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After last Saturday's protest, the desire for reform and freedom is stirring in Algeria-despite the shadow of the past civil war
By Karima Bennnoune This commentary was published in The Guardian on 17/02/2011
Algerian riot police clash with protesters during the 12 February anti-government demonstration in Algiers; the foreign minister has proclaimed the imminent lifting of the state of emergency. Photograph: Louafi Larbi/Reuters
Sunday 13 February 13 – The Day After
1st of May Square, Algeria's "Little Tahrir", looks bizarrely normal the morning after the 12 February opposition protest that defied a massive police deployment. The fountain is back on and there are only a few ordinary cops around, compared with the thousands from the anti-riot squad who blanketed the space on Sunday, arresting hundreds. I am picked up in the square to attend the follow up meeting of the protest's organisers, the National Coordinating Committee for Change and Democracy (CNCD), at a union hall near the airport. The elderly lawyer Ali Yahia Abdennour opens the discussion: "They beat our old and young, our women and men." He calls for demonstrations the following Saturday and every Saturday thereafter until the entire Algerian population descends into the streets. The meeting ratifies his idea, declaring another protest 19 February on 1st of May Square.
Monday 14 February – Valentine's Day à l'Algérienne
In the morning, I am stuck in the cement-like traffic of Algiers. A smiling young woman in hijab with elaborate eye makeup shares my taxi and we talk about how she would like to visit her relatives in the United States, and her hopes for Algeria. When she alights, she takes the rhinestone brooch off her headscarf and gives it to me, kissing me on both cheeks. This humbling generosity is one of Algeria's greatest natural resources; her broach one of the best Valentine's Day gifts I have ever received.
Later in the day, near the House of the Press where many newspapers are headquartered, Mustapha Benfodil, one of Algeria's leading writers and journalists, tells me how difficult it is to get permission to produce his plays in Algerian theatres. As a result, he has taken to staging readings in public places, lectures sauvages or wild readings, as he calls them. This often results in his arrest. He has written some of the best articles about the recent demonstrations in one of Algeria's prominent newspapers, El Watan. Here is how he described the 12 February gathering on 1st of May Square:
"There was an air of Tahrir Square, Cairo's heroic liberation site … Political and NGO activists, trade unionists, the unemployed, professionals, government workers, women, many women, artists, students, academics, the retired, adolescents, young girls, old people, secularists, Islamists, Communists, Facebookers and those with indeterminate opinions. The square … was sparkling, turbulent and full of that angry effervescence of proud cities." (Read the original in French if you can – it rhymes.)
At twilight, I meet with a woman professional in her 40s whom I will call Zohra, in the swank Hotel Djazair, and am taken aback when she leans over and says quietly, "I would do anything to participate in bringing this government down, whatever the price." For Zohra, taghair el nitham (changing the system) also means ameliorating the condition of women, and challenging social conservatism. "Now you have to hide to have a drink, if you choose not to fast during Ramadan, if you go out with someone." She will attend the 19 February march, though she will conceal this from her family.
I want to walk to where I am staying but am reminded of the night before when the somber streets rapidly became male-only territory, so I hail a cab. The balding driver in his sixties explains that "In Arab and Islamic countries, we have only been given a choice between dictatorship and Islamism. What we need instead is a just middle." He doesn't think much of the fundamentalists and is very sympathetic to the demonstrators. When I ask if many people will attend next Saturday, he replies, "Why [would people go] when last time you had 2,000 protestors and 40,000 police?" And when we talk about last Saturday's young "hired" pro-government counter-demonstrators, he asks, "What did they leave for these youth? No dancing, no bars, no cafes, no cinemas, just the mosque."
Tuesday 15 February – Mouloud
I celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed at lunch with a group of feminist activists. Many are involved with the newly-created Observatory on violence against women. They see the "woman question" as immediately political, and so their coalition joined the coordinating committee organising the protests. They want issues like the abrogation of the discriminatory family code to be on the change agenda. "Therefore, we must march." They toast democracy with a glass of Algerian wine.
Some argue that Islamism is dead here. When Ali Belhadj, former number two of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), attempted to enter the march on Saturday with a reported 50 of his activists – a fact that al-Jazeera trumpeted all day long – he was denounced as an assassin by some protestors (al-Jazeera did not make a headline of that). Many young people simply did not know who Belhadj was. Another woman tells me later that she is not so sure fundamentalism has faded, the society having been deeply Islamised since the period of terrorism.
Some of the women are very optimistic for the coming Saturday, expecting more protestors. The foreign minister had even announced today that the state of emergency would be lifted within days. However, another woman worries that next time the young counter-demonstrators will be ready to "smash our faces". One says simply, "This is not the end. It is the beginning." At the same time, they all stress the differences between Algeria and Egypt. Referring to the mass exodus of Algeria's educated class during the slaughter of the 1990s, they note, "their intellectuals did not have to leave and they were not isolated. Tunisia and Egypt have real bourgeoisies; our elite is dispersed everywhere."
I leave to meet the founders of Collectif Algerie Pacifique, a youth group created on Facebook: 3,500 people signed up to participate in their first action. "I hate politics," Amine Menadi, 29, says. "Our politics is to say what we think." He explains their initial motivation: "We wanted to respond to the way the minister of the interior insulted the youth [after January's riots] and to show we do know how to express ourselves peacefully but they won't let us." They had a gathering on 13 January in the 1st of May Square against the riots, but also against what caused the riots. "We have had enough violence in our country."
Aware of their own limitations, Amine asks: "How can we have a demonstration where we are only a few thousand and say we are the people? There are 5 million Algérois; 5,000 people is not even a rock concert." However, he reminds us that friends in Tunis "said that Sidi Bouzid was just a little town, and then they found themselves in the street." They are frustrated with some aspects of the opposition leadership, like the involvement of political parties, but say they are drowning, and that a drowning person will grab onto a pencil if it might keep him afloat. "We want a better Algeria. We will march on the 19th."
Wednesday 16 February – Vodka in Bab el-Oued
At noon, I meet Samir Larabi, a young activist with the new National Committee for the Defence of the Rights of the Unemployed. This organisation held a demonstration in front of the labour ministry on 6 February that was suppressed by the police. An unemployed man tried to set himself on fire but was saved by a journalist from El Watan. Larabi explains that people are active now because security has improved since the 1990s, and indeed, the country is well-off economically – while its ordinary people suffer miserable living conditions. This is partly a revolt of raised expectations.
A major theme of my interviews is the disgust that ordinary people feel about what is called politics. Larabi says the young "vomit the politicians". Yet, he also understands that a credible political alternative will be necessary to actually improve conditions here.
During the day, I Iearn that the YouTube H'chicha has called for an alternative protest on Friday 18 February. Some fear this will attract a different crowd, coming after Friday prayers. But a few longhaired young organisers I encounter tell me they would go to any demonstration called now.
I meet another member of the CNCD, a journalist/Facebooker in a leather jacket, named Fodil Boumala, who was arrested last Saturday. For him, the current government is "illegal, illegitimate and violates the constitution". He stresses that the marches are not ends in themselves, but he points to several successes: first, they got Algeria moving, quite literally; second, they got the Algerian diaspora mobilised – in Paris, Montreal and beyond; and third, they elicited responses from foreign governments – notably France, Germany and the US – calling on the Algerian state not to repress demonstrations.
I follow Fodil to a meeting of intellectuals. Everyone seems to be organising a committee or network, drafting a declaration or a set of principles. Still, these intellectuals are not overly optimistic. "It is not yet the turn of Algeria," one tells me. "We must worry about our Tunisian and Egyptian friends that they could have the same problems that we had [after October 1988 when protests led to brief democratisation, a flawed electoral process and a bloody civil war]."
At the end of the day, I head to Bab el-Oued, the legendary quartier populaire near the sea that was a stronghold of the FIS during the terrible 1990s, to visit an association that works with poor youth. This area was home to some of the early January riots. In the offices of SOS Bab el-Oued, a neighbourhood rock band practises what sounds like "Louie, Louie" in Algerian Arabic in the basement under a picture of Che Guevara. The activists here seem to be almost equally disappointed in the state and the opposition, neither of which they feel has made an effort to reach out to the base. "We are strangled. We are suffocated." There is "no work, no leisure … we had 10 years of terrorism."
Tired of explaining what reality can better illustrate, Nacer Meghenine, president of the association, leaps to his feet and tells me to follow. I end up touring Bab el-Oued by night. First, we visit a family of eight who live in one room. The grandmother holds an infant suffering from spina bifida with a large growth on her back and crossed eyes. They are waiting for an operation she needs. Despite their terrible situation, the grandmother is an ardent supporter of President Bouteflika whom she distinguishes from the government, and she opposes the marches because she is terrified of a return to violence – a fear the regime has capitalised on. "We are tired of blood after 10 years. Bezzef! [Too much!]" In response, Nacer says, "Don't tell them about democracy! They live day by day."
A 50-something fundamentalist in the street tells me there are lots of vultures here that only the will of God can chase away. When I ask about the marches, he says that as long as Bab el-Oued is not awakened, nothing will happen. Later, Nacer tells me that anyone who thinks fundamentalism is dead has not been to Bab el-Oued. He points out that the streets are full of bearded men, explaining that they have been a repeated obstacle in his work.
We head to a former parking garage turned into what one can only term so-called housing. There is garbage everywhere. Two young men stand inside the entrance, drinking vodka. What else is there to do in Bab el-Oued by night? I visit a young couple who live in two rooms with their infant. My friendly hostess tells me her husband works as a security guard. She lays out her daily difficulties. "My husband earns 10,000 dinars a month. My son's milk costs 300 dinars a can. It only lasts a few days. His diapers cost another 750 dinars. How can we feed ourselves?" She tells me there are women sleeping on cartons in the street. Ominously, she warns that things could explode. Then she shows me how she plugged the gaps around her windows to protect her son from tear gas during January's uprising. "It will be much worse than January, if it doesn't change peacefully."
In another home, a family of five live in one room. Some years ago, they made an official housing request but never received a response. The serious young father studied psychology and sociology, supports the marches and is desperate for change. He says, "I don't need a million dinars. I just need a job, housing and protection for my children." His wife was mugged a few days ago. As we walk back, I ask Nacer what the state should do for people here, and he says quite simply – we need a Marshall Plan.
A key challenge seems to be bridging the gap between the dedicated activists I met in the city above and the people here in Bab el-Oued, to cross the divide between the peaceful protests and the proletarian émeutes described by the researcher Amel Boubekeur. Nevertheless, whatever the imperfections, this Saturday, when I watch the bloggers and the feminists and the unemployed try to march for a new Algeria, I will think of what Samir Larabi told me: "We need democracy to fight exploitation. Bread and liberty are not alternatives." I will carry the rhinestone brooch of the young woman from the taxi in my pocket as a symbol of the sparkling promise of Algeria. And I will think of the desperate hope and anger of the good people of Bab el-Oued.
Despite all the paradoxes, this Saturday, the marchers will again try to take a step toward a better future for this country, the future its older people fought for yesterday and its young people deserve today
By Roger Cohen This commentary was published in The New York Times on 17/02/2011
When the history of the Egyptian Revolution gets written, a large place must be reserved in it for Pierre Sioufi, the bearded, twinkly-eyed, chain-smoking, larger-than-life guru of liberation who threw open his sprawling apartment overlooking Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the “kids” who demanded the right to connect.
I say a “large place.” Sioufi weighs in at some 300 pounds. If Tahrir Square during those 18 days had its elements of Woodstock — the plastic tents, the bleary-eyed folk at dawn, the all-we-can-really-do-is-love-one-another spirit — then he was its Jerry Garcia (with a touch of Allen Ginsberg).
Picture Sioufi at his cluttered desk, like a captain at the helm of a storm-tossed ship, reaching for his box of Swedish matches, lighting another Marlboro, waving in some group of Facebook “kids” (he always called them that) with their laptops, dressed in a T-shirt that says “Fel Meshmesh” (roughly “It will never happen”), searching for a charger in the pile tangled around a bottle of Maille vinegar, gazing out at glass-faced wooden bookcases with leather-bound volumes including “La Grande Encyclopédie,” eating his way through another bowl of lentils, writing messages to the world on his desktop, exhorting, welcoming and laughing.
There were never less than 40 people in Sioufi’s apartment, sometimes many more, out on the terrace with its panoramic view (and twisted cactuses); in the computer room where the “kids” did the Facebook work of coordination (often to the sound of Led Zeppelin); in the kitchen where somehow food never dwindled; threading their way down labyrinthine corridors beneath gilt-framed portraits hung at all angles; watching TV through palls of smoke; trying not to tread on Olive the cat or on the two terriers Coquette and Babo or on a woman curled up with her video camera on one of many mattresses scattered across parquet floors; plotting and praying and sometimes, at the sight of the immense crowd, just murmuring “Oh my God.”
At its most basic level, what’s gone on in Tunisia and Egypt, and what’s going on in Bahrain and Libya and Yemen and Iran, is about what happened in Sioufi’s apartment: the right to meet, to exchange views, to organize political campaigns, to connect. A big part of the Arab-Persian world’s problem — and the West’s problem in turn — has been that for decades about the only place people could gather in the security states of the region has been the mosque.
For the United States to support Mubarak and his ilk, and at the same time imagine violent Islamist extremism might erode, was delusional. Tahrir brought debate into the public sphere. It lifted the lid of the radicalizing Arab pressure cooker.
“I was just here by chance,” Sioufi, 50, told me. “I’m no more than a salon revolutionary, perhaps because I can afford it. If I couldn’t, maybe I’d be a real revolutionary!”
It was not easy, in the hubbub of what became known as “The House of the Revolution,” to get to the bottom of the Sioufi story — I’ll leave that to the historians. But there was money — a grandfather did well representing a German chemical company — and the building we were in had been constructed by his family.
Sioufi himself, in gray sweatpants, pepper-and-salt hair flying at all angles, had worked as an actor, an artist, a journalist; he had also devoted serious time to keeping work at bay.
“What’s an artist?” he mused. “I try to be as free as I can individually, use what I have to be as free as I can.”
Perhaps that sounds too highfalutin’ for the task of overthrowing a ruthless regime. But Sioufi was laser-like in his analysis — “Either Mubarak has to kill or he has to leave,” he told me early on — and he performed an immense practical feat in providing space, electricity and nurture to the diverse crowd that gathered beneath his roof.
I saw Muslim Brotherhood folk mingling with the likes of Sanaa Seif, aged 17, high school student, Facebook fiend (“I’ve no idea where my parents are, they’re activists like me.”) I heard all the dark humor between young computer-science majors plotting revolution (First geek: “I think we’ll be friends for life.” Second geek: “Yeah, either in prison or a free Egypt!”) Above all there was Sioufi, a personification of the uprising’s eclectic spirit, a Christian with images of the crucifixion hanging in this apartment and, he told me, a sign saying “Allah” at the entrance to his other Cairo place, and books like Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” lying around.
It all began with wanting to offer a “safe haven” for “the kids.” He was afraid for them, for Egypt’s youth. They were heroes, confronting Mubarak’s thugs. They needed a place to recover and tweet and, yes, eat. And so, in the serendipitous way of much of the uprising, the “Facebook flat,” as it was also known, took form.
On his own Facebook page, Sioufi’s “basic information” entry runs as follows: “Life’s a bitch — then it delivers six puppies, always more responsibilities.” Except that every once in a long while the puppy is freedom.
Iran's optimistic reformers realize they've hit a dead end.
By Azadeh Moaveni
This Commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 16/02/2011
More than a decade before Iran's politically disaffected had launched the Green Movement -- much less the latest protests that broke out across the country on Feb. 14 and were brutally put down by police -- they had the optimistic and incremental reform movement lead by the "smiling cleric" and philosopher Mohammad Khatami. If the latter had worked according to plan, the former never would have been necessary. The reformers had hoped Iran would serve as a model of democratic governance for the rest of the Muslim world. Now they're taking their inspiration from the peaceful Arab uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
Khatami was elected to two terms, beginning in 1997, with overwhelming support from young people and women, and he staked his tenure on the belief that the Islamic Republic could be peacefully transformed from within into a modern democracy. That era in the late 1990s came to be known as the "Tehran spring," an atmosphere of political openness then novel in the region. Civil society grew more confident, an independent press flourished, and reformists seemed ascendant within Iran's political system. Khatami promised Iranians that the Islamic system could rule more lawfully and that the regime had the ability and the obligation to offer its people greater freedoms.
That was the theory, at least. In practice, incremental reform proved a spectacular failure. When Khatami was in power, his ideas were repeatedly vetoed by conservatives in a government resistant to democracy, before being definitively crushed by the police-state rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the aftermath of Ahmadinejad's 2009 election as president, the regime imprisoned tens of prominent reformist leaders and humiliated them in televised show trials.
Khatami now finds himself swept up in a revolt that promises an altogether different and more volatile path to change. But where the Green Movement's other leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have confronted the regime from the outside, explicitly challenging its legitimacy, the former president craftily continues to play the "inside" game. While Mousavi and Karroubi assume the dissident mantle from the seclusion of their house arrest in Tehran -- and now face the prospect of a death-penalty trial if hard-line parliamentarians get their way -- Khatami plays the part of politician, though one with a fundamentally different goal from what he once had. If his original task was to use the Islamic Republic's political process to prove the system could work on its own terms, his new agenda is to use it to show that it cannot.
To that end, Khatami is busy working with other strategists in Tehran to lay the groundwork for a fresh challenge to the hard-line grip on power ahead of next year's parliamentary elections. He sparked a political controversyafter announcing at the end of December a list of preconditions for the reformists' participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The demands amounted to a wish list for the wholesale transformation of the Islamic Republic, and seemed designed to demonstrate precisely the sort of vital changes the system could not tolerate -- the release of political prisoners, the proper implementation of the Constitution, and freedom of association for political parties.
Khatami laced his statement with dire warnings about the current state of the Islamic Republic, sounding distinctly pessimistic about his demands being met. "Given the current direction things are going, it seems conditions will only become more difficult, the routes more closed, and restrictions more myriad," he said, according to a report on his personal website.
Within opposition circles, analysts and leaders unanimously read Khatami's gesture as a feint meant to draw out the system's authoritarian posture and hostility to even a peaceful reform agenda. "Khatami has been a government insider; he knows full well that no one is going to pay any attention to his demands," said Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of parliament now living in the United States.
Although Khatami's gambit is subversive at heart, its attempt to participate in the system is cautious compared with Mousavi's and Karroubi's open challenges to the regime's legitimacy. Hossein Karroubi, the dissident cleric's son, made the point forcefully in an email he sent me: "Whoever wants to betray the people and do business with the government is only bound to destroy himself."
But elements of the regime have already fallen victim to Khatami's ploy. Kayhan, the newspaper associated with Iran's supreme leader, responded to Khatami's announcement by denouncing him as a spy and traitor and calling for his execution. Other reports in the hard-line press attacked his tenure in government and mocked his "timid" political persona. Although predictable -- hard-liners have been targeting Khatami since he cited fraud as a factor in Ahmadinejad's reelection immediately after the 2009 vote -- the attacks seemed to be precisely what the former president sought to elicit. By refusing to hear the reasonable demands of a former head of government, the regime has discredited itself with the greater public.
"Khatami's move has broken up the politically stagnant atmosphere and was politically very astute," Ayatollah Mohajerani, a former minister of culture and Islamic guidance under Khatami's government now living in London, told me. "The system immediately attacked him, and now the reformists can say that it will not allow them to participate. That frees them up to take another step."
Khatami's announcement, pitched more to establishment politicians than the public, did little to inspire the next-generation Iranians out protesting on Monday. But by proving the system could not take even basic steps required for living up to its own democratic principles, Khatami is working to attract a broader base of support for future civil disobedience. Although not all the protesters who have marched under the Green Movement banner share a single vision for Iran's political future, a consensus has emerged among opposition strategists that popular demonstrations need to be used to pressure the regime.
Mousavi and Karroubi called for Monday's protest in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, gambling that Iranians would turn out despite months of Green Movement dormancy. But reformists still consider elections the most opportune occasion to remind Iranians that their civil rights are being violated. To that end, they are focusing on leveraging the 2012 parliamentary elections to topple the Islamic Republic.
The difficulty is finding a strategy that avoids both the passivity of a simple boycott and the legitimizing effect of trying to field candidates. "The Islamic Republic expects a boycott. Nothing would make it happier," said Mohammad Tahavori, a prominent Iranian journalist now based in Boston. "The third way is to mount a public campaign demanding people's right to a free election. This challenges people's criticism into a specific demand, one that grabs the public's attention and focuses on government accountability."
"People can be mobilized to show up at polling stations holding placards that say, 'We won't participate because our votes aren't counted,'" Mohajerani said. That's among the tactics reform leaders are discussing in their bid to transform the parliamentary vote into a platform for open dissent.
Iran's once-vibrant civil society will neither turn its back on politics and retreat entirely into the private sphere, nor respond to the government's violence in kind -- but it also won't extend its hand to the regime any longer. "A leader like Khatami may still believe that reform of the system is still possible in theory, were the government to properly abide by the Constitution," said Haghighatjoo. "But in practice, Khatami is aware that the system has led to a dead end."
By David Ignatius from Cairo This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 17/02/2011
There's still a glow of liberation here, a week after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Young activists hand out flowers to visitors at the airport, and there is exuberant flag-waving at night in Tahrir Square. But already you can see the political cleavages that will test this young revolution.
The secret of the Egyptian revolution was that it was inclusive. The street protests brought together rich and poor, secular and religious, Muslim and Christian, socialist and capitalist. Demonstrators and troops embraced in the streets, and even now the crowds in Tahrir are climbing over tanks as if they were in an amusement park.
The uprising that toppled Mubarak was one those Utopian moments that bring a suspension of normal politics. Differences of class, ideology, religion and gender were ignored in pursuit of the common goal of ending a corrupt and arrogant regime. But given human nature, those moments don't last.
Behind the common front in the streets were groups with subtly different agendas. One Facebook organizer was a leftist group known as the 6th of April Youth Movement, named for a 2008 labor strike. Another was the network of prosperous Internet activists, led by Google executive Wael Ghonim, who mobilized the first big protest on Jan. 25. The Muslim Brotherhood, though a latecomer, added a stiff backbone.
The common chant in the streets was "Bread, Freedom, Dignity," which papered over these ideological gaps. And the genius of the organizers was to insist that the protests remain peaceful, no matter what the provocations. This communal spirit spread to spontaneous "popular committees" that protected neighborhoods from looting. But now real politics begins.
I got a sense of how this unified movement is likely to diverge when I met three of Egypt's most gifted young filmmakers, who are collaborating on a documentary called "Tahrir" that they hope to show at the Cannes Film Festival in May. They were in the streets together, but they have different views of where Egypt should go next.
"We need to calm people down a bit. We don't want to rush things and hurt the country," says Amr Salama, a director who is close to Ghonim and is a leading figure in the youth movement.
Mohamed Diab, who directed a prize-winning film about sexual harassment in Egypt, wants to reach out to those who opposed the Tahrir protests: "There are 1.2 million people working for the police. We need them for security. They are 2.8 million people in Mubarak's National Democratic Party. We can't exclude them from what comes next."
But Ahmed Abdallah, the third filmmaker, whose views are similar to the leftist April 6 group, argues that the crimes of the regime and police must be exposed and punished. He explains: "I'm not sure inclusivity should last. It doesn't in any democracy."
A prominent Egyptian venture capitalist who began raising a $100 million fund two weeks before the uprising started says he favors democracy no matter who wins. "We're making a big bet that we're not going socialist," he says. But Dina Sherif, an activist who helps direct a civic-engagement program at the American University in Cairo, cautions that democracy will take time: "We don't know what a political party is supposed to do. We're very green."
The military committee that has been running the country for the past week has been meeting with protest organizers and drafting rules for the transition. But people here wonder whether the military, which has provided every Egyptian leader since 1952, is really willing to give up control. "The army is the question: Is the army prepared to share power with the people?" asks Mustafa El-Gindy, a businessman who is active with the liberal Wafd Party.
Several activists said they hope America will help steady the transition with economic assistance and expertise on organizing elections, rewriting a constitution and other details. President Obama gets high marks here for supporting Mubarak's ouster, despite misgivings from Israel, Saudi Arabia and other allies.
The argument I heard repeatedly was that the world should trust in Egyptian democracy to resolve the disputes that are ahead. Hani Shukrallah, a journalist who was part of a 30-member dialogue group known as the "Wise Men," puts it this way: "Obviously we will not remain one happy family. There is no such thing. But can we remain a viable democracy? Yes. We'll have arguments, and we'll even have riots sometimes. But we accept pluralism in Egypt. We accept that people have different ideas."
This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 16/02/2011
Lebanon has moved from the stage of seeking a national coalition government whose task would be to absorb the repercussions of the international tribunal’s indictment into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, to that of domestic defiance with all its political, sectarian and maybe even violent facets.
This is due to the fact that the return of the Prime Minister of the caretaker government Saad al-Hariri to the “roots” which constituted what has come to be known as the March 14 forces, is a decision to engage in a comprehensive political confrontation with the March 8 forces and what they represent on the internal arena, especially on the sectarian level, and what they represent in terms of an Iranian and Syrian extension at the level of the region.
But just like there were previous mistakes in the management of the negotiations to benefit from the momentum of having acquired a parliamentary majority – as it was recognized by the March 14 leaders on the sixth anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri – the mistake might be repeated. This could be seen either at the level of the assessment of the domestic balance of powers, and consequently the regional balance of powers, or in the estimation of the extent which could be reached by the other team, whether based on a prior decision or a personal initiative.
In other words, the mission of the March 14 team as an opposition in the face of a government formed by the March 8 team, will have to exceed the mere insistence on general commitments and the defamation of those who turned against it. It must feature attempts to introduce amendments to the domestic balance of power that can only be infiltrated in one direction, i.e. that of the new majority. This renders the mission more difficult, if not impossible.
But in addition to the bad assessment, the March 14 forces are going through the tragedy of their inability to wager on the reliance of the constitution. Indeed, they were shackled when they enjoyed a parliamentary majority supposed to provide them with a political cover in the face of what they dub “the coup.” Therefore, nothing guarantees the non-repetition of this situation if they are able to secure a majority in the next elections. Indeed, since 2005, they have experienced the limits of any electoral victory in the face of the balance of power on the ground. In other words, they tested the extent to which they could rely on the constitution which is interpreted and implemented by the victorious side in this balance, despite all what is said about coexistence and concord.
The principles to which the March 14 forces are holding on are not national ones, despite the fact that they are identical – in form – with what the management of public affairs should look like. In Lebanon, the meanings of the constitution, the state and the elections are political, i.e. express a political opinion rather than be the object of national consensus. In this context, the description put forward by former Deputy Muhammad Abdul Hamid Beydoun for “political Shiism” during the sixth anniversary commemoration, confirms the absence of this consensus over the meanings of the constitution and the state. The duplicity which he talked about – knowing he was one of the Amal movement leaders – was not a political tactic, but a reflection of a deep position vis-à-vis the purpose of the constitution and the state.
In this sense, Hezbollah’s arms are no longer ones used to resist Israel – as this purpose if the object of national consensus – and serve a domestic political task. And although there is talk about guaranteeing the non-use of these weapons on the domestic arena, in case they were to be introduced in the context to a national defense strategy under the supervision of the state, this will not lead to the neutralization of these arms, and consequently the containment of the excessive strength enjoyed by “political Shiism,” before agreeing over the national principles.
This would explain the size of Al-Hariri’s frustration following the failure of the S-S initiative, and following the amendment of the balance of parliamentary votes to assign someone else to form the next government. The issue at this level is not related to “honesty and integrity,” as much as it is related to the meaning of comprehensive reconciliation, its sponsorship, its results and the extent to which it can meet the March 8 team’s political needs. This is what was later on confirmed by the nature of the negotiations to form Prime Minister Mikati’s government, in light of the utter rejection to see its program featuring any talk about the international tribunal.
By Abdul Rahman al-Rahid This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 17/02/2011
Of course no one today dares reject the democratic trend in the Arab world or else he will be accused of heresy. And it is natural for the option of the Egyptians today to be the democratic option as a social contract by which to be governed. It is clear that they are agreed on this trend whether they are youths, political parties, former opposition groups, independent national figures, intellectuals, and simple citizens. Even the military proclaimed clearly that they are the supporters of democracy today and its guarantors tomorrow. Therefore, we are faced with the first popular consensus in the Arab world for democracy. Naturally, this is a reason for rejoicing because any form of governance that satisfies the majority and guarantees Egypt's stability is in the interest of the whole Arab world.
But as is often said: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And there are many good intentions in the Al-Tahrir Square where the youths paid their blood for this goal. But is consensus enough to achieve this goal? There are more than 120 democratic states in the world less than half of which are democratic. The Arab world heard about democracy more than 50 years ago when it was sold to it as part of the false promises. However, the Arab world has not practiced democracy to this day. MThe Arabs experienced partial democracy in Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, and Jordan. It was a marriage between two systems: autocratic and democratic. What is painful is that the democratic part of it does not seem attractive, as is the case in Kuwait. In the name of the parliamentary majority, democracy was used to ban books, movie productions, and songs and to muzzle the mouths of some intellectuals. How can it be democratic while liberties are regressing from what they were in the past? The Egyptians should ask themselves this question. They are rushing to change the constitution in 10 days when the drafting of the constitution is the most important step in democracy. The blemishes of democracy may be found in the constitution. Because the constitution was not well drafted, liberties in Kuwait are being tightened under the dome of the parliament. In Lebanon, presidents are elected on the basis of proportions of the religious sects. This is the zenith of contradiction.
Because everyone in Egypt from the extreme right to the extreme left is agreed on the future system of governance - the democratic system - Egypt will be more than a test laboratory. It will be the judge. If it succeeds the idea prevails and if it fails the idea would be buried alive everywhere. The intellectuals and law experts should become familiar with the stumbling steps of Arab democracy where there is no protection of basic individual rights, no constitutional guarantees for freedoms, including freedom of expression, and no protection for the less fortunate, like women and minorities. I do not think that the youths of Al-Tahrir Square want tomorrow a democracy that closes institutions of learning, bans books, and makes women wear the veil by force in the name of the majority because the majority m ay make unjust decisions if there is no constitution protecting basic rights.
Arab governments must embrace a generation of men and women who are making their own history
By El-Hassan Bin Talal
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 16/02/2011
The entire Arab world is witnessing a tectonic shift. There is a fragile, if for many sublime, expectation that democracy may now spread in our region. At the same time, the prospect of Arab self-determination has left some uneasy. One of the defining characteristics over the last 18 days of protest in Cairo is that no one has been able to predict what would happen next. But today some things can be said with certainty.
The first is that there is no going back. A new generation has come of age. Creativity, new communication technologies and the use of rational peaceful protest have restored Arab self-esteem. Cairo concluded what Tunisia had hinted at: that decades of realpolitik had failed. It seems to have united east and west in the understanding that true security begins with the dignity of the human being, and is based upon what we often refer to as hurriya, or "freedom".
While in Jordan the youth element may not be as evident, protesters still call for inclusivity, and seek participation in a body politic and within a wider national platform. With the government change here objectives are being discussed regarding what I call the "social contract", and a politics which needs to become more normalised than radicalised. Such voices are being heeded, because almost everyone here understands that the credibility and security of the country depends upon it.
Recent events have shown that men and women make their own history, and are capable of controlling their own destinies. Unfortunately in our region this has not always been self-evident. It is now. Rather than fearing this "new wave", Arab governments should embrace it.
It's time to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight Group has calculated that, between 1991 and 2010, constant war and conflict has cost the region $12 trillion in lost opportunity. A new architecture of relations is urgently required to replace the ad-hoc structures of the past.
Co-operation can be achieved in three ways. The first is what I refer to as a zakat or "responsibility" fund, collected and distributed regionally, in order to create more integrated economic development – just as the Marshall plan did for postwar Europe. The giving of alms is an Islamic pillar of faith. It is an obligation. So too should be its distribution – on an equitable, institutional and trans-border basis.
Second, we need a supranational Community for Water and Energy for the Human Environment – an Arab equivalent of the European Coal and Steel Community established by Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet in 1950. Our water resources and woes are shared – water has no respect for national boundaries. The Jordan river, one of the most complex and contested waterways in the world, has four riparian parties – Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Palestine.
At the same time a global energy and water belt extends from the central Asian republics down the Volga through Turkey to the Strait of Hormuz. It can no longer be protected solely by military forces guarding the ports of the Persian Gulf. Our security is constantly undermined by our energy interdependence and dependence, and time is running out.
Finally, it is time to convene a Semi-Permanent Conference for Peace based in the region and modelled on the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the three baskets of the Helsinki Process – co-operation in security, economy and humanitarian issues.
These are my thoughts in parenthesis, as we consider an Arabia no less complex but far more pregnant with possibility … a new psychological landscape. To paraphrase George Marshall, a place "that hangs in the balance as to what it is to be". The scales of justice have been tipped. The arc of history no longer bends towards reform. It insists on it.
