Yemen’s Youth Denied the Revolutionary Change

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Yemen-celebrates-revolution-629x374

Some protesters still remain hopeful on the anniversary of the revolution in Yemen. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS.

Rebecca Murray

SANA’A, Feb 16 (IPS) – This week in Sana’a thousands of Yemenis – mostly youth – crowded the highway near the landmark ‘Change Square’ to celebrate the second anniversary of the revolution. Adjacent to the university, this was the site of a tented encampment that drew tens of thousands of demonstrators throughout 2011.But in contrast to the violence between Islamists and southern separatists that marred a similar gathering in Yemen’s port city of Aden, the capital’s parade was subdued and brief.

“The revolution is only half done,” sighed Ziad, a Sana’a university student as he headed home after the parade. “The most important thing we are calling for is justice.”

Inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian protests, Yemen’s youth were at the forefront of the 2011 uprising. They were united by a common cause to end former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year dictatorial rule.

“In the revolution’s first few months youth felt they had the power, that they were shaping the situation, and that their voices were the most important – without the need to go to the political parties,” says youth activist Bara’a Shaiban.

But two years later, many of those youth are disillusioned.

“Sometimes I regret we had the revolution – like we fooled ourselves,” says Shatha Al-Harazi, a 27-year old journalist. “But at least he is out and we are forced into a new era. If it were not for us we would be voting (Saleh’s son) Ahmed Ali into office. But if we are realistic we know he still has power…”

Many believe their revolution was hijacked when longtime government allies, like former General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar of the powerful First Armoured Division swapped sides in what was deemed a cynical move for self-preservation, after the definitive Juma’at al-Karama (Friday of Dignity) massacre on Mar. 18, 2011.

That day an estimated 52 peaceful protestors were killed and hundreds injured at Change Square by thugs while the robust Central Security Forces, led by Saleh’s nephew, Yahya Saleh, stood idly by.

Although Saleh was forced to step down in November 2011, he still resides in the heart of Sana’a, protected by an immunity deal hammered out by the U.S. and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Amnesty International described the deal as “a smack in the face for justice,” and angry protestors took to the streets during the brief United Nations Security Council visit last month, demanding a trial for Saleh.

President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, ushered in through a one-candidate presidential election last February, now faces the formidable challenge of rooting out the elite old guard entrenched in the government and military.

Yemen’s problems are many. The security and economic outlook has deteriorated and the youth face bleak education and employment prospects, as the country remains shackled to a corrupt system based on tribal networks and nepotism.

The troubled National Dialogue process has been pushed back to Mar. 18. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) brokered it in an attempt to unify disparate interests – including civil rights issues, transitional justice, and the demands of northern Houthi and southerners calling for federalism or a separate state.

“The problem with delays is that it pulls people further apart and we lose momentum,” says Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf, member of the National Dialogue Preparatory Committee.

“Saleh has gradually become stronger and I think he feels he is coming back. He is gaining strength, and his strength is relative to the National Dialogue’s weakness. I don’t see his immunity revoked, there is pressure for him to leave politics… In Yemen we do things that save face, and we don’t want to create enemies.”

Yemen’s venerable political parties dominate the National Dialogue’s 565 seats, with only 40 seats allocated to ‘independent’ youth and a 20 percent youth quota across party lines. Independent women and civil society claim another 40 seats each.

Outraged by this marginalisation, Nobel Peace Prize winner and revolutionary youth leader Tawakkol Karman says she will boycott the six-month National Dialogue, and will instead work outside the conference to bring change.

‘Youth’ is defined by the National Dialogue as those between 18 to 40 years old, and make up the majority of Yemen’s mostly rural population of 24 million. But those in rural areas – with scant access to electricity, Internet and social media – have largely been left out of the process.

“When the GCC agreement was signed in November, there was huge resistance to it,” says Bara’a Shaiban. “We should have then realised that a political process would start, and we should start reacting to it.”

Shaiban believes they need to nurture new advocacy methods to combat challenges in the National Dialogue. Powerful political parties and endemic corruption threaten to drown out the voices of the less experienced, and more divided, youth delegation.

Illustrative of the country’s predicament are the findings of the Human Rights Watch investigation into the stalled trial process around the Juma’at al-Karama killings. More than half of 78 men indicted for the crime remain at large, and only eight are in jail.

“Our research found the prosecutor’s investigations were deeply flawed and marred by political meddling,” Human Rights Watch researcher Letta Taylor tells IPS.

“Nearly two years later justice is still nowhere in sight for this crime,” she says. “If the government can’t properly prosecute this emblematic attack, it doesn’t bode well, and raises serious questions about its ability to bring the significant change that protestors sought, and in some cases died for.”

Shatha Al-Harazi now holds television debates with youth activists nationwide to raise awareness about the National Dialogue. What she discovered was that very few activists themselves understand the process.

“There is a very big gap between urban and rural areas,” Al-Harazi says. “The National Dialogue means a lot to the political elites. But it doesn’t mean much to the larger crowd because they don’t know much about it.

“When I saw the list of the National Conference names I was depressed. They were those who were against youth and killed youth. And the leaders of parties didn’t give the chance for youth to lead. But the youth have the power and will continue to fight.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Mohamed Morsi’s Big Goal is New Egypt

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Eric Walberg* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB. They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order.

TORONTO (IDN) – At last Egyptian politics is moving. President Mohamed Morsi is slowly building on his summer ‘coup’, when he stared down Egypt’s generals and put his men in the top army and defence positions, following terrorist attacks in Sinai which the army, so old and bumbling, so involved in Egyptian internal politics, failed to prevent.

Now, he has stared down Israel’s generals, and dealt as an equal with President Barack Obama to bring U.S. pressure on Israel to back down in its planned invasion of Gaza. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil was sent to Gaza on November 16 at the height of Israel’s current Operation Pillar of Cloud, forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call a unilateral truce to avoid killing the Egyptian leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rushed to Cairo to show Washington’s support for Morsi, making it clear that Obama was starting a new leaf, finally understanding who his real ally is in the Middle East, and putting Netanyahu in his place. There will be no repeat of Israel’s humiliation of Obama with the 2008 Operation Cast Lead.

Then, just hours after Morsi, the world’s wise peacemaker, waved good-bye to Hillary, but with his old-guard judiciary poised to dissolve the Constitutional Committee and destroy all hope for carrying the revolution forward, the unassuming president stared them down too, issuing a decree putting his decrees above judicial review.

And for the second time, he dismissed the procurator general, Abdel Meguid Mahmud, who has presided over the legal stonewalling of prosecutions of counterrevolutionaries – this time not backing down. The time for dawdling and letting criminals off the hook is over. The new prosecutor general, reformer Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah, has ordered a new trial of Mubarak and police and thugs let off scot-free by the old judiciary.

And watch out, Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court, don’t you even think about disbanding the Constitutional Committee that is so painstakingly putting together a constitution. (Liberals and Christian secularists resigned from the committee, doing their best to sabotage it, revealing where their sympathies lie.) Or about disbanding the Shura Council on some technicality, as you did the lower house in May, in a conspiracy with the generals to sabotage the revolution.

The secularists should look at the writing on the wall. Egypt is a devout Muslim country, where Christians are protected by Islam and cultural liberals are tolerated. These Western-inspired forces will never prevail, so they should work with Islamists, not against them, if they want to maximize social harmony and their own rights.

Sadly, the opposition is increasingly siding with the Mubarak crowd. "President Morsi said we must go out of the bottleneck without breaking the bottle," presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said. The opposition would rather see the bottle break that get Egypt’s life blood flowing again.

Secularist onslaught

Islamic civilization has been endangered for centuries now, battered and undermined by the Western secularist onslaught. Finally, Muslims are doing something about it. Now the Egyptian revolution of 2011 – which is Islamic, as elections since then prove beyond a doubt – is in danger, and the Muslim Brotherhood is showing it has spine and smarts. In both assertions of presidential power since then – in August and November 2012 – Morsi used a brief window of opportunity to maximum effect. His decisive steps caught observers by surprise, but surprise is the essence of revolution. Waffling and compromise lead to paralysis.

Anyone who wants to be part of a new Egypt, to shake off the imperial yoke looking for inspiration in Islam, should be delighted and inspired. Instead, MB offices in Port Said and Ismailia and Suez were fire-bombed, and liberals and judges, reinforced by the Mubarak crowd – now more and more assertive – are demonstrating angrily at the high court in Cairo and the judges’ union has called a strike.

Some talk of impeaching the president as a traitor. The counterrevolutionaries are continuing to expose themselves. "The decisions I took are aimed at achieving political and social stability," Morsi explained, vowing to firmly enforce the law against hooligans hired by loyalists of the former regime to attack security forces, state and party institutions.

Under prosecutor Meguid, it was beginning to look like no one would be held to account for the tens of thousands who were tortured and killed during Mubarak’s reign, for the billions that were stolen, and the flagrant rigging of elections. The rich, corrupt old guard continue to pay thugs and unemployed to disrupt civic life, to bring discredit to the revolution. They have been doing this from day one and there is no reason to believe they have stopped.

No tea parties

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB.

They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order. He is a nice Arab, a laid-back, secular Muslim, no threat. How else could he have been appointed IAEA chief and crowned Nobel Peace Prize winner? Morsi has “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh," ElBaradei pontificated.

Other dissidents include the also-rans in the June presidential elections. Morsi’s main rival, Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, fled Egypt in disgrace after the election, facing arrest on corruption charges, leaving behind Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, ex-MBer Aboul Fotouh, and former Mubarak foreign minister Amr Moussa, who have teamed up to form the self-proclaimed “National Salvation Front” to oppose the presidential decree.

ElBaradei should be reminded there were great pharaohs, not just bad ones. Yes, "Morsi is a ‘temporary’ dictator", screams the headline in al-Masry al-Youm. There are times, especially during a revolution, when it is necessary to act decisively to save the revolution. The kind of paralyzed ‘democracy’ that the U.S. and the old guard in Egypt want would choke and stall the gains until cynicism reigns and the starving masses cry out for the old order.

What is key, is that the firm hand is an honest one, devoted to the people. Morsi’s kind are Egypt’s only hope now – selfless and God-fearing, not acting for personal gain or empire, but for the good of the people. He pledged to relinquish his new powers when the constitution is ratified four months from now, and there is no reason to doubt his word.

ElBaradei – Then and Now

Prior to the revolution in January 2012, ElBaradei too was a hero, a brave figure, able to shield himself from Mubarak’s secret police with his international prestige, the man who openly rallied Egyptians against tyranny. In the lead-up to the revolution, he acted in alliance with the MB, as later did Sabahi in the lead-up to the first post-revolution elections. They both underrated the real MB support and determination – and their own lack of standing with Egyptians – thinking that secularists would prevail in open elections, that they could make the MB abandon their program.

After the MB and Salafis chalked up 75% of the vote, the secularists suddenly found it impossible to accept their junior role in Egyptian politics. Rather than recognizing their own lack of credibility, and accepting the broad MB program while trying to salvage something from the secularist project, they have now drifted into alliance with the old guard and by implication their imperial allies abroad.

This is exactly what happened during the Russian revolution of 1917, where the political playing field shifted quickly, leaving key actors flummoxed. Alexander Kerensky too was a liberal ‘revolutionary’, until he fled to Paris, exposed as a reactionary anxious to appease the British and French and keep Russia in the criminal war which had inspired the revolution.

Speaking at a Cairo mosque, Morsi told worshippers Egypt was moving forward. "I fulfil my duties to please God and the nation. God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship. I don’t seek to grab legislative power.” It is ridiculous to accuse the mild-mannered Morsi of creating a dictatorial cult around himself. He is a man with a mission, but one which should gladden the hearts of all Egyptians: “We’re moving on a clear path, we are walking in a clear direction. And we have a big, clear goal: the new Egypt.”

The transition to the new Egypt will not be easy. The striking judges and brazen secularists, who flourished in the Mubarak era, will have to learn some self-restraint or go. Traditionally, revolutions lead to a house-cleaning through retirement, emigration, or in the worst case, through violence. When old elites team up with old and new mafias, they play with fire.

The Egyptian generals bowed out when their bluff was called. The prosecutor general and those eager to scuttle the real democratic process and the birth of the new constitution, with holier-than-thou words about the ‘independent’ judiciary, should do the same now and let the popularly-elected leader get on with the hard work of making sure the revolution is not strangled in the cradle.

* Eric Walberg is is author of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ A version of this appeared at http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/25/274493/morsi-strengthens-grip-on-egypt-affairs/ IDN Viewpoints reflect opinions of respective writers, which are not necessarily shared by the IDN-InDepthNews editorial board. [IDN-InDepthNews – November 26, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Radical Salafis Overrunning the Syrian Revolution

August 30, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

EmileNakhleh

Aug 30 (IPS) – The recent visit by Abd al-Halim Murad, head of the Bahraini Salafi al-Asalah movement, to Syria to meet with Syrian rebels is an attempt by him and other Gulf Salafis to hijack the Syrian revolution.Sadly, the Saudi and Bahraini governments have looked the other way as their Sunni Salafis try to penetrate the Syrian opposition in the name of fighting Assad, Alawites, Shia, Hizballah and Iran.

The Assad regime has pursued a sectarian strategy that has resulted in promoting violent "jihadism" in order to bolster his narrative that the opposition to his regime is the work of foreign radical Salafi terrorist groups. Despite Assad’s self-serving claims, violent Salafi activists are nevertheless exploiting instability and lawlessness in some Arab countries, Syria included, to preach their doctrine and force more conservative social practises on their compatriots.

Some Salafis do not believe in peaceful, gradual, political change and are actively working to undermine nascent political systems, including by terrorising and killing minority Shia, Alawites, and Christians.

Radical Salafis have recently committed violent acts in Mali and other Sahel countries in Africa, as well as in Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. Salafis also have committed violent acts in the name of "jihad" in Egypt, Sinai, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East.

As the Arab Spring touches more countries and as more regimes—for example, in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan and the Palestinian authority—come under pressure from their own citizens, they begin to use sectarianism and promote radical elements within these sects for their own survival and regional posturing. Salafi "jihadists" are more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, average Muslim citizens bear the brunt of this violence.

Where did modern day Salafism come from?

Since the late 1960s, when King Faisal declared exporting Islam a cardinal principle of Saudi foreign policy, Saudi Arabia has been spreading its brand of Wahhabi-Salafi Islam among Muslim youth worldwide.

At the time, Faisal intended to use Saudi Islam to fight "secular" Arab nationalism, led by Gamal Abd al-Nassir of Egypt, Ba’thism, led by Syria and Iraq, and atheist Communism, led by the Soviet Union.

The Wahhabi-Salafi interpretation of Islam, which has been a Saudi export for half a century, is grounded in the teachings of 13th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya and 18th century Saudi scholar Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It’s also associated with the conservative Hanbali school of Sunni jurisprudence.

In a nutshell, the Wahhabi-Salafi religious doctrine is intolerant of other religions such as Christians and Jews and of Muslim sects such as the Shia and the Ahmadiyya, which do not adhere to the teachings of Sunni Islam. It also restricts the rights of women as equal members of the family and society and uses the Wahhabi interpretation to quell any criticism of the regime in the name of fighting sedition, or "fitna".

Even more troubling, Salafis view violence as a legitimate tool to fight the so-called enemies of Islam without the approval of nationally recognised religious authorities. Any self-proclaimed Salafi activist can issue a religious edict, or "fatwa", to launch a jihad against a perceived enemy, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

Usama Bin Ladin did just that in the 1990s, which, of course, started an unending cycle of violence and terrorism against Muslims and "infidels" alike, including the United States and other Western countries.

Many of the radical Salafi activists in Mali and other African countries have received their religious educations at Imam Muhammad University in Saudi Arabia, the hotbed of Salafi Islam and one of the most conservative institutions of Islamic education in the world.

The Saudi government and some wealthy Saudi financiers have been spending significant amounts of money on spreading Islam through scholarships, local projects and Islamic NGOs, as well as by building mosques and printing of Korans and other religious texts espousing Wahhabi-Salafism.

Since the early 1970s, Wahhabi-Salafi proselytisation has been carried out by Saudi-created and financed non-governmental organisations, such as the Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief Organisation, the World Association of Muslim Youth, and al-Haramayn.

Some of these organisations became involved in terrorist activities in Muslim and non-Muslim countries and have since been disbanded by the Saudi government. Many of their leaders have been jailed or killed. Others fled their home countries and forged careers in new terrorist organisations in Yemen, Morocco, Iraq, Somalia, Indonesia, Libya, Mali and elsewhere.

For years, Saudi officials thought that as long as violent "jihad" was waged far away, the regime was safe. That view changed dramatically after May 12, 2003 when terrorists struck in the heart of the Saudi capital.

Wahhabi proselytisation has laid the foundation for today’s Salafi "jihadism" in Africa and in the Arab world. Saudi textbooks are imbued with this interpretation of Islam, which creates a narrow, intolerant, conflict-driven worldview in the minds of youth there.

Unlike the early focus of King Faisal, today’s proselytisers target fellow Muslims, who espouse a different religious interpretation, and other religious groups. The so-called jihadists have killed hundreds of Muslims, which they view as "collateral damage" in the fight against the "near and far enemies" of Islam.

While mainstream Islamic political parties are participants in governments across the Islamic world, and while Washington is beginning to engage Islamic parties as governing partners, radical Salafis are undermining democratic transition and lawful political reform. They oppose democracy as understood worldwide because they view it as man-made and not God’s rule, or "hukm".

And what to do about it?

The raging violence in Syria and the regime’s clinging to power provide a fertile environment for Salafi groups to establish a foothold in that country. National security and strategic interests of the West and democratic Arab governments dictate that they neutralise and defeat the Salafi project.

As a first step, they must work closely with Syrian rebels to hasten the fall of the Assad regime. This requires arming the rebels with adequate weapons to fight the Assad military machine, especially his tanks, bulldozers and aircraft.

Washington and London must also have a serious conversation with the Saudis about the long-term threat of radical Salafism and the pivotal role Saudi Wahhabi proselytisation plays in nurturing radical Salafi ideology and activities. A positive outcome of this conversation should help in building a post-Arab Spring stable, democratic political order. In fact, such a conversation is long overdue.

For years my colleagues and I briefed senior policymakers about the potential and long-term danger of spreading this narrow-minded, exclusivist, intolerant religious doctrine. Unfortunately, the West’s close economic and security relations with the Saudi regime have prevented any serious dialogue with the Saudis about this nefarious export and insidious ideology.

The writer is the former director of the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Syria Between Scylla and Charybdis

August 25, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

MUMBAI (IDN | Gateway House) – With the Free Syrian Army being supplied aid by the West and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the endgame for the Syrian regime has begun. Does Assad’s exit guarantee the replacement of autocracy with democracy? What implications will it have on regional politics?

The key question is: When, how, and whether President Basher al-Assad will relinquish office? He is turning 47 on September 11. He has ruled Syria since 2000. He was not elected into office through a democratic process. He was selected by his father who ruled for three decades after capturing power through a coup. He has no divine right to rule.

If Assad goes, does it mean that there will be democracy? Not necessarily. History shows with painful clarity that it is not possible to replace dictatorship or autocracy immediately with democracy. The French Revolution begat Napoleon. The Russian Revolution gave rise to Lenin’s dictatorship of the proletariat followed by Stalin’s. Even the latter’s demise did not usher in democracy.

Kofi Annan’s six-point plan that he advanced as the joint envoy of UN and the Arab League had no chance whatsoever of succeeding. He was chasing a mirage. Neither the international community nor Syria wants a negotiated settlement. Assad does not want to step down as part of a negotiated settlement. His adversaries want him to step down even before they sit down to talk.

It follows that unless he can defeat his adversaries, the only possible way to end the killing is for Assad to step down under compulsion. There is no practical way he can defeat them. Let us send our good wishes to Annan’s successor, the veteran Lakhdar Brahimi. It needs boundless optimism to conclude that he will succeed.

Defections

Over 40 officials, some senior, including a Prime Minister, have defected. So far Assad’s army and the security set-up, both dominated by his minority Alawite sect, have stood by him, by and large. The question is: For how long? It is beyond the means of the regime to put down the uprising. The rebels claim to hold 60% of Aleppo, close to the Turkish border. Their claim may or may not be accurate, but it is clear that they hold substantial territory. The regime has resorted to aerial bombing, so far without decisive result. The rebels, mainly the Free Syrian Army, have reportedly resorted to using captured prisoners as suicide bombers. The capital Damascus, the oldest inhabited city in history, is a battlefield.

President Obama has drawn a "red line". He stated that there would be "enormous consequences" if chemical agents are moved or used. The background is that last month (July), Assad’s government announced that it had chemical weapons and that it would use them against "external aggression".

Intelligence agencies of Turkey have claimed that Syria has 1000 tonnes of chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, positioned in fifty towns and villages. The claim may or may not be true. But it is reasonably clear that Syria has such agents, and the intention of the reference to "external aggression" was to threaten anyone planning such aggression. One cannot rule out the use of chemical agents by a desperate regime facing defeat. However, the NATO has no plans to send in troops.

Russia and China

The principal supporters of Assad are Russia, China, and Iran. The first two used their veto three times at the Security Council. Why are Russia and China supporting Assad? They are allergic to any international intervention to topple dictators friendly to them. Russia has access to the Tartus port. It has made a lot of money by supplying arms to Syria. China has a visceral antipathy to popular movements against established dictatorships. Russia, China and Iran want no intervention in Syria, no sanctions, and no threat of action under chapter VII of the UN Charter.

They should know that if they oppose action at the Council, action will be taken outside the Council. That is precisely what’s happening. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been giving arms and money to the Free Syrian Army, while the U.S. and UK have been giving "non-lethal" support. There have been reports that special teams from the U.S. and UK have been training the anti-Assad forces in Turkey.

Turkey

Turkey’s role is crucial, and over 70,000 Syrians have fled to the country. Turkey has said that it would not be able to take in more than 100,000 and that the UN should organize a ‘safe zone’ inside Syria across the border. Such a "safe zone" will be a ‘liberated zone’ and to prevent Assad from bombing the area it will be necessary to declare a "no-fly zone". Will the U.S. and others declare a "no-fly zone" and enforce it? What will Russia and China do in retaliation? They will not send their airforce to Syria, but they might fortify Syria’s air defence system. Suppose the U.S. or Israel was to disable the information network of Syria with the result that utilities such as water, telephones, and electricity, are disrupted?

Turkey’s role is crucial for another reason. As it has married Islam with modernity and democracy with singular success, it can be an example for others. Turkey’s high ambitions are reflected in the words of its Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu: "Turkey would henceforth lead the movement for change in the Middle East. We will continue to be the leader of this wave…There is a new Middle East. We will be its owner, leader, and servant."

There are, however, constraints for Turkey to realize its ambitions. Turkey can be associated with the past of Ottoman domination of the region. Assad has already played his ‘Kurdish card’ against Turkey. He withdrew forces from the north-east border region and the Kurds have taken over local administration. Will that turn out to be a mini ‘Kurdistan’ attracting the Kurds in Turkey with whom the state has been waging a war for decades? Ankara is deeply worried about the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. It has sent in its armed forces to Iraq without seeking permission from Baghdad as part of ‘hot pursuit.’

Kurdish issue

It is useful to put the Kurdish issue in context. The most famous Kurd is Saladin, who captured Jerusalem in 1187 during the Crusades. When the Ottoman Empire fell, the Kurds sought independence. The Treaty of Sevres of 1920, that ended the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies, specifically contained a provision for the creation of an autonomous Kurdistan. But it was never implemented. The Kurds found themselves in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. None of these states want an independent Kurdistan. They have used Kurds as pawns from time to time in their games against each other. In this regard, Turkey is particularly vulnerable. It is a sad commentary on Turkey’s search for modernity that it has so far failed to come to a Modus Vivendi with the Kurds – a failure that casts a shadow over its ambitions to join the European Union.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar

The support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar for regime change in Syria is slightly intriguing. They are not democracies and it is not in their interest to see a strong democratic wave in the Muslim world. Their main interest is to weaken Iran by toppling Assad. They want to see a Sunni dominated regime in Syria, which is friendly to them and not close to Iran.

We do not know what might happen in Syria. We can be sure, unfortunately, that more human beings will be killed. Assad will have to go. But when? After how many more deaths?

It is sad and sobering to recall that the United Nations was established to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime brought untold sorrow to mankind."

*Ambassador K. P. Fabian served in the Indian Foreign Service between 1964 and 2000, and is currently the President of AFPRO (Action For Food Production) and IGSSS (Indo-Global Social Service Society). This article was originally by Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. [IDN-InDepthNews – August 24, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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What The Arab Spring Means For Freedom

April 20, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Megan Martin*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – Wielding mobile phones and computers, the young activists across the Middle East have altered the way the world approaches popular mobilization, social networks and Internet freedom.

The Internet can be a transformational force for societies and individuals, allowing for organization on a mass scale and the free flow of information. However, we must remember that the Internet and social media are tools that do not bring change themselves, but act as facilitators in spreading the ideas. The seminal use of social media as vehicles for change in the Arab Spring uprisings exemplifies the power of web-based communication and makes a strong case for Internet freedom.

Web-based communications have been used by young, tech literate activists across the Middle East for three core purposes: organization, exposure and leverage. Youth led efforts to organize social and political movements, expose the injustices of governments and leverage internal and external stakeholders acted as catalysts for uprisings which would have otherwise remained dormant.

Social networks allow for communication across geopolitical, cultural and linguistic barriers. This tool allowed the youth leaders of Egypt, the West Bank, Jordan, etc. to organize in revolutionary new ways by creating online communities of supporters and using those networks to bring people into the streets and rally international support for their cause.

As mobile devices and smart phones become increasingly common, protesters are able to gather at a moment’s notice. This level of organization is made possible by near instant communication and a network of vigilant, tech literate devotees. Additionally, groups are able to develop, collaborate on and distribute content to a seemingly limitless audience. The ability of young activists to organize using technology has brought the nature of citizen action to a new level and given voice to previously unheard narratives.

Web-based communications, including blogs, YouTube and RSS allow for personal, unofficial or nongovernmental narratives to be exposed and widely consumed. Embedded in the nature of the Internet is the possibility to share multiple narratives through an array of platforms.

With the barrier to Internet access lowered each day, more people have the option to participate in self-expression via the web. However, the idea that everyone should have the ability to share their opinion over the Internet has quickly become contentious. Citizen journalism and activists’ blogs have exposed the atrocities perpetrated by otherwise opaque regimes. In these situations, the Internet posses an existential threat to the government’s power to control a national narrative, but provides a space for free speech.

Predictably, civilians have been targeted and tracked by their governments for attending rallies, publishing anti-government content or posting footage of state perpetrated violence. Websites have been censored and attacked. Web access has been limited or debilitated. Clearly, social media and Internet based communications are tools that hold the potential to both help and harm.

The leverage young activist have is both domestic and international. Much like the Velvet Revolution when youth mobilized across all sectors of Czech society to protest Soviet rule, the young activists of the Arab Spring brought people from across age, religious and class barriers together under a single banner.

Exposure of governmental wrongdoing through online citizen journalism can pressure the international and domestic media to focus on particular important events. However, leverage can reach even further; the protests in Tahrir Square helped pressure the United States to reassess its support of Hosni Mubarak.

Recently, the United Nations Human Rights Committee affirmed that the protection guaranteed by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) applies to online communication. This announcement confirms that bloggers have the same protections as journalists. Additionally, UN Special Rapporteur, Frank La Rue issued a report which states that Internet use has become an important means by which individuals can exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression. Denying such a right is a violation of the ICCPR.

While the idea that unrestricted Internet as a basic human right is far from a reality, its use by a young generation of tech savvy Middle Eastern activists has put web-based social media communications at the center of the debate on freedom, democracy and change.

*Megan Martin’s specialty is ethnic identity and U.S. foreign policy in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. She has a master’s degree in politics from New York University. This piece is part of the series ‘Youth, Civic Engagement and Democratic Processes,’ and is being published by arrangement with Global Experts. [IDN-InDepthNews – April 19, 2012]

© 2012 Global Experts, a project of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.

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EGYPT: It’s January Again in Tahrir Square

November 23, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Nov 23, 2011 (IPS) – Days of clashes between protesters and security forces culminated on Tuesday evening in what was estimated to be a million-man rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand an end to military rule. The new political crisis has prompted fears that Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls, slated to begin only five days from now, could be called off.

"There have been running street battles between police and protesters for the last four days," Ashraf Barouma, president of the centrist Kenana Party, told IPS. "How can elections be held under these circumstances?"

On Friday (Nov. 18), hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square to protest the policies of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has governed the country since the February departure of ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Along with demanding presidential elections next year, protesters voiced their rejection of a raft of government-proposed "supra-constitutional principles" granting the military exceptionally broad powers.

At the end of the day, protesters – most of whom were of Islamist orientation – packed up their tents and left the square. Several dozen people, however, including the families of some of those killed in the January uprising, remained in the square overnight.

The crisis began the following morning, when security forces abruptly broke up the modest sit-in with unexpected ferocity. When Egypt’s activist community got wind of the episode, mainly through social- networking media, protesters soon began arriving at the square in the hundreds, then thousands.

For the next three days, downtown Cairo witnessed sights unseen since the 18-day uprising in January, as pitched battles raged between the interior ministry’s Central Security Forces – relying on the liberal use of teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition – and roving bands of stone-throwing activists.

On Monday, security forces withdrew from the square, leaving it in the hands of tens of thousands of protesters – including many from major political parties and revolutionary youth groups – who vowed not to leave until their mounting grievances were addressed. Skirmishes, meanwhile, continued on adjacent streets, as protesters made repeated attempts on the nearby interior ministry building before being repulsed by security forces.

As of Tuesday night, more than 25 protesters had been reported killed and more than 1,000 seriously injured.

"What is happening now shows that the interior ministry is still willing to use the same violent tactics against unarmed protesters as it did under the Mubarak regime," Moustafa Abdel Moneim, general coordinator of the Bedaya youth movement, told IPS.

But the mounting death toll appears to have only steeled protesters’ resolve.

"The fall of all these martyrs has served to unify our ranks and make us more resolute in our demand for a speedy transition to civilian rule," said Abdel Moneim, who has remained in the square since Saturday.

Protesters, he explained, were demanding the formation of a revolutionary government with full powers to manage Egypt’s current transitional phase; the creation of a civilian presidential council; and the immediate prosecution of security officers responsible for killing protesters.

The Bedaya youth movement, along with 36 other revolutionary youth groups, has declared an open- ended sit-in in Tahrir Square until their demands are met. By Tuesday night, hundreds of thousands – some say more than a million – had converged on the square in Egypt’s biggest mass demonstration since the uprising in January.

At about 8 pm, under mounting pressure to issue a statement, SCAF chief Field-Marshal Hussein Tantawi finally delivered a televised address in which he announced a small handful of concessions. Looking drawn, Tantawi declared that he had accepted the government’s collective resignation and promised presidential elections no later than June of next year.

Notably, he went on to reiterate the SCAF’s commitment to holding next week’s parliamentary elections on schedule.

Many political figures, however, dismissed the resignation of the government – which was appointed by the SCAF in the wake of the revolution – as insignificant.

"This resignation doesn’t mean anything since the government had acted as little more than a secretary to the SCAF, which continues to serve as Egypt’s de facto ruler," Magdi Sherif, president of the recently- licensed Haras al-Thawra (Guardians of the Revolution) Party, told IPS.

Protesters in Tahrir Square, meanwhile, entirely rejected Tantawi’s statement, vowing to stay put until a civilian authority could be drawn up to replace the ruling military council.

"We will stay in the square until a government of national salvation or a presidential council – with full powers to run country – is established, and until the army returns to the barracks," said Abdel Moneim.

As for holding parliamentary polls next week, many are not so sure. They believe the initial crackdown on protesters on Saturday had been meant to provoke the violence, thereby providing justification for delaying the polls.

"The only explanation I can think of for causing this trouble only days before scheduled elections is that the interior ministry doesn’t want the polls to take place," said Sherif.

Barouma, for his part, warned that holding elections in the current tense atmosphere could only lead to an escalation of violence.

"The post-revolution security vacuum, coupled with the recent preponderance of weapons among the public – most of which are now coming from Libya – is sure to turn the elections into a bloodbath," he said.

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Arab Spring Slips Into Tunisian Fall

August 22, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Simba Russeau

TUNIS, Aug 22, 2011 (IPS) – Seven months after Tunisia’s historic uprising which saw the ouster of long-time dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and gave birth to the region’s Arab Spring, many Tunisians are losing confidence in the progress of their revolution.

Last year, Tunisia registered one of the highest unemployment rates in the world at 14 percent. With nearly half of Tunisia’s population of 10 million under the age of 25, university graduates – who account for nearly 25 percent of the jobless – have been hardest hit.

Rising unemployment has struck a nerve with young people in Tunisia as many had hoped their successful ‘Jasmine Revolt’, which forced former president Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14, would quickly result in rapid job growth.

"I think the revolution that we need right now is one of the mind because the only way we will be able to progress forward is if people make changes within themselves," 21-year-old Myriam Ben Ghazi tells IPS.

"Even after the revolution people are still thinking with the same mentality of the past and believing that nothing has really changed. But we have gained our freedom, we’re facing the corruption and in time we’ll grow economically."

In the aftermath of Tunisia’s uprising the tourism sector – which employs about 500,000 and generates almost 3 billion dollars annually – plummeted more than 50 percent.

Tunisia’s central bank has reported a 2 billion dollar loss this year in tourism revenues and trade, mainly due to neighbouring Libya’s civil war. Of the nearly seven million tourists that visit Tunisia yearly, about two million are Libyans.

But some Tunisians are not buying the rhetoric that the market and a crippled tourism industry are the reasons why the interim government of Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi has failed to make good on promised reforms. "Many people talk about how tourism is down in Tunisia and how it has caused severe damage to our economy, but this is just politics," 30-year-old medical doctor Abdullah Naybet said in an interview with IPS.

"The real issue is the corruption of the former régime and their failure to create employment and economic growth in the country. "

"Ben Ali’s government made Tunisia look like a touristic country that couldn’t survive without tourism and they worked so hard to make us a one-source country while neglecting agriculture and commerce," 23-year-old youth Rabii Kalboussi tells IPS.

"I believe Tunisia has great potential if the transitional government were to focus their attention on establishing development projects in sectors like agriculture because the country has many resources to draw upon that could at least provide for the internal needs without reliance on imported goods."

According to a new poll by the Applied Social Sciences Forum, optimism amongst Tunisians fell from 32 percent in April to 24 percent in August.

The Central Tunisian town Sidi Bouzid, which is considered the birthplace of the uprising, recorded the highest levels of distrust in the progress of Tunisia’s revolution at 62.1 percent.

Lack of political reform, social development and a belief that remnants of Ben Ali’s Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD) party are staging a counter-revolution has led to a series of strikes and protests in capital Tunis and surrounding towns in recent months.

To many Tunisians, the televised trials of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons, Alaa and Gamal, while Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi are sentenced in absentia highlights the continued corruption.

Doubts over the independence of Tunisia’s judiciary were heightened following the escape of presidential aide Saida Agrebi and the release of former justice minister Bechir Tekkari and former transport minister Abderrahim Zouari. "Ben Ali’s trial is a piece of theatre. It’s basically a drug that they give the public in an attempt to calm the situation. Personally I wouldn’t even qualify what happened in Tunisia as a revolution. It was just a series of street protests that eventually forced Ben Ali and his family out of the country," adds Kalboussi.

"It will take some time before people will be able to really trust the justice system because the same system that we’re fighting is the same system that is judging him."

Just ahead of the country’s first free elections, mistrust has also translated into a lack of interest in exercising civic rights, with only four million of an estimated 7.5 million, or 13 percent of Tunisia’s eligible voters, registering to vote.

The Oct. 23 elections are aimed at creating a constituent assembly to reform the constitution, which was amended nine years ago after the Tunisian constitutional referendum of 2002.

"Most young Tunisians lack interest in the political sphere and fear that the current political players still maintain ties to the former régime, which prevents many from registering to vote," adds Ben Ghazi.

"But we should focus our attention on the elections because voting is one way that young people can express their discontent to political leaders, and progress towards democracy."

"The reality is that this generation will continue fighting to preserve the revolution," adds Naybet. "But it will be the next generation that will actually reap the benefits."

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Pockets of Resistance As Rebels Claim Tripoli

August 22, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Correspondents*

DOHA and TRIPOLI, Aug 22, 2011 (IPS/Al Jazeera) – The head of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) has announced the end of the Muammar Gaddafi era, while sporadic fighting continued across the capital, Tripoli.

Fighting and gun battles erupted in parts of Tripoli on Monday after tanks left Bab al-Azizyah, Gaddafi’s compound, to confront the rebel assault that gained control of much of the capital in a battle overnight.

Many of the streets in the centre of the city – where anti-government supporters had celebrated hours earlier – were abandoned as pockets of pro-Gaddafi resistance and the presence of snipers and artillery fire made the area dangerous.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, who advanced into the city with rebel fighters overnight, said the security situation in the city was "tenuous", despite there being celebrations in the streets.

"There are some Gaddafi forces still putting up a fight," Khodr said. "And rebels still have one last push to make towards Bab al-Azizyah," Khodr added, saying that it was unclear when this advance would take place.

In Other Developments

Gaddafi’s three sons are in custody. Saadi was captured by rebels in Tripoli; Saif al-Islam, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, was arrested in a village in western Tripoli; and Mohammed surrendered to rebel forces and spoke to Al Jazeera shortly afterwards.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez condemned NATO for demolishing Tripoli, while U.S. President Barack Obama said momentum against Gaddafi had reached a tipping point.

The Libyan diaspora communities are celebrating the advance of opposition forces.

Throughout the night, euphoric Libyan rebels moved into the centre of Tripoli and thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air.

Meanwhile, speaking at a press conference in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the NTC’s Mustafa Abdel Jalil acknowledged that Libya still faced many challenges, including maintaining law and order.

"Jalil spoke at length saying that it wasn’t going to be a bed of roses and a great number of challenges lay ahead for the Libyan people," Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reported from Benghazi.

Rowland called Jalil "a very moderate voice, a voice calling for common sense and reason" at this sensitive time.

She said: "He called on people in Tripoli to respect people’s lives and people’s property… he also stressed that there should not be a case of people taking the law into their own hands."

Jalil said Gaddafi had left a legacy of violence against his own people and the world. He said he hoped that Gaddafi was captured alive so that he could be put on trial.

"We will provide him with a fair trial. But I have no idea how he will defend himself against these crimes that he committed against the Libyan people and the world," Jalil said.

Defiant Audio Messages

There has been no word on the location of Gaddafi himself. The Libyan leader has delivered a series of angry and defiant audio messages in recent days, vowing not to surrender.

In the most recent address, he acknowledged that opposition forces were moving into Tripoli and warned the city would be turned into another Baghdad. He also called on Libya’s tribes to rally to the city’s defence.

"How come you allow Tripoli, the capital, to be under occupation once again?" he said. "The traitors are paving the way for the occupation forces to be deployed in Tripoli."

Opposition forces and Tripoli residents were trying to maintain order in the city on Monday, said Khodr. "The people of Tripoli really are maintaining law and order in the areas that they are now controlling in Tripoli."

"They have set up checkpoints, are searching cars and looking for possible Gaddafi supporters, because ever since late last night they were worried about sleeper cells in the capital."

As the fighting intensified, it was reported that foreign journalists had been trapped inside the Rixos hotel where many correspondents have been based throughout the conflict.

"They are not allowed to leave the hotel because there are Gaddafi men in the area and around the area," Khodr said.

Opposition Hold Majority Control

An opposition fighter in Tripoli told Al Jazeera that only about 20 percent of the city was in the hands of Gaddafi supporters. "NATO air forces are above us, I am not sure if they are going to strike or if they are just here for surveillance."

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary-general, said NATO is ready to work with the Libyan NTC, and "our goal throughout this conflict has been to protect the people of Libya."

With Gaddafi’s grip on power apparently slipping, speculation has begun on where he may flee if Tripoli falls into rebel hands.

In a press conference, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s foreign minister, said Pretoria was not facilitating Gaddafi’s exit and did not know the 69-year-old leader’s current whereabouts.

Nkoana-Mashabane added that South Africa had no plans at the moment to recognise the rebel government if Gaddafi falls.

"The Libyans themselves must be given the chance to decide the future of their country and the future of Gaddafi," Nkoana-Mashabane said.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Johannesburg, Haru Matasa, said Angola and Zimbabwe had been cited as countries the embattled leader was most likely to go to.

*Published under an agreement with Al-Jazeera.

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Urban Rebellions Can Trigger Social Change

August 15, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint    
   
Riots in the streets of London and across Britain are part of a global revolt – from Cairo to Lisbon, to Santiago, to Madison – against a resurgent neoliberal agenda that advocates the destruction of the remnants of a weakened public sector. A look back at the urban rebellions in the U.S. in 1960s would help to put things in perspective.

CHICAGO (IDN) – The London revolt has shown how the brunt of the cuts and austerity have fallen disproportionately on Black and brown youth. Figures across the political spectrum have condemned the rebellion as "mindless criminality", and the media handpick interviewees who complain about violence, looting and general chaos. They inevitability raise the question of why people "burn down their own communities?"

These charges always arise in the wake of political upheaval and rebellion. In the U.S. during middle part of the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of African Americans participated in urban rebellions to protest and confront racism, police brutality and injustice. In those years, it’s estimated that more than 500,000 African Americans participated in some form or another in these uprisings–almost the same number of American troops in Vietnam.

In cities as disparate as Detroit, Tampa, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Prattville, Ala., the rebellions raised basic questions about American democracy and American society in general.

In fact, it was the widespread and continuous nature of the riots that turned them from episodic outbreaks of discontent into a force that transformed U.S. politics. The issues that defined the urban crisis – poor housing, police brutality, poor schools and unemployment, among others – went from being politically peripheral to what President Lyndon Johnson termed "the nation’s most urgent task."

Thus, the urban rebellions of the 1960s arguably constituted the most important political events of the decade. Over the course of the 1960s, public spending on housing and other urban issues went from $600 million at the beginning of the decade to more than $3 billion by the decade’s end – and the federal government created the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

From this increase in spending to the spreading discussion about urban conditions during the 1960s, it’s difficult to believe that any of this would have unfolded if not for the rebellions that made public the horrid conditions in which Black families struggled to survive.

The actions of the hundreds of thousands of Blacks who took part in the uprisings created the urgency for political figures to act, and provided the language they used to promote important urban legislation. Johnson, for example, invoked the imagery of rats attacking children when he tried to motivate a slow-moving Congress to pass his urban agenda, including a "rat control" bill.

Johnson said at a press conference, "Every year, thousands of these children, many of them babies, are bitten by rats in their homes and tenements. Some are killed. The amount of money needed to fight this national shame is small, but the stakes – like the health of our children and of every city dweller – are very great."

Not to be outdone, Vice President Hubert Humphrey directly connected the lack of aggressive congressional action on the rat control bill with growing alienation in urban areas. After the explosive riot in Newark, N.J., in the summer of 1967 – and just days before the most deadly and destructive riot of the 1960s, in Detroit – Humphrey made a statement that shocked the political establishment. He said that without greater attention to the housing crisis in the U.S.:

"We will have open violence in every major city and county in America…It is time for government officials to recognize that the National Guard is no answer to the problems of slums… People will not live like animals, nor should they live in some of the filthy rotten housing that make up urban ghettoes.

"I’d hate to be stuck on a forth floor of a tenement with rats nibbling on the kids’ toes – and they do – with garbage uncollected – and it is – with the streets filthy, with no swimming pools, with little or no recreation. I think you’d have more trouble than you have had already, because I’ve got enough speak left in me to lead a mighty good revolt under those conditions…

"You have to make a choice whether you want all your low-rent housing to be federally owned, whether you want subsidies so that the poor can own their own homes, or whether you want violence in America."

Despite their measurable success in promoting a legislative agenda that helped urban America, the "riots" have been largely eulogized as tragic events that cemented a long slide into urban decline and turmoil. Journalist Clay Risen, in A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination echoed this sentiment when he argued:

"[T]he riots destroyed a vast swath of [Washington, D.C.'s] working-class section…It sent a message to potential investors and residents alike that Washington was pathologically disturbed, and thus no place to relocate. And by scaring off middle-class residents for decades, the riots arguably rendered it impossible for the city to get back on its feet. "

A letter to the Detroit Free Press in 2007 on the 40th anniversary of the Detroit rebellion echoed such claims:

"Forty years have passed since the long, hot summer of 1967, yet the fallout from that week continues. The white flight that had already begun became a flood, resulting in Detroit being the most segregated city in the U.S. Add to this the fact that many of the homes and businesses torched during the riot remained as stark reminders of the riot for years. Today, most of these have been demolished; the land, however, remains vacant."

In both cases, the contemporary conditions of poverty and blight and many urban areas are linked to the uprisings of the 1960s – wilfully ignoring the 40 years of public policy and shrinking public spending that encouraged urban decline in the years that followed.

TWO OTHER ISSUES

The urban rebellions are also blamed on two other issues.

First, the rebellions are seen as the dysfunctional cousin to the peaceful and nonviolent Southern civil rights movement. Thus, while the civil rights movement is universally lauded as successful because of its strategic emphasis on nonviolence, the riots are universally condemned because of the violence inherent in them. Moreover, they are also blamed for alienating white allies and supporters, and are widely viewed as the origins of white "backlash politics."

A New York Times editorial, written only a few weeks after the riots in Detroit in 1967, captured this argument: "The riots, rather than developing a clamor for great social progress to wipe out poverty, to a large extent have had the reverse effect and have increased the crises for use of police force and criminal law."

Yet that perspective didn’t appear to correspond with a number of polls taken 10 days later that showed massive support for the expansion of social programs aimed at mitigating the material deprivation that many connected with the spreading violence.

In a poll of both African Americans and whites, strong majorities supported anti-poverty programs. As a Washington Post headline summarized, "Races agree on ghetto abolition and the need for a WPA [the federal Works Projects Administration]-style program." Some 69 percent of Americans supported federal efforts to create a jobs program, and 65 percent believed in tearing down ghettos. Another 60 percent supported a federal program to eliminate rats, and 57 percent supported summer camp programs for Black youth.

"BACKLASH POLITICS"

The point isn’t to deny the rise of "backlash politics" as one response to the rising threat of Black militancy. Rather, it is to recognize that there were multiple responses, including an awareness of the need to develop programs and devote funding for attacking the terrible conditions of ghetto life.

Democratic Party leaders like Johnson and Humphrey weren’t the only ones attuned to the crisis unfolding among their urban base. So were Republican Party figures. Indeed, at the 1968 Republican National Convention, the Republicans included a plank in their party platform specifically addressing urban issues.

The party pledged new efforts to solve urban problems, ranging from housing to mass transit, and unemployment to air and water pollution. The plank also called for a new partnership between government and industry to "solve the crisis of the cities." Finally, liberal Republicans won an amendment calling for a "just society that would eliminate the causes of violence."

Corporate America, in spite of its history of red-lining and excluding African American communities, also recognized that it had to engage urban areas in a different way or risk destruction.

Many of these public and private endeavors to "solve" urban poverty ultimately failed – but that’s a separate question, and shouldn’t change our understanding of the effects the urban rebellions had on politics.

"GOOD" OR "BAD"

The question of whether the urban rebellions of the 1960s were "good" or "bad" misses both the dynamism and urgency that the revolts injected into the political discourse of their time. And it never deals with the question of why they exploded in the first place. Why did the Black freedom struggle of the 1960s shift from tactics of nonviolence to the explosive violence of the Black Power era?

The riots, in effect, were the "forcible entry" of the Black masses into political discussions that usually treated them and their communities as invisible or irrelevant. Black poverty, deprivation and racism in urban areas went from being political non-issues to one of the most important issues of the decade.

Consider this about Britain today: When was the last time there was a discussion about racism and poverty in Britain outside of left-wing publications? In the aftermath of the London Rebellion, there is a global discussion about these issues – something inconceivable even weeks ago.

Rebellions, of course, don’t go on forever. They eventually run into the power of the state, and the rebels become fatigued once the adrenaline of feeling politically alive subsides. To bring about the substantial changes needed to really transform the lives of workers and the poor, something more is needed: strategies, politics and organization.

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review. She is a frequent contributor on the subject of race and class and has written extensively on the struggle for housing justice. Her articles have also appeared on the Black Commentator, CounterPunch and Gaper’s Block Web sites. This is a slightly abridged version of the article that first appeared as editorial on July 27, 2011 on http://socialistworker.org/print/2011/08/12/urban-revolts-and-social-change. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of IDN editors or editorial board. (IDN-InDepthNews/12.08.2011)

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Analysis, Human Rights, Social Justice, Unrest Tagged With: , ,

The Latin Lessons for Arab Revolutionaries

July 8, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Hari Seshasayee*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis     
    
MUMBAI (IDN) – The scenes that plagued Latin America through the 1980s bear a striking resemblance to those enveloping the Arab World since Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Tunisia nearly 30 years later. In Latin America, street protests reflected the rising frustrations of the middle class, marketplaces were bombed by those angry at incumbent autocrats and citizens rallied against police brutality.

Within a decade, Latin America’s revolts had brought down 14 military dictators. Likewise, the Arab Spring’s cries for democracy have resonated in the region, bringing about regime change in Tunisia and Egypt, while 13 other countries across the Arab world continue to simmer with anger.

The two continents are geographies apart, but their political parallels run deep. In their pre-revolt period, both Latin American and the Arab nations had a youthful middle class population rising against authoritative regimes, fighting against human rights violations, mass unemployment and extreme poverty.

The countries in each region were also united by language – Latin America with Spanish and Portuguese, the Arab world with Arabic and French. Significantly, neither revolt spread to a country that was not home to one of these languages.

There are other recent examples of democratisation, such as the post-Communist Eastern European nations, almost all of which are now part of the European Union (EU). But unlike Latin America, Eastern Europe had only a fragmented identity. For example, while Argentina, Chile and Peru share Spanish as a language and Catholicism as the dominant religion, Poland, Hungary and Romania speak Polish, Hungarian and Romanian and have religious identities ranging from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestantism.

In addition, the Helsinki Accord signed in 1975 by almost all European states catalyzed the transition of the newly democratized European countries. It provided the kind of institutional framework that Latin America did not have during transition.

The fall of Latin American military dictators was followed by periods of hyperinflation as the region plummeted into la década perdida (the lost decade), when debt restructuring and sovereign default was the norm for almost every Latin American nation.

That pattern is repeating itself in the Arab states. In Egypt, the economy has shrunk 7% and a large chunk of the population still remains unemployed after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Now, in a familiar pattern, thousands of pro-reforms protesters have returned to Tahrir Square.

This is where the Latin American example can prove to be a useful guide. Despite its economic woes, Latin America pursued several policies that aided the region’s relatively successful transition to democracy. There are two important strategies that the Arab World can emulate:

First, Latin America increased education levels and reduced the gender gap. This was done largely through the use of social reforms such as ‘conditional cash transfers’, where citizens received funds from the government only if they participated in basic services. Nicaragua, for instance, achieved a 28.4% increase in primary education enrollment of children living in extreme poverty between 2002 and 2004.

To be fair, the Arab world has made an attempt at replicating such programmes. In 2009, Morocco launched a pilot of its own conditional cash transfer program, Tayssir, financed with support from the World Bank. Egypt began a similar pilot in villages in 2009 with the state-funded Minhet El-Osra. Such programs may suit countries like Yemen and Libya, which have increasingly high birth rates and extremely low high school enrolment ratios, especially among girls.

Second, Latin America also provided its citizens a platform for addressing social grievances. In several countries this took the form of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) to investigate human rights abuses and provide much-needed healing.

Peru’s TRC, for instance, presented the findings of its report on human rights violations to the public in 2003. A year later, the government led by Alejandro Toledo appointed special prosecutors to investigate crimes committed since the 1980’s leading up to human rights violations of the impeached Fujimori government of 2000.

The monarchs of the Gulf nations will be reluctant to create similar investigative commissions but the successor governments in Tunisia and Egypt will see it as an opportunity to provide the transparency and justice that they have promised to their people. Libya’s rebel leaders have already expressed their intention of setting up a TRC as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

There is much that countries in transition can learn from each other. Parallels between Latin American and the Arab world’s current situation will stay as comparisons only, unless there is an active exchange of ideas.

The Arab-South American Summit, brainchild of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will go some distance in facilitating that exchange. The first summit was held in 2005, and the second summit, in 2009, resulted in the adoption of an 11-point declaration on political affairs, the peace process in the Middle East, and economic cooperation. The third summit is still expected to take place later this year, despite being postponed from February 15 due to the Arab Spring protests.

Tunisia’s election, scheduled for October 23, will be the litmus test for protesting Arab citizens. Its success – or failure – will determine whether the Arab Spring will wilt, or flower and follow the example of Latin America to become an impetus for lasting change.

*Hari Seshasayee is a Researcher at Gateway House, Indian Council on Global Relations, in Mumbai. This article appeared first on June 17, 2011 on http://www.gatewayhouse.in (IDN-InDepthNews/06.07.2011)

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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