Barack Obama wasn't pleased with Hosni Mubarak's announcement today that he's not going to step down until next September. That sent POTUS to the airwaves to insist the Egyptian government, "put forward a credible, concrete and unequivocal path toward genuine democracy." Missing from Obama's rebuke was the "or else" part.
Or else what exactly? America doesn't seem to be holding a strong hand. It may be used to getting its way but this is the Middle East and Egypt borders Israel where the pols have been defying Washington at every turn for years. If the White House tries to punish Mubarak by suspending aid to Egypt the King of Saud has promised to cover whatever is withheld. Hosni already has two thugs in his pocket, King Abdullah and Benjamin Netanyahu, so he's pretty much away at the races.
The great mystery to these developments is why anyone in his right mind would expect Mubarak to go gently into the night. If you were Hosni Mubarak, would you?
You're 82 years old, not in the best of health, you're immensely wealthy, still very powerful, your friends are considerably outnumbered by your enemies, you have a lot of skeletons in your closet for which you would rather not be held to account and, within just a few weeks, you've been overtaken by events that could just have you on the run or behind bars for the rest of your life.
So, do you step down graciously and place your own head in a noose or do you play for time, rely on your unindicted co-conspirators and tough it out? I'm guessing most of us would play for time. Time to weigh how much of the mob can be neutralized, what groups can be divided from others. Time in which to see what deals are on the table, at home and abroad. Time in which to review your assets, figure out what's safe, what needs to be moved or converted in form. You'll need protection and immunities from people who can be relied upon to keep their promises.
While he clings to the presidency Mubarak continues to have time to work on his housekeeping. And with up to $70-billion in family assets at stake, that's a lot of housekeeping. Once he steps down it's time to run.
I'm not surprised that he's not leaving - yet. But I will be surprised if he's not gone, along with his NDP, within a month. In the meantime, unless Washington can figure out a way to get at Mubarak with surgical precision, some option that doesn't risk greater blowback later, America will remain the least of Hosni's problems.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Mubarak Digs In - Vows To Stay Til September
Despite all the rumours earlier today that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak would resign, he came out today to defiantly proclaim he's not going anywhere.
Mubarak repeated his claim that he must remain president in order to preserve the constitution and "ensure the stability" of Egyptian society. Not quite sure what Hosni's been smoking during his extended absence but it's hard to grasp how he can see himself as the key to Egyptian stability.
Following Mubarak, veep Omar Sulieman came on TV urging the demonstrators to go home and trying to assure them that, " a roadmap has been laid down to achieve the majority of demands."
There it is, at last, the dreaded "roadmap," a term that, in the context of the Middle East, has become synonymous with deadlock.
What remains to be seen is whether the army will uphold the promises made to the demonstrators earlier in the day. How far will this go on before the army either turns on the Egyptian people or topples the Mubarak regime? Were I Hosni, I think I'd be hiring a taster before I had too many more meals.
Mubarak repeated his claim that he must remain president in order to preserve the constitution and "ensure the stability" of Egyptian society. Not quite sure what Hosni's been smoking during his extended absence but it's hard to grasp how he can see himself as the key to Egyptian stability.
Following Mubarak, veep Omar Sulieman came on TV urging the demonstrators to go home and trying to assure them that, " a roadmap has been laid down to achieve the majority of demands."
There it is, at last, the dreaded "roadmap," a term that, in the context of the Middle East, has become synonymous with deadlock.
What remains to be seen is whether the army will uphold the promises made to the demonstrators earlier in the day. How far will this go on before the army either turns on the Egyptian people or topples the Mubarak regime? Were I Hosni, I think I'd be hiring a taster before I had too many more meals.
Because Ferrari Wants to Bask in Ford's Glory
Ford has a pickup truck it calls the F-150. Ferrari has a Formula 1 race car it has designated the F-150. This is the Ford:
Can you tell'em apart?
“Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the ‘F150’ in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark,” Ford said in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Oh, that's it. Ferrari wants Ford's goodwill! So everytime some yokel shows up with the $51,000 price tag of a Ford 150 super cab fully loaded, he'll wind up walking out with a $360,000 Ferrari f150 instead.
This is the Ferrari:
“Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the ‘F150’ in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark,” Ford said in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Oh, that's it. Ferrari wants Ford's goodwill! So everytime some yokel shows up with the $51,000 price tag of a Ford 150 super cab fully loaded, he'll wind up walking out with a $360,000 Ferrari f150 instead.
Suadi King Threatens to Prop Up Mubarak If Obama Won't
The House of Saud has a bad case of the jitters over what's happening in Egypt and Tunisia. Some claim Saudi Arabia is ripe for a democratic uprising of its own.
The King Abdullah is reported to have warned the White House that, if America withdraws its financial support for the Mubarak regime, Saudi Arabia will make good whatever Washington withholds.
The King Abdullah is reported to have warned the White House that, if America withdraws its financial support for the Mubarak regime, Saudi Arabia will make good whatever Washington withholds.
Mubarak's Down But Is He Truly Out?
It seems too good to hope for. An Egyptian army commander shows up in Liberation Square and tells demonstrators that, "everything you want will be realized." Word is getting around that Hosni Mubarak may actually resign the presidency today. The army proclaims, " Based on the responsibility of the armed forces and its commitment to protect the people and its keenness to protect the nation... and in support of the legitimate demands of the people [the army] will continue meeting on a continuous basis to examine measures to be taken to protect the nation and its gains and the ambitions of the great Egyptian people."
So far, so good - so far. But, so far, it's all talk and, for the demonstrators, it's still a long hike from pillar to post. There are endless challenges ahead including what to do with the ruling, National Democratic Party. In Tunisia it didn't take long to realize the way forward meant that the institutional ruling party had to be dissolved. That may be doubly true for Mubarak's NDP. That's where the generals in uniform hold court, where military leadership assumes civilian power. How can there be any way forward until the political franchise is pried from the fingers of retired generals?
The president, the vice-president, the defence minister, the security minister, other cabinet members - they're all generals with a well-honed appetite for power. Their history, their nature makes them incompatible to any possible transition to democracy.
So far it's all talk, talk and rumour. None of it has been confirmed by the government. In fact the information minister stating, " The president is still in power and he is not stepping down."
If Mubarak doesn't resign, tomorrow, the Muslim holy day, could be extremely interesting. The demonstrators have called for 10-million Egyptians to take to the streets and join them.
So far, so good - so far. But, so far, it's all talk and, for the demonstrators, it's still a long hike from pillar to post. There are endless challenges ahead including what to do with the ruling, National Democratic Party. In Tunisia it didn't take long to realize the way forward meant that the institutional ruling party had to be dissolved. That may be doubly true for Mubarak's NDP. That's where the generals in uniform hold court, where military leadership assumes civilian power. How can there be any way forward until the political franchise is pried from the fingers of retired generals?
The president, the vice-president, the defence minister, the security minister, other cabinet members - they're all generals with a well-honed appetite for power. Their history, their nature makes them incompatible to any possible transition to democracy.
So far it's all talk, talk and rumour. None of it has been confirmed by the government. In fact the information minister stating, " The president is still in power and he is not stepping down."
If Mubarak doesn't resign, tomorrow, the Muslim holy day, could be extremely interesting. The demonstrators have called for 10-million Egyptians to take to the streets and join them.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Gabrielle Giffords - Asks for Toast
US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords remarkable, some say miraculous, recovery continues. Barely a month has passed since Giffords was shot in the head by Jared Loughner.
Giffords husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, says his wife's appetite has returned to the point where she's eating three squares a day even if it is hospital food. She's also begun speaking again even if only to ask for toast for breakfast.
Giffords husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, says his wife's appetite has returned to the point where she's eating three squares a day even if it is hospital food. She's also begun speaking again even if only to ask for toast for breakfast.
MSNBC Picks Up Cenk Uygur After Dumping Olbermann
Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films said this of Uygur, "Cenk is the real deal. He's smart, thoughtful, aggressive, with a large and loyal following. He is perfect person to have the regular slot on MSNBC, and when they make it permanent, MSNBC will be letting the world know that it is doing the right thing, in the face of great concern over the Olbermann departure."
Word of the move has already got rightwingers foaming, as you can see below:
Forget About Reforming the Tar Sands
Documents released by WikiLeaks reveal that the US suspects Saudi Arabia may have overstated its oil reserves by 40%. The cables from the American embassy in Riyadh conclude the Saudis might not be able to pump enough oil to keep world prices from surging.
The price of oil has soared in recent weeks to more than $US100 a barrel due to global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect the Saudis and others in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand.
However, Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, told the US consul-general in Riyadh in November 2007 that Aramco's 12.5 million barrel-a-day capacity, needed to keep a lid on prices, could not be reached.
According to the cables, which date between 2007 and 2009, Mr Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12 million barrels a day in 10 years but before then, possibly as early as 2012, global oil production would have hit its highest point. This crunch point is known as ''peak oil''.
Others contend that Peak Oil won't arrive until 2020 and will then be followed by a production plateau that could last another 15-years. Either way it looks like we're in for permanent oil price increases which, in turn, will fuel increased demand for Athabasca bitumen. Oh well, we've always got the government's fairy tales about ethical oil to put our minds to rest.
The price of oil has soared in recent weeks to more than $US100 a barrel due to global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect the Saudis and others in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand.
According to the cables, which date between 2007 and 2009, Mr Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12 million barrels a day in 10 years but before then, possibly as early as 2012, global oil production would have hit its highest point. This crunch point is known as ''peak oil''.
Others contend that Peak Oil won't arrive until 2020 and will then be followed by a production plateau that could last another 15-years. Either way it looks like we're in for permanent oil price increases which, in turn, will fuel increased demand for Athabasca bitumen. Oh well, we've always got the government's fairy tales about ethical oil to put our minds to rest.
Now That We Have Your Attention, Can We Talk?
Who would have thought it would be Tunisia and Egypt that made the sleepy western world sit up and take notice of the impacts of the food crisis setting in around the world? If nothing else, we now seem to have mastered the equation: climate change = food shortage = political + economic + social upheaval.
But that's just a problem for backward Arab countries, isn't it? Well, no. The Argentine-based NGO, Universal Ecological Fund, has just released a report that predicts, among other things, that the crop yield in India, the world's second largest producer of wheat and rice, will fall by 30% by 2020.
The report, "The Impact of Climate Change on Food Production, a 2020 Perspective," adds that,in China, agricultural production could increase by 20% during the same period. Overall, however, the picture isn't good. Among the nations forecast to be hardest hit by climate change are the top 20-producers of wheat, rice, corn and soya beans. This translates into a deficit between demand and production of 14% for wheat and 11% for rice.
2020. Not that far off. Remember "Y2K"? That was eleven years ago. 2020 is less than nine years off and the crop deficits are already starting. So, what's the plan? The reality is, there isn't a plan. Just as climate change is a global challenge that has been a remarkable success at eluding meaningful global action, the food deficit is also a global problem only not in those parts of the globe where we are. We're just going to hunker down and watch this happen and hope we can keep our distance when it hits the fan.
World grain reserves were at 72-days' supply last August and they're heading toward 64. The US Department of Agriculture has just trimmed its forecast of American corn production by 70-million bushels to 675-million bushels for the 2010-2011 crop year which has sent corn prices to a 2-year high of $7 per bushel. The main culprit in the price rise is said to be the demand for ethanol. Corn is also under pressure from increasing demand for livestock feed and for corn syrup which poorer countries are increasingly having to turn to because of high sugar prices. The USDA announcement is said to have triggered hikes in wheat prices across Europe.
Chinese officials say their country is bracing for a severe and extended drought that will cut the nation's wheat production. Concern now is that China may actually have to import wheat at today's peak prices which could trigger domestic inflation the government fears may trigger social unrest. Even China's winter wheat crop is endangered. There hasn't been enough snow to protect it and a severe frost this month could cause shortages in the June harvest.
It's remarkable how we Norte Americanos take food for granted while, in much of the rest of the world, it's a serious threat of hunger, famine and unrest. The good news from the UEF report is that Canada is expected to enjoy increased grain production in the coming decades. Prices will go up at the grocery store but meeting domestic demand shouldn't be a problem.
But that's just a problem for backward Arab countries, isn't it? Well, no. The Argentine-based NGO, Universal Ecological Fund, has just released a report that predicts, among other things, that the crop yield in India, the world's second largest producer of wheat and rice, will fall by 30% by 2020.
The report, "The Impact of Climate Change on Food Production, a 2020 Perspective," adds that,in China, agricultural production could increase by 20% during the same period. Overall, however, the picture isn't good. Among the nations forecast to be hardest hit by climate change are the top 20-producers of wheat, rice, corn and soya beans. This translates into a deficit between demand and production of 14% for wheat and 11% for rice.
2020. Not that far off. Remember "Y2K"? That was eleven years ago. 2020 is less than nine years off and the crop deficits are already starting. So, what's the plan? The reality is, there isn't a plan. Just as climate change is a global challenge that has been a remarkable success at eluding meaningful global action, the food deficit is also a global problem only not in those parts of the globe where we are. We're just going to hunker down and watch this happen and hope we can keep our distance when it hits the fan.
World grain reserves were at 72-days' supply last August and they're heading toward 64. The US Department of Agriculture has just trimmed its forecast of American corn production by 70-million bushels to 675-million bushels for the 2010-2011 crop year which has sent corn prices to a 2-year high of $7 per bushel. The main culprit in the price rise is said to be the demand for ethanol. Corn is also under pressure from increasing demand for livestock feed and for corn syrup which poorer countries are increasingly having to turn to because of high sugar prices. The USDA announcement is said to have triggered hikes in wheat prices across Europe.
Chinese officials say their country is bracing for a severe and extended drought that will cut the nation's wheat production. Concern now is that China may actually have to import wheat at today's peak prices which could trigger domestic inflation the government fears may trigger social unrest. Even China's winter wheat crop is endangered. There hasn't been enough snow to protect it and a severe frost this month could cause shortages in the June harvest.
It's remarkable how we Norte Americanos take food for granted while, in much of the rest of the world, it's a serious threat of hunger, famine and unrest. The good news from the UEF report is that Canada is expected to enjoy increased grain production in the coming decades. Prices will go up at the grocery store but meeting domestic demand shouldn't be a problem.
Could Egypt Be Heading for a General Strike?
The uprising to topple Mubarak and his regime is still going strong, putting to rest concerns that it might fizzle after the weekend. Al Jazeera and other news services reported yesterday that the crowds were being swelled by a lot of new faces as more Egyptians decide to take a stand against the government.
A big development today is that thousands of unionized factory workers are walking out.
Egyptian labour unions have gone on a nationwide strike, adding momentum to pro-democracy demonstrations in Cairo and other cities.
Al Jazeera correspondents, reporting from Egypt, said around 20,000 factory workers stayed away from work on Wednesday.
" It is a significant gain for the pro-democracy supporters" if the unions get involved in demonstrations, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reported from Cairo.
Secret police chief, torture meister and vice president, Omar Suleiman, has made grumblings or veiled threats, warning that the government "cannot put up with continued protests" for a long time. Isn't that what the protesters are also thinking?
A big development today is that thousands of unionized factory workers are walking out.
Egyptian labour unions have gone on a nationwide strike, adding momentum to pro-democracy demonstrations in Cairo and other cities.
Al Jazeera correspondents, reporting from Egypt, said around 20,000 factory workers stayed away from work on Wednesday.
" It is a significant gain for the pro-democracy supporters" if the unions get involved in demonstrations, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reported from Cairo.
Secret police chief, torture meister and vice president, Omar Suleiman, has made grumblings or veiled threats, warning that the government "cannot put up with continued protests" for a long time. Isn't that what the protesters are also thinking?
He Should Have Gone for Altar Boys
A 77-year old retired German priest is in big trouble with his Church and with the law. No, silly, he wasn't diddling kids. This guy did something serious - he stole from the collection plate. Actually it was a good hunk of money, about $1.4-million worth.
According to Reuters: "Most of the money, including a large number of coins, was found in his apartment and bank accounts."
According to Reuters: "Most of the money, including a large number of coins, was found in his apartment and bank accounts."
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Olbermann Returns - Sort Of
If you've been missing Keith Olbermann there's good news - he's coming back. The bad news is that he's going to Current TV which means Canadian fans will have to access his shows on the internet. Current TV is available on the listings of Comcast, Direct TV, Time Warner and Dish Network. I haven't found anything suggesting it is or will be anytime soon available in Canada.
Elliott Faces Withdrawal Under Fire
It would be an understatement to say that the past three plus years have not gone well for Bill Elliott, the veteran bureaucrat and Tory functionaire appointed by Steve Harper to preside as the first civilian commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
It was never going to be an easy fit. Elliott was a square peg trying to fit a round hole but his solution was to keep trying to smash his way in and it didn't work. By all accounts, Elliott went in, not as a leader, but as some sort of prefect. Elliott's failure, compounded by an abusive temperment, was that he felt himself entitled to lead without first earning his commanders' respect. He failed to grasp the distinction between a national police service and a civilian government department. He was it seems, in almost every respect, the wrong man for the job, a terrible choice by a man awash in the very same character flaws. Elliott's dismal failure is Steve Harper's as much as it is the would-be commissioner's.
It will be interesting to see in the next few months before he steps down whether Elliott can make good in his departure the character deficiencies that sabotaged his tenure. That's going to be tough. He's made an awful lot of enemies within the senior ranks of the RCMP.
It was never going to be an easy fit. Elliott was a square peg trying to fit a round hole but his solution was to keep trying to smash his way in and it didn't work. By all accounts, Elliott went in, not as a leader, but as some sort of prefect. Elliott's failure, compounded by an abusive temperment, was that he felt himself entitled to lead without first earning his commanders' respect. He failed to grasp the distinction between a national police service and a civilian government department. He was it seems, in almost every respect, the wrong man for the job, a terrible choice by a man awash in the very same character flaws. Elliott's dismal failure is Steve Harper's as much as it is the would-be commissioner's.
It will be interesting to see in the next few months before he steps down whether Elliott can make good in his departure the character deficiencies that sabotaged his tenure. That's going to be tough. He's made an awful lot of enemies within the senior ranks of the RCMP.
Tough Love, Pharoah Style
Possibly the most positive thing Washington has done so far for the Egyptian protesters is not to declare a "roadmap" for democratic transition. You'll remember how well the Middle East roadmap heralded by Bush, Powell and Rice worked out.
Yet the Egyptians who may eventually lead a democratic Egypt are looking for American help, now. To date the White House has appeared stymied. It's made phone calls but that seems to be about it.
Mubarak and Suleiman say they're going to effect a transition but why would anyone believe either of them or their senior henchmen? But what if they had a reason to live up to their promises or plenty of reasons? What if Washington and London and the Europeans put the personal assets of Mubarak & Co. in "safekeeping" until Egypt had held fair and open elections while honouring its promises not to take reprisals on the protesters in the meantime? It should only be a matter of a few months' inconvenience if the Mubarak regime is being honest and sincere.
Maybe that would give the pro-democracy leadership the breathing room they need to organize parties and platforms in time to campaign in an election. Let the winners on behalf of the voting public write the new constitution. Maybe they would even ask the Americans for some ideas.
Yet the Egyptians who may eventually lead a democratic Egypt are looking for American help, now. To date the White House has appeared stymied. It's made phone calls but that seems to be about it.
Mubarak and Suleiman say they're going to effect a transition but why would anyone believe either of them or their senior henchmen? But what if they had a reason to live up to their promises or plenty of reasons? What if Washington and London and the Europeans put the personal assets of Mubarak & Co. in "safekeeping" until Egypt had held fair and open elections while honouring its promises not to take reprisals on the protesters in the meantime? It should only be a matter of a few months' inconvenience if the Mubarak regime is being honest and sincere.
Maybe that would give the pro-democracy leadership the breathing room they need to organize parties and platforms in time to campaign in an election. Let the winners on behalf of the voting public write the new constitution. Maybe they would even ask the Americans for some ideas.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Sign of the Times? Bill Kristol Takes Glenn Beck to the Woodshed
On last Friday's RealTime, host Bill Maher referred to Glenn Beck's plummeting ratings and asked if America's fever had finally broken. It's a wonderful thought, a mass repudiation of the radical rightwing excess (also known as Fox News), but I wasn't convinced.
But I came to think that maybe, just maybe, Maher is on to something. Maybe the American people are coming to their senses. That came through in reading Bill Kristol's column in The Weekly Standard in which he took rightwing nutjob Glenn Beck to the woodshed:
...hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.
Nor is it a sign of health when other American conservatives are so fearful of a popular awakening that they side with the dictator against the democrats. Rather, it’s a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of short-sightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.
It was not so long ago, after all, when conservatives understood that Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Mubarak’s help spawn global terrorism. We needn’t remind our readers that the most famous of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, was an Egyptian, as is al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. The idea that democracy produces radical Islam is false: Whether in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, or Egypt, it is the dictatorships that have promoted and abetted Islamic radicalism. (Hamas, lest we forget, established its tyranny in Gaza through nondemocratic means.) Nor is it in any way “realist” to suggest that backing Mubarak during this crisis would promote “stability.” To the contrary: The situation is growing more unstable because of Mubarak’s unwillingness to abdicate. Helping him cling to power now would only pour fuel on the revolutionary fire, and push the Egyptian people in a more anti-American direction.
Wow, can it be? Have we finally found something that the rational right and the progressive left can agree on? Is the rational right ready to wash its hands of the stench of radicalism it has embraced so warmly in recent years? We must live in hope.
But I came to think that maybe, just maybe, Maher is on to something. Maybe the American people are coming to their senses. That came through in reading Bill Kristol's column in The Weekly Standard in which he took rightwing nutjob Glenn Beck to the woodshed:
...hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.
Nor is it a sign of health when other American conservatives are so fearful of a popular awakening that they side with the dictator against the democrats. Rather, it’s a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of short-sightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.
It was not so long ago, after all, when conservatives understood that Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Mubarak’s help spawn global terrorism. We needn’t remind our readers that the most famous of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, was an Egyptian, as is al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. The idea that democracy produces radical Islam is false: Whether in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, or Egypt, it is the dictatorships that have promoted and abetted Islamic radicalism. (Hamas, lest we forget, established its tyranny in Gaza through nondemocratic means.) Nor is it in any way “realist” to suggest that backing Mubarak during this crisis would promote “stability.” To the contrary: The situation is growing more unstable because of Mubarak’s unwillingness to abdicate. Helping him cling to power now would only pour fuel on the revolutionary fire, and push the Egyptian people in a more anti-American direction.
Wow, can it be? Have we finally found something that the rational right and the progressive left can agree on? Is the rational right ready to wash its hands of the stench of radicalism it has embraced so warmly in recent years? We must live in hope.
Now Begins Egypt's Moment of Truth
This week, not last week, will probably determine whether Egyptian dissidents have any chance of getting the government they took to the streets last week to demand.
This is the week of the Mubarak government's counter-revolution and, unlike the protesters, Mubarak's team have a well worn playbook for this sort of thing. The key to defeating the upheaval is to break it down into its constituent elements - political, economic, social - and focus on those that can be most easily and most effectively cut from the herd.
The government, headed by stand-in vice president Omar Suleiman, has promised to launch investigations into election fraud and corruption. In other words, his government is going to look into crimes by his government. He's also released a couple of prominent opposition leaders. Now he's targeting the country's 6-million people on the state payroll. State employees and its pensioners are getting an extra 15% in their pay packets. It's a tried and true tactic. During the 2008 food riots, Mubarak gave the same bunch a 30% hike to quell protest, and it worked.
Will the Egyptian protest movement, the force for change, be picked apart and neutralized? We'll know by how it comes through this week. One observer, David Africa, who worked for the African National Congress while it was still an underground movement, warns the fix is in:
The regime cannot be both the cause of the current conflict and the facilitator of negotiations to ensure its resolution. At this point it would be prudent for those who have been captured by a sudden optimism around the negotiations to consider the nature of the Egyptian regime that protesters have been fighting to remove over the past two weeks. The political strategy to reduce the regime to the persona of Hosni Mubarak flies in the face of all the evidence of a regime (understood as a system of government, authorities, rule, authority, control, command, administration, leadership) that has ruled the country with the brutality for the last thirty years, banning opposition, arresting and torturing political dissidents and all but destroying critical media.
The regime is not simply Mubarak, but a vast security network of a ruling party that has appropriated much of the Egyptian economy and foreign aid, and a number of prominent political families.
...Fundamental political change, in Africa and elsewhere, is always brought about by the forced removal or collapse of a regime or a negotiations process facilitated by a credible entity. It is never facilitated by an oppressive regime itself, and the Mubarak regime is certainly not set to create historical precedent in this instance. History is replete with examples of ostensibly sincere negotiations that were actually aimed at sustaining and sometimes rescuing an oppressive regime.
...While Suleiman and Mubarak - and some of their Western backers - continue to refer to their commitment to dealing with the " concerns of the protesters" as if these are minor issues, any negotiations must have the explicit objective of establishing a functioning democratic order, free expression of ideas and the disbanding of the oppressive state agencies that have brutalised the Egyptian people, not just in the past two weeks but for the last thirty years.
Negotiation is a tactic of political warfare and the Egyptian resistance movement must realise that the Mubarak regime is using it as such. The regime seeks to use its Suleiman-led negotiations as a back door to retaining power. In doing so, to use a metaphor by South African anti-apartheid leader Joe Slovo, it is trying to prevent the resistance snowball from becoming an avalanche and sweeping it away.
It's obvious from what they've said and everything they've done that the Suleiman led NDP is focused on one thing only, retaining power, and finding ways to neutralize the uprising. That the West approves of Suleiman's role suggests they share his objectives. And suppose Suleiman's gambit works, suppose he succeeds, what will the aftermath look like?
This is the week of the Mubarak government's counter-revolution and, unlike the protesters, Mubarak's team have a well worn playbook for this sort of thing. The key to defeating the upheaval is to break it down into its constituent elements - political, economic, social - and focus on those that can be most easily and most effectively cut from the herd.
The government, headed by stand-in vice president Omar Suleiman, has promised to launch investigations into election fraud and corruption. In other words, his government is going to look into crimes by his government. He's also released a couple of prominent opposition leaders. Now he's targeting the country's 6-million people on the state payroll. State employees and its pensioners are getting an extra 15% in their pay packets. It's a tried and true tactic. During the 2008 food riots, Mubarak gave the same bunch a 30% hike to quell protest, and it worked.
Will the Egyptian protest movement, the force for change, be picked apart and neutralized? We'll know by how it comes through this week. One observer, David Africa, who worked for the African National Congress while it was still an underground movement, warns the fix is in:
The regime cannot be both the cause of the current conflict and the facilitator of negotiations to ensure its resolution. At this point it would be prudent for those who have been captured by a sudden optimism around the negotiations to consider the nature of the Egyptian regime that protesters have been fighting to remove over the past two weeks. The political strategy to reduce the regime to the persona of Hosni Mubarak flies in the face of all the evidence of a regime (understood as a system of government, authorities, rule, authority, control, command, administration, leadership) that has ruled the country with the brutality for the last thirty years, banning opposition, arresting and torturing political dissidents and all but destroying critical media.
The regime is not simply Mubarak, but a vast security network of a ruling party that has appropriated much of the Egyptian economy and foreign aid, and a number of prominent political families.
...Fundamental political change, in Africa and elsewhere, is always brought about by the forced removal or collapse of a regime or a negotiations process facilitated by a credible entity. It is never facilitated by an oppressive regime itself, and the Mubarak regime is certainly not set to create historical precedent in this instance. History is replete with examples of ostensibly sincere negotiations that were actually aimed at sustaining and sometimes rescuing an oppressive regime.
...While Suleiman and Mubarak - and some of their Western backers - continue to refer to their commitment to dealing with the " concerns of the protesters" as if these are minor issues, any negotiations must have the explicit objective of establishing a functioning democratic order, free expression of ideas and the disbanding of the oppressive state agencies that have brutalised the Egyptian people, not just in the past two weeks but for the last thirty years.
Negotiation is a tactic of political warfare and the Egyptian resistance movement must realise that the Mubarak regime is using it as such. The regime seeks to use its Suleiman-led negotiations as a back door to retaining power. In doing so, to use a metaphor by South African anti-apartheid leader Joe Slovo, it is trying to prevent the resistance snowball from becoming an avalanche and sweeping it away.
It's obvious from what they've said and everything they've done that the Suleiman led NDP is focused on one thing only, retaining power, and finding ways to neutralize the uprising. That the West approves of Suleiman's role suggests they share his objectives. And suppose Suleiman's gambit works, suppose he succeeds, what will the aftermath look like?
Israel and the Arab World, Can Both Have Democracy?
Even as Arab dissidents in North Africa and the Middle East take to the streets in quest for democratic freedoms and liberation from autocratic tyranny, democracy is taking a pummeling in Israel.
It's not just Palestinians who are under the boot of the far right Israeli regime. It's Israeli Arabs and the Israeli left. Israeli newspapers like Haaretz have been chronicling this erosion of democratic freedoms for some time. Israeli human rights groups have been speaking out against what's happening although few seem to be listening.
Now the question is being asked whether Israeli democracy can survive Arab democracy. A voice of the Israeli left, Tel Aviv based journalist Mya Guarniari, asks whether Israel is descending into outright fascism. Perhaps it boils down to the inherent incompatibility of theocracy with democracy.
It's not just Palestinians who are under the boot of the far right Israeli regime. It's Israeli Arabs and the Israeli left. Israeli newspapers like Haaretz have been chronicling this erosion of democratic freedoms for some time. Israeli human rights groups have been speaking out against what's happening although few seem to be listening.
Now the question is being asked whether Israeli democracy can survive Arab democracy. A voice of the Israeli left, Tel Aviv based journalist Mya Guarniari, asks whether Israel is descending into outright fascism. Perhaps it boils down to the inherent incompatibility of theocracy with democracy.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
The Way Forward? Tunisia Suspends Ruling Party
Egypt's path to democracy seems to be blocked by the country's ruling party, the National Democratic Party of Mubarak & Co. Mubarak's freshly minted veep, Omar Sulieman, is running the place and that includes managing the negotiations with opposition groups supposed to lead to fair and open elections in September. The problem is that the one party that absolutely needs to ensure there will be no fair and open elections is Sulieman's. A democratic government would demand accountability and neither Sulieman nor many of his colleagues would want to face that.
Tunisians have been hung up on the same peg until today. There the interior ministry has intervened to suspend the ruling, Democratic Constitutional Rally party, in preparation for its dissolution. Effective immediately, DCR meetings are suspended, its offices shut down.
It appears Tunisia will approach democracy with a clean slate which would probably be a lesson Egypt should learn. The National Democratic Party that was anything but democratic has far too much baggage to continue. It has to go. Egypt, like Tunisia, needs a fresh start, a clean slate.
Tunisians have been hung up on the same peg until today. There the interior ministry has intervened to suspend the ruling, Democratic Constitutional Rally party, in preparation for its dissolution. Effective immediately, DCR meetings are suspended, its offices shut down.
It appears Tunisia will approach democracy with a clean slate which would probably be a lesson Egypt should learn. The National Democratic Party that was anything but democratic has far too much baggage to continue. It has to go. Egypt, like Tunisia, needs a fresh start, a clean slate.
It's Not Justs the Arab World - India's Gathering "Employment Bomb"
The Arab world and much of South Asia has been trying to play catch up ball, to build societies capable of moving into the top ranks of world economies. The easy answer seemed to lie in education. Build schools, colleges and universities. Start churning out the graduates needed to modernize their economies. Few, it seems, recognized the risks entailed in producing too many graduates than their emerging economies could absorb. It's not limited to university grads either. It extends into the burgeoning populations who have received elementary and secondary education that was never available to their parents. They all have expectations of better lives and they expect their governments to deliver.
India and China are in this boat too. In recent years India went on a higher-education stampede, opening 29 new technical universities a year. Now they're faced with a swollen number of unemployed or underemployed, deeply frustrated graduates.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that India is facing a very real "employment bomb."
Last week 100,000 jobseekers travelled to a small northern Indian town for a recruitment fair that ended in tragedy, revealing much about the limitations of the country's economic boom.
On offer was the chance of joining the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). A paltry 416 jobs were available as washermen, barbers, water carriers and other lowly positions with a starting salary of 5,200 rupees ($115) a month.
This remarkable turnout for so few vacancies might have gone unreported except for violence when applicants grew frustrated with the registration process and a gruesome accident as the disappointed hordes headed home.
...But the events in Bareilly send deeper signals about the Indian economy, social change and poverty and tell a different story from the 9.0 percent growth figures and hype about the country as a world economic power.
" Right now, the problem of unemployment has not fully appeared, but it's a bomb in a dormant state," said J. Manohar Rao, an author on development and professor of economics at the University of Hyderabad.
He describes a cocktail of steep food inflation of nearly 20 percent that is causing severe hardship in rural areas, a fast-growing young workforce and slow development of the industries that could generate mass employment.
" These people at the jobs fair, they are not completely uneducated farm workers like before," he told AFP.
" They are half-educated and they have a feeling of being educated. They have feelings of pride and they don't feel like working in the fields.
" Their expectations are rising, their aspirations are increasing, but the jobs market is not providing."
The reality is that there aren't nearly enough resources on earth to lift these people out of their poverty and give them anything approaching our standard of living. Yet they see that on their televisions and through the internet and they aspire to it. A small number of their ranks become enormously wealthy which only fuels the frustrations of those who can't break in to their world.
As we've seen in the Arab world it takes high levels of broad-based discontent to lead to revolutionary change. Underemployed, educated youth don't have the explosive power to do it themselves but as detonators for more widespread dissatisfaction, over food prices for example, they can set irreversible change in motion.
There's a reason China is censoring news of the Arab upheaval from its internet servers. This is it.
India and China are in this boat too. In recent years India went on a higher-education stampede, opening 29 new technical universities a year. Now they're faced with a swollen number of unemployed or underemployed, deeply frustrated graduates.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that India is facing a very real "employment bomb."
Last week 100,000 jobseekers travelled to a small northern Indian town for a recruitment fair that ended in tragedy, revealing much about the limitations of the country's economic boom.
On offer was the chance of joining the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). A paltry 416 jobs were available as washermen, barbers, water carriers and other lowly positions with a starting salary of 5,200 rupees ($115) a month.
This remarkable turnout for so few vacancies might have gone unreported except for violence when applicants grew frustrated with the registration process and a gruesome accident as the disappointed hordes headed home.
...But the events in Bareilly send deeper signals about the Indian economy, social change and poverty and tell a different story from the 9.0 percent growth figures and hype about the country as a world economic power.
" Right now, the problem of unemployment has not fully appeared, but it's a bomb in a dormant state," said J. Manohar Rao, an author on development and professor of economics at the University of Hyderabad.
He describes a cocktail of steep food inflation of nearly 20 percent that is causing severe hardship in rural areas, a fast-growing young workforce and slow development of the industries that could generate mass employment.
" These people at the jobs fair, they are not completely uneducated farm workers like before," he told AFP.
" They are half-educated and they have a feeling of being educated. They have feelings of pride and they don't feel like working in the fields.
" Their expectations are rising, their aspirations are increasing, but the jobs market is not providing."
The reality is that there aren't nearly enough resources on earth to lift these people out of their poverty and give them anything approaching our standard of living. Yet they see that on their televisions and through the internet and they aspire to it. A small number of their ranks become enormously wealthy which only fuels the frustrations of those who can't break in to their world.
As we've seen in the Arab world it takes high levels of broad-based discontent to lead to revolutionary change. Underemployed, educated youth don't have the explosive power to do it themselves but as detonators for more widespread dissatisfaction, over food prices for example, they can set irreversible change in motion.
There's a reason China is censoring news of the Arab upheaval from its internet servers. This is it.
Egyptian Revolution or a Potemkin Village on the Nile?
"Oh look! No Hosni here, no Hosni there, no Hosni there or there or there. Everything's fine. Like a nice cup of tea?"
That seems to be the subplot of talks now underway by Hosni Mubarak's successor, Omar Sulieman, and the loosely defined "opposition groups" demanding democracy for Egypt. It's hard to imagine what sort of talks Mubarak's outfit, the National Democratic Party, really has in mind.
What would democracy mean to the NDP and Egypt's military? Democracy comes in so many shapes, sizes and flavours that it can mean a great many, genuinely different things to a great many people or interests. The protesters are probably thinking along the lines of universal suffrage - one citizen/one vote. To the NDP and the military that must seem like the end of the earth, mob rule.
If there's going to be any legitimate democracy for Egyptians it's going to mean genuine, effective separation of powers. When you have a state in which civilian and military power have been so enmeshed for so many decades that's obviously where you have to begin. It's the sine qua non. You have to separate the two. And so, the price of democracy is going to mean reforming both the political and the military hierarchies.
How do you go about reforming a military like Egypt's? Real democracies, at least the healthy ones, are pretty good at keeping the military out of the political realm. It's a master-servant relationship and it has to be. The civilians rule, the military obeys. The status quo for Egypt's generals, however, has been a militarized political class. Ever since Farouk was sent packing, the top political spots have been held by former top generals. It was the support of the military, not the support of the public, that was instrumental in keeping a succession of presidents in power.
Egypt's military is unlike any Western military. It is not only a martial force that is enmeshed in its national political sphere, it is also a commercial institution. Like Pakistan, the Egyptian military hierarchy, the top brass, are also industrialists. The Egyptian military even makes televisions. It's pretty hard to get a two-headed genie back in that tiny bottle.
How do you get generals in uniform to break from generals in suits in the political and commercial arenas? Is that even possible? If that's not possible, on what terms can Egyptians find democratic freedom?
Most people understand that the Egyptian uprising was the culmination of a variety of discontents - political, social and economic. Those unemployed, educated college kids waving those placards wanted economic reform along with political reform. They know that the two are interwoven. They know they don't have much of a future unless the Mubarak model political-class along with its economic cronyism are uprooted.
You know how, sometimes, you can bend something and get a good idea of the point at which it will finally break? Maybe that's what Egypt needs, not bending but breaking. Where would that break point be? My guess is that Egypt needs to break between the majors and below and the colonels and above. You have to rid the military and the state of those senior officers who simply have too great a vested interest, military, political and economic, in the National Democratic Party. The military has to be an instrument of the democratic government, the public interest, if it is not be be an instrument of suppression of democracy and the public interest.
Yet it is precisely at this break point that the West will probably betray the Egyptian people. We don't want a reformed military. That would be far too risky. That could threaten the stability of our regional interests. I think Sulieman reads that unspoken message, that we'll always want Egyptian generals holding the balance of power, poised as a Sword of Damocles over the heads of whoever forms the political leadership of the country. We want something that looks like democracy but really isn't.
That seems to be the subplot of talks now underway by Hosni Mubarak's successor, Omar Sulieman, and the loosely defined "opposition groups" demanding democracy for Egypt. It's hard to imagine what sort of talks Mubarak's outfit, the National Democratic Party, really has in mind.
What would democracy mean to the NDP and Egypt's military? Democracy comes in so many shapes, sizes and flavours that it can mean a great many, genuinely different things to a great many people or interests. The protesters are probably thinking along the lines of universal suffrage - one citizen/one vote. To the NDP and the military that must seem like the end of the earth, mob rule.
If there's going to be any legitimate democracy for Egyptians it's going to mean genuine, effective separation of powers. When you have a state in which civilian and military power have been so enmeshed for so many decades that's obviously where you have to begin. It's the sine qua non. You have to separate the two. And so, the price of democracy is going to mean reforming both the political and the military hierarchies.
How do you go about reforming a military like Egypt's? Real democracies, at least the healthy ones, are pretty good at keeping the military out of the political realm. It's a master-servant relationship and it has to be. The civilians rule, the military obeys. The status quo for Egypt's generals, however, has been a militarized political class. Ever since Farouk was sent packing, the top political spots have been held by former top generals. It was the support of the military, not the support of the public, that was instrumental in keeping a succession of presidents in power.
Egypt's military is unlike any Western military. It is not only a martial force that is enmeshed in its national political sphere, it is also a commercial institution. Like Pakistan, the Egyptian military hierarchy, the top brass, are also industrialists. The Egyptian military even makes televisions. It's pretty hard to get a two-headed genie back in that tiny bottle.
How do you get generals in uniform to break from generals in suits in the political and commercial arenas? Is that even possible? If that's not possible, on what terms can Egyptians find democratic freedom?
Most people understand that the Egyptian uprising was the culmination of a variety of discontents - political, social and economic. Those unemployed, educated college kids waving those placards wanted economic reform along with political reform. They know that the two are interwoven. They know they don't have much of a future unless the Mubarak model political-class along with its economic cronyism are uprooted.
You know how, sometimes, you can bend something and get a good idea of the point at which it will finally break? Maybe that's what Egypt needs, not bending but breaking. Where would that break point be? My guess is that Egypt needs to break between the majors and below and the colonels and above. You have to rid the military and the state of those senior officers who simply have too great a vested interest, military, political and economic, in the National Democratic Party. The military has to be an instrument of the democratic government, the public interest, if it is not be be an instrument of suppression of democracy and the public interest.
Yet it is precisely at this break point that the West will probably betray the Egyptian people. We don't want a reformed military. That would be far too risky. That could threaten the stability of our regional interests. I think Sulieman reads that unspoken message, that we'll always want Egyptian generals holding the balance of power, poised as a Sword of Damocles over the heads of whoever forms the political leadership of the country. We want something that looks like democracy but really isn't.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)