I'm incredibly lucky, I know that. I was raised and continue to live in a society where people are treated with a bit of respect (though I suggest you read a few other posts of mine).Our country & society has certain values that we seem to think inviolable, even for the potential repressors. But....like an idiot, I turn on the TV news like an idiot....looking for answers....looking...looking......................Did I mention I'm optimistic ?
See, you're not as dumb as me !!
In Libya, they just found a morgue containing some 50-100 bodies. Now this building isn't in the middle of some freakin' never-never land. This was in Tripoli !! The bodies had apparently come in to a hospital as wounded people and they were left to, or expected to expire. So there they sat, rotting. I don't know who was in charge of the hospital, who controlled that "sector" of the city. I don't pretend to understand the level of chaos in the area but at the end of the day, someone left them there and didn't even bother with a burial, a card and likely even a freakin' sheet to cover the gore. From what little I know of Islam, this is a VERBOTTEN !
Then we have Mubarak (the last pharoh he thought of himself apparently) who is now laying on a gurney in a courtroom. The media is barred from accessing or covering the proceedings lest they make a mockery of justice. Sorry........I can't come up with better irony than that. It's priceless.
I saw on the BBC, the new interim finance minister of Tunisia who was reluctant to answer a question of "just how much money have you identified in other countires" (relating to the amount the frmr President "stole"). Sheesh, stupid question, cause you know you ain't gonna get a truthful answer and yet at the same time, a question the Tunisians want answered !! (By the way, the Ali family had squirreled away an apparent $5B according to the interview)
My point is this. We're replacing strong-men with newer-strong-men. Tunisia was a template, Egypt was a template and now Libya is the template. Let's all just sit back and watch as the money changes from one ruling elite to the new usurpers. After a time things will settle down and we'll be back to secret prisons, stifling speech, backroom deals with the West and Business As Usual.
I wonder if that guy who started this all by immolating himself in Tunisia ever imagined that his personal revolution would rest in the hands of sell-outs satisfied with platitudes and a few coins.
Showing posts with label Tunisia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tunisia. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Gettysburg Address - Then and Now.
I came across this earlier this evening and I thought I would share it. Considering the events currently underway in North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf States, this is rather poignant, at least I think so.
First, the text so you can read it, then the actual document as displayed at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C and lastly, a copy currently being circulated on the internet amongst the various protesters.
SRW
First, the text so you can read it, then the actual document as displayed at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C and lastly, a copy currently being circulated on the internet amongst the various protesters.
SRW
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincon
November 19, 1863
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Friday, 4 February 2011
The loudest quiet revolution
Just a rant but read on...please.
There's one lesson that I've been taught in the last 45 days by the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt. I may be a citizen of my home country but I am also a citizen of a much larger, more diverse and more powerful nation. And this nation is undergoing a seismic revolution.
This other nation doesn't have a capital but it does have embassies after a fashion. It certainly doesn't have a government in any traditional sense of the word but it does have it's own un-codified charter of rights. It doesn't have a defined police force or laws for that matter but it is policed from within (sometimes harshly). There are no elections, no taxes (well there's a cost of admission) and yet this nation generates vast wealth, directs foreign and domestic policy and can even conduct wars of a sort.
It is the internet.
You, me and everyone else who is able to use a cell phone, a computer or even watch TV is a citizen of this nation...Automatically. That is the price of admission. You need the technology, the gadget, the ISP / Cable / Cellular contract to get in and that's your passport. Once you're in, you have the same rights and freedoms of any other citizen provided that your home country doesn't revoke or curtail those rights.
During the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt we've heard a lot about the Internet and it's impact (large or small) on the events there. Without intending any disrespect to the citizens of Tunisia or Egypt, theirs were the first spectator-sport revolutions. Everyone, involved or not had an opinion or an analysis (me included). The #hashtag became a banner to which people would flock for the latest news. Facebook, Twitter and WikiLeaks were the latest town-criers. Print and broadcast journalists relied more and more on a new toolset for getting their reporting out, the Tweets and Blogs. Things were happening so fast that there was simply no way they could limit themselves to scheduled updates "On-Air" or with your morning coffee. 24 Hour Cable News was too damn slow....
A new voice in journalism; Al Jazeera; had it's first starring role during these revolts providing the first and some would argue best coverage of events there. They caught many of their older, larger and more "established" international peers completely flatfooted. Sure, they've been broadcasting for quite some time and we'd all heard of them but it is only recently that they reached such a wide audience and they did it primarily online, at least here in the west.
The TV broadcasts of Al Jazeera aren't widely available where I live for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with the fact that in today's post 9/11 world, they are seen as politically taboo. I mean seriously, how can you have an Arab media outlet providing us westerners news, from their point of view, in such a volatile region of the world ? Especially without the benefit of a western "spin" on things... But online, AJ and AJE have proven to be HUGE successes to the tune of a 2500% increase in traffic.
Now with the advent of streaming broadcasts over the internet, citizens in Cairo could watch events unfold that weren't available on State run TV. Audiences everywhere had almost real-time access to the sounds and sights of events a world away. Immediacy of reporting seemed to trump the careful, spoon fed analysis that many of us were used to. A phrase I heard mentioned by one journalist several times was the desire "....to get the facts out and let the audience decide for itself". Finally, someone was treating me like an adult, capable of collating facts and drawing my own conclusions.
There's one lesson that I've been taught in the last 45 days by the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt. I may be a citizen of my home country but I am also a citizen of a much larger, more diverse and more powerful nation. And this nation is undergoing a seismic revolution.
This other nation doesn't have a capital but it does have embassies after a fashion. It certainly doesn't have a government in any traditional sense of the word but it does have it's own un-codified charter of rights. It doesn't have a defined police force or laws for that matter but it is policed from within (sometimes harshly). There are no elections, no taxes (well there's a cost of admission) and yet this nation generates vast wealth, directs foreign and domestic policy and can even conduct wars of a sort.
It is the internet.
You, me and everyone else who is able to use a cell phone, a computer or even watch TV is a citizen of this nation...Automatically. That is the price of admission. You need the technology, the gadget, the ISP / Cable / Cellular contract to get in and that's your passport. Once you're in, you have the same rights and freedoms of any other citizen provided that your home country doesn't revoke or curtail those rights.
During the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt we've heard a lot about the Internet and it's impact (large or small) on the events there. Without intending any disrespect to the citizens of Tunisia or Egypt, theirs were the first spectator-sport revolutions. Everyone, involved or not had an opinion or an analysis (me included). The #hashtag became a banner to which people would flock for the latest news. Facebook, Twitter and WikiLeaks were the latest town-criers. Print and broadcast journalists relied more and more on a new toolset for getting their reporting out, the Tweets and Blogs. Things were happening so fast that there was simply no way they could limit themselves to scheduled updates "On-Air" or with your morning coffee. 24 Hour Cable News was too damn slow....
A new voice in journalism; Al Jazeera; had it's first starring role during these revolts providing the first and some would argue best coverage of events there. They caught many of their older, larger and more "established" international peers completely flatfooted. Sure, they've been broadcasting for quite some time and we'd all heard of them but it is only recently that they reached such a wide audience and they did it primarily online, at least here in the west.
The TV broadcasts of Al Jazeera aren't widely available where I live for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with the fact that in today's post 9/11 world, they are seen as politically taboo. I mean seriously, how can you have an Arab media outlet providing us westerners news, from their point of view, in such a volatile region of the world ? Especially without the benefit of a western "spin" on things... But online, AJ and AJE have proven to be HUGE successes to the tune of a 2500% increase in traffic.
Now with the advent of streaming broadcasts over the internet, citizens in Cairo could watch events unfold that weren't available on State run TV. Audiences everywhere had almost real-time access to the sounds and sights of events a world away. Immediacy of reporting seemed to trump the careful, spoon fed analysis that many of us were used to. A phrase I heard mentioned by one journalist several times was the desire "....to get the facts out and let the audience decide for itself". Finally, someone was treating me like an adult, capable of collating facts and drawing my own conclusions.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
Tunisia: How the US got it wrong - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Tunisia: How the US got it wrong - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
(posted without their permission but it's all Al Jazeera's reporting. I just thought it would fit with my last 2 posts)
One sign read "Game Over". But in fact, the game has barely started.
The Facebook generation has taken to the streets and the "Jasmin Revolt" has become a revolution, at least as of the time of writing. And the flight of former President Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia is inspiring people across the Arab world to take to the streets and warn their own sclerotic and autocratic leaders that they could soon face a similar fate.
As the French paper Le Monde described it, scenes that were "unimaginable only days ago" are now occurring with dizzying speed. Already, in Egypt, Egyptians celebrate and show solidarity over Tunisia's collapse, chanting "Kefaya" and "We are next, we are next, Ben Ali tell Mubarak he is next." Protests in Algeria and Jordan could easily expand thanks to the inspiration of the tens of thousands of Tunisians, young and old, working and middle class, who toppled one of the world's most entrenched dictators. Arab bloggers are hailing what has happened in Tunisia as "the African revolution commencing... the global anti-capitalist revolution."
The birth of a human nationalism?
Around the turn of the new millennium, as the Arab world engaged in an intense debate over the nature of the emerging globalised system, one critic in the newspaper al-Nahar declared that an "inhuman globalisation" has been imposed on the Arab world when its peoples have yet even to be allowed to develop a "human" nationalism. Such a dynamic well describes the history of Tunisia, and most other countries in the Arab/Muslim world as well.
And so, if the people of Tunisia are lucky, they are in the midst of midwifing the Arab world's first human nationalism, taking control of their politics, economy and identity away from foreign interests and local elites alike in a manner that has not been seen in more than half a century.
But the way is still extremely treacherous. As a member of the Tajdid opposition party told the Guardian, "Totalitarianism and despotism aren't dead. The state is still polluted by that political system, the ancient regime and its symbols which have been in place for 55 years."
Indeed, the problem with most post-colonial nationalisms - whether that of the first generation of independence leaders or of the leaders who replaced (often by overthrowing) them - is precisely that they have always remained infected with the virus of greed, corruption and violence so entrenched by decades of European colonial rule. Tunisia's nascent revolution will only succeed if it can finally repair the damage caused by French rule and the post-independence regime that in so many ways continued to serve European and American - rather than Tunisian - interests.
A region's tipping point
The stakes could not be higher. The "Tunisian Scenario" could lead either to a greater democratic opening across the Arab world, or it could lead to the situation in Algeria in the early 1990s, where democratisation was abruptly halted and the country plunged into civil war when it seemed that an Islamist government might come to power. We can be sure that leaders across the Arab world are busy planning how to stymie any attempts by their people to emulate the actions of Tunisia's brave citizenry. But at this moment of such great historical consequence what is the US doing about the situation?
The timing couldn't have been more fortuitous, as Secretary of State Clinton was in the Middle East meeting with Arab political and civil society leaders at the moment events took their fateful turn. Yet when asked directly about the protests the day before Ben Ali fled her answer said volumes about the mentality of the Obama administration and the larger US and European foreign policy establishments to the unfolding situation.
"We can't take sides."
A more tone deaf response would have been hard to imagine. This was a moment when the Obama administration could have seized the reins of history and helped usher in a new era in the Arab/Muslim world world. In so doing it could have done more to defeat the forces of extremism than a million soldiers in AfPak and even more drone strikes could ever hope to accomplish. And Mrs. Clinton declared America's attention to remain on the sideline.
Obama's Reagan moment
Can we imagine that President Reagan, for whom Obama has declared his admiration, refusing to take sides as young people began dismantling the Iron Curtain? Indeed, even when freedom seemed a distant dream, Reagan went to Berlin and challenged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"
It's not as if the Obama administration doesn't understand what kind of regime it was dealing with in Tunisia. As the now infamous WikiLeaks cable from the US Ambassador in Tunis to his superiors in Washington made clear, "By many measures, Tunisia should be a close US ally. But it is not." Why? "The problem is clear: Tunisia has been ruled by the same president for 22 years."
Indeed, WikiLeaks did Clinton and Obama's job: It told the truth, and in doing so was a catalyst for significant change in the country - yet another example of how the release of all those classified documents has helped, rather than harmed, American interests (or at least the interests of the American people, if not its political and economic elite), even if the Obama administration refuses to admit it.
What is clear is that if the massacre in Tuscon last week might have provided Obama with his "Clinton moment", as he eloquently led the country on the path towards unity and healing, the Jasmin Revolution has handed him his Reagan moment. Obama needs to stop playing catch up to events, lay aside hesitation and throw his support behind radical change in the region, behind young people across the Middle East and North Africa who could topple the regimes who have done more to increase terrorism that Osama bin Laden could dream of accomplishing.
Decades of support despite repression
The US has understood and even welcomed this very dynamic in Tunisia for the last half century. A 1963 Congressional report on "US Foreign Aid to 10 Middle Eastern and African Countries" stated positively about Tunisia that "Tunisia has been known for its internal political stability and unity... This fact, unique in a ME country, can be explained by the existence of an unopposed single-party rule... Under the vigorous leadership of President Bourguiba, Tunisia offers a favourable and stable political climate, progressive in its outlook, in which to bring about economic development. US aid should be continued at the same or higher level," the report advised.
In recent years the US position has been little different. The Tunisian regime was supported by the United States because it was secular, cooperated on the "War on Terror" and followed, at least on the surface, liberal economic reforms. And European support for Ben Ali was even stronger, with successive French governments openly declaring their preference for stability and cooperation against illegal immigration and the threat of terror to supporting the kind of democratic transformation that would have gone much farther to securing those goals.
During the Bush administration, then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick rebuffed attempts by local journalists to get him to admit to a double standard in calling for human rights without actually supporting them in countries like Tunisia and Egypt. The Bush administration supported draconian anti-terrorism laws that were clearly used to repress any opposition to the regime.
Today, Clinton declares that in fact the US doesn't have much power in the region. "We can't force people to do what we want," she explained in Doha at the Forum of the Future earlier this week, emphasising reforms that were focused far more on "economic empowerment, rather than political change," according to the Washington Post. Clinton never even mentioned the word democracy in her prepared remarks, or human rights for that matter.
And while she preached the gospel of reform and civil society, Clinton praised the record of another despotic regime, Bahrain, whose foreign minister participated in the forum with her. This even though the country's record of censorship and political repression lags little behind Tunisia's, if at all, as the annual Human Rights Reports of Clinton's State Department clearly show.
Taking history's reins
The WikiLeaks cable that by many accounts helped encourage the protests that have now toppled the Ben Ali regime had the virtue of being honest, as it explained that the incredibly deep and endemic corruption up through the very top of a regime that had completely "lost ouch with the Tunisian people" produced an untenable situation.
It's clear, then, that the US understood the problems plaguing Tunisia, so why didn't Clinton speak as openly as her ambassador in Tunis? Imagine what support she would have gotten from the people of Tunisia if she only stated what everyone already knew? If at the very least she had, as her ambassador urged in the then classified communique, declared America's intent to "keep a strong focus on democratic reform and respect for human rights," words that the US would not utter directly and openly until Ben Ali had fled the country.
The question now is, does Obama have the courage, the "audacity", to use one of his favourite words, to seize the moment?
Once Ben Ali had fled the country, the President did salute "brave and determined struggle for the universal rights", applauded "the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people", and called on the Tunisian government "to respect human rights, and to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people".
But unless there is a stick behind this call, there is every reason to believe, as so many Tunisians and other commentators worry, that the country's corrupt and still powerful elite will find a way to remain entrenched in power once the situation calms down. Indeed, Obama's call to "maintain calm" is counter productive. While violence is of course deplorable, the worst thing for Tunisians to do would be to remain calm, to tone down their protests and leave the streets.
Now is the time for Tunisians to ensure that the revolution that is just sprouting is not cut off or co-opted. The protests need to continue and even expand until the foundations of the regime are uprooted and other senior officials removed from power and sent into exile as Ben Ali has now been.
What is President Obama going to do if they emulate their colleagues in Iran and ruthlessly suppress further protests? If he and other world leaders don't lay out the scenario to the Tunisian people and the elites still trying to contain them now, so everyone understands what the United States will do to support the people, what incentive will those seeking to retain power have to take another route?
Crucial next steps
While the United States and the international community should not directly intervene unless the military begins killing or arresting large numbers of people, there are a number of steps Obama could take immediately to ensure that this nascent democratic moment takes root and spreads across the region.
First, the President should not merely urge free and fair elections. He must publicly declare that the United States will not recognise, nor continue security or economic relations, with any government that is not democratically elected through international monitored elections. At the same time, he must freeze any assets of Tunisia's now ex-leadership and hold them until they can be reclaimed by the Tunisian people.
Second, he should declare that the young people of Tunisia have shown the example for the rest of the Arab world, and offer his support for a "Jasmin Spring" across the Arab world. Obama should demand that every country in the region free all political prisoners, end all forms of censorship and political repression, and fully follow international law in the way they treat their citizens or the people's under their jurisdictions.
Furthermore, the President should call on every country in the region to move towards free, fair, and internationally monitored elections within a specified time or risk facing a similar cut-off of ties, aid and cooperation. Such demands must be made together with America's reluctant European allies.
Of course, such a call would apply to Israel as much as to Egypt, to Morocco as well as to Saudi Arabia. There would be one standard for every country from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean, and the US would pledge to stand with all people working to bring real democracy, freedom and development to their peoples and countries and to oppose all governments that stand in their way.
Imagine what would happen to America's image in the Muslim world if the President took such a stand? Imagine what would happen to al Qaeda's recruitment levels if he adopted such a policy (in fact, al Qaeda has been equally behind the 8-ball, as it was only Friday that the leaders of the movement's so-called Maghrebian wing declared their support for the protests in Tunisia and Algeria).
Imagine how hard it would be for so-called "supporters" of Israel to attack the President for finally putting some teeth behind his criticism of Israeli policy (which Clinton in Doha incredulously said the US could do nothing to stop) if he could reply that he was only holding Israel to the same standard as everyone else and that his policies were actually protecting America's core interests and security?
Sinking in the sand
In Doha, Clinton poetically spoke of regimes whose "foundations are sinking into the sand" and who will, it is assumed, disappear unless "reform" occurs. The reality is that US foreign policy towards the Middle East and larger Muslim world is equally in danger of sinking into the sands if the President and his senior officials are not willing to get ahead of history's suddenly accelerating curve. It is the US and Europe, as much as the leaders of the region, who in Clinton's words are in need of "a real vision for that future."
Clinton was eloquent in her closing remarks at the Forum for the Future, where she declared,
Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
The events in Tunisia again show how US foreign policy in the Middle East fails to fully understand the region.
Mark LeVine Last Modified: 16 Jan 2011 15:10 GMT
One sign read "Game Over". But in fact, the game has barely started.
The Facebook generation has taken to the streets and the "Jasmin Revolt" has become a revolution, at least as of the time of writing. And the flight of former President Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia is inspiring people across the Arab world to take to the streets and warn their own sclerotic and autocratic leaders that they could soon face a similar fate.
As the French paper Le Monde described it, scenes that were "unimaginable only days ago" are now occurring with dizzying speed. Already, in Egypt, Egyptians celebrate and show solidarity over Tunisia's collapse, chanting "Kefaya" and "We are next, we are next, Ben Ali tell Mubarak he is next." Protests in Algeria and Jordan could easily expand thanks to the inspiration of the tens of thousands of Tunisians, young and old, working and middle class, who toppled one of the world's most entrenched dictators. Arab bloggers are hailing what has happened in Tunisia as "the African revolution commencing... the global anti-capitalist revolution."
The birth of a human nationalism?
Around the turn of the new millennium, as the Arab world engaged in an intense debate over the nature of the emerging globalised system, one critic in the newspaper al-Nahar declared that an "inhuman globalisation" has been imposed on the Arab world when its peoples have yet even to be allowed to develop a "human" nationalism. Such a dynamic well describes the history of Tunisia, and most other countries in the Arab/Muslim world as well.
And so, if the people of Tunisia are lucky, they are in the midst of midwifing the Arab world's first human nationalism, taking control of their politics, economy and identity away from foreign interests and local elites alike in a manner that has not been seen in more than half a century.
But the way is still extremely treacherous. As a member of the Tajdid opposition party told the Guardian, "Totalitarianism and despotism aren't dead. The state is still polluted by that political system, the ancient regime and its symbols which have been in place for 55 years."
Indeed, the problem with most post-colonial nationalisms - whether that of the first generation of independence leaders or of the leaders who replaced (often by overthrowing) them - is precisely that they have always remained infected with the virus of greed, corruption and violence so entrenched by decades of European colonial rule. Tunisia's nascent revolution will only succeed if it can finally repair the damage caused by French rule and the post-independence regime that in so many ways continued to serve European and American - rather than Tunisian - interests.
A region's tipping point
The stakes could not be higher. The "Tunisian Scenario" could lead either to a greater democratic opening across the Arab world, or it could lead to the situation in Algeria in the early 1990s, where democratisation was abruptly halted and the country plunged into civil war when it seemed that an Islamist government might come to power. We can be sure that leaders across the Arab world are busy planning how to stymie any attempts by their people to emulate the actions of Tunisia's brave citizenry. But at this moment of such great historical consequence what is the US doing about the situation?
The timing couldn't have been more fortuitous, as Secretary of State Clinton was in the Middle East meeting with Arab political and civil society leaders at the moment events took their fateful turn. Yet when asked directly about the protests the day before Ben Ali fled her answer said volumes about the mentality of the Obama administration and the larger US and European foreign policy establishments to the unfolding situation.
"We can't take sides."
A more tone deaf response would have been hard to imagine. This was a moment when the Obama administration could have seized the reins of history and helped usher in a new era in the Arab/Muslim world world. In so doing it could have done more to defeat the forces of extremism than a million soldiers in AfPak and even more drone strikes could ever hope to accomplish. And Mrs. Clinton declared America's attention to remain on the sideline.
Obama's Reagan moment
Can we imagine that President Reagan, for whom Obama has declared his admiration, refusing to take sides as young people began dismantling the Iron Curtain? Indeed, even when freedom seemed a distant dream, Reagan went to Berlin and challenged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"
It's not as if the Obama administration doesn't understand what kind of regime it was dealing with in Tunisia. As the now infamous WikiLeaks cable from the US Ambassador in Tunis to his superiors in Washington made clear, "By many measures, Tunisia should be a close US ally. But it is not." Why? "The problem is clear: Tunisia has been ruled by the same president for 22 years."
Indeed, WikiLeaks did Clinton and Obama's job: It told the truth, and in doing so was a catalyst for significant change in the country - yet another example of how the release of all those classified documents has helped, rather than harmed, American interests (or at least the interests of the American people, if not its political and economic elite), even if the Obama administration refuses to admit it.
What is clear is that if the massacre in Tuscon last week might have provided Obama with his "Clinton moment", as he eloquently led the country on the path towards unity and healing, the Jasmin Revolution has handed him his Reagan moment. Obama needs to stop playing catch up to events, lay aside hesitation and throw his support behind radical change in the region, behind young people across the Middle East and North Africa who could topple the regimes who have done more to increase terrorism that Osama bin Laden could dream of accomplishing.
Decades of support despite repression
The US has understood and even welcomed this very dynamic in Tunisia for the last half century. A 1963 Congressional report on "US Foreign Aid to 10 Middle Eastern and African Countries" stated positively about Tunisia that "Tunisia has been known for its internal political stability and unity... This fact, unique in a ME country, can be explained by the existence of an unopposed single-party rule... Under the vigorous leadership of President Bourguiba, Tunisia offers a favourable and stable political climate, progressive in its outlook, in which to bring about economic development. US aid should be continued at the same or higher level," the report advised.
In recent years the US position has been little different. The Tunisian regime was supported by the United States because it was secular, cooperated on the "War on Terror" and followed, at least on the surface, liberal economic reforms. And European support for Ben Ali was even stronger, with successive French governments openly declaring their preference for stability and cooperation against illegal immigration and the threat of terror to supporting the kind of democratic transformation that would have gone much farther to securing those goals.
During the Bush administration, then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick rebuffed attempts by local journalists to get him to admit to a double standard in calling for human rights without actually supporting them in countries like Tunisia and Egypt. The Bush administration supported draconian anti-terrorism laws that were clearly used to repress any opposition to the regime.
Today, Clinton declares that in fact the US doesn't have much power in the region. "We can't force people to do what we want," she explained in Doha at the Forum of the Future earlier this week, emphasising reforms that were focused far more on "economic empowerment, rather than political change," according to the Washington Post. Clinton never even mentioned the word democracy in her prepared remarks, or human rights for that matter.
And while she preached the gospel of reform and civil society, Clinton praised the record of another despotic regime, Bahrain, whose foreign minister participated in the forum with her. This even though the country's record of censorship and political repression lags little behind Tunisia's, if at all, as the annual Human Rights Reports of Clinton's State Department clearly show.
Taking history's reins
The WikiLeaks cable that by many accounts helped encourage the protests that have now toppled the Ben Ali regime had the virtue of being honest, as it explained that the incredibly deep and endemic corruption up through the very top of a regime that had completely "lost ouch with the Tunisian people" produced an untenable situation.
It's clear, then, that the US understood the problems plaguing Tunisia, so why didn't Clinton speak as openly as her ambassador in Tunis? Imagine what support she would have gotten from the people of Tunisia if she only stated what everyone already knew? If at the very least she had, as her ambassador urged in the then classified communique, declared America's intent to "keep a strong focus on democratic reform and respect for human rights," words that the US would not utter directly and openly until Ben Ali had fled the country.
The question now is, does Obama have the courage, the "audacity", to use one of his favourite words, to seize the moment?
Once Ben Ali had fled the country, the President did salute "brave and determined struggle for the universal rights", applauded "the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people", and called on the Tunisian government "to respect human rights, and to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people".
But unless there is a stick behind this call, there is every reason to believe, as so many Tunisians and other commentators worry, that the country's corrupt and still powerful elite will find a way to remain entrenched in power once the situation calms down. Indeed, Obama's call to "maintain calm" is counter productive. While violence is of course deplorable, the worst thing for Tunisians to do would be to remain calm, to tone down their protests and leave the streets.
Now is the time for Tunisians to ensure that the revolution that is just sprouting is not cut off or co-opted. The protests need to continue and even expand until the foundations of the regime are uprooted and other senior officials removed from power and sent into exile as Ben Ali has now been.
What is President Obama going to do if they emulate their colleagues in Iran and ruthlessly suppress further protests? If he and other world leaders don't lay out the scenario to the Tunisian people and the elites still trying to contain them now, so everyone understands what the United States will do to support the people, what incentive will those seeking to retain power have to take another route?
Crucial next steps
While the United States and the international community should not directly intervene unless the military begins killing or arresting large numbers of people, there are a number of steps Obama could take immediately to ensure that this nascent democratic moment takes root and spreads across the region.
First, the President should not merely urge free and fair elections. He must publicly declare that the United States will not recognise, nor continue security or economic relations, with any government that is not democratically elected through international monitored elections. At the same time, he must freeze any assets of Tunisia's now ex-leadership and hold them until they can be reclaimed by the Tunisian people.
Second, he should declare that the young people of Tunisia have shown the example for the rest of the Arab world, and offer his support for a "Jasmin Spring" across the Arab world. Obama should demand that every country in the region free all political prisoners, end all forms of censorship and political repression, and fully follow international law in the way they treat their citizens or the people's under their jurisdictions.
Furthermore, the President should call on every country in the region to move towards free, fair, and internationally monitored elections within a specified time or risk facing a similar cut-off of ties, aid and cooperation. Such demands must be made together with America's reluctant European allies.
Of course, such a call would apply to Israel as much as to Egypt, to Morocco as well as to Saudi Arabia. There would be one standard for every country from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean, and the US would pledge to stand with all people working to bring real democracy, freedom and development to their peoples and countries and to oppose all governments that stand in their way.
Imagine what would happen to America's image in the Muslim world if the President took such a stand? Imagine what would happen to al Qaeda's recruitment levels if he adopted such a policy (in fact, al Qaeda has been equally behind the 8-ball, as it was only Friday that the leaders of the movement's so-called Maghrebian wing declared their support for the protests in Tunisia and Algeria).
Imagine how hard it would be for so-called "supporters" of Israel to attack the President for finally putting some teeth behind his criticism of Israeli policy (which Clinton in Doha incredulously said the US could do nothing to stop) if he could reply that he was only holding Israel to the same standard as everyone else and that his policies were actually protecting America's core interests and security?
Sinking in the sand
In Doha, Clinton poetically spoke of regimes whose "foundations are sinking into the sand" and who will, it is assumed, disappear unless "reform" occurs. The reality is that US foreign policy towards the Middle East and larger Muslim world is equally in danger of sinking into the sands if the President and his senior officials are not willing to get ahead of history's suddenly accelerating curve. It is the US and Europe, as much as the leaders of the region, who in Clinton's words are in need of "a real vision for that future."
Clinton was eloquent in her closing remarks at the Forum for the Future, where she declared,
"Let us face honestly that future. Let us discuss openly what needs to be done. Let us use this time to move beyond rhetoric, to put away plans that are timid and gradual, and make a commitment to keep this region moving in the right direction. People are looking for real leadership in the 21st century, and I think it can be provided, and I know that this is the moment to do so."
She couldn't be more right, but it will only happen if the United States, and not the Arab world's aging and autocratic leadership, takes her sage advice.Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Saturday, 15 January 2011
Parlimentary Shuffleboard Tunisia
A few quick notes on what's going on in Tunisia right now (for actual news, see the link below)
- President Ben Ali flees country after 24 years in power looking for safe haven. First to France where he's denied by Sarkozy then scattered reports that he was in Malta, Sardinia, UAE & Dubai before it was confirmed that he'd been accepted in Saudi Arabia
- Last official act of former President was to name his sitting Prime Minister Ghannouchi the acting President. According to the Tunisian constitution, Ghannouchi was 2nd in the line of succession behind the Speaker of Parliment and this has angered many people who see Ghannouchi as a carry-over of the Ben Ali regime.
- It now appears that the Speaker of Parliment Mebazaa and constitutional successor has assumed temporary control and will be calling for legally mandated elections in 60 days.
- A few questions remain in my mind.
1. Just how much did Bin Ali & Family abscond with ? The recent revelations of the extent of corruption in the former presidency may have been the tipping point in the public mood but has anyone been able to quantify that ?
2. If the former President indeed plans to stay in Saudi Arabia, what funds will he & his family be living on ? Saudi is not an inexpensive place to live and while their hospitality is legendary, it does have it's limits.
3. Apparently France has already blocked several some financial transactions linked to Bin Ali but surely there are other accounts. What will become of those funds and will the various banks repatriate the funds to Tunisia's new government or did Ali escape with his life & his fortune ?
4. In light of reports of continued looting (some police apparently participating) and violence and a lack of civil control, when will things calm down enough for the country to "take a collective breath" ?
4. In light of reports of continued looting (some police apparently participating) and violence and a lack of civil control, when will things calm down enough for the country to "take a collective breath" ?
5. How quickly will the World's leaders extend a helping hand (I hope only as requested) and recognize the new reality of Tunisia and it's people's demand for freedom ?
6. What impact will this event have on other regional "sore spots" ? There's already been demonstrations in Egypt, Jordan and who knows where else ? As Churchill put it "This is not the end, not the beginning of the end, but maybe the end of the beginning" (or something like that)
6. What impact will this event have on other regional "sore spots" ? There's already been demonstrations in Egypt, Jordan and who knows where else ? As Churchill put it "This is not the end, not the beginning of the end, but maybe the end of the beginning" (or something like that)
I guess time will tell. Now for the real news by the people on the ground, click below.
SRW
Friday, 14 January 2011
Tunisia - The Social Revolution Live
Just a quick note.
I just spent the better part of the afternoon engrossed with Twitter watching the fall of the Tunisian government, the last minute escape by the resigned President and his country-hopping attempt to find someplace that would let him in.
Initial reports had him fleeing on a plane to France who in their ever so snotty way replied "Non!". Probably due to fears of unrest in their already agitated Tunisian immigrant communities. Next up were rumours that he was headed to Dubai. Now Dubai was an odd choice considering the fact that the now ex-President apparently was not on the best of terms with the government there but then again, his wife was supposedly in the region already thereby lending some credence to this rumour.
A few people on Twitter tried in vain to follow the his aircraft based on a leaked tail number / callsign but the info provided was incorrect in the end so it was speculation time again. Saudi, UAE, Dubai who knows. Finally reports came in that his plane had landed in Sardinia but no reports of whether he was on it.
Meanwhile, back in Tunis, the President disolved government before skipping town and the Prime Minister who's not next in line of succession claimed power. So more questions arose. Was this a military coup (unlikely), a palace coup (more likely) or just a 74 year old dictator gettin' while the gettin's good ?
Either way, a few things are for certain. In Tunis and across Tunisia there are reports of gunfire and looting. The looting isn't a good thing and the gunfire, let's just hope that it's celebratory and not the military and regime remnants taking potshots at the civilians in revenge.
This whole experience has left me mentally "winded" and thrilled. As I mentioned in a Twitter post, I was "watching news happen" thanks to the live Twitter reporting of people like Alan Fisher and Oliver Varney from Al Jazeera. Surprised that I didn't read more from the likes of CNN / BBC et. al. but then again, Tunisia isn't a ratings magnet.
This was my first experience with watching the power, the immediacy and the inclusiveness of social media at work. People from the world over were chiming in with comments, the two news men and their teams (the must've had great people working with them) keeping us up to date with the facts on the ground and info from various sources. People sending encouragement and others watching/reading along as events unfolded.
This may be a bit of a leap but considering how quickly info was streaming amongst the tweets, from on-site witnesses to us observers, I can easily understand it when people refer to this event as the first "Social Media Revolution". Is it precedent setting ? I don't know, I'm not a sage but I can say that this has emboldened quite a few people and both governments and media outlets better start paying attention.
I just spent the better part of the afternoon engrossed with Twitter watching the fall of the Tunisian government, the last minute escape by the resigned President and his country-hopping attempt to find someplace that would let him in.
Initial reports had him fleeing on a plane to France who in their ever so snotty way replied "Non!". Probably due to fears of unrest in their already agitated Tunisian immigrant communities. Next up were rumours that he was headed to Dubai. Now Dubai was an odd choice considering the fact that the now ex-President apparently was not on the best of terms with the government there but then again, his wife was supposedly in the region already thereby lending some credence to this rumour.
A few people on Twitter tried in vain to follow the his aircraft based on a leaked tail number / callsign but the info provided was incorrect in the end so it was speculation time again. Saudi, UAE, Dubai who knows. Finally reports came in that his plane had landed in Sardinia but no reports of whether he was on it.
Meanwhile, back in Tunis, the President disolved government before skipping town and the Prime Minister who's not next in line of succession claimed power. So more questions arose. Was this a military coup (unlikely), a palace coup (more likely) or just a 74 year old dictator gettin' while the gettin's good ?
Either way, a few things are for certain. In Tunis and across Tunisia there are reports of gunfire and looting. The looting isn't a good thing and the gunfire, let's just hope that it's celebratory and not the military and regime remnants taking potshots at the civilians in revenge.
This whole experience has left me mentally "winded" and thrilled. As I mentioned in a Twitter post, I was "watching news happen" thanks to the live Twitter reporting of people like Alan Fisher and Oliver Varney from Al Jazeera. Surprised that I didn't read more from the likes of CNN / BBC et. al. but then again, Tunisia isn't a ratings magnet.
This was my first experience with watching the power, the immediacy and the inclusiveness of social media at work. People from the world over were chiming in with comments, the two news men and their teams (the must've had great people working with them) keeping us up to date with the facts on the ground and info from various sources. People sending encouragement and others watching/reading along as events unfolded.
This may be a bit of a leap but considering how quickly info was streaming amongst the tweets, from on-site witnesses to us observers, I can easily understand it when people refer to this event as the first "Social Media Revolution". Is it precedent setting ? I don't know, I'm not a sage but I can say that this has emboldened quite a few people and both governments and media outlets better start paying attention.
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