Posts Tagged ‘demonstrations’

Occupy Wall Street: An Overview

Now that they’re growing, spreading and getting some more serious attention, here’s a couple of news articles and blog posts that I thought were worthwhile to get some insight into how the Occupy Wall Street movement developed, what the background is, and what they seem to express. There’s also some stuff that compares them to the Tea Party (as a progressive variant, of course), and people speculating at how this might help Obama and the Democratic Party. In short, it provides some perspectives that might be interesting or useful.

Jonathan Chait at NY Mag:

Tags: Adbusters, capitalism, corporatism, democracy, demonstrations, economy, Ezra Klein, financial capitalism, financial crisis, financial markets, Forbes, Joan Walsh, Jonathan Chait, lobbying, movement, neoliberalism, New York City, Obama, Occupy Wall Street, protests, Salon, unemployment, unions, Wall Street, Washington Post, We are the 99 percent, youth unemployment
Category politics, U.S. politics |

Jon Stewart On Media Coverage Of Tea Party Vs. Occupy Wall Street

Check out this fantastic analysis of right-wing responses to the Occupy Wall Street movement, as compared to their coverage of the Tea Party movement. 

The Daily Show at its best, seriously.

Tags: corporations, demonstrations, financial crisis, financial sector, Fox News, Jon Stewart, Occupy Wall Street, protests, Tea Party movement, The Daily Show, Wall Street
Category random stuff |

Occupy Wall Street

Here in the Netherlands (the country that we write this blog out of), people may be largely oblivious to it, as a dictatorship may take over here tomorrow and all Dutch people will still sit outside on terraces enjoying their drinks. But in the rest of the world, Western and non-Western, mass demonstrations have for months been at the order of the day. These demonstrations -- whether it is in Egypt or Madrid -- are primarily attended by the young. This is Generation F*cked -- a generation already suffering from mass unemployment, that is now also hit by the financial crisis.

It is a grave injustice that, for instance in Europe, massive budget cuts are made and the welfare state is pretty much done away with, to save a capitalist financial system that was wreckaged by a few corporate elites. I’m no socialist, but you can’t ignore the structural wrongness of the current neoliberal political-economic structure that has been in the making for thirty years and now seems to be at its apex. Why, really, should the public at large suffer to save free-for-all financial capitalism? There is something rather wrong with that.

It is therefore heartwarming to see that throughout the Western world, inspired by the Arab Spring, young people have taken to street to semi-permanently occupy public spaces and form something of an alternative, proto-democratic movement. The main examples are the acampadas in Madrid and Barcelona, of course, inspired by Tahrir Square. People here are camping out, debating, discussing, having fun, united by a shared loss of trust in the system. And since two weeks, the global heart of financial capitalism, Wall Street, is also subject to a similar youth movement: that of Occupy Wall Street.

The funny thing is that it’s almost completely being ignored by most established media. Of newspapers, only The Guardian pays serious attention to it. While the goals of the movement aren’t really clear, everybody at least wants to show signs of protest to the system that through sheer irresponsibility and recklessness is causing continuing mass suffering. Wanna know you manages your pension money? Who finances, in the US, every politician that wants to get elected? Who through malpractice has brought the entire Western economy to a halt? Occupy Wall Street.

So here’s how to inform yourself on the movement, that is gathering more crowds everyday (I read this morning that the unions are planning to join in) and keeps demonstrating. These are not only young people, by the way. Check out:

OCCUPYWALST.org, the main site of the movement

nycga.net/

Occupy Wall Street, the Facebook event site

Reddit, the Reddit page

Twitter, the Twitter page

Occupy Together.org

Adbusters on the Occupy Wall Street movement

Check out The Guardian‘s live blog. Glenn Greenwald -- neither, as far I know, a utopian, “leftist” or radical but like many people in the wake of the financial crisis simply concerned with the structural injustice of the current financial system, and happy that at least someone is sending a message - has the following commentary:

Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power -- in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions — is destroying financial security for everyone else?  Beyond that, criticizing protesters for the prominence of police brutality stories is pure victim-blaming (and, independently, having police brutality highlighted is its own benefit).

And before that, about Wall Street’s hold on American (in this case, Democratic) politics:

The very idea that one can effectively battle Wall Street’s corruption and control by working for the Democratic Party is absurd on its face: Wall Street’s favorite candidate in 2008 was Barack Obama, whose administration — led by a Wall Street White House Chief of Staff and Wall-Street-subservient Treasury Secretary and filled to the brim with Goldman Sachs officials — is now working hard to protect bankers from meaningful accountability (and though he’s behind Wall Street’s own Mitt Romney in the Wall Street cash sweepstakes this year, Obama is still doing well); one of Wall Street’s most faithful servants is Chuck Schumer, the money man of the Democratic Party; and the second-ranking Senate Democrat acknowledged — when Democrats controlled the Congress — that the owners of Congress are bankers.  There are individuals who impressively rail against the crony capitalism and corporatism that sustains Wall Street’s power, but they’re no match for the party apparatus that remains fully owned and controlled by it.

Tags: Adbusters, bankers, banks, Barcelona, Cairo, capitalism, democracy, demonstrations, economics, economy, Facebook, financial capitalism, financial crisis, financial markets, Madrid, mass unemployment, neoliberalism, New York City, Occupy Wall Street, protests, Spain, Tahrir Square, The Guardian, the public, Twitter, unemployment, Wall Street, youth movement, youth unemployment
Category politics |

Arab Spring Threatened By Ethnic And Religious Divisions

Recently I’ve become pretty disappointed with the New York Times, and this has all to do with their response to the Bin Laden killing. Their reporting was jingoistic, even nationalistic, up to the point of being an uncritical cheering of actions of a president clearly violating international and domestic law. When such things happen, one’s reminded that the NYT is basically nothing but an establishment newspaper that will never really be a truly critical government watchdog (and think about their refusal to call the Bush torture methods what they are: torture).

That aside, however, sometimes they have articles that remind why despite of that the NYT, in terms of the technical craft of journalism, is still undisputedly the best newspaper in the world. Maybe not the most critical, but at least the one with the ability to write huge pieces full of insight and a broad scope, sometimes even being almost literary in style.

The piece below, about the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolutions, is such an article. It covers the countries that have recently witnessed revolutions or failed attempts at making them, and how the legacy of that is now threatened by internal disputes based on old ethnic and religious divisions. It’s a very sad story actually, about the promise of a new national identity and citizenship versus ancient hatreds, and one can only hope that the great civic protests of 2011 will not have been in vain.

NYT:

The revolutions and revolts in the Arab world, playing out over just a few months across two continents, have proved so inspirational to so many because they offer a new sense of national identity built on the idea of citizenship.

But in the past weeks, the specter of divisions — religion in Egypt, fundamentalism in Tunisia, sect in Syria and Bahrain, clan in Libya — has threatened uprisings that once seemed to promise to resolve questions that have vexed the Arab world since the colonialism era.

From the fetid alleys of Imbaba, the Cairo neighborhood where Muslims and Christians have fought street battles, to the Syrian countryside, where a particularly deadly crackdown has raised fears of sectarian score-settling, the question of identity may help determine whether the Arab Spring flowers or withers. Can the revolts forge alternative ways to cope with the Arab world’s variety of clans, sects, ethnicities and religions?

The old examples have been largely of failure: the rule of strongmen in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Yemen; a fragile equilibrium of fractious communities in Lebanon and Iraq; the repressive paternalism of the Persian Gulf, where oil revenues are used to buy loyalty.

“I think the revolutions in a way, in a distant way, are hoping to retrieve” this sense of national identity, said Sadiq al-Azm, a prominent Syrian intellectual living in Beirut.

“The costs otherwise would be disintegration, strife and civil war,” Mr. Azm said. “And this was very clear in Iraq.”

In an arc of revolts and revolution, that idea of a broader citizenship is being tested as the enforced silence of repression gives way to the cacophony of diversity. Security and stability were the justification that strongmen in the Arab world offered for repression, often with the sanction of the United States; the essence of the protests in the Arab Spring is that people can imagine an alternative.

But even activists admit that the region so far has no model that enshrines diversity and tolerance without breaking down along more divisive identities.

In Tunisia, a relatively homogenous country with a well-educated population, fault lines have emerged between the secular-minded coasts and the more religious and traditional inland.

The tensions shook the nascent revolution there this month when a former interim interior minister, Farhat Rajhi, suggested in an online interview that the coastal elite, long dominant in the government, would never accept an electoral victory by Tunisia’s Islamist party, Ennahda, which draws most of its support inland.

“Politics was in the hands of the people of the coast since the start of Tunisia,” Mr. Rajhi said. “If the situation is reversed now, they are not ready to give up ruling.” He warned that Tunisian officials from the old government were preparing a military coup if the Islamists won elections in July. “If Ennahda rules, there will be a military regime.”

In response, protesters poured back out into the streets of Tunis for four days of demonstrations calling for a new revolution. The police beat them back with batons and tear gas, arrested more than 200 protesters and imposed a curfew on the city.

In Cairo, the sense of national identity that surged at the moment of revolution — when hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths celebrated in Tahrir Square with chants of “Hold your head high, you are an Egyptian”— has given way to a week of religious violence pitting the Coptic Christian minority against their Muslim neighbors, reflecting long-smoldering tensions that an authoritarian state may have muted, or let fester.

At a rally this month in Tahrir Square to call for unity, Coptic Christians were conspicuously absent, thousands of them gathering nearby for a rally of their own. And even among some Muslims at the unity rally, suspicions were pronounced.

“As Muslims, our sheiks are always telling us to be good to Christians, but we don’t think that is happening on the other side,” said Ibrahim Sakr, 56, a chemistry professor, who asserted that Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population, still consider themselves “the original” Egyptians because their presence predates Islam.

In Libya, supporters of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi acknowledge that his government banks on fears of clan rivalries and possible partition to stay in power in a country with deep regional differences.

Officials say that the large extended clans of the west that contribute most of the soldiers to Colonel Qaddafi’s forces will never accept any revolution arising from the east, no matter what promises the rebels make about universal citizenship in a democratic Libya with its capital still in the western city of Tripoli.

The rebels say the revolution can forge a new identity.

“Qaddafi looks at Libya as west and east and north and south,” said Jadella Shalwee, a Libyan from Tobruk who visited Tahrir Square last weekend in a pilgrimage of sorts. “But this revolt has canceled all that. This is about a new beginning,” he said, contending that Colonel Qaddafi’s only supporters were “his cousins and his family.”

“Fear” is what Gamal Abdel Gawad, the director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, called it — the way that autocrats win support because people “are even more scared of their fellow citizens.”

Nowhere is that perhaps truer than in Syria, with a sweeping revolt against four decades of rule by one family and a worsening of tensions among a Sunni Muslim majority and minorities of Christians and heterodox Muslims, the Alawites.

Mohsen, a young Alawite in Syria, recounted a slogan that he believes, rightly or not, was chanted at some of the protests there: “Christians to Beirut and the Alawites to the coffin.”

“Every week that passes,” he lamented, speaking by telephone from Damascus, the Syrian capital, “the worse the sectarian feelings get.”

The example of Iraq comes up often in conversations in Damascus, as does the civil war in Lebanon. The departure of Jews, who once formed a vibrant community in Syria, remains part of the collective memory, illustrating the tenuousness of diversity. Syria’s ostensibly secular government, having always relied on Alawite strength, denounces the prospect of sectarian differences while, its critics say, fanning the flames. The oft-voiced formula is, by now, familiar: after us, the deluge.

“My Alawite friends want me to support the regime, and they feel if it’s gone, our community will be finished,” said Mohsen, the young Alawite in Damascus, who asked that only his first name be used because he feared reprisal. “My Sunni friends want me to be against the regime, but I feel conflicted. We want freedom, but freedom with stability and security.”

That he used the mantra of years of Arab authoritarianism suggested that people still, in the words of one human rights activist, remain “hostage to the lack of possibilities” in states that, with few exceptions, have failed to come up with a sense of self that transcends the many divides.

“This started becoming a self-fulfilling myth,” said Mr. Azm, the Syrian intellectual.

“It was either our martial law or the martial law of the Islamists,” he added. “The third option was to divide the country into ethnicities, sects and so on.”

Despite a wave of repression, crackdown and civil war, hope and optimism still pervade the region, even in places like Syria, the setting of one of the most withering waves of violence. There, residents often speak of a wall of fear crumbling. Across the Arab world, there is a renewed sense of a collective destiny that echoes the headiest days of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and ’60s and perhaps even transcends it.

President Obama, in his speech on Thursday about the changes in the Arab world, spoke directly to that feeling. “Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else. But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore.”

But no less pronounced are the old fears of zero-sum power, where one side wins and the other inevitably loses. From a Coptic Christian in Cairo to an Alawite farmer in Syria, discussions about the future are posed in terms of survival. Differences in Lebanon, a country that celebrates and laments the diversity of its 18 religious communities, are so pronounced that even soccer teams have a sectarian affiliation.

In Beirut, wrecked by a war over the country’s identity and so far sheltered from the gusts of change, activists have staged a small sit-in for two months to call for something different, in a plea that resonates across the Arab world.

The Square of Change, the protesters there have nicknamed it, and their demand is blunt: Citizenship that unites, not divides.

“We are not ‘we’ yet,” complained Tony Daoud, one of the activists. “What do we mean when we say ‘we’? ‘We’ as what? As a religion, as a sect, as human beings?”

Tags: Arab Spring, Beirut, Cairo, Christianity, citizenship, Coptics, Damascus, demonstrations, division, Egypt, ethnicity, Gadaffi, identity, Islam, Jews, Libanon, Libya, Middle East, muslims, North Africa, particularism, protest, religion, revolution, Syria, Tripoli, violence
Category politics |

Ai Weiwei, China’s Best-Known Artist, Missing Amid Crackdown On Dissidents

Ai Weiwei, China’s best-known artist, is rapidly becoming the symbol of the victims of the increasing level of repression the Chinese government is enacting on its own citizens. Afraid of a Jasmin Revolution at home in the wake of the Arab uprisings, Chinese dissidents, activists and human rights advocates are being intimated, ‘disappearing’ or rounded up in increasing numbers.

The fact that Ai Weiwei, who is well-known, has a prominent poet father and co-designed the Olympic stadium is missing now too is a sign that, as far as the government is concerned, the gloves are off.

Check out The Guardian (this is from two days ago):

Ai Weiwei, China‘s best-known artist, remains missing more than a day after he was detained. Police have confiscated dozens of items from his studio.

Officers released his wife and several assistants late last night, following questioning, but Ai and a friend remain uncontactable. Assistants said that police removed more than 30 computers and hard drives from his studio and home in north Beijing on Sunday, as well as notebooks and documents. They also searched at least two more properties connected to the artist.

The scope of the police operation, and the fact that Ai was detained at Beijing airport on Sunday morning – not turned away from his flight, as had happened before – has increased the concern of friends. Officials had also visited his studio three times in the week before his detention.

“There is no news of him so far,” his wife, Lu Qing, told the Associated Press.

“They asked me about Ai Weiwei’s work and the articles he posted online … I told them that everything that Ai did was very public, and if they wanted to know his opinions and work they could just look at the internet.”

She said police gave no indication of her husband’s whereabouts or why he was being held. She added that his mother, who is in her 80s, was very anxious about her son’s fate.

Beijing police told the Guardian they knew nothing of Ai or the other missing man, Wen Tao. An airport police spokesman said he had no obligation to give out information.

Although the 53-year-old artist has repeatedly clashed with authorities owing to his outspoken criticism of the government, he was thought to enjoy greater latitude than most thanks to his father’s status as a revered poet and his own high international profile. He also helped to design the Olympic Bird’s Nest stadium.

Ai created last year’s Sunflower Seeds installation at the Tate Modern turbine hall in London. His exhibition at the Lisson Gallery, also in London, is due to open next month, shortly after his recreation of a Chinese zodiac sculpture is unveiled at the courtyard in Somerset House.

In an interview last year, asked about the possibility of retribution from the authorities, he told the Guardian: “I have to deal with it, but not to prepare for it, because it is a kind of stupidity. If you prepare for it too much, you become a part of it.”

His detention comes amid a widespread crackdown on activists and dissidents in China, which has seen more than 20 people criminally detained, three formally arrested for incitement to subversion and a dozen go missing.

“It is getting worse and worse. Ai Weiwei is a very influential figure … [if] even people like him are taken away, it gives a very bad sign to other human rights defenders and netizens [socially concerned internet users],” said Patrick Poon, executive secretary of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group.

Five human rights lawyers are among those missing since February and Poon said it had now emerged that another one, Liu Zhengqing, was taken away on 24 March.

Liu had been travelling for several weeks and friends lost contact with him when he returned to his home in Guangzhou. Poon said it was unclear why Liu was held, but that it might be related to his agreement to represent one of the lawyers who had already gone missing.

Tags: activists, Ai Weiwei, Arab Spring, China, demonstrations, dissidents, human rights, Jasmin Revolution, repression
Category politics |

Who Are The Libyan Rebels?

Although I support the Libyan military intervention on the grounds that it averted humanitarian disaster, is limited, is international, and was UN-instigated, there are two huge elephants in the room. The first is the unclear goal of the mission (for more on that, see here). The second is that we don’t even know who the Libyan rebels are exactly, and what they want…

That’s actually a pretty big problem. In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, it was clear to everyone with eyes to see that the protesters consisted of modern, peaceful, secular people from all sections of the population, who wanted to exercise their political rights (even though conservatives immediately painted them as fundamentalists). In Libya, though, demonstrations have turned into something that’s more like a civil war between two parties, of one of which relatively little is known. Who are the people taking over when Ghadafi’s gone?

The NYT addresses this problem. Although the article doesn’t really answer the question, a picture of a society that is way different from its neighbours emerges. While the rebel council makes rhetorical commitments to democracy and the rule of law, tribal strife also seems to play a big role in their struggle against Ghadafi. And they don’t always necessarily behave nicely either.

NYT:

The question has hovered over the Libyan uprising from the moment the first tank commander defected to join his cousins protesting in the streets of Benghazi: Is the battle for Libya the clash of a brutal dictator against a democratic opposition, or is it fundamentally a tribal civil war?

The answer could determine the course of both the Libyan uprising and the results of the Western intervention. In the West’s preferred chain of events, airstrikes enable the rebels to unite with the currently passive residents of the western region around Tripoli, under the banner of an essentially democratic revolution that topples Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

He, however, has predicted the opposite: that the revolt is a tribal war of eastern Libya against the west that ends in either his triumph or a prolonged period of chaos.

“It is a very important question that is terribly near impossible to answer,” said Paul Sullivan, a political scientist at Georgetown University who has studied Libya. “It could be a very big surprise when Qaddafi leaves and we find out who we are really dealing with.”

The behavior of the fledgling rebel government in Benghazi so far offers few clues to the rebels’ true nature. Their governing council is composed of secular-minded professionals — lawyers, academics, businesspeople — who talk about democracy, transparency, human rights and the rule of law. But their commitment to those principles is just now being tested as they confront the specter of potential Qaddafi spies in their midst, either with rough tribal justice or a more measured legal process.

Like the Qaddafi government, the operation around the rebel council is rife with family ties. And like the chiefs of the Libyan state news media, the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.

Read more (the second part of the article kinda nuances the importance of tribal culture to contemporary Libyan society, which today is predominantly urban and also educated).

Matthew Yglesias comments:

Completely leaving the question of US military intervention aside, back when the Libyan Revolution first turned violent I turned pessimistic about its prospects. You can understand why people take up arms against violent repressive regimes. But the fact of the matter is that armed conflict is generally a poor basis on which to establish a liberal democratic political order. Successful political transitions to democracy generally take place through exercises of non-violent “people power” as in the American South, the Philippines, Chile, Central Europe in 1989, and the general template followed in Tunisia and Egypt. Once a conflict is settled by violence and you’re in a dynamic where political power grows from the barrel of a gun, then you’ve either laid the groundwork for further civil conflict or a new authoritarianism under new bosses.

Tags: Benghazi, Civil War, demonstrations, Gadaffi, Libya, military intervention, North Africa, rebel council, rebels, The New York Times, tribes
Category politics |

What’s Happening In Libya? Ctd.

(Colonel Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Yemeni president Saleh in for them better days)-

- For reports on the situation in Libya on March 2, go here -

- Update: Al Jazeera’s liveblog of Wednesday February 23th: here. Al Jazeera’s liveblog of Thursday February 24th: here.

- Update: Canada’s The Globe and Mail has put together a solid infographic summarizing the sources of some of the influence Gaddafi enjoys in other parts of Africa:

- Update: A group calling itself with Libya Outreach Group is calling on the international community to undertake a series of concrete steps to show solidarity with the Libyan people in the face of what they are calling “war crimes against Libya”. They “ask all nations to stand with the Libyan people by”:

1. Establishing a no-fly zone to prevent Gaddafi from using the air-force against the Libyan people.

2. Calling on the United Nations Security Council to take decisive action and invoke Chapter 7 to stop the massacre of innocent civilians, and deployment of International Peace-keeping troops.

3. Facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and relief supplies such as medicine, blood, food, and other basic provisions to the people of Libya.

4. Freezing the international assets of the Gaddafi family as well as senior officials.

5. Indicting Gaddafi for crimes against humanity and trying him in the International Criminal Court.

6. The immediate deployment of U.N. troops to confirm reports of crimes against humanity.

Will the western world respond? While the Europe and the US have been much quicker to condemn Gaddafi’s murderous ways, they have been reticent to move beyond that, falling far short of any action under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Meanwhile, reports of violence and killings continue.

- Update: Gaddafi is now speeching (watch on Al Jazeera). Like many dictators, he is known for his long speeches, so it could take a while. Among a lot of jibberish, he has said “I will die as a martyr”.

In addition to the once again striking setup of this speech – a brownish gold robe, a model airplane above his head, and a crumbled bathroom-like setting – what’s notable are the long, seemingly nervous silences as he’s gathering for words. The great dictator Gaddafi looks pretty stricken to me.

- Update: Lol, a technical fault, and some employee comes in! What a weird, rambling speech.

- Update: Ok, that was it. That stuff about drugged youth inciting protests seems like a bit of projection on the part of Gadaffi to me. Compared to this guy, Mubarak was an example of sobriety.

- Update: Ben Wedeman, the only foreign journalist in Libya, reports the eastern part of the country is in the hands of the opposition. Parts of the army have defected to the opposition and government troops have retreated, burning ammunition depots on their way.

- Update: Al Jazeera reports a Libyan naval ship has been spotted on the coast of Malta. Italian and Malta marine are monitoring the ship. No information on what kind of ship it is or what it’s doing on the coast of Malta.

- Update: Apparently Gaddafi is soon going to address the people of Libya again. Watch Al Jazeera’s livestream. We will take wagers in the comments here as to 1) is it shorter or longer than the 15 second appearance of last night; and, 2) what video will today’s appearance be most easily mashed up with?

- Update: Libya’s ambassador to the United States Ali Aujali has defected from what he calls a ‘dictatorship regime’ among what Al Jazeera are now calling ‘en mass defections’ of Libyan foreign diplomats. In addition to the US, diplomats have Libyan diplomats have resigned from posts in the United Nations, the Arab League, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Poland, India and Bangladesh and reportedly other countries. Al Jazeera has complied some of their statements about their resignations here. Some of the best include the Ambassador to Malaysia stating plainly: ”We are not loyal to him, we are loyal to the Libyan people”. The Ambassador to Indonesia has also weighed in forcefully: ”Soldiers are killing unarmed civilians mercilessly. Using heavy weaponry, fighter jets and mercenaries against its own people. It is not acceptable. I have enough of it. I don’t tolerate it anymore.” They worth a look to see just how strongly these close allies of the regime have turned against, including calling for Gaddafi’s prosecution.

- Update: A first report from the Egyptian border with Libya by Al Jazeera journalist Jamal Eshayyal.

- Update: Ben Wedeman from CNN is the first Western journalist to cross the border from Egypt to enter Libya. Follow his tweets here.

The scene on the Libyan side of the border was jarring. Men – and teenage boys – with clubs, pistols and machine guns were trying to establish a modicum of order.

Hundreds of Egyptian workers were trying to get out, their meager possessions – bags, blankets, odds and ends – piled high on top of minibuses.

Egyptian border officials told us that 15,000 people had crossed from Libya on Monday alone.

“Welcome to free Libya,” said one of the armed young men now controlling the border.

- Update: Check out this mash-up of Rihanna and Gadaffi, who, by the way, in that clip according to Stephen Colbert looked like a ‘worn out Lionel Richie imitator’.

- Update: An interesting and worrisome analysis of the background situation in Libya by Andrew Solomon of The New Yorker:

The Qaddafi regime has made several strategic errors since (…) 2006. The most obvious has been the retreat from Seif’s plans for reform. (…)

A second mistake has been the lack of attention to the poverty of the population. (…)

A third mistake has been to ignore the needs of the young. When a third of the population is under fifteen and a further large proportion is under twenty-five, the young become central to coherent governance. (…)

It is striking that the protests began in the eastern part of Libya. The area around Benghazi has always been the one least under Qaddafi’s thumb, and most of his problems have originated there. (…)

A post-Qaddafi Libya could easily be roiled in internal battles, ultimately dividing into several smaller countries, each dominated by local tribes. (…) Modern Libya is an artificial construct, a remnant of colonialism. The glue holding it together is failing, and the warnings of chaos are real. (…)

We all understand that there is strong opposition to Qaddafi, but it’s not clear whether there is any internal coherence to that opposition. (…) Libya does not have any real opposition leaders; it hardly has any internal opposition as we generally define the word. If these protests are successful, and if Qaddafi flees, as there are already rumors he has, then who will take over? Libya has another important difference from Egypt: it’s a tiny country, with a population of just over six million. Even Tunisia has a population of over ten million. All the educated and competent people in Libya know one another, and most of them have worked in one way or another with the Qaddafi regime. If Qaddafi goes, there are not enough trained bureaucrats or statesmen to construct a new Libyan government that is not an extension of the old one, and this fact alone could propel Libya back into some form of tribalism.

- Original post: After a Monday of protests and an extreme crackdown by Colonel Gaddafi employing fighter jets, marine vessels and armed thugs, bordering on genocide, the Libyan uprising continues today. Diplomats and senior officials have defected, army officers as well, and important tribes have joined the protests. Check yesterday’s liveblog here. Today, we’ll continue to cover events as time allows it by providing links and posting remarkable happenings here.

For the best, up to date coverage, however, check the following links:

Liveblog Al Jazeera here, livestream Al Jazeera here, Al Arabiya here

Live/protest blog Libya February 17th here, Twitter hashtag #feb17 here

Liveblog The Guardian here, livestream BBC here, CNN here

Andrew Sullivan here, Enduring America here

The NYT reports that the protests – which could perhaps now better be called civil strife – are continuing today.

Libya appeared to slip further from the grip of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Tuesday, as opposition forces in eastern Libya moved to consolidate control of the region, arming themselves with weapons taken from security warehouses, and fighting continued in Tripoli, witnesses said.

In Tripoli, the capital, the government was striking back at protesters challenging Colonel Qaddafi’s 40-year rule. Security forces and militiamen backed by helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the city overnight, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.

Fighting was heavy at times on Monday night, witnesses said, and the streets were thick with special forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi fighting alongside mercenaries. Roving the streets in trucks, they shot freely as planes dropped what witnesses described as “small bombs” and helicopters fired on protesters.

Hundreds of Qaddafi supporters took over the central Green Square in the capital after truckloads of militiamen arrived and opened fire on protesters, scattering them. Residents said they now feared to leave their houses.

(…)

With pro-government security forces either absent or defecting to join the opposition in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and the center of the week-long rebellion, citizens armed with guns organized into informal security committees, a resident reached by telephone said. Supermarkets and warehouses were open, as were local hospitals, caring for hundreds of people wounded during the government crackdown of the weekend, before defections to the people from the military brought a lull in the violence.

On Libya February 17, pics of ravage in Tripoli.

Tags: Al Jazeera, Benghazi, CNN, demonstrations, Gaddafi, Libya, protests, tribes, Tripoli
Category politics |

The Women Of The Revolution

A Facebook album full of pictures, continuing a meme that has been present in revolutionary upheaval ever since Eugène Delacroix eternalized it.

Tags: Cairo, demonstrations, Egypt, Facebook, Mubarak, protests, revolution, women
Category art / photography, politics |

Hosni's Threats, Lies And Other BS (Presented In The Third Person)

Hi folks, I have now returned to and am settling into the Canadian tundra after spending nearly the last 10 months in a variety of locales around the world, including 40 days traveling through the Middle East (UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey) in December and January. The dramatic events that have ripped through Lebanon and Egypt since I have left that part of the world have gripped mine, like most everyone else’s attention. I will have more to say on some of the stuff I saw, especially in relation to current events but this is just a quick post following up on Adriejan’s earlier post noting that Mubarak’s announcement that he will not run again. The Guardian now has the full text of Mubarak’s speech online here.

I was shocked to hear this speech described by at least on pundit (on Al Jazeera English) as clever. My sense is that all he has done with this speech is pour gas on the fire by insulting and demonizing protestors and making no firm commitments on reform or to rescind internet, mobile or television restrictions. His commitment to not run again, after his chat with Obama, is a joke. Demonstrators have been clear all along they want him gone, and they want him gone now. His staying, even temporarily has never been negotiable with the hundreds of thousands of people in the streets across the country. And his commitment to having Parliament “discuss amending article 76 and 77 of the constitution” amounts to having his own cronies control the reform agenda. Yeah that is what the people wanted. And that is not to even mention the outright lies, like pointing the fingers at the protestors for looting when there is clear evidence emerging that his own thugs are responsible.

Does he really think that simultaneously treating the people like idiots at this point, digging in his heels and elevating the situation through fear mongering and dangerous rhetoric, like declaring “on this land I will die”, is a good idea? At this point I would say that he is remarkably lucky to be the beneficiary of the remarkable amount of restraint and poise exercised the impressive Egyptian revolutionaries that have taken to the streets.

I really do not think I have heard a speech so out of touch with the context in which it was delivered. The full text follows with some emphasis added:

“I talk to you during critical times that are testing Egypt and its people which could sweep them into the unknown. The country is passing through difficult times and tough experiences which began with noble youths and citizens who practise their rights to peaceful demonstrations and protests, expressing their concerns and aspirations but they were quickly exploited by those who sought to spread chaos and violence, confrontation and to violate the constitutional legitimacy and to attack it.

Those protests were transformed from a noble and civilised phenomenon of practising freedom of expression to unfortunate clashes, mobilised and controlled by political forces that wanted to escalate and worsen the situation. They targeted the nation’s security and stability through acts of provocation theft and looting and setting fires and blocking roads and attacking vital installations and public and private properties and storming some diplomatic missions.

We are living together painful days and the most painful thing is the fear that affected the huge majority of Egyptians and caused concern and anxiety over what tomorrow could bring them and their families and the future of their country.

The events of the last few days require us all as a people and as a leadership to chose between chaos and stability and to set in front of us new circumstances and a new Egyptian reality which our people and armed forces must work with wisely and in the interest of Egypt and its citizens.

Dear brothers and citizens, I took the initiative of forming a new government with new priorities and duties that respond to the demand of our youth and their mission. I entrusted the vice president with the task of holding dialogue with all the political forces and factions about all the issues that have been raised concerning political and democratic reform and the constitutional and legislative amendments required to realise these legitimate demands and to restore law and order but there are some political forces who have refused this call to dialogue, sticking to their particular agendas without concern for the current delicate circumstances of Egypt and its people.

In light of this refusal to the call for dialogue and this is a call which remains standing, I direct my speech today directly to the people, its Muslims and Christians, old and young, peasants and workers, and all Egyptian men and women in the countryside and city over the whole country.

I have never, ever been seeking power and the people know the difficult circumstances that I shouldered my responsibility and what I offered this country in war and peace, just as I am a man from the armed forces and it is not in my nature to betray the trust or give up my responsibilities and duties.

My primary responsibility now is security and independence of the nation to ensure a peaceful transfer of power in circumstances that protect Egypt and the Egyptians and allow handing over responsibility to whoever the people choose in the coming presidential election.

I say in all honesty and regardless of the current situation that I did not intend to nominate myself for a new presidential term. I have spent enough years of my life in the service of Egypt and its people.

I am now absolutely determined to finish my work for the nation in a way that ensures handing over its safe-keeping and banner … preserving its legitimacy and respecting the constitution.

I will work in the remaining months of my term to take the steps to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

According to my constitutional powers, I call on parliament in both its houses to discuss amending article 76 and 77 of the constitution concerning the conditions on running for presidency of the republic and it sets specific a period for the presidential term. In order for the current parliament in both houses to be able to discuss these constitutional amendments and the legislative amendments linked to it for laws that complement the constitution and to ensure the participation of all the political forces in these discussions, I demand parliament to adhere to the word of the judiciary and its verdicts concerning the latest cases which have been legally challenged.

I will entrust the new government to perform in ways that will achieve the legitimate rights of the people and that its performance should express the people and their aspirations of political, social and economic reform and to allow job opportunities and combating poverty, realising social justice.

In this context, I charge the police apparatus to carry out its duty in serving the people, protecting the citizens with integrity and honour with complete respect for their rights, freedom and dignity.

I also demand the judicial and supervisory authorities to take immediately the necessary measures to continue pursuing outlaws and to investigate those who caused the security disarray and those who undertook acts of theft, looting and setting fires and terrorising citizens.

This is my pledge to the people during the last remaining months of my current term:

I ask God to help me to honour this pledge to complete my vocation to Egypt and its people in what satisfies God, the nation and its people.

Dear citizens, Egypt will emerge from these current circumstances stronger, more confident and unified and stable. And our people will emerge with more awareness of how to achieve reconciliation and be more determined not to undermine its future and destiny.

Hosni Mubarak who speaks to you today is proud of the long years he spent in the service of Egypt and its people. This dear nation is my country, it is the country of all Egyptians, here I have lived and fought for its sake and I defended its land, its sovereignty and interests and on this land I will die and history will judge me and others for our merits and faults.

The nation remains. Visitors come and go but ancient Egypt will remain eternal, its banner and safekeeping will pass from one generation to the next. It is up to us to ensure this in pride and dignity.”

Unbelievable.

Tags: Cairo, demonstrations, Egypt, Mubarak, protests, revolution, Tahrir Square
Category politics |

BREAKING: Mubarak Not Running For Re-Election

Just announced via Al Jazeera.

But, he’ll only step down in September. That will probably not be enough for the protesters.

- Update: Apparently the Tahrir crowds are chanting ‘Leave, leave, leave!’

Follow Andrew Sullivan’s excellent liveblog here. Al Jazeera live-feed here.

Tags: Al Jazeera, Cairo, demonstrations, Egypt, Mubarak, protests, revolution, Tahrir Square
Category politics |

'A Million March In Cairo'

Multiple sources have just confirmed that Tahrir, or Liberation Square, in Cairo has been filled with a million protesters, like demonstrators had hoped. So the genie definitely is out of the bottle, and this seems to be the culmination of the events of the past six days.

The military leadership has stated that it will not fire on protesters; the new vice president Omar Suleiman has indicated that he wants to talk about constitutional reforms; but Mubarak shows no signs of giving up (even though Turkey and the US seem to be giving up on him, and in Jordan King Abdullah has dismissed his government). Mohamed Al Baradei, meanwhile, is being pitched by Western media as a figurehead of the opposition, but the question is to which extent this conforms to street reality. And the question is: how does the Muslim Brotherhood fit into this?

Check the NYT here. CNN here.

Liveblog of The Guardian here.

Liveblog of Al Jazeera here.

Liveblog of The Huffington Post here.

Andrew Sullivan here.

A video that is apparently from Tahrir Square right now, posted by Al Jazeera:

- Update: There seems to be a ‘festival atmosphere‘ at Tahrir Square. Well, it looks like Glastonbury to me down there.

Tags: Africa, Cairo, demonstrations, Egypt, Middle East, Mohamed El Baradei, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, protests, revolution, Tahrir Square
Category politics |

What Should Happen In Egypt?

Noah Millman at The American Scene:

The role of the United States is, basically, to try to smooth the way behind the scenes for something approximating a South Korean-type endgame, where a transitional regime affiliated with the old powers agrees to play by new rules, paving the way for an opposition coalition to win in the future. Is that possible? I don’t think anybody can say for sure. But we don’t need to know, because second-best outcomes follow the same path.

The worst-case scenario would be for Egypt to arrive at a truly revolutionary situation, with the collapse of the government and the seizure of power by a temporarily united opposition. This is the most likely scenario to lead to an Islamic regime, precisely because the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized non-state political force, which privileges it in a situation of political chaos.

Nearly as bad would be for the army to side explicitly with the Mubarak regime and crush the Egyptian people by force, as this would make the Egyptian regime transparently illegitimate, and would make it practically impossible for the United States to continue its relationship with Egypt as it has in the past (and the Egyptian regime would, undoubtedly, look for other sponsorship to shore up its position). The only way to avoid either scenario would be to rely on the military to ease the current regime out, and do so in a context of some dialogue with the opposition. This appears to be pretty much what the United States is quietly nudging the military to do behind the scenes.

(Picture: A relatively recent screenshot of Tahrir Square, Cairo, where fighter jets scrambled over earlier today and people are making preparations to stay during the night, from this live-blog.)

Tags: Cairo, demonstrations, Egypt, Islamic regime, military, Mubarak, protests, revolution, Tahrir Square, transitional regime
Category politics |

The Egyptian Guide To Protesting

The following excerpts are from a guide to protesting that circulated among Egyptians online, before the Internet was shut down.

If you ever want to start a protest: this is how it works. History in the making.

More here.

Tags: Alexandria, Cairo, civil disobedience, demonstrations, Egypt, Mubarak, protests, revolution, riots
Category politics |