Egyptian Youths Drive the Revolt Against Mubarak

 

Cached: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/world/middleeast/27opposition.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: January 26, 2011

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was surrounded by reporters as he arrived in Cairo on Thursday

For decades, Egypt’s authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak, played a clever game with his political opponents.

He tolerated a tiny and toothless opposition of liberal intellectuals whose vain electoral campaigns created the facade of a democratic process. And he demonized the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood as a group of violent extremists who posed a threat that he used to justify his police state.

But this enduring and, many here say, all too comfortable relationship was upended this week by the emergence of an unpredictable third force, the leaderless tens of thousands of young Egyptians who turned out to demand an end to Mr. Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

Now the older opponents are rushing to catch up.

“It was the young people who took the initiative and set the date and decided to go,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Wednesday with some surprise during a telephone interview from his office in Vienna, shortly before rushing home to Cairo to join the revolt.

Dr. ElBaradei, a Nobel prize winner, has been the public face of an effort to reinvigorate and unite Egypt’s fractious and ineffective opposition since he plunged into his home country’s politics nearly a year ago, and he said the youth movement had accomplished that on its own. “Young people are impatient,” he said. “Frankly, I didn’t think the people were ready.”

But their readiness — tens of thousands have braved tear gas, rubber bullets and security police officers notorious for torture — has threatened to upstage or displace the traditional opposition groups.

Many of the tiny, legally recognized political parties — more than 20 in total, with scarcely a parlor full of grass-roots supporters among them — are leaping to embrace the new movement for change but lack credibility with the young people in the street.

Even the Muslim Brotherhood may have grown too protective of its own institutions and position to capitalize on the new youth movement, say some analysts and former members. The Brotherhood remains the organization in Egypt with the largest base of support outside the government, but it can no longer claim to be the only entity that can turn masses of people out into the streets.

“The Brotherhood is no longer the most effective player in the political arena,” said Emad Shahin, an Egyptian scholar now at the University of Notre Dame. “If you look at the Tunisian uprising, it’s a youth uprising. It is the youth that knows how to use the media, Internet, Facebook, so there are other players now.”

Dr. ElBaradei, for his part, has struggled for nearly a year to unite the opposition under his umbrella group, the National Association for Change. But some have mocked him as a globe-trotting dilettante who spends much of his time abroad instead of on the barricades.

He has said in interviews that he never presented himself as a political savior, and that Egyptians would have to make their own revolution. Now, he said, the youth movement “will give them the self-confidence they needed, to know that the change will happen through you and not through one person — you are the driving force.”

And Dr. ElBaradei argued that by upsetting the old relationship between Mr. Mubarak and the Brotherhood, the youth movement posed a new challenge to United States policy makers as well.

“For years,” he said, “the West has bought Mr. Mubarak’s demonization of the Muslim Brotherhood lock, stock and barrel, the idea that the only alternative here are these demons called the Muslim Brotherhood who are the equivalent of Al Qaeda.”

He added: “I am pretty sure that any freely and fairly elected government in Egypt will be a moderate one, but America is really pushing Egypt and pushing the whole Arab world into radicalization with this inept policy of supporting repression.”

The roots of the uprising that filled Egypt’s streets this week arguably stretch back to before the Tunisian revolt, which many protesters cited as the catalyst. Almost three years ago, on April 6, 2008, the Egyptian government crushed a strike by a group of textile workers in the industrial city of Mahalla, and in response a group of young activists who connected through Facebook and other social networking Web sites formed the April 6th Youth Movement in solidarity with the strikers.

Their early efforts to call a general strike were a bust. But over time their leaderless online network and others that sprang up around it — like the networks that helped propel the Tunisian revolution — were uniquely difficult for the Egyptian security police to pinpoint or wipe out. It was an online rallying cry for a show of opposition to tyranny, corruption and torture that brought so many to the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday, unexpectedly vaulting the online youth movement to the forefront as the most effective independent political force in Egypt.

“It would be criminal for any political party to claim credit for the mini-Intifada we had yesterday,” said Hossam el-Hamalawy, a blogger and activist.

Mr. Mubarak’s government, though, is so far sticking to a familiar script. Against all evidence, his interior minister immediately laid blame for Wednesday’s unrest at the foot of the government’s age-old foe, the Muslim Brotherhood.

This time, though, the Brotherhood disclaimed responsibility, saying it was only one part of Dr. ElBaradei’s umbrella group. “People took part in the protests in a spontaneous way, and there is no way to tell who belonged to what,” said Gamal Nassar, a media adviser for the Brotherhood, noting the near-total absence of any group’s signs or slogans, including the Brotherhood’s.

“Everyone is suffering from social problems, unemployment, inflation, corruption and oppression,” he said. “So what everyone is calling for is real change.”

The Brotherhood operates a large network of schools and charities that make up for the many failings of government social services. Some analysts charge that the institutional inertia may make the Brotherhood slow to rock the Egyptian ship of state.

“The Brotherhood has been very silent,” said Amr Hamzawy, research director at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “It is not a movement that can benefit from what has been happening and get people out in the street.”

Nor, Dr. ElBaradei argued, does the Muslim Brotherhood merit the fear its name evokes in the West. Its membership embraces large numbers of professors, lawyers and other professionals as well as followers who benefit from its charities. It has not committed or condoned acts of violence since the uprising against the British-backed Egyptian monarchy six decades ago, and it has endorsed his call for a pluralistic civil democracy.

“They are a religiously conservative group, no question about it, but they also represent about 20 percent of the Egyptian people,” he said. “And how can you exclude 20 percent of the Egyptian people?”

Dr. ElBaradei, with his international prestige, is a difficult critic for Mr. Mubarak’s government to jail, harass or besmirch, as it has many of his predecessors. And Dr. ElBaradei eases concerns about Islamists by putting a secular, liberal and familiar face on the opposition.

But he has been increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the West. He was stunned, he said, by the reaction of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Egyptian protests. In a statement after Tuesday’s clashes, she urged restraint but described the Egyptian government as “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.”

“ ‘Stability’ is a very pernicious word,” he said. “Stability at the expense of 30 years of martial law, rigged elections?” He added, “If they come later and say, as they did in Tunis, ‘We respect the will of the Tunisian people,’ it will be a little late in the day.”

Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo.

Mohamed ElBaradei

Cached: 
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/mohamed_elbaradei/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Updated: Jan. 27, 2011

By William J. Broad

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian-born lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, headed the International Atomic Energy Agency for 12 years. He gained attention when he became the West’s main way of negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program. Dr. ElBaradei has become a leading opponent of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and on Jan. 27, 2011, he returned to Cairo in an attempt to galvanize youth-led street protests across the country.

Dr. ElBaradei, who has sought to refashion himself as pro-democracy campaigner in his homeland, is viewed by some supporters as capable of uniting the country’s fractious opposition and offering an alternative to Mr. Mubarak’s authoritarian rule. Critics view him as an opportunist who has spent too little time in the country to take control of a movement which began without his leadership.

But his return adds a new element to the unrest in several big cities that has shaken assumptions that Mr. Mubarak’s security apparatus can keep a tight lid on popular protest.

Upon his return, Dr. ElBaradei insisted that he would attend demonstrations and urged Mr. Mubarak to step down. “He has served the country for 30 years and it is about time for him to retire,” he told Reuters.

Dr. ElBaradei, with his international prestige, is a difficult critic for Mr. Mubarak’s government to jail, harass or besmirch, as it has many of his predecessors. And Dr. ElBaradei eases concerns about Islamists by putting a secular, liberal and familiar face on the opposition.

But he has been increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the West. He was stunned, he said, by the reaction of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the protests. In a statement after thousands of people calling for the end of Mr. Mubarak’s regime clashed with riot police on Jan. 25, 2011, she urged restraint but described the Egyptian government as “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.”

“ ‘Stability’ is a very pernicious word,” he said. “Stability at the expense of 30 years of martial law, rigged elections?”

In September 2010 Dr. ElBaradei issued a call for a widespread boycott of parliamentary elections.

The posting on his Twitter page read: “Total boycott of elections & signing petition R first steps 2 unmask sham ‘democracy.’ Participation wld. be contrary to the national will.”

Dr. ElBaradei has said he will run for president if constitutional reforms make it possible. His campaign for those changes has brought together some of the secular opposition, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic political group that, though banned, is the country’s single strongest opposition group.

Under the current constitutional framework, Dr. ElBaradei would need at least 250 signatures from Egypt’s lower and upper houses and municipal councils, all of which are overwhelmingly dominated by the ruling party.

At the nuclear agency, Dr. ElBaradiei was succeeded by Yukiya Amano on Dec. 1, 2009.

In an interview, Dr. ElBaradei called the global system for nuclear security “a mess,” saying events were undermining authorities and promoting crises and dangerous proliferation trends.

Before the American invasion of Iraq, Dr. ElBaradei declared that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had revived his nuclear weapons program, an assertion that proved to be correct but did not endear him to the Bush administration, which tried, unsuccessfully, to block his reappointment when his term expired in 2005.

In 2007, Dr. ElBaradei gained new visibility by making public a plan to try to resolve the nuclear standoff between the West and Tehran — once more to Washington’s chagrin. To his critics in the West, he is guilty of serious diplomatic sins — bias toward Iran, recklessness and, above all, a naïve grandiosity that leads him to reach far beyond his station.

The eldest of five children from an upper-middle-class family in Cairo, Dr. ElBaradei grew up with a French nanny and a private school education. At 19, he became the national youth champion in squash. “You have to be cunning,” he said of the sport.

Dr. ElBaradei studied law and joined the foreign service, eventually serving in New York. His father, a lawyer, was the head of Egypt’s bar association.

Moving up the diplomatic ladder, Dr. ElBaradei eventually settled in Vienna, where he became the nuclear agency’s legal counselor and then head of external relations. His ascent to the top job, in 1997, was a surprise.

After none of the proposed candidates received the needed votes, the American ambassador to the agency at the time, John Ritch, led a quiet campaign for Dr. ElBaradei, a close friend.

idealism: The Power of Youth to Change the World

Cached: 
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/opinion-zone/2011/01/power-youth-change-world

By: Alexander McCobin 01/27/11 1:22 PM
Special to the Examiner

Do not underestimate the power of young people. They are not simply machines that can spit out votes for political candidates.  They are the future of the political system and they have the ability to start reforming the system right now.  Given the student activism taking place around the world today, the prospects for a student movement in the U.S. to gain hold are significant.

In 2007, Venezuelan students took to the streets to protest the closing of the last independent television station in the country.  Their efforts led to Chavez’s first political defeat when he lost a referendum to eliminate term limits thanks to the organizing and campaigning of students.  It took a second referendum, scheduled immediately after Chavez supporters lost key political races in the 2008 Venezuelan elections, for Chavez to get his way on the issue.  A few weeks ago, Venezuelan students rose up again in response to authoritarian legislation that gave the government power to oversee what is taught in private universities to ensure that “socialist ideology” was being properly ingrained in youth.

Right now, demonstrations are being held against the Egyptian regime by the country’s youth.  The ideological alignment of these demonstrations, and the results they will produce are uncertain.  What is most telling about them, though, is that the driving force of today’s opposition is not coming from established political parties or figureheads, but from the youth who have the most to gain and lose by determining the direction of their country.  Dr. ElBaradei, one of the leaders of the pre-existing opposition movement in Egypt, encapsulated the power of students in one quote: “Young people are impatient… Frankly, I didn’t think the people were ready.”  What Dr. ElBaradei describes as “impatient” can more accurately be described as “proactive.” Instead of accepting protracted complacency, students have the time and intellectual energy to re-imagine what the world around them could be like.  They understand the power of ideas and the importance of translating those ideas into action.

What does this have to do with the U.S.?  As much as people talk about the political apathy of youth, there are signs of a groundswell forming amongst them for the cause of liberty.  The number of pro-liberty student groups on college campuses has erupted over the past 3 years.  The disenchantment with both Bush and Obama is leading students to question the bipartisan divide they have grown up with.  I am not saying that the kinds of mass movements that have recently taken place in Egypt and Venezuela will be replicated in the U.S.  I am saying that they should not be ignored.  If students in the U.S. realize the impact of their international peers, they might be willing to stand up and have their voice heard.

—

More By Alexander McCobin

Today’s youth more interested in idealism than crushing debt

By: Alexander McCobin 10/25/10 10:00 PM
Special to the Examiner

There’s a common refrain I always hear from people over 40: “Today’s youth, the next generation, will be forced to pay for the many mistakes and fiscal irresponsibility of the generations currently in charge.  National debt, the failure of Social Security, Obamacare, you young’ins are the ones who will have to pay the price.  So why don’t more of you care more about this?”  On face, this is a perfectly reasonable question.  Indeed, it is on point to recognize that the next generation, my generation, will bear the brunt of the damage from the economic maladies being pushed through Congress today and for the past 20 years. 

However, I believe the reason that so few young people are taking to the streets over this issue is simple: idealism.  Typically, people are most idealistic when they are young, meaning they are moved by and take action for certain romantic ideals such as freedom and justice.  What’s more, when you are young, you have the opportunity to plan for a long life.  The prospect of never receiving a Social Security check means little when you have decades to make your own money and focus on other issues.  There is little worry about paying the piper when payment is so far down the road.  For the sake of one’s ideals, the youth are able and willing to take risks and make sacrifices in the present for the potential rewards of idealism in the future.

Given this background of idealism, the rationale behind most students is understandable: “I know these programs are costly, and they may even be untenable.  However, these programs are what we need to have a better country.  For that ideal, I’m willing to work a little harder and pay a little more.  I’m young and energetic and can easily deal with that cost to achieve the various programs’ goals.”  Even if few young people won’t admit it, I have a strong suspicion that this is the underlying logic behind the fact that 75% of people under the age of 30 don’t think they will ever receive a Social Security check, but very few of those people are doing anything about it.

So what is the solution?  Fiscal responsibility and limited government needs to stop being sold by older generations in terms of the numbers alone.  The importance of restricting government spending and limiting the areas of life to which government intrudes needs to be sold for what it really is: an ideal.  The massive numbers behind the government’s failures are illustrative of the problem and should be invoked.  But the numbers alone are not enough.  The problem of excessive government involvement in people’s lives is what will energize the youth to rally behind government restraint.  Invoke the principles of liberty!  Invoke Benjamin Franklin’s saying that “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Invoke the moral superiority of the government that governs least.   So long as the moral high ground is given to big government, there will always be a dearth of youthful supporters.    For those who want to bring young people to the cause of liberty, the solution is simple: invoke the moral imperative of liberty.   The rest will follow.

–

States do not have rights, People do

Cached: 
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/examiner-opinion-zone/states-do-not-have-rights-people-do

By: Alexander McCobin 08/27/10 2:00 AM
Special to the Examiner

In the wake of the passage of Obamacare, the federal ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, to name a few, there has been much discussion about states’ rights recently. Touting the importance of allowing states to enact their own laws and reject subservience to the federal government, states’ rights proponents hold that the more local nature of state governments gives them wider power than the federal government. While I agree with the sentiment that individuals have more of a say at the state level than the federal level, I have to challenge the notion that states have the right to enact laws that violate basic rights.

I believe this for a very simple, but important reason: States don’t have rights.  People do.

Most states’ rights supporters invoke the 10^th Amendment to legitimate and concretize their beliefs.  However, the 10^th Amendment has very specific wording:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The 10^th Amendment nowhere provides for any rights of the states.  Rather, it delegates powers, the ability to do things, to the states.  And there are two conditions on the delegation of any powers to the state: that they are not articulated in the Constitution to the federal government and that they are not reserved by the people themselves.  What’s more, the 10^th Amendment comes after the 9^th Amendment, which also has very specific, and noticeably distinct wording:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

So not only are the powers of the states qualified by the authority of the people, but the Constitution explicitly says that the rights of the people shall not be denied, even if not enumerated in the Constitution. With the incorporation doctrine of the 14^th Amendment (that all rights protected by the federal Constitution may not be infringed upon by the states), this means there is a Constitutional guarantee that individual rights will not be denied by any government, state or federal, within the United States.

States do not have a carte blanche right to enact any law they want, even if done democratically. Their decisions are not irrevocable or immune from oversight. The use of state power is limited by the rights of the individuals within the state. If states violate the rights of those individuals, then there is just cause for intervention whether by the people or the federal government.

Federalism does not mean that the federal government has restricted power and states have unlimited power.  The purpose of federalism is to provide multi-lateral checks on government to protect individuals from the excessive growth of any particular layer of government. The value in this decentralization of authority is that each layer is meant to stop the other when it is abusing its legitimate authority. For the very same reasons that we need to check abuses of federal power, we need to check abuses of state power.  Those checks don’t just come from the people and local governments below, but also from the federal government above as well.

Yes, we need to restrict the federal government’s power. Yes, we ought to delegate authority to the states when we can. But no, don’t think that states can do whatever they want or are somehow an inherently better type of government than the federal layer.  The power of any government, federal or state, is derived from the people and accountable to protecting their liberties.  Individual rights trump state power every time. Speaking about “states’ rights” confuses the point. Governments have legitimate powers. Individuals have legitimate rights. Powers and rights are very different things.

The “States’ Rights” cause is silly a misnomer. It should be a “States’ Powers” movement, focused on the authority of the states to check the decisions of the federal government to protect the rights of its citizens from inappropriate government intervention in their lives.

Once this delineation is made, the appropriate justification for states challenging federal decisions can be more clearly articulated and utilized. However, it may also highlight the inconsistencies of those who wrongly advocate a “right” of state government to abuse any of the rights of individuals.

Protests After Tunisia: North Africa rises up – what’s driving unrest in North Africa, Middle East

 

 

Q&A with Moroccan-born author Laila Lalami

cbcnews

Last Updated: Thursday, January 27, 2011 | 5:23 PM ET

Cached: 
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2011/01/27/f-laila-lalami.html

By Andre Mayer, CBC News

An Egyptian protester shouts slogans in front of a police cordon in Cairo. (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

The political demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen in recent weeks have galvanized North Africa and the Middle East. They’ve also compelled Western observers to identify root causes.

Morrocan-born author and political commentator Laila Lalami. (Lailalalami.com)

The spate of protests in cities like Tunis, Cairo and Sanaa, Yemen, were largely stirred by a shocking act of martyrdom. On Dec. 17, a 26-year-old Tunisian fruit seller named Muhamed Bouazizi set himself on fire — and later died – after police revoked his seller’s permit. Bouazizi’s act reflected a more general economic vulnerability, as well as the callousness of the state, and has inspired anti-government protests in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen.Is it merely poverty that’s driving these demonstrations or political repression? Has Islamic fundamentalism played a role? And what part has social media played in advancing the agenda? CBC News spoke to Laila Lalami, a Moroccan-born novelist and political commentator who has written on the Middle East for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Nation magazine, about the social and political forces behind this wave of dissent.

CBC News: The self-immolation of Muhamed Bouazizi is being touted as the event that sparked the unrest across North Africa and the Middle East. Was there any sign previous to this that something might happen?

Laila Lalami: The telltale sign was that it happened in Tunisia. First of all, the act of self-immolation had been used in North Africa in 2005. There were four Moroccans, university graduates, who had been promised jobs and the government hadn’t delivered, so they tried to set themselves on fire. But each country is very different. In the case of Tunisia, the state had clamped down so much on free expression. It was essentially a police state; there was one policeman for every 40 adults. In Algeria, there were protests all the time, but it didn’t lead to anything. But in Tunisia, once the protests got started, I knew right away that it was something unusual and something more serious.

You have to understand that, given the religious culture in North Africa, it is extremely taboo to commit suicide or any kind of act against the self. Self-immolation is absolutely horrific, so it just goes to show how desperate this young man was. I think there was really identification between the university graduates and this young man. He became a symbol for them for what they have to endure every day. People, even when they have university degrees, and they’re educated, even when they do have jobs, often times they have to give bribes for every little thing. It just makes life on an everyday basis very difficult.

How does Tunisia compare, politically, to your native land of Morocco?

Obviously, each country is very different, and in the case of Morocco, for example, there are opposition parties. They’re not popular, as people have lost hope in their ability to bring change, but there is a field in which it is possible to express opposition. So, the press is a little bit freer than [in] Tunisia. It doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in Morocco – it could. But it’s just that it’s less likely to happen in a place where there is an ability, however limited, to express yourself and somehow make it work. I think that’s what was missing in Tunisia. The repression was so total that when the young people rose, there was nothing that could stop them.

Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman holds a rose during an anti-government protest in Sanaa, Yemen, on Jan. 26, 2011. Activists and opposition groups in the Arab world's most impoverished nation have called for the removal of U.S.-allied President Ali Abdullah Saleh. (Hani Mohammed/Associated Press)

The explanations for these uprisings have included food prices, unemployment and police brutality. Is there a single issue that’s galvanizing people?

To be perfectly honest, I think it’s just a thirst for freedom – that’s the one way that you can summarize it. These are young people who are sick and tired of the life that they are forced to lead. They’ve done everything that was asked of them – they got their education. They can’t find jobs, and when they do find jobs, they constantly have to dole out bribes just to lead a normal life. They are sick of it. They want lives filled with dignity. The [government] opposition hasn’t delivered. And when [the youth] look to the West for help, they see foreign powers that are perfectly content to support these dictators while at the same time delivering lectures on democracy. So, it’s impossible; you feel like you’re on your own. This is the message that Tunisia has delivered to the world: if you want change, you have to get it on your own.

How great an effect do you think social media has had on the protests?

Every revolution is going to use tools. In the old days, people used tracts to get their message across. To be honest, I get really concerned when people say it’s a Twitter revolution, or a Facebook revolution or a WikiLeaks revolution. They’re wanting to impose a narrative from above and one that seems to credit the West, essentially, for bringing about change. I got an email yesterday from someone who was very upset with me, saying, “Are you sure WikiLeaks didn’t contribute?” Everything contributes! When it’s your life and you’re willing to go on the street and get beaten up by thugs, then you can say, “Oh yeah, it was WikiLeaks [that inspired me].” People don’t go on the street simply because of the availability of [the Internet]; they go on the street because they need jobs. They want freedom.

Do you have any sense of how many people in that part of the world have access to social media tools?

See, that’s the other point. When you talk about Twitter and WikiLeaks, you’re talking about a small percentage of the population that either has access to these tools or who is even paying attention to them. The guy who committed self-immolation in Tunisia was a fruit vendor. How much access to Twitter does he need? It seems like [social media tools] have played a role, but they didn’t drive the revolutions in any way.

What effect do you think the protests will have on American foreign policy? The U.S. has very friendly relations with Morocco and Egypt, particularly.

Well, in the case of Egypt, it’s a big deal. Egypt gets $2.3 billion US in foreign aid from the United States – much of which, by the way, is aid for police and military work. Truly, these are our tax dollars at work, when you see those thugs beating protesters on the streets.

Tunisian policemen and firemen chant slogans on top of a fire engine during a protest in Tunis. (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Tunisia, in some sense, is really peripheral to U.S. foreign policy; Egypt is another matter altogether. You have the Camp David Accords, and you have the United States in a position where it is terrified that whoever comes next might endanger these accords. So, that’s why I think they’ve been willing to put up with this clown [Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak] for 29 years: because he’s been so good at telling them, ‘It’s either me or the loonies.’ And this is, by the way, a strategy that all dictators have used — that’s what President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has used. No surprise there. That’s the danger with Egypt.

The United States is really learning from the missteps of the French foreign ministry, so they’re treading carefully. [Last week, France’s foreign minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, offered to help the Tunisian government subdue the protesters. She has since claimed her words were distorted.] Right now, [U.S. leaders] haven’t made any mistakes. Obviously, a lot of people wish Obama could have used the state of the union address to say that he supported the Egyptian people. He didn’t. But I think it’s better to be quiet and not say something stupid. The United States, if it wants to continue with this narrative of democracy, cannot be seen to support someone [in this region] – especially when it looks like he’s on the way out.

When it comes to unrest in the Middle East, people often assume that there is a religious angle. Is any of what’s going on coloured by Islamic fundamentalism?

These protests were not driven by any kind of political parties within Tunisia, however few there are, or by any outside – the Islamic party had been banned, and its leader had been in exile. When the protests started in Egypt, the government tried to blame the Muslim Brotherhood, for obvious reasons, because that’s what [the government’s] narrative is: ‘We’re the bulwark against these loonies.’ But the Muslim Brotherhood said, ‘We didn’t ask people to go and demonstrate.’ It was really just people who were fed up.

The thing with Egypt is that earlier this year, there was a young man who was arrested, and he asked them, ‘Do you have a warrant?’ And because he dared to ask them. ‘Do you have a warrant?’ they took him to the police station, and they tortured him until he died. And he was just a young, regular man, not a part of any known political party, and there was the same kind of identification as you see in Tunisia with Muhamed Bouazizi. And so, this is what it’s looking like right now. These are just young people who are fed up.

Tomorrow is Friday, and the Muslim Brotherhood said it will join the protests, so things could change. But at the moment, it does seem like it’s a secular movement run by average people.

Vietnam, Laos, Thailand to protect Mekong – Does Lao PDR government care?

Cached: 
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Environment/208003/VN-Laos-Thailand-to-protect-Mekong.html

 

HCM CITY — Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand yesterday reached an agreement to protect water quality in the Mekong River against emerging threats.

The Procedures for Water Quality agreement, the first of its kind and sealed by environment and water ministers from the four countries at the 17th annual meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Council in HCM City, seeks to safeguard the basin and prepare people and agencies to respond to environmental emergencies.

It commits the four riparian countries to adopt mutually-recognised standards for measurement, monitoring, and assessment of water quality.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said in his welcome remarks that the lower Mekong Basin faces several challenges that threaten natural resources, particularly water, and the livelihoods of tens of millions of residents.

He called for an action plan for the basin to respond to climate changes while protecting the environment and the lives of millions of people downstream.

Strategic partners

He stressed the need for increased co-operation with strategic partners, including dialogue partners like mainland China and Myanmar, and developing the council into an independent manner.

The Vietnamese Government is determined to co-operate fully with other Council members to implement the 1995 Mekong Agreement and Hua Hin Declaration for sustainable development of the Mekong basin, he said.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen, chairman of the MRC Council, also noted that climate change was a big concern in the basin, particularly rising sea levels and salinity.

The two problems would affect not only agriculture, aquaculture, and fisheries, but also the livelihood of local people.

“Our top priority will be to integrate climate change-related factors into the planning process of relevant sectors.

Jeremy Bird, chief executive officer of the Mekong River Commission, said: “This trans-boundary co-operation commitment is a major step towards securing the environmentally-sound future of the Mekong River.

“Together with implementation of the four other agreements under the 1995 Mekong Agreement, this will help bring about timely protection of both livelihoods of people and aquatic species throughout the basin.”

More than 60 million people, most of them living in rural areas in the basin, depend heavily on the river for food and livelihood.

More than 60 per cent are involved in water-related occupations that are now vulnerable to environmental shocks and degradation. — VNS