Issandr El Amrani's Blog, page 87

The Brotherhood: Battling on all fronts

This piece by Noha Hennawy in Egypt Independent has it right — it's not about Brotherhood vs. military in Egypt, it's not even Brotherhood vs. the military and the judiciary, it's about Brotherhood vs. military and a range of potential allies, some of whom are only allies on occasion:

In the midst of this feud, the Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, have also immersed themselves into a different battle with another, no less significant force: privately owned media. The group’s daily newspaper recently coined the term, ‘black media’, for the private channels and newspapers that regularly criticize the Brotherhood’s performance. It accused these media outlets of implementing the agenda of corrupt businessmen, known for ties with the old regime.

Akram Ismail, a columnist and youth leader in the leftist Popular Alliance Party, says the Brothers may not win these battles because their adversaries ‘are very powerful.’

‘The Brothers are fighting influential groups,’ he said, listing the bureaucracy, the businessmen, the upper-middle class, intelligence officials and the security apparatus.

‘It is a large social mix,’ he said. ‘The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces stands as the political representative of this network.

‘These forces might not be able to form a political party and win elections, but they can invest in the media, the military council and the judiciary to team up against the Brotherhood,’ said Ismail, addressing what is commonly referred to as ‘the deep state.’"

Links 9-13 July 2012

Please do continue to leave suggestions on how to improve the links list (presentation, frequency, etc.), I am listening.

In Simply Meeting, Egyptian and Saudi Leaders Open New Era - NYTimes.com


Le dernier roman de Mohamed LAFTEH : lu et vu par un twitto marocain.


Oman condemned for sentencing activists - FT.com


Ship owner not aware of Syrian helicopters - FT.com
Was carrying assault copters.

Le Figaro - International : Mali : Fabius juge probable l'usage de la force


The end game in Syria
Heydemann: opp's fragmentation no longer an obstacle

Twitter and the Arab Spring: New Evidence
Most clicks from outside region.

What's going on in Israel?


Egypt: Brothers v generals, again | The Economist


Libya’s election: A big step for a battered country | The Economist


Egypt Unlikely to Reach IMF Loan Pact in 2012, Official Says - Businessweek
Rabbina yustur.

The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking? | Charlie Skelton | Comment is free
Weird conspiratorial list, no grassroots.

The Country That Is the World: Syria’s Clashing Communities | World Affairs Journal
Charles Glass.

Dissent Magazine - A Conversation with Khaled Abou El Fadl on the Trials of Egyptian Democracy
This guy either has privileged info or many things wrong.

Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life | Pew Global Attitudes Project
Encouraging indicators here.

Egypt’s Overhyped Parliamentary Showdown - The Daily Beast
Ashraf Khalil

Syria's many new friends are a self-interested bunch - The National
Charles Glass.

The Egyptian Revolution: Results and Prospects - Hossam el-Hamalawy & Charlie Kimber - Marxism 2012
Great speech, starts with very good explanation of the importance of strikes in pre-#jan25 Egypt.

What the Brotherhood Lost - Sada
Far too speculative.

With Europe in crisis, Egypt must reverse course | Egypt Independent


Arab Spring in Sudan could resemble Syria: former PM | Reuters
al-Mahdi.

Notes from the Underground: Calling in the Dark
"The idea that the revolution is successful is the biggest adversary to the reality that the revolution is ongoing."

Israeli settler population surges under Netanyahu - SFGate
If someone suggests to you that time is running out for the 2-state solution, punch him in the face.

Walls Of Palestinian Homes Come Tumbling Down : NPR


Mali: Counter-terrorism and the benefits of doing nothing - Al Jazeera English
Robert Grenier.

France says military intervention in Mali ‘probable’ as U.S. authorizes $10 mln for refugees
The Power of Social Media in Saudi Arabia | TIME.com
In Saudi Arabia, Dissent is Alive and Well, But Only Online or in Private by @jacobtemplin for @Time

Mysterious fatal crash provides rare glimpse of U.S. commandos in Mali - WaPo
Featuring Moroccan prostitutes...

Egypt lost in caliphate vs. civil state debate - Daily News Egypt


Tunisian democracy threatened by weak opposition | The Guardian
Younger Tunisians feel excluded for politics.

Officials: Feared al-Qaida offshoot neutralized  | ajc.com
AQIM out of Algeria... into the Sahel?

Cairobserver — It's Countryside- Life outside Cairo
Short film.

Op-ed: Egypt’s fragmented politics
Nate Wright.

Libya’s Ex-Oil Minister Died Naturally, Vienna Prosecutor Says- Bloomberg
How Morocco Dodged the Arab Spring by Nicolas Pelham | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
Train Wreck Along the Nile - By Nathan J. Brown | Foreign Policy
Syria, Where You Don’t Always Get What You Want - By Brian Fishman | The Middle East Channel
What you want vs what you might get in Syria, by Brian Fishman | The Middle East Channel:

Morsy’s debts | Egypt Independent


The Judiciary in Egypt: Pursuing reform and promoting independence - Arab Reform Initiative


L'Expression - Le Quotidien
It's amazing how fond the Algerian press is of talking about discord among Sahelian militants.

Eric Schewe's map of the presidential election results

The above map of from Eric Schewe's blog, which has some great analysis of the presidential election and much else. It's a great blog for Egypt nerds. He writes of the map and the data behind it:

The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood count from June 18 and the official state count were so close gives me confidence that, while votes may have been illegitimately influenced by actions outside the polling booth, that the polls themselves were relatively fairly conducted. This means this body of data is the first reliable indication ever of Egyptians’ preferences over a very stark binary choice for the direction of the state: Islamism or “Feloul” (old-regime) revanchism. Obviously, many Egyptians went out to vote AGAINST either choice, but the geographical distribution of the result shows very strong regional tendencies, raising interesting questions about voters’ overall motives.

Getting this kind of data and spreading will lead, over time, in a quantum leap in how we understand Egyptian politics. Of course it needs to be combined with new data added over time and knowledge of local-level dynamics. But at long last, we have a base based on an electoral process that was reasonably free and fair.

Pelham: How Morocco Dodged the Arab Spring

At least for now, says Nick Pelham in the NYRblog:

But while Benkirane’s government has for the time being stayed any prospect of a broader upheaval, Morocco is not yet out of the woods. The carping, which Benkirane’s election initially silenced, has returned with renewed vigor as Moroccans ask themselves whether their new constitution was merely cosmetic. Most recently, this view has been confirmed in a battle over who gets to make senior government appointments. Unsurprisingly, the King seems to have won.

“I appoint five hundred of the country’s most senior positions,” Benkirane had insisted to me in March. “The king appoints only thirty-seven.” But those thirty-seven are the most important. King Mohammed remains head of the Council of Ministers, the Supreme Security Council, and the Ulama Council, which runs the mosques. He runs the military, the security forces, and the intelligence. The targets of the February 20 protests—including the interior minister at the time, Ali al-Himma—are firmly ensconced as advisers in the King’s shadow government. Tellingly, when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to the kingdom in March she met the King’s foreign affairs adviser ahead of the foreign minister. “The King returns to Morocco, business resumes,” ran the headline in the official newspaper, Le Soir, on June 13, after the King returned from an absence of several weeks in Europe. It was clear who it thought called the shots.

Excellent piece worth reading on the unfinished business from 2011 in Morocco, with vivid reporting from the dark underbelly of the country.

SCAF: Is Ruweiny being kicked upstairs or promoted?

Important news for Egypt Kremlinologists: New Central Military Zone commander appointed:

Celebrations were held Wednesday to mark the handover of leadership of the Central Military Zone to Commander Tawhid Tawfiq Abdel Samie.

The ceremony opened with a speech for outgoing Commander Hassan al-Roweiny, who was appointed assistant defense minister. Roweiny has reached the age of retirement.

Roweiny lauded the continuing support of the leaders of the armed forces, who he said helped the Central Military Zone carry out its mission and training activities after the 25 January revolution.

Roweiny is considered to be one of the most influential members of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. He told protesters in Tahrir Square in 10 February 2011 that their demands would be met.

The following day, former President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, handing power to the army.

But Roweiny later became a hated figure among revolutionary forces, especially after he accused the April 6 Youth Movement, one of the main youth groups that helped kick-start the uprising against Mubarak, of destabilizing the country. He alleged that its members are trained by foreign agents.

Two questions/consequences arise:

This should mean that SCAF has a new member in General Abdel Samie, but does Ruweiny also stay on in his new capacity?
Is this a promotion for Ruweiny, a way to keep him on despite his having reached the retirement age (and if that is being enforced, what about Tantawy?), or is this a way to demote him? 

Of liberals, secularists, Islamists and other labels

I want to discuss here the labels assigned to Arab political parties and politicians (if you want to get to that directly skip till the end of the following quotes), but before let me point out what started this post — a fine piece by Nasser Rabbat on Steve Walt's blog, Arab secularism and its discontent:

Is this a new turn for the West? Did the West support the secularists before the revolutions? And has Arab secularism really become irrelevant? My answer to all three questions is an emphatic no.

Many good points he explores each in turn, before concluding:

Arab secularism, however, remains on the street and online. Though outdone in the current rush to power by the Islamists, it still has the ability to reassert itself in the political arena, if not as the ruling party, at least as lawful opposition and guardian of the principles of civic freedoms. The culture of lawful opposition, long absent under the totalitarian regimes, needs to be reinserted into the political discourse. This is as important a function as good governance for the well-being of the nascent Arab democracies. To that end, the efforts of the discontented revolutionary youth and the seasoned secular intellectuals should be united under the umbrella of political parties. The West should help them by recognizing their crucial political role and by treating them as long-term partners not just as recipients of training and aid.

I will take him to task for a factual mistake, though, here:

The few attempts to register a secularist political presence in the elections in Tunis and Egypt were swept aside by the eminently more organized Islamist parties and by their shrewd appeal to the basic religiosity of the people, especially the poor and the illiterate.

Secularist parties have at least 40% of seat in Tunisia's constituent assembly/interim parliament, and both the speaker of that assembly and the president are secularists. In Egypt that percentage could be argued to have been 20-30% in the dissolved parliament and nearly 50% of voters voted for non-Islamist candidate in the presidential election and 50% of the electorate decided not to vote at all in the presidential election, where secularist candidates won over 30% in the first round, including Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third. 

The question for Arab secularists is not that they are an anemic force in society. It's that they are divided (on the conservative / progressive and economically liberal / socialist axes) and disorganized. The key to their future electoral success will be building strong organizations and finding the right mix of alliances with conservative political forces (i.e. felool) and moderate Islamists. In other words, the winning combination may not be a liberal one but still be a mostly secular (at least in Arab terms, not European ones) one.

The recent Libyan elections are a case in point in this distinction. What have been annoyingly called "liberals" performed well in the election, but this is a catch-all term that really is used to say non-Islamist and perhaps non-a certain type of Islamist, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. But these liberals include parties and movements led by former Qadhafi regime officials who defected early and probably a bunch of people who should not be called liberals in at least the two standard meanings of the term: either economically liberal secularists as is meant is most of continental Europe, where liberal parties tend to be center-right, or socially liberal as is generally meant in the US, and associated with the center-left. Of course the irony is that a liberal in the Arab world could very well not be secularist — i.e. he could be a moderate Islamist — while a secularist might be a Stalinist or Nasserist, or in other word not particularly progressive in terms of human rights or liberal in the economic sense. 

We need better terms that this, or perhaps more terms than merely liberal, secular (these two sometimes wrongly used interchangeably) and Islamists. Let's start with Islamists: a wide range of people fall under this label, with different views. Arguably the Muslim Brotherhood tendency deserves in own label, due to its relative ideological coherence and strength. Salafis are also diverse, since only a segment engage in politics, but that segment is pretty reliably ultra-conservative. And then there are new variants of Islamism usually described as "moderate" which is not quite satisfactory either, especially when the Brothers in particular often use this word to describe themselves. So we may have:

Ikhwani Islamist for Muslim Brothers;
Salafi Islamist for the various Salafi parties, who are mostly socially ultra-conservative;
Wasati Islamist for individuals like Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh or the Wasat or Egyptian Current parties.

How about the non-Islamists? Historically there is the Arab nationalist trend, which can be further divided into Nasserist, Baathist and various local variants. But the nationalist trend is fast-changing — how much longer will anyone call themselves a Baathist? Sometimes the national label — Nasserist — is most appropriate because it is used by politicians to define themselves, for instance for Hamdeen Sabahi in Egypt. But these personalities and parties do share a common adherence to the idea of Arab unity, which still has backers in many countries and often translates, as in the Maghreb, into policies that stress Arab identity (e.g. in national education). So it seems to be that Arab nationalist is a decent catch-all label for these, even for those newer types of parties that, while making a nod to Arab nationalism, are progressive like Moncef Marzouki's CPR in Tunisia.

There is also a growing social-democrat movement in the Arab world that draws inspiration from the European model — Mohamed ElBaradei explicitly referred to his experience living in Austria, for instance, and used the label himself. The Egyptian Social Democratic Party also falls under this label. Social democrats could of course be Wasati Islamists in the Arab world, and I suspect this will develop in that direction, representing what is called, usually derisively, "Islamo-gauchiste" in French.

Socialists put more emphasis on issues of social justice and the redistribution of wealth, and most often tend to be secularists. Radical socialists might as well be included here for now, since this trend tends to be stronger in civil society than in electoral politics. But whether "moderate" or Trotskyist or even Stalinist, this socialist/Marxist trend has a long and rich history in the Arab world, and there's no reason to think that it's over just because the terms "Islamist" and "liberal" tend to dominate the headlines.

Liberal is a label I feel should be used in the European sense in the Arab world, because Arab politics (in these early days of emerging democracy) tends to resemble continental Europe more than the two-party systems that have dominated Anglo-saxon politics for centuries — i.e. they are more likely to be coalition driven and constantly in flux, as the political boundaries of France or Germany or Israel often are. In Egypt the liberals are clearly the Free Egyptians (which can also be translated as the Liberal Egyptians), they are also ultra-secularists. There are similar parties in Tunisia, essentially representing the business elite and libertarians.

What of the felool? Over time, I think these will dissolve into the other trends, but they can also represent a certain conservatism. Perhaps the Bourguibist parties of Tunisia, represented by personalities like Beji Caid Essebsi or Kamel Morjane, represent this trend. There is a Sadatism in Egypt that can also be described as conservative, and most importantly statist. The Istiqlal Party in Morocco is also conservative, while taking in some Arab nationalist ideas and social conservatism. Ultimately these may be termed conservative, because they are attached to an old order and ideology.

The bottom line: Ellis Goldberg put it well in a recent piece on the importance of Egypt's institutions when he wrote:

The problem with thinking of Egyptian politics as a two-party game is that there are more than two actors.

He meant it in a broader way then about political parties, but the same thinking applies about selecting labels to describe politicians and parties in the post-uprising Arab world. The US model — Democrats vs. Republicans, conservatives vs. liberals — simply does not apply. We need to be more careful with the terms we use and stricter in defining them, so that the results of Libya's elections and future ones elsewhere are not reduced to a nonsensical "victory for liberals" headline.

Shatz on Egypt seen from Alexandria

Adam Shatz, writing in the London Review of Books, after a recent reporting trip during the presidential elections:

In Cairo, the old, narrow politics of self-interest – or self-defence – seemed to be crowding out Tahrir Square’s expansive visions of a democratic future. I wondered whether Alexandria, a port city with a rich history of political independence, would be any different. It had dazzled Cairene intellectuals by voting for a charismatic socialist politician, Hamdeen Sabahi, in the first round of the presidential elections, while the rest of the country went for either Morsi or Shafiq, as if people couldn’t see beyond the old regime and the old opposition. Alexandria, they said in Cairo, was a city that made up its own mind, a city where the revolutionary spirit lived on. Alexandrians basked in the admiration. ‘The sea makes us braver,’ one activist told me. True or not, it certainly makes the place feel more open than Cairo, where you can hardly see the sky. The cafés have charming names that ‘read like a Levantine requiem’, as David Holden wrote of old Alexandrian phonebooks. From the terrace of the fish restaurant where I had lunch, I watched children playing on the beach; a few women were in bikinis, a rare sight in a city where more and more women wear full niqabs, including black gloves. Alexandria, once known as the queen of the Mediterranean, may no longer be the city of ‘unsurpassable sensuality’ described by Cavafy, but it seems more serene than Cairo. Maybe that was an illusion: the only difference between Alexandria and Cairo, someone said, was the weather.

The story has some great vignettes on Alex (an Islamist's reaction to novelist Youssef Ziedan's classist map of the country is priceless, for instance) and I agree with the conclusion, in that things are not sealed at all in Egyptian politics:

This reconfiguration, however, is far from stable, and may be a prelude to yet another shake-up in the Brotherhood's favour, rather than a consolidation of the military's authority. Though Morsi is a cautious man, a party bureaucrat rather than a popular leader, he has begun to adopt a more confrontational posture vis-à-vis the military. Not only has he vowed to challenge the constitutional amendments that limit his power, but he has reconvened parliament in defiance of the Supreme Constitutional Court and the SCAF; at a brief session held on 10 July, lawmakers approved a proposal to refer parliament's dissolution to a higher appeals court. The military and the court are digging their heels in, but Morsi is raising the stakes as an elected president, with considerable popular support – and in the knowledge that the Americans will not allow the SCAF to exercise the ‘Syrian option’ of massacring its opponents. Any attempt by the army to reverse Morsi’s victory, or prevent him from governing, could ignite another uprising. The SCAF may not have the upper hand for long.

Links 1-8 July 2012

I am taking suggestions on how to improve the links list — frequency, content, separate sections, etc. Let me know in the comments.

INSIGHT-Local wars blur al Qaeda's threat to West | Reuters


Syria, jihad and the boys from Tunisia's Ben Guerdane - The National


Egypt's Mursi to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday | Reuters
MB charm offensive continues.

Muslim Brotherhood Seeks Registration as an NGO - Ikhwanweb


Prioritizing Democracy: How the Next President Should Re-Orient U.S. Policy in the Middle East | Brookings Institution
Shadi Hamid.

Shadi Hamid - The Real Reason the U.S. Should Consider Cutting Military Aid to Egypt - The Atlantic


US senate bill conditions Egypt aid on disclosure of security budget - Ahram Online
I would usually bet this would be killed by admin, but not sure in elex year.

Constituent Assembly discusses freedom of religion, future of the presidency | Egypt Independent
Like the old Egypt, the new Egypt will not have freedom of religion beyond the Abrahamic ones.

Tunisie : baptême du feu démocratique pour la troïka | Tunisie libre | Rue89 Les blogs
Overview of recent crisis.

Iranians turn vegetarian – by force | euronews
Because of sanctions.

New Egyptian TV channel to only feature fully face-veiled women - Ahram Online
Priceless photos.

Egypt's military-approved budget could stall Morsi's plans - Economy - Business - Ahram Online


Beirut I Love You
Cannot believe I did not know about this till now.

Clarence Page’s Job Safe After MEK ‘Dust Up’ | TPMMuckraker
The MEK's prominence in US politics is yet another weird side-effect of the Israel lobby.

Oil Embargo Leads Iran to Disguise Tankers - NYTimes.com
Important story.

Rape and Revolution | Souciant
Bilal Ahmed.

Egypt's Policy Makers Scramble To Avert Currency Collapse - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
Wikileaks: Italian firm sold Syria secure radios as crackdown raged | Ars Technica
Time: A luxury Egypt can no longer afford | Egypt Independent
My latest for the Indie. No foxes though.
Libya's elections under threat - International Crisis Group


Syria File
Wikileaks' latest

The Fading of Tahrir Square | Foreign Affairs
US senate bill conditions Egypt aid on disclosure of security budget - Economy - Business - Ahram Online

Claims of Islamist Vigilantism Follow Suez Murder Mystery - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

The Party Just In (and Developing) - Sada
On Morocco's PJD.
Attempts to confuse our collective memory | Egypt Independent
Arab secularism and its discontents | Stephen M. Walt

A few links on the Lybian election

Collecting virtual dust in a Safari window...

Electing a New Libya - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Previewing Libya's elections — POMED
Zawiya offers National Conference seats to Benghazi in extraordinary bid to diffuse federalism row | Libya Herald
Libyans enthralled by long-awaited elections - FT.com

I'm Ikhwan!

This video by rappers in Alexandria is actually several months old, but it captures all the suspicion and cynicism surrounding the Brotherhood's rise to power. The song — supposedly from the point of view of an opportunistic new member — makes fun of the organization's hypocrisy, double-talk and greed for power. This sarcasm is more pointed (and probably more damaging to the MB in the long run) than the hysteria issuing from some quarters these days. 

The refrain uses one of my favourite Arabized English verbs: بيتنرفز (biyitnirfiz, from "nervous", meaning to get irritated or angry) and goes: Don't get pissed at me, man, 'cause I became Ikhwan! I've got the power with me now, everyone say after me: I'm I'm I'm Ikhwan! 

And the video — which has all the lyrics in Arabic — would be a great classsrom tool for teaching Egyptian Colloquial. 

For more conventional criticism of the Brotherhood, see these two recent posts posts by blogger Karim Shafei. 

(And thanks to Matt!)