Month: February 2011
Oldtime revolutionary lore
As Tunisian flu has now spread from Egypt to Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, with a touch also in Algeria and now Libya, it might be wise to review what an old hand views as a few crucial points (I first sat down in front of the bayonet-armed and gas-masked Maryland National Guard in 1964 and got teargassed by the U.S. Army at Fort Dix in 1968, so I am claiming some seniority here). I was also an early and strong supporter of the Serb uprising that forced Slobodan Milosevic out.
One key point is nonviolent discipline, not because of the moral requirement but because it will make the demonstrations more effective. Another is clarity–and simplicity–of objectives.
Why is nonviolence important? Because you want the security forces to hesitate to crack down–they won’t hesitate if you are throwing rocks at them–they’ll fight back, and by definition they have greater firepower. Only if the security forces hesitate to crack down is autocracy in trouble, because it rules by fear. No crackdown, no fear, no autocrat.
The problem is that the security forces often use violence first, or maybe it will be the thugs allied with the regime (the basij in Iran, the club-wielders in Sanaa). The use of these people is already a good sign: it means the regime has doubts about the willingness of the regular security forces to do the dirty deed. The trouble of course is that the thugs can cause a lot of damage.
They will hesitate to use violence only if confronted with a great mass of disciplined people. Going out in groups of twenty to do pitched battle with thugs is no way to make a revolution–it only gets your head cracked. People often suffer the most harm when there were few demonstrators, and at night.
That is another reason for keeping things nonviolent–many people won’t come out for a riot. The attack on camels and horses in Cairo was a turning point: Egyptians were disgusted by a blatant attack on large numbers of ordinary, peaceful people. Had it looked as if the attack had been provoked by violent demonstrators, the effect would have been much less salutary from the protesters’ perspective.
What about objectives? Clarity and simplicity are important. The protesters in Egypt were clearly aiming ultimately for democracy, but the crowds rallied around the call for Mubarak to step down.
Now that he has, there are emerging differences among the many factions that united in the demonstrations–that is only natural. Some will think a constitutional route to democracy is best, others a non-constitutional route. Some will want higher wages, better treatment for workers, rights for minorities–only by suppressing for the moment these differences and focusing on a common objective can a motley crew be forged into a powerful mass movement. There will be time enough after the goal is reached for the protesters to fall out with each other and sow confusion by going their own ways.
Keeping people together, across secular/sectarian and religious or ethnic divides, sends a very powerful message and rallies more people to the cause.
One last note: Obama’s soft approach is the right one. Hillary Clinton’s more strident advocacy is not a good idea.
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Haste makes waste
David Makovsky in USA Today wisely councils the Egyptians to take their time in building democratic institutions and not focus excessively on elections. The quick response: the constitutional amendments will be done in 10 days, referendum on them within two months, elections within six.
I imagine someone in the Army is saying this is the way to be responsive to the protestors, but it is also a formula for mistakes, including mistakes made with some malice aforethought. The process is as important as the outcome. Despite the American precedent of writing a constitution behind closed doors in Philadelphia, long experience suggests that fragile, conflicted and formerly autocratic societies–and Egypt should be considered one–need time to decide on how power is to be distributed, which is what a constitution does. They also need the participation of a broad segment of the population, because otherwise it will look like a power grab (and may well be one).
There is in any event a need for time to develop the institutions of a free society: most of the media, courts, political parties, trade associations, NGOs and labor unions existing today in Egypt are heavily conditioned by the former regime. It will be some time before they are reformed, or new ones created. Context counts. As Makovsky says,
This means going beyond the obvious of lifting the existing emergency law and amending the Egyptian Constitution. It also requires an independent judiciary, a free press, minority rights, and a security apparatus that maintains the monopoly on the use of force. These institutions provide the opportunity for the creation of a civic culture where parties can negotiate their demands in a peaceful framework. Otherwise, the hope for democracy can be easily thwarted.
It is of course problematic to move slowly when the mainstays of the revolution are apparently pressing for fast action. But more than anything else, the quick action needed now is a new government, an early demand of the protesters that has not been fulfilled. The one currently in place, appointed in his desperate last days by then President Mubarak, will do everything it can to block accountability for the regime’s past behavior and tilt the scales of the future towards their continuation in power. It is no surprise that the military would not be replacing its friends in the government quickly, but that makes it all the more urgent.
Of course all these issues should be left up to the Egyptians to decide–I am not suggesting that the Americans or anyone else can do this for them. But there is a lot of experience out there to suggest that haste makes waste, especially in matters of constitutional reform.
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My debut on bloggingheads
Recorded Friday with Ussama Makdisi of Rice University, discussing next steps in Egypt, but it can no longer be embedded. Watch it here.
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Maliki ueber alles?
While we’ve all been preoccupied with Tunisia then Egypt, an Iraqi Supreme Court decision has called into question the independence of the central bank, the electoral commission, the human rights commission and the integrity commission. Reidar Visser has commented on the electoral commission aspect, but arguably the central bank is even more important. The big issue is accumulation of power in the hands of the Prime Minister.
Here are the most obviously relevant articles of the Iraqi constitution:
Article 102:
The High Commission for Human Rights, the Independent Electoral Commission, and the Commission on Public Integrity are considered independent commissions subject to monitoring by the Council of Representatives, and their functions shall be regulated by law.
Article 103:
First: The Central Bank of Iraq, the Board of Supreme Audit, the Communication and Media Commission, and the Endowment Commissions are financially and administratively independent institutions, and the work of each of these institutions shall be regulated by law.
Second: The Central Bank of Iraq is responsible before the Council of Representatives. The Board of Supreme Audit and the Communication and Media Commission shall be attached to the Council of Representatives.
What the court apparently decided is that agencies with an “executive” function have to be subordinated to the executive branch, not the Council of Representatives, in order to respect the separation of powers. This is obviously pretty deep legal water in which I don’t know how to swim, so I am reluctant to dive in.
But it also raises important questions about the survivability of democracy in Iraq, where accumulation of power has a long and unhappy history. Independent agencies are a frequent feature of the landscape in democratic societies, and independent central banks are regarded as absolutely vital to macroeconomic stability, which Iraq has enjoyed for the most part since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If executive branch supervision refers exclusively to financial probity and other administrative questions, that is one thing (though perhaps not entirely without problems). If executive branch decision is going to mean that these institutions are no longer in any serious sense independent, that is another.
We shouldn’t leap to conclusions, but I certainly hope the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is inquiring and letting the Prime Minister know that those who fought and paid for Iraq’s relative freedom would not be interested in seeing it undermined by an overly aggressive effort to centralize power.
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Egyptian army scraps constitution, keeps cabinet
The Armed Forces communique’ no. 5, issued today, does the following (according to Egyptian Chronicles):
1. Freezes the current constitution.
2. Dissolves both chambers of parliament.
3. Announces the army will rule the country for a 6 month transitional period until August.
4. Forms a committee to amend some constitution articles.
5. Continues Ahmed Shafik’s cabinet until a new one is named (unclear when).
6. Asserts that Mohamed Hussein Tantawy, the minister of defense, will represent the country.
7. Egypt respects its international treaties.
The main potential difficulty here is the continuation of Ahmed Shafik’s cabinet, which is the last one appointed by then President Mubarak. It is hard to imagine that the protesters will be pleased with that, though most will welcome the freezing of the Mubarak-era constitution and dissolution of its parliament, fraudulently elected in December. It is easy to imagine however that the Army wants to keep at least some of the ministers in place–otherwise it has to find new people to run the ministries, which would raise all sorts of difficult political and technical issues.
I had some experience with a military regime in Brazil 1982-85, where I was a U.S. diplomat. The Brazilian armed forces had enjoyed exercising power and a privileged position for some time, but by the time I arrived they had realized that running the country was just too difficult. They preferred to get back to playing soldier. So they decided to turn the country back to the civilians, who have done a pretty good job since. My sense is that the Egyptian military already knows that running the country is too hard–they need help and are prepared to get it from Mubarak’s cabinet (which of course includes quite a few of their colleagues).
The question is whether the protesters will accept this or insist, as they have said they would, on dismissal of the cabinet. This immediate question is related to a broader one: how much accountability will there be for crimes and corruption under the Mubarak regime? Leaving the cabinet in place now virtually guarantees that accountability will be postponed, if not skipped altogether. How many files will be destroyed by the Mubarak-appointed ministers? Several of them have already been barred from leaving the country. Can the Army really leave in power ministers who can’t be trusted to leave Egypt? Not to mention Vice President Omar Suleiman, who appears to remain quietly in office.
One other point: the six-month transition period. That would be consistent with new elections in by September, when they were due for the presidency anyway. I won’t be surprised to see this period extended. It might even be wise to extend it, if the time is used to allow people to organize political parties that can seriously compete with Mubarak’s NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood, which will have a head start. Six months are also not too long to get the electoral mechanism into shape–it is used to running fraudulent elections, not competitive ones.
Revolutions move in phases. The first phase is over. But there is more to come. I’d bet on a new cabinet, which really is needed to ensure that the subsequent phases move in the right direction. But when the Army will recognize the necessity I can’t predict.
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The army begins to fill in the blanks
The Egyptian armed forces have issued their 4th communique’, which tries to clarify at least a few things for the transitional period between now and eventual civilian, democratic government (“an elected civilian state to rule the country for building a free democratic state” is the way the New York Times translates it).
Here is a paraphrased summary from Egyptian Chronicles:
- The army is obliged to what was said in the previous communiqués.
- The government and the people to return back to their responsibilities toward the country.
- The current government and governors will continue performing its duties till we have a new elected government.
- The council is looking forward to guarantee the peaceful transitional of power in a democratic system that allows civil state.
- Egypt respects its international treaties
- The army calls the people of Egypt to cooperate with the police.
It appears that the current intention is to leave the Mubarak-appointed government in place in the interim, though at least one of its ministers seems to have been barred from leaving the country and is under house arrest. I have my doubts whether this will stand, since the protesters are likely to view it as a red line. Egypt’s leading democracy advocates have wanted something considerably more: a new, technocratic government and an end to the state of emergency, which the army has promised in a previous communique’ once the conditions are right.
There is no mention of a specific election date, which is just as well since it will take time to prepare anything like free and fair elections that offer a real opportunity for competition among political forces. Obviously the NDP–Mubarak’s National Democratic Party–is a problem (the Tunisians recently banned their own dictator’s former ruling party). But so too is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has an enormous advantage from being organized and well-established, even if illegal.
Items 2. and 6. ask for a return to normalcy, including cooperation with a police force that grossly misbehaved during the demonstrations (and there seem still to be hundreds of people missing). This is to be expected, and first indications are that many demonstrators are prepared to leave Tahrir at least until next Friday. The cleanup of Cairo by legions of volunteers is a very good sign that Egyptians have understood that the new regime will require responsibility as well as allow freedom.
Item 5 on treaties is an attempt in five English words to dispose of international concerns, especially about the peace treaty with Israel.
This isn’t much to go on, and in particular I find it difficult to believe that the government won’t be replaced, as has been rumored today. While Omar Suleiman seems to have evaporated for the moment, I also have to wonder whether he hopes for a continuing role in this transition, or will he be happy enough if he is not held accountable for the criminal behavior of the police and security services?
That is the big point omitted so far from the armed forces’ communiques: accountability. You can be pretty sure that the Egyptian army will protect its extensive perquisites, at least for the near term. But you have to wonder what will happen with the secret police, judges, jailers, torturers and others who were pillars of the Mubarak regime. It is of course too early to expect much to happen, but intentions are important too. Mubarak was one man, whose assets in Switzerland have already been frozen. What of all the cronies?
If you haven’t had enough videos of demonstrations lately, here’s one from today in Algiers, which some expect to get Tunisian flu next:
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