How Lesbians Live In Iran

A controversial new movie explores the lives of lesbians forced to live in the shadows. Omid Memarian talks to women in Iran who say the movie doesn’t do their predicament justice.

By Omid Memarian


    A still from the film Circumstance., Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival

Four years after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared there are no gays in Iran during a speech at Columbia University, an Iranian-American filmmaker courageously portrays an unusual story of two Iranian lesbians who struggle under religious and cultural repression to explore their sexuality.

Iranians are, in general, culturally hesitant to publicly talk about their private lives and sexuality, so the sex scenes between two schoolgirls Atefeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemi) in Circumstance,  take the viewer to the most extreme parts of Iranian underground lifestyle.

While Maryam Keshavarz’s portrayal is bold, and addresses a major taboo in Iran, many lesbians who actively live and love in the shadows there say the movie is not necessarily a true portrayal.

The young Iranian-American director, who grew up in the United States, filmed the movie in Lebanon, away from the eyes of Iranian authorities. But even in Lebanon it was a daring project to tackle as the film’s subject was unbeknownst to Lebanese authorities. Still, it seems that security concerns may have limited her in creating an Iran that feels real—especially for those who know the country and the culture. Choices of locations, set designs, clothing, dialogues, and even makeup often appeared unrealistic and artificial. The actresses, Atefeh and Shireen, clearly grew up in the West, with strong accents, and although they try to talk like Tehrani girls, they remain hard to believe.

"The scene where the woman she loves [Atefeh] marries her brother, and she suffers for this is very real for me, as I experienced it in my own life,” Maryam, a lesbian told me from Iran under condition of anonymity. “But, overall, an Iranian lesbian would not enjoy watching this film, or find herself in it, though other viewers might find it interesting.  As a lesbian who is quite familiar with the lesbian lifestyle, I can say that instead of showing the hidden sides of the lesbian romance, this film is closer to a porn film, as it lacks depth and mostly shows the physical aspects of the relationship. Even the love-making scenes between the two girls seem to be more for making the film sexy than to discuss a social taboo." she said.

Still, Circumstance is a very smart movie that is able to create a conversation about homosexuality and Iran’s underground lifestyle—something that Iranian activists welcome. Some say the Islamic Republic’s strict policies on gender segregation—from separate schools to men and women sections on the bus has created a lot of sexual confusion in girls. What can a girl do when she spends all her time with girls, and is not allowed to interact with boys without raising eyebrows?

"I saw for myself, in high school, that girls got close to each other for friendship, but at some point, some of these relationships could go beyond friendship,” Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian journalist told the Daily Beast adding that, “You could even see among students from the more traditional families that some of them had feelings for each other, but they didn’t know exactly what these feelings were.”

Other Iranians feminists aren’t so nuanced about the topic, or the movie.

“The relationships appear exaggerated and this confused storytelling makes the film unbelievable to the point where it seems that squeezing sex and the government’s suppressive violence and similar subjects is intended to make the film more exciting, as opposed to trying to approach a serious subject in Iran," said Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, an Iranian feminist and rights activist told the Daily Beast.

“A number of Iranian feminists and women activists who saw this film were angry about it.  They said that they really need films to be made about the marginalized lifestyles of lesbian women, but these films should show the reality of these relationships," Abbasgholizadeh said. “I know that finding two young girls inside Iran who are either lesbians or who would not mind playing the roles of lesbians may have been impossible, but this limitation has seriously damaged the film, at least for those who have traveled to Iran or who know Farsi well.”

But in a society where homosexuality is punishable by death, the movie is thought-provoking.

A young woman from Tehran told the Daily Beast that she is impatiently waiting to find an underground copy of Circumstance in Tehran. "Right now, there are a lot more people who are confused about their sexuality, asking themselves what their orientation is and the film will encourage them to follow their curiosity” she said. “In some big cities and in more modern households, in order to make sure of their sexuality, a lot of these girls have tried having relations with same-sex partners at least once in their lives," she added.

Despite the criticism, in making this film, Keshavarz has faced personal and family challenges, too. She chose a politically dangerous topic, which might prevent her from returning to Iran for as long as the Islamic government is in power.  For an Iranian-American who might find traveling to her parents’ homeland extremely appealing, this is a type of emotional suicide. But it seems that she has preferred discussing a deep Iranian social taboo over the chance to return to Iran. When her mother flew from Los Angeles to watch the film at the Sundance Film Festival, she was not even comfortable with the subject matter of her daughter’s film.

Hamid Dabashi, a Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, told the Daily Beast that any attention, cinematic or otherwise, to taboo subjects is both inevitable and ought to be judged on their artistic virtues and achievements rather than their social or political messages.

“It is true that gay and lesbian issues as we understand them in North America or Western Europe are taboo subject in Iran,” Dabashi stated.  “But that does not mean that homoerotic themes in the larger and more cross cultural senses have never existed in our literary or visual and performing arts. In Persian poetry, in our classical ghazal in particular, and because in Persian we do not have gender-specific pronouns, the figure of "the beloved" is as much hetero-erotic as it is homoerotic."

Of course, the place where the movie has made the most impact, no matter its execution, is that it has opened a dialogue about sexuality in Iran.

"I think that a film that explores a different sexuality could make a significant impact, and of course affect how people think about sexuality, and what it means for Iranians to explore this type of sexuality," said Pardis Mahdavi, author of Passionate Uprisings: Iran’s Sexual Revolution.

Aside from the conversation that the movie has sparked, however, many critics have argued that one of the biggest problems is that it doesn’t remain focused. Keshavarz is cognizant of social issues in Iran—a disappointed young generation, severe social suppression, interference of the regime in citizens’ private lives, and young men and women who courageously break social and political taboos.  Even so, instead of raising multiple points in the movie, if the topic of the relationship between two lesbian girls had remained the focal point of the film, its confusion could have been reduced.

Not everyone agrees.

“If John Smith of Montana made this film, it would never get noticed,” said Mortazavi.

-This article was published in The Daily Beast on 27/08/2011- Omid Memarian is columnist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. He was a World Peace Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2007-2009 and the 2005 recipient of the 'Human Rights Defender Award', the highest honor bestowed by Human Rights Watch

OBAMA’S VICTORY: Libya And The Future Of Humanitarian Intervention

Qaddafi's defeat at the hands of the Western-backed rebels was a triumph for Obama and the principle of humanitarian intervention -- one that is, unfortunately, unlikely to be repeated any time soon.

By Stewart Patrick

REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

The fall of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi is a significant foreign policy triumph for U.S. President Barack Obama. By setting overall strategy while allowing others to shoulder the burden of implementing it, the Obama administration achieved its short-term objective of stopping Qaddafi's atrocities and its long-term one of removing him from power. This was all done at a modest financial cost, with no U.S. troops on the ground, and zero U.S. casualties. Meanwhile, as the first unambiguous military enforcement of the Responsibility to Protect norm, Qaddafi's utter defeat seemingly put new wind in the sails of humanitarian intervention.

One must be careful, however, not to overdraw lessons from the Libyan experience. It was a unique case and is unlikely to be repeated.

For one, Libya had Qaddafi, a villain straight from central casting, who had managed to alienate nearly all UN member states, including his erstwhile Arab and African allies.

The timing was also perfect. As the UN, NATO, and United States debated intervention, leaders in the Middle East were still reeling from the Arab Spring. Acutely aware of the vulnerability of their own regimes, the members of the Arab League, Organization of the Islamic Conference, and Gulf Cooperation Council all endorsed the UN's declaration of a no-fly zone over Libya, including the use of "all necessary means" to prevent mass atrocities.

In addition, China and Russia, the two permanent members of the Security Council (UNSC) most averse to authorizing military intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, had no special relationship with, or interests in, Libya. So, they had no reason to veto a collective action.

Moreover, Libya is a small country, with a population of only 6.4 million, which is concentrated along a fairly narrow strip of land by the Mediterranean. Thus, the logistics of military intervention promised to be less daunting there than it would have in Sudan, for example, which is fifty percent larger, almost seven times as populous, and has hundreds of thousands soldiers under arms. And since Libya is situated on Europe's doorstep, NATO and the EU were more motivated to provide aerial power and political support for the mission, since regional instability and a wave of refugees would affect them if the revolution.

The country also possessed a credible, fairly cohesive, and increasingly capable opposition movement, which provided the ground force that casualty-averse Western governments would not. These rebels ultimately proved able to defeat Qaddafi's military machine.

Finally, Libya was an unambiguous case for applying the RtoP doctrine. To be sure, the atrocities Qaddafi orchestrated in Libya prior to the intervention pale in comparison to those committed during the course of other recent violent conflicts. In Sri Lanka, for example, the government killed thousands of civilians while finishing off the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. And forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have raped tens -- or perhaps hundreds -- of thousands of women over the past decade to sow terror. Qaddafi's violent crackdown on this spring's protests and his explicit promise to "have no mercy and pity" on residents of Benghazi, the opposition stronghold, also left little ambiguity. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted in March, "left unchecked, Qaddafi will commit unspeakable atrocities."

Qaddafi's ouster may vindicate the RtoP idea, but the application of the norm will inevitably remain selective and highly contingent on the political context. The humanitarian imperative is a strong and growing global impulse, but statecraft is still subject to constraints of geopolitics, resources, and political will.

What has been most striking in the Libyan case is the Obama administration's vocal leadership in seeking to consolidate RtoP as a vital global norm -- a stark contrast to the lukewarm attitude of the Bush administration. Washington's embrace of RtoP is critical, because the United States is the only country with the power and the credibility to actually enforce it.

Lest one imagine that the Libyan case is a one-off, on August 4 the Obama administration released the Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities (PSD-10). The directive defines the prevention of mass atrocities as both "a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States." PSD-10 is a groundbreaking document and represents a huge victory for NSS Senior Director Samantha Power, a leading administration hawk on Libya.

The PSD-10 recognizes a simple truth: the United States will inevitably confront atrocities that cannot be ignored. The directive expands the menu of policy options available in such cases, which should range from complete inaction to sending in the marines. This escalatory ladder is meant to encompass preventive diplomacy, economic and financial sanctions, arms embargoes, and ultimately coercive action.

Realist critics have bemoaned it as a blueprint for interventionism run amok, anticipating meddling in foreign conflicts on a grand Wilsonian scale. But an honest evaluation of the directive should be informed by the United States' previous experience with RtoP; given the country's sorry record in actually confronting mass atrocities -- in the killing fields of Cambodia and the bloody hills of Rwanda, to name just two -- the realist critique seems off base. Indeed, the far greater risk is that the directive will gather dust on a shelf, while the United States and the international community ignore the victims of atrocities.

Ultimately, the fate of the PSD-10, and perhaps of the RtoP norm itself, will depend on the attitudes of future U.S. presidents and the American people. Will they be willing to devote resources, and potentially lives, to address the suffering of strangers? The question is, in part, a moral one: What obligations does the United States have to those living beyond its borders? It is also a strategic one: How does a policymaker weigh the potential benefits of an intervention (in terms of lives saved) against the costs to the United States (including in the lives of its own soldiers).

There is no easy answer to this question. In the late nineteenth century, Bismarck famously remarked that the entirety of the Balkans was not worth the bones of a single "Pomeranian grenadier." A century later, NATO dithered before summoning the will to intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the United States pulled out of Somalia after the deaths of eighteen U.S. Army Rangers.

Now, two decades later, no senior official in the Obama administration nor member of Congress has issued a call for intervention in Somalia to assist the delivery of emergency food aid, as that country faces its worst famine in decades. Al Shabaab, a U.S. designated terrorist organization, controls the vast majority of drought-affected areas and is obstructing the delivery of foreign aid. Without assistance, 3.2 million Somalis will likely die. The United States' silence on Somalia contrasts starkly with its policy on Libya.

The United States will remain selective about humanitarian intervention, because it must balance the goal of preventing suffering with other interests and commitments, and because some conflicts, such as anarchic Somalia, are dauntingly complex and would impose unacceptable burdens on well-meaning intervenors.

As Obama has noted, however, that is no excuse for inaction everywhere. Although rigid criteria for involvement are unrealistic, the U.S policy on armed humanitarian intervention should be guided by several principles, which I first outlined in 2004, when I was on the State Department policy planning staff.

First, the United States should set the bar for intervention high. It should be limited to stopping or preventing egregious atrocities --situations in which governments or insurgents are targeting large numbers of civilians with genocide, systematic rape, mass murder, expulsion, or other crimes against humanity.

There are prudent reasons for this limitation. Sovereignty remains the stabilizing force of the world order -- a barrier to global anarchy. In addition, U.S. capacities are finite. Without discipline, its resources could be quickly exhausted.

Second, armed intervention should be an option of last resort. Given the costs, risks, and the unpredictable consequences, it should be employed only when other measures fail or when the speed and scale of atrocities outpaces slower instruments. And then, the mission should be undertaken using means proportional to the conflict, and should be coupled with a realistic long-term political strategy to address the violence's root cause.

Third, multilateral interventions are vastly preferable to unilateral ones. They offer both increased legitimacy and the promise that others will share the load.

Finally, the United States should undertake armed humanitarian intervention only if its leaders are committed to marshaling and sustaining the domestic support required to stay the course even if the going gets rough. Absent enthusiastic public or congressional sentiment in favor of intervention, the president must be ready to lead on his own.

When it came to authorizing and conducting the Libya intervention, the Obama administration checked all these boxes. It set the bar high; moved to military force after other expedients had failed; designed a military strategy with good prospects of success, using proportional means; and it forged a broad coalition, legitimated by the UN Security Council. Finally, Obama displayed the political courage to do what was right, sticking with the campaign even as U.S. public support flagged from lukewarm 43 percent in late March to a dangerously low 24 percent by July.

Libya has demonstrated the viability of a well-implemented RtoP intervention. Yet just because the doctrine has survived a significant test, one should not assume that the United States and its allies will apply it universally. As atrocities emerge in other contexts, the international community will need to cultivate and weigh other policy options against armed intervention, so it is not faced with stark choice of military action or inaction. The Obama administration's PSD-10 is a step in that direction.

-This commentary was published in The Foreign Affairs on 26/08/2011
-STEWART PATRICK is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security

The Right And The Wrong Lessons To Draw From Libya's Liberation

Striking from the air while keeping western boots off the ground appeals to many. But it won't work everywhere

By Andrew Rawnsley

Libyan rebel fighters celebrate in the Bab al-Aziziya compound, the former stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi, in Tripoli, Libya. Photograph: Marco Salustro/EPA

The hunter, hunted. The predator, prey. The strutting tyrant who threatened to "cleanse" Libya "street by street, house by house" is on the run himself. For those who hold that democracies sometimes have both the right and the obligation to take up arms against dictators, the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi is a relief. After the horrors of Iraq and the agonies of Afghanistan, the ideal of liberal interventionism could probably not have survived another humiliation. A large industry of analysis is already producing "lessons from Libya". There are lessons that appear sound. There are lessons that sound attractive, but turn out on closer inspection to be dangerously wrong.

One lesson – a rather familiar tutorial this – is that conventional wisdom is often wrong. We were told that it would be impossible to get a UN resolution – and one was secured. We were told that Arab support would not stay solid – and, by and large, it did. We were told, as recently as 10 days ago, that the campaign was stuck in a stalemate which exposed the folly of David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy in pursuing the enterprise, so much for the wisdom of the conventional.

Another lesson is that sometimes there really is no alternative to decisive military action by outside powers to prevent a tyrant from unleashing atrocities. Western leaders, anxious for this to be seen as a home-grown Libyan revolution rather than the result of American and European arms, have been shy of spelling this out. They have been nervous, too, of any echo of the "mission accomplished" hubris of George W Bush in the immediate aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. So David Cameron – saying: "This has not been our revolution" – depicts the fall of Gaddafi as the work of the Libyans themselves with Britain, France and America just lending a modest helping hand. The un-triumphalist tone is well-judged. David Cameron is bound to derive considerable satisfaction from his credit-worthy role in rallying and sustaining the anti-Gaddafi international coalition, but the prime minister is sensible not to let his head swell too visibly before the cameras. It is diplomatic to suggest that the Libyans did this almost all by themselves. It is also disingenuous. I asked a member of the National Security Council whether there was any chance that the rebellion could have overthrown Gaddafi without outside assistance. He responded bluntly: "None at all. There's no chance they could have done it without us."

That sounds right. For all their flag-waving, victory signs and shooting into the sky, the ragtag rebel militiamen were never by themselves militarily strong enough to prevail against a ruthless, highly armed and well dug-in regime. The initial uprising sprang from the courage of Libyans who wanted to be free of a dictator who seized power when Richard Nixon was in the White House. But without western airpower, the rebellion would have been crushed five months ago and Gaddafi would have gone on to wreak a terrible vengeance on all who had defied him. The anti-Gaddafi forces acknowledge that they could not have done it alone. At the outset, western warplanes prevented a massacre in Benghazi. At the finale, reconnaissance units calling in Nato air strikes on Gaddafi forces played an indispensable role in the sudden liberation of Tripoli.

The danger of this lesson is that it is taken too far. Some voices are seductively suggesting that in Libya we have found a new, improved formula for armed intervention against dictatorships. After the searing experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq, there is a natural inclination to want to find a better template for future interventions and Libya seems to offer it. Not a single British pilot was killed in combat. The number of civilian casualties inflicted by the airstrikes seems to have been mercifully light. The absence of visible Nato forces on the ground is also attractive to western policy-makers because it reduces any imperialist taint to intervention. In his celebratory statement, Barack Obama said pointedly: "All this was done without putting a single US troop on the ground."

You can see why some will think that air power supporting indigenous ground forces will always be the way to go in future. Strike from the skies, but keep western boots off the ground to gain the benefits of intervention – doing the right thing and ridding the world of a horrible dictator – without having to take too much risk. You might call it intervention-lite. We should be very wary of this emerging doctrine. Just because this style of action worked in Libya is no guarantee that it will work everywhere. It is worth recalling that precisely the opposite lesson was drawn after some previous interventions. During the Kosovo confrontation in 1999, the refusal to back up Nato air power with the threat to deploy ground troops was seen as a cardinal mistake – and so it was – because it encouraged Slobodan Milosevic to believe he could prevail, thus prolonging that conflict. Iraq started its slide into bloody anarchy in the three months after the invasion not because there were too many western troops in Baghdad, but because there were too few to maintain law and order and contain insurgents and sectarian fighters before they could grow in strength. Western leaders currently sound judicious when they forswear putting any troops on the ground, even as peacekeepers. They will not be so acclaimed for their wisdom if mayhem should break out in Tripoli. Beware anyone who says we have now found a perfect formula for intervention or a magic bullet for dispatching dictators.

Another thing that Libya hasn't done is bring us any closer to a true consensus about when armed intervention in another sovereign state can be justified in the name of democracy and human rights. The Libyan example does not do much to clear up the legal confusions and moral contradictions. Time and again, David Cameron and others have stressed that this intervention was "legal" because it had the blessing of the UN Security Council. It is true that resolution 1973 robed this action with an international legitimacy that was so conspicuously lacking in the invasion of Iraq. Even so, to bring about the fall of Gaddafi, the resolution had to be stretched to the very limit of its wording. Many would contend that the allies went well beyond their original mandate as an operation to protect civilians swiftly evolved into a mission to achieve regime change. I don't have much of a problem with that. I argued from the beginning that no civilian could be said to be safe in Libya until that one-family tyranny was gone. The non-combatant members of the Security Council clearly didn't have much of a problem either because they didn't complain about the manipulation of the terms of the resolution. But let us not kid ourselves that sanctification by the Security Council is the sole arbiter of what is ethical and just.

The resolution was only passed in the first place because the Russians and the Chinese chose to abstain rather than wield the veto. On moral grounds, there are as many compelling reasons to intervene in Syria as there were in Libya. Yet the equally brutal President Assad and his cronies will not have to duck and cover as Nato warplanes scream overhead. That is, at least in part, because the Russians, sponsors of the Syrian dynastic dictatorship since the early years of the cold war, won't have it. We remain in an unhappy world where western powers may intervene in the name of humanity only if they feel inclined to do so and only if they are not opposed by autocrats in Moscow and Beijing.

And only if Washington is up for it. To an extent that hasn't been generally visible, the intervention was crucially dependent on the military muscle of the United States. It just hasn't looked that way because it has suited everyone for America to appear to take a backseat. It has suited the uprising. It has suited David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy who have been able to claim a leadership role. It has suited the Americans to have had a low profile in a third conflict in a Muslim state.

The truth is that none of this would have happened without the Americans. The UN resolution would almost certainly not have been passed without strenuous US diplomatic activity. It was US cruise missiles striking radar and anti-aircraft installations which initially made the air safe for British, French and allied warplanes. Eleven weeks into the campaign, the Europeans were running out of munitions and had to go to the Americans for replenishment. US surveillance aircraft, intelligence satellites and mid-air refuelling tanker planes were vital. One senior adviser to David Cameron says candidly: "We simply couldn't have done it without American support."

Libyans now have a chance to take the path of freedom, peace and prosperity, a chance they would have been denied were we to have walked on by when Muammar Gaddafi was planning his rivers of blood. Britain and her allies broadly got it right in Libya. That won't make it any easier to get it right in other places at other times.

-This commentary was published in The Observer on 28/08/2011
-Andrew Rawnsley is the Observer's award-winning chief political commentator. He is also a critically acclaimed broadcaster and author

Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty In Light Of The New Realities

By Nath Aldalala’a

Peace in the Middle East is crucially dependent on the extent to and the manner in which the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty will be upheld.

The treaty shows clearly the inequality between the demands of the new realities and the old mechanisms that has seen a calm political exchange between the two countries for the past three decades. Its implementation in 1979 was followed by Hosni Mubarak’s rise to power, in 1981. Since then, the treaty has determined the relationship between Israel and the recently ousted regime in Egypt. Mubarak himself was a symbol of its durability; he actually acted as its personal guardian.

Despite four wars in the period 1948-73, Mubarak was able to steer the relationship between the two countries on a fairly calm path, based on the principle “we have peace so that we do not have war”. Beyond that, there was no much social interaction between the two countries, and the treaty did not affect the Egyptian people’s attitude towards Israel.

Having secured its defence lines with Egypt and Mubarak’s friendship, Israel felt free to commit massacres in Lebanon and Palestine, strike Iraqi and Syrian nuclear sites, and generally continue its aggressive and expansionist policies in the West Bank.

This convinced the Arabs, as well as the wider world, that Israel is not overly concerned with peace.

Following the fall of Mubarak, the treaty is in precarious situation. The recent killing of five Egyptian soldiers on the border with Israel further erodes the treaty’s fragility and makes debate about its validity necessary.

The treaty, it must be acknowledged, granted Israel peace but diminished Egypt’s role and regional influence. When the man in the street has no say over the policies agreed between politicians, any notion of peace loses currency. Egypt’s role in future peace negotiations in the Arab world has been undermined.

Peace implies justice, but so far, due to Israel’s belligerence, there is no belief among Arabs that peace between them and Israel is achievable.

If Egypt is to reassume a leading role in the Arab world, its policies towards Israel need to be corrected. Egypt should use its influence to achieve a wider and more far-reaching peaceful solution to regional difficulties and conflicts.

The treaty is bound to undermine any incoming government, particularly if it cannot demonstrate a radical break in style and substance with the old regime.

The stipulations of the treaty weaken Egypt’s authority over its territories in Sinai. It dictates that Egypt maintain Sinai as a demilitarised zone. The recent Egyptian request to move its soldiers into Sinai, and the permission given by Israel, demonstrates Israel’s superiority over Egypt, rather than a relationship between two equals.

There is a window of opportunity for change in Egypt now. While there is a desire for political transformation, the country must change the spirit of peace. The continued confiscation of Palestinian land and the ongoing settlement building must keep Egyptians wary of Israel’s “peaceful” intentions.

For peace to be genuine, it must go beyond the will of the political classes.

-This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 28/08/2011
-The writer is School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics at Newcastle University

Responding To The Needs Of Saudis

'Immediate action' is an excuse many have to bear with when dealing with ministries and public sector officials

By Tariq A. Al Maeena

Here I am in Jeddah, grounded at home for the past couple of weeks or so and nursing an annoying head cold and a host of other allergies. And as I seethe with frustration, I suspect I know what the causes of all my maladies are.

A couple of months ago, some construction activity started on a plot just north of my dwelling. Large excavators and shovels removed earth to prepare for the foundation and piled the removed dirt and debris that was about three metres high and a football field wide adjacent to the land where I lived.

And then the equipment disappeared. My efforts to locate it have been futile, as nobody showed up after that initial activity. Nor was there any sign posted by the developer or the construction outfit.

As the wind blew, so did the top layer of this hill, and right into my family room where I spend a greater part of the time when I am at home. And no matter what precautions we took, the dust found its way through nicks and crannies and conveniently deposited itself in my nasal passages.

Figuring that my sanity and survival depended on me being more proactive, I called the local branch of our municipality to lodge a complaint. And after the process of detailing where the offensive violation was located, and assured over the phone by a municipal bureaucrat that the concerned department in his organisation would act immediately, I hung up feeling slightly better.

After a few days of nothing happening, and realising my folly in not asking how ‘immediately' translated itself in the minds of our municipality, I called again and demanded to speak to the same bureaucrat who had assured me of ‘immediate' action.

He was apologetic though, explaining this miscue due to some personal emergencies. I was willing to allow him that provided he act right away, and this time I gave him a time-frame of two days.

The two days came and went, and when I called again I was told he was busy inspecting some sites. I asked to speak to his department head, and after a question and answer session as to why I wanted to speak to a head of a department, I was grudgingly connected.

Again, I went through my spiel of neighbourhood construction violations, and this time the department head assured me of ‘immediate' action, a term I have justifiably come to dread when dealing with most ministries and public sector departments.

But this time I was prepared. "What constitutes immediately?" I asked. "Oh, it's a bit late now, but we will get to it first thing tomorrow morning," was his reply. Late? It was noon! But Municipal employees have to get home and have their lunch and siesta long before their workday is officially over, I surmised.

"And can you fax us a map of the location?" he added. "But I have already explained the location in detail to your assistant more than once, I replied. "Yes, but he is out of the office. Just do it and we'll get to it". Within minutes I had the fax sent.

Violations

Three days went by before I called them again. This time I was angry. My sinuses were acting up, my sleep was disturbed, and I was not very congenial. "Look, are you guys still celebrating the arrival of a recently appointed mayor? Is that why no action has been taken to my complaint? Perhaps I just go complain to him?" I demanded.

"The new mayor has enough on his plate already. Our engineer went to the site and took note of the violations. The problem is that we don't know who the landowner is, and we do not have enough shovels to remove the dirt. If you can find out who the land is owned by or who the developer is, and take some pictures, maybe we could act on it directly with them" was his smooth answer.

My ire rising, I burst out, "How the hell am I expected to know whom this land belongs to or what company is building on it? Am I the one with access to land deeds, or construction permits? Your office authorised the initial dredging of the plot, and you cannot retrieve that information from your own records? And Jeddah Municipality does not have a budget to own a few digital cameras? I am tired of wasting my time with you. Who is your immediate boss?"

"The new mayor," was his retort.

"Well then, there's nothing else left but to inconvenience myself and trudge to the mayor's office armed with photographs I will have taken and personally meet this recent appointee. Only there won't be any rah rahs and hoorays in what I have to say. I'll need to remind him that he is here to serve the needs of the people," I concluded.

-This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 28/08/2011
-Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Syria's Opposition Has Failed To Offer A Viable Alternative

By Hassan Hassan

Shortly after the execution of Saddam Hussein in December 2006, two stories began to circulate about his fate. One told of otherwise sane people reportedly seeing the face of the late Iraqi dictator on the moon on the night of his death. Another told a more believable tale: that the "real" Saddam was alive and well after a body double died on the gallows. It would only be a matter of time before he rose again.

These stories were, of course, nothing more than paranoid fiction. But they spoke to the psychological hold that Saddam maintained over much of the Iraqi public. People simply couldn't believe his reign of terror was over. Indeed, some people didn't want it to be.

A similar scenario is playing out in Syria today. Much like his father before him, Bashar Al Assad's political decisions have rendered him illegitimate in the eyes of many. But fear of what could come next has kept his regime alive.

Mr Al Assad, like all totalitarian rulers, holds on to power in different ways: by force, by coercion, or by a combination of both. Decades of brutality have pushed some to accept tyranny.

But there are others who support the Assad regime for legitimate reasons. These Syrians, predominantly minorities, have profound concerns that must be duly addressed. And so far, the Syrian opposition has failed to reassure those sitting on the fence.

"It hurts every time I say that I don't want the [Assad] regime to fall," a Syrian Christian friend told me recently. "Deep down I know it should go, but survival instinct tells me to support it."

Although the opposition has little political and diplomatic experience after decades of suppression, it is fair to say that it bears some of the blame for the continued bloodshed.

Many of the dissidents are widely perceived as seeking personal political gains.

On Monday, a number of dissidents announced a "national council" in Istanbul. But the council was unilaterally announced and did not include any credible dissidents, such as Haitham Al Maleh, a former judge who has a track record of dissidence from within Syria and has spent many years of his life in the Al Assads' prisons. Unilateral, irresponsible acts by self-styled opposition members - people who command no credibility from the majority of Syrians - only reinforce the regime's propaganda.

"Who is the alternative now?" said another Christian friend from Damascus. "And why do the US and the West support the opposition? Believe me, had the opposition been more patriotic than the regime, we wouldn't have heard the voice of the Americans as we do now."

Syrians' fears are further reinforced by the fact that most of the opposition conferences were organised by the Muslim Brotherhood, the only non-state actor in recent history to slaughter other Syrians along sectarian lines. (In the 1980s they assassinated dozens of Alawite officers as part of their armed campaign against the former president).

It is worth noting that there was a perception that the 1982 massacre in Hama, where as many as 30,000 people were killed, was carried out only by Hafiz Al Assad and his uncle Rifaat al Assad. Now the dominant perception is that the current killings are carried out by the sect to which the regime belongs, the Alawites, posing a potential risk of sectarian violence.

"I wholeheartedly want the regime to fall but, to be honest, I began to feel slightly scared a few days ago after I heard some stories of sectarian violence," said a Druze friend from Syria. "If sectarian violence breaks out after the regime falls, we will be the first to suffer from it."

Such reasoning explains why many of those in Suweida, the province where the majority of Druze live, have been largely silent. For one, the Druze are uncertain about their future after the downfall of the Assad regime. Also, the province has 11 tribes and tribal leaders who could stanch any protests by talking to their elderly men.

The regime has also been careful not to clamp down on areas where a minority is based, especially as long as they can make use of influential elders. The Baathist regime has somehow convinced some in the religious minorities that they could only be safe under its rule.

As the situation stands now, the only sect that is likely to face sectarian violence in the regime's downfall is the Alawites. Associating the killings and torture with Alawite militias and security forces means many families will seek revenge on the Alawites.

Families of protesters often repeat that they will "take revenge on the Assads and their gangs". If the Assads fall, a tricky situation will emerge; who will be put on trial so that the families feel that justice is being served? Estimates put the numbers of regime-affiliated Shabbiha - Alawite militias - between 60,000 and 100,000. Revenge attacks will likely take place in several cities across Syria. Currently, some of these families vent their anger through defiance of the brutal regime.

The driving force behind protests is still a thirst for democracy. But as time passes there is an increased risk of chaos that could develop into civil strife.

This risk can be prevented or contained with the establishment of a unified body for the opposition that represents all society sectors. The body should be truly representative and preach an inclusive, non-sectarian and moderate political discourse. The apparent lack of alternative to Mr Al Assad will simply prolong his regime.

This commentary was published in The National on 28/08/2011

Where Is Syria Heading?

By Mariam Karouny

The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi by Libyan rebels supported by NATO forces focuses international attention on the five months of unrest in Syria, which has shaken one of the most tightly controlled Arab states. Opposition figures and activists fear the successful use of force to topple Gaddafi may encourage Syrians to follow Libya's example. Syrian protests have been mainly peaceful but there have been increasing reports of attacks on security forces.

Upheaval in Syria would affect its allies and enemies in the volatile Middle East, and a softening in rhetoric from Arab countries this week indicated they might still be prepared to support President Bashar al-Assad if he implements reform. Following are some possible scenarios in Syria and the risks and opportunities they would present:

STALEMATE

The United Nations says 2,200 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on dissent since protests broke out in March. Syria says over 500 soldiers and police have been killed by armed groups which it blames for the violence. Despite growing international condemnation, Western sanctions, and escalating economic pressures from the unrest, Assad's rule shows no sign of imminent collapse.

Nor is there any indication that the protests across the country are about to stop, although the number of protesters appears to have fallen since Assad sent troops into several major cities earlier in August. If Assad cannot crush the protests completely, he may be able to contain their impact, staying in power despite the major upheaval and economic disruption caused by the unrest and growing international isolation.

STRIKING A DEAL WITH OPPOSITION

Assad could reshuffle his ministers and bring in some opposition figures in a symbolic move that will not stop street demonstrations but may convince some that he is serious about reforms, including the promise of multi-party elections by February.

After an apparently coordinated wave of criticism from regional powers including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey earlier this month, Arab states have moderated their language in recent days, hinting at a possible easing of pressure on Assad. Many opposition figures have dismissed Assad's promise of political reform and said they cannot talk to the authorities while the violence continues. But if the deadlock continues, some members of the fractured opposition may feel there is no alternative to negotiation, despite the chasm of mistrust between the two sides.

INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION

So far no country has proposed carrying out in Syria the kind of intervention undertaken by NATO forces to help Libyan rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi. But the collapse of Gaddafi's rule has encouraged some Syrian opposition figures and protesters to support international intervention in Syria, including the idea of a Turkish buffer zone in northern Syria. "Please! NATO help us," read one banner, in English, at a protest in the northern province of Idlib on Friday.

But any military intervention could destabilize a region in which Assad enjoys strong support from Iran and backs militant groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. "Any negative or bad development will affect the whole region," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday. International intervention could also lead some Syrians to choose Assad over perceived foreign interference.

CIVIL WAR

Analysts and some opposition activists have warned that the continuous killing may encourage people to take up arms in big numbers, pushing the country towards civil war. "I fear that some in the opposition who are in a hurry to end the regime, who we have always warned against repeating the Libyan example, will say now it has been successful and resort to arms," said opposition figure Louay Hussein. Assad belongs to the minority Alawite sect which makes up around ten percent of the Syrian population. Most of the demonstrations are taking place in Sunni Muslim areas. There have been sectarian killings in some cities including Homs, but activists say so far it has been a minor part of the unrest.

ASSAD TOPPLED

Syria suffered repeated coups in the 1960s before Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, seized power in 1970 and purged his opponents from positions of power. Despite reports of some low-level defections, and Assad's replacement of his defense minister at the height of the military crackdown in August, the army has so far stood behind the president, unlike in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.

But some activists see little prospect of Assad being toppled by street demonstrations and see a military coup as the best chance of removing him. They hope Western calls for Assad to step down and targeted sanctions against senior officials might encourage those around the president to break away or carry out a coup to avoid prosecution.

It is not clear how any new military leaders would deal with protesters' demands for greater political freedoms. Attention has also focused on the wealthy merchant classes of Damascus and Aleppo which have made no public move yet to disassociate themselves from Assad. Unless they feel their interests would be protected in a post-Assad Syria, they would be reluctant to push for revolutionary change. But their patience may be tested as the economy reels from the collapse of tourism revenues and foreign investment, loss of trade and a fall in manufacturing output. – Reuters

This analysis was published in The Kuwait Times on 28/08/2011