Shaqra' Municipality. Image taken from www.alriyadh.com]")
[Saudis protesting their overdue land grants at Shaqra’ Municipality. Image taken from 
Hosni Mubarak must go
»
»
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 – 2:31 PM 
Proud to be a Tunisian
Anti-government protestors clash with riot police in Cairo in the challenge to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Photograph: Ben Curtis/APCaught off guard by the escalating unrest in 
Betogers tonen foto’s van Khaled Said. Van voor en na de marteling. Foto AFP
Cartoon from the Facebook Group We are all Khaled Said
Banner of the Egyptian uprising
De protesten in Egypte duren al acht dagen
»
Graphic 
Voor de Westerse wereld lijken stevige Arabische regimes een belangrijker doel om eigen belangen te dienen dan dat er wordt geluisterd naar de angst, onvrede en belangen van gewone burgers.
![299223735_5_f-j-[1]](https://fhs1973.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/299223735_5_f-j-1.jpg)
![300937317_4_bSnu[1]](https://fhs1973.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/300937317_4_bsnu1.jpg)
![300940630_6_x5FZ[1]](https://fhs1973.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/300940630_6_x5fz1.jpg)
![300937316_4_aihb[1]](https://fhs1973.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/300937316_4_aihb1.jpg)
Mijn hersenspinsels en gedachtekronkels 
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