The unmaking of the Arab world

Fahmi Howeidi is a leading Egyptian political and social scholar and author, and one of the Arab world’s most prominent columnists. Following is my abridgment of his syndicated think piece this week:

There is a sort of overlap in tuning in on the revolution and the government in Egypt.

That’s caused either by incessant media campaigns denigrating the revolution in the public eye or by the torrent of government crises news, which make people lose sight of the revolution’s achievements.

In effect, the Egypt revolution ended a reign of corruption and tyranny and returned the country to its people. It brought a Pharaonic era to a close, restored civil liberties, ended minority rule and empowered the masses to have the final say on their government.

But why did Egypt’s post-revolution administration stumble?

One explanation is that decade-long tyranny not only destroyed Egypt’s political and economic present, but its future as well.

The other explanation is the preclusion of all and sundry from Egyptian politics save for a restricted group of loyalists handpicked by the former president.

As a result, the political class was neither coached in managing state affairs nor shown the ropes of state administration.

This political class was also shut out from any communal endeavor to promote the national interest through state institutions.

Egypt’s post-revolution administration crisis can thus be blamed on a host of factors, including:

• The classic tension that dawns each time a revolution brings down a regime and tries to replace it
• The heavy legacy left by the deposed regime, such as the ruination of politics, the economy, state institutions and society.
• Mismanagement of state affairs by President Mohamed Morsi and his team and their reneging of election promises.
• Immaturity of opposition figures
• The tug-of-war among some nationalist camp components
• Lawlessness, which also undermines economic activity
• External pressures.

Everyone in Egypt is now aware that although it made good progress over the years in running its own business, the Muslim Brotherhood did not make the grade in reigning over and managing society.

That is the root cause of the current crisis, which led to the political stalemate in Egypt.

Overcoming the political deadlock requires a lot of wisdom, courage and foresight, all of which seem lacking – at least for the foreseeable future.

(2)

In the case of all four or five Arab Spring countries, revolt proved much more profound and far-reaching than actual or prospective regime change.

The new manifestations that are kept in the public eye day and night by the media touch only the surface of the spirit of rebellion, which drove ordinary citizens to protest loudly against oppression, corruption and social injustice.

The discrepancy made me distinguish between what I call the “tumultuous spring” and the “silent” variety.

“Tumultuous spring” came out in the open and called for regime change in some countries.

By contrast, the “silent spring” chose to express itself calmly through the social media.

Its aim is regime reform, but not regime change. It falls in the category of “reformist spring” as opposed to “revolutionary spring.”

The open letter calling for reform, which Saudi cleric Salman al-Odah posted last month on Facebook and Twitter falls in the latter category. Odah specifically called for ending the practice of media control, information censorship and the release of political prisoners.

Other reformists made similar appeals elsewhere in the Gulf.

(3)

From this perspective, I believe the pan-Arab nation is meanwhile facing an existential impasse that needs addressing.

While historic change looms on the horizon, a vacuum hangs on the Arab arena.

Observers fail to spot a leader or a plan the Arabs can rally around or defend.

When focusing on the Arab arena, all they spot are three endeavors: the Turks are expanding economically, the Iranian politically and the Israelis through land grabs to build settlements.

Moreover, changes on the ground suggest the region’s maps are being reconfigured and a new Sykes-Picot Agreement is being contemplated.

The pointers:

• Iraq faces partition after having been steamrolled by the United States invasion. Iraqi Kurdistan has almost seceded, and nothing keeps the lid on its independence other than the absence of a public declaration of self-determination preceded by a ban on hoisting the Iraqi national flag on its territory. A forceful call is also being made to divide Iraq into three regions – one for Kurds, another for Shiites and the third for Sunnis.
• Syria is poised to follow suit, especially that its regime seems on its last legs so far. Should the Assad regime fall, contingency plans are already in place to declare an Alawite state along the country’s coastline. In anticipation, Syria’s central bank reserves have reportedly been moved to Latakia, whose seaport and airport are being upgraded.
• The side-effects of the Syrian regime’s collapse would allow for (a) a shift in the balance of power in Lebanon at Hezbollah’s expense (b) a shot in the arm to the Sunni uprising in Iraq (c) a rekindling of the Kurdish issue, which explains Turkey’s recent preemptive peace deal with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, and (d) rethinking and re-planning in Tehran, particularly that a blitz by Israel on its nuclear facilities is not off the table yet.
• The Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain in limbo and the risks of a third Intifada erupting mount.
• Sudan’s South has broken away from its North.
• In Yemen, calls are growing louder all the time for the secession of the South.
• Morocco is grappling with the Tamazight movement’s political demands shortly after recognizing the Tamazight language in its new constitution.
• Over and above the widening schism between its Sunnis and Shiites, the Arab world finds itself riven by rifts between the Salafi movement and Ennahda Movement in Tunisia, between Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and between Salafis and seculars in Algeria.

These are ample indicators of how the Arab world is liable to break up. The process of restructuring it is quietly moving ahead while it remains unfazed or unaware. 

End of the Arab Spring… but no turning back

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and author now heading Al Arab News Channel, penned this think piece in Arabic  for today’s al-Hayat

Photo by totallycoolpix.com

Bashar confidently says his army has regained the initiative on the ground. His wife is reportedly pregnant.

Signs are multiplying regional states have grown weary of the Syria saga and the opposition stands alone.

Egypt is burning. Her opinion-shapers take note, bicker on all Egyptian and Arab TV channels and then make -- one after the other -- submissions to President Mohamed Morsi.

Meanwhile, TV subscreens show youths hurling out of windows the furniture of government offices or torching an army vehicle.

No one bothers to utter the magical sentence, “Guys, go home. We’ve lost control of the revolution.” The maximum you would hear from someone with a modicum of responsibility is a condemnation of violence “by all sides.” It’s as if that person got a whiff of victory and of Morsi’s exit, meaning he could maybe replace him.

The said person would then call for renewed protests Friday-week, knowing a few more youths would be killed that day aimlessly, save for piling token pressure on the regime.

Morsi himself has lost control. The curfew he ordered went unheeded.

Assassinations in Libya, suicide bombings in Yemen, rows over forming a new government in Tunisia… I seemingly listed Tunisia in this context, but it’s paradise compared to the rest.

So did the Arab Spring end?

Indeed, its warmth and romanticism have evaporated.

The Arab Spring has given way to the “World of Reality” with all the bitterness of economic meltdowns and of crumbling government agencies inherited by the new regimes.

Clearly, not one Egyptian is convinced when the incumbent transport minister blames the former regime for the high number of train accidents and fatalities, saying 85 percent of Egypt’s railway carriages need replacement.

Angry Egyptians don’t focus on the Mubarak regime anymore. For them, the responsibility falls on the incumbent minister, as well as on Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. They would surely clamor for his resignation at the next train crash.

The fact a juvenile political environment lying in wait to capitalize on any mistake is pitted against a government catapulted to power short of experience and vision is bound to exacerbate the face-off.

The Arab Spring has ended, but the Arab Revolt keeps going in its ceaseless furies, retributions and swings.

On seeing an Egyptian repaint a Tahrir Square sidewalk, or a Libyan in tears hugging his brother, the optimistic analyst said Arabs would forge ahead with their newfound renaissance since they had taken stock of the mistakes of previous revolutions.

The cheerful analyst believed collective human experience was cumulative and Arab citizens and politicians are politically aware of past facts and events.

The pessimistic analyst, who chose to duck in the heydays of the Arab Spring, for fear of being branded a “leftover,” can now relax and pontificate about revolutions having lives of their own and evolving independently of revolutionary idealists and dreamers.

The cynical analyst would also say Egypt – the Arab Spring’s coveted prize – would need at least a decade to stabilize. He would also recount to his audience the French Revolution’s history – how it took a decade to settle and several other decades of mutations before culminating in a potent democracy.

I believe both analysts would agree there’s no turning back.

Morsi might fall or have to call for early presidential elections (a smart move, I dare say, by the Brotherhood).

But certainly:

(a) The Mubarak regime won’t be making anything akin to a comeback

(b) Even if the army assumed power, the move would be short-lived, pending a reordering of the democratic scene

(c) The Muslim Brothers won’t melt away and no one would be able to ban them

(d) Likewise, the liberal forces won’t pass from sight once they disband the Salvation Front they set up to bring down the Brotherhood regime.

Egyptians and all other Spring Arabs will twist and turn till they find a governance formula acceptable to all sides, especially the liberals who had difficulty digesting the rise of marginalized forces.

Political life could be deactivated for a year or two, but there is no escape from returning to the ballot box once political life resumes.

A handsome Egyptian military officer can no more rule or orate or pledge or dissolve political parties and set up a “national council” in the name of the “legitimacy of the revolution.”

The Egyptians have gone through all that before.

There is no place either for new “Socialist Unions” even in the name of religion.

The force of history is on the side of freedom and democracy.

No Syrian will accept a consensual sectarian arrangement whereby Alawites are apportioned a specific quota in the security services and then share power with the other sects.

Neither Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s view that the opposition forecloses a political solution by insisting on Bashar’s exit, nor Iranian presidential hopeful Ali Akbar Velayati’s warning that Bashar is a red line, nor remarks that the absence of a bargain with the regime suggests Syria’s partition can sway the Syrian people.

Syrians will uphold the territorial integrity of their country and carry on with their revolution as long as necessary.

The Syrian revolution might last for years after turning into a militia war. The regime itself is a militia equipped with airpower, long-range missiles and chemical weapons.

Bashar won’t rule the whole of Syria again. Even if the “Friends of Syria” abandoned the Syrian Revolution, Bashar’s fall is inevitable.

The Syrians might squabble after his exit and Jabhat al-Nusra might declare an Islamic emirate in Aleppo. But in the end, their choice will be between the ballot box and chaos.

Tunisians will bicker during the countdown to their elections in the summer, and so will Yemenis in the buildup to their first free vote for a president in February 2014. Yemen’s “Southern Movement” will keep protesting and al-Qaeda will continue its suicide operations. But the ballot box will be last and sole recourse for Yemenis, Libyans and Tunisians.

The central problems is the Arab world’s largest country, Egypt, whose political elites refused to accept the ballot box results and chose life and dialogue in the studios of Egyptian satellite TV channels, instead of in parliament. 

Islamist movements keep seeking their own demise

From L. clockwise: King Abdulaziz, Saladin, Imadaddin Zengi and Abu Hamed al-Ghazali

This think piece was penned in Arabic for al-Hayat daily by Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist now heading Saudi billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal’s Arabic news channel Al Arab launching at year’s end:

Why do many present-day Islamist movements always seek their own demise?

Why do they consistently insist on “all or nothing”?

Salafist jihadism today matches India’s Deobandi movement.

Salafis today are not even one.

It was King Abdulaziz, founder of the Saudi state that celebrated its 82^nd National Day recently, who revived contemporary Salafism. He was a true Salafi, but he was also a politician who cajoled the big shots and cultivated the minnows but always came out on top.

Before the distortion of Salafism and jihad through abuse by ultraconservatives of these two noble traits of Muslims, every Muslim activist sought to reconcile Salafism, or faith advocacy, and jihad.

Salaheddin el-Ayyoubi, better known in the Western world as Saladin, and Imadaddin Zengi before him, were like that – Salafi jihadists. Both used beyond measure tactics of modern-day Islamist movements to mobilize the faithful for jihad.

They propagated jihad through preachers and orators -- not only in mosques on Fridays but at all times and on all occasions.

They built efficient local administrations in Damascus, Aleppo and Cairo. They were merciful to people and gracious in their sermons.

They were benign in their promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

They were also ruthless when they needed to.

Imadaddin Zengi was hard-hearted when fighting local leaders.

Saladin was not, by today’s standards, a democrat or believer in freedom of opinion and expression. Once he prevailed in Egypt (after overthrowing the Shiite Fatamids), he restored Sunnite orthodoxy in the country and stamped out Shiite jurisprudence in al-Azhar. (That’s why Saladin is more of a hero in the Arab world than in Iran). His strategic move bore a resemblance to the Islamist movements of the day, particularly the line of theologian Abu Hamed al-Ghazali as expressed in his writings, specifically his book “The Revival of Religious Sciences.”

In the end, Imadeddin Zengi and Saladin succeeded in building two nation-states that outlived them by years.

They laid the foundations for an Islamic revival movement. In addition to introducing administrative reform, they handed down a plethora of schools, hospitals, markets, castles and public facilities that are still standing today. (Some of these are currently being pulverized by the Syrian regime’s tanks and warplanes).

In other words, Zengi and Saladin did not simply lead a fleeting protest movement such as al-Qaeda and the likes that always seek their own demise.

In modern history, Abdulaziz al-Saud emulated Zengi and Saladin.

He surrounded himself with local leaders who outmatched him in wealth, political maneuver and international connections.

He was fenced in by a Great Power when turning east, south, north or even west to look across the sea to Egypt.

He also had to put up with a group seeking it own demise. His valiant military commander Faisal al-Dwaish kept striving to challenge the British, who were then protectors of the Gulf, Iraq and Transjordan.

Dwaish ultimately defied his leader and ended up dying in jail with history remembering his insubordination more than his military heroics.

I remembered King Abdulaziz when hearing the leader of Somalia’s al-Shabab pledge that his militiamen won’t stop their advance before reaching Nairobi and Addis Ababa, having overcome Ethiopian forces in their country in 2006.

Al-Shabab could have instead focused on building Somalia and sinking their roots deeper at home. Had they done that, they would probably have been ruling a stable and secure Somalia. The leader in question might have been negotiating with the Dubai Port Authority to build a port in Kismayo followed by a franchise fishing deal with a Japanese company.

Instead, he said last week his Islamist militants were abandoning their last major bastion, Kismayo.

This makes me wonder again: Why do many modern-day Islamist groups always seek their own demise?

They antagonize everyone far and near as soon as they score a victory.

In Libya, they trumped their opponents by joining the revolution. They then proceeded to desecrate graves at (Commonwealth) war cemeteries and attack the U.S. embassy.

By so doing they turned people against them, eventually losing their reputation, their weapons and their camps.

In Tunisia, they were released from jail, had a taste of freedom and enjoyed it, then abused it and decided that Tunisians, as apprentices in modernity, needed guidance. Those were the same Tunisians who a month earlier had voted into power a moderate Islamist party. They ended antagonizing Tunisians and their government who subsequently demanded their eradication.

In Yemen, they absented themselves from the transition process that removed the tyrant they were fighting. They failed to appreciate that the sea change taking place in the country presented them with an opportunity to end their cocooning. Instead, they want their jihad to last for all eternity. Their latest reaction was a suicide bombing in Abyan.

In Egypt, they stand out as first class debaters. They joined the constitution-drafting body (otherwise known as the Constituent Assembly). Instead of leaving their imprint on a historic legacy, they focused on such trivialities, as “girls can be married as soon as they reach puberty.” They will surely pay the price of their idiocy at the next elections.

I can go on recounting innumerable telltales from Mali, Afghanistan, Iraq and my own homeland Saudi Arabia. The self-interest of present-day Islamist movements invariably takes priority over the interests of the public.

In truth, these militant movements mandate acts of suicide in combat but take their own life in politics.

“Egypt is now teetering and Syria splintering”

Tariq ibn Ziyad illustration from Wikipedia 

I chose today to paraphrase this think piece on the Arab Spring, written in Arabic for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat. The author is Lebanese political analyst Iyad Abu-Chacra, who holds a Bachelors’ degree in Political Science from the American University of Beirut and a Masters from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London:

These are frustrating hours for all those in the Arab world who built high hopes on the spirit of revolution that gripped the Tunisian street and ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

Today, a year and a half since our so-called “Arab Spring,” we find ourselves in the position of a deceived husband -- or should I say the husband who deceived himself.

The courage of ageing and young Tunisian activists took the country by surprise. Ben Ali fled as soon as his military and security services refused to challenge citizens who had rediscovered their voice and their will.

Egypt’s case was somewhat different. Gambits to absorb the shock, which now appear to have been calculated by the army and Washington, saw Hosni Mubarak leave office as a person. But power remained in the hands of the effective “ruling party” – i.e. the army and a “security state” it has been nurturing since 1952.

Elsewhere, under conditions of a growing fragmentation of Yemen’s landscape, a recipe now known as the “Yemeni solution” was concocted. It was a prescription for a limbless body politic, where tribal and personal interests, extremist sectarian propensities and regional and international political calculations overlapped. As a result, intended “central state authority” effectively lost control over large areas of the country.

As we focus on Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, God bless her, delights in telling us – after 15 months of conflicting signals and wanting measures – the case is “complex.”

Anyone hoping to see the end of the Syrian people’s nightmare is entitled to wonder: What is the bona-fide cause of the hesitation by Washington, which was invariably eager to name the Syrian regime a sponsor of terror? Hasn’t the State Department been blacklisting Syria year after year? Haven’t successive administrations described Syria a “rogue state”? Didn’t Congress pass the “Syria Accountability Act” by a 398-4 vote in October 2004?

Remember that President Bashar al-Assad assumed office 11 years ago on the death of his father, who ruled the country for 30 years. So Washington is surely aware of the Assad regime’s nature.

For Washington and the international community to continue parroting the mantra “the Syria situation is complex” can only mean one of two things. Either they are truly incapable of confronting Moscow’s neo-tsars and Beijing’s neo-emperors, or Washington and its Western allies are in cahoots with Moscow, Beijing, Iran and Israel to parcel out influence in the Arab region.

American democracy being built on, among other things, the peaceful transfer of power, the current administration’s impotence vis-à-vis Moscow and Beijing need not be permanent. The Republicans will sooner or later replace the Democrats and change U.S. foreign policy.

What we see meantime is the Arab Spring inching in the direction of the worst-case scenario. The region today is choosing between two alternatives:

(1) “Political Islam,” which snatched, and is trying to monopolize, the fruits of the Arab Spring, and

(2) “The security state” as in Egypt, which “went with the flow” before giving the Islamists sufficient rope to hang themselves by their lack of political acumen.

The outlook for Egypt is very gloomy, irrespective of the presidential ballot outcome. Egyptian citizens who thought they had carried out a revolution were given a terrible choice between a Mubarak regime candidate and an Islamist carrying a religious agenda. This is when Egypt has a 10-million-strong Christian community, a disbanded national assembly and popular distrust of the judiciary, party leaders and politics generally.

Any hope of an imminent dawning of a “civil state” in Egypt is swiftly fading – especially and justifiably because of discontent among Copts, who had to vote for the Mubarak regime candidate to ward off the specter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Syria, where UN monitors decided to stop “monitoring” for self-protection purposes, the catastrophe has turned tragicomic.

The raison d'être for the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was to ensure Damascus’ compliance with Kofi Annan’s six-point initiative – chiefly, a ceasefire, the release of detainees and negotiations on the transfer of power. Syria approved the initiative simply to bypass and abort it.

This is exactly what happened. By this writing, the number of Syrians killed since the UNSMIS deployment had exceeded 3,000.

At the same time, there has been a quantum leap in massacres committed by the regime against it own people – massacres that have now taken a sectarian cleansing character in such places as the rural areas of Homs, Aleppo, Latakia and Idlib governorates.

What transpires from the Houla and Qubair massacres is that the regime is spearheading Iran’s sectarian design in the region. The design is based on this premise: “What is yours is to be shared between us and what is mine is mine alone.”

Having failed to regain control of every inch of the Syrian territory, the regime is now bracing to carve out its own sectarian enclave at the price of confessional bigotry, massacres and counter-massacres, displacements and population exchanges.

Time then to recall the battle cry of Tariq ibn Ziyad, the warrior who led the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711. When Tariq was informed of the approach of the enemy, he rose in the midst of his men and, after having glorified the Almighty, he spoke to his soldiers thus:

“Oh my warriors, whither would you flee? Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy. Remember that in this country you are more unfortunate than the orphan seated at the table of the avaricious master. Your enemy is before you, protected by an innumerable army; he has men in abundance, but you, as your only aid, have your own swords, and, as your only chance for life, such chance as you can snatch from the hands of your enemy. If the absolute want to which you are reduced is prolonged ever so little, if you delay to seize immediate success, your good fortune will vanish, and your enemies, whom your very presence has filled with fear, will take courage. Put far from you the disgrace from which you flee in dreams, and attack this monarch who has left his strongly fortified city to meet you...”

Egypt’s next president and Arab democracy

A presidential election will be held in Egypt on May 23 and 24, with a run-off – if one is needed – slated for June 16 and 17.

Egypt’s semi-official Middle East News Agency (MENA) earlier this month estimated the number of people who had expressed their “plan” to run for the country’s highest office at 1,103!

But according to newly introduced electoral legislation, a candidate to be admissible needs to secure the endorsement of either 30 legislators or 30,000 eligible voters or be nominated by a political party that holds at least one seat in parliament before April 8.

So far, the number of hopefuls who put in their official candidature documents to the Higher Political Election Committee is still reasonable. They include, among others:

• Amr Moussa, former foreign minister and secretary-general of the Arab League
• Hafez Salah Abu Ismail, an ultra-conservative Salafist and TV host
• Abdul Moneim Abul-Fotouh, secretary-general of the Arab Medical Union and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s guidance bureau who decided to run independently and was then removed from the organization's ranks
• Buthaina Kamel, a political activist in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution
• Ahmad Shafiq, air marshal and prime minister under Hosni Mubarak
• Khalid Ali, former head of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) and founding member of Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC)
• Mohammad Salim El-Awa, former secretary-general of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and head of the Egyptian Association for Culture and Dialogue

More and more names of potential candidates creep up all the time, including Ayman Nour, who heads the liberal El-Ghad Thawra Party, Intel tsar Omar Suleiman, controversial lawyer Mortada Mansour and many others.

All this led me to my preferred Arab author and commentator Samir Atallah, who has been writing a short daily column for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat for the past 27 years.

To my mind, his Arabic writing style is inimitable. But here is how I would phrase in English his Arabic narrative of Egypt’s upcoming presidential elections:

Egyptians laugh – laughing is their second godsend after the Nile – at the number of candidates for president. There are more than a thousand of them from both sexes. Their CVs vary from the most qualified to the repentant swindler.

Many people, in Egypt and elsewhere, are offended by the “candidacies farce.” In truth, we need to decide the root cause of the farce. Is it in 500 or so people discovering they are entitled to run and mobilize supporters? Or is it in nobody being able to run except the one-person who becomes sole candidate, then first-term, second-term and permanent winner?

The first alternative is laughable the second makes you weep. Ayman Nour was wrongly imprisoned because he dared to run for president (against Hosni Mubarak). In Arab presidential systems, (Nour’s move) is tantamount to heresy.

The wily Yaser Arafat not only allowed a candidate to run against him for president (in January 1996), but his challenger was a woman (Samiha Khalil), whose name hardly anyone remembered. That’s how he gave the impression that Palestine was democratic, although he controlled all Palestine’s threads with the baby finger of his left hand.

The Arab presidential system does not tolerate either imagination or hope. That’s why the presidency is wrested.

In Egypt, a stay at the presidential palace was for life. It’s now until bedridden.

In Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali cut short Habib Bourguiba’s “president for life” term (voted by the Tunisian National Assembly in March 1975) and took it himself -- until the fruit vendor (Mohamed Bouazizi) came along to spark his eviction.

In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down after three decades as president in favor of Saleh Abdullah Ali.

In Syria, the constitution changed “president for life” to “president for 28 years, but extendable forevermore.”

In Iraq, the prime minister can extend his term at will in keeping with America’s democratic legacy preceding the Marines’ pullout.

In the days leading to Congo’s 1960 independence, a popular joke was that as soon as the Congolese heard the words “independence is on the way,” large crowds headed to the airport to welcome “him.”

Democracy is on the way to the Arab world. One of its preliminary sign in Tunisia is the call (made by the Infitah Party) for new legislation allowing each married man to have a sexual concubine, “if only to deal with such emergencies as marital troubles or menstrual periods.”

More than a thousand Egyptians contemplate running for president to make up for their 60-year deprivation from running to head any municipal council in any Upper Egypt village.

Democracy is a long, arduous and complex process. It took American democracy no less than two centuries to give Black citizens their civil rights…

Angelina Jolie: Time to act on Syria atrocities

Angelina Jolie in Sarajevo (AP photo by Amel Emric)

Angelina Jolie says her film about the Bosnian war should act as a wake-up call for the international community to act in time to prevent atrocities like those now happening in Syria.

She was speaking in Sarajevo on the eve of today’s UN General Assembly vote on a draft resolution that “Strongly condemns the continued widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as the use of force against civilians, arbitrary executions, the killing and persecution of protestors, human rights defenders and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, interference with access to medical treatment, torture, sexual violence and ill-treatment, including against children.”

Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt are in Sarajevo to attend the premiere of her directorial debut film In The Land Of Blood And Honey, which was screened in a sports hall before an audience of 5,000 people, ABC News reports.

Greeted with a standing ovation, Jolie broke into tears when she got on the stage after the screening.

"To see you receiving it so well means the world to me. I feel so deep for all of you in this country," she said.

Earlier, Jolie told the media she was "satisfied" with the film -- a story of a Muslim woman and a Serb man who have a fling before Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, only to meet again when the woman is a prisoner in a unit of the Bosnian Serb army commanded by her former lover.

"I feel very strongly about it (the film) and I believe that its core issue -- which is the need for intervention and need for the world to pay attention to atrocities when they are happening -- is very, very timely and especially with things that are happening in Syria today," Jolie said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the UN General Assembly on Monday that "the longer the international community fails to take action (on Syria), the more the civilian population will suffer from countless atrocities committed against them.”

Jolie said it "is very important that this film is out at this time."

"If this film points the finger at anybody it is the international community, so I hope it remains a wake-up call for them," she said.

Bosnia's war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed 100,000 lives.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in turn urged all UN Member States on Wednesday to call on the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad to immediately put an end to all human rights violations and to demand accountability for the crimes committed during the 11-month unrest.

In identical letters addressed to all permanent representatives accredited to the UN, the two rights groups urged the General Assembly to “strongly affirm that the vast majority of states have not abandoned the people of Syria, and is ready to act to bring an end to all human rights violations, and to ensure that those responsible for crimes under international law are brought to justice."

 The Assad regime says a draft constitution will make Syria a beacon of democracy in the Middle East if approved in a referendum hastily set for February 26.

The White House on Wednesday dismissed as "quite laughable" Syria's call for the referendum.

"It's actually quite laughable, it makes a mockery of the Syrian revolution," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Wisconsin state.

"Promises of reforms have usually been followed by an increase in brutality and have never been delivered upon by this regime since the beginning of the peaceful demonstrations in Syria," he remarked.

He said Washington is working "in a very focused way" with an array of international allies and partners to add to the pressure on Assad with a view to helping bring about a peaceful transition in Syria.

The date set for the referendum is just two days after a planned meeting in Tunis of the "Friends of Syria" grouping, which will be looking to mobilize for that aim.

“We hope that we’ll have a consensus and a unified message in favor of political change” in Syria, Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem told reporters in Lisbon. “We need to send a strong message to the Syrian regime that they have to stop the open killing of innocent and civilian people,” he added.

Lebanese political analyst Rosanna Boumounsef, writing for the Beirut daily Annahar, deems the February 26 referendum date to have been cunningly calculated to take the wind out of the Assembly vote and “Friends of Syria” sails.

Tariq Alhomayed, chief editor of the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, implores Arab and Western “Friends of Syria” to stop pointing the finger at Russia and China and start arming the Syrian opposition “today, not tomorrow.” 

UN-Turkish humanitarian corridors to Syria war

Davutoglu and Clinton (State Department image)

The next palliative to the Syrian crisis is likely to be a three-month old French prescription mandated by the UN and administered by Turkey: humanitarian corridors to the Syria war.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reveals as much in remarks to Milliyet, the major Turkish daily newspaper founded in 1950, after his extensive talks in Washington this week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.  

Ankara, he tells Milliyet, is set on a two-pronged approach to the situation in Syria – one political, the other humanitarian.

“We tried everything in the nine months of our negotiations with the Syrian regime,” Davutoglu said, adding:

“In the end, we supported the Arab initiative. But Syria detached itself from its people and the Arab world. The prevailing universal impression is that the regime is relying on Russian, Chinese and Iran’s backing.

“We’re now working in tandem with the Arab League on two tracks. On the political track, we aim (presumably through the planned “Friends of Syria” coalition) to raise world public awareness and create an international consensus. On the other track, we want to work with the United Nations on a mechanism to deliver humanitarian aid to Syrian cities, particularly Homs and Hama.”

He also told Milliyet, “We are thinking of delivering the humanitarian assistance to the said cities through humanitarian corridors.”

Davutoglu’s words echo his remarks after meeting with Clinton at the State Department on Monday, when he told a joint press briefing:

“We went through the situation in Syria. First, we agreed there should be a new humanitarian initiative to reach out to people who are suffering because of shortages of food and medicine everywhere in Syria. And therefore, I spoke with the UN Secretary-General yesterday, and we started, as Turkey, an initiative with the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, (on ways) to make this humanitarian access possible.

“Secondly, of course the political dimension. We (the United States and Turkey) will be together in Tunisia, and the meeting in Tunisia (of the “Friends of Syria”) will be an important international platform to show solidarity with the Syrian people, and to send a strong and clear message to the Syrian regime, that they cannot continue these violent policies…”

Clinton herself told Monday’s briefing, “We will work closely with Turkey and other partners to address the growing humanitarian concerns of those who are suffering. We have heard the call of the Syrian people for help and we are committed to working to allow the entry of medical supplies, of emergency help to reach those who are wounded and dying. We are increasing our funding to organizations like the Red Crescent, the International Committee for the Red Cross, and we’re working directly with Syrian organizations at the grassroots to help families who have no electricity, food, or clean water.

“And because of the process leading toward Tunisia, we will work closely with Turkey and others to promote a political process.“

The frontier between Turkey's Hatay province and Syria offers the probable site for the "humanitarian corridors" first proposed by France last November. Hatay is hosting all five camps for refugees who crossed over from Syria.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe outlined the proposal for technically and politically challenging humanitarian corridors to Syria in late November, saying they could be carved out either with or without the approval of Assad’s regime.

At the time, Juppe ruled out military intervention, but when asked whether humanitarian convoys would need military protection he said: "Of course ... by international observers, but there is no question of a military intervention in Syria.”

"For us, there is no possible humanitarian aid without an international mandate," Juppe said.

Humanitarian corridors to Syria and the February 24 “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunisia would fulfill two provisions of last Sunday’s Arab League resolution on the Syrian crisis.

A third provision urging the UN Security Council to pass a resolution setting up a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping force for Syria is on its deathbed. Both the United States and Russia concur the peacekeeping request “will take agreement and consensus” since “there is no peace to keep in Syria” as yet.

Call for post-Arab Spring "Marshall Plan”

Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist now heading Saudi billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal’s new Arabic news channel Al Arab launching at year’s end with a 300-strong staff, is calling for an Arab Marshall Plan to put Arab Spring countries back on their feet.

The United States launched its five-year Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), in 1947 to rebuild European economies after the end of World War II.

The Arab Spring upheaval cost its worst affected countries at least $56 billion in lost GDP in 2011, according to a report by consultancy group Geopolicity. The figure is approximate and does not take into account losses to human life, infrastructure or business and foreign direct investments.

“We Arabs won’t let down Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco or any of the Arab Spring countries. Better we worked as partners for an Economic Arab Spring,” Khashoggi writes in an op-ed piece today for pan-Arab al-Hayat. Stable Arab states would devise “an Arab Recovery Program akin to the Marshall Plan for all countries affected by the Arab Spring.” The Gulf Cooperation Council would fund the ARP via the Arab League.

Khashoggi says the program would “dwarf Saudi money going to Egypt or Tunisia and evaporating there, or an Abu Dhabi disbursement to build a road in Morocco, or Kuwait earmarking a sum to rebuild a school destroyed in Homs.”

Much as postwar Europe, says Khashoggi, the Arab World needs an Arab Marshall Plan after going through “60-years equivalent to a world war caused by the Baath Party, Nasser, Gaddafi, Saddam and the Assads” – an era marked by “economic disarray, social disintegration, military debacles and the loss of a homeland and its holy sites.”