Demise of the Dictators
In lands that have been plundered and tyrannized, the Arab Revolution of 2011 has been smoldering for decades. What finally turned resignation into rebellion.
by Fouad AjamiFebruary 06, 2011
(Page 1 of 3)Alex Majoli / Magnum for Newsweek
PHOTOS: NEWSWEEK photographers Alex Majoli and Paolo Pellegrin captured scenes from the revolt demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.
Historians of revolutions are never sure as to when these great upheavals in human affairs begin. But the historians will not puzzle long over the Arab Revolution of 2011. They will know, with precision, when and where the political tsunami that shook the entrenched tyrannies first erupted. A young Tunisian vegetable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, in the hardscrabble provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire after his cart was confiscated and a headstrong policewoman slapped him across the face in broad daylight. The Arab dictators had taken their people out of politics, they had erected and fortified a large Arab prison, reduced men and women to mere spectators of their own destiny, and the simple man in that forlorn Tunisian town called his fellow Arabs back into the political world.
From one end of the Arab world to the other, all the more so in the tyrannies ruled by strongmen and despots (Libya, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, and Tunisia), the Arab world was teeming with Mohamed Bouazizis. Little less than a month later, the order of the despots was twisting in the wind. Bouazizi did not live long enough to savor the revolution of dignity that his deed gave birth to. We don’t know if he took notice of the tyrannical ruler of his homeland coming to his bedside in a false attempt at humility and concern. What we have is the image, a heavily bandaged man and a tacky visitor with jet-black hair, a feature of all the aged Arab rulers—virility and timeless youth are essential to the cult of power in these places. Bids, we are told, were to come from rich Arab lands, the oil states, to purchase Bouazizi’s cart. There were revolutionaries in the streets, and there were vicarious participants in this upheaval.
Marco Longari / AFP-Getty Images
PHOTOS: Newsweek’s guide to 10 toppled strongmen and what followed. Here’s hoping Cairo’s not like Congo.
Deposed DespotsA silent Arab world was clamoring to be heard, eager to stake a claim to a place in the modern order of nations. A question had tugged at and tormented the Arabs: were they marked by a special propensity for tyranny, a fatal brand that rendered them unable to find a world beyond the prison walls of the despotism? Better 60 years of tyranny than one day of anarchy, ran a maxim of the culture. That maxim has long been a prop of the dictators.
There is no shortage of autopsies of the Arab condition, and I hazard to state that in any coffeehouse in the cities of the Arabs, on their rooftops that provide shelter and relief from the summer heat, the simplest of men and women could describe their afflictions: the predator states, the fabulous wealth side by side with mass poverty, the vanity of the rulers and their wives and their children, the torture in countless prisons, and the destiny of younger men and women trapped in a world over which they have little if any say.
No Arabs needed the numbers and the precision supplied by “development reports” that told of their sorrows, but the numbers and the data were on offer. The Arab Human Development Report of 2009—a United Nations project staffed by Arab researchers, the fifth in a series—provided a telling portrait of the world of 360 million Arabs. They were overwhelmingly young, the median age 22, compared with a global average of 28. They had become overwhelmingly urbanized: 38 percent of the population lived in urban areas in 1970; it was now close to 60 percent. There had been little if any economic growth and improvement in their economies since 1980. No fewer than 65 million Arabs were living below the poverty line of $2 a day. New claimants were everywhere; 51 million new jobs have to be created by 2020 to accommodate the young. Tyranny kept these frustrations in check. Eight Arab states, the report stated, practiced torture and extrajudicial detention. And still, the silence held. Bouazizi and his deed of despair brought a people to a reckoning with its maladies.
Why have the Arabs not raged before as they do now—why has there not been this avalanche of anger that we have witnessed in Tunisia and in Egypt? Why did the Arabs not rage last year, or the year before that, or in the last decades? An answer, one that makes the blood go cold, is Hama.
In retrospect, the Arab road to perdition—to this large prison that the crowds have set out to dismantle—must have begun in that Syrian city in 1982. A conservative place in the central Syrian plains rose in rebellion against the military regime of Hafez Assad. It was a sectarian revolt, a fortress of Sunni Islam at odds with Assad’s Alawite regime. The battle that broke out in February of that year was less a standoff between a government and its rivals than a merciless war between combatants fighting to the death. Much of the inner city was demolished, and perhaps 20,000 people perished in that cruel fight. The ruler was unapologetic; he may have bragged about the death toll. He had broken the old culture of his country and the primacy of its cities.
Hama became a code word for the terror that awaited those who dared challenge the men in power. It sent forth a message in Syria, and to other Arab lands, that the tumultuous ways of street politics and demonstrations and intermittent military seizures of power had drawn to a close. Assad would die in his bed nearly two decades later, bequeathing power to his son. Tyranny and state terror had yielded huge dynastic dividends.
The heart went out of Arab dissent and ideological argumentation. A new despotic culture took hold; men and women scurried for cover, lucky to escape the rulers’ wrath and the cruelty of the secret police, and the informers. Terrible men, insulated from their subjects (the word is the right one), put together regimes of enormous sophistication when it came to keeping their tyrannies intact. State television, the newspapers, mass politics, and the countryside spilling into the cities aided the despotisms. The tyrants, invariably, rose from modest social backgrounds. They had no regard for the old arrangements and hierarchies and for the limits a traditional society placed on the exercise of power.
Men like Muammar Kaddafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, like Hafez Assad of Syria, were children of adversity, and they were crueler for it, because traditional Arab society exalted pedigree and high birth. As the Arabs would put it—in whispers, in insinuations—no one knew the names of the fathers of these men who fell into things and acquired political kingdoms of their own. The details varied from one Arab realm to another, but at heart the story was the same: a tyrant had emerged and restructured the political universe to his will. Milder authoritarianisms gave way to this “sultanist” system. We think of Hosni Mubarak, the son of middle peasantry, as an inheritor of the military regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. Strictly speaking, this is true, for it had been Sadat who picked Mubarak as his second in command, chose him for his loyalty and obedience and unassuming ways. But Mubarak, a decade younger than both of these legendary figures, differed in a fundamental way from his predecessors. Nasser and Sadat had come into their own in the 1930s and 1940s when Egypt was a hothouse of political arguments, its politics a free-for-all of monarchists and constitutionalists and ideologues and of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sadat himself had a checkered background; he had been cashiered from the Army, had known imprisonment, and had been caught up in the assassination of a pro-British figure of the ancien régime.
It never occurred to either Nasser or Sadat to entertain dynastic succession for their sons. They knew the depth of Egypt’s culture, that mysterious alternation in its history between long periods of submission and sudden, violent revolts. It would be fair to say that they stood in awe of Egypt’s political history. In a surprising twist, their heir, Mubarak, grew dismissive of his country. He was a man of the barracks. He had in him the cunning and secrecy of his peasantry background. With time, he put together an intricate police state. There are estimates that some 1.7 million people worked for Egypt’s Ministry of Interior. A land known for its endless chatter, for its wicked, sly humor, grew surly and silent, in the image of the man at the helm. His spouse and his son Gamal were everywhere; another son, Alaa, and his cronies had the run of the economic system. Pharaoh was everywhere and nowhere, his stern visage monitoring an increasingly drab country. The great writers of old were now dead or dying; there were no inheritors to pick up their mantle. Then Mubarak closed up the political world more firmly still: he offered his son as his most likely heir. He never quite explicitly said so, but his refusal to name a vice president, and the ways of the House of Mubarak, spoke of a dynastic future. Gamal, the “crown prince,” was everywhere, the anointed inheritor in all but name. The success of the dynastic model in Syria doubtless encouraged Mubarak and his retainers and sycophants.
A rapacious court formed around Mubarak and his immediate family. There was the power of his wife, Suzanne, and, remarkable to relate, she had started out modestly. She intended to display a contrast to her predecessor, the self-styled first lady of Egypt, Jehan Sadat. Jehan had offended the pious; the assassins who struck down her husband had a ferocious animus toward her. But the modesty of Suzanne Mubarak did not last long. She grew addicted to the limelight and to power. A number of cabinet ministers, it is widely known, were her cronies and answered to her. It was Suzanne, it was whispered in the court of Mubarak, who had conceived the dynastic ambition for her son Gamal. That audacious thought, a factor of no small consequence in the outbreak of the revolt, would have struck the cautious Mubarak—a creature of the Army, the quintessential bureaucrat—as a break with the order of things. But the dynastic bid, arrogant in the extreme, doubtless offensive to the officer corps, was hatched in the culture of intrigue and favoritism of an oriental court. Now and then, Pharaoh himself equivocated about this dynastic claim: he said that Egypt was a more ordered land than Syria, bounded by precedent and procedure; but in time everyone understood that all was being readied for Gamal.
Egypt has been through great exertions, through sudden, surprising changes under Nasser and Sadat. Mubarak, the quiet officer, was, once upon a time, a reprieve from all that. He was a drab, unassuming man, and the country would be glad for it. He would keep the peace with Israel, but there would be no “electric-shock diplomacy” of the kind favored by Sadat. The American connection of the regime would endure, but not for Mubarak was that undue intimacy with America that had been part of Sadat’s undoing. (There would be no steady stream of interviews with Barbara Walters for Mubarak, no extravagant celebrations with American celebrities in the shadow of the pyramids.) He was uneasy around crowds, a tedious orator. He never sought to be loved by his people. During his first decade in power, he wanted their good wishes and acceptance; then the ground shifted and he had to settle for being feared. For years, he exuded vigor: much was made of his squash game. Old age robbed him of his vitality, and he became increasingly imperious, spending huge chunks of time in Sharm al-Sheikh. Rumors circulated that he had taken a second wife, and that the political power granted Suzanne was an attempt to buy himself a measure of peace.
When the Egyptian rebellion erupted, it was foreordained that it would focus on the ruler and his family. Egyptians had grown weary of him, and the prospect of another Mubarak waiting in the wings was an affront to their dignity. The tyranny had sullied them, and they wanted to be done with the despot: “Irhall” (“Be gone”), the crowd would chant in unison. No script was on offer—no revolution has ever followed a script—but the people of Egypt were willing to trade this tyranny for the uncertainty of what was to come. Now the world-weary could tell them that their revolt may yet be betrayed, that they will break their chains only to forge new ones, that the theocrats are destined to replace the autocrats. But grant the Egyptian people their right to swat away these warnings.
Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia was shaped of the same mold as Mubarak. He had been a man of the police and the security services. True, his predecessor, the legendary Habib Bourguiba, hero of Tunisia’s independence, had ruled uncontested for three decades until Ben Ali pushed him aside in 1987. But Bourguiba was a cultured man; he knew books and literature; he had high aspirations for his country and its modernity. His political history placed him above his contemporaries, and he could take his primacy for granted. It would have appalled him to think of himself as a warden of his people—a thought and a reality that never troubled Ben Ali.
The greed of Ben Ali’s family and his in-laws, the speed with which they all clamored out of the country at the first sign of danger, told volumes about this despotism. There was no patriotism and love of home here: a predator and his ambitious wife, the hairdresser who had come out of nowhere to the pinnacle of power, made a run for it. It had been quite a racket for them, and it was now time to quit the land they had plundered and enraged.
This, too, the plundering, marks a great discontinuity with the past. The despots of the day dispose of enormous wealth. The fortunes of the rulers, an Arab businessman once said to me, are the real weapons of mass destruction in the region. The Houses of Assad, of Mubarak, and of Kaddafi and of Ben Ali (and of Saddam Hussein before his fall) are rich beyond measure. The line between the wealth of the rulers and the treasure of the realm has been erased. The rulers in the simpler era of the 1950s and 1960s were on the whole uninterested in wealth. Gamal Abdel Nasser, perhaps the greatest and most beloved Arab in centuries, had lived and died a simple man. Not even his worst enemies could question his probity with money. An eccentric Iraqi ruler, Abdul Karim Qassim, who was brutally killed in the tumult of Iraqi politics in 1963, had had no private residence of his own and had died, the eulogists say of him, with a paltry few dinars to his name. Even the royalty were poor. The late King Hussein of Jordan remembered a time of genteel poverty as a young boy at a British school in Alexandria. The sons of the merchants and the businessmen knew comfort and leisure beyond the prince’s reach. In contrast, no vows of poverty are taken by the new men or their families. The reports of Leila Trabelsi, the wife of the deposed Tunisian dictator, raiding the country’s central bank and hauling off into exile 1.5 tons of gold, caught this new dimension of public degradation in Arab lands.
One way or the other, the men at the helm became a ruling caste. They harked back to a pattern of rule that had befallen the world of Islam after the demise of the Baghdad caliphate in the 13th century to the rule of the Mamluks, soldiers of fortune who carved out kingdoms of their own and kept apart from the populations they ruled. Gone was the continuity between the ruler and the ruled that had been the hallmark and the promise of the advent of nationalism. The autocrats were now feared and reviled. A distinguished liberal Egyptian formed in the liberal interwar years, the late scholar and diplomat Tahseen Basheer, said of these men that they became “country owners.”
The rulers grew older and obscenely wealthy, their populations younger and more impoverished. These autocrats in the national-security states put to shame the old monarchies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Emirates. In the monarchies and principalities there has always existed a “fit” between monarchs and princes, and their people. There has never been a cult of personality in these monarchies: the Stalinist cult that afflicted Saddam’s Iraq, Hafez Assad’s Syria, and Kaddafi’s Libya is abhorrent to them. The Bedouin ethos that still legitimizes the monarchies has no room for such deference to the ruler.
Monuments to kings are heresy to the Saudi rulers. The affection and concern displayed in recent days by ordinary Saudis for the ailing King Abdullah stands in sharp relief against the animus toward Mubarak and Ben Ali and Assad and Kaddafi. The Sabahs of Kuwait, the ruling family in that city-state since the mid-18th century, inspire no fear in Kuwaitis; no “visitors at dawn” haul off Kuwaitis to prison, as is the norm in the republics of terror. Before the age of oil, the Kuwaitis had been seafarers and pearl divers, and the Sabahs were the ones who stayed behind to look over the affairs of the place. They had respect and privilege, but there was no space for grand ambitions and pretensions. The merchants held their own and still do: the wealth of the merchant families is more than a match for the revenues of the Sabahs. Nor do the other principalities differ in this regard. State terror is alien to them.
Tiny Bahrain is something of an exception, afflicted as it is by a sectarian split between a Sunni ruling dynasty and a restive majority Shia population. But on the whole, the monarchies have always ruled with a lighter touch. Who in today’s republics of the whip and of state terror would not call back the monarchs of old? Nasab, or genealogy—inherited merit—is revered in the practice and life of the Arabs. It reassures people at the receiving end of power and hems in the mighty, connecting them to the deeds and reputations of their forefathers.
So three despots have fallen: Saddam Hussein in 2003, Ben Ali, and, to all intents, Hosni Mubarak. Saddam’s regime had of course been decapitated by American arms. Ben Ali and Mubarak have been brought to account by their own populations. This revolt is an Arab affair through and through. It caught the Pax Americana by surprise; no one in Tunis and Cairo and beyond was waiting on a green light from Washington. The Arab liberals were quick to read Barack Obama, and they gave up on him. They saw his comfort with the autocracies, his eagerness to “engage” and conciliate the dictators.
From afar, the “realists” tell the Arabs that they are playing with fire, that beyond the prison walls there is danger and chaos. Luckily for them, the Arabs pay no heed to these realists, and can recognize the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that animates them. Arabs have quit railing against powers beyond and infidels and foreign conspiracies. For now they are out making and claiming their own history.
Ajami, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the author of, among other books, The Dream Palace of the Arabs.
LATEST
Lazarus the Computer Riseth (with photos)!
I dont know what happened, but on the 35th try of rebooting my computer, it came back to life. I present to you my photos from Tahrir Square throughout the afternoon of February 6, 2011. Fairly happy with a few of these. Everything was shot on that a 35 f/2. Also, go Packers. I will be asleep.
As best I can understand, these men were carrying and dancing around a mock casket to represent Mubarak’s government
Not sure what happened to the lady in the above and below photo, she was rushed passed me, being carried by three men, to a medical station. A doctor hushed me away.
These seem increasingly common – I think they act as some kind of security badge to represent your authenticity as a member of the protestors. Not too sure, but that’s the vibe I’ve gotten
This photo of this new family makes me so happy. The Mom (in the background) had the biggest smile on her face as she told me, “this is a revolution baby!”
There is, as it happens, a lot of boredom in the square.
Today seemed to be the day Egyptians decided they wanted to start recording this revolt for themselves. Everyone had cell phones out, snapping pictures, recording video, even doing little stand-up commentaries. Not sure what that suggests, maybe they are truly starting to believe in this?
Also the first day I’ve seen Christians practicing in the Square. I also heard a beautiful story of Christians standing around Muslims, protecting them from the crowds, while they prayed.
The booming blanket market
Date sales seemed to be sky rocketing.
Only made one quick trip to the front lines today, nothing happening.
Turns out even in a revolution, people have to charge their phones
One of the three stores I saw open today
The entrance to the subway has kind of turned into a garbage pit.
Really, the cell phones were out in full force
Mubarak is given a red card.
I have no idea why this man felt the need to lift his daughter, but he held her there for quite some time.
This man climbed a very prickly, un-pruned palm tree in bare feet to wild applause.
This sprawling construction site on the side of the Square seems to be the unofficial bathroom of the revolution.
I have never met these women, and don’t want to assume too much, but this scene looked like it was the most fun they had had in a long time. They were so joyous and excited to be chanting and marching.
I left the Square during sunset prayers.
Thoughts, Questions on a Revolution
I went to bed last night after blogging and responding to a few emails on my computer, woke up this morning and couldn’t get the damned thing to turn on. It’s a 15″ Mac Book Pro that I’ve had for over two and a half years, I suppose I knew it was going to go pretty soon, but the timing is just terrible. I’m currently writing this on a friend’s computer, and he doesn’t have photo editing applications, so I’m up a creek right now for posting photos. Sorry, I’d really like to see my photos (on a computer screen), I know I made some nice frames today, but it looks like it will have to wait until I get back to the states (currently slated for Tuesday, Feb 8) I’ll be sure to get them up once I get back.
In the mean time, Joey Baker, a good friend who also built 90% of this website, sent me an email with a few questions. I’ll answer those and also make a few observations I’ve noticed…
When you get the time, can you explain why it appears that huge sections of the square are un-populated?
The population of Tahrir Square fluctuates throughout the day, and depends on which area of the square you’re in. Without any disrespect to the Egyptian people (and the very real revolution they are attempting to throw), the square is slowly starting to feel more and more like a festival – especially now that the ‘pro-mubarak’ protestors have all but dispersed. There is an emerging tourism economy in the square – flags, face masks painted the color of the Egyptian flag, blankets, baked sweet potatoes, cigarettes, bottled water, coke, candy bars – all of these are now available for sale through table shops that are popping up all over. Each day brings more children and families, I swear I’ve seen couples on dates, the mood is becoming lighter and lighter (though I’m sure this will all change when the Army decides it’s time to move in – which is what I predict will eventually happen).
Generally, the central area of Tahrir Square – the giant round-about seen from rooftop shots – is the most populated area. Make-shift tents have been set up in the middle of the round-about and is where many people sleep. Throughout the day, a crowd of people circles this round-about. As you get near the outskirts of the square, especially to the north, next to the museum, fewer people gather. These are currently considered the ‘front lines,’ and it is where most of the clashes have taken place. Usually the only people here are the media, and the people most ready and willing to fight for their cause. However, now that there are no real pro-Mubarak people outside this “front line,” it’s kind of a no-man’s land of battles from a few days ago.
Why is it that people are choosing to sleep here?
Egyptians taking over Tahrir Square is the equivalent New Yorkers storming and taking over Time Square, or Washingtonians(?) taking over the National Lawn. Now that they have it, they don’t want to give it back. While a lot of people are sleeping here, there are many more people who are day-visitors (including most of the media) – again, it starts to give it a festival feel. It should be noted that things weren’t so militaristic until the thugs started attacking mid-week. That’s when the barricades were set up and when the rioters really began to get serious about ‘holding the Square.’
Are people still working or has the city shut down?
This is a tough question for me to answer realistically – the scene here has become almost similar to the ‘bubbles’ I’ve witnessed at the Olympics, where the media hotels, events and locations are all directly near each other. Most of the media hotels are less than one kilometer from Tahrir Square. From what I can tell, most of us haven’t been able to get outside the city much. We just heard a report that a writer for The Times of London tried to venture out into some of Cairo’s neighborhoods to write a story, and was beaten so badly he had to be hospitalized. I originally had assignments to go to the Suez canal, and possibly to Alexandria, but both assignments were squashed when locals, fixers, the hotel concierge and taxi cab drivers all strongly suggested against it for my own safety. All that said, I will leave here only having seen a maybe a 15 block radius of Cairo.
(Back to the original question) In the 15 block radius I’ve seen, all stores have been closed. Today was the first day that I saw small shops open in the square, and it was only three shops. Two sold food, one sold trinkets. This wasn’t the case when I arrived, and may not be the case outside my little bubble. When I walked through the streets on Wednesday, many shops were open.
If they’re working, how are the protesters making a living?
This is a great question, and we’re all wondering when the economic noose around this revolution is going to get too tight. Just today, the taxi driver we had said he had been in Tahrir for the last ten days, but finally had to stop protesting to go back to work. The economy may well be the lynch-pin in this revolution.
That said, the government tried to have banks and government offices open again today – in an effort the try to get people back to work. Yet the square was more filled with people today than anytime I’ve seen it before. To me, the economy is one of the most interesting factors in this situation.
What’s the general atmosphere there? Are most people involved in the protests?
The general atmosphere is incredibly hard to gauge, because I don’t speak Arabic. When I’m inside the Square, I feel pretty safe – these are the people who want the western media to continue to cover the story. It’s become quite apparent that “any press is good press” for this revolution. As long as the western media shows it, it puts pressure on Mubarak. People inside Tahrir are constantly thanking me, shaking hands, making conversation.
When I’m outside the square, I have no idea how scared i should or shouldn’t be, but I usually air on the side of pretty nervous. A good friend had a taxi cab driver tell him, “if I saw you walking on the street, I would probably kick your ass [for being foreign and being in Cairo right now].” I was in a cab last night, and the driver got so angry, (either at my friend and I for asking him to take us to our hotel, or because he was stopped at numerous check points -we never found out why), that he pulled a box cutter out of his glove compartment, started beating his steering wheel screaming, and made repeated slashing motions to his neck. I was sitting in the front seat and was pretty terrified. To be clear, we’re not sure if he was angry at the neighborhood check points, and was making those motions because he was nervous he would be killed on his way back, or if he was making those motions at us because he was angry with us. If it was at us, I’m glad our hotel wasn’t farther away.
Are most people involved with the protests? We had a lengthy debate over this topic at dinner last night. Using rough numbers, Egypt has a population of 85 million. Cairo, 16 million. If every square foot of Tahrir square is filled (with one body/square foot) only approximately 250,000 would be there. But, how many people does each protester represent? How many people support this revolution, but won’t stick their necks out, or live too far away, or have to go to work, or watch the kids? A very interesting question. What percentage of Egyptians actually support this revolt. I had a friend leave Cairo today because he thought the western media had played such a biased role in all of this, he didn’t want any part of it.
Are most carrying on as normal?
On Friday, “The Day of Departure,” the downtown area was at a near standstill – the air was very tense. Saturday and Sunday have seen an increase (on both days) in traffic, noise, store openings, etc. I think many people in Cairo would like to see life return to some kind of normalcy.
Have people left the cities?
I don’t know enough to answer this question. I have heard rumors (and only rumors) that people from outside Cairo came in to help protest – but those might have been the people reportedly bussed in with government money and told to beat up the media and protesters.
Do most people feel that this is just a matter of time? Do they feel like they will eventually need to fight?
Again, I just don’t know. In my opinion, the Army is going to have to clear these people out of the square sooner or later. The Egyptian economy is being crippled. When the army moves in (I still predict that it will start with slow rolling tanks, water cannons and tear gas – then again, what the hell do I know), it could get very, very ugly. I’ve spoken to many people who have made it very clear they are ready to die in Tahrir for democracy. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Perhaps most importantly… who’s leading all this? I keep seeing the legs kicking, but where’s the head of this animal?
I think this is the root of all the aforementioned issues. Ultimately, these people know what they want (Mubarak gone, immediately) but have no leader or course of action to get them there. To use your metaphor, this is essentially a headless animal.
This entire situation is rapidly turning into a catch-22. A leader can’t just walk away – a power vacuum is created, and whoever takes over will (probably) do so with autocratic power. The Egyptian people would end up with another dictator. On the other hand, if Mubarak stays until September, it gives him plenty of time to rig an election and systematically hunt down and silence the loudest protesters. I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but I’ve spoken to a lot of reporters who are far more knowledgeable than I am in this situation, and that is what they predict will happen if he stays through September.
A clear line of democratic action must be set up. I find it very interesting that the head of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, is calling for immediate elections. However, this is ridiculously hard to do – an election is a massive, coordinated process that takes months, at least. Who are the candidates? What do they believe? Those candidates must find funding, choose platforms, have debates…needless to say, Egypt is in for a tough time.
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I’m very disappointed to have to leave Cairo. I arrived at this story late, and will now be leaving early – and I’m not usually one to half-ass something. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it has gone this time around: I haven’t been able to find as many assignments as I would have liked, and with the broken computer, I’ve become nearly useless. It’s currently Sunday night – I have one last assignment tomorrow, and then I head out to the airport Monday evening for a 3AM flight on Tuesday. I’ve written this post on my friend’s computer, no guarantees I’ll be able to blog again before I go. Thanks so much for reading, caring, looking at my photos, commenting, and all the love.
Many blessings, AB
>via: http://www.andrewburtonphoto.com/blog/
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Sun, 06/02/2011 - 22:40
After the conspicuous disappearance of security forces on the night of Friday, 28 January, conspiracy theories are still rife as to how and why several prisons experienced large-scale escapes in the following days. Al-Masry Al-Youm met with two escapees to hear their stories in hopes of shedding light on the issue.
Thirty-year-old Galal (not his real name) was sentenced to six years for theft. He had already served three years at Wadi al-Natroon prison, which lies on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road. His first direct exposure to sunlight came when a bulldozer tore down the walls of his cell-block on Sunday, 30 January.
“After hearing gunshots, masked men with machine guns walked into the cells and told us to go home to our families…. or else they would shoot us,” he said.
As he walked outside, he saw some cars waiting to drive inmates away, but he didn’t see any prison guards. “I walked into the desert until I reached a small village a few hours later, where I called my family to come pick me up,” he recalled.
Prisoners were not given any instructions except to “leave and don't look back.”
Those who set them free, he said, spoke Arabic with an Egyptian dialect.
Galal couldn’t explain how a bulldozer was able to travel all the way to Wadi al-Natroon unimpeded.
“All I cared about is that I was able to see my two young daughters," he said. "I’ll turn myself in and serve the rest of my sentence so the government will leave me alone afterward.”
Alaa (not his real name), in his early twenties, was serving a three-year sentence at Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo for attempted murder, since he had drawn a knife in a fight. He fled with other prisoners on Sunday, 30 January.
“There was a lot of shooting going on around the prison cells,” he said, recalling that the masked gunmen who released them had also used tear gas. “Who else in Egypt has tear gas except for the state security forces?”
“I would have liked to stay in prison since I only had two more months to serve,” said Alaa. “But they began threatening to shoot the inmates who refused to leave."
Alaa got into one of the several cars that was waiting outside the prison and was dropped off in Cairo's northern Al-Marg district. “I was sitting between the masked men, but they didn't speak to me," he said. "They just dropped me off.”
He then took various rides to get to his neighborhood located some one and a half hours away.
“They didn't ask us to loot or vandalize, but what else could they have wanted when they let the prisoners out?” he asked.
Galal said he hoped that Egypt's ongoing uprising would lead to the abolition of unjust laws. “I was innocent, and I wasn’t given due process," he said. "I'm poor and had no one to plead my case.”
Alaa thinks the country under the current regime has become rife with injustice, and blames the government for most of the country’s ills.
Both men expressed hope they would not be punished upon turning themselves in.
| By Jamal Elshayyal in | on February 8th, 2011. |
As the Egyptian uprising enters its third week, many are wondering just who exactly will come out on top in this battle for the Arab world's most populous nation.
This time last week, it seemed that the millions of pro-democracy protesters who took to Egypt's streets had delivered a knock-out punch to the autocratic, American-backed, military regime of Hosni Mubarak. One week on, however, and Mubarak remains in power.How and why?
How is it possible for a president to withstand pressure from millions of people taking to the streets day in day out for 14 consecutive days? How has Mubarak been able to absorb widespread criticism for the murder of more than 300 innocent civilians and the injuring of thousands? How has this president been able to divert attention from the billions of dollars he and his family have stolen whilst millions of Egyptians continue to live in poverty?
Why is it that the "international community" continues to do business with an Egyptian regime which has killed its citizens, attacked journalists, trampled on practically every single human right; and above all never contested a free election?
The simple answer to all these questions - The United States of America.
"Conspiracy conspiracy, blame it on the Americans" I hear you moan!
Allow me to pose to you the following questions (and answers).
Who has ruled Egypt since 1952? The military.
Who is the largest receiver of US military aid after Israel? Egypt.
Who is the one person who must sign off on all military contracts in Egypt, giving him a "share" (kickback) from all deals? Hosni Mubarak.
What are the two most influential lobbies in Washington? The Israeli lobby and the arms manufacturing/military lobbies.
Of Israel's four "neighbours" (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) who possesses the largest military? Egypt.
What is the only court case in Egyptian history to be lost by the government at every level yet overturned by Presidential decree? An attempted juncture to prevent the sale of gas to Israel.
What is the name of the largest opposition party in Egypt? The Muslim Brotherhood.
Does it recognise Israel? No.
Did it approve of Egyptian waterways being used to transfer US war ships during the illegal war on Iraq? No.
Let’s leave that chain of questions now on the side, bearing in mind that I am by no means insinuating that the Muslim Brotherhood are the only opposition force in Egypt or that they even constitute anywhere near a majority.
Egyptian voicesDuring this uprising I have travelled across the country. In Suez I met socialists who likened their uprising against the regime to the 1973 battle against Israeli forces lead by Ariel Sharon.
In Cairo I met journalists who protested because of decade’s worth of state censorship which prevented them from criticising Cairo's degrading relationship with Washington.
In Alexandria I met students furious that their country's role had become almost insignificant in the region because it no longer had the respect it once had.
All of these people, and many of the hundreds more whom I spoke to would always make reference to either the US or Israel in their criticism of Mubarak and his regime.
Yes it is the unemployment, the poverty, the police brutality, the lack of freedom, the poor education system and the economy that forced these millions of Egyptians out onto the street; but there is an underlying cause behind most of these problems.
The Egyptians who destroyed a decades old barrier of fear, defeated one of the most oppressive police forces and challenged a world that thought they didn't have it in them to speak out - these Egyptians, are some of the most politically astute people I have met.
They understand that in order for Israel to exist there was no room for any of its neighbours to be strong (economically or militarily), they are aware that in order for the US to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East there can be no regional power but Israel, they still remember the days of Nasser and how he made Western leaders shudder, they recall the early stages of the 1973 war when Egypt's true military potential was almost realised.
The simple fact of the matter is, the US is trying to maintain this unjust (in)"balance of power" in the Arab world because despite all the talk from Obama, it still views this region through the same racist, colonialist eyes it always has. That is why it brought in Omar Suleiman, Egypt's vice president, that is why it is desperately seeking a younger pro-American/Israeli replacement to Mubarak, and that is why it's criticism of Mubarak's response to this uprising has been a pat on the back in comparison to the sentiments expressed during anti-government protests in Iran just a year ago.
It is unfortunate that the Egyptian army, which has been presented with a golden opportunity to regain its dignity and liberate the people by standing shoulder to shoulder with the pro-democracy protesters, has failed to do so. In fact, if this uprising fails to blossom into a revolution, it will be the Egyptian military's fault as much as it is Washington's, if not more.
The Arab people are no longer the ignorant, docile, apolitical, fearful consumer junkies they once were. The revolution in Tunisia, and the celebration of democracy manifested through the Egyptian uprising are just the beginning; the days of Western backed puppet despots in the Middle East are numbered.
And the sooner Washington realises that the better. Because it is in America's interest to revise its policies vis-a-vis the Arab world, making them in tune with the Arab street rather than at the beck and call of Tel Aviv. And that means severing ties with the Mubarak regime and attempting to build a genuine relationship with the free Egyptian people.
But then again maybe the US could do with a lesson in democracy from the Egyptian people, for after all, the free people of Egypt, like their comrades in Tunisia, have and are bringing about regime change without the help of "the international community" or the "free world".
In fact they're doing so in spite of the "free world's" best efforts.=============
Jamal Elshayyal
>via: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/08/america-enemy-democracy
__________________________
President Obama, Come to Tahrir Square
Published by anonymous Al Jazeera reporter, all of whom must remain confidential due to threats from the Mubarak regime:
Dear President Obama,
From here at Tahrir Square, it seems clear that you are a very confused person. In your heart, you obviously want Egypt to become a democracy — what rational, ethical person wouldn't? Yet it seems that you are being fed such a stream of propaganda and dire warnings about a take over of America's most important Arab ally by Islamists and other anti-American forces that you seem to have decided to sell Egyptians up the river Nile in order to protect US "interests" against this frightening prospect.
I could explain how this is total nonsense, how the Muslim Brothers are not at all the dominant force here, how the movement is divided, especially generationally, and how Tahrir represents an unprecedented co-mingling of old and young, rich and poor, secular and religious, and political persuasions of every type. But surely you've been told that in your briefings, or at least read it in the more astute journalistic analysis of events on the ground here.
And yet you still can´t just bring yourself to throw the full weight of your office behind the most important revolution in a generation, your very own Tiananmen Square and Berlin Wall at the same time.
I have a solution for you to break the impasse inside your head; come to Tahrir Square now, before its too late. Spend one afternoon, or better one night, and I can assure you all doubts about which side in this epic struggle to support will be erased. Don't worry, you will be safe here. Indeed, you will never feel safer.
Mr President, you've no doubt heard that this is a "Facebook revolution". But in fact the real leaders are not Facebookers but five-year olds, the majority of them little girls, who from 8am till 1am are carried around the square and lead the people in song, singing newly crafted limericks against Mubarak and his henchmen. In particular Vice President Omar Suleiman, of whom you seem so enamored, are the subjects of anger and scorn. You should know why this is the case, since Suleiman has plied his ugly trade of oppression and torture for the direct benefit of the US
government. Do you really want to be denounced in the same sentence as Suleiman and Mubarak? Shouldn't that give you pause?
You have clearly been convinced that unless the very people responsible for Egypt's sad state of affairs are given more power to lead the country, it will fall into anarchy. Come and let yourself be swept through a crowd of
half a million people or more, moving against each other like powerful ocean currents, which at any moment could explode into a violent stampede. And yet not a single person panics or is harmed.
Listen to the voices of hundreds of people, each one, with her or his own megaphone, shouting out their particular philosophy, ideology or agenda, while tens of thousands of people parade by, stop for a few minutes, and move on to hear the next one. What has been created here is the perfect amalgam of a pre-modern and postmodern public sphere — high-tech tweets meeting the most intimate forms of human communication. It is a glimpse of politics at its purest.
Yes, technology is crucial — it seems everyone here is either on their mobile talking to someone or snapping photos or video with their phones and updating their Facebook pages. But that's actually incidental to the most important dynamic, which is that people are talking to each other in ways that has rarely if ever happened here (and sadly hasn't happened in the US in far too long).
Americans could learn a lot from the respect and tolerance people here are showing to one another, never mind the incredible artistic creativity being displayed by long suffering Egyptians as they celebrate their freedoms and attempt to tell other Egyptians, and the world (including you), not to turn their backs on them.
Mr President, maybe you've forgotten what the struggle for freedom feels like. Maybe it's been so long since you were a community organizer. Have you have forgotten your loyalties are supposed to lie not with the forces of order and stability that want to maintain a corrupt system, but rather with the people struggling for dignity and democracy.
Please come and tell the eight-year-old boys chanting until their little voices are horse that they have to be sacrificed for the cause of security and order. Tell the mother of Khaled Said, the young man whose tortured death at the hands of police last year helped spark the revolt, and who pulled me close to kiss my head when I told her the American people, if not their government, stand with her son’s memory. I doubt they will understand and I doubt that you will be able to tell them.
Please come and explain to the thousands of people living in tents in the middle of Egypt's busiest intersection that their interests are served by a slow and orderly transition to something - what precisely you seem unwilling to say - that is not quite democracy but rather reforms that everyone here knows means a continuation of the status quo, albeit with a window dressing of free and fair elections. Would those be like the free and fair elections in the US, where corporations are equal to people and can openly buy Congressmen? Is that the best example we can offer Egyptians?
You have routinely lauded the bravery of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what of the soldiers of Tahrir, who just yesterday, as I watched in amazement, sent a brigade outside the relatively safe confines of Tahrir to conquer and garrison the Parliament building so that the country's falsely elected Assembly could not rubber stamp Mubarak's faux reforms. Don't they deserve praise and support? How are they any different than the average people who fought against British tyranny and oppression in the American Revolution? How can you betray them without betraying our own history?
Mr President, why is it you and your chief aides can't just look squarely into the camera and say that Egypt needs democracy now? Not tomorrow, not in 7 months. Now. Sir, you cannot toss the word around like a carrot to be dangled every so often in front of Egyptians only to be pulled away before they can grab it, replaced by the far less nutritious, and indeed toxic meal of reform. People aren't stupid, you know. They understand that reform means changing things just enough, giving just enough freedom here and there, so that the game can be called and business returned to normal, with the system that Mubarak, aided by tens of billions of American taxpayers's dollars, has spent 30 years erecting.
Let me ask you, Mr. Obama, if the President of the United States had used the same discourse towards black Americans fighting for their rights half a century ago, what would you have said to him?
Would you accept it if he had supported a dyed-in-the-wool Dixiecrat to take over the country after him?
What would Dr King have said? Would he, or you, sanction the President's refusal to annul racist laws that enabled the government to arrest, silence , and oppress the people, as Suleiman has so far done with the dreaded emergency decrees, because it might lead the wrong black people (those "radicals" or perhaps just "uppity" ones who don't know their place) to take power?
Mr President, do you understand what your waffling means on the ground here? Do you really care so little about freedom? Whatever respect you gained in cairo in 2009 is buried beneath a grave of stones here in Tahrir. The protesters by and large still are happy to see Americans, but with every day of your waffling, the mood grows more suspicious of foreigners inside the square.
You say that this revolution must be decided by Egyptians, but let's be honest, that's a meaningless statement. You know the US is knee - no, neck deep - in the muck of Egyptian authoritarianism and status quo.
Yes, this is an Egyptian revolution whose fate must and will ultimately be decided by Egyptians. But whether you want to admit it or not, your actions are helping to preserve this system regardless of what ideals or people have to be sacrificed.
Some will say that doing so is a sign of your maturity and acceptance of Kissingerian realpolitik. That's an insult, sir, not least of which because Kissinger was largely responsible for a war in which his government - the same one you now head - killed upwards of three million Southeast Asians just because some of them didn't want to live under the right political and economic system. Is that really the political legacy you want to inherit?
I don't know what anyone can say to get you to change your mind, to really stand with the people of Tahrir, Alexandria, Mansoura and all across Egypt who are risking so much for such quintessentially American ideals and dreams. If only you could come here for an hour, you might change your mind, but I guess the sounds and spirit of freedom have no hope of penetrating your Washington bubble. But i can promise you this: If the Egyptian government manages to win the day here and suppress this revolution, the ghosts of Tahrir will haunt you for the rest of your presidency.
Consider that before your next call to Pharaoh.