Tag: Algeria
Here are some bright ideas
This is OPI (other people’s ideas) day:
- Reinventing the Palestinian struggle as a nonviolent protest movement has been a good idea for a long time, but the Arab Spring may make it viable as a mass movement. It would put the Israelis in a tough spot: a harsh response would make them look like worse than your garden variety Arab autocrat. Real democracies don’t shoot at nonviolent protesters.
- Rethinking the war in Afghanistan in light of Osama bin Laden’s death was the subject of an excellent piece this morning: no evidence yet of changed attitudes among the insurgents (Biddle), but the personal connection with bin Laden was an important factor in the alliance with the Taliban. And Pakistan might stiffen its attitude toward al Qaeda presence (Khalilzad), if only to prevent further American raids.
- North Africa is Europe’s backyard. The Bertelsmann Foundation has asked eight North Africans for their views of how Europe can help the political transitions there. The resulting report makes interesting reading and reminds us that we need to follow the lead of host country nationals in thinking about how to make the Arab spring last into a more democratic summer and fall.
Still, there is a dearth of good ideas on several subjects: how to manage the U.S./Pakistan relationship in a more productive way (but see Dennis Kux’s blog post yesterday), how to hasten Gaddafi’s exit from Libya and what to do to stop the killing of demonstrators in Yemen and Syria, as well as their mistreatment in Bahrain. Anyone want to offer thoughts?
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Bahrain gets smart, others continue crackdowns
Bahrain’s monarchy got smart today, withdrawing the tanks and the police, allowing Pearl square to fill again with protesters, sending the Crown Prince out to give a conciliatory speech, and telling the protesters they could stay, presumably as long as they are peaceful. The Crown Prince is talking reform, sectarian harmony, dialogue. A smart move that went over well, to judge from the limited evidence available from my Twitter feed (credit to @SultanAlQassemi and @Emile_Houkayem). And now more evidence from CNN:
No such conciliatory moves elsewhere. Libya, with its internet communications cut off, is reportedly killing dozens of protesters and trying to scare the rest into submission. Benghazi is especially restive. Yemen has unleashed thugs and police in both Sanaa and Aden. Algeria walloped a small demonstration with obviously excessive force, presumably as a lesson to others. Iran continues its crackdown, which faces the challenge of a big “Green Movement” demonstration called for tomorrow. Saudi Arabia, obviously nervous, is denying it has any problems, even as it detains political activists in anticipation of demonstrations called for March 11.
It is of course impossible to predict where and when a popular revolution will succeed in one of these anachrocies (that’s my word for a regime that has outlived its legitimacy). None of them seem to me immune. A lot depends on the capabilities of the organizers to turn out a big crowd that crosses social divides, stays nonviolent despite provocations, and attracts some international attention. But I might bet today on the Khalifa monarchy outlasting the others.
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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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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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Simmer until ready
While it is hard to take eyes off Egypt, the rest of the Arab world is simmering. We should make sure nothing boils over while we aren’t watching:
- Syria: “days of rage” demonstrations called for Friday and Saturday. One wag has proposed calling them “days of mild frustration” and President Bashar al Asad has claimed he is in favor of “opening.” My month studying Arabic in Damascus two years ago suggested to me that the population, while more than mildly frustrated, lacks the stomach for anything like what is going on in Cairo. Bashar knows that. Feb 5 update: the days of rage failed.
- Jordan: Ditto Amman, where weekly protests haven’t grown very large and the government is busy increasing food and fuel subsidies and civil service salaries, despite budget problems. The King sacked the Prime Minister this week, but that won’t change much.
- Algeria: President Bouteflika has promised to lift the state of emergency “soon.” Next, planned and banned rally scheduled for February 12, focused on economic and social issues, not politics. Anyway that’s a political year away at this point.
- Libya: Quiet. Qadhafi looked frightened when Tunisia happened, but I guess oil income that makes GDP well over $12,300 per capita provides a lot of simmering time.
- Sudan: scattered, small protests, but the big news in Khartoum is the loss of the relatively Western-oriented, sometimes English-speaking and Christian South. That will shift the center of gravity in Khartoum sharply in the Islamist direction.
- Yemen: demonstrations and a president who promises not to run again in 2013, but this is at least the third time Saleh has made that promise. Revolution is tough to organize when a good part of the population chews qat, but keep an eye on the southern rebellion (the northern one has gone quiescent).
So to my eye nothing else seems ready to boil over yet, but the outcome in Cairo could well heat things up, especially in Syria. Bashar al Assad gives a great interview to the Wall Street Journal, but I doubt he is quite as in tune with his people as he claims.
PS: I really should not have skipped Saudi Arabia, which was treated in a fine NPR piece by Michelle Norris yesterday. No demos, but a lot of people watching and wondering, sometimes out loud.
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What would MLK say?
The rash of suicides and attempted suicides associated with popular rebellions in Tunisia, Algeria and now Egypt naturally raises the question, on Martin Luther King Day: is suicide a useful, effective or legitimate tactic against autocratic regimes?
Let’s admit right off that in one sense it is useful: self immolation attracts a lot of attention today, as it did decades ago during the Vietnam war. The press seems barely able to get its fill of such stories, and if there are photographs in addition you can be sure they will run on the front page in the West. Self immolation is treated as the ultimate testimonial to how desperate people are. I suppose that makes it effective as well. These protests are largely indigenous, but you can be sure that Western attention to them will still be an important factor in how the Arab regimes react. And what are you going to do to someone who has already doused himself in gasoline and tried to light it afire?
I am not a King scholar, and the day is not long enough yet for me to have checked out his writings carefully on this subject. But I grew up with MLK’s words ringing in my ears from well before attending the March on Washington in 1963. This was a man whose opposition to violence and respect for human life would not permit him to support suicide of any type to prove a point. Yes, he expected himself and his supporters to run gigantic risks and to suffer brutality at the hands of police and thugs. But this was to bear witness, to confront oppression with human dignity, not to get killed.
This is an important message just now, as the demonstrations in several countries seem to be deteriorating into street brawls and looting. If something good is to come of the sacrifices people are making, nonviolence and dignity–including respect for property–are vital. If the regimes can credibly call the demonstrators criminals, decent people will hesitate to join them and the security forces will feel free to crack down.
Nonviolence for Martin Luther King was a moral as well as a practical imperative. It was a high calling, one that really did appear to give his movement divine blessings, as it did Gandhi’s. But not everyone can adhere to that calling. I admit to having seen things in this world that merit a violent response. The trouble is that violence, even violence against oneself, begets more violence. What the demonstrations need now is MLK’s recipe of nonviolence and respect for human dignity. The demonstrators should not be attacking the security forces but inviting the security forces to their side, as they did in the days leading up to President Ben Ali’s flight. Self immolation will not be effective in that sense.
I have just returned this morning from Baghdad. I can only wonder what might have happened there had demonstrations of the sort now seen in North Africa broken out against Saddam Hussein. It would have been bloody and nasty, but could it have been as bloody and nasty as these last eight years? I played a role in advocating the support for the Serbian opposition that brought down Slobodan Milosevic just a few years before the American invasion of Iraq. There is no question but that Serbia is better off for having dealt with its own autocracy by largely nonviolent means.
That is what I might wish for our North African friends on Martin Luther King day: disciplined nonviolence and respect for human dignity have the best chance of winning the day and bringing about regimes that in turn will respect human dignity and not use violence against their own people.
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