In Pakistan, a single masked man can stop a school bus while his compatriot climbs inside and shoots a child in the head.
This is because the Taliban is terrified of educated teenage girls.
That is exactly what happened to 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai on Tuesday this week. The man who climbed into her school bus asked for her by name and then shot her. (Others were wounded as well.)
That he felt compelled to shoot her is testament to her precocious courage and gifts. That he was able to shoot her is testament to the Pakistani government's double-dealing, corrupt embrace of Islamist extremism.
Malala Yousafzai has become famous as a kind of Pakistani Anne Frank. She lives in the Swat Valley, an area once openly controlled by the Taliban and now supposedly controlled by the government of Pakistan.
During the Taliban occupation Miss Yousafazai wrote a diary under the pen name Gul Makai. It was published by the BBC Urdu Online. Some excerpts in English:
In the past the reopening date [after her school's winter break] was always announced clearly. The principal did not inform us about the reason behind not announcing the school reopening, but my guess was that the Taleban had announced a ban on girls' education from 15 January.
...............................
My friend came to me and said, 'for God's sake, answer me honestly, is our school going to be attacked by the Taleban?' During the morning assembly we were told not to wear colourful clothes as the Taleban would object to it.
"Gul Makai's" published diary became very popular. That made its young author very dangerous. When she observed to her father “The Talibs are where the army is but the army doesn`t go where the Talibs are,” it was more than a family conversation. It ended up in the newspaper.
In December 2011, Miss Yousafzai was awarded the first National Peace Award for Youth by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. A school was named after her. She told the press she hoped to form a political party one day.
That was too much for the Taliban; she had to be assassinated.
Miss Yousafzai has so far survived the shooting. The government immediately swept in, declaring that she would get the best medical care and loudly denouncing the attack:
“We have to fight the mind-set that is involved in this. We have to condemn it,” Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf told the Pakistani Senate. “Malala is like my daughter and yours, too. If that mind-set prevails, then whose daughter would be safe?”
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the shooting “barbaric” and “cowardly.”
Yet Miss Yousafzai herself observed that Pakistan's military seemed to avoid confronting the Taliban. The Washington Post adds this observation:
While school children throughout the nation held prayer vigils for Yousafza, and many Pakistanis and politicans expressed revulsion over the shooting, major religious parties and mosque leaders were largely silent. Clerics frequently do not rebuke suicide bombings or sectarian attacks for fear of alienating their increasingly conservative congregants or provoking the Taliban.
Whose will is being defied and whose will is being done?
Egypt is afraid of children, too. Earlier this month two boys aged 9 and 10 were thrown in jail on blasphemy charges. Local officials claimed that they had torn up an urinated on a copy of the Koran that they found in a garbage dump.
Just today it was announced that the two boys had been freed:
"The case has been closed ... and today we knew that the charges were dropped and the children were released after a deal was reached between Muslims, Christians and security officials in the area," said Gamal Eid, a human rights activist and part of the team of lawyers defending the boys.
He did not explain what kind of deal had been reached.
In the Internet age it is difficult for Islamist authorities who threaten children to conceal their actions. The civilized world is watching.
Stop the Blasphemy Trials, writes Amr Ezzat in the Egypt Independent. He compares the pile-on protests of the internet clip "Innocence of Muslims" to a person fanning a spark into a blaze so they can call in the fire department:
Islamist media professionals, preachers, Al-Azhar scholars, Muslim Brothers, Salafis and others who joined the wave — genuinely persuaded, to go with the flow or out of fear of standing in the way of the angry uprising — now claim that their spark-turned-firestorm demonstrates the need to address blasphemy more firmly in the constitution and the law.
They also say that the constitutions and laws of other countries should be just as strict on that issue and that there is a need for an international agreement to track and try people for any words or acts they regard as blasphemous. Furthermore, a number of them has formed a coalition for that purpose and called it “The sound of reason.”
The members of that coalition are suggesting that we chase those “blashphemy” fire sparks around the world. That way, a sentence, article, or internet video could turn into a national or universal case, with pertinent cases being taken to courts and people taking to the streets in protest.
Ezzat makes some telling points about how Egypt's blasphemy laws have been abused in the past:
All constitutional articles and laws penalizing blasphemy against religions, the divine entity and sacred figures have not successfully done their job. They have only served to protect the religion of those in power or the majority. They have been used to try those who have dared view the Divine entity differently from those in authority and to punish those who humiliate those figures dubbed sacred by authorities.
......................
While controversies, mutual criticism and humiliation pepper the internet, blasphemy trials only target the weaker, and target the religious minority. Cases brought against stronger parties do not proceed as fast.
Mr. Ezzat illustrates this point using both modern and historical examples. He also points out that blasphemy laws were just as convenient for the Mubarak regime as they are for the Morsi government:
Article 98 — employed in cases related to contempt of religion charges — states that "everyone who abused religion to promote or favor, orally or in writing or using any other tool, radical ideas to spark sectarianism, degrade or blasphemize a Divine religion or sects that belong to them or to harm national unity or social peace" is subject to punishment.
This pliable legal phrasing has enabled the trial of members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the past and is now suitable for bringing opposition to the Brotherhood to trial.
Towards the end of his essay, Mr. Ezzat even hints at (gasp!) separating Church and State:
The Brotherhood, Salafi preachers, and Al-Azhar are unfortunately unable to distinguish between their religious role, which concerns the call to Islam and faith, and their political role, which is supposed to lead them to defend the interests of all people who have a right to seeing equality between the religious majority and minority.
To those pushing to impose firmer penalties with regards to blasphemy charges, I say: consider the victims who will be crushed by those laws you want to make. Think of how you are humiliating people and opening the gates of sectarian hell.
Egyptian Op Eds typically run twice the length of American Op Eds, but this one is worth a read in its entirety. At least one voice in Egypt sees the blasphemy situation as many Americans do, and that one voice is permitted to say so in a newspaper.
A popular revolution overthrows a dictator formerly supported by the United States. His regime is replaced by an agressive theocracy that rejects western influences and promises reform. The U.S. embassy is threatened by demonstrators who breach its walls, shouting "Death to America!" and demanding that "criminals" currently living in the U.S. be handed over for trial.
That was Tehran in 1976. Is it also Cairo in 2012?
For those of us old enough to remember the Iranian Hostage Crisis, there are haunting similarities. Here are some examples as reported by the Egyptian press.
Like Iran in 1979, Egypt's economy has stuttered to a halt, crippled in part by strikes:
Teachers and administrative staff of Cairo University have been on strike since last week demanding an increase in minimum wages, transport workers escalated their strike on Monday after their union representative was arrested and now Doctor Mostafa Al-Behairy has resumed the sit-in and hunger strike he started Saturday at the doctors’ syndicate in Cairo, demanding better working conditions for medical staff.
These work stoppages and Egypt's weakening tourist industry present a serious challenge to newly-elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. The economy is further threatened by delays in U.S. aid:
The violent demonstrations sparked by an anti-Islam video, and Egypt’s initially clumsy response, have temporarily halted talks about a proposed $1 billion in debt relief and how to speed millions in other aid to Egypt, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.
.................................
Just days before protests erupted outside the fortress-like embassy compound, American and Egyptian officials had been in the final stages of negotiating the details of assistance that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Like the newly-installed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, President Morsi is the head of a group once outlawed by the previous regime. He must now establish his leadership and consolidate his support:
Once upon a time, the MB could have argued it was a victim; it was a proscribed organisation, and frequently the scapegoat for the Mubarak regime. But, those days are over. Two years ago, it could only win seats in parliament if it ran members as independents. Today, the MB can virtually count on being the largest political force in a new parliament, due to its organisation and efforts, and one of its own sits in the president’s chair. The MB is many things: but it is not a victim.
Many political parties in democracies struggle with the notion of switching from a ‘party in opposition mode’ to a ‘party in power mode’. It is understandable if the MB has that struggle too. But the MB’s perception of victimhood and supporters identifying opposition to the MB as somehow rooted in an instinctive anti-Muslim and/or anti-Islam sentiment cannot be good for Egypt.
Some observers have suggested that the recent demonstrations were staged by Salafists in an attempt to undermine Mr. Morsi's authority. They hint at possible rifts among Egypt's Islamists and suggest that various factions are jockeying for greater power:
As for the Salafists, Jihadists and various other Islamist extremists, the film was the answer to a prayer. Not only did it provide a golden opportunity to strike against the revolutionary values they abhor as atheistic Western imports, it also gave them renewed access to the nation's political stage.
The furore in defence of the Prophet would also serve to undermine the rule of the reasonable, pragmatic Brotherhood, in favour of the more radical, more regressive, tendencies within Egyptian Islamism.
Those "radical, more regressive tendencies" have already been on worrisome display:
What is new now after the appointment of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Ministry of Information is that Egyptian state television allowed the appearance of a veiled newscaster. This step comes after all we have recalled about the development of the state of dress in Egypt and its movement from one form of radicalism to another. The step also comes in the light of the closure of a satellite channel, the imprisonment and trial of a journalist, and the banning of prominent writers’ articles following the appointment of members of the Muslim Brotherhood to the press leadership positions.
Accusations of blasphemy followed by show trials are keeping tensions at a steady simmer:
A Coptic Christian schoolteacher, Bishoy Kamel, has been sentenced to six years in prison for posting cartoons on Facebook deemed defamatory to Islam and the Prophet Mohamed, and for insulting President Mohamed Morsi and his family.
Members of Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya and various Salafist groups attempted to attack Kamel when he was led out of the court after receiving his sentence. They pelted with rocks the police car used to transport him away from the court.
It's not clear from President Morsi's recent actions if he is trying to harness this rising tension or simply control it:
A controversial draft bill, named the 'protecting society from dangerous people' bill, replicates the worst features of the widely-misused and now defunct emergency law, according to a statement issued by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR).
The bill, which was prepared by the interior and justice ministries and introduced by the incumbent cabinet led by premier Hisham Qandil, is yet to be approved by President Mohamed Morsi.
Like the old emergency law, which gave the police the right to arrest civilians without evidence and without charges, the 'protecting society from dangerous people' bill would give the interior ministry the right to put suspects under house arrest for up to 30 days. It would also enable the ministry to put suspects under surveillance or to order them to carry out community service, for an indefinite period of time.
Sometimes it appears that he is trying to co-opt it:
Egypt's general prosecutor issued arrest warrants Tuesday for seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor and referred them to trial on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that has sparked riots across the Muslim world.
The case is largely symbolic since the seven men and one woman are believed to be outside of Egypt and unlikely to travel to the country to face the charges. Instead, the prosecutor's decision to take legal appears aimed at absorbing at least some of the public anger over the amateur film, which portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and buffoon.
The prosecutor's office said in a statement that the eight accused, who include the film's alleged maker, face charges of harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information. The office said they could face the death penalty, if convicted.
It's not inevitable that events in Cairo will lead to another 1979, but it's not paranoid or bigoted to notice the similarities. The conflicting pressures closing in on Mr. Morsi could even make such an outcome seem attractive now and then:
Seizing the U.S. Embassy, taking hostages and demanding extradition of the accused filmmakers in exchange for their release would allow President Morsi to "out-Islamist" his Salafist rivals. It could broaden his base of support and enhance his stature in the region.
A dramatic hostage situation would pull the public's attention away from strikes and economic hardship.
The American hostages could be used as bargaining chips for a better aid package.
Mr. Morsi need not seize the embassy himself; he need only fail to prevent it. (Recall that the Egyptian police were mysteriously slow to respond to the previous assault.) This would allow him to reap all the benefits of the situation while suffering few of the disadvantages.
And to those pundits now claiming that the anti-film demonstrations were small, it's worth remembering that the Tehran Embassy in 1979 was overrun by only 400 unarmed students.
History doesn't always repeat itself. But we should all pay attention when it starts to rhyme.
Unlike some well-paid pundits this week, I'm not going to wring my hands and squirm with distress about the anti-muslim schlock "film" currently in the news.
For those who might be interested, here is my opinion:
1. This film did not cause any violence.
A film is an inanimate object. I cannot shoot a gun or set a fire. It can't even "cause heads to explode"- that is a figure of speech.
Violence is caused by human beings who decide to shoot a gun or set a fire.
2. The maker of this film should not be prosecuted by the U.S.- or extradited to any country where he is subject to prosecution- simply because he made a crude video that insulted a religion.
The United States gives everyone freedom of speech. It does not rescind that right just because someone outside the United States pitches a hissyfit.
3. This film is not the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre can create a panic reaction, a stampede of people fleeing to safety. Fleeing a fire to save one's life is the exact opposite of setting a fire to exact revenge.
4. The issue is not a 'clash of cultures.' The issue is national sovereignty.
The moment the United States government agrees to suppress any form of free expression in response to violence or threats of violence from other nations, it has abdicated its sovereign right to create and enforce laws for its own people. It has instead surrendered that right to foreign entities.
5. The best answer to bad speech will always be more and better speech, not suppression of speech.
Don't like the film? Don't watch it. Or better still, write a scathing review of it. Or, even better, produce your own film to answer it. Start a blog and offer to host editorials, reviews and videos that skewer it.
6. If a film is accusing your religious or ethnic group of being violent, protesting that film violently is really stupid.
You may as well shoot yourself in the foot. Not only will such behavior confirm the stereotypes in the film, it will discourage reasonable people from sympathizing with you. Want to win friends and influence people? Present your objections to the film in a calm and rational way. This tactic works surprizingly well.
I guess that sums it up. This is how I feel about the situation, and I don't picture that changing anytime soon.
And the only fires I intend to set will be the ones I build in my fireplace as autumn nears.
(I can't shoot anything, because I don't own a gun.)
While the U.S. was observing a subdued September 11 yesterday, mobs in Cairo and Benghazi attacked the U.S. embassies there.
In Benghazi, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who just months ago was supporting the Libyan rebels in their struggle to overthrow Muamar Qadaffi- was killed. Three other embassy staffers- none yet identified- were killed as well.
In Cairo, a mob of 2,000 fanatics stormed the embassy, taking down and destroying its U.S. flag and raising the black flag associated with Jihadists in its place.
Both embassy buildings suffered damage and looting.
The cause of all this was supposedly a film denigrating the Mohammed that, until today, none but a handful of Americans had ever heard of, let alone seen. Yet this obscure bit of film became an extremely useful tool in Egypt and Libya, where big stories about it were spun to whip mobs into a frenzy.
What were some of the rumors? Read below:
Claims were made that the film was the work of Morris Sadek, an Egyptian Copt living in the U.S. Mr. Morris is a controversial figure in Egypt due to his public remarks about Islam and the Arab Spring.
Mobs were told that the film would be broadcast on all U.S. television stations during 9/11 obervances this year
I discovered these rumors while searching some Egyptian blogs and online newspapers for more information. Here is Zeinobia at Egyptian Chronicles:
In short summary ugly radical bastard Morris Sadek produced along with infamous Terry Jones a documentary that insults Prophet Mohamed “PBUH” , ironically the ones who spread that documentary online mostly from Islamists. The documentary is awful , some poor disgusting Now it is worth to mention that a considerable number of these protesters believed that this documentary will be aired on all American TV channels on the occasion of 9/11 with Arabic translation !!!
It appears Zeinobia is mistaken in linking Morris Sadek to the film. It is actually the work of Sam Bacile. Mr. Bacile has gone into hiding, but has publicly claimed credit for the piece in statements to U.S. media.
She is correct in calling the film awful. There are numerous clips from it on YouTube and it literally looks like something a bunch of high school kids would make in a friend's basement for a school project. "Amateurish" is putting it far too kindly. Yeesh.
She also posts video of the burning embassy in Benghazi:
She finishes with a final disturbing rumor:
Now Russia Today claims that Salafists in Tunisia are calling their supporters to attack and destroy the US embassy. Anyhow the US embassy in Tunisia is said to be heavily secured.
Tunisian Salafis are now calling for an attack on their country's US embassy, Tunisian media outlets said. Salafis militants had previously attempted to attack the embassy, but were repelled by security forces. Many in the region believe another attack is imminent.
I mentioned earlier that U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed in the Benghazi attack. The exact details of his death are very unclear. Libyan officials claimed that he was killed by a rocket attack on his car, but earlier this morning NPR was reporting that he had smothered in the smoke from the fire.
Egypt Independent is running a photograph of Ambassador Stevens taken at some point during the attack. The caption claims that he is being "helped" by Libyan civilians. It doesn't look that way to me. He also does not look as though he has smothered from smoke inhalation. There appears to be a big gash on his forehead and he frankly looks like he's just been beaten and is being dragged away by the mob. But I can't confirm this.
As is usual in situations like this, demands are being made by various groups. From the Daily News Egypt:
“We don’t have any problems with our Coptic brothers in Egypt,” said Sheikh Abdallah Abdel Hamid, who was standing in front of the embassy, “but we ask President Morsy to revoke the Egyptian citizenship of those abroad.”
On Monday Nader Bakkar, spokesman for the Salafist Al-Nour Party, stated that those Egyptians involved in the making of the film should have their Egyptian citizenships revoked.
In addition to the protest, strong condemnations of the movie have come from various groups in Egypt. Among the organisations that have condemned the movie is the Coalition of Egypt’s Copts which demanded severe punishment for the people responsible for producing the movie, through an international trial for hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims worldwide.
The coalition added that holding those responsible for the movie accountable will deter anyone else from abusing or attacking any other religion. Furthermore, the coalition demanded the enforcing of international laws on all countries that exercise this “intellectual terrorism.”
So- the alleged actions of one Copt living abroad are enough to justify disenfranchising thousands of Copts living in Egypt? Anyone who hurts Muslim feelings should be put on trial? Making controversial (if shoddy) films is "intellectual terrorism" and should be punished by other countries? Really?
Sorry, but that's just juvenile thinking. And it does not improve the image of Muslims in western eyes.
I'll close with a little something from Michael Totten's blog on the situation:
We aren't going to cancel our First Amendment because fanatics on the other side of the planet get bent out of shape over what happens in free countries. And they won't stop getting bent out of shape. So we should brace for a lot more of this sort of thing in the future.
A Salafist leader in Egypt has called for a "million-man march" on Friday to protest the film. Brace, indeed.
On Friday, March 4 and Saturday, March 5, 2011, protesters swept into offices of the State Security Investigation Service (SSIS) in cities across Egypt.
2,500 protesters- many claiming to be victims of torture and harrassment by SSIS officials- overwhelmed the main office in Cairo. Once inside, they found rooms full of files, sex tapes intended for blackmail and mounds of shredded paper. (You can see a Flickr stream of photos from inside the building here.)
It was the rumor of shredded documents that brought the crowds to SSIS offices all over Egypt. Protesters ransacked the shelves for files about themselves, family and friends. Activists took photos of the interior scenes and posted them on Facebook: metal shelves stuffed with reams of neat paper files; young people perched on bags of shredded paper, leafing through photos and documents.
Bloggers took to calling it "Egypt's Bastille Day," but I wonder if any of them realized they were re-enacting a much more recent event.
On January 15th, 1990, citizens in the soon-to-be-dismantled German Democratic Republic stormed the Stasi's Berlin Compound. Like the SSIS, the Stasi had been desperately shredding and hiding files as the chaos in the GDR increased. It took protesters days to actually find the files, writes Andrew Curry in Wired magazine:
Accompanied by cooperative police, Stasi agents led Gill and his compatriots through twisting alleys and concrete-walled courtyards, all eerily empty. Finally they arrived at a nondescript office building in the heart of the compound. Inside, there was more paper than he had ever imagined. "We had all lived under the pressure of the Stasi. We all knew they could know everything," Gill says today. "But we didn't understand what that meant until that moment. Suddenly it was palpable."
At it's peak in 1989, the Stasi employed 91,000 people to monitor 16.4 GDR citizens. They obsessively documented everything from the banal to the bizarre- cigarettes smoked, walks in the park, even gossip sessions between teenagers. They recorded the success or failure of attempts to harrass surveillance subjects(from "Need to Know" by H. Saussy):
The point of it all was probably not gaining information, but intimidating the suspect. One fine point of technique involves small acts of harassment—repeatedly letting the air out of bicycle tires, to name one that I found especially disturbing—that by daily accumulation make the person wonder if she is going crazy. Did I ride over a nail or did the Stasi do that to me? The message you’re supposed to get is that the secret police are not only all-knowing, but inescapable, a more intimate part of your life than your toothbrush or the smell of your own sweat.
Writing in Al Masry Al Youm, Issandre El Amrani describes a very similar role played by the SSIS in Egypt:
There were worse dictatorships, yes, but the problem was not simply an aging, authoritarian president, his ambitious son and his corrupt entourage. It was that, for the sake of regime preservation, a sprawling security apparatus collected information on citizens, manipulated them, cajoled and threatened them, humiliated them. State Security did not just, as its role should have been, keep tabs on possible terrorists and criminal networks. It ran Egypt on a day-to-day level, super-imposing itself onto the regular bureaucracy, acting as an intermediary...
...What those who gained access to its offices discovered is that, much like the Ministry of Transport might keep an inventory of its buses and trains, State Security maintained an elaborate database on citizens, the threats they represented, their weaknesses, relationships and other every little detail of their lives.
One Egytian newspaper estimated the SSIS workforce at 100,000. According to Ahmad Zaki Osman of Al Masri Al Youm, the SSIS really came into its own after the imposition of the Emergency Law in 1981.
Furthermore, the SSIS was responsible for shutting down rights groups. In 2007, it caused the closure of the Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services, which provides legal assistance to workers.
The SSIS also played a role in eliminating opposition candidates in the 2010 parliamentary elections.
Moreover, the SSIS has allegedly played a prominent role in appointing loyal editors for state owned newspapers in order to smear the opposition and defend policies of Mubarak’s regime.
The SSIS has played a role in obstructing political life on a day-to-day basis.
The distortions of Egyptian society caused by the SSIS mirror the distortion of society in the GDR by the Stasi: neighbors paid- or coerced- into informing on neighbors, plainclothes operatives shadowing civilians during their most ordinary errands. Was that flat tire a coicidence or a warning? Did your landlady enter your apartment while you were at work? Both organizations created a poisoned society, where potentially no one is who they claim to be and rumor feels more truthful than fact.
Can a society so poisoned survive and eventually heal? A re-unified Germany eventually did. They turned the Stasi compound into a museum and created an organization dedicated to reassembling and giving files to surveillance subjects. Thus far, 1.7 million Germans have requested their personal Stasi files. The Germans call this Vergangenheitsbewältigung- "coming to terms with the past."
But can Egyptians achieve this? No one can tell the future, but look for a moment at the past. In his Wired article, Andrew Curry describes the beginning of the German revolution:
...on October 9, the situation escalated. In Leipzig that night, 70,000 people marched peacefully around the city's ring road — which goes right past the Stasi office... A week later, 120,000 people marched; a week after that, the number was 300,000 — in a city with a population of only 530,000.
I don’t know what to make of Egypt myself and will wait and see what happens before I form an opinion. My heart is with the neocons and the liberals who rejoice in seeing Mubarak finally ousted, but the Israelis aren’t crazy for worrying about what might happen next. Mubarak was a terrible ally who deserved to be overthrown, but at least he wasn’t an enemy.
Western analysts, bloggers and blog commenters are all watching the same uprisings and seeing completely different things. Here are some recent remarks:
Now the Mubarak regime is gone. There are understandable fears that these events will not turn out so well. The Muslim Brotherhood represents the most organized political force in Egypt. Mubarak always said that the choice was between him and the Brotherhood, and he pursued policies that fulfilled that prophecy. While many decent, more secular political leaders were harassed and jailed by the regime, the Brotherhood organized in the mosques and provided social services the regime could not. It will take time to level the playing field.
Scan the comments on most blog posts about events in Egypt and the words "Muslim Brotherhood" appear again and again. Many people seem to regard Islamism as the only possible alternative to despots in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. Much was made of the "triumphant return" of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the notorious Muslim Brotherhood cleric. Qaradawi, who espouses violent and obnoxious views on the treatment women, jews, and non-Muslims, led Friday prayers in Tahrir Square on February 18th, preaching to a gigantic crowd. Pundits compared this prayer service to the "triumphant return" of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran in 1979.
What they failed to note is that Khomeini immediately named his own prime minister and launched a revolt just ten days later.
By contrast, Qaradawi has not formed any government or launched a revolt. Instead, in a move that pundits have largely ignored, Egypt's current military government ejected prime minister Ahmed Shafiq and replaced him with Essam Sharaf this week, in response to the demands of protesters.
On Wednesday night, hours before he would resign, Shafik appeared on a talk show with Naguib Sawiris, one of the country's leading businessmen, and Hamdi Kandil, a longtime pundit and journalist. The meeting turned raucous as Kandil, staring down Shafik, articulated what much of the nation felt: "I'm surprised that you remain as prime minister and that you accept it even when you know the majority of Egyptians want to see you go."
Qaradawi may yet try to launch a revolt, of course. But at the moment, Egyptians seem far more interested in influencing the current government.
And the current government seems to be listening.
As Ms. Rice puts it:
Egyptians are not Iranians, and it is not 1979. Egypt's institutions are stronger and its secularism deeper. The Brotherhood is likely to compete for the writ of the people in free and fair elections. They should be forced to defend their vision for Egypt. Do they seek the imposition of sharia law? Do they intend a future of suicide bombings and violent resistance to the existence of Israel? Will they use Iran as a political model? Al-Qaeda? Where will Egypt find jobs for its people? Do they expect to improve the lives of Egyptians cut off from the international community through policies designed to destabilize the Middle East?
What Ms. Rice sees in Egypt is a battle of ideas, not an inevitable Brotherhood takeover.
Leon Wieseltier, writing in the New Republic, offers an idea I've been turning over in my mind for some time:
Stability, the false god of hard hearts, has been revealed to be temporary, chimerical, provisional, hollow, where the social arrangements are not decent or fair: the stability of injustice, though it may last a long time, is essentially unstable.
Or,as a friend of mine put it, paraphrasing Ben Franklin: "He who would give up liberty for security deserves neither. He who would demand someone else's liberty in order to have security for himself, deserves to be somebody's prison bitch."
That's a bit stronger than I would put it, but the feeling is similar: Purchasing security with enforced misery is not a stable bargain. The resentment it creates could cost you your life one day. Let's not forget: Mohammed Atta was born and raised in Mubarak's "stable" Egypt, and 911 occurred on Mubarak's watch.
Middle East Scholar Daniel Pipes finds some hope in the unexpected tone of the uprisings:
The revolts over the past two months have been largely constructive, patriotic, and open in spirit. Political extremism of any sort, leftist or Islamist, has been largely absent from the streets. Conspiracy theories have been the refuge of decayed rulers, not exuberant crowds...
..........................................
Perhaps the most genial symbol of this maturation is the pattern of street demonstrators cleaning up after themselves. No longer are they wards of the state dependent on it for services; of a sudden, they are citizens with a sense of civic responsibility.
I recall a tweet from the #Jan25 feed the day after Mubarak stepped down: "The new weapon of choice is the broom!"
It works as both a literal and a philosophical statement.
Mr. Pipes sees the current situation as a good influence on the region:
Despite Tehran’s strenuous efforts to lay claim to the revolts across the region, portraying them as inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1978–79 and its own brand of Islamism, these revolts more likely will inspire Iranians to renew their assault on the Khomeinist order.
One can only hope.
In Slate, Anne Applebaum compares recent events to the wave of European revolutions in 1848:
In fact, most of the 1848 rebellions failed. The Hungarians did kick the Austrians out, but only briefly. Germany failed to unite. The French created a republic that collapsed a few years later. Constitutions were written and discarded. Monarchs were toppled and restored. Historian A.J.P. Taylor once called 1848 a moment when "history reached a turning point and failed to turn."
And yet—in the longer run, the ideas discussed in 1848 did seep into the culture, and some of the revolutionary plans of 1848 were eventually realized. By the end of the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had indeed united Germany, and France did establish its Third Republic. The nations once ruled by the Habsburgs did gain independence after World War I. In 1849, many of the revolutions of 1848 might have seemed disastrous, but looking back from 1899 or 1919, they seemed like the beginning of a successful change.
There is so much that could yet go horribly, viciously wrong. But as I said earlier, one can only hope. Hope that, if we look in the rearview mirror 12 months from now, we're looking at "regime change" we can all live with.
Revolutions break our hearts, whether they fail or succeed. Will Egypt’s revolution escape this grim destiny, or will it follow the all-too-human pattern of disappointment and betrayal that has followed the great majority of popular revolts? Cautious observers are anxiously waiting for Egypt to recover from its revolutionary hangover before attempting to answer a simple question: Have the Egyptian demonstrators accidentally push the restart button? Is this July 1952 all over again?
Mr. Kandil is referring to the 1952 Revolution in Egypt, a military coup that oust King Farouk I. He compares and contrasts the circumstances:
Egyptians did not receive Communiqué No. 1 during the early hours of another lazy summer day in July; nor did they unwittingly welcome top-down political change while sipping morning tea and getting ready for another dull day at work. The communiqué was broadcast on gigantic screens amidst millions of angry protesters who had successfully brought the country to a grinding halt.
He sees Egyptians as newly empowered by recent events, and it gives him hope for a different future:
Can an entire population that has thrust itself so decisively onto the center stage of its own history allow a bunch of officers to expel it again? It has happened before and may happen again, but thus far there is little reason to be cynical.
Bahieddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, warns that the entire governmental structure supporting Mubarak must be swept away before any real changes can take place:
The main task facing us now is to dismantle the pillars of this police state and to lay the foundations of a secular and democratic regime that respects human rights. In order to do this, we need to remove the constitutional and legislative pillars that the previous regime used to survive and to masquerade at being "legitimate". We must dismantle the institutions and organisations that the regime used in order to survive and to defeat and debilitate its opponents.
He argues forcefully for dismantling the State Security Service:
The most important institution, indeed the mainstay, of the police state in Egypt has undoubtedly been the State Security Service, an organisation that dominated every aspect of life in the country. Any delay in dissolving this body means that the revolution has only succeeded in replacing one head with another, while keeping in place the tentacles that suffocated civil and political liberties in the country and led to extensive human-rights violations, including torture, abduction and assassination.
He also declares that the existing constitution should be scrapped, not amended. There is simply too much wrong with it to salvage anything, in his view.
Tamer Bahgat and Khalid El-Sherif, writing in the Daily News Egypt, are also thinking of the constitution. They are calling for "Constitutional Patriotism," and demanding a constitutional convention in Egypt:
A full-fledged constitutional convention, with participation open to all political, social, and professional groups now contributing to the national dialogue, would be the forum and the mechanism by which such hopes could be realized. Egyptians will need to grapple with crucial topics, such as, among others: the extent they wish the executive branch to have a leading role (as in the U.K. for example), or to be constrained by powerful legislative and judicial branches (as in the U.S.A.); whether there should be a public right to recall of the President (as in Venezuela), or whether a parliamentary vote of no confidence should be the instrument to force the fall of the executive; whether their civil, French-influenced legal system is satisfactory, or whether modifications and innovations are required; and which voting system (first past the post, alternative vote, proportional representation, etc.) is best suited to their country. Crucially, they will have to consider the best means of reconciling the avowedly religious nature of most Egyptians with their aversion to religious pre-eminence in state affairs, recognizing that the authoritarian strands of French laïcité, and Turkish Kemalism are as alien to Egypt as Iranian Wilayat al Faqih.
Emad Gad, writing in AhramOnline, decries the "Pharoah" nature of Egyptian politics:
The politics of Pharaoh is the malaise of Egypt’s political culture; one person controls all aspects of life with one or more minor pharaohs from his family while incense bearers and ecclesiastics of the great and minor Pharaoh are placed as heads of various institutions, agencies and companies. They too become “minor Pharaohs” to their subordinates. While they are priests or incense bearers in the eyes of the great or minor Pharaoh, they are “Pharaohs” in the eyes of their subordinates.
The politics of Pharaoh has ruined many aspects of life in Egypt whether politically, economically, socially and culturally. The question now is how to uproot this political phenomenon?
His solution is a form of Parliamentary rule:
Parliament would be the basis for rule, a parliamentary system which is based on true political pluralism with civic parties not based on religion as religious political parties would fracture Egypt. In this way, civic parties would represent various sectors and echelons of Egyptian society and contest free and open elections, presenting their platforms to the electorate and competing for votes under an electoral system of partial lists. Constituencies can be defined either by considering the entire country as one constituency or each governorate separately.
Like many Western pundits, each of these authors recognizes the similarity of the January 25 revolution to other upheavals in Egypt's past. They are also well aware of the dangers facing Egypt in the present. But unlike some pundits, they are thinking beyond the past and envisioning innovations that could create a new future for Egypt.
In an Arab world where the previously unthinkable is suddenly happening everywhere, they shouldn't be ignored.
It has been reported that CBS correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assualted in while covering the celebrations in Tahrir Square last Friday:
...she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy.
In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.
There have been speculations that this was a targeted assault on Mr. Logan by pro-Mubarak thugs. Ms. Logan and her crew had been detained by Egyptian authorities on February 4:
On Thursday, Logan was reportedly marched back to her hotel at gunpoint when she and a crew were taking pictures of protests. They were eventually detained by Egyptian police outside Cairo's Israeli embassy.
At the time of her detention, other foreign journalists were also complaining of threats and assaults:
“He was so angry at the perceived media bias,” said correspondent/producer Brian Hartman of one of his attackers. “He said so help me God, I will cut off your head.”
However, those were physcal beatings and not sexual assaults. This is the first report of a sexual assault during the Tahrir Square demonstrations to receive wide press/blog coverage. Alexander Petri at the Washington Post remarks:
Egypt is not a free society. Yes, it is free of Mubarak's rule. But its women - even when shrouded in the hejab - are not free to pass through the street without being groped and catcalled. In 2008, as Slate reporter Sarah Topol noted, a study by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights reported that 83 percent of women experienced harassment - and that 98 percent of foreign women visitors did. And 62 percent of men admitted to perpetrating it. Living in the United States, I take for granted my ability to walk unmolested in the street. I don't believe this could have happened here. And the idea that such a horror could take place in the midst not of pervasive violence but of celebration is especially shocking.
Fairly or unfairly, Egypt has become notorious among westerners for routine sexual harrassment of women. Female tourists are constantly warned about this and advised never to go out alone and to adopt other security measures.
Probably the most notorious example of female harrassment occurred on October 23rd, 2006 during Eid-al-Fitre celebrations in Cairo. Mahmoud Salem (aka Sandmonkey) blogged about it at that time:
The story is as follows for the those of you who didn't hear about it: It was the first day of Eid, and a new film was opening downtown. Mobs of males gatherd trying to get in, but when the show was sold out, they decided they will destroy the box office. After accomplishing that, they went on what can only be described as a sexual frenxy: They ran around grabbing any and every girl in sight, whether a niqabi, a Hijabi or uncoverd. Whether egyptian or foreigner. Even pregnant ones. They grabbed them, molested them, tried to rip their cloths off and rape them, all in front of the police, who didn't do shit. The good people of downtown tried their best to protect the girls. Shop owners would let the girls in and lock the doors, while the mobs tried to break in. Taxi drivers put the girls in the cars while the mobs were trying to break the glass and grab the girls out. It was a disgusting pandamonium of sexual assaults that lasted for 5 houres from 7:30 PM to 12:30 am, and it truns my stomach just to think about it.
Videos of this frenzy appeared on YouTube shortly afterward; I remember watching one girl, her top nearly torn off, trying to take shelter in a parking garage. Most of these videos have since been taken down over "content issues."
Egyptian bloggers at the time noted that the police did nothing to control the mob and that women attempting to report assaults were ignored. Egyptian media largely ignored the incident.
(It's also worth noting that many Egyptian bloggers condemned the mob, and that many local shopkeepers and taxi drivers attempted to protect the women.)
Multiple explanations have been offered for this behavior: sexual restriction in Islam and the financial difficulty in getting married, the influence of western media (and pornography),misogyny in Egyptian culture, corrupt police.
Whatever excuse you select, it is still just an excuse and the fact remains that Egypt has a problem with sexual harrassment/assault.
How this problem will be addressed is an important part of what comes next in Egypt, post-Mubarak.
Since the departure of Hosni Mubarak, pundits have unpacked their broadest brushes to paint the situation in Egypt: what took place was a military coup, either fully orchestrated by or intended to promote the power of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But is that the entire picture?
It might be, but before we accept the entire image, let's examine it a little more closely.
The Egyptian constitution has been suspended. This sounds ominous to an Americans, but the protesters had requested this suspension during the 18 days of demonstrations. Unlike the Constitution of the United States, the Egyptian constitution has been handled like a toy by Mubarak and other leaders since it's most recent iteration in 1971. The extensive ratification process required to amend the U.S. Constitution does not exist in Egypt; Mubarak has made numerous changes to the document and received rubber-stamp confirmation from the legislature and from fixed "referendums" where less that 30% of the population actually voted.
From a 2007 BBC report:
Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, warned that the amendments would "write into permanent law emergency-style powers that have been used to violate human rights" since 1981.
Article 179 seems particularly draconian, stating that Articles 41, 44 and 45 (paragraph two) of the constitution must not "hamper" investigations into terrorist crimes.
These articles prevent detention without judicial authorities' permission, police searches without a warrant and eavesdropping on personal communications.
The existing constitution, which the military council has suspended, had built-in guarantees to keep Mubarak and his allies in power.
Amendments added during his rule strengthened the establishment's grip on power.
For example, one amendment that allowed the first multi-candidate presidential election in 2005 was carefully worded to ensure no realistic challenge to Mubarak was possible.
Protesters haved demanded changes to the Egyptian Constitution that would encourage free and fair elections and the development of civil democracy. Thus far they have been permitted to meet with military leaders on these issues:
The coalition representatives, who included Google marketing manager, Wael Ghoneim, says Samir, told the military that their coalition, which includes the youth movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, does not want elections before 9 months up to one year, in accordance with a new timetable, which coalition members are currently studying. The coalition representatives agreed that elections should be held in competitive climate that provides an even playing field to all participants.
Of course, this is assuming that the military makes good on its promises and that the two scariest words in the above paragraph- Muslim Brotherhood- don't become the only words in the political game. There is much that could still go wrong, but there are also more moving parts than some people are willing to admit.
Some of those moving parts exist outside Egypt. In recent days Iran is once more seeing protests against its government:
Furious Iranian lawmakers on Tuesday demanded the hanging of opposition leaders who had called anti-government protests which left one person dead, saying they had been "misled" by Iran's arch-foes.
MPs singled out Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who had called for protests in Tehran on Monday in support of Arab uprisings that quickly turned into anti-government demonstrations and ended in clashes with police in which several people were hurt, including nine security force members, and two were killed.
It is almost exactly one year since the Iranian protests were brutally crushed in 2010. Conventional wisdom holds that the Egyptian revolution will deteriorate into a repeat of Iran's 1979 Islamic takeover. Yet the Egyptian uprisising has been literally bookended by Iranian anti-government protests- before and after. Isn't it also possible that Egyptians have seen the failures of Islamic government in Iran and don't want to repeat them?
What if- and I concede this is a pretty big 'what if'- the churning in Egypt and Iran produced a new class of pro-democracy politicians? Could the idea of "homegrown" democracy take hold?
The odds might be against it, but the nascent idea is already in place.
On the other hand, Michael Totten's interview with Steven Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism presents a more negative picture:
Stephen Schwartz: So it’s not a question of Mubarak or the Brotherhood. The army will not, I think, permit the Brotherhood to take power, but the army will shuffle things in some ways. There may not be much of a change at all. When Mubarak said he wouldn’t run in the next election, well, the election is seven months away. How do we know there will be an election?
I’m for democracy throughout the world. I want bourgeois democracy everywhere. I’m an activist for it, but I’m also cautious about euphoria. I think a lot of people have been swept away by hope in the Egyptian case. They think this is the beginning of the great Arab transformation, but they don’t notice that there are few political alternatives in Egypt. There’s no labor-based party. There’s no bourgeois party. There are no parties representing particular social and economic interests.
That's a very good and very sobering point. Enthusiam for democratic change is not the same thing as democratic structure. Do pro-democracy forces in Egypt have the organization- and the means- to do the slow and tedious work of building new parties, new electoral structures?
This interesting video from NDTV (h/t: The Middle Ground)gives us the perspective of 3 Egyptian women involved in the January 25 protests: Author Ahdaf Suoeif, broadcast journalist Shahira Amin, and human rights activist Fatma Morayef. Ms. Morayef admits that the Muslim Brotherhood could be a problem, but seems to indicate that allowing them to present their ideas is also an opportunity to defeat those ideas in the public discourse.
What will happen next? Only time will tell- but time seems to have suddenly sped up in the timeless land of the pyramids.
Recent Comments