Thuggery - From Tahrir Square to Dalston Junction

It's a long way from Tahrir Square (about ten minutes from where I live in Cairo) to Dalston Junction (about ten minutes from where I live in London), and I never imagined that my summer sojourn in Islington would be punctuated by another outbreak of street unrest, only six months later. Egyptian bloggers have commented rather naively on the violent nature of the English 'protests' (and they are protests of a kind, even if misdirected and very poorly articulated). But it's striking how much of the public discourse in England has been equally naive, dominated by the 'law and order' lobby, the instant resort to security solutions on the part of many commentators and the emphasis on culturally determined explanations for what is largely a political problem with economic roots. Most of the people on British television are talking about discipline, immorality, parental responsibility, entitlement, consumerism, dysfunctional families, disrespect for authority and, here and there, 'black culture' (since they clearly can't pin the looting and vandalism solely on people of African origin, some of them are saying that 'black culture' has penetrated other demographic groups, with the subtext that this has undermined some theoretical upright white culture). The few who emphasize the economic roots of anarchic behaviour by the new underclass are often booed off stage. Politicians who dare to make hints in that direction have to tread carefully, for fear that they will be branded as condoning theft and thuggery.
    Prime Minister David Cameron took the 'law and order' line again today. "For me, the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing that I have spoken about for years. It is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society, people allowed to feel that the world owes something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities, and that their actions do not have consequences.. We need to have a clearer code of values and standards that we expect people to live by, and stronger penalties if they cross the line," he said.
    No doubt that will play well to the new gentry of Chipping Norton or the suits in the City, but as a serious analysis, or even as a means to dissuade potential looters from taking advantage of the next opportunity that arises, it is worthless.
    In a sophisticated industrial democracy of the kind Britain claims to be, politicians have a responsibility to set the social and economic parameters that enable parents, schools and employers to bring up, educate and train well-informed and law-abiding citizens who feel they have a stake in their communities and wider society (and ideally the whole world), who are able to contribute and are rewarded fairly for their contributions. If there are thousands of young men roaming the streets without work, without regular incomes, and with no inclination or incentive to improve themselves, then the politicians must share the blame. It may have been the Thatcher government ('there is no such thing as society') or the Blair government, which shared many of Thatcher's emphasis on pleasing the middle classes, but government cannot pass the buck to parents, teachers and social workers. Other governments in Europe have done better, enabling more social mobility and working harder to protect the small minority who, for a variety of reasons, will inevitably not qualify for well-paid employment.
    The looters have not helped their cause, with their offhand comments about 'nicking free stuff', taking their taxes back, 'everyone else was doing it', or sticking it to the Feds. It would be reassuring to hear them voice a coherent analysis of their plight and channel their energies into political activism that might ameliorate their circumstances. But that may be a reflection of British society's failure to encourage political participation at the base. Not enough commentators have said much about the elite's condonement of illegal activity by powerful media corporations, members of parliament with their outrageous expense claims, members of the royal family with their dubious money-making schemes, not to mention the bankers who cost the taxpayers many billions of pounds with their reckless lending practices.
    To go back to Egypt, the elites in both countries have found a useful word to dismiss those who challenge their cosy world - thugs. In both cases it implies thoughtless apolitical violence by an underclass that does not deserve a hearing. Of course, if we are to live in a state of law, looters and thugs must be arrested and punished. But in the long term, unless we work to create a society without large numbers of people living on the edge, we should not be surprised if the streets erupt from time to time.       
 

Obama's fairly vacuous speech

I'm glad I'm not a working journalist who has to cover 'events' such as Obama's speech today. I remember that sinking feeling at the end of a 'major' speech when one realises that the speaker has said nothing of great significance, but without stretching the truth here and there there's no easy way to convey that in an interesting manner to a supine audience, or to satisy editors obsessed with the news cycle. As so often with these speeches, it's what's missing, the links that politicians do not make, that often carry the most significance.
    Obama hasn't understood that Palestinians are just as likely to rise up against their masters, and have just as much right to do so, as any of the Arab peoples who have overthrow their old despots. The double standard inherent at so many levels of this stage must surely jump out at any informed listener.
    Israeli suffering is clearly physical, that of the Palestinians merely psychological - a strange inversion of reality: "For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own" The 'taught to hate' line is particularly offensive - as if anyone needed guidance to find Israel's behaviour worthy of strongly adverse emotion.
    The future security arrangements would be almost as one-sided as they are today. "Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met." The Palestinian state must be "non-militarised", while the United States commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. Nothing new there, of course.
    The inclusion of democratically elected Hamas representatives in a Palestinian government of national unity "raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel – how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist." Strange how no one ever imagines a Palestinian veto over the inclusion of rightwing racists and expansionists in Israeli governments.
    The United States has now divided the Middle East into five distinct categories of countries facing popular unrest, with different solutions for each:
    Israel - full U.S. commitment to its security and international diplomatic cover for anyone who dares to criticise it. The angry Arabs here should recognize Israel, abandon resistance and go back to fruitless talks in which they have nothing to offer but further obeisance to their Israeli masters. If Israel offers them enough scraps of land to make a viable state, they should be very grateful.
    Egypt and Tunisia - since they've already overthrown our old allies, we'll have to live with it and put on a brave face. Since Egypt is neighbour to Israel and has a large army, we will give it some debt relief and other economic benefits. A little growth and a show of U.S. largesse might help prevent our enemies winning democratic elections.
    Bahrain (home to the Sixth Fleet) - the government here has been quite naughty but we love it really and and we are "committed to its (Bahrain's) security". The government should clean up its act and the opposition should abide by the rule of law, ignore Iranian enticements and join open-ended talks with the government.
    Syria and Yemen - President Assad is not completely a lost cause and President Saleh in Yemen "needs to follow through on his commitment to transfer power." In theory, if Assad leads a transition to democracy, he can obtain rehabilitation. An easy position to take, because U.S. policy can be recalibrated at any moment to reflect the latest assessment of how Assad is doing.
    Libya - Gaddafi is a lost cause, it's just a question of time. "When Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed."
    As usual, there are three main determinants in U.S. policy in all these cases:

    1. What does this regime do to serve or subvert Americans interests in the Middle East? The more the regime serves, the softer the U.S. stance, and vice versa.
    2. What are the chances this particular regime will be overthrown by angry Arabs? The more likely it is to fall, the harder the U.S. stance towards the ruler, and vice versa.
    3. If this regime is overthrown, what is likely to take its place and to what extent would the successor regime serve U.S. interests? This is much harder to judge. The conventional wisdom is that this factor has worked in favour of President Assad, whom the Israelis might prefer to see survive.
    The other factors, not specific to Arab regime change, are the chronic distortion of U.S. foreign policy by domestic lobbyists and Washington's broader regional alliances, especially with Saudi Arabia and the patrimonial states in the Gulf. 
   










 
   
   

Mustafa el-Fiki as Arab League Secretary General

Egyptian televisions were saying this evening that Egypt's nominee to replace Amr Moussa at the head of the Arab League is former member of parliament and ruling party 'intellectual' Mustafa el-Fiki. Assuming this is true, it is the most extraordinary choice. Fiki will go down in history as the beneficiary of one of the most outrageous acts of electoral fraud committed in the parliamentarian elections of 2005. After serving in parliament as a member appointed by President Mubarak, the NDP gave him the Damanhour (Beheira province) seat in 2005, on the assumption he would win. In the event, rival candidate Gamal Hishmat of the Muslim Brotherhood won by a margin of about 25,000 votes. No problem: the election officers merely reversed the tallies, giving Fiki all Hishmat's votes and Hishmat all Fiki's votes. The snag was that one of the judges overseeing the count, the brave Noha el-Zeini, went public with a detailed account of what happened. Fiki just brazened it out, as is his style -- essentially a shameless egotist with no obvious priniciples. Since the revolution, he's been posing as an impartial analyst and public intellectual. Come to think of it, maybe he would be good at the Arab League - he could be all things to all men and curry favour with every Arab head of state simultaneously. Does anyone out there know who exactly chose him and on what grounds? Will the Arab states approve such a controversial choice? Maybe here's a chance for a non-Egyptian to jump in and end the long Egyptian monopoly of the position (broken only when the league moved to Tunis after the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, as far as I recall).  

Mubarak speaks, worries about hidden wealth allegations

The statement that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak released today from house arrest in Sharm el-Sheikh is extraordinary for both its formality and its banality. The old man slips off to the palace that Hussein Salem gave him on the Red Sea coast without so much as a friendly farewell to his people and then pops up two months later with a statement drafted by some libel lawyer! Doesn't he have anything interesting to say after 60 days ruminating over his 30 years in power? No regrets, no apologies, no philosophical musings? Not our Hosni. That was always his big failing - the lack of vision, the failure to understand that running a country of 40 to 80 million people (yes, the population did double over those 30 years) meant more than making sure that the shipments of imported wheat turned up in time, that any possible troublemakers were carefully monitored and that Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia approved of his performance.
    In case you haven't read his statement in detail (Arabic text here), Mubarak speaks like a retired civil servant who graciously gave up his sinecure for the public good and now insists on defending himself against allegations that he pocketed some public monies now and then. Nothing about the way he ran the country, nothing about the 800 Egyptians his police force and party thugs killed before he graciously agreed to leave, nothing about the way he allowed State Security to torture thousands of people and stick their ignorant noses into everything that moved across the country all those years. He does at least say that he "gave up the presidency" (that's the first time we've heard from him that he agreed to go of his own free will) and has decided to stay out of politics. But after that it's "all about me" - his reputation and the reputation of his family, and the only affront to their reputation that he can see is the allegations that he had large bank accounts and properties abroad, not that he ran a police state and failed to empower real institutions that might have converted Egypt into a modern functioning democracy. And again, here he is boasting about his service to the country in war and in peace like some old blimp who thinks that wearing a fancy uniform with medals gives him  immunity from criticism by some upstart revolutionaries (more of those troublemakers).
    The reactions appeared to be overwhelmingly negative, though no doubt there are many Egyptians willing to sympathize with the man in his dotage. Psychologist Ahmed Okasha was on OTV saying Mubarak continues to treat Egyptians as slaves and subjects, rather than free citizens.
    It's impossible not to see some connection between Mubarak's statement and the very large rally in Tahrir Square on Friday and the demands that Mubarak face trial or leave the country. The military council is again on the defensive after the heavy-handed and ultimately futile attempt to disperse the crowd in Tahrir by force. I passed through the square this afternoon and it remains in the hands of the protest movement, with barricades on some of the main approaches and no army or police in sight. As long as Mubarak's fate remains undecided in this way, the political forces that brought him down cannot sleep soundly. 

Egypt's new new parties law still restrictive

The military council running Egypt has made some amendments to the draft law regulating political parties as released by the cabinet a few days ago. Unfortunately they add to the confusion rather than clarify the ambiguities. The approach adopted by the military council is reminiscent of the old regime's preference for legislation that was wide open to interpretation (in its case by a pliant judiciary), so that it could finetune its apllication of the law to suit its political preferences.
    The new text, available in Arabic on El Shorouk's website, reads:

In their principles, their programmes, their practical activities or in their choice of leaders and members, parties must not be set up on the basis of religion, class, sect, group or geographical region or because of gender, language, religion or belief (sic).

    So the overt ban on parties based on religion appears to stand, though supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood seem to think that the ban would not apply to the party the Brotherhood plans to set up, simply because the party will not have Muslim in its name, or at least because the party will avoid mentioning Islam in its programme. Maybe the programme will just refer to al-Din, the religion? This is farcical.  If the military council intends to let the Brotherhood form a party (which must of necessity have Islam as one of its bases, however carefully disguised), the council should promulgate a law that explicitly makes that possible.
    The redrafted arrangements for vetting political parties are also problematic and will no doubt lead to endless legal wrangling. The new law gives the final word, after the parties committee, to yet another body of judges - the Supreme Administrative Court. This is still an improvement on the Mubarak-era law, which vested the power of denial in a political body, but it still falls way short of allowing the free formation of political parties.
    As in almost all significant matters, the military council appears to be following the path of least resistance rather than taking a stand on any firm principle. It will not come as a surprise if the council changes its mind on these points at some later stage in the political process. 
    Likewise for the phasing of parliamentary and presidential elections. El Shorouk quotes Major-General Mamdouh Shahin as saying parliamentary elections will take place in September and no date has been set for presidential elections. The Daily News version says specifically that the presidentials will come later. There have been changes back and forth on this, so this version may not be definitive.
   

Egypt's parties law - not so liberal after all?

The new version of the Egyptian law regulating political parties, approved by the cabinet on Wednesday, was been widely interpreted as a more liberal version of its predecessor, which was in practice highly restrictive. The headline in the state newspaper Al Akhbar said the law made it possible to form parties freely, merely by notification of the authorities, and a widely reproduced Reuters story initially took a similar line. Liberal blogger Zeinobia welcomed the law as "very reasonable", without going into much explanation. But my reading of the law, at least in the detailed version printed in Al Akhbar on Thursday, suggests that the changes are largely superficial and the new law retains many of the flaws of the old.

     The main change, and this at least is significant, is that the regulatory authority will be a panel of three judges - the first deputy president of the Court of Cassation as chairman, plus two deputy presidents of the Council of State in the appeal courts. The Council of State, roughly speaking, is the judicial body with jurisdiction over disputes over the powers of the state. Under the old law, the regulatory body was part of the Shoura Council, the upper house of parliament, which was fully controlled by the old ruling party. The chairman was Shoura Council speaker Safwat el-Sherif, an old-style authoritarian who abused his role to withhold recognition of any parties the government did not like.

     But it is not true that people are now free to form political parties without restriction. The text states quite clearly that people who set up parties can start operating 30 days after notifying the parties committee “provided the committee does not object”. In other words the committee retains a veto over parties that it considers do not meet the necessary requirements.

     The substantial restrictions appear to be largely unchanged. The principles, objectives, programmes, policies and methods of a party must not contradict “the basic principles of the constitution or the need to protect Egyptian national security or to preserve national unity, social and democratic peace”. Parties cannot be set up on a religious or geographical basis or on the basis of discrimination between citizens because of gender, origin, language, religion, belief or any other reason.

     The ban on parties based on religion was originally designed primarily to thwart any attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to form a political party and it will be interesting to see whether and how the Freedom and Justice Party that the Brotherhood now plans to set up will be able to draft a programme that circumvents the ban. I have not yet seen any Brotherhood comment on the new law, which Al Akhbar describes as merely a draft approved by the cabinet.

     The other potentially troublesome restriction lies in the apparently innocuous phrase “social peace”, which in the 1970s was clearly understand as directed against any attempt to seek recognition for a communist party, on the strange grounds that communism is more of a threat to “social peace” than other political ideologies.

     The ban on parties with a linguistic or regional agenda seems rather authoritarian and unnecessarily restrictive, especially given the unusual homogeneity of Egyptian society. Would the sky really fall in if those who speak Siwi (in the remote western oasis of Siwa) or the various Beja-type languages on the southern stretch of the Red Sea coast campaigned for their native tongues? Europe is awash with regional-based parties (Bavaria, northern Italy, Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, Galicia, Navarre, the Basque country and no doubt more), all within a manageable democratic framework.

    If the military council approves this law, the extent of change will depend to a large degree on the good will of the regulatory committee.

Unnecessary polarization over Egyptian referendum result

It's alarming how badly Egyptian liberals have taken their failure to persuade their compatriots to vote against the constitutional amendments in the referendum last Saturday and how quickly they have jumped to the conclusion that this was the outcome of some conspiracy between the military and the Islamists. The result, of course, was 77 percent in favour and 22 percent against. A common theme is that the Muslim Brotherhood, salafist groups and assorted sheikhs told people that voting 'yes' would be good for stability, law and order and economic recovery, as though trying to promote a point of view and influence people's choices was somehow undemocratic. They seem to have forgotten that the 'no' lobby ran full-page advertisements in national newspapers in the days leading up to the vote, featuring leading politicians and celebrities explaining why they would vote against. The most serious 'accusation' against the Islamists is that they promulgated their message close to polling stations and distributed sweets/candy to people who voted yes. The liberals are showing that they have very thin skins and little confidence in the good judgment of their fellow Egyptians. They are also unwittingly deploying the same elitist argument that Mubarak and the old ruling party used ad nauseam, both to foreign governments and at home in private – that Egyptians are not yet mature enough for democracy and need to be protected from their own choices.

The polarization around the referendum result, driven mainly by the losing liberal side but encouraged by a few salafis here and there, is quite unnecessary and could be counterproductive for the liberals, because it gives credence to the notion that everyone who voted 'yes' was an Islamist sympathizer who wants the Islamists to do well in parliamentary elections and dominate the process of drafting a new constitution. This notion is a fantasy and the liberals are foolish to promote it. Many Egyptians vote 'yes' for purely pragmatic reasons – they wanted to bring an end to military rule, move on to elections as soon as possible and end the uncertainty about the transitional process. They also trusted themselves and their compatriots to vote for a representative parliament that will set up the assembly to draft the new constitution. There's nothing sinister or undemocratic about that. The liberals, on the other hand, offered no convincing proposals for a mechanism to set up a constitutional assembly without national elections.

If liberals want to counter the Islamist alternative, they will have to argue their case on its merits and win people over in free debate. They should argue for universal human rights, including freedom of belief in its widest sense (including the right to change or abandon one's religion at will), gender equality and the sovereignty of the people. They can no longer hide behind the power of the state, as many of them have done for the past sixty years.

That said, there has also been some excessive and divisive rhetoric on the Islamist side. Al Masry Al Youm newspaper, for example, quotes Islamic preacher Mohamed Hussein Yaaqoub as saying that the referendum result was a victory for Islam. “The people said 'yes' to religion, and to those who say 'We can't live in such a country' we say 'You're free. You have visas for Canada and America.' We're not upset with those who said 'no', but now they know how big they are and how big religion is.” Addressing his own supporters, he added, “Don't worry. It's over. Now the country is ours.”