Issandr El Amrani's Blog, page 86

Links 14-17 July 2012

Still taking suggestions for the link dumps for another round.

Egypt’s deafening three-letter yell | Egypt Independent
On "a7a".

Postponement amid court chaos - DNE
Ugly scenes from today's session.

Blanket Thinkers « Qunfuz
Important post on silly leftists and their take on Syria.

The Fading of Tahrir Square | Foreign Affairs
Ashraf Khalil

Dear Leader, Could We Have A New Military Museum? (Part II) | Eric Schewe


Egyptians to Government: Focus on Jobs
Latest from Gallup offers no surprise.

Thousands stage strike at Egypt textile giant | Reuters
Mahalla again.

Morocco’s ‘luxury prisons’ stir controversy
Typical and revolting.

Land rights, labor and violence in a Cairo slum | Egypt Independent
Must-read local journalism.

Islamists' hold over Mali threatens Europe, diplomat warns | Guardian
Mali, from democracy to intervention target.

.:Middle East Online::In Syria, Cameras are sometimes as powerful as Kalashnikovs:.


Terrified villagers tell of the horror of Tremseh - The Independent
#syria

The U.S.-Egyptian relationship: It's complicated - latimes.com
Miller, writing about a country he probably he hasn't set foot in in years.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: Between a Present with Qatar and a Future with Libya | Atlantic Council
Good piece by Sultan Qassemi.

The Only Alternative is War | Souciant
Plitnick on the Levy report.

Tunisie-L’Obsession salafiste – Tawa fi Tunis


ElBaradei calls on Egypt's powers to draft new constitutional addendum - Ahram Online
Amen: "away from anger and mistrust, we have to start a national conversation"

nisralnasr: Political Conflict and Legal Maneuvering
Ellis Goldberg.

Revolutionary group calls for disbanding supreme court | Egypt Independent
Good.

The Bold Comedians of Syria Strike Back | The Global Mail
Great piece.

Egypt: 16 months of revolutionary photography

By Mossaab.

Ashour on why Libya's Islamists lost

Omar Ashour as a new column up at Project Syndicate explaining Libyan Islamists' defeat at the hands of a wide-ranging ranging coalition of liberals, independents, conservatives, and, well, almost everyone who was not a self-described Islamist.

Nevertheless, the question remains: what happened to the Islamists? They spearheaded the opposition to Qaddafi, were advised by their Tunisian and Egyptian brethren, and larded their rhetoric with religious symbolism in a conservative Muslim country. For many, however, this was not enough.

A striking difference between Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia’s Ennahda, on the one hand, and Libya’s Islamists on the other is the level of institutionalization and interaction with the masses. In Qaddafi’s four decades in power, Libya’s Islamists could not build local support networks; develop organizational structures, hierarchies, or institutions; or create a parallel system of clinics and social services, as their counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan were able to do.

As a result, Libya’s Islamists could not unite in a coalition as large as that of Mahmoud Jibril, the former prime minister under the National Transitional Council, who heads the NFC. Instead, their votes were divided between several parties, six of which are significant.

But another reason for the strong “liberal” turnout is the “blood” factor. “I am not giving my family’s votes to the MB. Two of my cousins died because of them,” Mohamed Abdul Hakim, a voter from Benghazi, told me. He agrees that Islam should be the source for legislation, and his wife wears a niqab. Nonetheless, he voted liberal: his cousins were killed in a confrontation in the 1990’s, most likely between the Martyrs Movement (a small jihadist group operating in his neighborhood at the time) and Qaddafi’s forces.

But many average Libyans, including Hakim, do not distinguish between Islamist organizations and their histories. For them, all Islamists are “Ikhwan” (MB). The “stain” of direct involvement in armed action, coupled with fear of Taliban-like laws or a civil war like Algeria’s in the 1990’s harmed Islamists of all brands.

Also see: Analysis: Elections in Libya —the surprises | Libya Herald

Beinin on Egypt's workers

Joel Beinin has a new paper out at Carnegie on the labor movement in Egypt, his field of expertise for something like three decades at least now. He writes:

[W]orkers were quick to mobilize in the early stages of the groundswell that eventually unseated Hosni Mubarak, and they deserve more credit for his ouster than they typically receive. Soon after the uprising began, workers violated ETUF’s legal monopoly on trade union organization and formed the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU)—the first new institution to emerge from the revolt. Labor mobilization continued at an unprecedented level during 2011 and early 2012, and workers established hundreds of new, independent enterprise-level unions. They also secured a substantially higher minimum wage.

Yet, though the labor movement has made headway, problems persist. New unions face funding difficulties and the independent labor movement is internally divided. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)—the ultimate power in Egypt since Mubarak’s demise—and ETUF have both repeatedly asserted their power to oppose independent unions and have scored some successes. The movement has a very limited presence in the emerging institutions of the post-Mubarak state and is thus left without much leverage to fend off attacks from its political opponents.

Going forward, the independent labor movement should consider looking beyond street protests over immediate grievances, where it has achieved its greatest successes, and begin training enterprise-level leaderships and forging political coalitions with sympathetic sections of the intelligentsia. Independent trade unions remain the strongest nationally organized force confronting the autocratic tendencies of the old order. If they can solidify and expand their gains, they could be an important force leading Egypt toward a more democratic future.

Timely reading considering a recent upsurge in labor actions across Egypt — in Cairo, Mahalla al-Kubra, Beni Suef, Marsa Matruh and elsewhere — and those are just from today. (via the two leading sources of Egypt labor info on Twitter, @3arabawy and @egystrikes.

Benchemsi: the history of Morocco's #feb20

Ahmed Benchemsi, the former editor of the popular French-language weekly Tel Quel, has written a valuable essay retelling the story of the emergence of the February 20 movement in Morocco and its subsequent fading as the monarchy regained the initiative. He concludes:

At the time of writing (March 2012), the freshly appointed Benkirane cabinet still enjoys a honeymoon with the people. This may last a few more months, maybe a year. But then what? The sources of the 2011 revolt are still in place. Corruption, a major factor for discontent, is at peak level. Morocco’s position on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has been worsening for years, going from 52nd in 2002 to 80th in 2011. Unemployment is also higher than ever, especially among university graduates (the official rate is 19% in 2011). Given the depth of these problems and the profound structural reforms that they require, the odds are small that Mr. Benkirane and his government assuage popular anger quickly enough.

With months passing and the economy degrading, in the absence of democratic freedoms developed enough to act like a safety valve, serious street protesting is likely to resume. The question is by whom the next round of popular anger will be channeled; and if so, whether or not this will be done properly to seize the momentum and maintain it while exerting efficient—and this time, focused—pressure on the Makhzen. The PJD cannot play that mobilizing role anymore, now that it has been closely associated to the Makhzen. The remaining activists movements that can do the channeling are Al Adl Wal Ihsan or, maybe, a reformed Feb20-like coalition—provided Morocco’s democratic and secular activists learn lessons from the 2011 fiasco and manage to build a real grassroots movement with an identified and appealing agenda.

I'm not sure I agree with his take that the emergency of a coherent liberal movement will be enough to change things (it will need to be broader than strictly liberal). Benchemsi is a figurehead of secularism in Morocco, a cause he advocated with his magazine with some success but that remains fairly alien to most Moroccans, whether among the educated middle class or the rural poor. The question in Morocco may be how to articulate an idea of reformist secularism that is not, as Tel Quel sometimes was, hostile to traditional values. He has written here a good first draft of the history of the radicals' role in the emergency of this movement (and more broadly the movement for democratic change in Morocco), but a chapter on its mainstreaming still awaits.

Al-Amin: What’s the U.S. up to in Egypt?

Esam Al-Amin in Counterpunch:

In this high stakes of international power play the U.S. strategy in the region is to prefer a managed transition to civilian rule and democratic governance as long as the American major strategic objectives are not challenged. In short, the strategy is to give the Islamic rising powers a chance to govern as long as they agree to: keep the Americans in, the Chinese and Russians out, the Iranians down, and the Israelis safe.

Time will only tell if the Islamic group would fulfill such expectations or chart a more independent course in line with the objectives of the revolution that brought them to power.

Al-Amin is critical of US foreign policy in the region (who isn't!?) but his article is fair appraisal of priorities for Washington in post-uprising Egypt. It's actually a pretty decent mix as long as it includes that transition to democratic governance (and I think the US is not on good terms with SCAF, or more specifically Tantawi, anyway). The question is what happens to the good stuff if Washington doesn't get its way on the others — and I think that something there has got to give.

The first test, as Al-Amin points out, is likely to be the blockade on Gaza and Egypt-Israel relations. The Israelis, in any case, are not wasting time making their preparations and drafting allies in the US:

Israeli troops kill man crossing illegally from Egypt | Reuters
Israel to deploy rocket interceptor at Egypt border - Chicago Tribune
Sinai chaos threatens Israel-Egypt stability - CNN.com

That last piece on CNN.com is an op-ed by Mark Udall, a US Senator for Colorado (D). He writes:

It is critical that we engage the Israelis and Egyptians in joint discussions on security in the Sinai and on preserving the Multinational Force and Observers' mission. The Egyptian military should be urged to reinforce checkpoints on the borders between mainland Egypt and the Sinai in order to stop the flow of arms and crack down on human trafficking. Egypt's new government must respect the country's commitments to combat human trafficking under international conventions as well as domestic law.

Where the US lags behind is accepting that the main cause of instability in Sinai is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the impact the Gaza blockade has had in criminalizing the Sinai economy through the tunnels. What Egypt needs in Sinai is not just a greater commitment of the state to fight crime, but an end to the blockade, which means an end to the Quartet conditions.

In Latitude: Kritarchy in Cairo

My latest piece for the IHT's blog Latitude is up. It deals with the, in my view, scandalous behavior of Egyptian judges in the last few weeks and their increased politicization. I am particular incensed at the lack of mea culpa from the judiciary, for years a good part of the problem of the Mubarak era. Just think how many judges sentenced people to years of prison in political cases. And it appears that their idea of judicial independence is that judges should entirely decide how to administer themselves without any oversight. It smacks of the corporatist thinking that plagues Egypt, and lies at the core of the problems of reforming the judiciary, the police and other state institutions. The judges, for now, appear to be more part of the problem than the solution.

Conspiracy galore in Egypt

The Lede's Robert Mackey has a great round-up of how the conspiratorial thinking that led to the protest against Hillary Clinton's visit in Egypt started:

The news that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s motorcade was pelted with shoes and tomatoes by Egyptian protesters, who also taunted her by chanting “Monica! Monica!” as she left the U.S. consulate in Alexandria on Sunday, delighted conservative bloggers in the United States.

What has attracted less attention, however, is the extent to which the Egyptians who vented their rage during Mrs. Clinton’s visit appear to have been inspired by fears that the Obama administration harbors a secret, pro-Islamist agenda which originated with American conservatives.

You really have to read the whole thing, especially the bit where some idiotic tweep thinks the regular aid given the Egyptian military was given to the Brotherhood.

I am frequently astounded by the level of stupidity in Egyptian political discourse but the current felool/secularist/Coptic alliance (although I think a minority of these respective groups are taking part, they are quite vocal) against Morsi in the current deadlock is both moronic and incredibly unpatriotic and undemocratic. That protest against Clinton was led by Tawfik Okasha — these people deserve to be held in just as much contempt as he is. The silver lining is that they are making themselves irrelevant, doing everyone else a favor in the process.

(Edited because an error had left pasted text from above-linked article)

On "morality police" in Egypt

I did not get a chance to blog about the reports of Islamist morality vigilantism said to have caused the death of a young man in Suez a couple of weeks ago, but below are some links on the story. While it's not clear how widespread the phenomenon is, and there has been some alarmism, I do believe that such events are happening more frequently. I would not look at a conspiracy by the new Islamist president for now, though — this problem has much more to do with the collapse of authority in areas where there the state already has problems to impose itself. No wonder the worst instances of such morality police (but the least reported) is Sinai.

No morality police in Egypt: Morsi spokesman - Politics - Egypt - Ahram Online
A noisy discourse on sexual harassment : EgyptMonocle
Egyptian Youth’s Murder in Suez Puts Islamists on Defensive - Bloomberg
Fears of 'morality vigilantism' in Suez - YouTube
After Suez murder, questions linger over vigilante 'morality police' | Egypt Independent
Egyptian student fatally stabbed by militants - SFGate

Moustafa: Don't call the SCC's decision on parliament a dissolution

Tamir Mousfata weighs in with an interesting comment on the headline of this NYT story on the scuffle over the dissolution of parliament: "Egypt’s Military and President Escalate Their Power Struggle". He writes in a comment to the story:

The headline for this article is incorrect and terribly misleading. The Supreme Constitutional Court ruling on June 14 did not disband parliament, it only invalidated part of the election law. It was the military that disbanded parliament as an opportunistic move, but it is not the role of an unelected junta to dissolve parliament. The SCC reaffirmed its ruling as political theatre, as its ruling still stands. Morsi's presidential decree seeks to dissolve parliament in an orderly fashion, without the military calling the shots. The New York Times should make a correction, as the current headline and much of the text of the article simply presents the spin that SCAF would like to put forward.

Moustafa is Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University and the author of a book that speaks to the heart of the matter: The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt.

His comment, which is in line with my own analysis (as well as that I think the SCC's June 14 decision is ridiculous and the reaction of the Egyptian judicial establishment in general to Morsi's decree preposterous and dishonest — more on that later) and that of many other experts on Egyptian constitutional matters, is telling of how much the discussion of this struggle has been skewed. In a way, one can hardly blame the NYT's headline writers when the Egyptian media is largely framing this in the same manner, as are politicians and many senior judges. My instinct tells me that the latter, in particular, are full of crap when they complain of the decree being "an attack on rule of law" while Morsi's defense that he is not challenging the courts but the SCC's right to dissolve parliament not only entirely plausible, but laudable.

Unfortunately he did not think through the politics very well here, and may lose this battle. The last saving grace for him may be, ironically, upcoming decisions by the administrative courts — otherwise his best bet will be a quick move to hold new elections.