Insights into the Repressive Character of the Government in Egypt

The response of the Egyptian government to the investigative report "All According to Plan" [حسب الخطة  Arabic link] by Human Rights Watch is extremely revealing and provides insights into the mentality of the al-Sisi regime.  In short, as reported by the flagship al-Ahram, HRW is biased, serves U.S. interests, is in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood and had no authority to conduct research in Egypt.  There is a deep-seated suspicion of foreign NGOs in Egypt. I have witnessed it numerous times over the past 35 years.

The latest episode, of course, serves a double purpose, viz., it stifles open discussion of the report and its serious accusations that Field Marshal al-Sisi sits at the helm of a repressive security apparatus that very likely committed crimes against humanity by conducting deliberate mass killings of demonstrators in 2013 following the toppling of Muhammad Mursi as President; and, it serves to warn indigenous rights oriented groups that--unlike HRW officials--they cannot escape reprisal arrests, torture and jail.  You can be sure that while many educated Egyptians with social media access are well aware of the HRW report, but would also confirm that the message to tread very carefully is indelibly received.

The government reaction is addressed by Egyptian Chronicles.

Even in comparison with the worst years of the Mubarak era, this is a very dark chapter in Egypt's modern history.

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Visions of Gulf Security

Courting Fitnah: Saudi responses to the Arab Uprisings

MARCH 20, 2014

By Augustus Richard Norton, Boston University

* This memo was prepared for the “Visions of Gulf Security” workshop, March 9, 2014.

[Download this essay and a dozen others from the March 2014 conference.]

The logic and impact of Saudi interventions in Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria suggest a state pursuing confounding aims with improvised, if not impulsive policies. It is often asserted that the instability-averse Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a status quo power, but recent Saudi actions suggest that it seeks to undermine the status quo. Rather than revealing an aversion to instability, the kingdom has fed instability by radicalizing minority Arab Shiite populations in the Gulf, supporting proxy forces involved in armed struggle and, at least until recently, turning a blind eye to the recruitment of Saudis to join al Qaeda-affiliated groups outside Saudi borders. Referring to the interior minister, Madawi al-Rasheed wryly notes: “To put it bluntly, the prince did not succeed in eliminating terror; he simply pushed it away to countries like Yemen, Iraq, and now Syria and Lebanon.”

There are obvious security challenges in the Saudi neighborhood, including the continuing struggles underway in Yemen, persistent demonstrations in Bahrain, and the failure of the Iraqi government in Baghdad to broadly legitimate its power, but Saudi Arabia has not been an innocent bystander in any of these cases.

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"The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Lessons from the Iraqi Refugee Experience"--a new report from the Institute for Iraqi Studies at Boston University

Download the free report (PDF) from the IIS website.  A Kindle version is due presently, and an iBooks edition is in progress.

[Cross-posted with "From the Field"]
From the Foreword:

Credible estimates reveal that one of every six Syrians has fled their home, or what remains of their home, often with little more than what they might carry in their arms or wear on their back. Millions have sought safety in other towns and villages, and many have been forced to flee several times to escape the crossfire of rival opposition fighters and government forces. About one and half million Syrians now find a measure of safety in neighboring countries: some in the relative order of well-run camps, but many others are not nearly so fortunate.  Even after escaping from predatory militias and vengeful military assaults, victims continue to be prey for criminals, sexual predators, sectarian vigilantes or allies of the Syrian government. 

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Obama’s Moment to Make the Case for Middle East Peace

Boston Study Group on Middle East Peace*

[Cross-linked with From the Field.]

If it were easy to do, an American president would have long ago shepherded Israelis and Palestinians into the negotiated two-state peace agreement that both peoples and their neighbors so clearly need — a peace that would greatly enhance U.S. interests.

There are many reasons why it will be hard for President Obama to achieve, in his second term, the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord that has eluded him and his predecessors for so long. The rise of radical one-state nationalists and ideologically driven settlers in Israeli politics, the debilitating split in the Palestinian camp between Hamas and Fatah, the power struggles and sectarian enmities roiling the region — these are all factors adding to the difficulty of forging the two-state peace agreement that alone can end the agony of occupation for Palestinians and bring Israel a sounder more durable form of security.

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FAREWELL, MY TYCOONS...

(first published in the South China Morning Post as "Cutting the Fat"  February 25, 2013)

PHILIP J. CUNNINGHAM

When politicians stake out the high moral ground and order a crackdown, it can be a smokescreen for business as usual, or it can mean they really mean business.

China’s incoming top leader Xi Jinping has signaled the media that he wants to cut back on banquets, but it is too soon to say if this means the anti-corruption campaign of the communist party led is for real, or just a smokescreen for managing public opinion while consolidating power.

Excessive consumption and corruption, especially on the part of state officials who are supposed to be public servants, does make a mockery of the “serve the people” ethos at the heart of good governance. China faces a destabilizing inequality gap, so the waste of public resources on empty gestures — like showy motorcades, honor guards, over-the-top banquets, glitzy hotel receptions and lavish gift-giving — not only squanders funds needed elsewhere, but fuels indignation while eroding social harmony and self-respect.

Despite his revolutionary communist pedigree, it is unlikely that Xi Jinping will be saying “Farewell, my tycoon,” any time soon, though. The get-rich-quick ethos launched by the canny “capitalist roader” Deng Xiaoping is still the default ideology in a nation bereft of meaningful ideology. Fawning over the rich and powerful and dispensing bribes to officials, typically in hope of cementing connections has already become a way of life. Laws that are mercilessly enforced when applied to little people rarely apply to the rich and connected in so-called communist China. The corruption and crony capitalism openly promoted by Deng’s successor, Jiang Zemin, still runs deep, even though Jiang, who, a senior powerbroker and patron of Xi Jinping, has been out of the limelight for a decade.

Putting on aristocratic airs has become so widespread that an everyday act as simple as the sight of US Ambassador to Beijing, Gary Locke, carrying his own bag and buying his own coffee was considered newsworthy in China. Where were his porters and servants?

There is corruption and then there is corruption.

Cutting back on banquets is an easy mark, but what about the ill-gotten wealth of hundreds of billionaires and millions of millionaires in a poor, developing country with no social safety net?

Cutting back on banquets and the maotai toasts in the military is one thing, but what about restraining dry drunk generals gunning for conflict, high on China’s newfound wealth, arrogance and advanced weaponry?

There are many kinds of excess and many kinds of sobriety. The problem is not necessarily the perk; the problem is the quality of the work.

Toasts offered at lavish Nixon/Mao banquets in the name of US-China friendship in 1972 marked a turning point in diplomatic history. And even the most lavish food and beverage bill would be a bargain if held in conjunction with peace talks between China and Japan, for example, if negotiations could put to rest, or otherwise resolve, the explosive Senkaku/Diaoyudao islet dispute.  Bring on the sake and maotai! Fly in the best sushi and seafood!

Cementing deals over food and making toasts to friendship is an East Asian legacy that runs deep. Even in the 1980s, when China was much less affluent than it is today, and a good deal more egalitarian, being invited for a meal at someone’s home was a grand gesture. The meal might have been cooked on a single-burner hotplate on a busy staircase outside a family’s one-room apartment, but it was always a multi-dish affair, a way of showing generosity and respect.

What started out as a heart-felt gesture may indeed have been corrupted over time, but will a crackdown correct this?

China has a history of swinging from one extreme to another, so even something as simple as a national drive to cut back on banquets needs vigilant monitoring. Is it just a sop to the poor, a showy show of belt-tightening, while the usual rules of a rigged game rigged for the rich apply? Or is it the first shot in a new Cultural Revolution, which will eventually lead to tables being overturned in fancy restaurants and luxury cars flipped and torched by irate crowds?

The tendency for things to swing in China could very well have deep roots in the rise and fall of dynasties over the centuries, but in more recent times, one need not look much further than the wholesale deracination from traditional culture, community and organic growth by decades of divisive and destructive Leninist-style rule.

Whatever the cause for China’s distinct political rhythms; long periods of insufferable status quo, followed by brief revolutionary outbursts, it is the ordinary people who suffer most. Xi Jinping’s populist appeal indirectly acknowledges that there is a problem with hypocritical leaders, greedy tycoons, a politicized bureaucracy and erratic --sometimes negligent, sometimes over-zealous-- application of the law.

There are crackdowns that are empty gestures for show, mere political posturing. Others achieve the opposite of the intended result. Sometimes crackdowns are factional power plays, pandering to public perceptions, while quietly eliminating rivals and consolidating criminal networks. You have greedy leaders calling for law and order even while they contribute to disorder and remain outside the law. You have police instituting crackdowns and curfews even as the children of the rich and connected run continue to run wild and inebriated, bullying anyone who gets in the way, with “do you know who my father is?” And like everywhere, you have silver-tongued politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

Experience suggests that anytime a powerful politician, especially one with vast, vested interests, takes to the media and stakes out the high moral ground against one apparent vice or another, one should snap to attention and listen. But don’t judge them by their words; judge them by their actions. 

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Lebanon and the Syria Crisis

Originally posted at E-International Relations.  Cross-posted at From the Field.

With the battle for Aleppo continuing and Syria on a course to civil war, neighboring Lebanon finds itself in a precarious spot. Sectarian divisions, especially between Sunni and Shi’i Muslims, have deepened in Lebanon over the past decade, particularly since the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, the 2006 war with Israel, and the Hezbollah-led incursion into West Beirut in 2008.  The Syria crisis has further exacerbated communal fault-lines. As Syrian refugees pour in, the Lebanese have become increasingly divided on just how they feel their government should respond to the crisis. Periodic clashes in Tripoli along the aptly named “Syria Street”, where an Alawi community abuts a Sunni majority illustrate how quickly transplanted Syrian enmities may explode, and how powerless rival political elites may be to dampen the violence.

As some Lebanese fight amongst themselves and with their newfound Syrian refugee neighbors, the question is whether Lebanon can avoid being sucked

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From the field: Devastating, horrible news--Anthony Shadid dies with his boots on in Syria

I have been reading Anthony's House of Stone, his pitch perfect and beautifully wrought chronicle of his struggle to bring his ancestral home in Marjayoun back to life. The last phone conversation I had with him was a couple of years ago in Lebanon. I reached him in south Lebanon, where he was described himself captured by challenge of restoring his great grandfather's house. I will have more to say about the book shortly, but for now I must simply express my profound sadness about Anthony's death. So many who crossed paths with him will be pained by the loss of this gifted, brave and astounding man.

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Resurgent Arab Islam need not be unsettling

By Emile Nakhleh and Augustus R. Norton

[Cross-posted with "From the Field" and Boston Globe's "The Angle", where it was first published December 11, 2011]

In the wake of the youth-directed “Arab Spring,” which rocked the Middle East to its core and felled autocratic governments in several countries, Islamic political parties are poised for an historic resurgence across the region — and that is neither surprising nor necessarily alarming.

Popular mass demonstrations, “Days of Rage,” have been the hallmarks of the season that dislodged dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and exposed the fragility of fierce but unpopular regimes across the Arab world. Youthful demonstrators in quest of dignity, hungry for jobs, and fed up with corruption formed the vanguards.

But because Arab rulers did not allow serious opposition parties, the best organized opposition groups were often Islamist movements. While they did not launch the Arab Spring, they lent resilience and discipline to the demonstrations. These movements are deeply insinuated in the contours of daily life in Arab societies, and now are emerging as early victors in what Arabs are calling al-sahwa (the awakening).

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SUPPORT THE WALL STREET PROTESTS

Hello readers,

I am happy to report from New York that there are signs of positive social change in late imperial America.

The photos accompanying this post were taken by the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011.

I've been in China for the last few months and unable to update this blog because Blogger is blocked by Beijing.
Although Chinese internet controls can be a nuisance, or worse, block vital information that citizens need to understand and improve the society in which they live, I don't really dispute the right of a sovereign nation to block data-mining products that collude with the US government.

The surreptitious statistical surveillance conducted by Google, Facebook and other "darlings" of late-era US imperialism takes the joy out of technological innovation and erodes trust on the creative commons of the Internet. As such I refuse to post on Facebook and am winding down my use of Google products; as attractive as some of the technology is, the company is not to be trusted.

Please look for future posts on Wordpress under my name, or by my internet tag, jinpeili.

Phil Cunningham Read more on this article...

Important piece on Saudi Intervention in Bahrain

Cross-posted with "From the Field"

 

Caryle Murphy provides interesting detail on the March 16, 2011, intervention in Bahrain by Saudi Arabia.  There are a variety of notable elements in the piece:

• King Abdullah and company have been riled by the U.S. embrace of reform in Egypt and in Bahrain. 
• They signalled this in several ways, including refusing to receive Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates.
• Hardliners in Bahrain have been intent to sabotage active reform efforts by the Bahraini crown prince, and the hardliners have willing collaborators in Saudi Arabia.
• Once "requested",  the Saudis were glad to lead the charge into Bahrain and launch a wave of repression and thuggery against the majority population in Bahrain.
• Reading between the lines, there is good reason to question how much freedom of action the Bahraini leaders truly enjoy.  The Saudi godfather is not easily ignored, especially given the financial dependence of Bahrain on the KSA.
• Notable for it absence from Murphy's account is any mention of a significant role by Iran, which has the poppycock peddled by King Hamad in recent weeks.

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JAPAN QUAKE SHAKES TV

by Philip J Cunningham




When the biggest earthquake in memory hit Japan at 2:46 PM on the afternoon of March 11, 2011, it took less than ten minutes for the bright, cluttered screens of Tokyo top six stations to be drained of color, commercialism and fun. With a disaster unfolding, TV stations were under intense pressure to change the tone of their broadcasts and offer news and safety advice.

To review broadcasts from that afternoon, is to be transported back to a turning point in which everything suddenly changed. The state of TV, as it existed at that precarious moment, good, bad and banal as it might have been, is now a broadcast relic, the last gasp of normalcy before the earth shook Japan to its core, the sea swept the Northeast with tsunamis and a nuclear crisis broke the easy access to electric power that has been a hallmark of modernity in Japan for decades.

For an illustration about how the 3.11 quake is changing life in Tokyo, with particularly focus on the airwaves and the energy-guzzling lifestyle promoted on TV, please view my latest piece at http://www.japanfocus.org/-Philip_J_-Cunningham/3506 Read more on this article...

WORDS ON THE JAPAN DISASTER FRONT

by Philip J Cunningham

The world of information made possible by Twitter technology is vast and fascinating, but what really rises above the Twittering noise, random comments and repetitive multiple posts of second, third and fourth hand material is the work of an intrepid individual, sharing, in short installments, an eye-witness view of an evolving situation. It is a take on the news as old as the news itself, first person testimony, offering a degree of coherence and individual fidelity that stands head and shoulders above the random, aggregate posts of a busy Twitter feed.

In a matter of just a few days, one of the most privileged, affluent societies in Asia has been hit and laid prone with multiple disasters, and though the worst may be over, it's far from over yet. Japan, indeed the world as a whole, will feel the influence of the deadly March 11 earthquake, tsunami, related aftershocks, eruptions and subsequent damage to nuclear power plants and more generally the economy for years to come.

The following is the tweet record of an American reporter, now an Asia correspondent for VOA, with 18 years experience in Japan as he covers what could be fairly described as the biggest news story of his career

The reporter is Steve Herman and his twitter tag is W7VOA.

Steve Herman and I worked together in the International Division of NHK in 1990-1, sharing a Tokyo office while working as televison producers on Asia Now and China Now respectively.

Even then, long before he became a radio correspondent for CBS and later President of the FCCJ, I thought him the epitome of a newsman, one who was living and breathing news round the clock. A solid reporter with an excellent understanding not just of international news issues but the minutae of how things work in Japan, Steve is a good guide to a big breaking story.

The veteran reporter happened to be out of Japan when the big quake struck but managed to get back in country, despite disruptions at airports and rail lines, within a day. His posts chronicle a journey across Japan as he seeks access and interviews in the three hardest hit areas, Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures.

His intial entries in this informal online diary commence with short notes about news he is reading and re-tweets of posts made by other journalists he is following on Twitter, reacting to news rather than reporting it, and appropriately enough, as it takes him the better part of a day to get on the scene. RT is short for re-tweet and sometimes he posts links to published articles that he likes or makes reference to.

Once he’s on his way to the scene of tsunami damage and dysfunctional nuclear power plants, the second-hand news and reactions to the news are gradually replaced by first-person anecdotes, sensations, interviews and reporting. When the earth starts shaking, he describes it. Then he finds out more about the quake or aftershock, and tweets the best information available to him at the time.

Sometimes it's an earthquake warning with no earthquake, sometimes an earthquake without warning.

The constant tickertape flow of tweets by him and other people on the scene start to be incorporated into news updates which are also tagged, retweeted and made reference to on the Internet, TV and radio.

In short, by looking at a series of thoughtful on the scene tweets, one can get a feel for how information travels, how information is culled and selected and how it is then broadcast and repeated until it becomes the received understanding of an event.

This sort of tweet diary is interesting even when second-hand and third hand information is collated and forwarded, but it really is at its best when it shifts to the first person, and the tweeter on the scene is telling us about things he or she sees, hears, wonders about and analyzes in an original way.

Following his twitter reports in real time is to be transported into the urgency of a breaking story in the company of a cool, seasoned guide who does not flinch in the face of obstacles or bad news. Even with the haiku-like discipline of writing in short bursts, there is narrative arc and a building sense of drama as the reporter moves onto the scene and traverses difficult, sometimes outright dangerous territory.

For all their news value and dramatic impact, tweets are also snippets of personal conversations put to print. In Steve’s case, as he makes a dash from a safe part of Japan to an area at risk, his friends on Twitter urged him not to go, to consider the dangers, to which his response was simple and firm.

“It's my job.”

Here, then, a record of informal tweets from veteran Asia correspondent Steve Herman as he does his job. While investigating a tough, multifaceted breaking story, he took the time to tweet updates about things he saw and heard and gleaned from official sources. His short, abbreviated observations were informative enough that within a few days time he had ten thousand “followers” reading and re-tweeting his posts, including fellow journalists, all the while filing formal, in-depth reports for Voice of America.

The posts here have been copied from his twitter history, and thus are in reverse chronological order. To better sense the drama of an unfolding story in which each subsequent development is unknown, one might browse his posts by scrolling from the bottom up.


Steve Herman
@W7VOA ÜT: 37.373258,140.371634
Voice of America (VOA) Bureau Chief/Correspondent, based in Seoul, mainly covering NE Asia (Korean peninsula & Japan)


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COMING SOON: TO EACH NATION, ITS OWN INTERNET

by Philip J Cunningham


When reveille sounds, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

The US military is now thinking of ways to block and segregate the internet into smaller ‘‘cyber nations’’ which would be easier to monitor and control.

During this era of incessant online babble, blogs, tweets and cacophonous concatenations, the internet has become a virtual Tower of Babel, an ambitious, overloaded unitary structure breaking at the seams. It's only a matter of time before it crumbles.

That, in a nutshell, is the view put forward by a group of US military thinkers in the latest issue of Strategic Studies Quarterly, who see the breaking up and "Balkanisation of the Internet" as natural as it is inevitable, and not without public benefit, assuming that the 'Net reorganises along traditional, nationalistic lines.

Theirs is a clarion call to end the utopian, universal stage of internet development and instead to hunker down and build national bunkers.

The internet has been imbued with a feel-good idealism since its inception, despite it having been a quasi-military invention. It was developed by a generation familiar with John Lennon's utopian lullaby Imagine, dreamily invoking the idea of a world with no countries. And some cyber utopians took a cue from that, driven by the concept that "information wants to be free", a formulation first given voice by Stewart Brand and dramatically acted out more recently by Julian Assange.

But even if information wants to be free, there are the vagaries of human nature that have to be taken into account.

Just as a handful of hijackers can burden millions of jet flyers, in the communication commons the bad behaviour of a few can change the rules of the game; trolls lurk in comment sections, spammers clog up your inbox, data-miners violate your privacy, hackers close your system down.

These problems are being addressed on an ad hoc basis, mostly by the private sector, to make the cooperative, interdependent venture known as the internet safe for commerce and communication.

And then there is the US military, which has bigger fish to fry.

Entrusted with the keys to the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, bound by social contract to guard the nation with vigilance, it should come as no surprise that military thinkers are more worried about information control than information freedom.

The US Cyber Command, which works closely with the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, is tapping technology organisations such as Google, Intel and Microsoft for help with cyber-defence, integrating traditional concepts of military preparedness and defence of the state with new borderless technologies.

If military thinkers tend to be more orthodox in their regard for the sanctity of national borders, it is in part a reflection of the role they assign themselves to play as defenders of the nation.

Where a tech geek might revel in faster computation speeds and an advertiser might obsess over ways to get more clicks, and academics might demand unfettered freedom of expression, it is natural that military thinkers should want to consider the same technology with an eye to violations of sovereignty and security, especially with regard to command and control systems and energy infrastructure.

Inspired by the folk wisdom that good fences make good neighbours, there is a school of thought in the US military that posits a not-so-distant future in which the worldwide web will be divided up along national lines.

(TO READ ARTICLE IN FULL, PLEASE CLICK HERE)

(as published in the Bangkok Post, March 12, 2011) Read more on this article...

No longer thwarted: Egypt's Hizb al-Wasat finally gains legal status

Cross-posted with:
From the field: No longer thwarted: Egypt's Hizb al-Wasat finally gains legal status
Links for AR Norton's study of Hizb al-Wasat are on From the Field.

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The Egyptian people have toppled Mubarak, an extraordinary moment, but the regime has not been toppled, not yet.

The military has taken power, but in reality the military has--even since the 1952 coup-- held the balance of power in Cairo.

The Egyptian military has always lurked in the shadows of the Egyptian regime. The levers of influence were seldom exposed to view.  Yet, when senior civilian politicos, such as Osama al-Baz, reflected on the regime and its prospects for reform, they often pointed to the powerful role of the generals and vetoes they held in their back pockets.  For years, as expectations grew that Husni Mubarak's son Gamal would succeed his father, it was the military veto that thwarted him. 

Now the power of the generals is in the sunlight.  There are some reasons to be optimistic: the army generally showed commendable discipline in its response to the last three weeks of demonstrations, and the demonstrators--whether intuitively or shrewdly--embraced the soldiers; the officer corps is highly professional, promotions are based on merit not connections, and no officer or soldier wishes to be seen as an oppressor of the nation that it is pledged to defend; a skilled group of opposition figures is poised to negotiate a transition, and the Ikhwan have wisely forged consensus with the non-Islamist elements while also remaining in the background; and, the actions and misactions of the military will be in full international view.

Nonetheless, the senior officers have a big stake in the existing system, not least economic interests.  In retirement, many senior officers move to industries dominated by the military, and others move into the thriving private sector.  But many others infiltrate the civilian branches of government.  They will want to protect their prerogatives.  The military leadership will prove cautious about dramatic changes, and they will be nervous about permitting a powerful civilian government to challenge their privileges, or hold officers accountable for their misdeeds. The deep suspicion of the Ikhwan will not be erased, so the generals will want to be assured that the Ikhwan (still an illegal entity) will gain no more than a marginal role in politics. 

When Presidential elections are held, you can be sure that the military will have satisfied itself that its interests will not be jeopardized.  It is too early to determine who all the contenders for the Presidency will be, but it is now clear that Amre Mossa, is a front runner.  He is widely respected, and, indeed, is a man of integrity.  He was the popular Foreign Minister of Egypt, so popular that Mubarak that "promoted" him to become Secretary General of the Arab League in order to keep him well distant from Egyptian politics.  But a lot may happen in a year of transition, and many secrets will be exposed, so keep your bets in your pocket for now.

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