Thursday, November 05, 2015 

Supping with a long spoon, interrupted again.

The poor old government isn't having much luck when it comes to inviting round tyrants for a bit of the old supping with a long spoon.  Xi Jinping turned up just as the British steel industry was collapsing, no thanks to the dumping of the Chinese variety on the world market, and now here comes Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Egyptian usurper, just as it seems to be emerging that the Russian jet crash in the Sinai last Saturday was likely the result of a bomb.  Al-Sisi, bless him, insisted that the Egyptian government had complete control of the Sinai peninsula, and the crash couldn't possibly have been a result of terrorism.  Like with the Chinese, to suggest otherwise was to insult their good work and name.

Say what you like about Jinping and China's refusal to grant the most basic of human rights, at least he's not been directly responsible for the massacring of hundreds if not thousands of protesters.  Nor did he come to power in a coup, since given a fig leaf of a mandate via a blatantly rigged poll in which he won 96% of the vote.  Of all the world leaders David Cameron has invited to Downing Street in recent years, al-Sisi is without question one of the most illegitimate, and yet unlike with China there doesn't seem to be as much of a hint of human rights being mentioned.  In the government's book, anything's better than the Muslim Brotherhood, regardless of whether or not Mohammed Morsi was elected in relatively free and fair elections.  Reports that further action will be taken against the Brothers, apparently in yet another sop to both al-Sisi and the Saudis are to be expected.

It's a shame then that the government's decision to suspend all flights temporarily to Sharm el-Sheikh in light of the still undetermined cause of the downing of the Metrojet plane have rather put a dampener on it all.  Just like the decision in the aftermath of the attack in Sousse in Tunisia to get any Britishers who wanted to come home out as soon as possible, it's not clear precisely why there is such urgency.  Unless the intelligence is that another attack is imminent, and if there is we are not being told about it, this is an example of once again giving the terrorists what they want and acting after the fact.

If the jet was indeed brought down by a bomb, presumably planted by the affiliates of Islamic State in the Sinai, then the attack was almost certainly an opportunistic one, aimed specifically at the Russians after their intervention in Syria.  If security was or is as lax at Sharm el-Sheikh as has been suggested, then surely the realisation that this was not an accident but terrorism should lead to an immediate review, with any and all staff that could have been involved brought in for questioning and review.  It's extremely rare for jihadists to use the exact same tactics and target twice when it comes to attacks on Westerners, and it's also dubious whether the Sinai affiliate would have the resources to produce two bombs powerful enough to bring down planes in such a short period of time, unless they are being helped directly by Islamic State.  That Islamic State itself has not yet made a fuss about its role isn't necessarily a reason to doubt their involvement: it could be as Charlie Winter from the Quill.i.am Foundation suggests that a propaganda video detailing exactly how they pulled the attack off might yet emerge.

Nor if it does turn out to be the work of IS is it time to once again panic and ramp up security measures at airports in general yet further.  This wouldn't be the first time Russian jets have been brought down by jihadists: two planes were destroyed in 2004 by Chechen suicide bombers.  Of the numerous attempts by al-Qaida and its franchises since 9/11 to blow up aircraft, all have failed.  The success in this instance will likely be due to that lack of security, and will send a signal to airports and airlines operating in the most vulnerable areas to step up their checks and level of vigilance accordingly.  Ruining the holidays of people for little to no reason out of a misplaced sense of better safe than sorry helps no one.  There are many other issues we should be disagreeing with Sisi and Egypt on; this isn't one of them.

Update: Worth a read, as ever, is the War Nerd.  Especially this part:

So at the moment, it’s hard to say which theory works better, bomb or simple sloppiness. And what makes it even harder to guess is the fact that this crash happened after a relentless, sometimes ridiculous, propaganda campaign in the NATO press claiming that Russia would suffer terrible retribution for daring to intervene in Syria.

It wasn't so long ago that suggesting terrorism on British streets could in any way be connected to foreign policy was enough to bring every person on the decent left down directly on your head.  When it's the Russkies getting blowback however...

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11/05/2015 03:41:00 pm | |

Tuesday, February 17, 2015 

All in the name.

Ever pondered how different things might have been if Hitler's name had been something else?  Would he still have electrified the beer halls in the same way as Adolf Schicklgruber, as his father was originally known?  And what for that matter if rather than Churchill, the right man at the right time had been called Reginald Boggis?
 
No, of course you haven't, because you're not an idiot.  All the same, names are important, especially for terrorist groups.  Boko Haram for instance, which isn't the group's actual title but is usually translated as western education is sinful/forbidden.  More literally though, it's books are forbidden.  The only book Boko Haram wants to suggest is of any worth is the Qu'ran, with the hadiths alongside, which tells you more about them than anything else.  Al-Qaida as you probably know translates as The Base, and in the beginning was a literal database of former mujahideen who had fought in Afghanistan.

Now there's Islamic State, and the name itself is enough to cause journalists to go weak at the knees and governments with ulterior motives to send in the bombers.  The group calling itself Islamic State in Libya has about as much connection with the self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria as I would if I started flying a black flag from my roof and shouted Allah akbar every time I did anything.  All they've done is declared allegiance to everyone's favourite messianic loon Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but such is the fear the Islamic State name carries that it's the moniker itself which demands attention as much as their murder of 21 Coptic Christians.

We haven't after all shown the slightest interest in the Libyan civil war, despite the fact that it was Nato's fabulous intervention against Gaddafi that precipitated today's insecurity.  David Cameron's visit to Benghazi ought to be seen as his "mission accomplished" moment, except Cameron and Nato had sort of learned the lesson of Iraq: impose regime change, then get out as soon as.  Just like in Iraq, where the Ba'ath party effectively was the state, in Libya Gaddafi played a similar role.  And just like in Iraq, with the overthrow of a secular, vicious dictator, into the void have come various groups, some nationalist, some of a more moderate Islamist tinge, others like Ansar al-Sharia and our pals IS of the takfiri Wahhabi bent, and they're all fighting for power and influence.  The key difference is that unlike in Iraq, where the country has become riven due to the schism between Sunni and Shia, with the Kurds and smaller numbers of Yazidis and Christians thrown in for good measure, in Libya the vast majority of the population is Sunni.  Where others see Iraq as a lost cause as a state ruled from Baghdad, this should, according to them, make it easier to reach a political solution.

Only compared to Syria, Libya doesn't exactly strike most as being of the greatest urgency.  It's up there with Ukraine: it's not pleasant that cities are being made uninhabitable and thousands have died, but it rather palls in consideration with the however many hundreds of thousands killed in Syria and Islamic State declaring Sykes-Picot to be history.  With Islamic State duly rearing their ugly heads on the coast of Libya, deciding this time to film their latest atrocity on a beach, no surprises that both Italy and Egypt have decreed something must be done.

Italy's unease and anger is more than understandable: they along with Greece and Malta have become the new frontline of this latest wave of migration from Africa, with the rest of the European Union refusing to stump up the cash necessary to fund the operation to both save lives and turn boats around.  As for Egypt, beyond the anger and grief over the slaughter of Copts themselves looking for a better life, bombing an Islamic State grouplet is the kind of action designed to calm any remaining nerves the West might have over the military coup and subsequent massacres of Muslim Brotherhood supporters.  Facing an insurgency in the Sinai, the last thing Egypt wants is the another hostile force operating in a safe haven next door.  And even if it doesn't become anything more than a militia with a negligible amount of fighters seeking infamy by proxy through Islamic State, the very name and its professed allegiance means Egypt is hardly going to be criticised for striking against it.

Unfortunately for both Egypt and Italy, although whether the latter truly favours a reintervention in Libya isn't as yet clear, getting the team back together which did so much to cause this mess in the first place isn't going to happen.  Only France might be so inclined, and considering the French attitude to arming the rebels in Libya was to drop them from a great height and worry about the groups picking them up later, they have more to answer for than most.  Ourselves and the Americans however aren't interested, as we're both far too busy in Iraq and Syria, and for David Cameron there's the whole election thing to worry about.  Not even blood-curdling warnings from the Egyptians of Islamic State jihadis masquerading as refugees turning up on the shores of the Mediterranean ready to strike will change minds, although they do make for great quotes and clips in news reports.

Much as it feels a little churlish to criticise the media for the unbelievably one-dimensional and often plain ignorant coverage of Islamic State popping up in Libya, considering no one has expressed the slightest interest in the country since the death of Gaddafi, to give the impression IS is metastasing across the wider Arab world is simply wrong.  Nor is it just the usual suspects failing to provide context or make clear worrying about IS in Libya is even less a good use of time than panicking about Ebola was; the BBC have been at the forefront, and the Graun hasn't been much better.  Egypt is relying on just such a lack of knowledge for its own purposes, and its conflation of all varieties of Islamism as posing the same threat is being used to stifle the last remaining voices of dissent in the country.  The last thing Libya needs is further outside intervention; instead, a summit of the kind that could have worked in Syria if all sides had wanted it to is what ought to happen next.  Such things are boring sadly, especially when compared to a death cult's latest reprehensible crime.

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2/17/2015 11:59:00 pm | |

Wednesday, April 23, 2014 

A dangerous Melanie Phillips.

If there's one thing you can rely on when a new pronouncement emerges from the Office of Tony Blair, it's that it will be taken very seriously by both devotees and critics of our dear former prime minister alike. The responses might not be correspondingly dry, but they amount to the same thing. It's therefore not true to say that Blair's sermons don't have influence, especially when there are still those within government who share his increasingly worrying world view.

For Blair has at last dropped any real moderating factors from his black and white vision of the Middle East (and much of Africa for that matter) and what we should be doing to encourage "change". The odd thing is that Blair's idea of reform post-Arab spring seems remarkably close to the world prior to 9/11. Tony has you see clearly been revisiting Iraq and where it all went wrong, probably in anticipation of the Chilcot inquiry passing judgement on him. The problem wasn't the intervention itself or the lies leading up to it, rather the fact that both Sunni and Shia extremists immediately rose up against their supposed liberators.  Where al-Qaida previously had barely existed, within a year the most powerful franchise yet was established and on its way to controlling vast swathes of the north of the country.

Apart from Blair not admitting it was his very intervention that played exactly into al-Qaida's hands and prompted the biggest surge in jihadi recruitment since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as numerous commentators have pointed out, and ignoring all the mistakes made by the occupying forces in the first few years, his analysis is reasonably sound. Where he then gets it spectacularly wrong is in taking this view of Islamist extremism being the main factor holding the region back and applies it across the board. Yes, he is at pains to say there are other forces at work and that Islamism is not Islam, but frankly it's becoming more and more difficult to take his protestations seriously.

Blair's solution is remarkably simple. The threat is so serious and affects both ally and ostensible rival alike that differences should be set aside to challenge it. We should work with both Russia and China as they have their own problems with Islamists. Even more dramatically, such is the danger posed by the extremists in the Syrian opposition that we should aim for a negotiated settlement where Assad stays in power, at least for the time being.  Only if he rejects such a generous offer would we then look to help the same opposition through imposing a no fly zone.  This would obviously mean something approaching war, although we would demand at the same time that the extremist groups get no help from the surrounding states.  You know, just like we have for the last couple of years now, and what an overwhelming success it's been.

This new thesis from the man who previously gave us the Chicago speech is riddled with contradictions, and Blair must realise know it.  To be sure, he had no objection to dealing with authoritarian states when in office so long as they either supported or didn't interfere with the West's wider foreign policy aims, hence why he brought Gaddafi's Libya in from the cold and had no qualms whatsoever about shutting down the Serious Fraud Office investigation into fraud in the al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia.  This new emphasis on realpolitik though suggests that despite continuing to support the Iraq war, given the chance to do things differently he most likely would.  Considering the more barmy neo-cons have insisted in the past that the Iraq intervention was one of the catalysts of the Arab spring, this is quite the Damascene conversion.

Then again, Blair clearly has no love for the Arab spring or for the values those who initially rose up had.  He says our ultimate principle should be support for religious freedom and open, rule based economies.  Note that he doesn't mention democracy, a word he only uses three times throughout his entire screed, one of those in reference to Israel.  Like so much of the speech, the reason is simple: democracy, as seen in Egypt and in Palestine, can lead to the people voting for the very Islamists he is so opposed to.  As Blair sets out, whether they be Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, and regardless of whether they eschew violence, "their overall ideology is one which inevitably creates the soil in which such extremism can take root".  He goes on to say Islamism's very implementation is incompatible with the modern world, yet apparently this is its very danger.  One would suspect that if this were the case Iran's theocracy would have long since departed the scene, yet still it remains with us, in spite also of the sanctions bearing down on it.  Perhaps its survival can be put down to its managed democracy, but again, doesn't this rather undermine Blair's case?

Well yes, but it sure doesn't stop him.  Egypt then, rather than Syria, is where the future of the region hangs.  Despite coming to power in what were widely regarded as fair elections, the Brotherhood simply had to be overthrown, as it was "taking over the traditions and institutions of the country".  It wasn't just an ordinary protest that led to the ousting of Morsi, it was "an absolutely necessary rescue of the nation".  Any concerns we have about the over a thousand Morsi supporters who were massacred in the aftermath, or the 500+ protesters sentenced to death we should put aside, as we help the country "cross over to a better future".  Blair in other words supports wholeheartedly the restoration of the Mubarak era, just with a different general in charge.  Nor it seems should we worry that supporting the coup might encourage the very belief change can't be achieved through the ballot box, leading to the exact violence Blair so abhors, or about the journalists imprisoned on false charges, the kind of actions we so condemn of other authoritarian states, or indeed the very people who demanded true democracy and who want neither the army or the Brotherhood; all these are by the by when defeating the true threat posed by the Islamists is vastly more important.

The countries that go unmentioned ought to speak just as loudly as those he goes through in turn.  Strangely absent is Turkey, again perhaps because it would otherwise undermine his case.  On the face of it Erodgan's AKP would fit the bill: a party that bit by bit seems to be undermining democracy, which supports Islamists in Syria and describes children killed by its forces as "terrorists".  It remains however as popular if not more popular than ever, and has also established precisely the open, rule based economy Blair favours, to the point where the Gezi Park protests started because of the proposed development of yet another shopping mall.  For all Blair's radicalism, he also still can't bring himself to criticise Saudi Arabia by name, instead only remarking on the absurdity of spending billions
 
of $ on security arrangements and on defence to protect ourselves against the consequences of an ideology that is being advocated in the formal and informal school systems and in civic institutions of the very countries with whom we have intimate security and defence relationships.

It's this cowardice, along with his rejection of what he calls the "absolutely rooted desire on the part of Western commentators" to "eliminate the obvious common factor in a way that is almost wilful" that gives the game away.  Just as he spoke after 9/11 of "re-ordering this world around us", his ultimate desire remains the same even if his methods are now different.  Regardless of how just the grievances of those who have turned to violence and/or Islamism are, they have to be defeated whatever the cost.  It doesn't matter if those doing the smiting are as tyrannical as those they are fighting against, like the Russians in Chechnya, or the Chinese against the Uighurs, both of whom Blair wants onside for his battle, such is the danger of the ideology that we must if necessary make uncomfortable bedfellows.  We shall go on pussyfooting around Saudi Arabia's sponsorship of the very people Blair proselytises against, while keeping the pressure up on the potential ally we could have in Iran.  We must hug Israel ever closer, as the real problem is with the divisions among the Palestinians, again caused by Islamism.  

This, remember, is the Quartet's peace envoy.  He is also a man who regardless of the criticism, retains influence.  He ought to be thought of after this as Melanie Phillips with a hotline to the world's leaders.  And if that isn't scary, I'm not sure what is.

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4/23/2014 11:59:00 pm | |

Thursday, August 15, 2013 

The wrong kind of protesters continued.

The official death toll from the crushing of the sit-ins in Cairo is now higher than the "official" toll of those killed at the similar smashing of the Tiananmen Square protests.  Estimates vary as to the number killed on June the 4th 1989, but most place it in the hundreds, approaching a thousand, although it could be considerably more.  Likewise, it seems certain that the current figure of 525 dead from yesterday's assaults will increase.  Doubtless then, we can expect the same sanctions and arms embargoes imposed on China then to be imposed on the Egyptian military now.  Right?

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8/15/2013 12:46:00 pm | |

Wednesday, August 14, 2013 

The wrong kind of protesters.

Cast your mind back a couple of months, and you might recall that there was much excited and deserved reporting on the occupation of Istanbul's Gezi Park. Initially in protest at plans to build yet another shopping mall, only this time in one of the last remaining green areas in Turkey's capital, it swiftly became a general stand against an authoritarian Islamist government. Described as looters and bums by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in reality they were mostly liberals with a few Kurds and Kemalist hangers-on joining in.  Running battles were fought with the police, who responded brutally.  The park was however eventually cleared without major loss of life, with protesters turning to civil disobedience instead.

Compare this to what's happened in Egypt since the coup in June which saw the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president.  There were and are many valid criticisms of Morsi and his movement, including the possibility that they might have attempted to alter the constitution to remain in power indefinitely.  We have since learned though that the army and other state institutions in the weeks prior to the coup appear to have stopped working with the Morsi government in an effort to further boost the Tamarod movement, something that more than succeeded.  Accompanying the coup was the shutting down of newspapers and TV stations sympathetic to the Brotherhood, as well as the arrest of leading figures within it.  Despite this, the Brotherhood's supporters have continued to protest peacefully, resulting first in the massacre outside the Republican Guards' club in Cairo, then another at the sit-in near to the Rabaa Adawiya mosque.  Finally, today, in the bloodiest episode so far, it looks as though hundreds of unarmed protesters have been killed after the clearing of two protest camps in Cairo, with violence reported elsewhere in the country.

As for the coverage of these crimes, up till now it's been muted, with those commentators who had previously written ecstatic accounts of the initial revolution remaining silent.  Take Ahdaf Soueif, who wrote that the beating of the woman in the blue jeans and bra had "ruined the military's reputation".  A little over a year later, she entrusted that same military with continuing the revolution, supporting the overthrow of Morsi, and even now she puts the blame on the Brotherhood for err, the military killing its supporters.  Not that it's only Egyptian liberals that have decided to remain quiet or swallowed the state line as their fellow citizens, Muslim Brotherhood supporters or not, are shot down in the streets.  The Graun's Martin Chulov wrote an adoring piece on General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and his likeness to Nasser, without so much as mentioning the military's attempts to silence journalists refusing to follow the line, or indeed how the state media has joined in, let alone just how sinister the attempt to create such a cult of personality is by itself.

One thing that never ceases to be remarkable is how the politics of the day always shine through in the reporting of foreign news.  We focus on Zimbabwe due to colonial hang-ups despite there being far worse heads of state in Africa than Mugabe, while our acquiescence to the Egyptian coup meant the plight of the country's Coptic Christians, while deeply concerning, ranked higher last night than the imminent bloodbath.  Just imagine if there had been a similar massacre of protesters today in Iran, or an equally well documented assault on unarmed civilians in Syria; the condemnation from ourselves and the Americans would have been unequivocal.  What we've had instead has been criticism and calls for restraint, but nothing that the junta in Egypt might take seriously.

Rather, as has now become the norm in the Middle East, we dance instead to the tune of the Saudis.  While we ummed and ahhed about the coup, the Saudis and the Emirate nations swiftly let go of the purse strings that had been tightly held while Morsi was in power.  The American decision to stay relatively above the fray, not properly denouncing or supporting either side has been rendered all but irrelevant by the Saudi endorsement of Sisi.  The same has been the case in Syria, where we find ourselves involved in a proxy war between the Saudis and Iran, training and funding "moderates" in the same style as we did the "Awakening" groups in Iraq, while Saudi money and weaponry flows to the Salafis.  The irony is that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are probably among the "moderates" we favour arming, while we consider their brethren in Egypt not worthy of the same support.  Just as we long since stopped caring about the Syrian civilians caught up in their own personal hell, so too we wring our hands as the wrong kind of protesters are slaughtered, prepared to stomach bloodshed so long as the regional balance of power remains the same.

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8/14/2013 09:33:00 pm | |

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 

Too early to tell.

I was going to start this post off by quoting Zhou Enlai, who when asked about the effects of the French revolution purportedly said that it was too soon to say. Only, as such witticisms often are, it all seems to have been a misunderstanding based on translation. Enlai wasn't referring to the revolution of 1789, but to the student rising of May '68, some three years previous. Still a fair while to not be able to draw a judgement, but not quite as indicative of supposed Chinese reflection on history as has been implied.

So much for that then. Except it is about time we at least took stock of where the Arab spring has led, a year and seven months on. Only Tunisia, where the protests began, can claim to have experienced both genuine revolution, and then also succeeded in following the initial phase up with free democratic elections. Even so, it can't be pretended that everything there is rosy: the Islamist Ennahada party, having won the largest share of the vote in the elections, has been remarkably indulgent of Salafist opinion and direct action, prosecuting a cinema owner who screened Persepolis after protesters claimed the film was blasphemous, while last week it blamed "provocations and insults" after Salafis defaced works of art and then rioted in the capital, leading the government to order a city wide night curfew.

In Egypt, the counter-revolution by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces looks to have been timed to perfection. Having let elections take place that resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party and a Salafi coalition dominating parliament, it waited until Mubarak's conviction was certain before striking back. A ruling has since dissolved parliament, and this week SCAF issued amendments to the interim constitutional declaration drastically limiting the president's power. This came as the MB's presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi claimed he had the won the run-off against the former prime minister Ahmad Shafiq, something denied by the latter who claims he is in fact victorious. Tonight it's being reported that tomorrow's announcement of the official result has been delayed indefinitely, ostensibly due to complaints from both parties, but coming so soon after the other interventions from the military it's hard not worry about whether this is a further attempt at a power grab.

Libya, despite or rather in spite of the NATO intervention is in an even worse state. Elections that were due to be held yesterday were postponed earlier in the month until July the 9th, supposedly on the grounds of "logistical and technical" reasons, although more likely is the fact that vast swathes of the country are still in the control of local militias rather than that of the Transitional National Council. Gone almost unreported is that four International Criminal Court officials continue to be held by the militia in Zintan, on the ludicrous grounds that Australian lawyer Melinda Taylor was passing "coded messages" to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Far from condemning the seizure, Australian foreign minister Bob Carr seems ready to "apologise" about the mission in an attempt to free the four, who are stuck as much in the power struggle between Tripoli and the militias as they are due to disagreement with the ICC over where the trials of former regime figures should be held (can you imagine the protests if Syrian forces had taken into custody some of the UN monitors?). The battle at Tripoli airport only underlined how volatile the country remains, while Benghazi and Misrata, the two cities most associated with the revolution look as though they could go their own way, having already held local elections.

Little more really needs to be said about the disaster unfolding in Syria. In Yemen, President Saleh handed over power, but this seems to have only postponed renewed protests should any attempt be made by his successor Abdo Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi to serve longer than the two years the power transfer agreement laid out. Bahrain continues to prosecute those it claims took part in protests, the latest being an 11-year-old boy, the uprising of last year having been crushed by troops sent in from Saudi Arabia and Emirate states. With the wonderful John Yates in charge of reforming policing, having moved from deciding one group of crooks needn't be investigated to another, and the United States announcing that it will resume weapon sales to the country regardless of the continuing crackdown, things can clearly only get better for those demanding their rights in the country. Saudi Arabia itself meanwhile is mourning the death of Prince Nayef, with many governments across the world expressing their condolences. None however are likely to mention that today Muree bin Ali bin Issa al-Asiri was executed having been convicted of "witchcraft and sorcery".

Certain patterns have emerged. As throughout history, those who first agitate for and succeed in overthrowing their rulers often find their revolution stolen from them or otherwise subverted, as in France (see above), Russia in 1917 with the February revolution being overtaken by the Bolshevik uprising in October, and Iran in 1979 when what had began as a rising against the Shah was transformed into an anointment of Ayatollah Khomeini. In Tunisia and Egypt the protesters were overwhelmingly young, secular and relatively liberal, and yet the main beneficiaries were Islamic parties. Partially down to the Muslim Brotherhood and other similar groupings having long dominated the underground opposition movement, it was also partially down to the usual failure of the left, liberals and secular groups in general to unite around a common party or figure. In the Egyptian presidential election the MB's Morsi faced off against five main candidates opposing him and the so-called "remnants", the end result being the inevitable run off between him and a former regime figure.

More broadly, it showcases the continuing disaster of the belief that leaderless organisations and campaigns are the future of political opposition. Facebook and Twitter may well have been instrumental in the initial success of the Arab spring; they've certainly helped Western journalists to report on the views of protesters, as well as spreading unverifiable propaganda. What those using social networking have not been able to do is put together a coherent message after the first, and relatively easiest part of the process of removing a tyrannical government from power has been achieved, let alone organise themselves to the extent of being able to win anything approaching power themselves. The most obvious example of this failure is rather closer to home: heard anything from what was Occupy LSX recently? Nope, thought not.

The end result has been only marginally less repressive forces than those which were initially ousted have taken control. Tunisia is probably slightly better off than it was under Ben Ali, and Ennahada might take decisive action against the Salafis should their demands for Sharia escalate further. Elsewhere, the picture's fairly bleak. Egypt could almost be back where it started, even if Mubarak is close to death; Libya is likely to effectively break up into constituent parts; Syria is between the rock of Assad and the hard place of the Free Syria Army; and Yemen and Bahrain are nowhere nearer true democracy than they were in December 2010. It really is too early to tell how the Arab spring will play out, but it's not exactly looking good.

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6/20/2012 09:58:00 pm | |

Thursday, December 22, 2011 

The revolution betrayed.

Great piece on the takeover of Egypt by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, via Paul Sagar.

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12/22/2011 09:32:00 pm | |

Friday, February 11, 2011 

The pharaoh dethroned.

"The impact of what we do here today is going to be huge. When Mubarak falls, every country nearby is going to be shaking."

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2/11/2011 10:36:00 pm | |

Wednesday, February 09, 2011 

A mug's game: analysing why it's kicking off everywhere.

I've come to a conclusion: trying to predict or work out where the Egyptian intifada is heading a mug's game, and there are a hell of a lot of drinking vessels out there already. One is Peter Hallward, whose article on CiF is slightly unkindly headlined Egypt's popular revolution will change the world. It isn't quite as bad as the sub-editor has tried to portray it; he has however been caught up in the fervour of the moment and forgotten the history of any number of uprisings past:

For whatever happens next, Egypt's mobilisation will remain a revolution of world-historical significance because its actors have repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to defy the bounds of political possibility, and to do this on the basis of their own enthusiasm and commitment. They have arranged mass protests in the absence of any formal organisation, and have sustained them in the face of murderous intimidation. In a single, decisive afternoon they overcame Mubarak's riot police and have since held their ground against his informers and thugs. They have resisted all attempts to misrepresent or criminalise their mobilisation. They have expanded their ranks to include millions of people from almost every sector of society. They have invented unprecedented forms of mass association and assembly, in which they can debate far-reaching questions about popular sovereignty, class polarisation and social justice.

All of these things can be said of almost any people powered revolution of the past 200 years; the one area where it might perhaps be close to setting a precedent is the absence of any formal organisation, leading party or uniting opposition figure, and it could be argued that Twitter and Facebook have helped in this regard. This however ignores that the ultimate unifying figure is Mubarak himself, and that as long as he stays it seems so will the people.

While comment and "what this means" pieces, many written without the first clue have been plentiful, what really has been lacking is proper, rigorous analysis not just of the forces at work in Egypt and across the Middle East, but flowing across Europe and even America since the beginning of the financial crash. Newsnight's Paul Mason's twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere is at last a start on something resembling a condensation of the factors behind the various protests, replied to excellently by Richard over at the Third Estate. While it certainly is glib and facile to directly compare the student protests here with the genuine shaking of the very foundations of society over in Tunisia and Egypt, the differences and similarities are worth dwelling on.

One thing that seems to have been either glossed over, at least when it comes to the student protests, is class, and as 1-Speed-Bike put it, any movement that forgets about class is a bowel movement. Sunny is probably being slightly premature in declaring the student movement essentially dead, but one of its failings that he doesn't dwell on, other than how certain sections are still relying on the National Union of Students and the laughable Aaron Porter to organise things is that it comprehensively failed to attract, with some notable exceptions anyone other than those you would expect: it was thoroughly middle class, and to generalise, the upper or comfortably off middle class were over-represented. This didn't stop things from kicking off, yet it's notable when the protests were broadened to involve those protesting against the abolition of the Educational Maintenance Allowance, affecting many of those that will be even further deterred from attending university by the increasing of tuition fees that they were positively energised as Paul Mason noted. It was these kids from our equivalent of the Parisian banlieues, expressing their anger in terms far beyond the politeness of their peers, dancing to the grime and hip-hop they pumped out (Mason probably erred in terming it the dubstep rebellion) and completely prepared to meet violence with violence that made things truly exciting and different from what had gone before.

There was never enough momentum in simple opposition to the rise in fees, especially as the government was savvy enough to bring the vote forward to the first possible opportunity to build any wider resistance to the cuts agenda, although as Mason sets out, those truly involved from the beginning have migrated since to the UK Uncut protests and potentially even to Tahrir square. The biggest failure however has been to build on that final student protest, hindered as it somewhat was by the level of violence and the attack on the Royal shagging wagon. This is partially because the middle and working class kids don't only lead separate lives offline; they also do online. They're all on Facebook and some are probably also on Twitter, although Twitter is certainly more bourgeois than Facebook, it's that politics as we do it is of little to no interest to them. Without wanting to generalise too much and pick on easy targets, something like Netroots is completely alien, as is the point scoring nature of so much of the discourse on Twitter. Even taking into account the unifying nature of having a common enemy like Mubarak, our middle class activists, these "graduates with no future" couldn't even begin to hope to rally the sort of mass support the 25th of January movement has marshalled seemingly effortlessly.

I don't pretend to have an answer as to how the two can meet, or what either side should be doing to even facilitate such a thing. We don't however yet know just how radicalised some are going to become as a result of the cuts. While as Sunny argues most battles against them are going to be fought locally, David Seymour is right in saying that the government and Cameron especially doesn't have a vision for what the country is going to look like by 2015: today's PMQs (yes, I too go off into alien territory) showed just how intellectually threadbare he is when challenged even slightly on the bullshit of the "big society". Egypt should teach us, as if we needed to be reminded, that the possibility of a brighter tomorrow that transcends the wider social dynamic is everything.

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2/09/2011 11:23:00 pm | |

Monday, January 31, 2011 

Egypt and the green revolution.

Like many others, I've been scrabbling around for a reference point to the tumult in Egypt. Abu Muqawama wisely and humbly requests that we stop reaching immediately for the great European revolutions as analogies, whether of 1789, 1848 or 1989 when we are after all attempting to comment a nation that has been around for a couple of thousand more years than the territory more familiar to most of us.

He's right of course. But while we've got the revolution in Tunisia as part influence and catalyst for the uprising against Mubarak, I can't help but keep thinking back to the "green" protest movement in Iran now nigh on two years ago. That short lived taking to the streets, viciously snuffed out by the authorities was in response to what most agreed was the blatant rigging of the presidential poll in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's favour. Curiously gone mostly unmentioned is that Egypt also had elections back in November. As has always been the case under Mubarak they weren't even close to free or fair, yet in a sign of just how sure the regime was of its hold on power just two short months ago, where Muslim Brotherhood candidates standing as independents were allowed to win 88 seats in 2005, they were left with nothing this time round. Mubarak's National Democratic party won 97% of the seats in the Egyptian parliament, something which resulted in either no comment from most of the European nations which now feel they have to say something, and in a statement of "dismay" from the US. "Dismay" translated from the diplomatic means "carry on".

Another reflection of the Iranian protests is that the young and the secular have overwhelmingly taken the lead, although it's also true that the protesters themselves have been determined to show that they're united in wanting Mubarak out regardless of their personal differences. The opposition forces which have either been semi-tolerated or remained organised regardless of the repression, whether it be the MB, or the National Progressive Unionists refused to take part in last Tuesday's "day of anger", and have been playing catch up ever since. It's only now that all the forces for change have begun to come together, calling for a million to march tomorrow.

The key difference is that while the Egyptian army is now making clear that it won't put into action any demand for a Tiananmen style crackdown, the key subsections of the Iranian state, nurtured and funded by those opposed to any return to the years of relative liberalism under President Khatami remained completely loyal. The Basij especially were crucial in crushing the protests themselves, the leaders and student radicals either arrested or murdered, while the Revolutionary Guard waited in the wings if it was needed. In Egypt it's clear that while the police, widely loathed for their corruption and addiction to beatings and torture have remained relatively loyal to Mubarak, they've either disappeared in the face of the protests or drawn back, at least for now, with the army having stepped into their role. Those opposition figures that were rounded up or had been arrested prior to the elections have either been released or escaped following the breakdown in law and order. The best the police have managed in the instilling fear and terror stakes is, if we're to believe the theories of those in the major cities, their involvement in the looting and criminal damage which has resulted from the very security vacuum they created.

With the protests now affecting everyday life across the country, something is going to have to give, and with the army apparently refusing to countenance any violent crackdown, everything points towards Mubarak either being forced into standing down, perhaps by his newly appointed vice president or into a similar, humiliating dash for the exit, ala Ben Ali. Even if those now protesting repeat the mistakes made by those who fought for the overthrow of the Shah, the events, slogans, passion for freedom and heroism of the past week will reverberate for decades to come.

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1/31/2011 11:59:00 pm | |

Saturday, January 29, 2011 

One solution.





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1/29/2011 12:05:00 pm | |

Friday, January 28, 2011 

First world problems.

One of those nights where it's fairly pointless to write something major as it looks as if absolutely anything could yet happen. We can however depend on not just politicians with everything to lose from the collapse of the Mubarak regime exhibiting the usual double standards on freedom and human rights, but also our own wonderful citizens to focus on what's really important. From the BBC live blog:

Shepper from Derby, in the UK writes: "Why doesn't the British Foreign Office advise against all but essential travel to Egypt? Was going to visit the pyramids but can't cancel and get my money back until the Foreign Office advise against travel. Ridiculous. Would any normal person want to go there at the moment? Come on, FO, get the right advice posted."

The revolution won't be tweeted, but al-Jazeera is doing its best to televise it.

P.S. And the BBC is reporting Brenda Namigadde will not be deported overnight, an injunction having been granted in her favour.

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1/28/2011 10:12:00 pm | |

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 

A truly broken society.



Doubtless the pouring of Gazans (Haaretz says 200,000 and that the UN estimates 350,000, which if accurate is probably over 20% of the population) over the border into Egypt to purchase supplies after the border crossing was blown apart in apparent desperation is a Hamas propaganda stunt. Just like how Hamas had apparently decided to turn the power off at the Gaza station and pretend they'd run out of fuel to make out that the blockade was worse than it was, even though the UN confirmed that things were indeed as bad as the Palestinians said they were.

Now that the border has been opened, we can take bets on how long it'll be until it's forcibly closed again. The really shameful thing is that it took direct action for the border to be breached, and that Egypt has long been so hand in glove with Israel over Gaza that it's been allowed to get away with being complicit in the systematic collective punishment of a people. If Israel seriously thinks that the blockade is going to turn the Gaza population against Hamas, when it has so far seemed to have the opposite effect and is now going to take credit for the removal of the barrier, even if they're not claiming responsibility, they appear to have deeply miscalculated.

Not that this changes things one iota. Olmert continues to say that Gaza cannot continue as "normal" as long as rockets continue to be fired into Sderot, although kind gentlemen that he is, the children will not go hungry and the sick will continue to get their medication. Everyone else, even as they continue to denounce the militants that they can do very little to control, can continue to live in penury. While the children of Sderot live in fear, the whole of Gaza, targeted by hellfire missiles and shells for years, can suffer.

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1/23/2008 10:16:00 pm | |

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