The S Word

By John Feffer, February 8, 2011

A nation is like a marriage, or so Lenin imagined it to be, with each partner or province having a right to get out if things go horribly wrong. The Soviet constitution of 1918 provided this right to each of the republics. It wasn't an innovation that many other countries followed. And yet, constitutional provisions or not, the S word – secession – has occasionally brought nations to the brink of dissolution.
Sometimes these separations are amicable. Drawing a line down the middle of its name and its territory, Czechoslovakia dissolved its union without much fuss. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, was a very ugly divorce indeed.
Generally, "secession" is a very bad word in international relations. During the Cold War, many peoples – Biafrans, Basques, Kurds – uttered the word only to be severely punished for their transgressions. Bangladesh managed to break off from West Pakistan to form a new country – but probably only because a thousand miles of Indian territory already separated the two. After the Cold War, secession briefly became more popular, as the Soviet republics tipped their hat to Lenin as they went their separate ways. Elsewhere, Eritrea severed relations with Ethiopia, Namibia split from South Africa, and East Timor broke away from Indonesia. Yugoslavia was more than 15 years in the unmaking.
With so many post-Cold War precedents, you'd think secession wouldn't be dirty word today. For some, that's certainly the case. When voters went to the polls last month in Southern Sudan, nearly 99 percent opted for independence. The government in Khartoum has given its okay, so in July, Africa's largest country will formally split in two. Of course, this separation comes only after a 22-year-long civil war that left two million dead and four million displaced. That's an enormous price to pay. But many peoples in the world make comparable sacrifices and never get their own state.
Consider Chechnya. It fought two wars against Russia, lost 75,000 civilians, suffered through kidnappings and torture and the leveling of the capital Grozny. Not only have they not achieved independence, the Chechens must now put up with a Russian-installed dictator, Ramzan Kadyrov. A few years ago, one of Kadyrov's bodyguards ran away to Europe and testified about his employer's propensity for abduction and torture. At the beginning of 2009, in a botched kidnapping, several of Kadyrov's lackeys shot the whistleblower to death in Vienna.
In Chechnya's north Caucasus neighbors – Dagestan, Ingushetia – there's more talk about exiting Russia. The recent suicide bombing at the Moscow airport was organized by one of the factions pushing for independence. Putin has vowed to eliminate the "nest of bandits" responsible for the crime.
For every successful South Sudan, there are several suppressed Chechnyas. And every leader like Putin who aspires to crush secessionist movements has been looking with awe at Sri Lanka and its leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
In May 2009, Rajapaksa orchestrated the eradication of the movement for Tamil independence, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This terrifying culmination of a three-year offensive, according to the former UN spokesperson in Colombo, left as many as 40,000 civilians dead. A number of countries denounced the actions of the Sri Lankan military, and the UN Human Rights Council, with U.S. support, began to look into war crimes. The government has denied the allegations. "I will not allow any investigation by the United Nations or any other country," said Rajapaksa's brother, who also happens to be the defense minister.
The official condemnations from governments contrast rather sharply with the reactions of military personnel involved in counter-terrorism operations. They've treated Sri Lankan military leaders like rock stars. The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson attended a recent conference on maritime security in Sri Lanka, where the formal agenda included discussions of piracy and other matters. "But mostly the conference was an opportunity for Sri Lanka's military leaders to boast to their colleagues about beating the Tigers," he writes. "The foreign speakers congratulated them on their achievement, and asked eagerly about the techniques they had used. Brigadier General Stanley Osserman, of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command, said, 'Sri Lanka has a lot to offer in the field of terrorism prevention and maritime security.'"
The Sri Lankan "solution" of massive firepower and unrestrained ruthlessness was nothing particularly new. The Sri Lankan military might even have picked up some pointers from General William Tecumseh Sherman, who cut a swath to the sea in 1864 in a bid to make sure that the American south would never utter the S word again. What made the campaign against the LTTE unusual was that it took place in the Internet age. Other countries are studying the Sri Lankan case not so much for how they did it, but how they got away with it.
Of course a third possibility lies between the success of Sudan and the failure of the Tamil Tigers, the Chechens, and most everyone else. Many states exist in a kind of limbo. Taiwan functions like an independent country and can stay that way as long as it doesn't make any formal declarations that would irk Mainland China. Kosovo has been recognized by 75 countries and last July the International Court of Justice upheld its declaration of independence. But Russia, China, and Spain – which have their own problems with the S word – have still barred entrance to the club of independent countries.
But Taiwan and Kosovo are still pretty lucky. They at least have gotten some recognition. Somaliland seceded from Somalia back in 1991. Yet no other country has recognized it. That's like throwing a party, inviting the world, and then sitting all night by yourself with all the chips and punch.
Last month, another section of Somalia filed for divorce. Puntland, like Somaliland, has been relatively stable, at least compared to the rest of the troubled country. Puntland's uttering of the S word may simply be tactical, however. "It is willing to be part of a federal Somalia, so its secession is not irrevocable," writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Hussein Yusuf in Puntland Splits. "Rather, it made its declaration as a kind of wake-up call to the international community. It wanted to call attention to the TFG leadership's inability and unwillingness to cooperate with the rest of Somalia."
The fate of these would-be countries is being closely watched. Many Walloons, Basques, Corsicans, Western Saharans, Acehnese, Naga, Karen,  Tibetans, Kurds, Baluchis, Vermonters, and many, many others are wondering whether they will be able to say the S word and see it happen. With South Sudan leading the way, divorce might become a great deal more popular in the near future. They might just have to knock down some walls in the UN General Assembly to accommodate all the new seats.
Egyptian "Moderates"
The situation in Egypt remains murky as Vice President Omar Suleiman talks with opposition leaders about what comes next. FPIF contributor Islam Qasem, in Three Possible Scenarios for Egypt, sketches out the trajectories: Mubarak rides out the storm, he resigns but leaves the regime intact, or there's a more-or-less clean sweep. The last alternative, which the protestors are demanding, will be the most interesting: "Egyptian society will have to endure a hard period of transition, during which lessons will have to be learned in political compromise, pragmatism, and consensus," he writes. "At the same time, Islamists of all stripes and colors will be emboldened."
The Obama administration has largely echoed the current Egyptian leadership's calls for "orderly transition." As FPIF contributors Asli Bali and Aziz Rana explain in The Fake Moderation of America's Moderate Mideast Allies, the frame of "order versus chaos" is a false one, for the protestors have been the orderly party in the conflict. Meanwhile, "the regime that Western leaders have lauded for decades as a beacon of moderation has unleashed its salaried, plainclothes security personnel to loot its own cities, set fire to its streets, and attack unarmed protesters with Molotov cocktails, knives, U.S.-supplied tear gas canisters, and live ammunition. The new Vice President Suleiman now promises to employ the same security services to arrest those the regime chooses to blame for the disorder and violence it has wrought."
In light of its wishy-washy response to the protests in Egypt and earlier in Tunisia, the United States should rethink its whole approach to democracy promotion. "The lesson of Tunis, Sanaa, and Cairo is that democracy rhetoric is more than a strategy for the assertion of American dominance," writes FPIF contributor Abena Ampofoa Asare in Regime Change Redux. "On the contrary, it is a language that fuses moral and political power into a radical claim that every human being deserves a voice in the decisions that affect their daily lives. The United States tried to promote democracy through the barrel of a gun. It's time now for Washington to support democracy in the Middle East by pressing its authoritarian allies to put their guns away."
Finally, in an interview with FPIF, Middle East expert and blogger extraordinaire Juan Cole talks about the jailed Islamists in Egypt. In contrast to extremist Sayeed Qutb, one of the intellectual progenitors of al-Qaeda who spent several years in Egyptian jail before his ultimate execution, "the people jailed in Egypt in the 1990s tended to be reflective about what happened to them, about whether they were right about shooting down innocent tourists," Cole said. "The Islamic group Gama'a Islamiya actually broke with the blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, and the leadership in prison started to issue repentance pamphlets. These are short chapbooks in which they reinterpret their own history and the Qur'an. They argue, at least on a practical basis, for a non-violent strategy. The leadership of the movement was announcing themselves as peaceful activists henceforth."
Don't forget to visit our Focal Points blog, which is buzzing with information and insight on Egypt and the uprising's implications for U.S. policy toward the Middle East.

The Perils of Globalization

Many women from the Philippines travel to other countries to work. One of the major risks Filipinas face is sexual slavery.
"The working conditions of many domestics, which include 18-22 hour days and violent beatings, cannot but be described except as virtual slavery," writes FPIF columnist Walden Bello in Sexual Prey in the Saudi Jungle. "Saudi Arabia abolished slavery by royal decree in 1962, but customs are hard to overcome. Royal and aristocratic households continue to treat domestic workers as slaves, and this behavior is reproduced by those lower in the social hierarchy. Apparently among the items of the "job description" of a domestic slave in Saudi is being forced to minister to the sexual needs of the master of the household."
The U.S. Congress passed a free trade agreement (FTA) with Peru back in 2007, but with certain conditions governing labor rights and the environment. Two years on, Tereza Coraggio points out, neither side have met their obligations. "Now that William Daley, JP Morgan executive and architect of NAFTA during the Clinton administration, is Obama's chief of staff, FTAs with Korea and Colombia will be on the table," she writes in Peru Trade Deal Unravels. "Lessons from Peru show that labor and environmental provisions are meaningless unless backed by political will on both sides."

ANALYSIS: Conceptualising problems —Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

There is no use lamenting external influence on Pakistan’s policy choices in domestic affairs and foreign policy. There is no country in the world that is absolutely free to do whatever it wants to do



A popular political discourse attributes Pakistan’s political, economic and internal security problems, especially civic violence and terrorism, to the outside world. The US and India are often accused of destabilising Pakistan. This perspective, widely advocated by the political far right and the Islamists, highlights the question: “Who has targeted us?”

External factors and players do impact Pakistan’s domestic context but these factors are played up so much that it amounts to externalising Pakistan’s internal problems, making it almost impossible to examine internal sources of the current predicament. There is a need to focus on another question: “What has gone wrong with us?” The strength to resist external pressures is acquired from within a state. Inner strength can be acquired only if we accept that we are also responsible for our problems. We need to focus on these sources so as to develop the capacity to resist external pressures and exercise policy options with greater autonomy. Pakistan’s strengths and weaknesses are primarily linked to its internal situation.

It is futile to expect that the rest of the world will pursue foreign policy to the satisfaction of the Pakistani government and Pakistan’s political leaders and parties. Each country pursues its foreign policy and adopts strategies to withstand the pressures generated by other states or takes appropriates steps to pursue its objectives and interests within an interdependent international system.

Pakistan’s capacity to charter an autonomous course of action in its internal affairs and interaction with the rest of the world depends on the strength of its economy, internal political and social cohesion, and minimum internal security and stability. The military security also relies primarily on these pillars.

There is little realisation in Pakistan’s political class that unless they work together to address the above mentioned issues, the international community cannot ‘rescue’ Pakistan beyond a limit to be determined by them. There is no use lamenting external influence on Pakistan’s policy choices in domestic affairs and foreign policy. There is no country in the world that is absolutely free to do whatever it wants to do. It has to pursue its national goals in an unequal and interdependent world. Pakistan’s sovereignty is not protected by confrontation with the west and India but by building up internal economic strength, political and social harmony, and promoting a knowledge-based tolerant society.

Pakistan’s current economy is heavily dependent on external economic assistance — grants and loans — and transfer of funds — remittances — by overseas Pakistanis. The socio-economic development programmes rely heavily on external support. This type of dependence limits Pakistan’s choices. Therefore, Pakistan has to shift the economy’s reliance from external to internal sources and cultivate a trade, investment and market-oriented relationship with the rest of the world.

The opposition parties need not derive grudging satisfaction from the federal government’s economic predicament. Pakistan’s ongoing economic decline, if not checked, will not merely cause the PPP-led federal government to fail but can cause the collapse of the Pakistani state. All political parties and societal groups are going to be adversely affected. The opposition parties would not be able to govern.

The federal government has decided to reduce the size of the federal cabinet. Punjab and Sindh’s chief ministers have also reduced a number of political appointees. This not only rationalises government spending and establishes a good precedent for economical use of state resources. However, Pakistan’s economic predicament is not resolved merely by reducing federal and provincial cabinets. More serious efforts will have to be made by the government, political leaders and society to salvage the faltering economy.

There are three sets of obstacles to improving the economic situation. First, the federal and provincial governments suffer from a crisis of confidence. Their capacity to enforce their decisions has declined tremendously. They lack political will to sustain their decisions because their overall poor performance in governance and political management has eroded the confidence of the people in the governments, which in turn has reduced their efficacy. The federal government needs to be more forthright and transparent in electricity-related affairs, petrol prices, price hike of kitchen items and the shortages of essential food items like sugar and wheat flour. The Punjab government has wasted state resources in the low price roti scheme. It is now embarking on an equally scandalous project of the ‘Danish Schools’, in less privileged areas. The federal government could not sustain the raise in the price of petroleum product announced on January 1, 2011.

Second, every political party is using the economic crisis either to reprimand the federal government or to make proposals that require the government to take steps at its own risk or suggest measures that protect their vote bank and build economic pressures on others. The MQM and the PML-N are totally opposed to the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) because it hits the trader-business community and others based in urban centres who are their voters. The MQM favours agricultural tax because the landed gentry do not support the MQM. However, the PML-N does not show much interest in agriculture tax because it gets votes from the landed gentry in Punjab. Further, the tax on agriculture is a provincial subject but neither the MQM nor the PML-N has presented a bill for that purpose in the provincial assemblies of Sindh and Punjab. However, the MQM uses this as a slogan.

Third, no political party is prepared to extend any support to the government for addressing the economic problems. They often make unrealistic demands and want the government to implement their demands instantly. There is very little realisation of the ground economic realities on the part of the political leaders.

Difficult economic decisions cannot be taken by the government alone. It needs the support of the major political parties because these decisions require economic and administrative restructuring. Unfortunately, the opposition parties and one of the PPP partner parties, the MQM, do not want any new tax, no increase in oil prices and no removal of surplus human power in state enterprises. Yet they want the government to ensure prosperity for the people.

If the political leaders do not mobilise the people for accepting difficult economic decisions, the government cannot opt for economic and administrative restructuring. The acceptance of some hardship at this stage saves the people and the country from economic and political disasters in the future. If the Pakistani state does not stay economically afloat, the whole political class will be the loser.

Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Dilemmas: Analysis at Domestic, Regional and International Levels

Foreign policy as a distinct area of inquiry connects international relations with the study of domestic politics. Currently Pakistan’s foreign policy is facing grave challenges both internally and externally given its geographic location, internal dynamics and growing international influences. In contemporary politics, the lines between domestic and foreign policy are blurred and complicated. Foreign policy is defined as the totality of the country’s policies toward and interactions with the environment beyond its borders.

Internal instability and violence has escalated in the recent years due to the on-going Taliban insurgency, increasing militancy and extremism, economic decay in the country and failure to develop democratic institutions. It has weakened the democratic process and questioned the ability of elected political leadership to achieve its objectives of a secure and stable Pakistan. Moreover, it has failed to deliver on the economic front, starting with basic needs to improved international economic cooperation. Regionally, the tensions between Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran continue to destabilize the security environment. Pakistan’s alliance with the US in its global war on terror has generated a serious and hot debate between analysts and leaders of public opinion, as both countries are cooperating without trust, using military options and conventional methods to achieve their objectives without much success. Globally, Pakistan’s image has deteriorated as its critics term it a home of global jihadis and extremists. Their operations and targets are not restricted to Pakistan or the region, thereby posing a global threat.

Most debates, conferences, seminars address the issues confronting Pakistan’s Foreign Policy from the traditional realist perspective, either consciously or unconsciously, taking Pakistan as unitary entity acting rationally. The debate in Pakistan has mostly been revolving around the rationality of different policy options or sincerity of individuals. The Conference will look at Pakistan foreign policy from the different levels of analysis Domestic, Regional and International. It will bring together the differing foreign policy positions of Centrists / Establishment / Pakistani Nationalists, Islamists who have been traditionally allied with the Centrists (with differences emerging after 9/11), Liberal, Center Left, and ethno linguistic nationalist perspectives to look at Pakistan. It will also look at the impact of regional as well as international environment on Pakistan foreign policy. The Conference will also bring together regional and international scholars to enrich the debate by sharing how Pakistan’s foreign policy is perceived from outside.

A scholarly debate on these internal and external challenges is important not only for the students of international relations and academia but policy makers as such discourses become important inputs for decision makers. Policy oriented papers by practitioners and academicians will be of great significance as they will lead to reevaluation of foreign policy and formulation of new or modified strategies reflecting the national interest of Pakistan without posing threat to its neighbors and major players in international politics.

The broad theme of the conference may be divided into sub-themes focusing on varying domestic, regional and international perspectives of foreign policy around which the various sessions would be organized.
1. Domestic perspectives/factors determining foreign policy, – dominance of security policy, governance, democracy, religious/secular/ethno linguistic nationalism, NGOs etc,
2. The Impact of neighborhood on Pakistan’s Foreign options – India, Afghanistan, Iran, China
3. Extremism, sectarianism and terrorism- regional and international dimensions
4. Taliban insurgency in Pakistan and Afghanistan: a nexus?
5. Pakistan foreign policy and relationship with extra regional powers – USA, Europe, Russia, Middle East
6. Political Economy of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy
7. Regional perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy – Especially India, Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh

The Wrong Side of History

Author:	Joel D. Hirst, International Affairs Fellow in Residence

January 28, 2011
Huffington Post

"Dictatorships are stable," I have often been told by friends who object to my unwavering commitment to democracy promotion, "In a dangerous world we need stability more than freedom." My answer to them has always been, "dictatorships are stable, until they aren't." Their argument continues, "But not all cultures are the same," they say, "they don't all value individual freedom as much as we do, we should stop pushing on them our western ideals," and with their words serving as judge, jury and executioner for the world's oppressed.
This month, all those arguments seem finally to have fallen by the wayside. The planet's greatest bastion of authoritarianism - the Arab world - is trembling. Starting with the ouster of Tunisia's dictator on January 14th, the "Arab street" has been emboldened to challenge their own authoritarians. The revolts have spread quickly. From Yemen to Jordan young people have emerged from their houses to protest against generations of oppression. Perhaps most significantly, the government of Egypt appears to be on the brink. This is significant for several reasons. Egypt is the Arab world's most populous state. It is important politically, being the host nation of the Arab League; and Cairo University is arguably the Arab world's most respected academic institution. For the west, Egypt has been an important partner in the ongoing peace process with Israel. For all these reasons, we could be witnessing the most important moment in Arab political history in our lifetimes.
Unfortunately this news comes as a mixed blessing for the United States. For too long, our policy on the Arab peninsula has been fraught with inconsistencies. We claim to be the guarantors of freedom in the world, and yet we make our places in the beds of some of the world's most brutal tyrants. We claim to support freedom of religion and watch converts to Christianity executed. We claim to defend woman's rights and sit idly by while women are stoned to death. We do this because we are afraid of the alternative. We follow daily the unending results of President Carter's attempt to push democracy in Iran (not an Arab country for sure but an important Islamic Republic) and administration after administration decides "better the devil we know."
Vice President Biden summed up our misguided policy in an interview with PBS last night, "Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he's been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with - with Israel... I would not refer to him as a dictator. I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that - to be more responsive to some... of the needs of the people out there."
This policy has caused a significant credibility problem with the "Arab street." The United States is viewed as hypocritical, willing to push democratic freedoms that affect the daily lives of millions only when it does not interrupt, as Vice-President Biden puts it, our "geopolitical interest." To be sure, this crisis of credibility is not the responsibility of the Obama administration alone. An unending line of Republican and Democratic administrations have come and gone without improving our dictator problems. In the aftermath of September 11, when then-President Bush realized that the attackers that fateful day came from important countries that ally themselves with the U.S.'s "geopolitical interests," he began to formulate the policy that would become known as the "freedom agenda." Leaning heavily on former Gulag "refusenik" and Israeli Minister Natan Sharansky's book, A Case for Democracy, Bush outlined three central principles which he believed should guide American foreign policy: that the desire for freedom is universal, that democracy is essential for security and that free nations should hinge their policy toward unfree nations to the gradual expansion of domestic liberties. This book became the bible for democracy promoters worldwide, eloquently outlining what we inherently knew to be true.
Unfortunately, in the daily Presidential dance of crisis management the reforms that the Bush Administration wanted from especially our Arab allies did not come fast enough. Even the tepid demands by the Bush administration, in 2005 calling on Egypt to lead democratic reforms across the region, fell on deaf ears. The "freedom agenda" began to resemble an attempt to topple anti-American dictators instead of the universal promotion of individual freedoms - among friend and foe alike. The agenda also brought un-intended but important complications to our global relationships such as the Hamas victory in Gaza and paving the groundwork for the eventual takeover by Hezbollah of the newly independent Lebanese government.
The Obama administration, perhaps mindful of these setbacks, has been even more timid in the promotion of the "truths we hold self-evident." During the now-defunct Iranian "green revolution," President Obama famously refused to wade into the fray. His support to Tunisian democracy during the State of the Union this year was facile, considering the dictator had already been ousted. Seeing President Bush's "freedom agenda" as too aggressive, the current administration's reticence to push democracy even among backsliding anti-American countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Russia, and others has allowed the consolidation of dictatorships across the world.
Returning to Egypt, decades of bad policies have left the Obama administration in a difficult situation. As the Council on Foreign Relations' President Emeritus Leslie Gelb stated, "In rotten regimes that fall to street mobs, the historical pattern has been moderates followed by new dictators. Just remember the model of the Bolsheviks, a tiny group of extremely well-organized communists, wresting control away from the great majority of discontented and disorganized Russians in 1917." Complicating the situation is the mercurial nature of the Muslim Brotherhood itself, Egypt's primary opposition movement. Especially important to the United States is Egypt's diplomatic recognition of Israel, seen as a fundamental component of any peace process. The Obama administration is walking a fine line - but is most likely negatively perceived by the Brotherhood due to the United States' thirty year support of the Mubarak regime. Nobody knows what a Brotherhood-led government would look like, or how it would behave.
However the complications of the current situation in the Arab world play out, the Obama administration should take this as an opportunity to once and for all revise the U.S. policy of support for dictators of any stripe. He should set in place an agenda, as former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said, " which makes possible the construction of societies gradually more just, without extremes and in peace." Otherwise, the Obama administration will be seen as continuing to lead the United States on the wrong side of history.

Mothers of the Jasmine Revolution

By Imed Labidi, January 31, 2011

On January 14, 2011, the ousted former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali fled the country and found his way to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Just two days earlier, French Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie told her National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Commission that French expertise could help suppress the Tunisian uprising and restore order. Although the French can take much pride in their history of revolution, and perhaps less in their government’s special police forces and creative methods of taming demonstrators, this faux pas came as no surprise. It simply reflects the reality of European politics and how little EU democracies, and France in particular, care about democratization in North African nations.
The U.S. reaction was not much better. In an interview with Al Arabiya television another powerful woman, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, echoed the same indifference as the French foreign minister. "We are not taking sides," Clinton said. Such a cold comment contrasted with her earlier insistence, on the pan-Arab TV show Kalam Nawaem, that “a woman's voice must be heard and worthy of respect.”
The Tunisian mothers, wives, and sisters mourning the deaths of their fallen sons and daughters expected more sympathy from the international community, particularly from women in power. They may even have fantasized about a public figure showing her solidarity with other struggling women like Mannoubia and Samia Bouazizi, the mother and sister of the young man whose self-immolation triggered the country-wide protests. Shocking and cruel, the French foreign minister's words ignored and invalidated 25 years of Tunisian women’s suffering and sacrifices. It denigrated these women’s commitment to defend their families, communities, and homelands, as well as their determination to be equal participants in the remaking of Tunisian politics.
Since the mid-1980s, exiled journalist and human rights activist Sihem Ben Sedrine wrote ceaselessly about the absence of basic rights, censorship, government surveillance, and retaliation against those who contest the regime’s undemocratic practices. In an open letter addressed to Ben Ali entitled "Time to Quit, Mr. President," published only few days before the riots spread in Tunisian cities, Sedrine uncovered all the political decay in the Tunisian system, from staged elections to the dangerous leadership ambitions of unqualified wife of Ben Ali, Leila Al Trabelsi. For her efforts to engage with the government and encourage more democratic and productive public debate, Sedrine was labeled a prostitute by the regime’s agents. Both she and her colleague Naziha Réjiba, cofounders of the independent online magazine Kalima, faced smear campaigns and threats. But they prepared the ground for the revolution by teaching Tunisians to appreciate the values of democracy, independence, self-confidence, and tolerance.

Claiming Their Place

Many of the images first beamed to the world of the Tunisian protests were of men, giving the illusion that it was only the men who wanted change. As Nadia Marzouki writes, “A surprisingly under-covered aspect of the Tunisian demonstrations is the impressive visibility of women, also in contrast to stereotypes about the ‘Arab street’ that propagate the image of a male-dominated public space.” In the cities of Zidi Bouzid, Ghafsa, Msaken, and Sfax, and then eventually in the streets of the capital of Tunis, the mothers of the Jasmine revolution claimed their space. National Public Radio’s Eleanor Beardsley reported that “female voices rang out loud and clear during massive protests that brought down the authoritarian rule of Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.” Women were on the frontlines of protest marches and fought against the oppressive rule of a ruthless regime supported by the whole democratic world. Gracefully, they rose on the shoulders of their brothers chanting “bread, water, and No Ben Ali.” This short phrase, when sung in Arabic rhymes, conveyed a strong message that Tunisians would no longer tolerate corruption, injustice, and political marginalization. In short, they were willing to accept the bare minimum to survive in exchange for abolishing the dictator’s rule.
Tunisian women were everywhere on social media outlets. On Facebook videos and on Twitter, young women and men strongly expressed their dissent. They held signs that read “Ben Ali Dégage” (Ben Ali get the hell out). They faced tear gas and bullets, the violence of Ben Ali’s informants and loyalists, and the rage of undercover police. They came from different generations, different backgrounds and social classes, and held divergent political beliefs.
They stood united, capturing videos on their phones and posting them online. Unidentified women were filmed, voicing their complaints directly to police forces and to the military personnel on the streets of Tunisia. Women were gunned down, such as a woman shot and killed in Nabeul, but the media rarely mentioned the women who took part in the demonstrations or who became the victims of the security forces.
Like their revolutionary and brave Algerian sisters, who in the 1950s helped bring one of the most developed and vicious colonial armies to its knees and ushered the end of a longstanding European empire, les Tunisiennes challenged the premise that resistance, revolution, and war are the work of men alone. Defiantly, the women continued the resistance until Ben Ali “got the hell out.” Now that he's gone, Tunisian women are appearing on Arab television and participating in the formation of neighborhood watch groups. Since the country’s independence in the mid-1950s, Tunisian women benefited from a civil rights code that guaranteed their equality and gave them access to a good educational system. In the aftermath of the revolution, they are eager to secure those rights.

The Ignorance of the West

Nicholas Beau and Catherine Garciet, in their best selling book La Régente de Carthage, told the rags-to-riches story of the former first lady of Tunisia and wife of Ben Ali, Leila Al Trabelsi, and her family’s subsequent corruption. For most Tunisians, there wasn’t much new in this account. The book’s significance lay not in the information it exposed about the level of corruption, theft, money laundering, racketeering, and banking fraud, but in the analysis of France’s cooperation. The French government knew of these violations and human rights abuses, and supported the Tunisian ruling elite anyway. Soon after, Wikileaks revealed several cables proving that U.S. officials knew as much about the level of corruption as the French did.
Alas, Europe and the United States turned a blind eye. They knew Tunisia was run Mafioso-style, with power almost equally shared between Ben Ali, Leila, her family, and a few other corrupt families who pilfered the country. The World Bank, the IMF, France, and many other EU democracies helped Ben Ali’s rule promulgate the myths of the “Tunisian miracle” and the Tunisian regime as a model of stability.
The Tunisian miracle does exist. It is unfolding today on the streets of all Tunisian cities. Men and women are coming together in solidarity to pick up the pieces of a bloody revolution. Communities are forming and organizing cleaning campaigns during the day. Watch groups are providing security at night. Vigilant social media networks are disseminating information around the clock. People are staying united, sharing food and medicine.
And Tunisian women, who played such a vital role in the protests, are playing an equally vital role in rebuilding their society and inspiring Arabs in other countries to follow their example.   “We demand the creation of a constitutional council to rewrite the constitution and harness all the forces that have contributed to this revolution so that the dreams of the people can be realized,” said Sihem Ben Sedrine. She is still occupying center stage in the political debate, securing women’s participation in the transition and making sure their voices are heard

Inside the White House's Egypt Scramble

As protests erupted in Egypt, Washington struggled desperately to find the right response to the crisis.

by John BarryJanuary 30, 2011

 Pete Souza / The White House

President Obama being briefed on the events in Egypt by his national security team in a meeting in the Situation Room of the White House.

For three days straight, as the Cairo crisis gathered momentum, they had hardly left their desks. Now, huddled in the big office of their boss—one of the administration policy-makers trying to calibrate the U.S. response to the unfolding drama—the advisers watched Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s first statement. Two television sets were running, one showing CNN and the other a satellite feed from Al Jazeera. Someone had popped popcorn in a microwave. In the old days, their boss reflected, he would have ordered in pizza, but since 9/11 the ever-expanding security precautions had shut down deliveries of take-out.

The mood was buoyant, as revealed by interviews with several officials involved in the ongoing administration debate that provide at least a preliminary glimpse of their concerns as Egypt spiraled toward chaos.

Had there been an office pool, the boss thought, the favored bet would have been that Mubarak was about to “do an LBJ” and repeat what President Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 in the face of a wave of protests: announce he would not stand in the upcoming presidential election. Certainly, Mubarak’s departure would present the U.S. with a new set of daunting challenges, but at least it would quiet the Egyptian streets and buy some time for mediation.  Anastasia Taylor-Lind / VII Mentor Program

The Keystroke Revolution

But as the Egyptian president spoke—a couple of the Arabic speakers in the room providing translation—the optimism died. Mubarak announced he was dismissing his government; he talked of reforms. But he also made clear his determination to stay on. There were groans, shaking of heads. This wasn’t going to be enough to halt the tumult in half of Egypt’s cities, and, more disconcertingly, Mubarak’s assertion that the demonstrations were “part of a bigger plot to shake the stability” of Egypt sounded ominous. The Egyptian president had called out the Army on Friday; now his speech sounded as if he was preparing to use it. President Obama’s Middle East advisers believed that if Egyptian security forces opened fire on demonstrators, the country would likely explode. As Mubarak ended his address, someone in the room voiced the thought on everyone’s mind: “Well, what do we do now?”

In the White House, that judgment was swiftly made. Mubarak’s speech was a climactic moment: It was time for President Obama to act.

Throughout the week, as the crisis gathered storm in Egypt, the administration had otherwise been slow to react, seemingly always one step behind events. This was partly because neither the U.S. intelligence community nor diplomats on the ground foresaw how swiftly the protests in Egypt would gather momentum—even if everyone realized that virtually the entire Arab world is a tinder box of pent-up frustration, with despotic regimes unable to meet the needs of, especially, their youth. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself put it last month, in a speech in Doha that now seems uncannily prescient, Arab leaders would face growing unrest, extremism, and even rebellion unless they reformed “corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order.” It was the starkest warning ever delivered by a senior American official, and a message brought home a few days later when Tunisia erupted in revolt.

Yet, when it came to Egypt, the tone was different, and as the protests in Cairo gathered momentum, Clinton’s initial public comments were a mixture of fact and hopeful fiction. “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people,” she said, an assessment that didn’t take long to be overtaken by events.

Whether Mubarak indeed was committed to responding to “the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people” remained an open question. Clinton’s statement, however, had been carefully calibrated, coming after the first round of what proved to be an exhausting week of discussions by President Obama and his top officials.

From the start, according to sources privy to the discussions, talks revolved around two objectives: how to cajole Mubarak to respond to the demonstrations, while, at the same time, not saying anything publicly that could be taken as American approval of the forcible overthrow of Arab regimes. But as the demonstrations grew in intensity, that balance became increasingly fraught. The demonstrators were, after all, demanding human and political rights to which the United States is committed, but which Mubarak showed no sign of granting.

After much discussion, it was decided that President Obama would not try to speak directly to Mubarak. According to an informed source, the assessment was that president-to-president intervention should be held in reserve as a last recourse. Besides, any exchange with Mubarak would require Obama to say whether he supported Mubarak’s continued rule. And the president was in a bind: He couldn’t bluntly say no. On the other hand, Egyptian authorities would instantly broadcast any expression of support as proof that Washington was backing Mubarak’s hold on power. (Shown this article for review, the White House said: "There's nothing we'd comment on here at the moment.")

So the administration tried to reach Mubarak by other means. The Cairo embassy reached out to his advisers. Other Arab leaders were enlisted. Across the region, the events in Cairo were viewed with mounting concern by other governments. The longer their television screens were filled with those scenes of protest, the likelier they were to trigger comparable uprisings in other capitals. The administration’s message was clear: for your own sake, persuade Mubarak he has to quell the revolt by offering concessions.

By Thursday, though, the Cairo embassy was reporting that Mubarak was mobilizing the Army. Everyone knew that Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, would see the biggest demonstrations yet. Mubarak’s mobilization of the military could only mean that he was set on suppression. There was a real risk of bloodshed—and the judgment both of analysts in Washington and of Arab leaders in other capitals was that killings on any scale could ignite a firestorm—not only in Egypt but across the region.

Taking advantage of a pre-arranged Q&A session on YouTube, Obama warned: “The government has to be careful about not resorting to violence.” Mubarak, he said, needed to be “moving ahead on reform—political reform, economic reform”.

Whether Obama’s warning influenced Mubarak’s actions is unclear. The Army did roll into the streets of Cairo and other cities on Friday. But it did not shoot; and, on Friday evening, Mubarak appeared on television for the first time in the crisis.

Meanwhile at the Pentagon, a high-powered delegation of Egyptian military leaders, including the armed forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Enan, cut short a scheduled week-long visit after only a few hours, departing instead for the airport. Their Pentagon hosts wished them well, with careful expressions of hope that a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Egypt would permit the continuation of the U.S. military’s long-standing relationship with Egypt’s armed forces. (Since the U.S. funds the Egyptian military to the tune of $1.3 billion a year, the message was clear.)

Administration officials suspect—or, at any rate, hope—that Obama’s blunt declaration forced Mubarak’s hand, prompting the Egyptian president to address his nation. What Mubarak offered in his televised speech, however, was “too little, too late,” as someone at that popcorn-eating gathering said. There was no prospect, Obama’s advisers believed, that Mubarak’s vague promises of reform would pacify the streets.

At a meeting on Friday afternoon, Obama and his top officials, including Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon among them, concluded that the time had come for Obama to talk directly to Mubarak. And Mubarak’s address to the Egyptian people had given Obama the opening he wanted. The White House organized the call.

It was an intervention that dramatically—and publicly—escalated the American involvement in the Egyptian crisis. In an address from the White House, Obama outlined what he had told Mubarak, putting the administration unequivocally behind the demonstrators’ demands. “The people of Egypt have rights that are universal,” Obama said in his speech. “And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.” The president also warned both sides against violence but his message was clear: “When President Mubarak addressed the Egyptian people tonight, he pledged a better democracy and greater economic opportunity. I just spoke to him after his speech, and I told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.” And, said Obama, “we are committed to working with the Egyptian government and the Egyptian people—all quarters—to achieve” those goals.

It was a breath-taking pledge, with Obama coming close to making the U.S. the guarantor that Mubarak will act. In Egypt, his reference to “all quarters” will be taken to suggest that the U.S. will even reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood, an unprecedented step.

In the last week, the administration has come a long way.

Egypt Protests Show American Foreign-Policy Folly

While popular uprisings erupt across the Middle East, America stands on the sidelines. Stephen Kinzer on why the U.S. should abandon its self-defeating strategy in the region.

by Stephen KinzerJanuary 28, 2011

From left: AFP-Getty Images; Thaer Ganaim / PPO-Getty Images; Sean Gallup / Getty Images

Leading figures in U.S.–Mideast policy (from left): Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I walked into the British Foreign Office for a meeting with Middle East policy planners. “Tunisia is melting down and the Lebanese government has just fallen,” my host said as he welcomed me. “Interesting times.”

During our meeting, one veteran British diplomat observed that since American policy toward the Middle East is frozen into immobility, change there comes only when there is a crisis. I asked where he thought the next crisis might erupt. “Egypt,” he replied.

Events have moved quickly since then President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia has been overthrown, Hezbollah has chosen the new prime minister of Lebanon and thousands have taken to the streets in Egypt to demand an end to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year dictatorship. The Middle East is erupting—and the U.S. is watching from the sidelines. Unable to guide the course of events, it can do little more than cheer for its sclerotic allies and hope that popular anger does not sweep them aside.

Washington sees the various local and national conflicts in the Middle East as part of a battle for regional hegemony between the U.S. and Iran. If this is true, the U.S. is losing. That is because it has stubbornly held onto Middle East policies that were shaped for the Cold War. The security environment in the region has changed dramatically since then. Iran has shown itself agile enough to align itself with rising new forces that enjoy the support of millions. The U.S., meanwhile, remains allied with countries and forces that looked strong 30 or 40 years ago but no longer are.

Iran is betting on Hizbullah, Hamas, and Shiite parties in Iraq. These are popular forces that win elections. Hizbullah emerged as the heroic champion of resistance to Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, winning the admiration of Arabs, not only for itself but also for its Iranian backers. Many Arabs also admire Hamas for its refusal to bow to Israeli power in Gaza.

Pro-Iran forces have also scored major gains in Iraq. They effectively control the Iraqi government, and their most incendiary leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, recently returned to a hero’s welcome after an extended stay in Iran. By invading Iraq in 2003, and removing Saddam Hussein from power, the U.S. handed Iraq to Iran on a platter. Now Iran is completing the consolidation of its position in Baghdad.

 

Alex Majoli / Magnum for Newsweek

Images of the Tunisian protests that drove out a dictator

Postcards From the Revolution

Whom does America bet on to counter these rising forces? The same friends it has been betting on for decades: Mubarak’s pharaonic regime in Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority, the Saudi monarchy, and increasingly radical politicians in Israel. It is no wonder that Iran’s power is rising as the American-imposed order begins to crumble.

The U.S. keeps Mubarak in power—it gave his regime $1.5 billion in aid last year—mainly because he supports America’s pro-Israel policies, especially by helping Israel maintain its stranglehold on Gaza. It supports Abbas for the same reason: he is seen as willing to compromise with Israel, and therefore a desirable negotiating partner. This was confirmed, to Abbas’s great embarrassment, by WikiLeaks cables that show how eager he has been to meet Israeli demands, even collaborating with Israeli security forces to arrest Palestinians he dislikes. American support for Mubarak and Abbas continues, although neither man is in power with any figment of legality; Mubarak brazenly stage-manages elections, and Abbas has ruled by decree since his term of office expired in 2009.

Intimacy with the Saudi royal family is another old habit the U.S. cannot seem to kick—even though American leaders know full well, as one of the WikiLeaks cables confirms, that “Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like al-Qaeda.” The fact that the Tunisian leader fled to Saudi Arabia after being overthrown shows how fully the Saudis support the old, eroding Middle East order.

As for Israel itself, it will lose much if new Arab leaders emerge who refuse to be their silent partners. Yet Israel clings to the belief that it will be able to guarantee its long-term security with weapons alone. The U.S. encourages it in this view, sending Israelis the message that no matter how militant their rejectionist policies become, they can count on Washington’s endless support.

The U.S. has long sought to block democracy in the Arab world, fearing that it would lead to the emergence of Islamist regimes. Remarkably, however, the Tunisian revolution does not seem to be heading that way, nor have Islamist leaders tried to guide protests in Egypt. Perhaps watching the intensifying repression imposed by mullahs in Iran has led many Muslims to rethink the value of propelling clerics to power.

Even if democratic regimes in the Middle East are not fundamentalist, however, they will firmly oppose U.S. policy toward Israel. The intimate U.S.-Israel relationship guarantees that many Muslims around the world will continue to see the U.S. as an enabler of evil. Despite America’s sins in the Middle East, however, many Muslims still admire the U.S. They see its leaders as profoundly mistaken in their unconditional support of Israel, but envy what the U.S. has accomplished and want some version of American freedom and prosperity for themselves. This suggests that it is not too late for the U.S. to reset its policy toward the region in ways that would take new realities into account.

Accepting that Arabs have the right to elect their own leaders means accepting the rise of governments that do not share America’s pro-Israel militancy. This is the dilemma Washington now faces. Never has it been clearer that the U.S. needs to reassess its long-term Middle East strategy. It needs new approaches and new partners. Listening more closely to Turkey, the closest U.S. ally in the Muslim Middle East, would be a good start. A wise second step would be a reversal of policy toward Iran, from confrontation to a genuine search for compromise. Yet pathologies in American politics, fed by emotions that prevent cool assessment of national interest, continue to paralyze the U.S. diplomatic imagination. Even this month’s eruptions may not be enough to rouse Washington from its self-defeating slumber.

Egypt Revolution: The Purity Protests

The pro-democracy protest is the biggest demonstration in Egypt in years. And women are increasingly taking part in the politics of the street.

by Mike GiglioJanuary 28, 2011

Mohammed Abed / AFP-Getty Images

Former UN nuclear watchdog Chief Mohamed ElBaradei is surround by demonstrators on January 28, 2011 after Egyptian riot police used water canons to disperse a protest calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian police used water cannons against Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Mohamed ElBaradei and his supporters as anti-Mubarak protests heated up Friday. Then ElBaradei was put under house arrest as riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters. The Muslim Brotherhood says at least five of its leaders and five former members of parliament have been arrested. Opposition groups say the new round of protests may make or break the movement to end President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. As tens of thousands demonstrated after prayers, the government shut down the Internet and cellphone text-messaging, as well as Cairo’s subway system. "It's over, I think, for the Mubarak regime," said Maha Azzam of the think-tank Chatham House. The U.S. State Department, which has held back on outright criticism of the clampdown, said it was “concerned” about the blocking of communications services—it issued the statement via Twitter.

When 29-year-old Dalia Ziada, a popular Egyptian blogger, took to the streets of Cairo to protest this week, she saw an astonishing sight: In the crowds were university students and mothers with families in tow—a diverse mix of women marching and chanting, and running from the police.

Related: Inside Egypt's Facebook Revolt »

During Friday’s mass demonstrations, women also participated, vocally and visibly, in what became a brutal standoff with authorities. (Police reportedly used tear-gas, rubber-bullets and water-cannon against the protesters.)

“Men and women are standing side-by-side in calling for their rights,” said Ziada in a telephone interview, before the government cut all cell phone connections.

Esraa Abdel Fatah, who also protested in Cairo this week, and who is known as “Facebook Girl” after organizing a nation-wide strike through her page in 2008, had a similar take: “We’re all Egyptians.”

This air of inclusiveness has surrounded Egypt’s upheaval from the start, with protesters highlighting the movement’s “purity” and lack of religious or political agenda beyond democratic reform. Women, who in Cairo are often groped in the streets, report that other demonstrators have been remarkably respectful.

Related: Egypt Protests Show American Foreign-Policy Folly »

Sara Abu Bakr, a journalist and publisher in Cairo, was surprised by the lack of sexual harassment, for which Egypt is infamous, especially during large public events. “This was supposed to be sexual molestation day, and nothing happened,” she said. Several activists in Cairo reported the same.

On the street and online, “Purity”—be it political or sexual—has become a rallying cry.

“You don’t see political flags [in the crowds],” said Ahmed Samih, an activist who directs an Internet radio station in Cairo. “You don’t see the Muslim Brotherhood. You see Egyptians. You see the flags of Egyptians all over the place.”

Or as Ziada put it: “All you have is an idea.”

Some observers, however, worried that the government might employ professional rabble-rousers to specifically target women. Whether Friday’s government crackdown took aim at women in particular was hard to assess since the government cut Internet access as well cell phone communication.

But it was clear that the standoff was violent and chaotic.

There were reports that police used water cannons on Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, a pro-democracy leader and President Hosni Mubarak’s top adversary, during Friday’s protests. He had returned to Cairo earlier in the week to demand reform.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which until this week was seen as the only force capable of bringing big numbers to the streets, officially endorsed the demonstration after staying on the sidelines for much of the week.

“No political force is in the position to claim this. It’s coming from the people,” says Wael Khalil, a veteran activist in Cairo. “The Tunisian people stood their ground and defied the brute force together. And I think Egyptians…are out to outdo the Tunisians in taking matters into our own hands.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily Beast.

Egypt Revolution: Inside a Cairo Street Protest

In the Egyptian capital, demonstrators are defying President Mubarak’s curfew and fighting police. Ursula Lindsey joined a group of young protesters Friday and reports on the dramatic scenes.

by Ursula LindseyJanuary 28, 2011

Mohammed Abed / AFP-Getty Images

Egyptian demonstrators flash V-signs next to a burning police vehicle in as protests erupt in Cairo on January 28, 2011.

After a day of historic protests, Cairo has entered a restless night as youths continue to fight police in the city’s central square and the national party headquarters and national museum burn.

An overnight curfew has been declared in Cairo, with President Hosni Mubarak calling in the army after a day of increasingly dramatic clashes between protesters and security forces.

The roar of the crowds and the beat of tear gas canisters being fired had reverberated through the Egyptian capital all day Friday. Inspired by the Tunisian revolution and fed up with Mubarak’s 30 years of authoritarian rule, thousands of protesters attempted to converge on the city’s central Tahrir Square to send a message that the time for change has come.

Meanwhile, the country was plunged into a telecommunications black hole, as the government took the unprecedented step of shutting down the Internet, cellphone service, and even most international telephone lines.

Early Friday morning, in a house in the middle-class neighborhood of Agouza, a group of young activists watched Al Jazeera and waited anxiously for the revolution to start.

Several of the young people in the room were members of Nobel laureate and would-be presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei’s Campaign for Change. Many of them also have links to the We Are All Khaled Said protest movement, which was formed after a young Egyptian man of that name was apparently beaten to death in police custody last year.

Sally, 32, is a psychiatrist who just moved back to Cairo from London, partly because, she says, “I want to see change.”

Salma and Omar, 19 and 22, are the niece and nephew of a political opposition figure. Salma, a slight, soft-voiced brunette, has already been arrested once for her political activism. She and her brother both say, matter-of-factly, that they’re ready to die to “free Egypt from this terrible regime.”

Ziad, 30, whose home this is, is a human rights lawyer and longtime activist. His mother, Ekram, a journalist, was one of 50 student militants arrested by President Sadat after Egypt’s 1977 bread riot—the last time Egyptians revolted this dramatically against their government. Today Ekram laid out a big breakfast of bread, olives, jam, eggs, and fruit juice. “Eat up,” she told her son and his friends. “You’re going to be running around all day.” She, meanwhile, would stay home to man the precious working land line.

All of the activists were surprised by the success of last Tuesday’s “Day of Rage” protest, when thousands of demonstrators roamed freely through the city, easily overwhelming a seemingly flabbergasted security apparatus. Nobody expected it to be that easy Friday. Indeed, everyone expected violence. “These dictators, they never learn their lesson,” said Ekram. “They understand—like Ben Ali—too late.”

Friday’s demonstrations were coordinated by groups across the spectrum of Egypt’s political opposition, including young members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who had agreed, however, not to chant religious slogans. But activists were deprived of all the tools they have used so far to organize—Twitter, Facebook, and SMS service on cellphones were shut down Thursday. By Friday morning, Internet and cellphone service across the country was gone. The activists had to resort to traditional organizing: designated land lines and safe houses; face-to-face meetings; pre-arranged rendezvous.

The plan was for large groups to gather, right after Friday prayers, in four or five Cairo neighborhoods.

At 1:15, we headed out of Ziad’s house. In groups of twos and threes, we walked along nearly empty streets toward a large square on the eastern side of the Nile. Along the way, we passed many groups of plainclothes police.

In the square, a crowd of about 2,000 people materialized. Protesters waved Egyptian flags and called out, “Hey Egyptian...Get down here!” and “We want...the fall...of this regime!”

While Ziad and his friends are mostly seasoned political activists, many of the demonstrators I spoke to were out on the street for the first time. That was the case of Doa’, a veiled 34-year-old who works in a supermarket and was at a demonstration for the first time. She’d never joined before, she says, because “I was not believing any change will happen.” But she was outraged by the deaths of seven protesters over the last three days. In Egypt today, “People are treated in a very bad way and poverty is increasing,” she said.

Doa’ was part of a joyful crowd that included professional and working-class Egyptians, Muslims, and Christians, men and women, and whole families from toddlers to grandmothers. But today many of the fist-time protesters like Doa’ have experience the state’s heavy-handed tactics. The government mobilized a massive security presence Friday: 450,000 central security troops were resportedly dispersed across the capital. They fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.

ElBaradei was greeted with water cannons and tear gas when he and his supporters exited Friday prayers. He is now under house arrest.

Meanwhile, Tahrir Square was the scene of pitched battles. By 3 p.m., protesters say, the authorities had started firing rubber bullets at them. Demonstrators carried the wounded across nearby Kasr Al Aini bridge, then flagged down taxis and called ambulances. Minutes away, in one of the five-star hotels along the Nile, foreign tourists asked frantically whether they could place calls outside the country.

At dusk, the authorities announced a curfew. The headquarters of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party were reportedly on fire. All communication networks were still down. Ekram, Zaid’s mother, still had no news of her son or any of his friends. “God protect them,” she said.

What seems clear after Friday is that Egypt seems well past any possible compromise on negotiation. Mubarak’s regime sees the protesters’ calls for a change as an existential threat and has responded with overwhelming force. But the demonstrators, who in the last few days have glimpsed an alternate future for their country, don’t seem ready to back down. No one here knows what tomorrow will bring.

Arab Pundits Cheer the Tunisia, Egypt Protests

Whether the unrest from Tunisia to Egypt will result in democracy is unclear, but the Arab media are celebrating nonetheless—and taking away a few key lessons about entrenched regimes across the region.

by Salameh NemattJanuary 28, 2011

  Lefteris Pitarakis / AP

Protests near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo.

Following the political earthquake that removed Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power nearly two weeks ago, seismic waves have been shaking ruling regimes from Algeria to Egypt, and from Jordan to Yemen. But if political earthquakes could somehow be measured on a “political” Richter scale, the question would be: Is this a magnitude 3 mild tremor that will pass, leaving behind little damage to the region’s authoritarian regimes and dictatorships? Or will it prove to be a magnitude 7 shocker, causing serious damage to a number of regimes?

Watching and reading Arab pundits and political analysts offers no conclusive answer. Most of the pan-Arab press appears to be celebrating the “Jasmine Revolution” that brought down the Tunisian dictator, cheering on protesters in Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, and Jordan and the rest of the Arab world. Meanwhile, Arab leaders have been at pains not to appear opposed to “the will of the Tunisian people” while at the same time trying not to encourage the spread of the “democracy virus” to their own countries.

It is anybody’s guess how events will ultimately unfold in Tunisia, where a transitional government made up of remnants of the “ancien regime” and a group of opposition and independent figures is trying to appease the disorganized and still angry masses, promising sweeping political reforms and democratic elections within months. But so far Tunisia’s revolution has only gone halfway, removing a president and shaking the establishment but not gutting the entrenched regime that still holds considerable power. That regime includes a military-security establishment that might decide, at any moment, to take things into its own hands and decide the future of the country, for better or worse.

It would be naive to assume that Tunisia has already made the transition from dictatorship to democracy before the current standoff unfolds, a process that may take several months and could turn bloody at any moment.

But the events in the region have certainly dispelled a number of myths and offered a few lessons for governments and observers. Perhaps the most important myth is that the Arab regimes, most of which have been ruling for decades, are too resilient and cannot be toppled, except through foreign military intervention or an inside coup or seizure of power. The other myth now being seriously questioned throughout the Arab media is that Islamists are the only alternative to these secular or apparently secular regimes. In Tunisia, the Islamists appeared to have little visible influence in the popular uprising, while the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has deliberately kept a low profile, perhaps for tactical reasons, leaving the disorganized popular masses of protesters of various political shades to take the lead.

Elaph.com, the Arab world’s most popular online newspaper, argues that the recent events in the region have demonstrated that “people are capable of breaking the fear barrier,” despite the ruthlessness of the ruling regimes. The paper quoted Burhan Ghalyoun, the director of a Middle East research center, as expressing surprise that the Tunisians “have achieved massive change at lightning speed, which goes to prove that change is not as difficult as we previously thought.”

Understandably, most of the official and semi-official Arab media have recognized people’s “right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of expression,” echoing calls from Washington and the West, but warned, at the same time, against actions that may undermine stability and security. Wisely, many governments in the region, including that of Jordan, have moved quickly to reduce the prices of consumer goods and promise political reforms to preempt an escalation of popular anger.

But unlike previous protests in Egypt and other Arab countries, this time the region’s leaders and their governments have not rushed to blame “foreign forces,” namely the U.S. and other Western countries, for instigating the riots. Tunisia’s government had always adopted a pro-Western stance, but today the West, which had turned a blind eye to human rights violations in that country for decades, is now almost silently watching as that regime crumbles, without any sign of wanting to do anything to save it.

However, one might argue that this month’s protests are not only the product of worsening living conditions resulting from the global economic crisis and homegrown corruption and mismanagement. They are also the product of decades of political oppression and humiliation by regimes that are now beginning to realize they can no longer oppress their own people with impunity. Social media and other modern and widely accessible communications tools have stripped these regimes of their monopoly on information. And since knowledge is power, the power is now shifting from the ruling few to the unruly masses, and these masses, in turn, are challenging the status quo throughout the region. But it is certainly too early for pro-democracy advocates in the region and beyond to bring out the Champagne glasses. It isn’t over till it’s over, and it is definitely not over yet.

As Tunisia's army quells chaos, will it hinder democracy?

By Khairi Abaza, Special to CNNc/div>

i/div>

v

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Khairi Abaza says dictator Ben Ali's fall brought chaos and uncertainty for Tunisians
• He says military helping keep order, but will it lead to "soft" dictatorship, not democracy?
• He says army seemed to side with the people in Ben Ali ouster; should it be seen as patriotic?
• Abaza: The West must stand with Tunisian people as they reach for democracy

Editor's note: Khairi Abaza is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan policy institute that aims to promote democracy.

(CNN) -- The fear and chaos that follows the fall of the Tunisian dictator Zine El Abedine Ben Ali on January 14 raises uncertainty about the country's future. Already, it can be said that Tunisia will never be the same.
The best-case scenario is a move toward a liberal democracy. The worst case is a perpetual state of chaos, followed by another autocratic or even theocratic regime. Whatever the final result, it is clear that the Tunisian army will have a significant role in shaping the future of this North African state.
The Tunisian army, more than any other institution, is helping the country overcome its current state of chaos. When it finally succeeds (chaos cannot endure for too long before exhaustion sets in), an important question looms: What role will the army play in the shaping of the new political order?
Will it genuinely support a liberal democratic order? Or will it help establish a "softer" style autocratic rule -- what we might call "dictator light" -- that will ultimately renew the familiar cycle of Arab autocracy that is a façade of stability, propped up by the West as a counterweight to the threat of an Islamist regime?
An underreported story from Tunisia is that the military actually played a role in the unrest that began in December. Of course, the military did not provoke it (it was an organic uprising), but it adopted policies that contributed in small ways to the Jasmine Revolution's success.
For one, the army refused to use live bullets against the demonstrators. It was for this reason that Ben Ali fired his army chief, Gen. Rachid Ben Ammar, shortly before fleeing the capital, Tunis. Tunisians have acknowledged this patriotic decision; the army sided with the people.
Second, when militias presumably loyal to Ben Ali started to destabilize the country, the army mobilized to protect the population. Indeed, shortly after the appearance of the militias in the streets of Tunisia, the army created emergency hot lines for citizens to call for the army's help. While the military could not be everywhere at once, Tunisians say it was responsive in most instances.
Today, the army is keeping a modicum of order in Tunis and other parts of the country, despite lootings and scenes of chaos. The military also launched an assault on the presidential palace, where forces loyal to Ben Ali are seeking refuge. Thus, it appears the military seeks to bring an end to the Ben Ali era while restoring order to the capital. Indeed, Tunis sets the tone for the rest of the country.
In addition to the militias, the army is arresting some of the more unpopular figures from the Ben Ali regime, including the former head of security and some relatives of Ben Ali's wife, who are accused of corruption.
While the military has acted laudably on the streets of Tunisia in recent days, the West must ensure that the new regime that emerges in Tunis is one in which the military does not play a significant part.
The scene is reminiscent of the 1991 "palace coup" in Algeria. After significant Islamist electoral gains, the army played a role in bringing to power a respected exiled dissident, Mohamed Boudiaf, to lead the country and serve as a popular and respected façade for a military regime. Boudiaf was assassinated shortly after he took office, presumably for promising reform and an end of the military domination of politics.
Afterward, Algeria lapsed into authoritarianism. Two decades later, corruption, unemployment and political frustration are still rife. The regime lacks accountability and transparency.
In Tunisia today, the continued prominence of the military puts the country at risk of a "soft" palace coup that might rip the fruit of this revolution and gradually slide the country into a more "liberal" authoritarian rule.
To best support the Tunisian people and protect Western interests in a durable way, the West should stand firm with the Tunisian people and ensure that the country moves toward a liberal democracy.
Only a real democracy can ensure that the people of Tunisia will be satisfied with the results of their uprising, and only then can the West ensure that theocrats or autocrats do not wrest control of the country.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Khairi Abaza.

A 'democracy Renaissance?'

(CNN) -- President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The recent pro-democracy mass protests around the Arab world -- in places like Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt --reflect the beginnings of a "democracy Renaissance," launched by the millions of citizens within these countries that have been ruled for decades by ruthless autocrats and soft dictators.
The recent "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia began with the desperate act of a young unemployed man who set himself on fire. And that passionate fire would ultimately rage against the Tunisian government machine until its long-serving president would be forced into exile two weeks ago. The young man was 26-year-old Mohammed Bouazizi, an unemployed fruit stand owner who became distraught when a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed produce stand. He died from his burns.
Following suit, several other unemployed youth around the country tried to commit suicide, and subsequent mass protests would soon topple the 23-year reign of Tunisia's strongman, 74-year-old Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
Long-standing autocratic rule within the Arab world shows a "depressingly familiar pattern" in terms of regional suppression of democracy, notes Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy, in a recent Washington Post opinion piece. Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, 68 years old, has been in power since 1969; Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (64) has ruled since 1978 and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (82) since 1981.
Eltahawy wrote that these dinosaur political figures are "not so much fathers as grandfathers of their nations, these autocrats clinging to office -- and are increasingly out of touch with their young populaces."
Much larger than Tunisia, the nation of Egypt is home to some 80 million people -- with Mubarak as its not-so-democratic leader since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. From creating a virtual police state to promoting censorship by placing all media under state control, Hosni Mubarak has spent the better part of 30 years strengthening his autocratic rule, while millions of young Egyptians remain hungry and unemployed.
Over time, his regime has needlessly tried to silence bloggers, imprisoned prominent pro-democracy activists such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim, and during these most recent mass protests even placed 2005 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner (and political opposition leader) Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei under house arrest.
As young Arabs around the Middle East continue to use Twitter and Facebook to awaken versions of democracy Renaissance around the region, they would be wise to remember the concepts of nonviolent civil disobedience taught by such giants as Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King.
Just as Gandhi and King used nonviolent civil disobedience to end British colonial rule in India and end segregation in Jim Crow America, these peaceful political methods have also helped to successfully overturn authoritarian rule during the Rose Revolution in the Republic of Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
During the time known as "Prague Spring," after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, millions of Czech citizens responded with passive nonviolent resistance -- frustrating soldiers by painting over street signs, cutting off their water supplies mysteriously and playfully decorating buildings with flowers, flags, and slogans like, "An elephant cannot swallow a hedgehog." Although it took 30 more years to topple communism in that nation, Czechoslovakia finally became a democratic nation during the non-violent Velvet Revolution of 1989.
And every global observer should proudly remember the brave "Tank Man of Tiananmen Square" who, the day after Chinese police cracked down on demonstrations in 1989, defiantly stood in front of a column of advancing Chinese tanks with only his plastic grocery bags by his side. Refusing to yield to a column of tanks, this still-unknown "Tank Man" brought it to a halt. He would represent the aspirations for freedom for all people worldwide for generations to come.
As we continue to see massive protests in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and possibly elsewhere in the Arab world, let us all pray for safety and security for every citizen and hope that it does not take a brave act of nonviolent civil disobedience by some unknown Tank Man to awaken us to the Arab world's quest for true democracy.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Arsalan Iftikhar.

'We are witnessing today an Arab people's revolution'

(CNN) -- We are in the midst of a brave new world.
The uprisings raging from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen are heralding a new Arab, post-Islamist revolution.
Today's events across Egypt illustrate the futility of a dictatorial Mubarak regime seeking to push back the tides of history with mere repression and brutality. They will not succeed.
President Hosni Mubarak's days, like those of deposed Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, are numbered. The effects on the region were, until today, unthinkable.
Today's Arab revolution is no less significant than those that preceded it in recent decades in Eastern Europe and Latin America. This time, Arabs are not being led by their leaders -- from colonialism to pan-Arabism or Islamism or any other "ism" -- as was the case in the past.
Instead, they have turned on those leaders who have failed to provide them their dignity, justice and a better life. Make no mistake, we are witnessing today an Arab people's revolution.
Like those before them, today's Arab revolution will transform the region's politics. What is happening today is nothing short of what the respected Arab commentator, Rami Khouri, prophetically described late last year as the birth of Arab politics. He was right. Politics in the region will never be the same again.
Propelled by the young and the digital revolution, citizens will demand nothing less than the right to choose and change their representatives in the future.
To glimpse the nature of what can emerge, we should understand the rapidly changing social structure of Arab societies. Those societies are more educated, urban and connected than ever before. Due to the phenomenal growth of secondary and university-level education, literacy rates among the region's youths have skyrocketed in the past 40 years. The percentage of people living in Arab cities has risen by 50% in the same period.
The number of mobile phone users and internet users has proliferated to hundreds of thousands since the technology was introduced to the region 10 or 15 years ago. No wonder, then, that the people have finally snapped at the lack of opportunity and representation and the high levels of corruption and control that characterize their lives.
Most tellingly, more has united the protesting people than divided them. Notable has been the absence of a clear, emerging leader of the protests, particularly from Islamist party leadership.
The call for dignity, justice and a better life has been a universal value -- not the domain of any one particular opposing party or movement. Instead, the national movements, which these conditions have spawned, will continue to demand a political system that is more pluralistic, democratic and produces effective and competent governments sensitive to the legitimate aspirations of all the society's people.
Crucially, the unfolding events will also require a new set of calculations from the old regimes' main backers: the United States and its allies. The long-term changes for Western policy in the region should be profound. Gone should be the reflex to side with those who willfully subvert the democratic and constitutional process out of fear of the Islamist boogeyman.
The binary calculation between supporting stability on the one hand and the risks of unprecedented regime change, particularly the rise to power of Islamist parties, no longer holds. The people of the region are deciding.
The irony is that while U.S. policymakers have been playing catch-up, it has largely been U.S.-created technology -- the internet, particularly Facebook and Twitter -- that has sustained the spread of the Arab revolution.
Now is the time for policymakers to suggest an appropriate response to support a peaceful political transition in each country. Western policymakers must strike a careful balance between ensuring key interests (including support for a comprehensive peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel's security) and respecting the wishes of the region's people. In this regard, support for the peace process and Israel's interests will best be ensured by real and tangible progress over the next year.
In the case of Egypt, the most populated Arab nation and symbol of Arab leadership, the transition will be particularly important. If managed well, it will provide a useful example for all in the days and weeks ahead. The U.S. in particular has a role in persuading Mubarak to outline a peaceful transition of power to an interim administration that will manage the process to a new democratic constitution and elections.
There should also be a role for international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the Gulf Council and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to lend technical and material support to the transition.
It has not been lost on many that the U.S. and other Western governments have been trying to catch up to the unfolding events -- attempting to balance support for old friends and allies with a call for restraint and urgent economic and political reforms.
This will not do. It is time to break through the past fears that have guided Western policy with fresh hope for a better future for the people of the region. It is time to choose change.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Salman Shaikh.