Layer 445 . . . A Larger Global Consciousness, Solidarity, Unity, Defiance, Paths to Democracy, Algeria, Egypt and Learning How to Demonstrate

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More excellent photos here -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/gallery/2011/feb/11/egypt-protest#/?picture=371625685&index=0

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A Larger Global Consciousness
What I like about Al-Jazeera is that its presenters and the people who contribute to its coverage seem to have no great egos, are good communicators, and are extremely knowledgeable about their subject matter, without having a particular axe to grind.

The format of the programmes is less about achieving "balance" than it's about targeting the truth - as any fair-minded and intelligent person might perceive it. Unlike the British (and American!) media they have no compulsion to bring on tedious neo-conservatives to drone their way through the usual rubbish on any given topic or event - for the sake of 'balance'. If we want to hear right-wing bullshit - well we know where to go in order to get it.

Similarly there's no space on Al-Jaz for people advocating violent solutions to political problems. There are no ranting pseudo-Marxists or fundamentalist jihadis.

The other great thing is that it's not Euro-centric or North American. It's bloody good to hear the voices of journalists, commentators and intellectuals from North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, etc, talking about things from a global perspective.

The exciting news this weekend is that people in Algeria are now out on the streets - protesting against their regime, which is similar to the Mubarak regime in virtually every respect. Thousands of police personnel have been deployed against the protesters - just as they were in Egypt on their initial 'day of rage'.

There was a brilliant programme yesterday on the al-Jazeera website showing how citizen activists have been carrying out training programmes on how to demonstrate peacefully - putting a strong emphasis on unity, discipline, planning, clarity about aims, how to get people to turn out, etc. It's what might be called training in the key skills needed for emotional, social and spiritual intelligence.

I loved the intensity, energy, commitment, seriousness, unity and determination of the people featured in the film. They have a kind of controlled rage about them - an attitude that says, "Don't get mad - get even." But they're not interested in power for power's sake - they're interested in poverty, oppression, inequality, torture and corruption - and how to get rid of these evils from their societies.

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Yesterday Egypt, today Algeria

This was the slogan of the brave protesters in Algiers on Saturday, making the first breach in Algeria's wall of fear

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/algeria-egypt

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Amnesty International

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/

We are ordinary people from around the world standing up for humanity and human rights. Our purpose is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied.

Egypt: Stand in solidarity and defiance

As events unfold in Egypt, please join us pledging solidarity with their calls for freedom and basic human rights. Today we held a rally in Trafalgar Square Today as part of a global day of action in support of the people of Egypt, and the wider Middle East and North Africa. We stand in defiance against all those who try to suppress the growing movement of people standing up for their rights, facing down injustice and offering hope for a better world.

We can all do our bit towards keeping up the momentum for worldwide engagement.

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Hosni Mubarak is gone, but can Egypt's digital revolution unite the country?

Twitter and Facebook played an integral role in helping to topple Hosni Mubarak, but if Egypt is to be reformed, the online momentum of recent events must go beyond mere protest

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/13/hosni-mubarak-egypt-digital-revolution

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Twitter's five-year evolution from ridicule to dissidents' tool
People laughed in 2006 when Twitter started. Now it's hard for me to imagine life without it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/13/twitter-mainstream-dissidents-protest

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Anti-Christ

Blair on the Marr programme this morning said that he's discovered during his time in the Middle East in the past couple of years that religion is very important to people who live there. Well fucking hell - the man's a genius. No wonder we needed him as our PM for 10 years. Who'd have thought? Thanks, Tone, for your brilliant insights. What a pity that Tone believed for so many years that Muslims didn't really feel that religion was important to them - not like it is to Christians, obviously.

It's interesting how the media, who befriended him and schmoozed him for so long, continue to believe that Blair's opinions are worth listening to - when everybody else just wants to see the bastard locked away for war crimes and for being such a neo-con psychopathic prick. The man's a total fuckwit - always has been - and it's almost unbearable listening to that slimy 'tone' of his ever again.

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Army and protesters disagree over Egypt's path to democracy

Activists reject army appeal to leave Tahrir Square as new leadership resists pressure to hand power to civilian administration

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/12/egypt-military-leaders-fall-out-protesters

Egypt's new military administration and the pro-democracy protesters who brought down Hosni Mubarak are at odds over the path to democratic rule.

The army sought to stave off pressure from jubilant protesters to swiftly hand power to a civilian-led administration by saying that it was committed to a "free democratic state".

The military leadership gave no timetable for the political transition, and many of the demonstrators who filled Cairo's Tahrir Square for 18 days rejected the military's appeal to dismantle the barricades and go home.

They said they were waiting for specific commitments from the military on their demand for a civilian-controlled interim administration, the lifting of the oppressive state of emergency and other steps toward liberalisation.

The shockwaves of Mubarak's fall were felt across the region, particularly in Algeria and Yemen. Thousands of anti-government protesters, apparently inspired by events in Cairo, turned out in Algiers to confront the police. There were reports that hundreds had been arrested. In Sanaa, a protest by about 2,000 people to demand political reform was broken up by armed government supporters.

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Meanwhile . . .
I've been neglecting domestic matters recently - so it's worth making a note of a couple of Polly Toynbee's latest pieces:

These brutal cuts form a turbo-charged programme for accelerating inequality

Beware the tales of statistics-wielding ministers – the poorest areas will be hit hardest by the council cuts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/11/defence-brutal-cuts-attack-lies-blame

Big society's a busted flush, but who will admit it first?

Politicians should quail: the nasty party detoxifier has not worked – and for public servants, silence is no longer an option

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/big-society-is-not-working

Even the pro-market Blairites know the NHS faces chaos

Alan Milburn, a former health secretary and now a David Cameron aide, has no dog in this fight. But he says the reforms are a fatal mistake

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/04/cameron-nhs-reform-dishonest

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Layer 444 . . . End of an Era, Egypt's Joy, Hope for the Future

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Unlike the events of 1968, which brought NO regime changes to any of the countries in which they took place, 2011 has begun with regime changes in both the countries where people have taken to the streets and demanded that their Head of State stand down.

The danger now is that having got rid of both their presidents, the people of Tunisia and Egypt will see no real political, social and economic changes. "Meet the new boss - same as the old boss." [The Who]

There's a grave danger that the peaceful revolutions of 2011 will go the same way as the non-violent revolutions in Eastern Europe in '89, where turbo capitalism and neo-conservatism rushed in as soon as the doors opened to 'freedom' and 'democracy'.

Somehow, though, I doubt it. The Egyptian people have put up with shit for 30 years or more, and in the age of the internet and satellite TV I don't think they'll get fooled again. [The Who]

A friend suggested recently that 2011/2012, far from being the end of the world, will be the proper dawning of an age of Aquarius. I'll go with that as a working hypothesis.

I've been saying for ages that leaderless, peaceful uprisings of people who gather together in the streets and the squares of any nation and refuse to go home until their voices are heard and their wishes are understood are the way to do politics - especially in countries where politics are the exclusive preserve of rich elites and a rigid party system, especially if it's a first past the post system.

The people of Tunisia and Egypt have shown that this is the model for participatory politics in the future, just as politics was done in the open air by citizens in ancient Greece. Tahrir Square should remain as the open-air political HQ of the Egyptian people. The rest of us can connect with them via broadband, as is already happening.

Peoples of the world unite!

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Mubarak's departure marks the end of an era for Egypt

If real reforms are achieved, Egypt will have witnessed a real revolution – and its impact will be felt across the Middle East

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/mubarak-resigation-progress-egypt-analysis

Hosni Mubarak's dramatic departure marks the end of an era for Egypt and the Middle East.

Rule by the military can only be temporary. Mubarak's exit, the dissolution of what is seen as an illegitimate parliament, constitutional reforms and abolition of the emergency laws are all non-negotiable. If those reforms are achieved, then Egypt will have witnessed a real revolution – beyond the removal of a stubborn 82-year-old president long past his sell-by date.

With good will it should be possible to amend or rewrite the constitution to allow the election of a new parliament and president. It could, however, all still take months to agree, risking impatience in the streets and new unrest.

What happens in the Arab world's most populous country matters for many millions of other Arabs, who also suffer from unemployment, inequality, corruption and unresponsive, unaccountable governments – and share the language in which it is being covered in media such as al-Jazeera and social networking sites that official censors cannot easily block.

Other authoritarian regimes, shocked first by the uprising in Tunisia and now in Egypt, have been trying to pre-empt trouble by promises of reform, sacking ministers, maintaining subsidies or raising wages to buy off critics and defuse tensions. The symptoms are visible from Yemen to Jordan, from Algeria to Syria.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Egypt was a Soviet client, but it changed sides in 1979 by signing a taboo-breaking peace treaty with Israel, after four wars that cost it thousands of lives.

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hotdoc
Mubarak's downfall and disgrace has a huge symbolic reality that will spur the momentum for change across the Muslim world since he represented a neo-colonial system that has been drammatically cast aside and thrown into the dustbin of history!

Now the opportunity presents itself to Egypt and the other Muslim countries of the region and beyond to bring a new political reality to these lands that will be aligned with the aspiration and values of the people, that will harness the energy of the youth and that will bring genuine independence from western states.

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                                                     (c) Martin Rowson

lightacandle

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

The people have spoken and their voices have been heard. Today is the dawning of a new era and the reverberations shall be heard worldwide especially amongst those leaders who continue to abuse the majority to maintain the priviledges and misrule of the minority. There is hope for the future after all. Thank you Egypt for leading the way.

sue18

Good luck to the people of Egypt ... let's hope that this will not lead to another sell out by the army and the USA.

In the UK, we're being sold out every day ... the government has withdrawn the selling off of the forests until the Public Bodies Bill gets passed into legislation. This will give every relevant minister total power to abolish, amend or merge any quango or other. So in a few months time, Caroline Spelman will be able to sell off any piece of public woodland she wants.

In fact, I'm coming to believe that the whole fiasco of the consultation was to knock the horrors of the NHS privatisation off the news. They needn't have bothered. The lunacy of our media's reporting meant that all the reporters had shot off for a jolly in the sun.

We need to be on the streets like the Egyptians to stop this government's destruction of the welfare state.

lightacandle

One of the most heartwarming scenes of these past few weeks has been to see families and young people out on the streets making their voices heard standing up for what is right even though it could have impacted on them so badly. Their courage and incessant efforts to speak out against those who have used and abused them over the years is a fine example to set to the rest of the world. And I am sure, as with my own son, there are many young people worldwide looking on and seeing that the status quo does not have to be maintained if it goes against the will of the people and more importantly if it is in fact inherently wrong and unjust.

Many leaders including those closest to home will now hopefully take heed of the warning signs emerging and realise they can no longer go against the will of the people for their own questionable political and economic aims.

The winds of change are blowing afresh and those who decide to ignore them do so at their peril. I wouldn't be surprised if those same winds are feeling decidedly chilly to the likes of Mr Cameron and others on the right who know deep down that they do not act on behalf of the people but rather on behalf of a privileged few who hope to maintain their grasp on power solely in order to maintain the inequality they foster and the social injustices they espouse. Enough is enough. Lets hope those winds can reach further afield and bring about a new era worldwide where voices are heard and acted upon and change where needed can come about for the good of the people and for the sake of social justice. Oppression in whatever form it takes can no longer and should no longer be accepted. Yes I do believe, thankfully, that this is indeed the dawning of a new era.

charliecocorosie

I better write quickly before the daily mailers get here.....

The wonderful people of Egypt have shown us the way. Good luck to them - they have shaken off oppression.

Let's get out there and stay out too till we get rid of the threat to the NHS by the CON-DEMs and send the monster waiting to be born that is their NHS Bill, back to the wastelands of their ideology


Gauss

@charliecocorosie

    Let's get out there and stay out too till we get rid of the threat to the NHS by the CON-DEMs and send the monster waiting to be born that is their NHS Bill, back to the wastelands of their ideology

I think we should be a tad more ambitious than that, no? Let's stay out there until they're gone, and put any prospective government on notice that we will be back out there if they don't start doing what the people want as opposed to what their super-rich paymasters are demanding.

There's more of us than there are of them. It's about time they were reminded of it. We are all Egyptian.

lightacandle

And as for the inscription 'Made in USA' we should add 'Made and upheld by the UK too"...........

"GENEVA – The Swiss government on Friday froze any assets belonging to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or his family in Switzerland.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said the order took effect immediately but gave no details on what bank accounts or other assets Mubarak or his family might have in Switzerland.

He spoke as pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo were jubilantly celebrating the announcement that Mubarak has resigned after nearly three decades of authoritarian rule and handed power over to the military.

"(The Swiss government) wants to avoid any risk of misappropriation of state-owned Egyptian assets," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It also forbid the sale of any assets, especially real estate holdings."


Tonight many Egyptians have mentioned that even if Mubarak's personal fortune stolen from Egypt and its people is only half of what they say it is it would in fact pay off Egypt's international debt which would in turn play a part in starting to help those 40% of the population who have been and still are living in poverty.

Recent reports have mentioned that part of the real estate empire of the Mubarak's is located here in the UK, that there has been the involvement of British businesses connected with his ill gotten personal fortune and also the possibility that British Banks are involved too.

Over to you Mr Cameron. Will he do the right thing or will the interests of the conservative party's friends in the business, finance and banking world take precedence over justice and the rights of the people. Somehow I think we already know the answer to that as I'm sure vested interests are as we speak busily getting their hands on what is not theirs. The Swiss government are trying to resolve matters to ensure the Egyptian people receive that which has been stolen from them. I wonder if our government will do so too?

Charliecocorosie

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

lightacandle

We all owe it to the Egptian people to read the following article by Pankaj Mishra and ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated , instead being part of a movement worldwide which will ensure this new dawning will not be so easily cast aside by those with vested interests whether they be economic, ideological or political. If you really are on the side of the Egyptian people please take the time to read the following which will help us all understand more the mistakes of the past whilst making sure we will not play a part in the repitition of those mistakes worlwide in the future.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/mubarak-egypt-roots-of-despotism?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

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The tyrant has gone. Now the real struggle begins for Egypt

The protesters have stripped Mubarak and his foreign backers of their authority. But the roots of despotism run deep

by Pankaj Mishra

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/mubarak-egypt-roots-of-despotism?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

For the last two weeks I have, like innumerable others, careened from the television news to internet updates and back, longing for the moment that came last night, when the tyrant finally yielded to a brave and spirited people. History has been made; celebrations are in order. But it is not too early to ask: what next?

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Egypt's joy as Mubarak quits

With Hosni Mubarak's departure, the age of political reason is returning to Egypt and the wider Arab world

by Tariq Ali

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/11/egypt-cairo-hosni-mubarak

A joyous night in Cairo. What bliss to be alive, to be an Egyptian and an Arab. In Tahrir Square they're chanting, "Egypt is free" and "We won!"

The removal of Mubarak alone (and getting the bulk of his $40bn loot back for the national treasury), without any other reforms, would itself be experienced in the region and in Egypt as a huge political triumph. It will set new forces into motion. A nation that has witnessed miracles of mass mobilisations and a huge rise in popular political consciousness will not be easy to crush, as Tunisia demonstrates.

Huge assemblies in symbolic spaces posing an immediate challenge to authority – as if to say, we are showing our strength, we don't want to test it because we neither organised for that nor are we prepared, but if you mow us down remember the world is watching.

This dependence on global public opinion is moving, but is also a sign of weakness. Had Obama and the Pentagon ordered the Egyptian army to clear the square – however high the cost – the generals would have obeyed orders, but it would have been an extremely risky operation for them, if not for Obama.

The show of popular strength was enough to get rid of the current dictator. He'd only go if the US decided to take him away. After much wobbling, they did. They had no other serious option left. The victory, however, belongs to the Egyptian people whose unending courage and sacrifices made all this possible.

Having unleashed security thugs only a fortnight ago, Vice-President Suleiman's failure to dislodge the demonstrators from the square was one more nail in the coffin. The rising tide of the Egyptian masses with workers coming out on strike , judges demonstrating on the streets, and the threat of even larger crowds next week, made it impossible for Washington to hang on to Mubarak and his cronies. The man Hillary Clinton had referred to as a loyal friend, indeed "family", was dumped. The US decided to cut its losses and authorised the military intervention.

Omar Suleiman, an old western favourite, was selected as vice-president by Washington, endorsed by the EU, to supervise an "orderly transition". Suleiman was always viewed by the people as a brutal and corrupt torturer, a man who not only gives orders, but participates in the process. A WikiLeaks document had a former US ambassador praising him for not being "squeamish". The new vice president had warned the protesting crowds last Tuesday that if they did not demobilise themselves voluntarily, the army was standing by: a coup might be the only option left. It was, but against the dictator they had backed for 30 years. It was the only way to stabilise the country. There could be no return to "normality".

The age of political reason is returning to the Arab world. The people are fed up of being colonised and bullied. Meanwhile, the political temperature is rising in Jordan, Algeria and Yemen.

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US can celebrate Egyptian people's triumph

Critics say Obama didn't lead, he followed. This was appropriate: Egypt is on a path to democracy and no one got invaded

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2011/feb/11/egypt-barack-obama

by Michael Tomasky

My God, what a moving day this is. To think that just 18 days of largely peaceful protests can accomplish this. Remarkable.

President Obama's remarks on Friday afternoon were appropriate and powerful: the people of Egypt have inspired the world.

Critics, neocons especially, will say he didn't lead, he followed. That's true. And that was appropriate. It was up to the Egyptian people to lead this, not the United States.

And the Egyptian military. Someday, we'll get the back story on how, in just 24 hours, the military went from evidently backing Mubarak to ditching him. This was crucial, and I doubt very much the US played no role in this. I'd wager that Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Mike Mullen, the heads of the joint chiefs of staff, had quite a lot to do with that.

With the Egyptian army relying on US military aid basically to exist, their words surely carried weight. Maybe all that aid over years, excessive as it has been in many ways, paid important dividends in the last two weeks. The army behaved professionally, not like some tinhorn's personal secret security service. That was one of the most breathtaking things about this, and could stand as one of the most hopeful in terms of serving as a model for future situations like this.

There's a long way to go from here, of course. This is a happy beginning, not a happy ending. But now, the US can and should start playing the less ambiguous role it took on, as of Thursday night. We need to be on the side of democracy and rights and freedoms, and stay on that side . . .

I will not say that Obama deserves much credit for this. At the same time, I have no doubt in my mind that if President McCain had given a speech on democracy in Cairo 20 months ago and now this happened, the neocons and Fox News and the usual suspects would be calling it "the McCain Revolution" and baying about how it proved that a bold stance by an American president had made all the difference.

I won't parrot that kind of inanity. I'll simply say that, from his Cairo speech until today, Obama has helped this process more than he's hindered it. And we didn't have to invade two countries, either. That's the right side – for him, and for us, the people of the United States. Now, we need to stay there.

This is a great opportunity for the US, and all of the west, to help a people learn the habits of freedom, and for those habits to spread.
Posted by Michael Tomasky Friday 11 February 2011 21.48 GMT guardian.co.uk

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Shermanator
I give Obama high marks for the way he handled the Egyptian revolution.

The US - and the rest of the world - was caught totally offguard by this and had little time to formulate a strategy.

True, Mubarak was a dictator but he was also a close friend of the US. If Obama was to have overtly backed Mubarak he would have earned the enduring enmity of the Egyptian masses. However, if he turned his back on Mubarak he would have made the US appear untrustworthy. By this, I mean that it would have looked awful if the US suddenly turned on a long-time ally when things suddenly became tough for him.

Obama had to walk a tightrope in handling the uprising. In this respect he did a good job.

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Hosni Mubarak resigns – and Egypt celebrates a new dawn

• President surrenders power to army and flies out of Cairo
• Egypt rejoices as 18 days of mass protest end in revolution
• Military pledges not to get in way of 'legitimate' government

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/hosni-mubarak-resigns-egypt-cairo

"We have brought down the regime, we have brought down the regime," chanted the crowd.

Mohammed Abdul Ghedi, a lifeguard who had come from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to which the ex-president and his family flew yesterday, held up a sign in English saying: "Mubarak you are nothing, you are heartless, without mind, just youkel, worthless, fuck off."

"This is my first day here, and he is gone. Mubarak is a liar. When he promised to leave in three or six months we don't believe him. We only believe him when he is gone," he said. "Now Egyptians are free. All of Egypt is liberated. Now we will choose our leaders, and if we don't like them, they will go."

Another protester, Karim Medhat Ennarah, said with tears in his eyes: "For 18 days we have withstood teargas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, Molotov cocktails, thugs on horseback, the scepticism and fear of our loved ones, and the worst sort of ambivalence from an international community that claims to care about democracy.

"But we held our ground. We did it."

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Layer 442 . . . What Egypt Faces Today

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Egypt: The army's fateful choice

The president's obstinacy puts the military on the spot at a time when the power of the people has spilled across the country's political landscape

Guardian Editorial

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/11/egypt-hosni-mubarak

President Mubarak last night laid a powder trail that could explode today in the disastrous confrontation between the army and the people which Egypt has managed to avoid until now. The military now faces an enormous dilemma. President Mubarak's brief and mumbling reference to handing over some powers to his vice-president last night will satisfy nobody. Will the army now attempt, on the back of suppressive action in the streets, to shape a new version of the Nasserist state, or will the demonstrators shouting "We want a civilian government" in Tahrir Square prevail?

The president's obstinacy puts the army on the spot at a time when the power of the people, like the Nile flooding its banks, has spilled across Egypt's political landscape in a torrent hardly imaginable only a few weeks ago. As the waters recede a new Egypt will be revealed, but still nobody knows how much of the old will remain and how much of the new will persist. What is clear is that the army must move swiftly to demonstrate that they are in charge and that Mubarak is now an irrelevance if a violent deterioration of the situation is not to take hold.

In effect the soldiers have to decide whether Egypt is revisiting 1952, to create a supposedly better version of the hybrid military-civilian state that was set up by the Free Officers, or going back to the revolution of 1919, to renew the British-style parliamentary democracy that was created after that upheaval. It is a momentous decision.

Egypt is split between an older generation of leaders, including some in the established opposition, most of whom appear mystified by what has happened, and a younger generation, who have been propelled by events into the political frontline. Many of these newcomers may be as confused as their elders. If the older generation have shown themselves reluctant to cede power, the younger generation is unprepared to exercise it. But that is the way things are when the impulses for change have been dammed up for so long.

The most notable thing about the situation in Egypt is the absence of strong leaders on all sides. The barons of the army and the ruling party are elderly, and compromised by their complicity in the oppressive system they have served. On the opposition side, both the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badi, and the secular lawyer Mohamed ElBaradei are also old, and they have been followers of the revolution rather than leaders. Then there are the young men and women in their 20s and 30s whom we barely yet know, except for a couple of figures like Wael Ghonim.

Egypt has not had such a youthful renewal since the original Free Officers' revolution in 1952 brought majors and captains to power. Gamal Abdel Nasser was 34 at that time. The styling of yesterday's military announcement as "Communique No 1" suggests a conscious harking back to the early days. But this is not the army of 1952, when those majors and captains gathered great popular support for their own political project.

This army has a very different duty before it now, indeed one that should be staring it in the face. Confusion on both sides, the gap between the generations, and the mixture of elation, anxiety and now fear which characterise Egypt mean that Omar Suleiman was right to speak of the need for a road map, but the correct one is not the regime-friendly path he was pushing last night as he called for the protesters to leave the streets and return to work.

The military needs to isolate Mubarak and help install a national unity government which has representatives of every group and class, including some military officers, but not dominated by them. In the end the army needs to move out of politics. But before then it has the choice between facilitating change or blocking it, with possibly bloody results. Like the rest of Egypt, the army must break with the past.

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 http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112611181593381.html 

The shaping of a New World Order

If the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system.

by Mark LeVine

[This is an abridged version of this article.]

The following description, I believe, sums up what Egypt faces today as well as, if not better, than most:

"It is not a revolution, not in the literal sense of the term, not a way of standing up and straightening things out. It is the insurrection of men with bare hands who want to lift the fearful weight, the weight of the entire world order that bears down on each of us - but more specifically on them, these ... workers and peasants at the frontiers of empires. It is perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane.

One can understand the difficulties facing the politicians. They outline solutions, which are easier to find than people say ... All of them are based on the elimination of the [president].

What is it that the people want? Do they really want nothing more? Everybody is quite aware that they want something completely different. This is why the politicians hesitate to offer them simply that, which is why the situation is at an impasse. Indeed, what place can be given, within the calculations of politics, to such a movement, to a movement through which blows the breath of a religion that speaks less of the hereafter than of the transfiguration of this world?"

The thing is, it was offered not by some astute commentator of the current moment, but rather by the legendary French philosopher Michel Foucault, after his return from Iran, where he witnessed firsthand the intensity of the revolution which, in late 1978, before Khomeini's return, really did seem to herald the dawn of a new era.

Foucault was roundly criticised by many people after Khomeini hijacked the revolution for not seeing the writing on the wall. But the reality was that, in those heady days where the shackles of oppression were literally being shattered, the writing was not on the wall.

Foucault understood that it was precisely a form of "insanity" that was necessary to risk everything for freedom, not just against one's government, but against the global system that has nuzzled him in its bosom for so long.

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This is a radically different image of Islam than most people - in the Muslim world as much as in the West - are used to seeing: Islam taking on state violence through militant peaceful protest; peaceful jihad (although it is one that has occurred innumerable times around the Muslim world, just at a smaller scale and without the world's press there to capture it).

Such imagery, and its significance, is a natural extension of the symbolism of Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation, an act of jihad that profoundly challenges the extroverted violence of the jihadis and militants who for decades, and especially since 9/11, have dominated the public perception of Islam as a form of political spirituality.

Needless to say, the latest images - of civil war inside Tahrir Square - will immediately displace these other images. Moreover, if the violence continues and some Egyptian protesters lose their discipline and start engaging in their own premeditated violence against the regime and its many tentacles, there is little doubt their doing so will be offered as "proof" that the protests are both violent and organised by the Muslim Brotherhood or other "Islamists".

A greater threat than al-Qa'eda

As this dynamic of nonviolent resistance against entrenched regime violence plays out, it is worth noting that so far, Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, have had little - if anything - of substance to say about the revolution in Egypt. What they've failed to ignite with an ideology of a return to a mythical and pure beginning - and a strategy of human bombs, IEDs, and planes turned into missiles - a disciplined, forward-thinking yet amorphous group of young activists and their more experienced comrades, "secular" and "religious" together (to the extent these terms are even relevant anymore), have succeeded in setting a fire with a universal discourse of freedom, democracy and human values - and a strategy of increasingly calibrated chaos aimed at uprooting one of the world's longest serving dictators.

As one chant in Egypt put it succinctly, playing on the longstanding chants of Islamists that "Islam is the solution", with protesters shouting: "Tunisia is the solution."

For those who don't understand why President Obama and his European allies are having such a hard time siding with Egypt's forces of democracy, the reason is that the amalgam of social and political forces behind the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt today - and who knows where tomorrow - actually constitute a far greater threat to the "global system" al-Qa'eda has pledged to destroy than the jihadis roaming the badlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen.

Mad as hell

Whether Islamist or secularist, any government of "of the people" will turn against the neoliberal economic policies that have enriched regional elites while forcing half or more of the population to live below the $2 per day poverty line. They will refuse to follow the US or Europe's lead in the war on terror if it means the continued large scale presence of foreign troops on the region's soil. They will no longer turn a blind eye, or even support, Israel's occupation and siege across the Occupied Palestinian territories. They will most likely shirk from spending a huge percentage of their national income on bloated militaries and weapons systems that serve to enrich western defence companies and prop up autocratic governments, rather than bringing stability and peace to their countries - and the region as a whole.

They will seek, as China, India and other emerging powers have done, to move the centre of global economic gravity towards their region, whose educated and cheap work forces will further challenge the more expensive but equally stressed workforces of Europe and the United States.

In short, if the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system than the one that has dominated the global political economy for decades, especially since the fall of communism.

This system could bring the peace and relative equality that has so long been missing globally - but it will do so in good measure by further eroding the position of the United States and other "developed" or "mature" economies. If Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel and their colleagues don't figure out a way to live with this scenario, while supporting the political and human rights of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa, they will wind up with an adversary far more cunning and powerful than al-Qa'eda could ever hope to be: more than 300 million newly empowered Arabs who are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).

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http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201126142032991448.html

My revolution betrayed

After revolutions, counter-revolutions may follow. But how can the spirit of an uprising be kept up as the years pass?

by Yuliya Tymoschenko

From snowy Kiev, I have watched the revolutions in Cairo and Tunis with joy and admiration. Egyptians and Tunisians are right to be proud of their desire to peacefully overthrow despotic governments. But, as someone who led a peaceful revolution, I hope that their pride is tempered by pragmatism - because a change of regime is only the first step in establishing a democracy backed by the rule of law. Indeed, as my country, Ukraine, is now demonstrating, after revolutionary euphoria fades and normality returns, democratic revolutions can be betrayed and reversed.

The first of Ukraine’s lessons for Egyptian and Tunisian democrats is that elections do not a democracy make. After all, what if the enemies of freedom use elections to entrench their anti-democratic agendas? What if elements of the old regime, or the cadres of militant minorities, only pretend to embrace democratic norms in order to hijack the new democracy?

In Ukraine today, these are not abstract questions. Six years after our Orange Revolution, not only is my country’s democracy under threat - but the rule of law is being systematically perverted and our national independence bartered away. Indeed, the hybrid presidential/parliamentary system that Ukraine established as part of the settlement which brought a peaceful end to our revolution is being hollowed out in order to concentrate all political power in the hands of a supposedly democratically elected president.

Of course, Ukraine’s plight does not mean that the people of Egypt and Tunisia should spurn the call for free elections. Determining the will of the people does require expression through the ballot box. But elections alone cannot solve the fundamental political problems confronting Egypt and Tunisia. In particular, they cannot create a liberal order and open society.

To be effective, elections must be preceded by an extensive debate, in which political arguments are made, attacked, defended - and, ultimately, embodied in ideologically coherent party organisations. Democratic consent can truly be given only when voters know what they are consenting to. Whoever refuses to make a public case for what he or she intends to do when in power, or lies about it – as Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, did during his campaign against me last year – is no supporter of the democracy that citizens risked their lives to establish.

Yuliya Tymoshenko was prime minister of Ukraine and is now leader of the opposition.

This article was first published by Project Syndicate.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201127114827382865.html

Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo

Suleiman, a friend to the US and reported torturer, has long been touted as a presidential successor.

by Lisa Hajjar

On January 29, Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s top spy chief, was anointed vice president by tottering dictator, Hosni Mubarak. By appointing Suleiman, part of a shake-up of the cabinet in an attempt to appease the masses of protesters and retain  his own grip on the presidency, Mubarak has once again shown his knack for devilish shrewdness. Suleiman has long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism, his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran - and he has long been the CIA’s main man in Cairo.

Mubarak knew that Suleiman would command an instant lobby of supporters at Langley and among 'Iran nexters' in Washington - not to mention among other authoritarian mukhabarat-dependent regimes in the region. Suleiman is a favourite of Israel too; he held the Israel dossier and directed Egypt’s efforts to crush Hamas by demolishing the tunnels that have functioned as a smuggling conduit for both weapons and foodstuffs into Gaza.

According to a WikiLeak(ed) US diplomatic cable, titled 'Presidential Succession in Egypt', dated May 14, 2007:

    "Egyptian intelligence chief and Mubarak consigliere, in past years Soliman was often cited as likely to be named to the long-vacant vice-presidential post. In the past two years, Soliman has stepped out of the shadows, and allowed himself to be photographed, and his meetings with foreign leaders reported. Many of our contacts believe that Soliman, because of his military background, would at least have to figure in any succession scenario."

From 1993 until Saturday, Suleiman was chief of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service. He remained largely in the shadows until 2001, when he started taking over powerful dossiers in the foreign ministry; he has since become a public figure, as the WikiLeak document attests. In 2009, he was touted by the London Telegraph and Foreign Policy as the most powerful spook in the region, topping even the head of Mossad.

In the mid-1990s, Suleiman worked closely with the Clinton administration in devising and implementing its rendition program; back then, rendition involved kidnapping suspected terrorists and transferring them to a third country for trial. In The Dark Side, Jane Mayer describes how the rendition program began:

    "Each rendition was authorised at the very top levels of both governments [the US and Egypt] ... The long-serving chief of the Egyptian central intelligence agency, Omar Suleiman, negotiated directly with top [CIA] officials. [Former US Ambassador to Egypt Edward] Walker described the Egyptian counterpart, Suleiman, as 'very bright, very realistic', adding that he was cognisant that there was a downside to 'some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way'. (p. 113).

    "Technically, US law required the CIA to seek 'assurances' from Egypt that rendered suspects wouldn't face torture. But under Suleiman's reign at the EGIS, such assurances were considered close to worthless. As Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer [head of the al-Qaeda desk], who helped set up the practise of rendition, later testified, even if such 'assurances' were written in indelible ink, 'they weren't worth a bucket of warm spit'."

Under the Bush administration, in the context of "the global war on terror", US renditions became "extraordinary", meaning the objective of kidnapping and extra-legal transfer was no longer to bring a suspect to trial - but rather for interrogation to seek actionable intelligence. The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites - and others were turned over for torture-by-proxy to other regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt’s torturer-in-chief. At least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt — Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib — was reportedly tortured by Suleiman himself.

Suleiman the torturer

In October 2001, Habib was seized from a bus by Pakistani security forces. While detained in Pakistan, at the behest of American agents, he was suspended from a hook and electrocuted repeatedly. He was then turned over to the CIA, and in the process of transporting him to Egypt he endured the usual treatment: his clothes were cut off, a suppository was stuffed in his anus, he was put into a diaper - and 'wrapped up like a spring roll'.

In Egypt, as Habib recounts in his memoir, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, he was repeatedly subjected to electric shocks, immersed in water up to his nostrils and beaten. His fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. At one point, his interrogator slapped him so hard that his blindfold was dislodged, revealing the identity of his tormentor: Suleiman.

Lisa Hajjar teaches sociology at the University of California - Santa Barbara and is a co-editor of Jadaliyya.

This article first appeared on Jadaliyya.

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Layer 435 . . . The Power of the State, Britain, Egypt, Beyond Mubarak, Democracy, Policing and CS Gas

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My son made the point some days ago that the British State is far too powerful to allow a people's movement or uprising to topple the government. Leaving aside questions of the legitimacy of a government that's attempting a rapid, radical and irreversible (shock doctrine) change in the health service and the education service without ANY warning in a manifesto that they intended to do such things - it's easy to see what he means when you consider the situation in Egypt.

It's one thing to try to topple a prime minister, or a particular government, or even a head of state, but the dominant groups whose will and whose power prevail in any society can normally expect to retain power, whatever people on the street demand by way of change in the leadership.

The Guardian's editorial on Egypt yesterday makes this point with reference to the particular situation in Cairo.

Egypt: Beyond Mubarak

The country's most important issue is not when the leader goes, but whether the regime will go with him

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/02/egypt-beyond-mubarak-editorial

President Mubarak's announcement, under American pressure, that he will not seek re-election in September marks an end to one phase of the Egyptian crisis. But it does not resolve it.

First, it is far from clear that Egyptians will accept him remaining in even nominal control.

Secondly, the real struggle in Egypt is not between Mr Mubarak and the bulk of the Egyptian people. It is between the entrenched political, military and economic elites who have come to dominate Egyptian society in the years since independence and the classes they have increasingly excluded, coerced and manipulated.

These elites have worked for Mr Mubarak, fought for his favour, and been controlled by him while at the same time using him to defend their collective interests. A dictator never stands alone. "Irhal!" ("Go!") the protesters cry, but the most important issue is not when Mr Mubarak goes but what goes with him.

Mr Mubarak's main personal concern may well be to withdraw from the scene in what he deems to be an honourable way.

But those who have constituted the pillars of his regime are interested in survival, not withdrawal.

The officer corps wants to preserve its power and privileges. Yet the Egyptian army is oversized and over-armed, and ought, in any sensible reordering of Egypt's political system, to be reduced and depoliticised.

The older leaders of the ruling National Democratic party, where some remnants of the original Free Officers' idealism may still just be discerned, also want a place in any new order, and may have a sort of constituency in Egypt's enormous bureaucracy. Yet that, too, should be reduced.

The Egyptian business class, particularly that section of it which gravitated toward Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, will plead that its capital, competence and contacts are vital if Egypt's economy is to be restored, and threaten dire consequences if the deals and depredations of the past are unearthed. Yet that class is properly seen as part of the problem and not part of the solution.

The police, lowest of the low on the regime totem pole, will be calculating that sooner or later their brutal skills will once again be needed. Yet they must be curbed if Egypt is to make a genuine new start.

The demonstrators in the square say they have only one demand, that Mr Mubarak step down. In the euphoria of the moment some of them see his departure as the answer to everything that is wrong in the land of Egypt. But whether that departure comes sooner or later, it will not be that.

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Jaywise
An amusing side-effect of this delightful sight of people standing up for themselves - images that will hopefully rub off on people everywhere in the troubled times to come - is that it really forces the bigoted, racist and anti-democratic right out into the open and forces them to show their true colours.

cecile
I hear on the radio that Mubarak's fortune is estimated at $56bn. What's the salary of an Egyptian president, I wonder?

This looks like robbery on an industrial scale. Time to freeze his assets worldwide.

Sidebar
Evidently Mr. Cameron has advised President Mubarak to ,"..... listen to the aspirations of the people".

It is indeed a prudent ruler who listens to the aspirations of the people. Thus enabling him to evaluate the potential for conflict arising from aspirational dissonance. He can then anticipate any contingencies which may arise.

But the prudent and wise ruler not only listens to the aspirations of the people but distills their essence and subtly blends it with his own. Such a ruler finds favour with the people so that they willingly bear the burdens placed upon them by the ruler, believing them to represent their own best interests.

Innit, David!?

cecile

The Telegraph yesterday described the movement for democracy in Egypt as a "contagion" which might spread across the Arab world,

No surprise there, then. I visit their website from time to time and it's a bit of a freakshow, to be frank - frightful and entertaining in equal measure.

delphinia

If he goes, what then? A popular uprising in Romania got rid of Ceaucescu, but when the dust settled, the same bunch were in power with a different figurehead, and then the persecution of the protesters started.

There is no such thing as democracy. Power is held by the big landowners, industrialists and money men. Elections everywhere are a sham.

SUMWON

Clearly, not just Mubarak but also his repressive cronies in his stooge cabinet such as the Top Secret Policeman and Torturer Omar Suleiman and his army of spies, agents provocateurs, finger-nail pullers, eye-gougers and penis slicers. But it's not these US stooges which must go, but also the repressive constitution and the whole rotten, corrupt system.

From this morning's news, it appears that Mubarak is trying to wear down and mollify the protesters so that he can then set his usual thugs and torturers loose to weed out the prominent protesters. Committed Muslims will then be tortured in the rendition chambers. He's even started his own anti-protest movement. He can then use his American tanks and planes to further initimidate the Egyptians, because he certainly will not use them against his pal Netanyahu.

If Mubarak is able to tough this out, then it will be more of the same. He's no intention of listening to Egyptians - it's what the Zio-Cons of Washington instruct him which is important.

Jaywise

Elections afford the Iranians a path to interference in Egypt's internal affairs through the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas connection

Oh, we better not have any then, those filthy foreigners aren't to be trusted.

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Egypt and the credibility of the Middle East peace process

America's credibility problem has become acute. It claims to support democracy in the Middle East, but at any time in the last 30 years it could have used pressure to guide Mubarak's regime towards at least minimal reforms. On the other hand, it slapped crippling sanctions on the Palestinians when they voted, in free and fair elections, for a party the US and Israel disliked.

Hilary Wise

London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/egypt-middle-east-peace-process

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Call for an inquiry into use of CS spray

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/02/inquiry-into-use-of-cs

At a time when public service cuts are starting to bite, campaigners from UK Uncut were on Sunday once again taking direct action on our high streets (Police use CS spray on tax protesters, 31 January).

They were targeting Boots, which has moved to Switzerland, allowing the company to avoid paying millions in tax. Outside the Oxford Street branch of Boots, a police officer, without warning, used CS spray against demonstrators, three of whom were taken to hospital. When tax injustice enjoyed by the rich is combined so starkly with cuts in vital public services for the poor, and the government refuses to listen or act, people have the moral and legal right to protest.

The state is the collective democratic vehicle to serve the interests of all people of this country. And when acting through the police force, it has to be incredibly careful about not being perceived to be acting politically – to serve the interests of the rich against the poor.

We deplore the use of such aggressive policing techniques and call for a public inquiry to investigate and report on the use of CS spray against protesters on Sunday. They should also provide guidance on how they plan to police the many, widespread and popular protests that are bound to feature across society in the months and years to come.

Neal Lawson Compass

Mark Serwotka PCS

John Christensen Tax Justice Network

Deborah Doane World Development Movement

Ruth Tanner War on Want

Lisa Nandy MP Labour, Wigan

Caroline Lucas MP Green, Brighton Pavilion

Peter Tatchell campaigner

 

The current formulation [of CS gas] was the subject of an investigation in 2004 by the medical toxicology unit at Guy's hospital in London and it reported that "it [CS] is more harmful that [sic] has been previously assumed".

Anyone who believes they were affected by this chemical (and these complaints may relate to the skin, eyes, upper respiratory tract or heart) should contact us as we are setting up a monitoring group.

Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has commented: "Police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests."

Let's take note and act.

Elizabeth Sigmund

Callington, Cornwall

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