Category Archives: “Arab Spring”

Taksim is not (yet) Tahrir

"Arab Spring", Turkey

By James M. Dorsey, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, June 2, 2013

Almost a week of countrywide protests in Turkey have left an indelible mark on the country’s political landscape: broad discontent with the policies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and increasing haughtiness bubbled to the surface; militant soccer fans thousands of whom joined the Taksim Square protests united and were politicized; and the role police force plays in solidifying opposition groups and resolve was highlighted.

Mr. Erdogan’s intransigence and hard-handed police attempts to suppress the protest with tear gas and water cannons swelled the ranks of the demonstrators and turned a demand for perseverance of a 75-year old Istanbul park into a massive call for the prime minister’s resignation. Thousands of militant fans of Istanbul’s three rival soccer clubs led by the left-wing, most politicized of the support groups Carsi, the ultras’ of Besiktas JK, joined forces for the first time in 30 years as they march to Taksim Square. So did rival soccer fans in other cities.

Comparisons between Taksim and Cairo’s Tahrir Square that has come to symbolize the ability of the street to topple a government are tempting. To be sure, there are superficial similarities but these are outstripped by the differences. The two square share the unification of rival soccer fans with a history of fighting one another; the occupation of a main city square; the protesters’ slogan: Erdogan, istifa! or Erdogan resign in imitation of Egypt’s Mubarak irhal! or Mubarak leave!; the violent police crackdown; and the ultimate at least partial government backdown.

But unlike mass demonstrations that toppled leaders in North African nations, the protests in Turkey are against a democratically elected leader who has won three elections with a respectable majority, presided over a period of significant economic growth and repositioned his country as a regional power with global ambitions. They also occurred in contrast to Arab countries in a country that despite all its warts is democratic and has a strongly developed, vociferous civil society. Continue reading Taksim is not (yet) Tahrir →

The Myth of the “Yemen Model”

"Arab Spring", Development, Journalism and Media, Yemen


Yemen’s Abdul Wahab al-Ansi (C), secretary-general of the party Islah, speaks during a session of the National Dialogue Conference in Sanaa, March 23, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi)

by Atiaf Zaid Alwazir, Huffington Post, May 29, 2013

Shortly following the internationally funded uncontested election in Yemen, a high-ranking western diplomat berated me for not voting. When I asked him, “would people in your country be happy with a one-person election?” He responded: “people in my country are not trying to kill each other!”

While not all diplomats think this way, unfortunately, that simplistic and ignorant statement is what drives much of western policy on Yemen — if there is a policy — and it is also why it is expected that Yemenis should accept half solutions — should in fact celebrate them!

Maybe misconceptions of Arabs as apolitical, who were just “awakened” by the “Arab Spring,” leads to the belief that anything is a step forward. These misconceptions, if internalized, lead to flawed analysis, and worse they can become disastrous policies.

This is egregiously exemplified by Thomas Friedman’s recent New York Times op-ed (on May 11) where, for example, he states that “the good news is that — for now — a lot of Yemenis really want to give politics a chance.” Friedman is referring to the internationally backed National Dialogue Conference (NDC) in Yemen. The NDC began in March 2013 and is to last for six months, with 565 delegates tasked with providing recommendations and culminating in writing of a new constitution. Friedman’s statement attempts to celebrate Yemenis, while in fact downplaying an entire history of political participation and ignores Yemen’s cultural tradition of dialogue and political pluralism. Yemen has had dialogues before and has operated in a relatively diverse political sphere. The movement for change in 2011 is a culmination of years of activities in the south and north.

Neglecting all of that naturally does not present a thought-out article. Continue reading The Myth of the “Yemen Model” →

Hope and Fear Documentary

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Film and Video

Hope and Fear: Egypt on the Tipping Point

Kickstart the post-production of this Film!

Go Deep: View Director’s Cut Trailer – HOPE & FEAR Long Trailer
Get Deeper: HOPE & FEAR website – www.HOPEandFEARmovie.com

HOPE & FEAR is unlike any documentary you’ve ever seen – providing a rare glimpse into the lives of four young liberal-minded Egyptians as they struggle to reshape their nation. Their story is one of aspiration and empowerment in the face of fear and chaos which dominates Egypt’s ongoing revolution.

Hi Kickstarters!

I’m Hosam Khedr, co-director and producer of HOPE & FEAR. Along with my partner Anjuli Bedi and our crazy dedicated team we set out on an audacious and dangerous quest to tell a more personal and timeless story.

HOPE & FEAR presents an insider’s-perspective on the lives of four young Egyptian activists who are pushing for freedom of expression through their art and community activism. We follow Salman, Nada, Ammar, and Reham beyond the idealism, euphoria and revolution of Tahrir Square as they struggle to navigate the difficult terrain of an Egypt hindered by an oppressive security force, corruption, political and economic instability, and religious intolerance under the new Islamist government.

HOPE & FEAR’s characters along with our special guest appearances, give a broader view of the challenges and implications of Egypt’s revolution. Will the homeland of civilization maintain civility? Nothing less than the future of the region hangs in the balance. With the outcome of Egypt’s liberal youth movement, HOPE & FEAR’s intimate portrayal of its characters shows the common thread that unites all humanity: the human spirit’s refusal to capitulate to oppression despite the costs.

Do We Care?

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Syria, Terrorism Issue


Scene after a massacre in a coastal Syrian village on May 4

Do we care? When the news media report yet another attack on civilians in Syria (or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere outside of Boston and New York), do we really care? It is hard to be sympathetic to the picture above without feeling the pain caused by imagining your own child’s body bloodied and lifeless. It is not easy for those of us in the fabled “land of the free” to admit that in war and civil strife everyone is presumed guilty by being in the way of a bomb and only proven innocent as a victim. These are bodies that have stopped growing, faces forever locked into expressions of horror. There can be no rest for these children in the grave for there can be no end to the grief of those who knew them.

But what do we care? It did not happen here. We make sure of that by sending arms to our erstwhile allies and droning anyone abroad who looks like a terrorist. As long as we proclaim our rhetorical support for human dignity, who can blame us? This was the act of a vicious dictator struggling to hold on to absolute power. Asad is Russia’s bastard, not ours. The weapons used to rip apart these childrens’ lives were Cold-War-forged Soviet, not Free World. Thank God, our God of course, there is no “Made in the USA” trademark on any of the bombs used here. But our’s will soon be in play here, as they are in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen, and even more children will never be able to play again.

Should we care? We did not know them. There are seven billion of us living and dying on this planet. What does it matter if a few children do not have a chance to live? Perhaps they would die of cancer before their teens or be run over by a car? What if one of these children had grown up to be a violent terrorist and take some of our lives? There are many ways not to look at these dead bodies, not to count them as our own. You can ignore what you see here, quickly click your mouse to escape caring. But tomorrow there will be another picture just like this, perhaps with women or men. Perhaps with soldiers who have little choice but to follow orders or risk their own lives. You need not worry, though, because you will not know any of them, not their names, not the sound of their laughter, not their dreams, not the goodness that shines through in every corner of our globally disconnected world.

So go ahead. Ignore what you see. Thank your God it’s not about you. Life goes on here no matter how many lives end over there. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I have said what I want to say in less than 500. The rest is up to you.

Drone Policy in Yemen

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Ethics, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue, Yemen

For anyone in the NYC region, I will be giving a talk at the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SEMINAR on KNOWLEDGE, TECHNOLOGY, and SOCIAL SYSTEMS on Wednesday, May 15, 7 pm (at Columbia University’s Faculty House). The title of the talk is: “Drone Strikes in the War on Terror: The Case of Post-Arab-Spring Yemen.” Unmanned drones have been used by the US military against terrorism in many areas of the world. In particular, these drones have become the US military’s weapon of choice in targeting terrorists in Yemen, where strikes quadrupled in 2012 from the previous year. This talk addresses the impact of these strikes on the political context within Yemen and the effectiveness of the strategy in combating Al Qaeda recruitment. The talk builds on a commentary published in the Middle East Muddle blog of the Anthropology News website.

For information on the talk, please contact me directly by email at daniel.m.varisco@hofstra.edu.

Tom Friedman (not Tom Sawyer) Abroad in Yemen

"Arab Spring", Development, Environment, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue, Yemen, Zaydi


Background image is Daniel Beard illustration for the 1899 edition of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer Abroad

The well traveled journalist Thomas Friedman has popped up in Yemen, but apparently he has yet to find out that no one in Yemen drives a Lexus and Yemenis do not grow olive trees. Friedman has won many awards for his hot-air balloon reporting of events in the Middle East. He reminds me of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer Abroad, where the American boy hero gets a birds-eye view of Egypt and Palestine without ever escaping being mere “innocents abroad.”

Still, a postcard from Yemen via the New York Times op-ed page, by such a renowned journalist deserves a reading. As usual the journalist himself is one of the main attractions, including starting the very first sentence with an “I” to his own presence. I am not a fan of Friedman’s reportage, even when he claims some kind of inside knowledge about a place in the Middle East, but I do appreciate that two very important points are highlighted in his article: Yemen’s water crisis is a greater threat to instability than any political act and Yemen is poised to “have the best chance to start over – now – if they seize it.” I would only add this: if Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the U.S. do not keep the Yemenis from seizing and sustaining control of their own future.

Like Friedman, I have long known that Yemen is “a country of breathtaking beauty, with wonderful people” and, yes, it has become a “human development disaster.” But I would not explain this disaster away as simply due to “political mismanagement” by a string of military dictators. The United Nations, the World Bank, the United States, Britain, France, The Netherlands, Japan, China and a rather long list of foreign aid donors have pumped millions upon millions of dollars into a system without achieving any sustainable results. Saudi money has bankrolled the Ministry of Education, introducing a conservative Salafi brand of Islam that is overtly political. Yemeni workers have been treated like slum bums by the Saudis and Gulfies who hire and fire them at will. While Friedman is right to stress that the environmental and economic crisis created by the critical shortage of water, especially for domestic use in cities, is the major problem being faced, it is not “just about water” by any means. The heavens and fountains of the deep could open tomorrow and the mix of old and new ideologies (most coming from outside Yemen) would blossom like spring flowers after a desert rain. Continue reading Tom Friedman (not Tom Sawyer) Abroad in Yemen →

The Morsi Blues

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Obama Administration

Egypt’s Economy, the Muslim Brotherhood & the U.S.

by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Ken Jensen, American Center for Democracy, May 2

Under Muslim Brother Morsi’s inept economic team more than 4,500 factories have shut down. Egypt’s unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2012, have reached 13%, most of which, (77.5%) is among the 15-24 years old. Inflation has climbed much above the official 7.5% (March 2013), and foreign currency reserves declined to US $ 13,424 billion. The country spends about $14.5 billion subsidizing fuel and $4 billion subsidizing food each year. Nearly half of Egypt’s 90 million people live at or below the poverty line of $2 per day. The Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), reports of “3,817 labor strikes and economically motivated social protests” following Morsi’s election, and more than 2,400 “between January and March” 2013.

Campuses all over the country are rocked by violent demonstrations, and “it’s getting worse by the day,” a student is quoted saying by Al-Hayat. Bloody clashes between students affiliated with Brotherhood and independent and opposition groups have been reported in Cairo’s Ain Shams University, and ongoing demonstrations in Al-Azhar University have gotten more violent after tainted food made dozen of students ill. Continue reading The Morsi Blues →