Tag: Egypt
Stand up Egyptian!
Today’s demonstration in Cairo promises to be important. Dubbed “correcting the path,” it aims to convince the army to schedule elections (most demonstrators might prefer after the constitution is written) and to revise the proposed electoral law, which favors the better organized National Democratic Party (Mubarak’s party) and the Muslim Brotherhood. These are concerns the more conservative Islamists do not share, so it will be interesting to see what turnout will be. Tuesday’s confrontation between police and football fans does not bode well. Nor do clashes outside the police academy where Hosni Mubarak is being tried.
Lower ranking officers having recanted their previous depositions to the effect that live ammunition was used on demonstrators, the prosecutors have called the top generals, including Supreme Council of the Armed Forces chair Tantawi. He is expected to appear in court Sunday.
I’ll be trying to join the demonstrators this afternoon and will report on the event. In the meanwhile, here is a take from Mohamed el Deeb, “Stand Up Egyptian”:
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Land of civilization
That’s what the signs say on the way to Saqqara, where the step pyramid and the artefacts found within, now well-housed and displayed in the nearby museum, suggest that it was true 4500 years ago. But was it really true then, and is it true now?
The children working in the nearby carpet-making “schools” suggest that reality is far from today’s notion of a civilized ideal. Ditto the sad sack villages on the way to and from the ancient glories, where women cover, though full burkha is rare. Egypt is poor and its countryside traditional. It likely was not a lot different in ancient times. Who knows how badly the peasants (modern thinking seems to be that they were not slaves) who built the step pyramid lived? Certainly the ancient Egyptians did not live long: 40 years seems to have been the life expectancy in ancient Egypt, compared to 70 or so today.
Listening to the current (post-revolutionary, appointed) governors of Cairo and its Giza and Kalyoubia suburbs, modern Egypt seems to be facing sharply increased challenges–especially with poverty, jobs, water and sanitation–while resources are declining. Expectations, they said, are high, and needs expanding. The governor of Kalyoubia suggested that the only solution is to be found in captitalizing the intellectual capacity of the population, but the Wharton school graduate didn’t say how he would do it. The governor of Cairo, an engineer with a good degree and distinguished background, sounded less confident.
Laila Takla, a member of the commission preparing the new Egyptian constitution, offered a more upbeat perspective. People to people contacts of the sort promoted by Sister Cities International (the organization whose meeting I am attending in Cairo) promote mutual knowledge, understanding and respect, leading to a culture of peace and justice. This is what is needed, she said: acknowledgement of differences but recognition of equality. Her focus, as in her recent book, was on Christian/Muslim relations. A Christian herself, Takla noted the Muslim misunderstanding of the trinity as referring to more than one God, and Christian misunderstanding of jihad as referring to physical violence rather than inner struggle.
Takla counts herself an activist for citizen-to-citizen diplomacy. The question is whether people like her and those they inspire can help draw on that intellectual capital and contribute to solving the problems the governors face. We’d best hope the answer is yes, because that really would make for a land of civilization.
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“Get up stand up for your rights…
…don’t give up the fight.” That’s what Bob Marley was singing as my cab circled Tahrir square this afternoon to deposit me at the Egyptian Museum.
I’d just come from a conversation with a leader of the revolutionary opposition. He opened by warning me sternly that the West was exaggerating the importance of the Islamists in Egypt. They would gain no more than 3-5 million votes out of 25-30 million, which is the number that can be expected to vote this fall. The revolutionary opposition, trying hard to form a broad coalition to include moderate Islamists, hopes to win a majority, or at least a plurality.
The big challenge is the proposed electoral law, which divides Egypt into large constituencies in a system that is 50/50 open and closed list. This will favor larger, better known and better organized forces, like Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The revolutionary opposition favors a closed list system (with smaller constituencies or a proportional system–which or both wasn’t clear to me), with people allowed to vote from abroad. This would mean party lists fixed by party leaders with no voting for individuals. If they don’t get it, the opposition may boycott the elections, which my interlocutor thought would deny legitimacy to the results.
But most of all the revolutionary opposition wants the constitution written before elections. The September 9 demonstration is its remaining best opportunity to force this issue. It was a mistake to allow the army the role it has in the transition process, and now the opposition will have to live with its mistake. But it can still try to get the army to listen to the people–the only way to force it to do that is by returning to Tahrir.
Tahrir seemed to me mostly a construction site these days, which I guess is an apt metaphor for the situation the country is in. I prefer that to the metaphoric museum, whose extraordinary collection of treasures is so shabbily housed, labeled and cared for behind its pretty pink facade that it is hard not to wonder what their eventual fate will be.
I also had to wonder about the fate of the Camp David accords, which aren’t nearly as old and dusty as the artefacts from King Tut’s tomb. My interlocutor thought Camp David unfairly limited the development of Sinai, where Hamas is enjoying free rein and blowing up the gas pipeline that takes Egyptian gas to Israel. Islamist domination of the Sinai would be harmful. The opposition wants to know what secret agreements were made at Camp David and to exert full Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai.
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Egypt reading
I’m heading for Cairo today. Here are some of the more recent short pieces I’ve thought worth reading on the current situation:
1. Chatham House on the political process and how to keep it moving in a democratic direction.
2. RAND on the military’s efforts to maintain its status and power.
3. Sahar Aziz suggesting that the Egyptian military’s attacks on civil society are evidence of heightened civil society effectiveness.
4. Vali Nasr on the sharp decline in Egypt’s economy and what needs to be done about it in light of high unemployment, slow growth and a dramatic youth bulge.
5. Eric Trager on the Muslim Brotherhood’s discipline and unity.
6. Eric Trager and Dina Guirguis, “Egypt’s Revolution Brought to a Halt?” (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3390).
In the books category:
1. Max Rodenbeck, The City Victorious
2. Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building
3. Rosemary Mahoney, Down the Nile, which a friend just brought by
Her husband has also recommended The Egyptologist.
I’ll be glad to get other recommendations. There’s definitely a Western, secularist tilt to this list so far–I trust I’ll pick up more Egyptian perspective, including Islamist and military views, in Cairo. Starting to make appointments now. Recommendations for that are also welcome!
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What was it like 48 years ago?
Credit for this post, if credit is due, goes to Zaheer Ali, a New York City historian who asked in response to a tweet saying that I was at the March on Washington if I had ever written anything about it. No, I haven’t, until just now, when I should be working on a book proposal.
I remember as much about the circumstances as I do about the event. My aunt tried to convince my mother she shouldn’t let me go. I was 18, age of the immortals. Just graduated from high school, working in a factory for the summer before starting at Haverford. I was determined to march despite rumors of violence. I certainly did not want to take advice from my rascist aunt, who went livid. Fortunately a more liberal uncle weighed in on my side. Defiance proved unnecessary–my mother was a liberal and thought it natural that I wanted to go.
It’s all about witness, wanting to testify to your beliefs by moving your body to the right place at the right time. I’d been to Washington before, as a child and tourist. It was still a segregated city then, though as best I understand it more by tradition than by law. My parents would only eat in chain restaurants that had integrated. Returning by bus that August day of 1963 was a right of passage for me: a first opportunity to witness on my own.
What has become known as Martin Luther King’s greatest moment I thought of at the time as Bayard Rustin’s. No, I did not know he was gay, or even what gay was, but I knew he was the great organizer. He proved it that day, assembling an enormous mass of people, whites as well as people who then mostly still called themselves Negro. There was a long list of speakers. Martin Luther King was the climax, but I can assure you that many of the others stirred the crowd as well. I particularly remember being moved by A. Philip Randolph, but don’t ask me any longer what he said. And the music! Dylan, Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary: mostly white, but “radical” as it was known then.
I had to leave New Rochelle, where my family lived, early in the morning, around 4 am. I grabbed the brown bag from the fridge with what I thought was my lunch in it, only to discover as we arrived in DC that the smell of raw fish was coming from my brown bag in the overhead rack. I had to borrow a couple of dollars from a cousin to get a hot dog or two for lunch.
We marched from somewhere not too far–maybe Thomas Circle. Memory confuses this occasion with the several later occasions I joined antiwar marches in DC. The spirit was good, really good. Everyone singing, chatting, laughing. I don’t remember a moment of tension all day. I guess the segregationists decided the crowd was too big and stayed home. Certainly it was nothing like the venomous atmosphere I endured two years later demonstrating in Cambridge, Maryland, where the national guard fixed bayonets and gas masks to confront us in the main street.
The message of the day was integration. Those who cite MLK’s “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers” have got it right. It is hard to appreciate today how much imagination was needed then to picture integration of blacks and whites in the United States. None of us were sure though at the time that MLK had quite risen to the occasion. Was his speech really eloquent enough? Did it rise to the occasion? Would anything make a real difference in a country that seemed hopelessly attached to segregation and racism?
We all think we know the answers to those question now, but at the time nothing was clear, except the day and the overwhelming power of that crowd of witnesses. These were people who really could sing “we shall overcome.” And they were determined to do it, though they had no idea how long it would take.
What does this have to do with peace and war? Everything: Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria have all trod the path of nonviolent witness, some more successfully than others. Even Libya did it briefly. Hesitatingly, sometimes inadequately but increasingly the United States has come out on the right side, witnessing for the world to see that it supports human dignity. There really is no other choice. Bashar al Assad and King Khalifa of Bahrain should take notice. Washington may hesitate, it may equivocate, but it will not fail in the end to support the radical proposition that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights.
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Rebuilding Libya: the first few steps
Theatlantic.com published my piece this morning:
Aug 22 2011, 6:39 AM ET
The most immediate challenges facing post-Qaddafi Libya
Reuters
Muammar Qaddafi’s finale in Libya is coming faster than even the rebels likely anticipated. They are reported to have arrested Saif al Islam, his favored son. If they take Qaddafi alive, the rebel leadership body Transitional National Council (TNC), or its successor organization, will presumably transfer him and his son to The Hague, for trial at the International Criminal Court. This would be a remarkable end to a 42-year reign as Libya’s chief governing authority and a first opportunity for the court to try a chief of state, even if he did not claim that title.
Some may prefer to try him in Tripoli, but it is going to be years before the Libyan courts are able to meet the necessary international standards. A show trial will not help Libya in its understandable passion to lay the foundations for a freer society.
Qaddafi’s continued resistance risks making the situation inside Libya far more chaotic than it need be. Some of his loyalists may go underground as people harmed by the regime seek revenge, rivalries among rebel groups may emerge, looting and rioting could break out, and criminal gangs are sure to try to take advantage of any disorder. Restoring public order will be job one, with restoring electricity, food, and water close behind. Oil installations will need to be protected, weapons depots guarded, and secret police files preserved. It is certainly a good sign that the rebels are reported to have thrown up a protective cordon around the National Museum.
The rebels say they believe everything will go smoothly, and they appear to have trained some police to protect sensitive infrastructure and maintain law and order. But hope is not a plan. They need to get things under control as quickly as possible, appealing for foreign help if need be.
European governments could step up to this challenge, since they are tied to Libya via gas pipelines that float beneath the surface of the Mediterranean. If Libya succumbs to chaos, it will be to Europe that refugees will flow, and mostly European investments in Libya that will be lost. Unfortunately, Washington seems to have allowed Europe to remain distracted with its own financial problems. There does not appear to be any serious plan for dealing with chaos in Libya, which could quickly turn into a humanitarian disaster. American boots definitely do not belong on the shores of Tripoli, but it has happened before and may happen again.
The TNC will have to be particularly alert to risks of revenge killings against Qaddafi loyalists, and of score-settling among rebels. They have already lost one of their military commanders, apparently to rebel-affiliated attackers who resented his role in Qaddafi’s army. In immediate post-war situations, the urge to exact quick justice is enormous. But allowing vigilantes to even the score will only lead to a spiral of violence that is hard to stop and inimical to democratic evolution.
Virtually overnight, the rebel leadership will need to shift its focus from fighting Qaddafi’s forces to protecting them. In the past few months, the local councils that have emerged in liberated areas have not generally allowed violence against regime supporters. But that is partly because many of Qaddafi’s loyalists have fled from newly liberated towns to Tripoli. Their concentration there and in his hometown of Sirte is going to make the challenge of transition much greater there than anyplace else in Libya.
It is critical that regime loyalists and rebels alike do not grab and “privatize” state assets, as often happens in chaotic moments and takes years to reverse. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, the government has been trying for years to recover valuable mines from those who took possession of them during the civil war. The liberty Libyans have fought for will require massive rebuilding of the country’s infrastructure and economy, which is in miserable condition. Early efforts to ensure transparency and accountability could help Libya avoid the kind of corruption that has plagued Afghanistan and Iraq.
Only the most selfish and egotistical leader would fail to make arrangements to transfer power and try to avoid bloodshed. Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali fled, but left the country with a constitutional succession that is enabling a relatively smooth transition. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak tried to leave power in the hands of his vice president, a move negated only when the army stepped in. Yemen’s President Saleh has so far refused to allow a constitutional succession, leaving his country seized with violence.
Qaddafi is still calling on his supporters to fight and vowing to restore his own version of law and order in Tripoli. This is Qaddafi’s last misdeed. There is no constitution in Libya, so no clear constitutional succession. The revolutionaries have wisely written their own constitutional charter, but the real challenge will not be on paper. It will be in the avenues and alleys of Tripoli.
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