Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts

Jun 4, 2010

Obama needs to support Egyptians as well as Mubarak

Image by riacale via Flickr

By Michele Dunne and Robert Kagan
Friday, June 4, 2010; A17

When President Obama called for a "new beginning" in U.S. relations with the Muslim world a year ago, he picked Cairo as the setting for his speech. It was a provocative choice, the capital of a close ally of the United States but also of the three-decades-old autocracy of Hosni Mubarak.

When Obama declared his commitment to "governments that reflect the will of the people" and said that leaders "must maintain your power through consent, not coercion," Egyptians thought they heard a not-so-subtle reference to their aging leader. One enthusiastic Egyptian shouted, "Barack Obama, we love you!" -- the only such interjection during the address.

A year later, Egyptians are scratching their heads about why Obama came to Cairo. In meetings in Cairo this week, Egyptian civil society and political activists across the spectrum voiced their disappointment, asking, "I know they're busy, but can't the Obama administration spare any time at all for what is going on inside Egypt?" and saying resignedly of the president, "He seems like a nice guy, but I guess he's just not going to do anything for us."

The disappointment is understandable. As Egypt heads into controversial parliamentary elections in fall 2010 and a presidential election in 2011, the Obama administration has been tone-deaf, intent on continuing to improve relations with the increasingly brittle and unpopular Mubarak regime. It has cut democracy assistance spending in Egypt by half, agreed to forbid assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development to groups that lack the government's stamp of approval, and is discussing a future "endowment" that would commit the United States to years of assistance with diminished congressional oversight. When administration officials have privately raised questions about democracy or human rights with the Egyptian government, their carefully calibrated "quiet diplomacy" has been dismissed or ignored. Obama himself politely asked Mubarak during an August 2009 Oval Office meeting to fulfill his 2005 pledge to lift the state of emergency under which Egyptians have been repressed since 1981. Mubarak brushed him off. Last month, Mubarak renewed the state of emergency for another two years, conveniently the period during which parliamentary and presidential elections will occur. The Obama administration called it "regrettable."

Meanwhile, Mubarak is in ill health and may not even make it to the next presidential election. His regime has systematically excluded or discredited new leaders who enjoy any public support, leaving the field of potential successors depressingly impoverished. One would think that under the circumstances both Egyptians and the U.S. government would be working to put in place an open political process so that any new leader could win the support of the people and thus ensure order in this important nation. But the Egyptian government is paralyzed by the aging Mubarak's refusal to look beyond his own rule. And the Obama administration, in pursuit of an illusory stability, stands mute and passive as the predictable train wreck draws nearer.

This administration prides itself on its progressive approach to this post-Cold War world, but it is repeating the mistake that Cold War-era administrations made when they supported right-wing dictatorships -- right up until the point when they were toppled by radical forces.

Obama's Cairo speech had the admirable goal of improving relations with the Muslim world, but the manner in which the administration has pursued this goal has been flawed from the beginning. It has focused almost exclusively on building bridges with leaders and governments. Yet in Egypt, and in Iran, a gulf has opened between the government and the citizenry. Obama has strengthened ties with the aging Mubarak while ignoring the concerns of Egypt's increasingly restive population. "What about us?" one prominent democracy activist asked. "Do we count for anything in this U.S.-Egypt relationship?"

When rebels ousted the corrupt government in Kyrgyzstan in April, they noted angrily that the United States had never stood up for their rights in the face of rigged elections and human rights abuses, placing a clear priority on strategic cooperation with the government. Watch out. If the Obama administration does not figure out how to make clear that it supports the political and human rights of Egyptian citizens, while cooperating with the Egyptian government on diplomatic and security affairs, people will be saying that about the United States in Cairo one of these days -- and maybe sooner than we expect.

There is still time to turn around this failing policy. Vice President Biden visits Egypt next week. There are, as always, numerous crises on the agenda. But if the administration wants to try to head off the next crisis, in Egypt, then Biden should use the opportunity to have a frank talk with Mubarak and other senior officials. In private, he can explain why it is so important, for both Egypt and the United States, that Mubarak take immediate steps to open the political process in this difficult period of transition. In public, Biden needs to make clear that the United States stands for free, fair and competitive elections -- for Egyptians, just as for everyone else.

Given the sorry history of the United States supporting the oppressors rather than the oppressed in that part of the world, such a commitment would be the kind of "new beginning" the Egyptian people seek.

The writers, senior associates at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, are members of the nonpartisan Working Group on Egypt, a consortium of policy experts from Carnegie, the Council on Foreign Relations, Human Rights Watch, the Center for American Progress, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Foreign Policy Initiative and Freedom House.

Dec 21, 2009

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: widening split between young and old

Egypt's Islamic opposition to autocratic President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood, faces a split along generational lines as older conservatives' influence is rising.

By Ursula Lindsey Correspondent
posted December 21, 2009 at 1:41 pm EST

Cairo —

Egypt’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, is facing a change in leadership that could sideline reformists. That could deprive Islamists of an avenue for participating in Egyptian politics, and some could become radicalized.

Mahdi Mohammed Akef, the general guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for the past six years, will step down in January amid a widening split in the organization.

Mr. Akef, who has held together a group that includes moderates and conservatives, young and old, urban and rural, says that the organization’s internal disagreements are one of its strengths. But his blowup with the group’s 15-man Guidance Council when he tried to appoint a younger, reformist member to the elderly and predominantly conservative council has ignited an unprecedented public debate in Egypt.

The goal of the group, which has never been allowed to form a political party, is to make Islam “the sole reference point for ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state.”

But within the Brotherhood there are sharp differences over how to oppose President Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime, what rights should be accorded to women, and how strictly Islam should be interpreted.

Old guards and new Brothers

Many of these differences play out along a generational fault line between younger reformists, who seek a more active political role for the banned organization, and older conservatives whose influence is rising.

“Akef is the last of the historical leaders of the group ... the leaders who ... joined the group early on, who have met the founder Hassan Al Banna, who have some sort of historical legitimacy,” says Ibrahim Al Hodaiby, grandson of a former general guide and a writer on Islamist movements.

The Brotherhood’s older members came of age in the 1950s, when the group was at war with the government. It was eventually banned, its members arrested and tortured by the thousands.

This senior group is “directed towards building the organization more than opening up to society,” says Hossam Tammam, editor of the website Islam Online. Their focus is on training new members, proselytizing, and social work.

Image via Wikipedia

The Brothers who came of age in the 1970s after the group formally renounced violence, meanwhile, are something different. These men were active on university campuses and in parliament. Today they are willing to form alliances with other movements and parties and are “more likely to produce reformist ideas,” says Mr. Tammam. But while the reformists are younger, the conservative bloc is in ascendancy.

Akef’s successor, to be chosen in January, is expected to be an old-guard conservative.

That worries Brothers like Abdel-Moneim Mahmoud, a young journalist and blogger. He froze his membership after some of his criticisms were not well received.

“The stage we’re in requires the moderate, the reformist side of the group,” he says. “We need a strong political movement ... to stand against this oppressive regime. This is our duty right now. It’s more important than anything else.”

Image by madmonk via Flickr

Mr. Mahmoud’s ideas were shaped in 2005, when Egypt, under pressure from the United States, experienced a moment of political opening. The Brotherhood, alongside other groups, participated in street protests calling for political reform and an end to the Mubarak regime. Mahmoud was encouraged to form alliances with outside activists and to give his opinion freely.

But subsequent government repression led the Brotherhood to “tak[e] a step backwards,” says Mahmoud, who explains that “whenever there is freedom, reformist ideas [within the group] will predominate; when there’s tyranny, conservative ones will.”

Tammam says government repression is the glue holding the Brotherhood together. If the Egyptian political system opened up, “the internal differences would become apparent in a way that might lead to the existence of more than one Brotherhood.”

But if reformists within the group are being routed, they’re still putting up a fight. The next general guide will almost certainly put an end to this cacophony and perhaps drive members like Mahmoud out for good. But the internal rift is unlikely to disappear.

Nov 20, 2009

For Bread or Soccer, Egypt Is Ready for a Riot - NYTimes.com

Image by madmonk via Flickr

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — History has proven there are two subjects that will move Egyptians to pour into the streets in riotous numbers, crashing windows, burning cars, battling each other and defying an army of club-wielding riot police.

One is the price of bread. Another is soccer, as was proven again this week after Egypt’s national team was defeated by its bitter rival Algeria, losing a berth in the World Cup tournament next year and sparking a riot outside the Algerian embassy in Cairo late Thursday night.

But there was a pronounced difference between the bread riots of 1977 and 2008 and the soccer riot: the government quieted those earlier outbreaks by quickly lowering the price of bread, while this week it stoked outrage against Algeria.

Egypt had beaten Algeria 2-0 in Cairo on Saturday to set up Wednesday’s climactic playoff in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. After Egypt lost the second match, the government withdrew its ambassador from Algiers and accused Algerians of menacing Egyptian fans after the game. President Hosni Mubarak’s eldest son, Alaa, a wealthy businessman, sounded as if he were calling his nation to war.

“We were being humiliated and we can’t be silent about what happened there,” he said in a telephone call to Egypt’s most popular television talk show. “We have to take a stand. This is enough. That’s it, this is enough. Egypt should be respected. We are Egyptian and we hold our head high and whoever insults us should be smacked on his head.”

Despite the Egyptian complaints, which include accusations of stoning and machete attacks, there is no documented evidence of any Egyptians being seriously injured in the aftermath of the game on Wednesday, won by the Algerians, 1-0.

Dignity did seem to be a subtext, however, as hundreds of young men rushed the Algerian embassy, trashing cars and stores, burning Algerian flags and injuring police 35 police — a rare occurrence in a police state that has made gatherings of seven or more people illegal.

Soccer is a national passion. The only time Egyptians take to the streets in flag waving celebration is when their team wins. And in soccer terms the North African neighbor, Algeria, has for years been enemy No. 1. Both nations have waited a long time to get a spot in the World Cup, 24 years for Algeria, 20 for Egypt. The last time Egypt made it was in 1989, when it defeated Algeria.

From the start, the Egyptian government sought to exploit the games with Algeria for political reasons, political analysts said. State radio broadcast nationalist songs. Streets were filled with young men selling Egyptian flags. The president’s son, Gamal Mubarak, who is often talked about as a possible successor to his 81-year-old father, attended the two games with other high ranking party members.

“They charged people thinking that this would keep them busy from other problems, but in the end it backfired,” said Osama Anwar Okasha, an Egyptian television writer and columnist who blamed leaders in both countries. “It made people here and there explode.”

Critics charged that the government — and specifically the president’s political organization, the National Democratic Party — was hoping that a win on the field could bolster its credibility in the face of grinding poverty and political stagnation. By the time the Algerian team bus pulled into Cairo on Saturday, people were so riled up they pelted it with hunks of concrete and its players were bloodied — though Egyptians insisted the Algerians did that to themselves in an attempt to win a change of venue.

When Egypt lost the playoff, the government still tried to ride those emotions, leading with calls of outrage and indignation.

“It is strange that the regime was charging people with all these emotions from the beginning, as though this victory or loss will resolve all their problems,” said Salama Ahmed Salama, head of the editorial board of El Shorouk, an independent newspaper in Cairo. “What you see happening is that the problems, and the social and political oppression people face, pushes them to behave this way.”

The Algerians were not entirely innocent victims in all this. They goaded the Egyptians, claiming falsely that Algerian fans were killed in Cairo. A music video circulating on the Internet showed a picture of President Mubarak with a pig’s face as a rapper called Egyptians “beggars, beggars thieves, crooks, known pick pocketers.” (And much worse.)

Tensions ran high before Wednesday’s game, in which Egypt was favored, and the Sudanese dispatched thousands of soldiers and police to the stadium to maintain calm. Yet, after the Algerians won the crowd filed calmly out of the stadium without any sign of violence, witnesses reported.

But that was not the message sent back home, where Egyptians were overwhelmed with news coverage and amateur videos of injured fans and Algerians waving knives and insulting Egypt.

“What you don’t know is that the Algerian fans have been in the streets of Khartoum for the past three days purchasing daggers and knives,” said the minister of information, Anas el-Feqqy, Thursday night on one of Egypt’s most popular television talk shows. “These are not people going to cheer for soccer, these are people going to take revenge and exercise violence.”

That same night, young men rampaged in the streets. But on Friday, the government sent out a signal that it was time to stop, that perhaps things had gone too far. The Foreign Ministry said the government would not “tolerate violations against Algerian interests” in Egypt.

Reporting contributed by Mona el Naggar

Oct 9, 2009

Egyptian Pro-Reform Activists Say U.S. Commitment Is Waning - washingtonpost.com

Image by Free Mass via Flickr

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 9, 2009

MAHALLAH AL-KOBRA, Egypt -- Four months after President Obama delivered an address from Cairo in which he voiced American commitment to human rights and the rule of law, concern is mounting among Egypt's pro-reform activists that the United States is abandoning its long-standing efforts to bring democratic reforms to the Arab world's most populous nation.

Since the speech, Egyptian security forces have launched a fresh campaign against the banned Muslim Brotherhood, an influential Islamist opposition group, arbitrarily arresting hundreds of members, from young bloggers to senior leaders. The government has prevented a centrist opposition movement from legally becoming a political party. In this Nile Delta industrial city, the epicenter of recent worker strikes, the government has appeared unresponsive to labor concerns -- or is cracking down.

"We are very disgruntled with President Obama," said Kamal al-Fayoumi, a labor leader who was jailed by the government for launching a major strike last year. "He has given the regime the green light to do what it wants with the Egyptian people."

U.S. pressure for democratic reforms in Egypt, once effective, waned in the final years of the Bush administration. But critics charge that the pressure has significantly eased at a time when Egypt is nearing a crucial political transition: The presidential election is set for 2011, and speculation is rife that incumbent Hosni Mubarak, 81, will anoint son Gamal as his successor before the election, raising fears that the regime will undemocratically extend its 28-year-old rule.

"We may have changed tactics, but our commitment to democracy and human rights promotion in Egypt is steadfast," a U.S. Embassy official said in an e-mailed response to questions. Senior American officials will continue to raise these issues in meetings with Egyptian counterparts, the official added.

The frustrations have been compounded by sharp cuts in U.S. funding for democracy programs in Egypt as much as by the Obama administration's soft tone and warmer relationship with the Mubarak government. Activists say Obama's middle-ground approach could have significant repercussions in a region dominated by autocrats, who respond only to pressure.

"His reduced talk of democracy is giving these non-democratic regimes the security that they won't face pressure. And that's having a negative impact on democracy in the Arab world," said Ayman Nour, a prominent opposition politician.

Today, the Obama administration is increasingly relying on Egypt to jump-start the Arab-Israeli peace process and to contain pro-Iran radical groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Obama has met with Mubarak three times, reestablishing Egypt's position as a key strategic ally in the Arab world. This marks a significant departure from the Bush administration, during which tensions between Washington and Cairo raged over U.S. policies in the Middle East, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and American criticism of Egypt's political and human rights record.

The clearest indication yet of the U.S. shift is the funding cuts, activists say. Last year, the United States allocated $54.8 million for democracy programs, of which $27.85 million went to civil society programs, the nexus of grass-roots activism for democracy. This year, the funding has shrunk to $20 million, of which $5 million went to civil society groups. The cuts were made by the Bush administration; for 2010, the Obama administration has allocated $25 million, an increase from this year's funding but still well below the 2008 figure. The U.S. Embassy official said an additional $4 million in funding for civil society groups would come from other sources.

Although the Bush administration's policies were largely reviled across the Arab world, many Egyptians credit them with ushering in some political reforms. Under U.S. pressure, Egypt held its first contested presidential election. Independent newspapers, Web sites and blogs flourished.

"The truth is it was pressure by George Bush that brought political reforms and political mobilization," said Ibrahim Issa, a columnist and government critic who was jailed for writing that Mubarak was ill.

Senior Egyptian officials openly admit they prefer Obama to Bush.

"He is not interfering in the domestic affairs of countries," said Ali Eddin Helal, a top spokesman for the ruling National Democratic Party. "He's not trying to achieve objectives through confrontation or pressure, but through brokering and reconciliation."

Nour, the opposition politician, was a beneficiary of American pressure. Criticism of the regime mounted after he was jailed on unsubstantiated fraud charges in the wake of the 2005 election. He was freed this year. The release was widely seen as a bid by Mubarak to improve relations with the Obama administration -- and to send a signal that any U.S. pressure would be counterproductive.

In an interview, Nour shook his head when asked whether he thought the Obama administration would apply similar pressure if the government were to jail him again.

"They are focused on Israel," Nour said. "They believe the current regime works, so they shouldn't take any risks."

Others sense a growing fatigue. "The Americans, I think, are fed up with the Egyptians," said Anwar E. el-Sadat, the nephew of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and an opposition leader. "They have been spending millions promoting democracy, and nothing happened."

The government, meanwhile, is escalating its crackdown. On Saturday, 16 Muslim Brotherhood members were detained on charges of violating a law that requires government approval to hold a political gathering.

The Muslim Brotherhood's opposition to U.S. policies in the Middle East, as well as its popularity, ultimately helped to doom the Bush administration's push for political reforms. American officials worried that the Islamists could one day replace Mubarak if democracy took root.

Many activists fear that the Obama administration feels the same way -- and will legitimize what many expect will be Gamal Mubarak's ascendancy in a nation that has never experienced a democratic transfer of power.

"We were hoping Obama would be different than other U.S. administrations," said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights. "But America is concerned more about stability than democracy."

Sep 20, 2009

Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs - NYTimes.com

Image by Malingering via Flickr

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — It is unlikely anyone has ever come to this city and commented on how clean the streets are. But this litter-strewn metropolis is now wrestling with a garbage problem so severe it has managed to incite its weary residents and command the attention of the president.

“The problem is clear in the streets,” said Haitham Kamal, a spokesman for the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs. “There is a strict and intensive effort now from the state to address this issue.”

But the crisis should not have come as a surprise.

When the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring — in what public health experts said was a misguided attempt to combat swine flu — it was warned the city would be overwhelmed with trash.

The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba.

Ramadan Hediya, 35, who makes deliveries for a supermarket, lives in Madinat el Salam, a low-income community on the outskirts of Cairo.

“The whole area is trash,” Mr. Hediya said. “All the pathways are full of trash. When you open up your window to breathe, you find garbage heaps on the ground.”

What started out as an impulsive response to the swine flu threat has turned into a social, environmental and political problem for the Arab world’s most populous nation.

It has exposed the failings of a government where the power is concentrated at the top, where decisions are often carried out with little consideration for their consequences and where follow-up is often nonexistent, according to social commentators and government officials.

“The main problem in Egypt is follow-up,” said Sabir Abdel Aziz Galal, chief of the infectious disease department at the Ministry of Agriculture. “A decision is taken, there is follow-up for a period of time, but after that, they get busy with something else and forget about it. This is the case with everything.”

Speaking broadly, there are two systems for receiving services in Egypt: The government system and the do-it-yourself system. Instead of following the channels of bureaucracy, most people rely on an informal system of personal contacts and bribes to get a building permit, pass an inspection, get a driver’s license — or make a living.

“The straight and narrow path is just too bureaucratic and burdensome for the rich person, and for the poor, the formal system does not provide him with survival, it does not give him safety, security or meet his needs,” said Laila Iskandar Kamel, chairwoman of a community development organization in Cairo.

Cairo’s garbage collection belonged to the informal sector. The government hired multinational companies to collect the trash, and the companies decided to place bins around the city.

But they failed to understand the ethos of the community. People do not take their garbage out. They are accustomed to seeing someone collecting it from the door.

For more than half a century, those collectors were the zabaleen, a community of Egyptian Christians who live on the cliffs on the eastern edge of the city. They collected the trash, sold the recyclables and fed the organic waste to their pigs — which they then slaughtered and ate.

Killing all the pigs, all at once, “was the stupidest thing they ever did,” Ms. Kamel said, adding, “This is just one more example of poorly informed decision makers.”

When the swine flu fear first emerged, long before even one case was reported in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak ordered that all the pigs be killed in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

When health officials worldwide said that the virus was not being passed by pigs, the Egyptian government said that the cull was no longer about the flu, but was about cleaning up the zabaleen’s crowded, filthy, neighborhood.

That was in May.

Today the streets of the zabaleen community are as packed with stinking trash and as clouded with flies as ever before. But the zabaleen have done exactly what they said they would do: they stopped taking care of most of the organic waste.

Instead they dump it wherever they can or, at best, pile it beside trash bins scattered around the city by the international companies that have struggled in vain to keep up with the trash.

“They killed the pigs, let them clean the city,” said Moussa Rateb, a former garbage collector and pig owner who lives in the community of the zabaleen. “Everything used to go to the pigs, now there are no pigs, so it goes to the administration.”

The recent trash problem was compounded when employees of one of the multinational companies — men and women in green uniforms with crude brooms dispatched around the city — stopped working in a dispute with the city.

The government says that the dispute has been resolved, but nothing has been done to repair the damage to the informal system that once had the zabaleen take Cairo’s trash home.

The garbage is only the latest example of the state’s struggling to meet the needs of its citizens, needs as basic as providing water, housing, health care and education.

The government announced last week that schools would not be opened until the first week of October to give the government time to prepare for a potential swine flu outbreak, a decision that could have been made anytime over the past three months, while schools were closed for summer break, critics said.

Officials in the Ministry of Health and other government ministries said they had not made this decision — and that they had counseled against pre-emptive school closings.

It appears to have been ordered by the presidency and carried out by the governors, who also ordered that all private schools, already in class, be shut down as well.

“We did not propose or call for postponing schools, so the reason is not with us,” said an official in the Ministry of Health who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the news media.

The heads of three large governorates, or states, in Egypt announced Wednesday that their strategy for keeping schoolchildren safe was to take classes, which on average are crowded with more than 60 students, and split them in half and have children attend school only three days a week, another decision that was criticized. There have been more than 800 confirmed cases of H1N1 in Egypt, and two flu-related deaths.

“The state is troubled; as a result the system of decision making is disintegrating,” said Galal Amin, an economist, writer and social critic. “They are ill-considered decisions taken in a bit of a hurry, either because you’re trying to please the president or because you are a weak government that is anxious to please somebody.”

Cairo’s streets have always been busy with children and littered with trash.

Now, with the pigs gone, and the schools closed, they are even more so.

“The Egyptians are really in a mess,” Mr. Amin said.

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.

Sep 19, 2009

Very, Very Lost in Translation - By Raymond Stock | Foreign Policy

How the Egyptian literary czar who wants to lead the world's top cultural body got caught up in his own country's rabid anti-Semitism.

BY RAYMOND STOCK | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

To say that Farouk Hosni doesn't much like Israel is putting it lightly. According to the Anti-Defamation League, he has called it "inhuman," and "an aggressive, racist, and arrogant culture, based on robbing other people's rights and the denial of such rights." He has accused Jews of "infiltrating" world media. And in May 2008, Hosni outdid even himself, telling the Egyptian parliament that he would "burn right in front of you" any Israeli books found in the country's libraries.

What's shocking is not just that Hosni has said these things, but that he is Egypt's culture minister -- and even more scandalous, that he is the likely next head of UNESCO, the arm of the United Nations sworn to defend cultural diversity and international artistic cooperation. Less surprising but also sadly true is that Hosni's opinions about Israeli culture are par for the course among Egypt's intelligentsia, for whom 30 years of official peace with the Jewish state, the longest of any Arab country, have done virtually nothing to moderate its rampant Judeophobia. If anything, the opposite might be true.

This affair has sparked protests from prominent intellectuals and politicians in Israel and around the world. And the only reason Hosni even has a shot at the UNESCO job, which he'd be the first Arab to hold, is because, in a major reversal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently lifted his country's opposition to the Egyptian's candidacy. How this came to pass remains shrouded in mystery. All that's known is that on May 11, Netanyahu met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and was convinced not to block the culture minister's candidacy in return for some unpublicized conditions. A few weeks later, Farouk Hosni penned an apologetic article in Le Monde, retracting his statement on book burning. Soon after that, he pledged that Egypt's culture ministry would translate literary works by two Israelis, Amos Oz and David Grossman. This seemed like a significant concession because official Egyptian policy mostly bars translation from Hebrew to Arabic -- or at least any dealings with Israeli publishers.

But what appeared to be signs of positive change in Egypt's literary elite were actually just reflections of its deep-seated hostility to Jewish and Israeli culture. Hosni was quickly and widely attacked as "courting Zionist influence" by his fellow members of the Egyptian intelligentsia. In fact, Gaber Asfour, the head of Egypt's National Translation Center, immediately denied any link between the translations and Hosni's UNESCO campaign. He clarified that there would be no translation of the Israeli authors from Hebrew at all, but rather from existing European translations, so as not to have to actually deal with the Israeli rights-holders themselves. Although there are certainly a lot of books about Israel on the market in Egypt -- most of them full of conspiracy theories or tendentious views of Jewish history -- Egypt's head translator said he wanted to publish more, if not directly from the Hebrew. For his justification, he quoted an Arabic proverb: "Who knows the language of a people is safe from their evil."

This whole imbroglio only serves to highlight the Egyptian literati's generally hateful and hidebound views of Israel, which are often more virulent than those of the Egyptian public at large. To this day, Egyptian cultural figures and academics are professionally barred from contacts with Israelis. Even the faculty senate at the American University in Cairo passed a resolution urging a boycott of Israeli scholars and schools. In July, the longtime management of the Atelier du Caire, the main gathering place for the city's artists and writers, fell to a coup mounted by a group of disgruntled members; the charge was incompetence and catering to Israelis. And Egypt's greatest modern writer, the late Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, was nearly expelled in 2001 from the Egyptian Writers' Union simply because many of his books had been published in Israel.

Indeed, this only confirmed what Mahfouz once told me in the early 1990s: "The intellectuals who grew up under Nasser will never accept Israel," he said. "They imbibed hatred of Israel with their mothers' milk -- it is deep in their blood."

So why do Egyptian intellectuals fear Israeli influence so intensely? The constantly invoked explanation is that Egyptian intellectuals, the self-styled conscience of the country, cannot accept Israelis in the absence of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, and especially not as long as Israel "oppresses" Palestinians. Although this rationale usually includes a pro forma reference to "occupied lands" and "Israeli aggression," what most of them mean is that Israel's existence itself is the barrier to peace in the region. Few Egyptian intellectuals (unlike many ordinary Egyptians) acknowledge Israel's right to exist, and even Mahfouz, whose books and films were banned in many Arab countries because of his support of peace talks with Israel, admitted he originally did so because he realized that military victory was not likely (though he greatly admired Israel's literary culture, technology, and its democracy -- however flawed).

Summer Reading of Our Discontent

How escapism is flourishing in the Great Recession.
By Liesl Schillinger

The Egyptian generation that has grown up under Mubarak -- who has worked for peace while often fostering resentment of Israel with his rhetoric at home -- may be just the same. Then again, most of these Egyptians are not listening to Mubarak, but are following those in the media trained under Nasser or inspired by the semi-tolerated opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots in al Qaeda and beyond, even the militant Lebanese Shiites in Hezbollah.

These more extremist influences might seem to sit uneasily beside other equally popular ones. There is, for example, a lingering euphoria among Egypt's cultural elite from U.S. President Barack Obama's June 4 address in Cairo (though tempered, of course, with irritation at his references to the Holocaust and his reaffirmation of America's bonds with Israel). Seeming incongruities like this one can also be seen in the many Egyptians who mourn Michael Jackson while downloading chanted Koranic verses for their cellphone ring tones, and who watch racy clips of Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe while cheering on Hamas. But these apparent contradictions shouldn't lull anyone into thinking that the Egyptian cultural elite is thawing in terms of Israel. Indeed, the Hosni brouhaha is just the most recent demonstration of the extreme paranoia against Jews that exists in Egypt.

Should Hosni's bid to be head of UNESCO succeed, as is likely, it could obscure the truly virulent prejudice that passes for cultural understanding among the Egyptian intelligentsia. Despite his apology for offering to burn books, Hosni told the Egyptian station Dream TV in July that he will oppose normalization with Israel until "two states exist" and the "Palestinian people get their right." And whatever the United Nations decides in the end, his gut feelings about Israel and the Jews are not likely to change.

Sep 17, 2009

International Crisis Group - Women and Radicalisation in Kyrgyzstan

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Women and Radicalisation in Kyrgyzstan

Asia Report N°176
3 September 2009

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Kyrgyzstan’s increasingly authoritarian government is adopting a counter-productive approach to the country’s growing radicalisation. Instead of tackling the root causes of a phenomenon that has seen increasing numbers, including many women, joining groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), it is resorting to heavy-handed police methods that risk pushing yet more Kyrgyz towards radicalism. The authorities view HT, which describes itself as a revolutionary party that aims to restore by peaceful means the caliphate that once ruled the Muslim world, as a major security threat. But for some men and ever more women, it offers a sense of identity and belonging, solutions to the day-to-day failings of the society they live in, and an alternative to what they widely view as the Western-style social model that prevails in Kyrgyzstan. Without a major effort to tackle endemic corruption and economic failure, radical ranks are likely to swell, while repression may push at least some HT members into violence. This report focuses primarily on the increasingly important role that women are playing in the movement.

Related content

Kyrgyzstan: A Deceptive Calm, Asia Briefing N°79, 14 August 2008

Thematic issue: Gender and Conflict

CrisisWatch database: Kyrgyzstan

All Crisis Group Kyrgyzstan reports

HT is banned in Kyrgyzstan and operates clandestinely. There are no accurate membership figures. It may have up to 8,000 members, perhaps 800 to 2,000 of them women. To join, individuals participate in formalised training, take examinations, an oath of loyalty and pledge to recruit others. But while HT’s membership is still small, support for it in the wider population is growing.

In post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, where many have responded to 70 years of atheism by embracing religion, HT’s uncompromising Islamic message has gained considerable acceptance. Women, especially those living in rural or conservative areas where traditional gender norms prevail, turn to HT to find meaning in their restricted social roles. The party’s activists regard the growth in those who count as sympathisers if not actual members as a critical component of a long-term strategy – a currently quiescent element of society that would be ready accept a caliphate once it begins to take form.

There are limits to HT’s expansion. In other countries, HT has sought to function as an elite organisation, not a mass movement based in the poorer sectors of the society, and there is no clear sign that the Kyrgyz party has as yet been able to substantially expand its appeal to the educated, middle class, either male or female. The degree to which it has spread from its original, predominantly Uzbek, base in the south into the majority ethnic Kyrgyz community in the north is unclear. And HT’s restrictive view of women’s roles in an avowedly revolutionary party could well limit its growth among female sympathisers who may be deeply critical of the regime but unwilling to abandon the freedoms they enjoy in a secular society.

The government hardened its position on Islamist groups following an October 2008 protest in Nookat, prosecuting and imprisoning a number of HT members, including two women. Officials justify their response to the incident by saying that HT had become too militant in its challenge to the state and had to be taught a lesson. They insist that energetic police action is coupled with political dialogue with believers. In fact, however, security methods prevail. Civilian elements of the government tasked with reaching out to the religious community take at best a distant, secondary part. They are either too inefficient and uncoordinated, or simply reluctant to do anything that impinges on the responsibilities of the powerful security establishment.

A policy based on repression will play into HT’s hands and may even accelerate its recruitment. HT has a sophisticated political organisation that resembles that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and even, to a degree, successful communist undergrounds. It thrives on the perception of social injustice, economic collapse and repression. It views prison as the ultimate test of party resolve and will regard a crackdown as an opportunity to provide new martyrs and draw new recruits. Women, whether presently members themselves or not but whose husbands are arrested, may feel compelled to assume a more public role in petitioning authorities.

Despite the prominent role they played in the Nookat protest, the government has not implemented policies aimed specifically at discouraging women from joining HT. Kyrgyzstan’s progressive legislation on gender equality and its quotas for women representatives in government have little impact on the lives of those most likely to join HT. Religious women in particular feel that women in government do not represent their views, because most are proponents of secularism. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are not reaching out to such women. They suffer from a lack of credibility with religious women and feel compelled to concentrate on projects they can secure funding for from donors rather than grassroot initiatives such as helping mothers by providing after-school programs for young children – something HT does for its women members.

The only effective long-term strategy is political. For this, however, Kyrgyzstan – and its neighbours in Central Asia, all of whom face similar problems – needs to take serious steps to eradicate systemic corruption and improve living conditions. Economic crisis and rigged elections strengthen HT’s appeal to those who feel socially and politically dispossessed and buttress its argument that Western democracy and capitalism are morally and practically flawed. All states in the region need also to differentiate between a political struggle against HT and the desire of large segments of their societies to demonstrate renewed religious faith by adopting some traditional attributes of Islam – beards in the case of men, for example, and headscarves for women. As Central Asia becomes a major supply route for NATO’s expanded war in Afghanistan, Western powers with an increased interest in the region’s stability should caution against repressive policies.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Kyrgyzstan:

1. Conduct a comprehensive study on the socio-demographic characteristics and needs of religious women, starting with a pilot project in Osh and Jalal-Abad and the areas around the towns of Nookat, Aravan, Uzgen and Karasuu, which are considered the hotbed of Islamic radicalism in the country.

2. Develop, based on the results of this study, social and economic policies targeting religious women that include:

a) employment schemes (at first in sectors acceptable for religious women like education, health care and social work) and vocational training opportunities; and

b) rehabilitation of social services, including kindergartens and after-school programs, that would lighten women’s workload at home and allow them to pursue outside employment.

3. Develop and implement a system of financial assistance at the local level for poor families, especially those headed by single mothers, and raise government assistance for maternity leave, sick leave to care for children, alimony and support for children with dead or missing fathers.

4. Organise, in cooperation with the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (DUMK), free study groups on Islam at the neighbourhood level that are led by respected, knowledgeable women from local communities.

5. Encourage DUMK, financially and by providing domestic and international expertise, to design a program of outreach to religious women that would ensure their greater participation in the local religious community.

6. Shift the focus from prohibiting hijab in public schools to implementing measures that would ensure better attendance and graduation rates from secondary schools by girls (especially in rural and southern areas) and deliver a basic secular curriculum in women’s madrasas.

7. Set up an inter-agency task force on radicalisation whose remit includes developing specific policies relevant to religious women and assign the lead role to a non-security government body in order to establish better information sharing and decrease the influence of law enforcement agencies; ensure that concerns of religious women are separated from the agenda on gender equality.

8. Take steps to change the climate of secrecy and taboo around religious radicalism by encouraging greater public discussion on the causes of and ways to address radicalisation, and welcoming more in-depth research by domestic and international experts.

To Donors:

9. Expand programs for women beyond gender issues to include projects for religious women and joint initiatives for both secular and religious women on practical matters (e.g. water quality, coping with male labour migration, pre-school education).

10. Fund research and survey activities by the government, local think tanks and academics on the topics of religious women and female radicalisation.

11. Adjust aid priorities by channelling more funding to grassroots projects that address practical concerns of religious women and engage secular and religious audiences within local communities, as opposed to large-scale institutional initiatives.

12. Encourage local NGOs to reach out specifically to religious women in their advocacy and service provision initiatives.

13. Encourage the government to incorporate the policies on religious women as a distinct component of its institutional agenda.

To the U.S., Russia and Other Members of the International Community with Particular Influence:

14. Warn the government that its recent policy shift, which relies disproportionately on security measures in dealing with Islamic radicalism, threatens to stimulate rather than undermine the appeal of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and has potential to generate a popular backlash.

15. Call upon the government to conduct a new investigation and new trials in the Nookat case that observe due process and exclude evidence obtained through torture.

To Domestic Civil Society:

16. Initiate specific projects to address daily concerns of religious women and seek partnerships on such initiatives with religious NGOs.

17. Combine any advocacy on gender equality with more regular community work and, whenever possible, service provision to enhance credibility.

Bishkek/Brussels, 3 September 2009

Aug 26, 2009

Egypt Pressures Muslim Group

Image by dlisbona via Flickr

By ASHRAF KHALIL

CAIRO -- Egypt has accelerated a crackdown against the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, amid uncertainty over succession plans by President Hosni Mubarak and ahead of next year's parliamentary polls.

Authorities last week detained 30 Brotherhood members in the city of Suez. Two days later, security forces arrested seven midlevel Brotherhood officials gathered for a meeting in Cairo. The next day, officials rounded up an additional 18 members northeast of the capital. Two detainees have since been released, but the 53 others rounded up remain in custody without charges.

The flurry of detentions appears to be wider ranging than previous crackdowns on the group, targeting activists and Brotherhood leaders seen as moderates and reform-minded. In July, two prominent young Brotherhood bloggers, Abdel Rahman Ayyash and Magdy Saad, were detained at Cairo's airport. They spent a week in custody before being released.

In June, Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, another prominent moderate and a member of the Brotherhood's ruling guidance council, was arrested. He remains behind bars, uncharged, on a rolling series of 15-day detention orders, the latest handed down Sunday.

Brotherhood officials and some analysts say the crackdown is the latest push by Mr. Mubarak to marginalize the group. "It has become a zero-sum game," said Khalil al-Anani, an expert on Islamist political movements. In a July article published in the Daily News Egypt newspaper, Mr. Anani wrote that the Mubarak regime seeks "to eradicate [the Brotherhood] completely from political life."

Officials aligned with the government suggest the crackdown has more to do with public criticism of Egypt's muted reaction to an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. The Brotherhood organized public demonstrations over the issue, in defiance of a government security lockdown.

In a January statement, the group's supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, challenged the regime to cut political and economic ties with Israel, and fully open the border with Gaza.

"The Brotherhood has been overstepping their role regarding foreign policy," said Abdel Moneim Said, head of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, and a member of the powerful Policies Secretariat in the ruling National Democratic Party. Now the government, he said, "wants to remind them of the limits of the game."

Efforts to obtain comment from government officials were unsuccessful. Egyptian officials typically speak of the Brotherhood as a threat to public order and often refuse to refer to it by name in interviews, instead calling it "the banned group."

The 81-year-old Mr. Mubarak has ruled Egypt for almost three decades. In June, he looked frail receiving U.S. President Barack Obama in Cairo, triggering a fresh bout of speculation about his health.

During his trip to Washington this month, however, he looked more vigorous, quieting health concerns. Still, Mr. Mubarak has never made a succession plan clear, refusing even to name a vice president.

The Brotherhood's influence here has fallen in recent years. Technically outlawed, it still fields Brotherhood-affiliated candidates in Egyptian elections. In 2005, those candidates won 20% of seats in parliament, which triggered roundups and detentions.

Egypt also amended its constitution to make it more difficult for independent candidates, like those affiliated with the Brotherhood, to run. The Brotherhood boycotted local council elections last year after the government rounded up more than 800 of its members, including dozens of prospective candidates.

Some reformist members say the new crackdown could backfire by radicalizing members. The group swore off violence in the 1970s.

Aug 17, 2009

Mubarak to Tell U.S. Israel Must Make Overture

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — In White House meetings beginning Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is expected to tell the Obama administration that Arab nations want peace, but are unwilling to abide Mr. Obama’s call to make good-faith concessions to Israel until Israel takes tangible steps like freezing settlements, an Egyptian official said.

As part of its effort to resuscitate the peace process, the Obama administration has asked Arab countries to make small but symbolic gestures to normalize relations with Israel, like allowing planes to fly through their airspace or improving cultural ties. The administration has also asked Israel to freeze all growth in settlements.

So far, neither side has agreed to Mr. Obama’s proposed first steps, and so the president is expected to look to Mr. Mubarak for help in breaking the latest Middle East deadlock, regional analysts said.

Mr. Mubarak flew from Cairo to Washington on Saturday for his first American visit in five years, accompanied by Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Gen. Omar Suleiman, chief of Egypt’s intelligence service. He was scheduled to meet Monday with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other officials, and is to meet with Mr. Obama on Tuesday.

Mr. Mubarak will tell Mr. Obama that from the Arab perspective, the best way to build confidence is to press Israel to freeze settlements, implement an economic plan to improve life in the West Bank, ease pressure on Gaza and agree to negotiate with all issues on the table, including the status of Jerusalem and refugees, said Ambassador Hossam Zaki, spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry.

“If they do this and engage immediately in negotiations with Abu Mazen, this is a recipe for openness and the Arabs will make the gestures needed,” Mr. Zaki said, referring to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. “But they don’t want to make this first step. They are demanding the Arabs make the first step. The Arabs should not make the first step. They are the occupying power. The occupation must end.”

In many ways, Mr. Mubarak’s visit to Washington signals a new beginning to an old script, as Arabs and Israelis argue which side should go first, Arab states revert to their old roles in the region, and the United States tempers its criticism of Egypt’s political and human rights record in return for Egypt’s regional cooperation.

During the Bush years, the region’s more radical forces, those against the peace process, had the upper hand, including Iran, Syria and Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that now controls the Gaza Strip.

But while the dynamics of the region are always fluid, the tone, at the moment, appears to favor those in the peace camp, regional analysts said. That shift has been attributed in part to Iran being distracted by the internal political tumult over its disputed presidential election, and Mr. Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world, especially his speech in Cairo, which has won the president, if not the United States, popular good will.

“The extremist forces now in the region are to some extent receding,” said Abdel Raouf al-Reedy, former Egyptian ambassador to the United States and chairman of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs. “If you notice for instance Hamas, Hamas’s discourse has begun to soften a bit. If you notice Syria, now Syria is actually cooperating with the United States.”

Mr. Mubarak’s visit also signals an effort to re-establish Egypt as the United States’ chief strategic Arab ally after years of tension and animosity between Washington and Cairo. Mr. Mubarak had refused to visit Washington in protest over President Bush’s Middle East policies, the invasion of Iraq and the public criticism of Egypt’s political and human rights record.

The Bush administration effectively sidelined Egypt, turning more to Saudi Arabia as a regional force to counter the growing influence of Iran and push forward a peace initiative that the Saudi king initially sponsored, political analysts here said. But today, the Saudis have stepped back.

Political analysts said that Mr. Obama was pressing Saudi Arabia to take the lead in offering so-called confidence-building measures to Israel, but the Saudis flatly refused, saying they had already produced a peace initiative endorsed by all 22 members of the Arab League.

“Saudi Arabia will not accept to take any steps before Israel shows that it wants peace to be its first choice,” said Anwar Majid Eshki, chairman of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, a research center in Jidda, Saudi Arabia. “President Mubarak will listen to the demands of the United States and then present the Arab point of view in this regard.”

Egypt remains weighed down by domestic problems, including high unemployment, widespread poverty and uncertainty over who will replace Mr. Mubarak, who is 81 and in his 28th year in office. But the White House appears to have calculated that Egypt, as the largest Arab nation with regional goals similar to Washington’s, remains the best place to turn.

“The United States has to have a regional power to coordinate its policies with and Egypt cannot be a regional power without the United States,” said Mr. Reedy, the former Egyptian ambassador. “So there is some kind of a complementary relationship.”

Mordechai Kedar, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and now a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, said that the meeting between Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Obama was important, but that their discussion should focus on what Israel insists is the primary problem in the region, Iran’s nuclear program and its regional ambitions.

“The issue is Iran and what seems to be an American reluctance to take care of this problem, which is much more meaningful for Mubarak than Israel,” he said.

Ambassador Zaki, of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said that the presidents would address many issues besides the peace process, including Iran, Sudan and extremism.

But on the peace process, he said, Egypt’s opinion is unshakable.

“We think this huge gap of confidence requires movement from the Israelis first,” he said. “Then the Arabs are willing to make gestures. This is the way Arabs see it.”

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.

Aug 15, 2009

Hostages Overcome Pirates on 2 Fishing Boats Off Somali Coast

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Using machetes and guns, the men fought a desperate battle to take control of two boats off the Somali coast. But this time, it was not pirates who attacked — it was Egyptian fishermen who had been held hostage for four months and who killed two of their captors and took others prisoner as they regained control of their two ships.

On Friday, the roughly three dozen newly liberated fishermen sailed toward home.

One pirate was in custody in Somalia after local fishermen found him near shore with machete wounds, the police there said. Another pirate, who said he escaped during the fight on Thursday, described the struggle in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

“They attacked us with machetes and other tools, seized some of our guns and then fought us,” said the pirate, who identified himself only by his nom de guerre, Miraa. “I could see two dead bodies of my colleagues lying on the ship. I do not know the fate of the nine others.”

The fishermen on both vessels coordinated their attack, and some of the pirates even cooperated with them, making it easier for the other gunmen to be overpowered, said Mohamed Alnahdi, the executive manager of Mashreq Marine Product, which had hired the fishing boats.

“The crew on both boats started their operations at one time. They were coordinating among themselves,” he said in a telephone interview from Bossaso, a Somali town where he spent more than a month trying to negotiate the fishermen’s release.

Mr. Alnahdi, whose company is based in Yemen, said the ransom talks had deadlocked on Thursday, with him offering $200,000 but the pirates demanding $1.5 million.

After the escape, the fishing boats, the Ahmed Samara and the Momtaz, sailed for Yemen, where the crews were to hand over the captured pirates. The men will then fly home to Egypt, said Mohammad Nasr, owner of the Ahmed Samara.

The struggle took place off the coastal town of Las Qorey along the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest waterways. It is infested with Somali pirates.

Pirate attacks worldwide more than doubled in the first half of 2009 as they surged in the Gulf of Aden and the east coast of Somalia, which together accounted for 130 of the cases, according to an international maritime watchdog.

Naval patrols by ships from the United States, European nations, China, Russia and India have failed to halt the attacks.

The ending to the fishermen’s four-month ordeal was unusual, but it was not the first time a crew fought back.

In April, an American crew fought off Somali pirates until the captain, Richard Phillips, offered himself as a hostage in a bid to save their lives.

He was held hostage in a lifeboat for five days and was freed after United States Navy snipers killed three of his captors.

Somalia has not had an effective government since the 1991 overthrow of a dictatorship plunged the country into chaos. Pirates have operated freely around Somalia’s 1,900-mile coastline.

Legislation before Congress would require the Defense Department to put armed teams on ships flying the United States flag that are passing through high-risk waters, specifically around the Horn of Africa.