Olivier Roy and post-islamism

les matins - Olivier Roy by franceculture

The above video, from the morning talk show on France Culture (a radio channel where the intellectual level is so high it is tantamount to being completely alien to typical US talk radio), features the "Islamologue" Olivier Roy, one of the best of the French school of academic specialists on Islamism. Roy is known for having coined, some 20 years ago, the failure of political Islam. In this show he discusses the post-uprising Arab world, making the following points:

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Citizen M.

The following account, by activist and artist Aalam Wassef, details a meeting with prisoner of conscience Maikel Nabil, who was sentenced to two years in jail by a military tribunal on 14 December 2011 for "insulting the military." It is reproduced here with permission and was originally published on Facebook.

This is an account of my encounter on December 31st with Egyptian blogger and activist Maikel Nabil, arrested by the Supreme Council of Armed forces for opinions he posted on his blog. Maikel is now serving a two years sentence and is enduring inhuman conditions of detention. Since his arrest Maikel has refused to recognize the Military Prosecutor’s ability to judge him. Military trials for civilians have swept the Egyptian revolution with no less than 12,000 arrests since January 28th 2011.

El Marg Prison, 8.40 am. Waiting for Mark, Maikel Nabil's younger brother. Mark arrives carrying three heavy bags containing juices, milk, books, hundreds of sympathy messages, newspapers… An ornamented award certificate reads Istanbul, AHRLY, To Maikel Nabil for his firm commitment to freedom. I read again and stop at the word firm.

As we pass the prison’s porch, we’re immediately identified as Maikel people. Walky talkies start buzzing. Harrassment starts, routine bullying and unwritten administrative measures that Mark denounces vocally, one after the other, fearless.

Our bags and ourselves are searched and scanned, papers are confiscated. We board the traditional yellow wagon-bus that will take us to the visitor's hall. Right and left, all we can see are fields and animals. At the end of this unexpected green road, stands a white, blind, imposing wall, topped with barbed wire and, in the middle of all that whiteness, a small black door.

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Parsing the EIU's Democracy Index

Just took a look at the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Democracy Index [PDF] to see how things had changed in MENA. First off, they note:

Despite the pro-democracy upheavals in the region and improvement in the region’s average democracy score in 2011, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains the most repressive region in the world—15 out of 20 countries in the region are categorised as authoritarian. Only in Tunisia has the Arab spring thus far resulted in significant democratisation, although some progress has been recorded in Egypt, Libya and a few Gulf states. Elsewhere there has even been regression in reaction to popular protests—notably in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.

I picked out the scores for the countries were the most significant upheavals and/or political change took place in 2011:

A few notes on this:

• I am not sure what their methodology is, but I suspect that once the institutional setup stabilizes Tunisia is set to pass into the second category, “flawed democracy”, rather than where it is now at “hybrid regime”. This just highlights once again what a fantastic success Tunisia has been thus far.
• I am not sure Egypt deserves a lowering of its score considering the prevalence of martial law and media control that still exists. Not to mention the whole killing protestors thing.
• It must have been very difficult to give Libya a score, considering that civil war prevailed for most of the year and chaos continues. Still, I suppose there’s no doubt it’s better than under Qadhafi.
• Big jump backwards for Bahrain.
• Interesting downgrade for Morocco. Not sure it’s entirely fair, but it may be related to other countries’ advance rather than Morocco’s fairly static situation despite the constitutional change and new government. The bottom line is that the score is still high — if the regime is even serious, we have to wait for implementation.

The legal travesty of Egypt's transition

Here's a summary of recent constitutional changes in Egypt (I use it for convenience, it's from a newsletter by HC Brokerage):

The government approved amendments to the Presidential Elections Law [on Wednesday]. The amendments were proposed by the advisory council and sent to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which in turn sent them to the cabinet for approval. Article 2 of the law was amended to stipulate that a presidential candidate must be supported by at least 30 elected members of parliament or by 30,000 citizens from 15 different governorates. Article 3 was amended to allow political parties with at least 1 seat in parliament to nominate a presidential candidate. Article 23 was amended to allow citizens to vote in any governorate, not necessarily in their governorate of residence. The amendments also penalize, with 6 months’ imprisonment or a fine of EGP5,000, citizens who vote for more than 1 candidate.

On top of that you have changes made in December to formally grant a few more powers (rather vaguely) to the prime minister.

So to recap, in March Egyptians voted for the amendment of nine articles of the 1971 constitution, which had been suspended on February 10 when SCAF issued its decree #1. At the end of March, SCAF promulgated a "constitutional declaration" that now serves as the interim constitution before a new one is drafted and approved by popular referendum later this year (probably in April or May if the SCAF and the FJP-controlled parliament want to move at breakneck speed, which seems to be the case.) But then SCAF made changes to the constitutional declaration at its whim, with token consent from people it appointed itself.

I'm not a lawyer or a constitutional expert — in fact I have very little legal training. But to me, this seems like a constitutional and legal travesty — one that Egypt's chief judges and legal scholars have either stayed silent on, or been complicit in (like the otherwise admirable Tareq al-Bishri, who presided over the referendum charade in March and said nothing). And, in a way, it is at the core of what's wrong, what has gone wrong, with the SCAF-led transition process.

Israel and the American right

Take note of this Politico story by Ben Smith about the launch of the Center for American Freedom, a right-wing answer to the pro-Obama Center for American Progress that is setting up as a right-wing echo chamber ahead of the presidential elections. All of which is fair enough, but there's a passage revealing of the ties between the Israel lobby and the increasingly extreme (one might say proto-fascistic — note its militarism and eagerness for war with Iran) aspects of the contemporary American right:

A test run for CAF, Goldfarb said, was the Emergency Committee for Israel, which he also advised, and which waged a relentless guerrilla media campaign against the efforts of J Street – a national membership organization with a sizable Washington staff – to create a liberal counterweight in American Middle East policy.

“That showed that you can have a less well-funded organization but you can present a pretty devastating asymmetric counterweight to something much larger and more established on the other side if you go about it in an effective way,” Goldfarb said.

The sad solipsism of Syria's protestors

I tweeted this yesterday, but think it's worth a second look. If you have ever lived in a place like Syria, you know it can be a very isolated place — isolated from the rest of the world because of its restrictions on foreign visitors, its political isolation from the rest of the world, trade barriers that mean that certain consumer goods (and hence fashions) are absent, and of course warped by the personality cult and brutal dictatorship. This translates into a very Eastern Bloc feel to Syria, sometimes comically expressed in the very old-fashioned haircuts and fashion.

This video really highlights the isolation of the Syrians — because the situation is confusing, because most media have a tough time covering the conflict, because there is an "Arab Spring weariness" in much of the world, because the consequences of the uprising there are regionally daunting. What's so moving about this scene is the protestors' need to be noticed, for the world to take note, to have an audience for their chants and slogans.

From Mar15.info, which notes:

Demonstrators in Bab Qibli in Hama city are watching themselves live on Aljazeera channel on a big screen. The regime has banned media from entering Syria and cut the Internet off most of the Syrian cities. The only way to get access to the Internet is by using devices that connect directly to satellites as activists have done in this video in Hama.

The military-industrial complex, Bahrain edition

Lockheed Martin goes to bat for oppressive regime — by Justin Elliott in Salon:

A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an Op-Ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers. Hence they did not know that the pro-Bahrain opinion column they were reading was published at the behest of … Bahrain, an oil-rich kingdom of 1.2 million people that has been rocked by popular protests since early 2011.

. . .

On Nov. 30, the Washington Times published an Op-Ed under the headline “Bahrain, a vital U.S. ally: Backing protesters would betray a friend and harm American security.” It was written by Vice Adm. Charles Moore (retired). Moore was formerly commander of the Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet. From 1998 to 2002, Moore notes in his Op-Ed, he “had the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s leader, as well as many senior officials in his government.” Moore passed through the revolving door and is now regional president for Lockheed Martin for the Middle East and Africa.

Of course the Washington Times did not reveal Lockheed's interest in Bahrain, or that Bahrain lobby firm Sanitas coordinated the op-ed with Lockheed.

'Shoot to kill' bonus

Urgent alert from EIPR:

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemned the new policy of the Interior Minister that gives police officers a shoot to kill license, and offers bonuses to police officers who shoot and kill 'thugs'. The EIPR declared that the new minister’s policies violate all laws and regulations, both Egyptian and international, and has demanded that the Minister immediately retract his faulty policy and replace it with reasonable and legal policies for regulating police work.

General Mohamed Ibrahim, who was appointed a few weeks ago in Dr. Kamal El Ganzoury’s cabinet, has declared - through statements to the press while visiting the Fayoum police station on Sunday 1 January – that he will reward any officer who shoots and kills a thug, if the thug initiates gunfire.

Yikes!

Links 4-5 January 2012

Morality police claim that millions of Egyptians approve of their work - Ahram

They should be arrested immediately.

Video: Hama-Bab Qibli – Demonstrators watch themselves live on Aljazeera channel |

The circularity of it all...

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS | Letter from Cairo

By Freddy Deknatel.

Bahrain's Revolutionaries - By Toby C. Jones and Ala'a Shehabi | The Middle East Channel

Argues that #feb14 is most powerful political group in Bahrain.

Mubarak accused of shoot-to-kill policy - FT.com

I worry that prosecutors are spending too much time talking about Mubarak's larger crimes rather than what he is being tried for.

Libya and Tunisia strengthen ties - FT.com

Libya's reconstruction a boon for Tunisians.

CairObserver — Bread and Urbanism

On the relationship between urban planning and agriculture.

Guest Post: A Punch to the Mouth - Food Price Volatility Hits the World | ZeroHedge

Not looking good for food importers.

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Why is any US money being spent in Iraq anymore?

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Lessons from Lost Wars in 2012 | TomDispatch:

After all, having seemingly moved much of the U.S. to Iraq, leaving was no small thing.  When the U.S. military began stripping the 505 bases it had built there at the cost of unknown multibillions of taxpayer dollars, it sloughed off $580 million worth of no-longer-wanted equipment on the Iraqis.  And yet it still managed to ship to Kuwait, other Persian Gulf garrisons, Afghanistan, and even small towns in the U.S. more than two million items ranging from Kevlar armored vests to port-a-potties.  We’re talking about the equivalent of 20,000 truckloads of materiel.

Not surprisingly, given the society it comes from, the U.S. military fights a consumer-intensive style of war and so, in purely commercial terms, the leaving of Iraq was a withdrawal for the ages.  Nor should we overlook the trophies the military took home with it, including a vast Pentagon database of thumbprints and retinal scans from approximately 10% of the Iraqi population.  (A similar program is still underway in Afghanistan.) 

When it came to “success,” Washington had a good deal more than that going for it.  After all, it plans to maintain a Baghdad embassy so gigantic it puts the Saigon embassy of 1973 to shame.  With a contingent of 16,000 to 18,000 people, including a force of perhaps 5,000 armed mercenaries (provided by private security contractors like Triple Canopy with its $1.5 billion State Department contract), the “mission” leaves any normal definition of “embassy” or “diplomacy” in the dust.

In 2012 alone, it is slated to spend $3.8 billion, a billion of that on a much criticized police-training program, only 12% of whose funds actually go to the Iraqi police.  To be left behind in the “postwar era,” in other words, will be something new under the sun.

Surely Iran can pay the police they might very well end up controlling, no?

Meanwhile in Israel/Palestine

This just in — the peace process is still 'dead':

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi said on Tuesday the movement should focus on building and reforming Palestinian institutions and peaceful resistance, as the peace process has failed.

In a letter penned in jail to the Palestinian people, commemorating his Fatah party's 47th anniversary, Barghouthi said peace negotiations with Israel are finished, "and there is no point to make desperate attempts to breathe life into a dead body."

Meanwhile, Israelis are having Facebook fun with their variation of LOLcats:

I like this one too — for some reason he reminds me of Ariel Sharon:

Topple Mubarak already, I can't take this anymore (Maayan Niezna) See more at the excellent +972.

Egypt's constitution confusion

The confusion over Egypt's transition continues. Salma Shukrallah reports in Ahram English:

Egypt’s Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Mohamed Attia declared on Sunday that the presidential elections will be held only after a new constitution is drafted and approved.

While Attia’s statements clarified the confusion over what steps will follow the parliament’s formation, it has left many wondering to what degree such a decision is in harmony with the results of the constitutional referendum held on 19 March, which left many assuming presidential elections will be held before the constitution is finalised.

A member of the committee which drafted the amendments approved in March, Judge Tarek El-Beshry, has condemned the decision in several interviews, insisting that such a decision does not follow the sequence specified in the nine amendments that millions voted for last spring.

According to El-Beshry, who took part in the committee that was appointed by the ruling military council (SCAF) to amend the 1971 constitution, the presidential elections should take place before the new constitution is drafted.

SCAF continues to make it up as it goes along, and this presents constituent assembly with a dilemna: rush things along to draft and approve a new constitution in two months so you can have presidential elections in June as expected, or defer the presidential election until after. Not to mention that this matter is not really supposed to be up for SCAF to make the decision alone, and al-Beshri (who deserves to live out the rest of his days in infamy for his handling of the constitutional committee last March and his silence over the way the Constitutional Declaration was promulgated) does have a point in that it's not what was voted for in the referendum.

Read the rest of the piece for an explanation from prominent reformist judge Ahmed Mekky on why the referendum was intended to have elections for the president first, before the drafting of a new constitution. It's a good argument for bringing the presidential elections forward, and keeping SCAF out of the drafting of the new constitution.

Revolution and art

I've been struggling with the (largely nonsensical) question of "revolutionary art" for a while now, as I work on a forthcoming piece for MERIP on cultural production in Egypt over the last year. It was therefore and extra pleasure to read this piece by friend of the blog Negar Azimi, which neatly sums up some of the pitfalls of the genre:

A survey of titles of works from recent exhibitions in Cairo reveals the following: ‘Freedom’, ‘Drink Freedom’, ‘Shadow of Freedom’, ‘People Demand’, ‘Man Crying’, and so on. This, it turns out, is the sort of revolution-kitsch the market seeks. Mona Said, the owner of the Safar Khan Gallery in Cairo, told Reuters that she had held a show of revolutionary art in March that was so successful that she sold four times the amount she expected and ended up shipping works to clients all around the world. To be blandly political is in vogue and to be apolitical risks flirting with philistinism. This is, of course, not entirely surprising in a country in which the faces of revolutionary martyrs have been mass-produced on car air-fresheners.

It is not surprising at all to me that artists should have trouble representing the revolution right now -- it's a ridiculous demand to make of them in the first place. On the other hand, as Negar also points out, there has been an outpouring of creative energy which in particular forms (graffiti, theater, perhaps music) has spoken to this historical moment in some very meaningful and moving ways. The use of Tahrir itself as a dramatic performance space has of course been remarked upon by many, and there have been some great new ventures, like Tahrir Cinema and El-Fan Midan. 

Also worth checking out: the last issue of Bidoun magazine, which Negar edits, dedicated to cleverly and creatively trying and (by its own admission) failing to address the Egyptian revolution. 

Links 2-3 January 2012

• Elections may be key to solving stability in neglected and tribal Sinai - The National
  Or it will cause more instability!
• Egypt detains 4 activists for posters critical of military | Al-Masry Al-Youm
  April 6 comparing 1973 war to soldiers' recent actions.
• Morocco king keeps checks on new Islamist govt  | ajc.com
  On the formation of the new Benkirane cabinet.
• The real tragedy behind the fire of Institut d’Egypte | Al-Masry Al-Youm
  By historian Khaled Fahmy.
• Brotherhood spokesperson: Military rulers could be granted immunity for peaceful handover of power
  Offers blood money instead.
• Egypt’s Salafi Challenge - Omar Ashour - Project Syndicate
• Breakthroughs in Faith | World Policy Institute
  Olivier Roy.
• Why Is Egypt's Military Using Strong-Arm Tactics? | PBS NewsHour
  Steve Cook and Sameh Shehata featured.
• Moncef Marzouki: «Le chef, c’est le peuple» | Mediapart
  Interview with Tunisian president.
• Ex-intelligence officer launches Egypt presidential bid - Ahram
  Deep state candidate.
• محمد يسري سلامة يكتب : بين السلفيين ومحمد البرادعي | الدستور
• Salafi leader writes in defense of El-Baradei and "salafi-Baradawi-revolutionary" path -- interesting narrative (Ar)
• Freedom & Justice Party FJP
  Church Leaders Praise Brotherhood's "Human Shields" Initiative: Young members from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a...
• ‫فيديو وزير الداخلية محمد ابراهيم وتصريحاته عن مكافئة رجال الداخلية الذين يطلقون النار‬‎ - YouTube
  RT @Sarahcarr: Int. Min. saying he gives bonuses to officers that open fire RT @m_elsh_2011: @Sarahcarr
• The "New Anti-Semitism" Smear Is Getting Old | Al Akhbar English
  Max Blumenthal.

Why I root for Ron Paul

I've been thinking a lot about Ron Paul and the Republican primaries lately. I am a social libertarian but don't like many of Paul's small-government ideas (or, for that matter, that he named his son after Ayn Rand). But I think he has the best foreign policy ideas out there, ones against maintaining an endless empire of US bases in the Middle East and against foreign aid. I really like this argument by Philip Weiss:

Ron Paul represents the opportunity to push an antiwar agenda inside the center-ring political system. His candidacy might actually force Romney and Obama into more antiwar positions. If he disappears, that prospect all but vanishes. An attack on Iran might actually be in the balance. If he sticks around, we might actually have a presidential debate in which candidates openly dispute aid to Israel and an attack on Iran and what Paul has called apartheid conditions on the West Bank, an honesty no other candidate is capable of.

If you care about the antiwar issue, joining with Ron Paul is like seculars joining with the Muslim Brothers to get rid of Mubarak. You needed a broad coalition to push Hosni out. And in the end, that coalition did the impossible; it moved Obama. Obama wouldn't have jumped in if not for Tahrir. He needed political cover. A broad coalition gave it to him.

But what if leftwing secular social-media types had stood around Tahrir Square asking the smart question, Hey what do these folks-- Muslim Brothers and Salafis-- want to do with the role of women in politics? They would never have gotten rid of Mubarak.

I wouldn't stress the Tahrir comparison too much, but there are good reasons to support Ron Paul among the sorry lot of Republican candidates this batch and the frankly unappetizing prospect of Obama being re-elected. Precisely because Paul brings in, along some wacky libertarian ideas, this anti-war, anti-imperialism, "isolationist" element to US foreign policy. It's a strong plus for him, one of the few things that really makes him stand out if you can stomach the other stuff.

The way I see it, there are good reasons to support Ron Paul in the Republican primaries and wait for him to become popular enough to disrupt the nomination process. If he does well enough, the Republican establishment will push through a candidate of its choice but alienate Paul voters, making the chance of a third party or independent campaign by Paul more likely. Since for me, overall, Obama is still more desirable as a president than any of the current crop of Republicans, this ensures he gets re-elected, but probably without a majority. In this situation, the Republican establishment is weakened, the Democratic establishment is weakened, and the candidate who stood on his own values is rewarded even if he has no chance at the presidency. And in the meantime, on foreign policy at least, Paul helps keep people honest in the foreign policy debate. As Phil writes:

And Obama will be a better policymaker the longer Ron Paul is in the process. Paul will actually give Obama more political capital to take on the warmongers and neoconservatives by raising consciousness on these issues. I don’t want Ron Paul's foreign-policy ideas to be in the margins of political life, I want them in the mainstream. That is what he represents.

As an independent who leans progressive (but has a secret Tory heart) and is repulsed at the Democratic party's support for Israel and the warmongering of the last decade, Paul just makes sense — precisely because he has little chance of getting power but some of his ideas deserve better airing. Too bad he came third in Iowa, but I hope sticks around.

Liberation Square

Today, Ashraf Khalil's riveting account of the Egyptian uprising, Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation, it out! Go ahead and click on that link to buy from Amazon, or rush to your nearest bookstore and demand your copy NOW.

Ashraf — who contributes to our podcast and is an old friend of ours — has really done a great job here. Here's a passage of his experience in the "Battle of the Bridge", at the moment when riot police abandon the fight on January 28, allowing more people to stream into Tahrir Square:

At about four in the afternoon, the phalanx of Central Security troops broke ranks and ran, leaving their paddy wagons behind. For a while it was hard to even grasp what had happened. Protesters gleefully spray-painted slogans on the trucks—some of which still contained terrified Central Security guys.

It was a powerful moment—the exact turning point when the police realized the people weren’t afraid of them and that they were badly outnumbered. There was a surreal interlude while the protesters casually flowed around the remaining pockets of disoriented police on the bridge. A few shell-shocked Central Security troops remained behind, taking shelter inside their trucks. At least one paddy wagon driver was hopelessly and tear- fully pleading with protesters not to trash his truck, saying he would be punished if anything happened to it. (They left him alone but totaled the truck.)

Interior Ministry officers gathered impotently on the small bridge, while the protesters merely ignored them and surged past. I walked past one group of officers hud- dling around a walkie-talkie and heard one of them say, “Nobody’s answering.” In an instant, the fearsome and hated bullies of the Interior Ministry had become pathetic and irrelevant. 

It's shock-full of intimate moments of the uprising like this one. We'll be talking about the book on the next podcast, and you can already read a very positive review on Salon.

Egypt's elections: 2nd round results, 3rd round starts

The beginning of the third and last (at last!) round of Egypt's elections started today, in the context of the post-election debate — notably what will govern parliament-SCAF relations in the coming period — already more important than the poll. A fundamental mistake of many analysts in looking at the Egyptian results is to focus on their results (i.e. over 70% Islamist control of parliament) rather than the elections themselves. In doing so they have glossed over the many flaws with these elections, from their poor planning to their many irregularies, fraud and the role the military and the judiciary has played at times in favor of some parties. Such an analytical error is most evident in the kind of op-ed written by Jon Alterman who claims that the elections were Egypt's real revolution (never mind his call for a "compromise" on Egyptian democracy, ably critiqued here and here). There are hundreds of lawsuits and claims in these shoddily run elections, the decent thing would be to at least wait for their outcome. To me, the recent elections are much better than last year's, but in some respects comparable to the 2005 ones or even elections in the 1980s.

Anyway, the chances are that the elections will be swallowed because the international community wants to see stability in Egypt, because the SCAF (or at least parts of it) wants them to stand and use their shoddiness as a negotiating card, and because the Muslim Brothers prefer to accept a bad election that brought them to power (hence they complain about irregularities, but sotto voce).

The first two rounds left us with the MB's Freedom and Justice Party with over 48% of seats, and they may very well make over 50% by the end of the third round. Which might be cleaner for all concerned, allowing the MB to be a narrow majority in parliament rather than the plurality. In many respects, the debate has already moved on to other issues, such as:

• What deal will be hammered out between the FJP and the SCAF over parliament's powers?
• What deal will be hammered out between the FJP and the SCAF over the constituent assembly?
• Will the FJP enter into any alliances?

The first two questions are the main focus at the moment, because the need for the third is contingent on them. It's hard to prejudge the results ahead of the coming negotiations, but it's both clear that the MB is ready to negotiate (for instance it is ready to promise the SCAF immunity from prosecution for the violence it ordered during the transition) but that it is not ready to give away everything to the generals. Unfortunately, the twin urgency of striking this deal and getting a constitution approved before the presidential elections is likely to produce a pretty bad document. In other words, yet again the need for real transitional justice and the building of a better foundation for Egyptian politics is being sacrified to the political considerations of the moment.

I will leave you will everything you might want to know about the elections' results so far in this handy PDF prepared by Jacopo Carbonari. Enjoy.

Provisional Results Round 1 & 2

Marzouki on transitional justice

From an interview with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki (how many times I will I write these words with wonder before the effect wears off?) in Mediapart:

N'oubliez pas que je suis l'élève de Mandela: j'ai rencontré le leader sud-africain dans les années 1990 à Oslo, lors d'une réunion du comité Nobel; je suis allé deux fois en Afrique du Sud dans les années 1990. L'expérience sud-africaine avec les comités de réconciliation nous servira dans la mise en place de cette justice transitionnelle. D'ailleurs nous avons organisé ici, il y a à peine un mois, une réunion sur le thème de la justice transitionnelle; aujourd'hui des associations travaillent sur cette idée, le gouvernement a sa propre mission, et on va organiser cette justice transitionnelle, ouvrir les archives, former les juges, repérer ceux qui ont été coupables de très grands crimes et qui devront passer devant les tribunaux normaux, et faire passer les autres devant des tribunaux particuliers où ils devront demander pardon, ce qui leur sera accordé. Nous ne sommes pas du tout dans l'esprit d'une justice de vengeance, parce que cette révolution a été pacifique, démocratique et elle doit avoir une justice à son image.

My quick translation:

Don't forget I'm a student of Nelson Mandela: I met the South African leader in the 1990s in Oslo, during a meeting of the Nobel Committee; and went twice to South Africa in the 1990s. The South African experience of reconciliation committees will be useful to implement transitional justice. In fact we organized, just a month ago, a meeting on the theme of transitional justice. Today associations are working on this dea, the government has its own mission, and we will organize this transitional justice, open the archives, train judges, identify those who are guilty of great crimes and who will have to appear in front of normal tribunals, a right they will have. We are not at all in the logic of revenge, because this revolution was peaceful, democratic, and it must have a similar type of justice.

Mixed Messages from Syrian National Council on US, Israel

According to Reuters, the Syrian National Council and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria - the two largest opposition coalitions in Syria - signed on the last Friday of 2011 a unity pledge that "reject[s] any military intervention that harms the sovereignty or stability of the country, though Arab intervention is not considered foreign." However, remarks delivered to the U.S. and Israeli press by a Council spokesman seem to contradict the Council's stated support for the new joint policy.

The rejection of (Western) military intervention is a significant concession on the part of the Syrian National Council - the smaller, more diaspora-oriented of the two main coalitions - as the Council had been calling for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone ("Safe Area for Syria"). The Council's representatives have compared the situation in Syria to that in Libya (as such, it is not surprising that the transitional government in Libya is the only foreign government to have formally recognized the Council). Those analyzing the feasibility and costs of such intervention argue that Syria's extensive air defense system and high population densities will make a no-fly zone difficult to enforce, leading to heavy civilian casualties and, ultimately, require major troop deployments.

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Towards a second revolution?

Activists' efforts towards organizing a "second revolution" on the anniversary of the 25 January uprising are underway. The above video, titled "The confessions of Omar Suleiman", is the latest attempt to create a viral campaign. Below is the full press release about it, but do watch it.

Cairo, Egypt, January 3rd 2012

A video compiling the works and testimonies of numbers of activists has been released on January 1st 2012 on Youtube. It calls for a second revolution on January 25th 2012, and has gone viral.

Reception of the video

- The video encountered an instantaneous viral success, especially on Facebook (45,000 shares in the last 48 hours), on Twitter and blogs.

- It was reviewed and posted the day of its release by 3 national newspapers El Wafd, El Badil and Al Youm el 7.

- Youtube stats indicate it has been viewed over 100,000 times to this date.

Click to read more ...