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On 7^th February 2011, we posted on the JUST website an article entitled “The Arab Uprising 12 Questions and 12 Answers” which examined a number of the underlying issues in the Egyptian Revolution and the larger Arab Uprising. We are carrying excerpts from that article since they provide useful background information on the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

 

The author of that article, Chandra Muzaffar, has also included two other issues arising from Mubarak’s ouster on 11^th February 2011 in his analysis which appears below.

 

 

1) Mubarak has handed over power to the Egyptian military high command. What are its immediate tasks?

 

From media reports, the military will through consultations with various groups that were involved in the Revolution formulate a provisional constitution which will be the basis for holding a free and fair election as soon as possible. The election will not be just for the Presidency; it could also include contests for Parliament. The powers of the President, Parliament and the Cabinet will have to be spelt out. Military rule, in other words, will be a brief prelude to civilian rule, and hopefully, a genuine democracy.

2) The US government appears to be pleased with the military take-over and the proposed transition to civilian rule. Is this what Washington wanted from the beginning?

 

Powerful vested interests in Washington (perhaps not President Barack Obama himself), it seems to me, would have liked Mubarak to remain in office until September which was Mubarak’s own game plan.  But these interests realised, a few days into the mass protests, that Mubarak was so unpopular that they would not be able to keep him on the throne. This is when they came up with Plan B which was to instal Omar Suleiman, a Mubarak confidante with close ties to Tel Aviv, as the Vice-President and President in waiting. Suleiman, his friends in Washington and Tel Aviv soon realised, was widely detested by the protesters partly because of his links and partly because of his direct involvement in the suppression of democratic dissent and in the torture of the dissenters.

 

Getting the military to run the show for a while is actually the US and Israeli governments’ Plan C. While they are very much aware of the presence of nationalistic elements in the core of the military who would resist any attempt to perpetuate Egypt’s present role as a client state of the US, they also know that the Egyptian military top brass has business ties with huge corporations in the US that deal with military hardware. Besides, training programmes in the US for Egyptian officers and joint military exercises between the two countries over a long period of time have deepened the bond between the Egyptian and US militaries. The US government, to put it differently, is quite confident about the Egyptian military. US officials are therefore hoping that it will manage the transition in such a manner that US and Israeli interests will be well protected

 

3) How do Egyptian protesters feel about the US’s role in Egyptian politics?

 

There is a big segment of Egyptian society that resents US and Western attempts to decide and determine its future. These Egyptians know why the US is in the Arab world and in West Asia. It is oil; it is the strategic significance of the entire region: the Mediterranean, the Suez, the Straits of Hormuz; and it is Israel.  They know that hundreds of thousands of men, women and children have been sacrificed at the altar of US interests. They know how many precious lives — the lives of little children — were snuffed out because of the Anglo-US led sanctions against Iraq that went on for 13 years, and culminated in the invasion and occupation of that blighted land resulting in more death and destruction.

 

The Egyptians and other Arabs remember all this. This is why there is so much anger against leaders like Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the deposed President of Tunisia, who are viewed rightly as men who facilitated US hegemony of the Arab world in recent years. They are regarded as lackeys serving an imperial agenda.  In Cairo and Tunis there were banners denouncing them as agents of the US.

 

Mubarak and Ben Ali have also been part and parcel of the blatant hypocrisy that characterises US relations with dictatorial regimes everywhere. US leaders have often claimed that they are committed to strengthening freedom and democracy in the Arab world. The former US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, even proclaimed in Cairo in 2005 that, “We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.” She launched a foundation called the Foundation for the Future for this purpose. Its chairman until June 2008 was a close US ally, the Malaysian politician, Anwar Ibrahim.

 

In reality, the US, as everyone knows, gave its full support to Mubarak and Ben Ali and other such dictators who imprisoned, tortured and killed political dissidents with impressive democratic credentials. It is only when these dictators were on the verge of collapse that US officials began to support the democratic aspirations of their people. What makes their hypocrisy worse is their suppression of genuine attempts by people in the region to practise democratic principles. When the Islamic party, Hamas, won a free and fair election in Occupied Palestine in January 2006, it was subjected to a boycott and isolated by the US and the European Union. It is because of such hypocrisy that those who are struggling for change in Egypt and elsewhere have very little faith in the US leadership.

 

4) In your reply just now you mentioned ‘Israel’. Surely ‘Israel’ is an even more compelling  factor in the people’s rage against their leaders.

If US hegemony evokes negative vibes, it is partly because that hegemony has been used to protect and reinforce Israel’s position in the region. Israel—more than the US — is perceived by many Arabs as a bane upon their countries. Leaders and governments who collude with the Israeli regime are often viewed as traitors to the Palestinian cause.

 

For hosting former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon in Tunis some years ago, Ben Ali was denounced by many Islamic and secular groups in the Arab world. Mubarak, whose country has diplomatic  ties with Israel, was condemned by all and sundry  for closing the Rafah crossing at the Egypt –Gaza border during the Israeli assault on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. It aggravated the already precarious position of the besieged people of Gaza. When Israel attacked Lebanon in July 2006, Mubarak adopted an antagonistic attitude towards the target, namely, the Hezbollah, the most effective movement in the Arab world resisting Israeli aggression.

 

Israel and those who hobnob with her, incense a lot of Arabs and Muslims not simply because of the manner in which Israel was created in 1948 which was a terrible travesty of justice. Everything Israel has done since then — the conquest of even more Palestinian and Arab territories, the killing of thousands of Palestinians and other Arabs, the expulsion and eviction of Palestinian families, the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the harassment at countless checkpoints which a Palestinian has to endure on a daily basis, and the apartheid wall that barricades Palestinians— have all contributed to the collective humiliation of the Arab and the Muslim. Israel’s arrogance and haughtiness have seared their psyche as nothing else has in the last 63 years. Israel is a perpetual affront to their human dignity. And the protests in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Jordan, in Algeria and in Yemen are about dignity.

 

5) Surely, the Arab Uprising is not just about how Israeli arrogance and US hegemony have trampled upon the dignity of the people.  Hasn’t the economic situation also contributed to mass anger?

 

Undoubtedly. It has been estimated that about 140 million Arabs— 40% of the total population— live below the poverty line.   But absolute poverty alone has seldom given rise to mass uprisings in history. It is widening income and wealth disparities, exacerbated by increasing food prices and high unemployment, that have begun to hurt a lot of people.   While the policies and priorities set by the national elite are partly responsible for this economic malaise, the global economic environment has also been a major factor. Global food prices, for instance, shot up  dramatically towards the end of 2010 due to a variety of reasons ranging from natural disasters and climate change to the conversion of food crops to bio-fuel and rampant speculation in commodities. Both Tunisia and Egypt import food today, when the latter was in fact self-sufficient in food in the sixties.

 

Egypt’s present dependence upon food imports reflects a major structural flaw in a number of Arab economies and indeed other economies in both the Global South and the Global North. Starting from the eighties, they began to implement “neo-liberal” capitalist policies which inter-alia required the rolling back of the state that in Egypt’s case meant the dismantling of government managed cooperatives in agriculture, the deregulation of the distribution of agricultural produce and the elimination of farm subsidies and food subsidies. Besides, neo-liberal capitalism also led to the opening up of the domestic market to food imports that were more competitive which in turn affected local food production. Consequently, food production declined significantly and Egypt became a net food importer.

 

Even high unemployment is, to some extent, a result of the dominance of finance  capital,— rather than capital for manufacturing activities or the service sector— typical of neo-liberal capitalism. With hedge funds, investment banks and currency speculators ruling the roost, there has been greater concentration of capital in fewer and fewer hands. It is not surprising therefore that income and wealth disparities have become starker in today’s Egypt, compared to the Egypt of the sixties and early seventies.

 

It is important to keep this in mind as protesters rage against some of the symptoms of the disease such as high food prices, massive unemployment and widening disparities.

 

1. 1) What is the relationship between these economic issues and elite corruption and nepotism which apparently was also one of the causes of the Arab uprising?

When people are suffering as a result of soaring prices of essentials and lack of jobs, allegations about elite corruption and nepotism—especially if they are substantiated — rouse the public ire as few other issues do. It is indisputably true that there is a great deal of corruption at all levels in a number of Arab states. It is often linked to relatives and cronies.

 

In Tunisia, allegations about Ben Ali’s venality had been circulating for a long while. Invariably, they involved his wife, Leila Trabelsi, whose opulence and extravagance  sustained through corrupt means became fodder for the hundreds of thousands of dissidents yearning for change. Their two families had a stake in all major enterprises from banks and airlines to wholesale and retail businesses.  Their avarice incited mass hatred.

 

Much of the anger towards Mubarak and his alleged corruption, revolve around his son Gamal. The father’s nepotism had resulted in the accumulation of so much family wealth that it came to symbolise all the excesses of his 30 year rule in Egypt. What made it worse was Mubarak’s coarse attempt to anoint his son as his successor.

 

In Yemen too, Ali Abdullah Saleh who has been President since 1978 and was allegedly planning  to hand over the reins of power to his son, Ahmed, was forced through popular protest to announce that he had no such intention and that he would relinquish his position when his term expires in 2013. The people are continuing to demand that he leaves office earlier.

 

1. 2) Isn’t this— leaders staying in office for decades on end and then handing over power to their offspring— one of the main reasons why the Arab street has exploded in anger?

Dynastic politics is repugnant under any circumstances. It becomes even more odious when the man on the throne has been in power for ages and is distinguished by an utter lack of competence and rectitude.

 

WANA where almost all the Arab states are located is perhaps the only region in the world today where unelected incumbents, or incumbents who were elected in farcical elections, have been clinging on to power for decades, and are trying to hand over the reins of authority to their sons. WANA is also the region where elected parliaments, multi-party electoral competition, institutionalised accountability, legalised political dissent, independent judiciaries, and other such norms and principles of democratic governance are rare.

 

It is because democratic governance has yet to become the accepted practice in WANA, that young people especially those who have had some exposure to values such as freedom of expression and democratic accountability have turned against dictatorial governments. They abhor the repressive laws, the torture techniques and the brutal suppression of legitimate dissent associated with these regimes. A segment of the older generation that had always resented the political suppression by the elites, have decided to join hands with the young. The result is the explosion of anger that we are witnessing in many of the cities of the region.

 

1. 3) While this anger must have built up over a period of time, there must have been some trigger…………….

In the case of Tunisia, it was the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, a young vegetable seller who was struggling to make ends meet in the midst of soaring food prices and was constantly harassed by the municipal authorities, that triggered an outpouring of angry emotions.  10 days after his funeral, on the 14^th of January 2011, Ben Ali who had been in power for 23 years, fled from his country, responding in a sense to the clarion call for his ouster from all strata of society. This gave hope to people in Jordan, Algeria and Egypt who were also hungering for meaningful change. When hundreds of thousands of Egyptians came out in the open asking Hosni Mubarak to resign from his presidency, the people of Yemen were encouraged to pressurise their leader to quit.

 

It is obvious that the Tunisian struggle against tyranny had a cascading effect. Bouazizi’s suicide was emulated in Egypt. Four Egyptians set themselves on fire. But the person who coaxed and challenged the people to congregate in the thousands in Tahrir  (Liberation) Square on 25 January  to urge Mubarak to step down  was a young girl by the name of Asma Mahfouz, one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement that has played a big part in organising  the mass protests since that day. It was Asma Mahfouz’s courage — and her passionate plea to others to show courage— that convinced a lot of people that they should overcome their fear and stand up for justice. Her voice, like the deaths of her four compatriots, was the trigger that Egypt was waiting for.

 

1. 4) Is the constant refrain about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan-ul-Muslimin) in the Uprising and the so-called danger of the Uprising becoming like the Islamic Revolution of Iran that one hears over CNN in particular part of that agenda?

The Ikhwan is one of a variety of movements and organisations that is part of the protest in Egypt. It did not initiate the protest. Of course as a grassroots movement it is reputed to be the most disciplined and the best organised. It has been around for more than 80 years, though officially it is still banned.

 

Though it is only one of the actors at the moment— some Western commentators argue— the Ikhwan could well assume leadership once a new government is formed in Egypt, as it happened in Iran. After all, the Islamic element in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was also one of the Revolution’s many components and yet within a couple of years, the religious elite was entrenched in power and had side-lined the other actors.

 

Those who make this comparison overlook two important differences. The Iranian Revolution, it is true, was diverse but Ayatollah Khomeini, given his religious credentials and his selfless sacrifice, was widely acknowledged as its overall leader. In his almost 20 year struggle against the Shah of Iran, both within the country and in exile, Khomeini articulated a vision of struggle and change that was essentially religious. There were a number of other illustrious clerics, like Ayatollah Taleghani and Ayatollah Mutahhari who were also at the helm of the Iranian Revolution.  There is no one from the Ikhwan who plays a role in the Egyptian Uprising that comes anywhere close to the commanding stature of Khomeini or the other Ayatollahs in the Iranian Revolution.

 

It was partly because of Khomeini’s stature that he was able to shape post-revolutionary Iran in a specific religious mould. The war that Saddam Hussein of Iraq, with the support of a number of Arab monarchies and the connivance of the US, Britain and other Western nations, imposed upon Iran from 1980 to 1988, helped Khomeini to consolidate his religious grip upon his people.  There is nothing to suggest that such extraordinary circumstances that allowed a particular leadership with a particular religious orientation to reinforce its position would present themselves again in the case of Egypt.

 

Besides, the Ikhwan which at various points in history was known for its rigid, sometimes dogmatic conservatism has also undergone some significant changes. Mainstream groups within the movement have become more tolerant of theological differences, more accommodative of the role of women and non-Muslim minorities, and less exclusive in their notion of state and law. It is significant that in the wake of the massacre of Christians in Alexandria a few weeks ago, the Ikhwan played a major role in projecting Muslim-Christian solidarity.  Ironically, the political ban on Ikhwan has strengthened its commitment to humanitarian and welfare principles in Islam, and appears to have diluted its earlier obsession with the primacy of power. Nonetheless, there are still some elements within the Ikhwan who remain attached to a superficial, literalist interpretation of Islamic rules and injunctions.

 

In any case, why are political elites and media commentators in the US, Britain and other Western countries so concerned about the Ikhwan and its ideology in Egypt when they have no qualms about cooperating and collaborating with an Islamic state that adopts  an atavistic approach to law and marginalises women and non-Muslim minorities? Is it because Saudi Arabia is not only an unquestioningly loyal ally but is also totally subservient to US and Western hegemony?

 

In other words, it is not the ‘Islamic state’ or ‘Islamic law’ that is the problem. If the West is assured of acquiescence with its power and dominance, it would be quite happy to accept the Ikhwan. The US and other Western elites are not sure if the Ikhwan will reject their hegemony — as the Islamic Iranian leadership has done— and insist upon the independence and sovereignty of Egypt and the Arab people as a whole. Will the Ikhwan leaders follow the example of Hamas in Palestine and Hizbollah in Lebanon and pursue a principled position on the liberation of Palestinian and other Arab lands, and oppose Israel’s nefarious designs in the region?  Will the Ikhwan — as required by the Qur’an—privilege justice and the dignity of the oppressed and the victims of aggression over and above the interests of the US, British and Israeli elites?   Because these are worrying questions for those who seek to perpetuate their hegemony and their power, the Ikhwan and where it stands has become an issue.

 

1. 5) Instead of focusing upon the Ikhwan, shouldn’t US and Israeli elites reflect on how they can play a constructive role in an Arab world that is asserting its dignity and its honour?

This is precisely what they should be doing. If the people succeed in bringing about fundamental change in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in WANA, US and Israeli elites cannot continue with their present policy of controlling, manipulating  and  dominating the region through elites who represent their interests more than the well-being of the Arab masses. They should adjust to the new realities on the ground.

 

In more concrete terms, this means justice for the Palestinians—- justice that they have been denied for the last 63 years. Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to Israel and to a new Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza that will have East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinian and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails should be released. The Golan Heights should be returned in its entirety to Syria and the Sheba Farms should be restored to Lebanon. Israel should eliminate its nuclear weapons and WANA should be declared a nuclear weapons free zone. If the US is sincere about respecting and fulfilling the aspirations of the people of the region, it should coax, cajole and coerce Israel to take these measures.

 

As Israel moves towards peace based upon justice in a new WANA, all the states in the region should also accord formal recognition to Israel.

 

While the resolution of the Israel-Arab conflict will be the litmus test of whether or not the US is sincere in its attitude towards the Arab people, it will also have to show through deeds that it no longer seeks to perpetuate its political or economic hegemony anywhere in WANA. It should not try to maintain its political control over the region by ensuring that its proxies and agents are elected through the ballot-box. The US should also cease to use the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other such institutions and arrangements to push through neo-liberal capitalist policies and programmes that are clearly inimical to the people’s interest. Instead of trying to shape the destiny of the Arab world for its own hegemonic purpose, the US elite should learn to respect the autonomy and integrity of the people of WANA. It should allow them to harness their own religious and cultural strengths in order to construct their own future, guided by their own vision.

 

 

 

 

 

22 February, 2011 Countercurrents.org

Tunisian and Egyptian revolts have sparked battle for freedom in a number of Arab countries. With the ouster of entrenched Pro-US Presidents Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, the Arab world has erupted in popular protests for reforms and getting rid of tyrants. This week witnessed fierce anti-government demonstrations in Benghazi, the second largest town of Libya with hundreds of casualties. Similar demonstrations were witnessed in Algeria, Bahrain and Yemen. The governments have quickly resorted to violence to crush unrest before it gathers momentum that might threaten their grip on power.

After allowing several days of rallies in Bahrain capital, Manama, the riot police Thursday (2/17) stormed a protest encampment in Pearl Square before dawn, firing tear gas, beating demonstrators or blasting them with shotgun sprays of birdshot. At least five people were reported killed in the police assault on sleeping protesters.

Tellingly, unlike in Egypt, where the struggle was between democracy and dictatorship, Bahrain is suffering a flare-up in old divisions between its ruling Sunni minority and restive Shiites, who constitute 70 percent of the local population of 500,000.

The tension between the Sunni rulers and the Shiite majority runs deep, as it does throughout the Arab Middle East. Bahrain riots have broader regional implications since Saudi Arabia has a significant Shiite minority in its eastern, oil-producing districts.

According to US Religious Freedom Report 2010, Saudi Shiite faced significant employment discrimination in the public and private sector. A very small number of Shiite occupied high-level positions in government-owned companies and government agencies. Many Shiite believed that openly identifying themselves as Shiite would negatively affect career advancement. In the public sector, Shiite were significantly underrepresented in national security- related positions, including the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, the National Guard, and the Ministry of the Interior.

The Report went on to say that there was no formal policy concerning the hiring and promotion of Shiite in the private sector, but anecdotal evidence suggested that in some companies, including the oil and petrochemical industries, a “glass ceiling” existed and well-qualified Shiite were passed over for less qualified Sunni colleagues. Engineer Abdulshaheed al-Sunni, a high-ranking Shiite official at the King Abdulaziz Sea Port in Dammam, reportedly resigned in September 2009 due to oppression and injustice which prevented him from being promoted.

New York Times has quoted analysts as saying that Saudi Arabia would never allow the Bahraini monarchy to be overthrown. Bahrain is linked with Saudi Arabia through a 16-mile causeway. Ever since Bahrain began a harsh crackdown on protesters on Thursday, rumors have flown that Saudi Arabia provided military support or guidance. “Saudi Arabia did not build a causeway to Bahrain just so that Saudis could party on weekends,” said Toby Jones, an expert on Saudi Arabia at Rutgers University. “It was designed for moments like this, for keeping Bahrain under control.”

Most of Bahrain’s Shiites are poor, marginalized and discriminated against. They complain that the government is bringing in Sunnis from outside Bahrain and granting them citizenship in order to bolster the ruling elite’s political base: the country is less than 30 percent Sunni. More than 50,000 “imported” Sunnis from southern Pakistan, Balochistan, Jordan and Yemen – have been naturalized. Virtually everyone in the Ministry of Defense and the police is an “imported” Sunni from Yemen, Jordan, Syria and Pakistan.

According to US Religious Freedom Report 2010, only a few Shiite citizens held significant posts in the defense and internal security forces, although more were found in the enlisted ranks. The police force reported it did not record or consider religious belief when hiring employees, although Shiite continued to assert that they were unable to obtain government positions, especially in the security services, because of their religious affiliation. Shiite were employed in some branches of the police, such as the traffic police and the fledgling community police.

To borrow Pepe Escobar, the key problem is that Shiites defying the powers in Bahrain would seduce all other minority Gulf Arab Shiites, from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia itself.

Bahraini protesters have been insisting that this is a movement by the people for the people. When the protests started on Feb. 14, in a so-called Day of Rage modeled after events in Egypt and Tunisia, demonstrators called for a constitutional monarchy, an elected cabinet and a constitution written by the people, as opposed to one imposed by the king.

They want fair elections; the release of all political prisoners; and the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa (the king’s uncle, in power for no less then 39 years since independence from Britain), as well as the entire parliament. The prime minister, a major landowner, has come to symbolize the ill-gotten gains of the royal family, which virtually owns the entire country outright.

After Thursday’s attack on sleeping protesters by the security forces, the protesters are now calling that King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa should step down.

The main Shiite party, al-Wifaq, had already lost any belief in the current democratic facade, withdrawing from the elected lower house of parliament (18 seats from a total of 40) in protest against the previous crackdown.

Bahrain is a key element of the US administration’s strategy against Iran: it is the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet, and will be the linchpin of any possible military action in the Gulf by US forces. The Manama naval base lets the U.S. military protect Saudi oil installations and the Gulf waterways used to transport oil, without any sensitive presence of Western troops on Saudi soil.

Bahrain’s king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and his family have long been American allies in efforts to push back the regional influence of Iran. In diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks, he urged American officials to take military action to disable Iran’s nuclear program. Bahrain, with its U.S. naval base, could be a target of Iranian reprisals if the United States or Israel attacked Iran.

Demonstrations in Kuwait

Tiny Bahrain riots have large implications for the oil-rich Persian Gulf region which controls world’s almost half known oil reserves.

On Friday (2/18) Kuwait, another oil-rich Persian Gulf state with about 30 percent Shiite population, witnessed violent demonstration. However, this demonstration by about 1,000 stateless residents, many of whom are of Iranian origin, was not for political reasons but to press for their demand for citizenship, free education, free health care and jobs, benefits available to Kuwaiti nationals.

The elite special forces forcefully dispersed the demonstration, using smoke bombs, water cannon, tear gas and batons after protesters ignored warnings to leave. At least five people, including a security man, were hurt as Kuwaiti riot police clashed with the stateless protesters demanding rights.

The stateless, known as bidoons claim they have the right to Kuwaiti citizenship, but the government says that ancestors of many of them came from neighboring countries and that they are therefore not entitled to nationality.

The bidoons belong to the same origins and races that live in Kuwait. Those origins and races exist on a wide geographical area, stretching from the Arabian Peninsula in the south, to the deserts of Iraq in the north, and to Iran in the east.

According to Kuwaiti government statistics, they currently number about 93,000 people but media sources place the number of Kuwaiti bidoon higher, at 120,000.

Many bidoons are denied driver’s licenses, cannot get birth certificates for their babies or death certificates for the dead. They are also banned from getting their marriage contracts attested. Due to stringent state restrictions, a majority of them are living in dire economic conditions in oil-rich Kuwait, where the average monthly salary of native citizens is more than $3,500.

Currently, the government obstructs the Biduoon’s right to civil documentation by requiring them to relinquish citizenship claims before they can receive birth, marriage, or death certificates. The government does not recognize their right to work, and Bidoon children may not attend government schools. Despite the establishment of two previous administrative bodies to address their situation, the first in 1993, Bidoon attempts to claim citizenship continue to be blocked.

Refugees International Organization, in its May 2010 report said that the government of Kuwait continues to balk at granting nationality to its stateless residents, or bidoon as lack of legal status impacts all areas of their lives.

Kuwait must begin immediate and transparent reviews of all bidoon cases towards providing naturalization, the Organization urged adding: Kuwait should guarantee the bidoon the right to work and earn equitable incomes, allow their children to enroll in public schools, provide them healthcare free of charge, and issue certificates that record births, marriages, and deaths.

The bidoon’s demonstrations also highlight a simmering deep rooted issue of Shiite-Sunni divide in Kuwait as many of the bidoons have Iranian ancestory.

The US Religious Freedom Report 2010 cited some reports indicating many Shiite government employees face difficulties when it comes to promotions from one grade to another particularly in certain government authorities. The report added some leading positions are forbidden for the Shiites even if they are efficient to take over these posts because these posts are awarded only to Sunnis.

The reports added the government has imposed some restrictions on religious practices, hinting many Shiites are upset over the dearth of Shiite mosques in Kuwait and this can be attributed to slow government measures to agree to the construction of new Shiite mosques in the country. At the moment there are 35 Shiite mosques in the country compared to more than 1,100 Sunni mosques. Since 2001 the government has given its consent for the construction of only six new Shiite mosques.

Bahrain and Kuwait are members of the six-member regional grouping, the Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Oman Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar and Oman have very nominal (5%) Shiite population while the UAE hosts around 15% Shiite population. Alarmed by the demonstrations in Bahrain the GCC Foreign Ministers held an emergency meeting on Thursday (2/14) in Bahrain, and pledged full support to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. In their statement the Ministers said that that any attempt to destablize Bahrain’s security and stability will be seen as a transgression against security and stability of the GCC countries at large.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Executive Editor of the online magazine American Muslim Perspective: www.amperspective.com email: asghazali786@gmail.com

 

 

23 February, 2011

Richardfalk.wordpress.com

Egypt’s revolutionaries must guard against the army, and the west, adding a veneer of democracy to a military regime

The Egyptian revolution has already achieved extraordinary results: after only eighteen intense days of dramatic protests. It brought an abrupt end to Mubarak’s cruelly dictatorial and obscenely corrupt regime that ruled the country for more than thirty years. It also gained a promise from Egyptian military leaders to run the country for no more than six months of transition – the minimum period needed for the establishment of independent political parties, free elections and some degree of economic restabilisation.

It is hoped that this transition would serve as the prelude to, and first institutional expression of, genuine democracy. Some informed observers, most notably Mohamed ElBaradei, worry that this may be too short a time to fill the political vacuum that exists in Egypt after the collapse of the authoritarian structures that used its suppressive energies to keep civil society weak – and to disallow governmental institutions, especially parliament and the judiciary – to function with any degree of independence. It is often overlooked that the flip side of authoritarianism is nominal constitutionalism.

In contrast, some of the activist leaders that found their voices in Tahrir Square are concerned that even six months may be too long – giving the military and outside forces sufficient time to restore the essence of the old order, while giving it enough of a new look to satisfy the majority of Egyptians.

Such a dismal prospect seems to be reinforced by reported US efforts to offer emergency economic assistance apparently designed to mollify the protesters, encourage popular belief that a rapid return to normalcy will provide this impoverished people – 40 per cent of whom live on less than $2 per day, facing rising food prices and high youth unemployment – with material gains.

A fresh start

The bravery, discipline and creativity of the Egyptian revolutionary movement is nothing short of a political miracle, deserving to be regarded as one of the seven political wonders of the modern world. To have achieved these results without violence, despite a series of bloody provocations – and persisting without an iconic leader – without even the clarifying benefit of a revolutionary manifesto, epitomises the originality and grandeur of the Egyptian revolution of 2011.

Such accomplishments shall always remain glories of the highest order that can never be taken away from the Egyptian people, regardless of what the future brings. And these glorious moments belong not just to those who gathered at Tahrir Square and at the other protest sites in Cairo – but belong to all those ignored by the world’s media, those who demonstrated at risk to and often at the cost of their life or physical wellbeing, day after day throughout the entire country in every major city.

Both the magnitude and intensity of this spontaneous national mobilisation was truly remarkable. The flames of an aroused opposition were fanned by brilliantly innovative, yet somewhat obscure, uses of social networking, while the fires were lit by the acutely discontented youth of Egypt – and kept ablaze by people of all class and educational backgrounds coming out into the street.

The inspirational spark for all that followed in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, let us not forget, was provided by the Tunisian revolution. What happened in Tunisia was astonishing in equal measure to the amazing happenings in Egypt – not only for being the initiating tremor – but also for reliance on nonviolent militancy to confront a ruthlessly oppressive regime so effectively that the supposed invincible dictator, Ben Ali, escaped quickly to Saudi Arabia for cover.

The significance of the Tunisian unfolding and its further developments should not be neglected or eclipsed during the months ahead. Without the Tunisian spark we might still be awaiting the Egyptian blaze.

The next step?

As is widely understood, after the fireworks and the impressive cleanup of the piles of debris and garbage by the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square – itself a brilliantly creative footnote to their main revolutionary message – there remains the extraordinarily difficult task of generating ex nihil a new governing process based on human rights, the will of the Egyptian people – and a mighty resolve to guard sovereign rights against the undoubted plots of canny external actors scared by and unhappy with the revolution, seeking to rollback the outcome – and seeking, by any means, the restoration of Mubarakism without Mubarak.

The plight of the Egyptian poor must be placed on the top of the new political agenda, which will require not only control of food and fuel prices – but the construction of an equitable economy that gives as much attention to the distribution of the benefits of growth as to GNP aggregate figures.

Unless the people benefit, economic growth is a subsidy for the rich, whether Egyptian or foreign.

Short of catastrophic imaginings, which, if interpreted as warnings may forestall their actual occurrence, there are immediate concerns: It seemed necessary to accept the primacy of the Egyptian military with the crucial task of overseeing the transition – but is it a trustworthy custodian of the hopes and aspirations of the revolution? Its leadership was deeply implicated in the corruption and the brutality of the Mubarak regime, kept in line over the decades by being willing accomplices of oppressive rule and major beneficiaries of its corrupting largess.

How much of this privileged role is the military elite ready to renounce voluntarily out of its claimed respect for and deference to the popular demand for an end to exploitative governance in a society languishing in mass poverty? Will the Egyptian military act responsibly to avoid the destructive effects of a second uprising against the established order?

The influence of the west

It should also not be forgotten that the Egyptian officer corps was mainly trained in the United States, and that coordination at the highest level between US military commanders and their Egyptian counterparts has already been resumed, especially with an eye toward maintaining “the cold peace” with Israel. These nefarious connections help explain why Mubarak was viewed for so long as a loyal ally and friend in Washington, Tel Aviv, and Riyadh – and why the inner counsels of these governments are reacting with concealed panic at the outburst of emancipatory politics throughout the region.

I would suppose that these old relationships are being approached with emergency zeal to ensure that however the transition to Egyptian democracy goes, it somehow exempts wider controversial regional issues from review and change that may reflect the values that animated the revolutionary risings in Tunisia and Egypt.

The impact on the Middle East

These values would suggest solidarity with movements throughout the Middle East to end autocratic governance, oppose interventions and the military presence of the United States, solve the Israel/Palestine conflict in accordance with international law – rather than “facts on the ground”, and seek to make the region – including Israel – a nuclear free zone, reinforced by a treaty framework establishing peaceful relations and procedures of mutual security.

It does not require an expert to realise that such changes, consistent with the revolutionary perspectives that prevailed in Egypt and Tunisia, would send shivers down the collective spines of autocratic leaders throughout the region, as well as being deeply threatening to Israel and to the grand strategy of the United States – and, to a lesser extent, the European Union – determined to safeguard economic and political interests in the region by reliance on the military and paramilitary instruments of hard power.

What is at stake, if the revolutionary process continues, is Western access to Gulf oil reserves at prices and amounts that will not roil global markets – as well as the loss of lucrative markets for arms sales.

Also at risk is the security of Israel, so long as its government refuses to allow the Palestinians to have an independent and viable state within 1967 borders that accords with the two state solution long favoured by the international community – and long opposed by Israel.

Such a Palestinian state – existing with full sovereign rights on all territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war – would mean an immediate lifting of the Gaza blockade, withdrawal of occupying Israeli forces from the West Bank, dismantling of the settlements – including those in East Jerusalem, allowing Palestinian refugees to exercise some right of return, and agreeing either to the joint administration of Jerusalem or a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

It should be understood that such a peace was already implicit in Security Council Resolution 242 that was unanimously adopted in 1967, proposed again by Arab governments in 2002 with a side offer to normalise relations with Israel – and already accepted by the Palestinian National Council back in 1988 and reaffirmed just a few years ago by Hamas as the basis for long-term peaceful coexistence.

It should be understood that this Palestinian state claims only 22 per cent of historic Palestine – and is a minimal redress of justice for an occupation that has lasted almost 44 years – recall that the 1947 UN partition plan gave the Palestinians 45 per cent and that seemed unfair at the time. We must also understand the expulsion that resulted in an outrageously prolonged refugee status for millions of Palestinians, deriving from the nakba of 1948.

But until now, even this minimal recognition of the Palestinian right to self-determination has been unacceptable to Israel, as most recently evidenced in the Palestine Papers which provide evidence that even, when the Palestinian Authority agreed to extravagant Israeli demands for retention of most settlements, including in East Jerusalem – and abandonment of any provision for the return of Palestinian refugees, the Israelis were not interested, and walked away.

The question now is whether the revolutionary challenges posed by the outcome in Egypt will lead to a new realism in Tel Aviv, or more of the same – which would mean a maximal effort to rollback the revolutionary gains of the Egyptian people. If that proves impossible, then at least do whatever possible to contain the regional enactment of revolutionary values.

Grassroots amateurs

Does this seemingly amateur – in the best sense of the word – movement in Egypt have the sustaining energy, historical knowledge and political sophistication to ensure that the transition process fulfills revolutionary expectations? So many past revolutions, fulsome with promise, have faltered precisely at this moment of apparent victory.

Will the political and moral imagination of Egyptian militancy retain enough energy, perseverance and vision to fulfill these requirements of exceptional vigilance to keep the circling vultures at bay? In one sense, these revolutions must spread beyond Tunisia and Egypt – or these countries will be surrounded and exist in a hostile political neighborhood.

Some have spoken of the Turkish domestic model as helpfully providing an image of a democratising Egypt and Tunisia, but its foreign policy under AKP leadership is equally, if not more, suggestive of a foreign policy worthy of these revolutions and their aftermath – and essential for a post-colonial Middle East that finally achieves its “second liberation”.

The first liberation was to end colonial rule. The second, initiated by the Iranian revolution in its first phase, seeks the end of geopolitical hegemony – and this struggle has barely begun.

Shaking the foundations of post-colonial rule

How dangerous would intervention – probably not overt, but in the form of maneuvers beneath the surface of public perception – really be? The foreign policy interests of these governments and allied corporate and financial forces are definitely at serious risk. If the Egyptian revolutionary process unfolds successfully in Egypt during the months ahead, it will have profound regional effects that will certainly shake the foundations of the old post-colonial regional setup – not necessarily producing revolutions elsewhere but changing the balance, in ways that enhance the wellbeing of the peoples and diminish the role of outsiders.

These effects are foreseeable by the adversely affected old elites, creating a strong – if not desperate – array of external incentives to derail the Egyptian revolution by relying on many varieties of counter-revolutionary obstructionism. It is already evident that these elites, with help from their many friends in the mainstream media, are already spreading falsehoods about the supposed extremism and ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood seemingly intent on distracting public attention, discrediting the revolution -and building the basis for future interventionary moves, undertaken in the name of combating extremism, if not outrightly “justified” as counter-terrorism efforts.

It is correct that, historically, revolutions have swerved off course by succumbing to extremist takeovers. In different ways this happened to both the French and Russian revolutions – and more recently to the Iranian revolution. Extremism won out, disappointing the democratic hopes of the people, leading to either the restoration of the old elite or to new forms of violence, oppression, and exploitation.

Why? Each situation is unique and original, but there are recurrent patterns. During the revolutionary struggle, opposition to the old regime is deceptively unifying, obscuring real and hidden tensions that emerge later to fracture the spirit and substance of solidarity. Soon after the old order collapses – or as in Egypt – partially collapses, the spirit of unity is increasingly difficult to maintain. Some fear a betrayal of revolutionary goals by the untrustworthy managers of transition. Others fear that reactionary and unscrupulous elements from within the ranks of the revolution will come to dominate the democratising process. Still others fear all will be lost unless an all out struggle against internal and external counter-revolutionary plots – real and imagined – is launched immediately.

And often, in the confusing and contradictory aftermath of revolution, some or all of these concerns have a foundation in fact.

The revolution does need to be defended against its real enemies, which definitely exist – as well to avoid imagined enemies that produce tragic implosions of revolutionary processes. It is in this atmosphere of seeking to consolidate revolutionary gains that the purity of the movement is at risk, and is tested in a different manner than when masses of people were in the streets defying a violent crackdown.

The danger in Egypt is that the inspirational nonviolence that mobilised the opposition can, in the months ahead, either be superseded by a violent mentality or succumb to external and internal pressures by being too passive or overly trusting in misleading reassurances.

Perhaps, this post-revolutionary interval – between collapse of the old and consolidation of the new- poses the greatest challenge to yet face this exciting movement led by young leaders who are just now beginning to emerge from the shadows of anonymity. All persons of good will should bless their efforts to safeguard all that has been so far gained – and to move forward in solidarity toward a sustainably humane and just future for their society, their region, and their world.

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).

He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights

 

24 February, 2011      The Associated Press

CAIRO — As Saudi Arabia’s 86-year-old monarch returned home from back surgery, his government tried to get ahead of potential unrest in the oil-rich country Wednesday by announcing an unprecedented economic package that will provide Saudis interest-free home loans, unemployment assistance and sweeping debt forgiveness.

The total cost was estimated at 135 billion Saudi riyals ($36 billion), but this was not largesse. Saudi Arabia clearly wants no part of the revolts and bloodshed sweeping the already unsettled Arab world.

Saudi officials are “pumping in huge amounts of money into areas where it will have an obvious trickle-down by addressing issues like housing shortages,” said John Sfakianakis, chief economist for the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Banque Saudi Fransi. “It has, really, a social welfare purpose to it.”

The most prominent step was the injection of 40 billion riyals ($10.7 billion) into a fund that provides interest-free loans for Saudis to buy or build homes. The move could help reduce an 18-year waiting list for Saudis to qualify for a loan, Sfakianakis said.

Another 15 billion riyals ($4 billion) was being put into the General Housing Authority’s budget, while the Saudi Credit & Savings Bank was to get 30 billion riyals ($8 billion) in capital. The bank provides loans for marriage and setting up a business, among other things, and is supported by the Saudi government.

Other measures included a 15 percent cost of living adjustment for government workers, a year of unemployment assistance for youth and nearly doubling to 15 individuals the size of families that are eligible for state aid. The government also will write off the debts of people who had borrowed from the development fund and later died.

While Saudi Arabia has been mostly spared the unrest rippling through the Middle East, a robust protest movement has risen up in its tiny neighbor, Bahrain, which like others around the region is centered on calls for representative government and relief from poverty and unemployment.

There are no government figures in Saudi Arabia that provide a national income breakdown, but analysts estimate that there are over 450,000 jobless in the country. Despite the stereotype of rich Saudis driving SUVs, large swaths of the population rely on government help and live in government-provided housing. The nation has a rapidly growing population of youths – about two-thirds of the population is under 29 – many of whom are chaffing under the harsh religious rules that keep the sexes largely segregated.

A Facebook page calling for a “March 11 Revolution of Longing” in Saudi Arabia has begun attracting hundreds of viewers. A message posted on the page calls for “the ousting of the regime” and lists demands including the election of a ruler and members of the advisory assembly known as the Shura Council.

King Abdullah returned to the situation Wednesday after spending three months in the United States and Morocco getting treatment for a bad back. The economic sweeteners were announced before his plane landed.

The unrest in Bahrain, a Gulf Cooperation Council member state, is what has most worried Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab nations. Their worries, in turn, translate into concerns in the broader global oil market since most of those nations are key OPEC members. Saudi Arabia, alone, sits atop the world’s largest proven reserves of conventional crude.

A disruption in crude supplies from the Gulf would make the current, two-year-high levels of over $100 per barrel, appear cheap. Oil prices have already spiked because of Libya’s unrest.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a research report that the Bahrain protests spotlight how the Gulf states are also vulnerable, noting that the unrest in the island nation and in Libya “increase the risks of major supply disruptions.”

While analysts largely discount the kind of wide-scale protests in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that have rocked the rest of the Arab world – and it’s not possible to know if the Facebook campaign has much support from within Saudi Arabia – leaders need to pay attention to the issues raised by the demonstrators, they say.

Abdullah, viewed as a reformer, has sought to address similar complaints before.

He has worked to ensure that the government has first and final say on all religious edicts – a step aimed at weeding out the conflicting and often increasingly austere messages put forward by competing clerics.

He has also set up a coed postgraduate university, and is pushing hard to complete a series of mega-projects to help diversify the country’s economic base and provide jobs for young Saudis.

Boosting the financing for development and housing funds will help address a key gripe of many Saudis, and the cost of living adjustment will help offset inflation in the kingdom, which stood at about 5.3 percent in January. Banque Saudi-Fransi, in a research note released late Wednesday, said the country is trying to stem the spiraling cost of housing by building 200,000 new units per year through 2014.

But few other Arab nations have had much success in using money to quash the protests.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered it as a carrot in the first days of the protests, but was ousted shortly thereafter. The 15 percent pay and pension raise he promised, however, remains in effect for public sector employees. Others, like Jordan and Yemen have looked to boost subsidies, and Jordan is reviving a government body that ensures the prices of basic commodities are within reach of the poor.

But Jordan, like other Arab countries where the protests are still ongoing, is not in the clear, and Saudi Arabia’s leaders are watching closely, hoping to stave off a contagion within their borders.

 

 

27 February, 2011 Nader.org

The large demonstrations at the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin are driven by a middle class awakening to the spectre of its destruction by the corporate reactionaries and their toady Governor Scott Walker.

For years the middle class has watched the plutocrats stomp on the poor while listening to the two parties regale the great middle class, but never mentioning the tens of millions of poor Americans. And for years, the middle class was shrinking due significantly to corporate globalization shipping good-paying jobs overseas to repressive dictatorships like China. It took Governor Walker’s legislative proposal to do away with most collective bargaining rights for most public employee unions to jolt people to hit the streets.

Republicans take rigged elections awash in corporatist campaign cash seriously. When they win, they aggressively move their corporate agenda, unlike the wishy-washy Democrats who flutter weakly after a victory. Republicans mean business. A ram rod wins against a straw all the time.

Governor Walker won his election, along with other Republicans in Wisconsin, on mass-media driven Tea Party rhetoric. His platform was deceitful enough to get the endorsement of the police, and firefighters unions, which the latter have now indignantly withdrawn.

These unions should have known better. The Walker Republicans were following the Reagan playbook. The air traffic controllers union endorsed Reagan in 1980. The next year he fired 12,000 of them during a labor dispute. (This made flying unnecessarily dangerous.)

Then Reagan pushed for tax cuts—primarily for the wealthy—which led to larger deficits to turn the screws on programs benefitting the people. Reagan, though years earlier opposed to corporate welfare, not only maintained these taxpayer subsidies but created a government deficit, over eight years, that was double that of all the accumulated deficits from George Washington to Jimmy Carter.

Maybe the unions that endorsed Walker will soon realize that not even being a “Reagan Democrat” will save them from being losers under the boot of the corporate supremacists.

The rumble of the people in Madison illustrates the following:

1. There is an ideological plan driving these corporatists. They create “useful crisis” and then hammer the unorganized people to benefit the wealthy classes. Governor Walker last year gave $140 million in tax breaks to corporations. This fiscal year’s deficit is $137 million. Note this oft-repeated dynamic. President Obama caved to the Minority party Republicans in Congress last December by going along with the deficit-deepening extension of the huge dollar volume tax cuts for the rich. Now the Republicans want drastic cuts in programs that help the poor.

2. Whatever non-union or private union workers, who are giving ground or losing jobs, think of the sometimes better pay and benefits of unionized public employees, they need to close ranks without giving up their opposition to government waste. For corporate lobbyists and their corporate governments are going after all collective bargaining rights for all workers and they want to further weaken The National Labor Relations Board.

3. Whenever corporations and government want to cut workers’ incomes, the corporate tax abatements, bloated contracts, handouts and bailouts should be pulled into the public debate. What should go first?

4. For the public university students in these rallies, they might ponder their own tuition bills and high interest loans, compared to students in Western Europe, and question why they have to bear the burden of massive corporate welfare payouts—foodstamps for the rich. What should go first?

5. The bigger picture should be part of the more localized dispute. Governor Walker also wants weaker safety and environmental regulations, bargain-basement sell-outs of state public power plants and other taxpayer assets.

6. The mega-billionaire Koch brothers are in the news. They are bankrolling politicians and rump advocacy groups and funding media campaigns in Wisconsin and all over the country. Koch Industries designs and builds facilities for the natural gas industry. Neither the company nor the brothers like the publicity they deserve to get every time their role is exposed. Always put the spotlight on the backroom boys.

7. Focusing on the larger struggle between the people and the plutocracy should be part and parcel of every march, demonstration or any other kind of mass mobilization. The signs at the Madison rallies make the point, to wit—“2/3 of Wisconsin Corporations Pay No Taxes,” “Why Should Public Workers Pay For Wall Street’s Mess?”, “Corporate Greed Did the Deed.”

8. Look how little energy it took for these tens of thousands of people to sound the national alarm for hard-pressed Americans. Just showing up is democracy’s barn raiser. This should persuade people that a big start for a better America can begin with a little effort and a well-attended rally. Imagine what even more civic energy could produce!

Showing up lets people feel their potential power to subordinate corporatism to the sovereignty of the people. After all, the Constitution’s preamble begins with “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.” In fact, the founders never put the word “corporation” or “company” in our constitution which was designed for real people.

As for Governor Walker’s projected two-year $3.6 billion deficit, read what Jon Peacock of the respected nonprofit Wisconsin Budget Project writes at: http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org about how to handle the state budget without adopting the draconian measures now before the legislature.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book – and first novel – is, Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us. His most recent work of non-fiction is The Seventeen Traditions.

 

 

27 February, 2011 Gush Shalom

This is a story right out of “1001 Nights”. The genie escaped from the bottle, and no power on earth can put it back

When it happened in Tunisia, it could have been said: OK, an Arab country, but a minor one. It was always a bit more progressive than the others. Just an isolated incident.

And then it happened in Egypt. A pivotal country. The heart of the Arab world. The spiritual center of Sunni Islam. But it could have been said: Egypt is a special case. The land of the Pharaohs. Thousands of years of history before the Arabs even got there.

But now it has spread all over the Arab world. To Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen. Jordan, Libya, even Morocco. And to non-Arab, non-Sunni Iran, too.

The genie of revolution, of renewal, of rejuvenation, is now haunting all the regimes in the Region. The inhabitants of the “Villa in the Jungle” are liable to wake up one morning and discover that the jungle is gone, that we are surrounded by a new landscape.

WHEN OUR Zionist fathers decided to set up a safe haven in Palestine, they had the choice between two options:

They could appear in West Asia as European conquerors, who see themselves as a bridgehead of the “white” man and as masters of the “natives”, like the Spanish conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon colonialists in America. That is what the crusaders did in their time.

The second way was to see themselves as an Asian people returning to their homeland, the heirs to the political and cultural traditions of the Semitic world, ready to take part, with the other peoples of the region, in the war of liberation from European exploitation.

I wrote these words 64 years ago, in a brochure that appeared just two months before the outbreak of the 1948 war.

I stand by these words today.

These days I have a growing feeling that we are once again standing at a historic crossroads. The direction we choose in the coming days will determine the destiny of the State of Israel for years to come, perhaps irreversibly. If we choose the wrong road, we will have “weeping for generations”, as the Hebrew saying goes.

And perhaps the greatest danger is that we make no choice at all, that we are not even aware of the need to make a decision, that we just continue on the road that has brought us to where we are today. That we are occupied with trivialities – the battle between the Minister of Defense and the departing Chief of Staff, the struggle between Netanyahu and Lieberman about the appointment of an ambassador, the non-events of “Big Brother” and similar TV inanities – that we do not even notice that history is passing us by, leaving us behind.

WHEN OUR politicians and pundits found enough time – amid all the daily distractions – to deal with the events around us, it was in the old and (sadly) familiar way.

Even in the few halfway intelligent talk shows, there was much hilarity about the idea that “Arabs” could establish democracies. Learned professors and media commentators “proved” that such a thing just could not happen – Islam was “by nature” anti-democratic and backward, Arab societies lacked the Protestant Christian ethic necessary for democracy, or the capitalist foundations for a sound middle class, etc. At best, one kind of despotism would be replaced by another.

The most common conclusion was that democratic elections would inevitably lead to the victory of “Islamist” fanatics, who would set up brutal Taliban-style theocracies, or worse.

Part of this, of course, is deliberate propaganda, designed to convince the naïve Americans and Europeans that they must shore up the Mubaraks of the region or alternative military strongmen. But most of it was quite sincere: most Israelis really believe that the Arabs, left to their own devices, will set up murderous “Islamist” regimes, whose main aim would be to wipe Israel off the map.

Ordinary Israelis know next to nothing about Islam and the Arab world. As a (left-wing) Israeli general answered 65 years ago, when asked how he viewed the Arab world: “though the sights of my rifle.” Everything is reduced to “security”, and insecurity prevents, of course, any serious reflection.

THIS ATTITUDE goes back to the beginnings of the Zionist movement.

Its founder – Theodor Herzl – famously wrote in his historic treatise that the future Jewish State would constitute “a part of the wall of civilization” against Asiatic (meaning Arab) barbarism. Herzl admired Cecil Rhodes, the standard-bearer of British imperialism, He and his followers shared the cultural attitude then common in Europe, which Eduard Said latter labeled “Orientalism”.

Viewed in retrospect, that was perhaps natural, considering that the Zionist movement was born in Europe towards the end of the imperialist era, and that it was planning to create a Jewish homeland in a country in which another people – an Arab people – was living.

The tragedy is that this attitude has not changed in 120 years, and that it is stronger today than ever. Those of us who propose a different course – and there have always been some – remain voices in the wilderness.

This is evident these days in the Israeli attitude to the events shaking the Arab world and beyond. Among ordinary Israelis, there was quite a lot of spontaneous sympathy for the Egyptians confronting their tormentors in Tahrir Square – but everything was viewed from the outside, from afar, as if it were happening on the moon.

The only practical question raised was: will the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty hold? Or do we need to raise new army divisions for a possible war with Egypt? When almost all “security experts” assured us that the treaty was safe, people lost interest in the whole matter.

BUT THE treaty – actually an armistice between regimes and armies – should only be of secondary concern for us. The most important question is: how will the new Arab world look? Will the transition to democracy be relatively smooth and peaceful, or not? Will it happen at all, and will it mean that a more radical Islamic region emerges – which is a distinct possibility? Can we have any influence on the course of events?

Of course, none of today’s Arab movements is eager for an Israeli embrace. It would be a bear hug. Israel is viewed today by practically all Arabs as a colonialist, anti-Arab state that oppresses the Palestinians and is out to dispossess as many Arabs as possible – though there is, I believe, also a lot of silent admiration for Israel’s technological and other achievements.

But when entire peoples rise up and revolution upsets all entrenched attitudes, there is the possibility of changing old ideas. If Israeli political and intellectual leaders were to stand up today and openly declare their solidarity with the Arab masses in their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, they could plant a seed that would bear fruit in coming years.

Of course, such statements must really come from the heart. As a superficial political ploy, they would be rightly despised. They must be accompanied by a profound change in our attitude towards the Palestinian people. That’s why peace with the Palestinians now, at once, is a vital necessity for Israel.

Our future is not with Europe or America. Our future is in this region, to which our state belongs, for better or for worse. It’s not just our policies that must change, but our basic outlook, our geographical orientation. We must understand that we are not a bridgehead from somewhere distant, but a part of a region that is now – at long last – joining the human march towards freedom.

The Arab Awakening is not a matter of months or a few years. It may well be a prolonged struggle, with many failures and defeats, but the genie will not return to the bottle. The images of the 18 days in Tahrir Square will be kept alive in the hearts of an entire new generation from Marakksh to Mosul, and any new dictatorship that emerges here or there will not be able to erase them.

In my fondest dreams I could not imagine a wiser and more attractive course for us Israelis, than to join this march in body and spirit.

 

 

 

 

Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)

 | February 22, 2011

The Arab revolution is circling around the region’s oil, and there’s talk of nationalizing or strengthening state control of industries in Egypt. So far, the Arab revolt has been mostly non-ideological. But at stake is the incalculable wealth of a long-suppressed region.

With Bahrain, the anchor of the US military presence in the gulf, wobbling, and with the seeds of revolt planted in Kuwait, the revolt in Libya could provoke a burst of Arab nationalism aimed at taking control of the Middle East oil resources. With Tripoli, Libya’s capital, in flames and Benghazi and most of Libya’s eastern region already in rebel hands, there are reports that the holdings of ENI and other oil firms operating in Libya might be nationalized by a new government.

Reports Bloomberg [1]: “Certainly all the oil majors will be shaking if the new leaders decide to nationalize everything.”

Oil prices have jumped sharply [2] since the Libyan revolt began, and ENI is scared silly.

Reports CNN [2]:

“Libya sits atop large reserves of oil and gas that have yet to be developed. Libya holds around 44 billion barrels of oil reserves—the largest in Africa—according to Oil and Gas Journal, an industry publication.”

ENI, which gets one-seventh of its oil from Libya, and another big chunk from nearly Egypt, is evacuating its personnel [1], and its stock plummeted:

“Eni said yesterday it has already begun to evacuate non-essential staff and dependants. The company, which gets another 13 percent of its production from Egypt and has smaller operations in Tunisia and Yemen, has said it continues to operate in all the countries affected by political unrest.”

BP, too, is evacuating its oil workers [3] from Libya.

Libya produced about 1.6 million barrels of oil in January, roughly two-thirds of Iraq’s total output and one-fifth of Saudi Arabia’s. The country supplies about 10 percent of Europe’s oil supplies, and Italy’s ENI oil company is vastly dependent on Libya.

Bahrain, which doesn’t produce much oil now, is a lynchpin of the Persian Gulf’s Arab states, and the gateway to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, who’ve pledged to produce more oil to make up any shortfall from the Arab-wide turmoil, have threatened to use any and all means to shore up Bahrain’s regime. But increasingly Saudi Arabia is surrounded, by unrest in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Djibouti, and possibly—starting on March 8—in Kuwait. In addition, there’s trouble in Jordan, and Saudi Arabia isn’t on good terms with Iraq.

For both Iranian and Arab nationalists, control of oil has been the touchstone for revolutionary politics. Historically, the marriage of Arab countries with people but no oil, such as Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and countries with oil but few people, such as Libya, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, has been a long-standing goal of Arab nationalists going back to President Nasser of Egypt. Leaders who’ve challenged the domination of Middle East oil by the West have been overthrown or isolated, from Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 to Saddam Hussein’s vital takeover of Iraqi oil in 1972. After the US invasion of Iraq, when the United States briefly toyed with the idea of privatizing Iraq’s vast oil wealth, Iraqi nationalism prevailed, resoundingly defeating any attempt by Western and foreign companies to seize Iraq’s oil production, and since then Iraq’s successive governments have limited the intrusion of foreign companies into Iraq’s oil industry.

So far, the Arab revolt is one without ideology. By all accounts, it’s been a revolution for freedom, for dignity, for democracy. How, exactly, that plays out now is unclear. In Egypt, for instance, there’s a growing split among the opposition movement, pitting pro-labor youth activists against moderate, reform-minded leaders who are willing, it seems, to make overly broad compromises with the establishment. And a troubling aspect of the events in Egypt is that there is pressure on the Egyptian government, including the military, to privatize state-owned enterprises. Last week, in a major piece on economic policy in Egypt, the New York Times reported [4] that the military is divided over what to do about state-owned businesses. And it said:

“Already there are signs that the military is purging from the cabinet and ruling party advocates of market-oriented economic changes, like selling off state-owned companies and reducing barriers to trade.”

Now, it’s true that the military in Egypt has created a vast, corrupt network of patronage, military-owned businesses, and a military-industrial complex that sustains the generals’ lavish lifestyle. Eliminating the military’s privileges, and seizing the assets of its elite, ought to be a key goal of the revolution. But that’s not the same thing as dismantling Egypt’s nationalized industries and adopting a free-market, neoconservative economic doctrine. (In fact, the neocons who’ve been clamoring for revolution in the Middle East often see it in terms of privatizing state-owned companies, especially oil, telecommunications and banking.)

The Times expressed concern [4] over moves by the post-Mubarak military authorities to purge or arrest super-wealthy Egyptian businessmen:

“The military-led government also struck at advocates of economic openness, including the former finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali, who was forced from his job, and the former trade minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, whose assets were frozen under allegations of corruption. Both are highly regarded internationally and had not been previously accused of corruption.”

And it quoted [4] Rachid bemoaning the talk of nationalization: “Now there are a lot of voices from the past talking about nationalization—‘Why do we need a private sector?’ ”

Swirling around the Arab revolt, thus, are huge questions about whether the new Arab world will finally get control of its economic power, or once again cede that control to the United States and to its former colonial masters in Europe.

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/158781/will-arab-revolt-challenge-big-oil

Links:

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/02/21/bloomberg1376-LGZ62Z0D9L3501-6T1OVCQIDLN4SHA60NEQRIUFUT.DTL

[2] http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/21/markets/libya_oil_unrest/?hpt=T1

[3] http://www.cnbc.com/id/41664034

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18military.html?_r=1&;ref=egypt

 

1st March 2011

The astonishing wealth of Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi and his family has been laid bare as countries around the world begin freezing billions of dollars’ worth of their assets.

The U.S. alone has seized $30billion (£18.5bn) of their investments, while Canada has frozen $2.4bn (£1.5bn), Austria, $1.7bn (£1bn) and the UK, $1bn ($600m).

These assets appear to be just the tip of the iceberg, as no one is yet certain exactly what the family owns around the world.

But they include an enormous portfolio of properties in the West End theatre and shopping district of London – worth $455m (£280m) as well as $325m (£200m) in shares in Pearson, the owner of the Financial Times and Penguin books.

The assets also include a $15million luxury mansion in an affluent suburb of North London.

Nestled among the homes of TV presenters and actors is the eight-bed home with a swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi and suede-lined cinema room.

The house even has an electrically operated rubbish store, which raises and lowers eight bins into the ground before a steel plate folds over to hide them discreetly.

It was bought mortgage-free by Capitana Seas Ltd, a holding company registered in the British Virgin Islands and owned by Gaddafi’s most high-profile son, Saif.

Residents in the neighbourhood have been campaigning to oust Saif, a former student of the London School of Economics, who acquired the property in 2009.

Dr Saul Zadka has been leading the community action, and described how he did not want to ‘live next to a mass murderer, even though he became a very acceptable figure among the British high  society an political echelons’.

Dr Zadka told the local newspaper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express: ‘We feel disgusted by the massacres that are taking place in Libya.

‘I am organising a meeting and petition against him next week because we do not want to have a mass murderer next to us.

‘Many of the neighbours feel the same as me but they are scared of retributions. We want to force anyone associated with Gaddafi out of this house.

‘But some residents were not even aware that he lived there. People in this sleepy neighbourhood need to wake up to this.’

It is thought that the family’s assets in Britain could exceed $10billion, as some are owned by the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, rather than the ruling household.

A source close to the British Chancellor George Osborne – who personally ordered the seizure of Gaddafi’s London assets – insisted all of the assets associated with Gaddafi would be frozen.

He said: ‘The freeze is not limited to assets held in the name of designated persons.

‘It extends to any funds or economic resources owned or controlled by persons acting on their behalf.’

British Prime Minister David Cameron said: ‘We are now putting serious pressure on this regime.

‘The travel ban and the asset freeze are the measures we are taking against the regime to show just how isolated they are.’

As well as his London home, Saif Gaddafi also has considerable investments in Austria, where he lived in a luxury villa on the outskirts of Vienna and housed his white pet tiger in the city’s zoo.

He studied in the capital and was a close friend of the late Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider, accompanying him to the high-profile Opera Ball in 2006.

The country’s central bank said around $1.7bn (£1bn) in Libyan assets were deposited in Austrian institutions.

It announced today that it would be freezing these funds, but declined to give a figure for the total amount of Libyan assets in Austria, which are thought to include extensive property and company stakes.

Crisis: Thousands of refugees try to flee Libya over the Tunisian border today. The Gaddafi family’s assets have been frozen in a bid to force the tyrant out of power

In all, six of the Gaddafi family have had their assets frozen – including Saif’s brothers Hannibal, Khamis and Mutassim, and his sister Aisha.

Switzerland was one of the first countries to freeze the assets, making the announcement a week ago.

A spokesman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry said on February 24: ‘To pre-empt any misuse of state funds, the cabinet today decided to block all assets in Switzerland belonging to Moammar Gaddafi and his entourage with immediate effect.

‘The sale of the property of these persons – in particular real estate – or disposing of it in any way is forbidden as of now.’

The freezing order is valid for three years, the ministry added.

As well as freezing the Gaddafi family’s assets, Britain has signed an order prohibiting the export of uncirculated Libyan banknotes without a licence.

The Treasury has set up a unit to trace the rest of the assets and has sent a note to all UK banks and financial institutions asking them to carry out due diligence to identify any of the family’s assets that they hold.

The European Union yesterday agreed to freeze all of Gaddafi’s assets as part of a sanctions agreement, which also includes a travel ban and an arms embargo.

Germany said it was proposing a 60-day freeze on all financial payments to Libya in a bid to stop funds from reaching Gaddafi.

Guido Westerwelle, the German finance minister, said: ‘We are working to ensure that all financial flows are cut off.’

Canada also announced yesterday that it was freezing Gaddafi’s assets and halting all financial transactions between Ottawa and the government in Tripoli, Libya’s capital.

‘Far from protecting the Libyan people against peril, he (Gaddafi) is the root cause of the dangers they face,’ Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.

‘It is clear that the only acceptable course of action for him is to halt the bloodshed and to immediately vacate his position and authority.’

Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com) 

 | February 17, 2011

The term “Green Revolution” is now so firmly entrenched in the history and practice of development that it is easy to forget its haphazard origin. It was coined more as what today we would call an exercise in branding than as part of a good faith effort to soberly describe the agricultural transformation that took place first in Mexico and then in Asia—above all in the Philippines and on the Indian subcontinent—between the late 1940s and the late ’60s. The term was the invention of the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), William Gaud, who first used it publicly in a speech he delivered to the Society for International Development on March 8, 1968, at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. The Green Revolution was not, he said, “a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets,” nor was it “a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran.” Gaud was not just preaching to the converted but trying to drum up support for official US development aid in Asia at a time when such support badly needed to be rallied. Gaud made his speech less than two months after the Tet Offensive, which, rightly or wrongly, turned so many Americans against the continuation of the Vietnam War. Both public and Congressional skepticism about the war had put paid to whatever enthusiasm remained on Capitol Hill for large appropriations for foreign aid, giving rise to what a document prepared by President Johnson’s National Security Council referred to as “dangerous isolationist pressures.” Plus ça change and all that.

The Johnson administration’s frustration was more than warranted. Take away the hype, and the results of the agricultural transformation that became known as the Green Revolution were a mixed bag technically. For example, farming techniques requiring much water and chemical fertilizers greatly increased crop yields but also eradicated weeds that were the principal source of vitamin A for poor peasants in large parts of India. But unlike the slow-motion train wreck in Vietnam, the Green Revolution had already been demonstrated to be a huge geopolitical success for the United States. As Nick Cullather shows in great detail in his brilliant new book, The Hungry World, Washington had launched the Green Revolution as a bulwark against the challenges it faced across Asia throughout the cold war. The first challenge came with the victory of Communism in China in 1949, and the subsequent failure of the American military, which had defeated Japan and Germany several years earlier, to secure a less than advantageous stalemate at the end of the Korean War. Then came the development during the 1950s of powerful guerrilla insurgencies in the United States’ former colony, the Philippines, and in British-ruled Malaya (as well as Indochina, obviously). There was also the far more critical matter of India’s apparent growing inability to feed its rapidly rising population, and the increasing disaffection among the country’s numerical majority, the rural poor who had long formed the base of support for the ruling Congress Party. Washington’s ability to sustain its hegemony in Asia was very much in doubt.

The anxiety that preyed on American policy-makers at the time is sharply conveyed by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer’s bestselling novel, The Ugly American. The story is set in an imaginary Southeast Asian country called Sarkhan, a blend of elements drawn from Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and the Philippines. The book’s premise is that because of the arrogance of most Americans in the country, the battle with the Communist insurgents for what would later come to be known as hearts and minds was being lost. The only heroes are the counterinsurgency expert Colonel Hillendale, a barely disguised portrait of Gen. Edward Lansdale (who had been the head of the Saigon Military Mission), and the development engineer, Homer Atkins, who is directly modeled on Otto Hunerwadel, who worked in Burma during the period, but could as well have been based on Norman Borlaug, the American agricultural scientist who developed high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties in Mexico before pioneering their introduction in Asia. Along with his Indian collaborator, M.S. Swaminathan, Borlaug is conventionally regarded as the father of the Green Revolution.

Paradoxically, by the time The Ugly American was published, in 1958, the Green Revolution in Asia was well under way. In contrast to the incoherence that marked American analyses of Vietnam, US policy-makers in Washington had not let prejudices, commitments to local clients or wishful thinking distract them from the root causes of the conflict they were trying to win. Senator McCarthy and like-minded members of Congress might repeat ad nauseam that China had been “lost” through treachery at the State Department or in Harry Truman’s White House, but only a year after Mao Zedong’s victory, in 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson had already properly identified both the extent and novelty of the challenge Washington faced in Asia, and the need to craft very different policies to subdue it. There was, he said, “a developing Asian consciousness, a revulsion against the acceptance of misery and poverty as the normal conditions of life.” The Chinese Communists might not have inspired this desire for change, but their triumph over the US-backed Kuomintang demonstrated that they had the ability to “ride this thing into victory and into power.”

* * *

Before long, American aid experts had developed a one-sentence catchphrase to describe the phenomenon: “Where hunger goes, Communism follows.” Starting during Truman’s presidency, but carrying over with remarkable single-mindedness through the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Washington became heavily invested in programs that promised to offer the rural poor of South and Southeast Asia an alternative way out of poverty. In the case of India, where famine remained an ever-present risk, the stakes were particularly high for Washington. In the words of New York Times columnist James Reston, who, like Walter Lippmann before him, had enjoyed for decades something of a symbiotic relationship with whoever was in power, “Not only the well-being of the Indian people but the balance of power in South Asia may depend on it.”

More than military operations or covert action (not that Washington forswore either of these, not to mention collusion in massacres of Communist Party members by America’s local allies), the Green Revolution became the weapon of choice to ensure that the balance of power remained in America’s favor. The subtitle of Cullather’s book—America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia—puts the emphasis exactly where it belongs. Had William Gaud been more faithfully describing what American assistance had accomplished, “A Green Counterrevolution” surely would have been a better catchphrase for a decades-long effort that encompassed everything from massive food shipments to India, at a time when a new famine on the scale of the catastrophe in West Bengal in 1943 seemed to be a real possibility at several points between the mid-’50s and about 1970; to the successful development of high-yielding plant varieties, thanks largely to the efforts of the greatest private philanthropic organization of the day, the Rockefeller Foundation; and the introduction of new farm technologies, above all tractors and chemical fertilizers. As Cullather explains, whereas the Communists looked to industrial growth as the key to ending misery, the United States looked to agricultural technology to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth on a scale that would “discipline [Asia’s] unruly politics and shore up client regimes.” An India that focused on the problems of food and farming, Lyndon Johnson’s secretary of state, Dean Rusk, emphasized, would be “the kind of India we want.”

* * *

Cullather makes it clear that in the late 1940s, despite India’s vast (for the era, anyway) population of 300 mil-
lion, US policy-makers at first believed that increased involvement with India was more likely to be a strategic burden than a boon. At a time when the total US aid budget for Asia was less than $40 mil-
lion, a 1949 assessment by the new National Security Council stressed that Washington must on no account assume that an independent India could play a major role in raising living standards for the mass of the Indian people. It took a decade for Washington to fully change its mind. Lippmann articulated this new view when, writing in 1959 in, of all places, Ladies’ Home Journal, he argued that to win over “the submerged masses in the old imperial lands, the US needs to take a ‘glorious gamble,’” above all in India, that would provide Asia with a model “take-off from [its] stagnant poverty…toward a progressive, independent, modern economy.” Embedded in Cullather’s account of this change in US strategy is a larger point. The policy debate that led to this emphasis on India’s strategic importance coincided with the broader emergence of “economics as a policy language.” As cold warriors shifted their focus from a recovering, post–Marshall Plan Europe to
a “hungry” Asia, “the terminology of alliances, iron curtains, and armaments gave way to a language of takeoffs, five-year plans, and [economic] growth rates.”

The point is an essential one, although in my view Cullather overplays it. His claim is that the Green Revolution was not simply, as the canonical version would have it, “the greatest success in foreign aid since the Marshall Plan” but, far more important, the inauguration of an entirely new type of international politics. In decades since, Cullather observes, it has gone by “a variety of names—nation-building, humanitarian relief, foreign aid—but it is usually known simply as ‘development.’” For Cullather, this new form of politics—one in which “hunger and poverty were no longer seen as the universal human condition but as a danger to international stability”—is inextricably linked with, if not US imperialism (Cullather’s views on that matter are not entirely clear) then the maintenance of the US-dominated post–World War II global system. “The pattern of US and international response to humanitarian crises, especially famine,” he writes, “was set during this period [of the Green Revolution], as were the fundamentals of nation-building and counterinsurgency, which remain the favored strategies for subduing rural threats to the global order. Today, US marines, the latest generation to struggle for Asian hearts and minds, confront the Taliban amid the ruins of irrigation works built in the 1950s by American engineers.”

Cullather writes extremely well, and his poetic construct of ruins captures the imagination. His claim about the novelty of development is nonetheless at once too sweeping and too narrow. To begin with, while development as an ideology is indeed a Western construct, both in its capitalist and communist forms, it is also the inheritor of the so-called second imperialism of the latter part of the nineteenth century, insofar as the United States after World War II assumed in many important respects the mandate of the British Empire. One of the architects of British colonialism, Cecil Rhodes, defined imperialism succinctly as “philanthropy plus five percent.” In his superb book Le développment: Histoire d’une croyance occidentale (Development: History of a Western Belief), the Swiss development expert Gilbert Rist charts in great detail how European nations justified the equation. Of the myriad examples of “humanitarian” rationales for European colonial rule cited by Rist, perhaps none is more striking than Victor Hugo’s impassioned claim that French colonization was “not for conquest, but for fraternity” and was the expression “of an ever-growing solidarity, of a community of sentiments and interests that links the metropole to its overseas possessions.”

Cullather is not wrong to emphasize the cold war and the capitalist motivations for the rise of a postwar ideology that linked modernization and development (just as the Communists had done—a point Cullather might usefully have emphasized more than he does). And his history is pioneering when showing the ways modernization theory played a key role in shaping the evolution of ideas about food aid and its relation to population levels, nutritional needs and development. Cullather is also particularly alert to the central role played in development by the new means devised in the first part of the twentieth century for quantifying nutritional needs. Nonetheless, it is an oversimplification for him to claim that before the advent of modernization theory as a central interpretive key of development, first with US domestic policy for rural populations during the New Deal and then with America’s global policy in the poor world, hunger and poverty were seen as the universal human condition and not as political dynamite. To the contrary, the history of famine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including in India, teaches a very different lesson. As the great Irish economic historian Cormac Ó Gráda observes in Famine: A Short History, “Although many observers in the past deemed [famines] ‘inevitable’ or ‘natural,’ throughout history the poor and the landless have protested and resisted at the approach of famines, which they considered to be caused by humans. The conviction that a more caring elite had the power and a less rapacious trading class had the resources to mitigate—if not eradicate—disaster was usually present.”

Nor was it the case that before the advent of modernization theory, the Four Freedoms of Franklin Roosevelt, and technological innovations in agriculture, Western nations committed to maintaining a global order dominated by themselves were insensible to the risks of political and social upheavals that poverty and famine could unleash. I suspect that Cullather goes wrong here because, as he documents brilliantly, the language of development that accompanied the Green Revolution was novel in its rhetoric. Never before had the powerful claimed so adamantly to be pursuing what Cullather calls a “species of politics that speaks to humanity’s greatest ambitions for progress and welfare and to its greatest fears of social collapse.” But such rhetoric concealed as much as it revealed, and while it should not be dismissed because of its geo-strategic motivations, nor should it be accepted as being quite as revolutionary as its architects have claimed.

* * *

Despite making a brief reference to the British imperial famine codes, which he concedes continued to be used in India after independence and were “credited by many (and still defended by some) with banishing catastrophic famines from India for much of the twentieth century,” Cullather could be understood by an unwary reader to be arguing that before the twentieth century, the ruling elites were uniformly indifferent to the affront of famine, as if rulers had all, always, been Marie Antoinettes, or that the Malthusian understanding of famine had been displaced only in the twentieth century. But neither of these contentions is entirely true. As Ó Gráda has pointed out, the Malthusian understanding of famine (“the poor will always be with us”) was already waning among British administrators in colonial India in the nineteenth century: “The colonial regime that presided over several major famines in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century India, also helped to keep the subcontinent free of famine between the 1900s and the Bengal famine of 1943–44.” Ó Gráda attributes this change partly to improved communications but also to “the shift in ideology away from hard-line Malthusianism toward a focus on saving lives.” That focus was all too often punitive in the extreme. Nevertheless, however unsatisfactory the famine codes were, the development of them was an important expression of the shift Ó Gráda identifies. Even those who think, as the best minds in the Indian right-to-food movement for the most part do (and who can hardly be accused of nostalgia for the Raj), that the assistance the codes provided was far too meager and grudging, tend to agree with the Belgian-born Indian economist Jean Dréze’s identification of a “contrast between the earlier [pre-code] period of frequently recurring catastrophes, and the latter period when long stretches of relative tranquility were disturbed by a few large-scale famines.”

Cullather is on stronger ground when he chronicles how, beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and gathering steam from the 1930s onward, a broad consensus emerged among American development experts that there was a “world food problem,” and that if it could be quantified, it could be conquered. The notion quickly took root in the minds of American officials, the most influential of whom were Herbert Hoover, before and after his presidency, and FDR’s vice president, Henry Wallace; it was cultivated by charitable foundations like Ford and Rockefeller and the agronomists they backed, notably Elvin Stakman, a former Department of Agriculture official in the ’20s, who became a professor of plant pathology at the University of Minnesota, and, of course, Norman Borlaug, who began his career as Stakman’s most brilliant student.

In the Rockefeller Foundation’s view, it was in large measure because of Borlaug’s high-yielding wheat that Mexico had been brought back from the brink of an apocalypse in which population definitively outran food supply. There is no doubt that the goal of agricultural modernization of Mexico carried what Stakman thought of as a “generalizable” lesson. Stakman was part of a group of politicians, philanthropists and scientists who wanted, in Cullather’s apt phrase, to rescue Malthusianism from Malthus: they wanted to head off what Malthus saw as a cycle of uncontrolled demographic increase finally halted by the holocaust of famine, and they sought to do so through vastly increased food production and, at least for some of the pioneers of post–World War II capitalist development, population control. As an account of what these men (there seem to have been no women with any important roles in this) thought they were doing, The Hungry World is solid. The problem is that at least to some extent, Cullather does not seem to have fully grasped that Malthus was not just somewhat wrong but completely wrong, and that Malthusianism, in Alex de Waal’s great phrase, is “one of the most monstrous intellectual aberrations of all time.” There was nothing to be rescued. This is not to say that Stakman, Borlaug or Swaminathan should have known this in the first half of the twentieth century. They couldn’t have. But Cullather is writing long after Amartya Sen demonstrated conclusively that modern famines are rarely, if ever, an absolute crisis of food supply but rather of what he called “entitlements”—the ability of the poor to deploy the resources necessary to gain access to the food supply. Cullather is also writing in the wake of at least a generation of population demographers who have shown, in Ó Gráda’s phrase, that “elementary demographic arithmetic argues against famines being as severe a demographic corrective as Malthus and others have suggested.”

Of course, Cullather has read his Sen. Late in The Hungry World, while questioning the “presumed relationship between population and scarcity,” he alludes to Sen’s work and that of Jean Dréze, with whom Sen has often collaborated. In considering the prospects for the so-called second Green Revolution in Africa, which is as much the brainchild of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as the first Green Revolution was seeded by Rockefeller, Cullather warns strenuously against what he rightly calls “the depoliticization of hunger,” and the excessive reliance on technical fixes. As he points out, though a bit too grudgingly, it seems to me, “If Amartya Sen’s analysis still applies, Africans are hungry not because there is no food, but because they have no entitlement to food.” But these observations appear in what is, in effect, an epilogue in which Cullather considers the combination of “détente and disillusionment [that] drained the energy” of the Green Revolution. This is the weakest part of The Hungry World, full of hortatory and hopelessly generalizing phrases such as a warning against “utopian expectations and neo-realist defeatism,” and a call for those committed to development to “find a new way forward” (the last words of the book). Ending a book is never easy, of course, but in the closing pages of The Hungry World Cullather’s tough-mindedness seems to desert him completely. It is as if all of a sudden one had been transported from the lucidity and sharpness of the book’s preceding chapters to the well-intended banalities of a United Nations General Assembly document.

* * *

Brilliant as it is, Cullather’s book could have been better had it been as well-informed about how mistaken the agricultural modernizers were in embracing some form of neo-Malthusianism as it is about the essential links between the Green Revolution and counterinsurgency. In fairness, Cullather does refer to the reforms of the Green Revolution having eventually been trapped “within a Malthusian discourse that led nowhere.” And his book is never less than an argument against what he rightly calls the American propensity—now generalized across the development field—“to employ technology as an avoidance mechanism, as a way to escape historical responsibility and the obligation to allow people to choose, through their own governments, the future that was best for them.” But the problem goes even deeper. Malthusianism and neo-Malthusianism are not frauds simply because they erroneously contend that famine is the ultimate brake on overpopulation, or that in a famine the problem is one of food supply rather than what Sen calls the entitlement to food. In terms of development, a graver problem is the contention, intuitively understandable but simply not borne out by the evidence, that famines usually afflict entire societies.

Cullather builds an airtight case about how the apocalyptic language of a global demographic calamity—in which tens if not hundreds of millions would die without access to seed technologies, industrial agriculture and capitalist markets—furthered the cold war interests of the United States. As he rightly emphasizes, these interests did not stop at thwarting the Communists but also cleared the road for capitalist economic organization. In his Green Revolution speech, William Gaud boasted that increasingly the United States had made introducing price incentives, shifting fertilizer manufacture and distribution “from public channels to more efficient private outlets,” and liberalizing “import quotas on raw materials for fertilizer production” criteria “for receiving both food aid and USAID program loans.” And, he added, “the message has been getting through.” (Capitalist markets, Cullather shows, were one of the principal conditions Washington tried to impose on the Indian government in return for food aid.) Where Cullather is less successful is in integrating into his book something that he is perfectly aware of but for some reason chooses not to bring into the foreground often enough—the extent to which all modernization theory is in intellectual debt to Malthusianism, and is morally and intellectually undermined by that debt.

Admirable as The Hungry World is in so many ways (to mention only one, in many cases Cullather makes far better use of the archives than any other historian of the cold war in Asia has done before), a good deal of what it has to say about the pre–World War II roots of the scientific research at the heart of the Green Revolution, and the cold war inspiration for the Green Revolution, is not original. A number of the important arguments he makes build on the equally hard-nosed academic skepticism of other scholars. I am thinking in particular of John H. Perkins and his neglected classic, Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War (1997), which certainly seems to have paved the way for Cullather’s more detailed account. Perkins was interested in the entire twentieth century, not just America’s ever increasingly hegemonic role in it, and focused almost exclusively on one staple food crop, wheat, rather than, as Cullather does, rice as well. Perkins not only argued convincingly that national security concerns were the major impetus for the development and spread of the Green Revolution but also broke with the conventional wisdom—as Cullather has done too—that it was only after World War II that scientists and aid officials began working in earnest to devise ways of preventing the population boom in Asia from causing widespread famine. It is a bit disappointing that Cullather makes no mention of Perkins and his work in his preface, where he does gracefully acknowledge a number of other scholars.

The Hungry World is an immensely important book, and I am emphatically not arguing that Cullather has simply produced a more historically research-rich version of Perkins, even if the overlap between them will strike anyone who reads both books. After all, Perkins wrote fundamentally as a biologist and a historian of science with an interest in political history, whereas Cullather writes as a historian of America’s international relations. Whatever my reservations about some of Cullather’s choices about what to highlight and what to treat less extensively, he has performed a tremendous service, and written a book not just of interest but of lasting value in showing in detail and with great discernment just how new, and also how radical, development was when it first began to transform the ways powerful nations thought about everything from the specifics of warfighting (it is where the “hearts and minds” doctrine was born, after all) to the broadest questions of national interest. Today development is part of the furniture of an international order that can legitimately and without utopianism or self-flattery be said to exist. If Cullather is right—and, again, despite my sense that he should have focused more on the deep Malthusian structures of the development ideology, and also on the extent to which the rise of capitalist development theory was made possible by the failure of the land reform movement in the immediate aftermath of decolonization (what the great Australian economic historian D.A. Low has called the passing of “the egalitarian moment”)—then his account requires us to rewrite the diplomatic history of the second half of the twentieth century. The Hungry World is the invaluable beginning of that rewriting.

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/158676/where-hunger-goes-green-revolution

 

28 February, 2011 WSWS.org

The prime minister of Tunisia, Mohammed Ghannouchi, a holdover from the hated dictatorship of ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, announced his resignation Sunday in an address on national television. He stepped down after more than a week of mass demonstrations against his government, culminating in two days of rioting in which police killed five protesters.

A few hours later, the interim president, Fouad Mebazaa, named a former minister, Beji Caid-Essebsi, as the new prime minister, and the government reiterated a promise to hold elections to replace the caretaker regime by July 15.

Both the appointment and the election pledge were aimed at mollifying the Tunisian masses, who have correctly identified the government as a continuation of the Ben Ali regime without Ben Ali. Ghannouchi had been Ben Ali’s prime minister for 11 years before the Tunisian dictator fled the country on January 14, amid mass anti-government demonstrations.

Mebazaa was also a functionary of the regime, serving as the speaker of its rubber-stamp parliament. In order to find a successor to Ghannouchi without direct ties to Ben Ali, Mebazaa was forced to bring the elderly Caid-Essebsi out of retirement. The 84-year-old was a long-time functionary during the presidency of Habib Bourguiba, whom Ben Ali replaced in 1987.

In his television statement announcing his resignation, Ghannouchi cited the violence of the preceding days, which included an armed attack on the Interior Ministry building, and pitched battles between police and rock-throwing youth in downtown Tunis. “I am not ready to be the man of repression, and I will never be,” he said, although he showed no qualms about repression during more than a decade as Ben Ali’s chief administrator.

Popular opposition to the government has swelled over the past two weeks, as nothing has been done to provide the Tunisian masses with jobs or improvements in their living standards. Instead, the government has concentrated on reestablishing the security forces and negotiating with the representatives of various imperialist powers, particularly over security assistance, helping the Tunisian ruling elite rebuild its armed forces for use against the people.

On Sunday, February 20, more than 40,000 marched through Tunis demanding the ouster of the government. (See “New protests rock Tunisian government”) Groups of protesters then set up a tent camp in the central square of the capital city, modeled on the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt.

Friday, February 25 was designated as a “Day of Rage” throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunis, an estimated 100,000 people marched down the main avenue of the capital city, shouting slogans against the government and demanding Ghannouchi’s ouster.

The march—an enormous turnout in a small country—went almost unreported in the international media, which has focused its attention entirely on the civil war developing in Libya next door.

Police fired in the air in an unsuccessful attempt to disperse the huge crowd, who chanted “Leave!”—the slogan of previous Tunisian protests against Ben Ali and the Egyptian movement against Mubarak—as well as “We don’t want the friends of Ben Ali!”

They denounced Ghannouchi and other cronies of Ben Ali for “usurping” and “confiscating” the Tunisian revolution.

Ghannouchi’s cabinet issued a statement seeking to appease the population, declaring that the government “has decided that consultations with different political parties should not exceed mid-March … Elections will be organized at the latest in mid-July 2011.” The statement also noted that the government has seized the assets of another 110 cronies of Ben Ali, following earlier action against 46 associates and family members.

This was combined with intensified repression. The Interior Minister banned further protests, threatening mass arrests, the first such decree since the ouster of Ben Ali. On Saturday, police and troops equipped with tanks used tear gas to disperse crowds of youth who sought to continue the protests. This provoked an armed attack on the ministry headquarters the following day. Over 200 people have been arrested in the capital since Friday.

After the speech announcing Ghannouchi’s resignation, cheering crowds gathered in the streets of the capital. One man, who identified himself to Reuters only as Ahmed, said, “We’re very happy, but it is not enough. We want to see nothing more of this government.”

The web site Stratfor Global Consulting, which has close ties to the US intelligence apparatus, cautioned, “The hope is that, with this concession, street protests will calm down and this will allow the government to get to the task of preparing elections. But the risk is that it will embolden the opposition forces to demand more concessions.”

Both the official state-run trade union organization UGTT and the Islamist group Ennahda hailed the resignation of Ghannouchi. The UGTT had initially agreed to serve in Ghannouchi’s cabinet, but was forced to pull out its three ministers in the face of mass hostility to a “new” regime led by the same faces as the old.

The nomination of a prime minister who is not directly implicated in the crimes of Ben Ali could serve as a pretext for both the unions and the Islamists to take their place in a government whose purpose is to guarantee the interests of the Tunisian bourgeois elite and the multinational corporations.

Last Monday, February 21, Ghannouchi met with two high-level US visitors, senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, declared, “The revolution in Tunisia has been very successful and it has become a model for the region,” adding, speaking for the Obama administration, “We stand ready to provide training to help Tunisia’s military to provide security.”

What McCain was hailing as a “model” was a “revolution” that left the existing prime minister in office and the entire state machinery intact, and merely sent the president packing. He was expressing the hope, on the part of US imperialism, that similar cosmetic shifts can be passed off as revolutions in the other US-dominated dictatorships and sheikdoms throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Only six days later, however, McCain’s “model” has resigned—albeit to be replaced by another proven servant of the imperialist powers and enemy of the Tunisian working people.