Brian's Coffeehouse

Sinai Lawlessness

2012-01-31T17:10:00.002-05:00

The National notes instability in the Sinai Peninsula:

"The owner of a Sinai Peninsula holiday resort taken over by a group of armed Bedouin is refusing to pay the four million Egyptian pound (Dh2.4m) ransom the tribesmen are demanding.

"Hesham Nessim, proprietor of the Aqua-Sun Resort 30km south of Egypt's border with Israel, says he will wait them out or retake his property with police help...

"It underscores the security vacuum in the peninsula since the uprising that forced Hosni Mubarak from power last year - a void some fear could even spark the collapse of the 33-year-old Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

"Since Mubarak stepped down, however, a heightened air of lawlessness has swept the peninsula, with 10 attacks on a pipeline supplying natural gas to Israel and Jordan.

"This week, armed men robbed a currency exchange bureau in Sharm El Sheikh, killing a French tourist who happened to be there. Bedouin tribesmen kidnapped 25 Chinese cement factory workers yesterday, demanding the release of fellow tribesman arrested between 2004 and 2006 for their roles in bombings at a resort at Taba on the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba...

"Any attempt by Egyptian security forces to restore security to the Sinai is made difficult by treaty agreements between Israel and Cairo. The Camp David Accords set a limit to the number of security forced Egypt could deploy to the Sinai Peninsula. Different zones are demilitarised to different degrees, especially within 20-40km of the Israeli border. Israel also agreed to limit its forces 3km from the border."

The article is a good overview of the security problems in Sinai, problems which have parallels in other areas of Egypt. Restoring effective control of the country represents an underappreciated challenge for the new Egyptian government. However, I don't see these developments as an actual threat to the Camp David Accords. Israeli security doctrine depends too much on peace with Egypt to forestall a possible two-front war. Something will be worked out on Sinai. The bigger issue for the treaty is that it goes up for a referendum and fails due to Egyptian solidarity with the Palestinians.

Already One State

2012-01-29T16:48:00.002-05:00

Much like me, Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled don't see much future for the two-state solution in the Arab-Israeli conflict. They argue, however, that a single state already exists:

"Instead of pursuing the mirage of a two-state solution, would-be peace makers should recognize the fact that Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in fact constitute one state that has been in existence for nearly forty-five years, the longest lasting political formation in these territories since the Ottoman Empire. (The British Mandate for Palestine lasted thirty years; Israel in its pre-1967 borders lasted only nineteen years). The problem with that state, from a democratic, humanistic perspective, is that forty percent of its residents, the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, are non-citizens deprived of all civil and political rights. The solution to this problem is simple, although deeply controversial: establishing one secular, non-ethnic, democratic state with equal citizenship rights to all in the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River."

What's striking is how intuitive this is. U.S. Presidential Rick Santorum recently committed a gaffe by saying that all the inhabitants of the West Bank were Israelis because they lived under Israeli rule. The Israeli government refuses such a formulation because giving Palestinians in the Occupied Territories citizenship would, in fact, mean that Israel is no longer "the Jewish state" as that has usually been defined. However, the fact that Santorum's is a mistake commonly made tells you a lot about the political configuration in practice on the ground.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Tower of Azerbaijan

2012-01-28T15:13:00.002-05:00

Azerbaijan is planning a go at building a new world's tallest building:

"The Azerbaijani developer Avesta plans to stick the 1,110-meter-high (about 3,642- feet-high ) building on a chain of artificial islands off Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea shore. Completion date: by 2019. The tower -- named, not surprisingly, 'Tower of Azerbaijan' -- is expected to house hotels and business centers. It may not compensate for endemic corruption, a spotty civil rights record or any other of the Azerbaijani government's oft-cited deficiencies, but it surely will attract gaping onlookers and tourism money."

Over the summer, I read about the "Guggenheim effect," by which cities gain world renown on the basis of an iconic building bringing attention and business in its wake. The effect is named for the global reputation of Bilbao, Spain in the wake of the building of its Guggenheim Museum. Azerbaijan, which is starting to act like the smaller Persian Gulf states in its quest for superlatives, could be hoping for a similar effect for Baku, since building the world's tallest building is an artistically easy way to get a landmark.

Blind Salafis

2012-01-26T18:11:00.002-05:00

Marc Lynch posts on the fact that the "sleeping salafi" from an Egyptian parliamentary picture making the rounds is actually blind. While I know nothing about the specific case of Dr. Wageeh el-Sheemy, that an Islamist party would produce Egypt's first blind MP is unsurprising. In the Middle East, and I believe this is generalizable to other Islamic cultures, blindness has often been associated with religious learning.

For most of Islamic history, learning by hearing and repetition has been the ideal form of education, and often the only one recognized. Real knowledge was in your head. Even when written texts became more available, it was assumed that without someone to check you, you could introduce errors or misunderstandings. The Qur'an itself isn't just a text, but a text meant for recitation, which the blind could do just as well as anyone else. I don't remember where I read this, but I think in the Middle Ages there were even scholars who hoped they might one day become blind as a sign of their religious status.

This continues into the culture today, where the Arab world has produced a number of "blind shaykhs." I once saw a row of blind men sitting in the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo, Syria. They were people who had memorized the Qur'an, and whom others would therefore come and consult on religious matters. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a religious career is still encouraged for blind young people in Arab society, as one in which their lack of vision could actually assist rather than impair them.

Shippensburg in Iraq

2012-01-24T16:02:00.002-05:00

I don't intend to become my university's new publicist, but this month saw the beginning of an initiative to have Shippensburg assist with the development of business education in Iraq:

"The two-year grant has three components and different individuals will work on the components simultaneously. Their initial visit will be to assess the present situation. Kooti has no illusions about the state of colleges and universities in Iraq as 'higher education has suffered significantly since the 1980s and it has continued to decline until recently.'

"The first component will be to conduct a feasibility study on establishing a center for excellence in finance and banking. 'We will work with the government, the ministry of higher education in Iraq, as well as the private sector banking and financial (businesses) to see how we will be able to establish the center in Baghdad.'

"The second component will be to establish a center for excellence for Iraqi colleges of management and economics. 'The objective is to improve the business programs in selected universities to improve their curriculum to update and upgrade their programs. We will look at capacity building, working with their faculty and their staff to determine what resources are needed. It will be a center for teaching excellence.'

"The third component will be to use the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards to assure quality of the programs, the development of administrative capacity and guidance. Grove College has long held AACSB accreditation. By employing the process that AACSB provides, Kooti believes Iraqi colleges and universities will provide a high caliber education, which will be needed as Iraq transitions into a new government, economy and way of life."

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Ship Student Watch

2012-01-24T12:13:00.002-05:00

Another student from our applied history graduate program is out benefiting society:

"(Michael) Fauser, a graduate student in Shippensburg’s applied history, spent the recent semester break as part of the prestigious Lipper Internship Program Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Lower Manhattan. He was one of 16 interns who learned how to teach 20th Century Jewish history and the Holocaust to young people.

"During his time in New York, he studied the museum’s exhibitions, heard testimony from Holocaust survivors and attended seminars led by the museum’s scholars. Having completed the initial program, he will visit high school classrooms to discuss the museum’s offerings and pave the way for the young learners to visit the museum in New York. Since the program started in 1998, interns have worked with more than 50,000 students from around the Northeast, according to museum information."

Rafsanjani Falling

2012-01-22T23:52:00.003-05:00

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as Iran's president from 1989-1997, lost to Ahmadinejad in 2005, and was a behind-the-scenes mover of Mir Hussein Musavi's 2009 campaign that led to the Green Movement, has been taking major political hits for at least a year, possibly as payback for his 2009 actions. Tehran Bureau reports:

"Two websites connected to Ahmadinejad and the security forces claimed that when the current term of the chairmanship of the Expediency Discernment Council expires next month, Khamenei will not reappoint Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as its Chair. Bultan News, a website linked with the security forces, speculated that Hassan Rowhani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator during the Khatami administration, will be the new Chair of the Council. Rowhani is a member of the Council, as well as the head of its Center for Strategic Studies.

"Then Shabestan News Agency, run by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, analyzed the possibility that Rafsanjani might be assassinated, but dismissed the notion, pointing out that he is no longer an influential figure after losing the Chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts and control of Islamic Azad University. He also no longer serves as the Friday prayer Imam of Tehran. It then speculated that he will not be reappointed as the Chairman of the Council.

"Since the June 2009 presidential election, the hardliners' pressure on Rafsanjani has increased tremendously. In addition to losing all his influential posts, the website that reflected his views has been blocked, his daughter Faezeh Hashemi has been sentenced to six months in jail, and his 16-year-old grandson is under investigation. The family of one his sons has also been barred from leaving Iran.

"As a result of a quasi-coup, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has finally succeeded in taking control of the Islamic Azad University, Iran's largest university system, one of the largest of its kind in the world. It happened at the end of a meeting of the board of trustees of the university, which Rafsanjani leads. After the former president and his supporters left the meeting, the representatives of Ahmadinejad's camp on the board announced that Farhad Daneshjoo, a brother of the Minister of Science, Research and Technology, which overseas the universities, has been elected by the board as the new president of the university, replacing Rafsanjani's ally Dr. Abdollah Jasbi, who has led the university since its inception in 1982. Rafsanjani said that he will not sign the order for Daneshjoo's appointment, but Daneshjoo has said that he will not back down because the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, an extra-constitutional body that control cultural affairs, has confirmed him as the new president of the university."

Some of that is unconfirmed or still being battled over, but the trend is clear. Leadership of Islamic Azad University is a big deal financially as well as politically, as it has well over one million students. It has been the scene of political fighting for several years.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Mesha'al's Withdrawal

2012-01-21T22:08:00.003-05:00

Khaled Mesha'al will not seek another term as leader of Hamas:

"he Palestinian militant group Hamas announced Saturday that its political leader, Khaled Meshal, would not seek re-election, opening the door to a possible leadership contest and adding to the uncertainty enveloping Hamas at a time of regional turmoil.

"Mr. Meshal, who has led the group’s political bureau since 1996 and is the face of Hamas’s leadership, told the Shura Council, the group’s highest decision-making authority, that he preferred not to run in elections scheduled in the coming months, Hamas said in a written statement. There was no immediate comment from Mr. Meshal, who is based in Damascus, the Syrian capital."

The Damascus-based Mesha'al said his decision was to allow for a rotation of power within the movement. He recently stirred interest and uncertainty with his call for Hamas to move toward a strategy of popular protest against Israel, and Ha'aretz mentions Palestinian analysts as speculating that their opposition to this led the Gaza Hamas leadership to prevent him from retaining the leadership. The New York Times, however, focuses on the Syrian context:

"Hamas has been unwilling to express support for the beleaguered Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, despite pressure from its Iranian backers to do so, and relatives of many of Hamas’s leaders are reported to have already left Damascus for reasons of personal safety.

"An analyst close to Hamas, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Mr. Meshal, who has Jordanian residency documents, might want to quit so that he could return to Jordan because the situation in Damascus had become unbearable. Jordan has said that Hamas leaders who hold Jordanian papers can return to its territory as long as they refrain from conducting any political activities there."

Some combination of these factors could be in play, but I have no particular insight into the balance. The fact Hamas's leader would step down voluntarily, however, shows a key reason why Islamist movements are popular in the Arab world.

Islam and the Desert

2012-01-17T20:33:00.003-05:00

One book I've been reading lately is James Howard-Johnston's Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century. The book's scope is vast and dense, and I don't aspire to take it all in until I have more time to focus on it, but here's a paragraph from pages 450-451 revisiting old ideas about Islam and the desert:

"Paradoxcially, the greatest appeal of Muhammad's monotheist message lay in its bleakness, in his clear-eyed view of a universe governed by a single divine autocrat. This made far better sense of the world in which his listeners lived than a polytheistic belief system. For local deities, even those associated with astral bodies, could not protect their votaries from nature's brute force in the desert. The affairs of men were evidently governed by some higher, impersonal irresistable force, hitherto vaguely defined as time or fate. They would live through years of plenty and years of dearth. The best among them would be distinguished by courage, powers of endurance, open-handed hospitality, generosity. But death awaited all, rich and poor alike, its coming unpredictable. There was a heroic hopelessness about life in the midst of threatening, invincible nature. Fate held away, fleeing human lives its sport. It was as if the Arabs had long been dimly aware of the overarching presence of God, but had never been able to bring him into focus before and it was Muhammad who first instilled a proper understanding of his role, no longer remote and detached, but taking a close judicial interest in the behavior of his creatures."

I see similar arguments used to explain the rise of Wahhabism in the 18th century. In the paragraph before this, Howard-Johnston references the Qur'an's lack of saints and holy men such as characterized Byzantine Christianity, and Wahhabism arose primarily as a reaction to the veneration of Muslim holy men and local animistic practices.

These are ideas about Arabian change which, as far as I can tell, hold no water whatsoever. For one thing, surely a bunch of somewhat capricious demigods do, in fact, represent a better explanation for the chances of life in the desert than a God who wishes to reward the good and punish the evil? If this is such a good explanation for the rise of Islam, why didn't Judaism, which was going through a period of proselytization, make larger inroads in the peninsula? Most importantly, why did Arabians either continue with or later return to a religious culture involving holy men and animistic practices, thus upsetting Ibn Abd al-Wahhab? I don't know why Islam spread so quickly, but this isn't it.

Hamas and Popular Resistance

2012-01-17T17:31:00.002-05:00

Nathan Brown analyzes Hamas's rhetorical embrace of "popular resistance":

"alk of popular resistance is hardly evidence that Hamas leaders have been reading Gandhi. First, Hamas leaders make clear that they still regard armed action as legitimate. And they have even suggested that the cease-fire does not mean an end to efforts to capture Israeli soldiers in order to force an exchange for Palestinian prisoners excluded from the last deal for Gilad Shalit. Then, Israel released over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, an Israeli soldier held by Hamas for over five years.

"Second, this step away from violence is not breaking much new ideological ground. Hamas leaders have never rejected the idea of some sort of suspension of armed action in principle; indeed, they have held their fire for a prolonged period.

"Finally, popular resistance is not quite the same as nonviolence, though there is considerable overlap. When Palestinians speak of popular resistance they often do so to distinguish it from what they call the 'militarization' of the second intifada. And sometimes they do so nostalgically to recall the first intifada, characterized by strikes, demonstrations, founding of grassroots organizations—and restricted largely to fairly low-level violence, like stone throwing. Popular resistance means involving the entire society in the effort rather than allowing a small number of hardened fighters to dominate the political field."

As I've said before, I can't picture any major Palestinian group denying the legitimacy of something called "armed resistance," since to do so could be seen as accepting the legitimacy of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, at the very least.

al-Qaeda and Syria's Uprising

2012-01-16T21:37:00.002-05:00

Nicholas Blanford examines the question of whether al-Qaeda is involved in Syria's uprising:

"The Assad regime insists that the opposition protests that have rocked the country since March are being driven by 'armed terrorist groups' and 'Islamic militants.' It has blamed Al Qaeda for three suicide bomb attacks over the past month against security offices in Damascus, which left 70 people dead.

"Analysts say there is little proof – at least for now – that suggests that Al Qaeda, or its militant affiliates, are seeking to play an active role in the Syrian uprising...

"(However,) as the violence has steadily worsened, some commentators on jihadist websites are openly calling for waging a jihad against the Assad regime. In November, Osama al-Shehabi, the leader of Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, called for an armed struggle in Syria.

"'The regime’s brutal oppression of the Syrian people proves that it is time to change direction and use real weapons against the regime,' he wrote in an article that was published by the Shumoukh al-Islam online forum. 'The revolution is a jihad; it is a war; prepare for jihad for God; scrutinize your intentions and take up arms, for they are your obligation.'

"Last month the jihadist website Minbar al-Tawhid Wa al-Jihad posted a fatwa, or religious edict, by an influential Salafist cleric, in which he sanctioned the use of violence against the Assad regime.

"'Why do you insist on confining yourselves to peaceful protests?' wrote Sheikh Abu Mundhir al-Shinqiti. 'Is it a disgrace to kill those who kill us?... It has come to a stage where nothing will avail except taking up arms.'"

The answer to the question probably depends on the meaning of "al-Qaeda." The intelligence coup from the Bin Laden raid revealed that al-Qaeda central did have a larger coordinating role over al-Qaeda branded groups than most scholars had previously suspected. However, all these local groups still had their own levels of affiliation, as well as favored local causes. The Libyan Islamic Fighters Group was always primarily interested in their struggle against Qadhafi, and now that he's gone, there's been no evidence of their attacking other topics. It sounds like Lebanon's Fatah al-Islam has an interest in the Syrian cause, as well. Even then, however, if Syria did rank high on the agenda of the al-Qaeda movement as a whole, I'd expect to see more happening in Aleppo, which as I recall had an underground jihadist community which supported foreign fighters en route to Iraq.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

The Tempest in Tucson

2012-01-15T23:22:00.004-05:00

Arizona these days has a law on the books banning in public educational institutions courses which "promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Pedagogically, of course, hardly any courses meet the middle requirement, as teachers of, say, African-American history would often love it if more White students took an interest in that subject. I'm also not sure what the last part of that even means, since any course takes as its units groups, such as "American literature."

The real tell is the first clause, that courses are banned which "promote resentment toward a race or class of people." You see, often in history, majorities have oppressed minorities. It continues to happen today, albeit usually in more subtle ways than a century ago. A course that focuses on such a minority will therefore cover that oppression, which might cause them to resent being oppressed. Oh, and don't forget that these minorities tend to be people who were forced into the minority role by the majority as much as anything else. Race and ethnicity are socially constructed. Southern Europeans and Irish did not always count as White, while Arabs usually did.

Today, certain Tea Party types are feeling culturally anxious. They live in a world of certainty, and don't want that certainty rattled by new perspectives from other cultural groups. Their solution then, as seen in the law, is to eliminate the troubling voices:

"As part of the state-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today. According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books 'will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage...'

"Other banned books include 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' by famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and 'Occupied America: A History of Chicanos' by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often singled out by Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal, who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to 'stop la raza.' Huppenthal, who once lectured state educators that he based his own school principles for children on corporate management schemes of the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.

"An independent audit of Tucson’s ethnic studies program commissioned by Huppenthal last summer actually praised 'Occupied America: A History of Chicanos,' a 40-year-old textbook now in its seventh edition. According to the audit: 'Occupied America: A History of Chicanos is an unbiased, factual textbook designed to accommodate the growing number of Mexican-American or Chicano History Courses. The auditing team refuted a number of allegations about the book, saying, ‘quotes have been taken out of context.’'"

These banned books even include a staple of the Western literary canon:

"Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play 'The Tempest.' In a meeting this week, administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where 'race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,' including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses."

Got that? Whatever you do, don't make the White people look bad by talking about oppression! Why would Shakespeare's The Tempest come up? Most scholars believe the play's setting was inspired by European voyages to the Americas, and the magician Prospero's enslaved servant Caliban was created as an archetype of the Native Americans. That portrayal itself is clearly demeaning, but Shakespeare was not afraid to give Caliban a perspective, and in Act I, Scene ii we see him complain that Prospero has stolen his land and made him but a servant, but also given him knowledge to understand his predicament. Shakespeare, in other words, saw the resentment of the colonized as a perfectly natural outgrowth of the processes of colonialism and the making of subject populations, both the Spanish in Mexico, which gave rise to the Mexican population, and later the Americans in Arizona, after the war of conquest which Abraham Lincoln and other vehemently opposed. And what certain people in Arizona now want to do is try and prevent high school students in Tucson from sharing in Shakespeare's insight.

Hadarat Nashim

2012-01-14T21:26:00.003-05:00

I knew the ultra-Orthodox were becoming a more powerful social force in Israel, but am still shocked at the emergence of a full-blown public battle over women's rights:

"In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry...

"Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage...

"The list of controversies grows weekly: Organizers of a conference last week on women’s health and Jewish law barred women from speaking from the podium, leading at least eight speakers to cancel; ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform; protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards."

There has always been underlying resentment of the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) in Israel because the community does not have to serve in the army and mostly lives off government aid while the men study in yehsivas so that they can learn the proper Judaism they think everyone else should follow. This resentment and the clash with Israel's largely secular liberal culture is boiling over as they become a higher share of the population due to birthrate differentials, and thus expand the areas where they seek to impose their ways.

Medieval Islamic World Survey

2012-01-12T19:59:00.003-05:00

Here is my syllabus for what is usually the first half of the Middle East survey sequence. I ditch the anachronistic "Middle East" framing mainly to get at India and highlight the fact that Islam isn't just or even primarily a Middle Eastern thing. The end date is also fairly arbitrary, but picking a couple of dates sounder better than "From Muhammad to the Gunpowder Empires."

HIS 390: The Central Islamic Lands, 500-1600
204 Dauphin Humanities Center, MWF 8:00 a.m.
Dr. Brian J. Ulrich

Office: 201 Dauphin Humanities Center, ex. 1736
Office Hours: 11-11:50 a.m. MWF, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. W, also by appointment
E-mail: bjulrich@ship.edu

“For any branch of knowledge to exist, it must be derived from history. From it all wisdom is deduced, all jurisprudence is elicited, all eloquence is learnt. Those who reason by analogy build upon it. Those who have opinions to expound use it for argument. Popular knowledge is derived from it and the precepts of the wise are found in it. Noble and lofty morality is acquired from it and the rules of royal government and war are sought in it. All manner of strange events are found in it; in it, too, all kinds of entertaining stories may be enjoyed. It is a science which can be appreciated by both the educated and the ignorant, savoured by both fool and sage, and much desired comfort to elites and commoners. The superiority of history over all other branches of learning is obvious. The loftiness of its status is recognized by any person of intelligence.”

-al-Masudi, 10th century

Required Texts:

A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Edition, Ira Lapidus
The Formation of Islam, Jonathan Berkey
Islam and the Muslim Community, Frederick Denny
Women in Islam and the Middle East: A Reader, Ruth Roded

Electronic reserves found on Blackboard

Course Overview:

This course will cover the regions where Islam was a significant presence either culturally or politically from its origins until the period of the “Gunpowder Empires” in the 16th and 17th centuries. Key themes will involve the origins of Islamic doctrines and institutions, the development of Islamic polities and high culture, the spread of Islam and diversity of Islamic societies, and the interaction of economics, politics, culture, geography and societies in history. Its contribution to an integrated history curriculum includes an awareness of issues in approaching premodern primary sources, the nature of premodern polities, and the way time periods and regions are often bounded in ways contingent on particular themes and questions.

This course will feature two exams combining IDs and essays. On February 6, students will take a map quiz. On March 30, groups will present posters on aspects of Islamic science in the Fishbowl. Students will also complete a study of an academic monograph as a project from conception to impact. Details on this assignment will be forthcoming; however, the final paper is due April 20 regardless of when you present. Pop quizzes will occasionally check reading, and short writing assignments will occasionally ask you to engage with readings, especially the primary sources found in Roded. Quizzes and some short writing assignments cannot be made up, but the lowest grade in that section will be dropped from the final calculation. Attendance in class is mandatory, and 5% will be deducted from students’ participation grades for each class missed over three. Missing 12 classes will result in a failure in the course. Participation, however, is more than just attendance, and will reflect your asking and answering of questions and participation in discussions.

Grading:

Quizzes and Reading Thoughts: 10%
Participation: 10%
Map Quiz: 7%
Science Presentations: 10%
Book Study: 18%
Midterm Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 25%

Syllabus Changes:

Occasionally I find I want to make minor changes to the syllabus. These are usually substitutions of different readings or additional short news items, and will not result in much increased work or changes in the dates of exams and major assignments. These will be announced in class, and it is the student’s responsibility to learn of them.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is bad, and you should not do it. The minimum penalty for plagiarism is failure on the plagiarized assignment, along with a notice of your perfidy becoming part of your record.

Disability Accomodation:

If you feel you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, you should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs at least 72 hours prior to the activity which requires the accommodation. If you have not already done so, you must contact the Office of Disability Services. This office is responsible for determining reasonable and appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities on a case-by-case basis, and more generally, for ensuring that members of the community with disabilities have access to Shippensburg’s programs and services. They also assist students in identifying and managing the factors that may interfere with learning and in developing strategies to enhance learning. I cannot approve an accommodation without you registering.

Schedule of Readings and Major Assignments

January 18 – Course Intro
January 20 – Denny, pp. 5-17; Lapidus, pp. 3-9; Berkey, 3-9; Marshall Hodgson, “The Confessional Empires,” The Venture of Islam, Vol. I, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 137-142. (Late Antiquity I)

January 23 – Berkey, pp. 10-39; Chronicle of Zuqnin, Part III, pp. 94-99. (Late Antiquity II)
January 25 – Lapidus, pp. 10-17; Berkey, pp. 39-53; James Lindsay, “Traditional Arabic Naming System,” Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2005), pp. 173-178 (Pre-Islamic Arabia)
January 27 – Berkey, pp. 57-60; Denny, pp. 18-37; Chase F. Robinson, “The Emergence of Genre,” Islamic Historiography, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 18-30; Gregor Schoeler, “The Relationship of Literacy and Memory in the Second/Eighth Century,” The Development of Arabic as a Written Language, ed. M.C.A. Macdonald, (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 121-126. (Historiographical issues)

January 30 – Lapidus, pp. 18-30; Berkey, pp. 61-9; Roded, pp. 32-47 (Muhammad)
February 1 – Denny, pp. 40-64; Roded, pp. 27-31 (Islam I)
February 3 – Denny, pp. 77-88, 98-106; Asma Afsaruddin, “The Concept of Jihad,” The First Muslims: History and Memory, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008), pp. 108-120; Ethar El- Katatney, “To Mecca and Back Again” (web link) (Islam II)

February 6 – Lapidus, pp. 31-47; Berkey, pp. 70-76 (Rashidun Caliphate) (map quiz)
February 8 – Lapidus, pp. 47-51; Berkey, pp. 76-90 (Early Umayyads)
February 10 – Roded, pp. 58-73; Tabari, Vol. 19, pp. 65-74 (Shi’ism)

February 13 – Berkey, pp. 91-101; Oleg Grabar, “The Symbolic Appropriation of the Land,” (web link) (Religious change)
February 15 – Lapidus, pp. 51-55; Berkey, pp. 102-110; Tabari, Vol. 27, pp. 61-70 (Abbasid Revolution)
February 17 –Lapidus, pp. 56-74; Berkey, pp. 113-123; Roded, pp. 84-91 (Abbasid Empire)

February 20 – Lapidus, pp. 99-102; Berkey, pp. 125-9; Ira M. Lapidus, “The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 363-85. (Religious authority)
February 22 – Denny, pp. 64-70; Lapidus, pp. 81-90; Berkey, pp. 141-151; Roded, pp. 48-57 (Sunnism and hadith)
February 24 – Wael Hallaq, “The Formation of Legal Schools,” The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 150-177. (Shari’a)

February 27 – Denny, pp. 71-76; Lapidus, pp. 90-94; Berkey, pp. 152-158; Roded, pp. 128-134 (Sufism)
February 29 – Berkey, pp. 159-175; Michael Morony, “The Age of Conversions: A Reassessment,” Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, (Toronto: PIMS, 1990), pp. 135-150 (Non-Muslims and Conversion)
March 2 – Exam I ID Section

March 5 – Exam II Essay Section
March 7 – Lapidus, pp. 103-111, 125-132; Berkey, pp. 130-140 (Regional states and “Shi’ite Century”)
March 9 – Lapidus, pp. 112-125; Michael Chamberlain, “Military Patronage States and the Political Economy of the Frontier, 1000-1250,” A Companion to the History of the Middle East, ed. Youssef M. Choueiri, (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 235-53 (Seljuqs)

SPRING BREAK

March 19 – Berkey, pp. 179-202 (Characteristics of “High Middle Period”)
March 21 – Lapidus, pp. 142-146; Berkey, pp. 203-223 (Military patronage states and Islam)
March 23 – Berkey, pp. 224-230; Roded, pp. 131-134, 140-158 (ulama)

March 26 – Lapidus, pp. 156-166; Berkey, pp. 231-247 (Sufism)
March 28 – Lapidus, pp. 177-182; Berkey, pp. 248-257; Roded, pp. 168-180 (Muslim mass culture)
March 30 – Islamic Science Presentations

April 2 – Guest Speaker, Richard Bulliet
April 4 – Andre Wink, “The India Trade,” Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. I, (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 25-64. (Big picture time)
April 6 – Lapidus, pp. 356-368, 382-384; Richard M. Eaton, “Sufi Folk Literature and the Expansion of Indian Islam,” History of Religions 14 (1974), pp. 117-27 (JSTOR); Richard M. Eaton, “The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid,” Essays on Islam and Indian History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
pp. 203-24. (South Asia)

April 9 – Lapidus, pp. 400-416, 432-438, 443-449 (Africa)
April 11 – Lapidus, pp. 226-247 (Ilkhans and Safavids)
April 13 - Lapidus, pp. 248-275 (Ottoman Empire)

April 16 – Berkey, pp. 261-269; Lapidus, pp. 368-381 (Mughals)
April 18 – Book Study Presentations
April 20 – Book Study Presentations (paper due)

April 23 – Book Study Presentations
April 25 – Book Study Presentations
April 27 – Book Study Presentations

Final Exam: Friday, May 4, 8 a.m.

World History II

2012-01-11T22:26:00.002-05:00

Posted below is my new syllabus for World History II. The list of themes seems weaker to me than it does in my World History I class, but that may be because specific events and developments become more important in this one. The biggest experiment is the "U.S. and the World" theme, which I'm developing in response to the particular situation of Shippensburg University, where few students who are not history majors take U.S. history. I'm actually enthusiastic about developing this as an aspect of world history education, however. Our department is built for it.

HIS 106: World History II
204 Dauphin Humanities Center, MWF 9:00 a.m.
Dr. Brian J. Ulrich

Office: 201 Dauphin Humanities Center, ex. 1736
Office Hours: 11 – 11:50 a.m. MWF, 1-3:00 p.m. W
E-mail: bjulrich@ship.edu

“History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.”
-Robert Penn Warren

“I want to start discussions. Arguments. Preferably a bar fight or two.”
– J. Michael Straczinski

Required Texts:

Voyages in World History, Vol.II, Valerie Hansen and Kenneth R. Curtis
The Origins of the Modern World, 2nd Ed., Robert Marks
America in the World: United States History in Global Context, Carl Guarneri

Electronic reserves found on Blackboard

Course Overview:

World History I is specifically required under the “Required Skills and Competencies” category of the Shippensburg University general education program. As such, educational objectives reflect not only historical content, but skills important for success at Shippensburg University and after graduation. In addition, it means that to ensure there are enough seats for future students, any student who drops this course may not be able to enroll in it again during a spring or fall semester at this institution.

In this course we will frequently revisit the following themes:

1.) Identity construction – People have many different identities, which can include national, religious, and ethnic. An understanding of how these are formed is among the most important elements of core curricula around the United States, and is crucial to understanding many developments in history over the past few centuries, which have seen the rise of countries and political movements and the outbreak of wars based on such identities.
2.) Economics – Making a living is among the most basic human activities, and during the last 500 years, the world has come to be dominated by monetized market economies shaped by economic principles. In addition to covering basic concepts such as credit and commodity markets, we will introduce major economic philosophies such as mercantilism, laissez-faire capitalism, and socialism in their historical context.
3.) Technology – Technology impacts societies in many ways, from new forms of communication actualizing new communities to affecting how goods and services are produced and delivered and hence how people go about making a living. Examples of technological change will occur from time to time in this course, including the critical developments associated with the Industrial Revolution.
4.) The United States – The United States is often considered alone, but it is part of the larger world. This course will explore the American experience and the idea of American exceptionalism by relating American history to broader global trends and developments.

With these themes as our focus, assignments will ensure you develop a foundational understanding of world history since 1500, an ability to write clearly and think critically about world history since 1500, an ability to analyze historical events and trends effectively, and the cognitive tools of inquiry-based research. There will be three exams during the course of the semester, which will not all have the same format. The final exam will emphasize the last section of the course, but still have a cumulative component. On March 19, you will also hand in an “Identity Construction Essay.” You will receive an assignment guide for this essay in mid-February. Deadlines and exam dates are noted on the “Schedule of Readings and Major Assignments” below. Attendance and participation are mandatory. Students are allowed to miss three classes. After that, your total participation grade will be lowered by 5% for each additional absence. Late papers will be accepted only if we do not discuss the assignment in class in a substantial way, and then with a penalty usually amounting to one full letter grade. Late take-home exams are acceptable only under extraordinary circumstances. Any student who has a reason for missing an exam must make inform the professor as soon as possible.

Students should complete all readings for the course on the date listed. You will not be allowed to make up reading quizzes. Pages include primary sources found in the “Visual Evidence” and “Movement of Ideas” sections. The insets on “World History in Today’s World” are handled separately and are indicated by the abbreviation “WHTW.”

Grading:

Quizzes and Reading Thoughts: 15%
Identity Construction Essay: 15%
First Exam: 15%
Second Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 25%
Participation: 10%

Schedule of Readings and Major Assignments

January 18 – Course Introduction
Part I – The Early Modern World
January 20 – Marks, pp. 1-16; Guarneri, pp. 1-12; Hansen and Curtis, p. 767 WHTW, p. 966 WHTW (historiography)

January 23 – Marks, pp. 21-39; Guarneri, pp. 12-22 (agrarian societies)
January 25 – Marks, pp. 67-74; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 541-5; Guarneri, pp. 24-35 (polities of 1500)
January 27 – Marks, pp. 43-66; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 431-36, 559 WHTW (European expansion)

January 30 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 450-60; Michael Pearson, “Europeans in an Indian Ocean World,” The Indian Ocean, (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 113-30 (Europeans in the Indian Ocean)
February 1 – Marks, pp. 74-79; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 418-20, 436-47; Guarneri, pp. 56-67 (Conquest of Americas)
February 3 - Marks, pp. 79-82; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 463-8, 472-6, 568-79, 590-5, 577 WHTW (Far East)

February 6 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 460-3, 462 WHTW, 471-2; John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 190-8. (Mughal Empire)
February 8 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 480-90, 503-7 (Ottoman and Safavid Empires)
February 10 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 468-71, 490-5; Tridentine Creed; Martin Luther, “The Three Walls of the Romanists”; Westminster Confession, “Of Good Works,” “Of the Lord’s Supper” (Reformation)

February 13 - Marks, pp. 84-89; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 498-503 (Rise of European states)
February 15 – Benedict Anderson, “The Origins of National Consciousness,” Imagined Communities, New Edition, (London: Verso, 2006), pp. 36-46 (nationalism)
February 17 – Exam – The Early Modern World

Part II – Transformations and Connections

February 20 – Marks, pp. 82-4; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 538-40, 545-56, 564-5; Guarneri, pp. 42-50, 69-79 (Slavery and plantation economy)
February 22 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 510-534, 426 WHTW; Guarneri, pp. 79-87 (American societies)
February 24 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 598-608; James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History, 2nd Ed., (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 227-33, 249-56 (Scientific Revolution)

February 27 – Marks, pp. 90-101; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 579-90, 608-25 (18th Century India)
February 29 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 561-3, 628-36; Guarneri, pp. 95-103; U.S. Declaration of Independence; Edmund Burke’s “Address to the British Colonists in North America (American Revolution)
March 2 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 637-44, 655-7; Guarneri, pp. 103-7; Declaration of the Rights of Man; Maximilian Robespierre, “On the Festival of the Supreme Being” (French Revolution)

March 5 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 644-57, 656 WHTW; Guarneri, pp. 108-12 (Latin American independence)
March 7 - Mark Pendergrast, “The Coffee Kingdoms,” Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 21-41 (Plantation economies and societies)
March 9 – Guarneri, pp. 115-36; Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 20-36 (Early U.S.)

SPRING BREAK

March 19 – Marks, pp. 101-12, 131-5; Hansen and Curtis, 660-67 (identity construction essay due) (Industrial Revolution)
March 21 - Marks, pp. 135-42; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 668-87 (effects of Industrial Revolution)
March 23 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 720-39; Guarneri, pp. 136-48, 166-75 (American nation-building)

March 26 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 740-9; Guarneri, pp. 148-63 (Slavery and emancipation)
March 28 - Marks, pp. 112-8, 123-30; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 690-701, 709-714 (Late Qing China, British Raj)
March 30 – Marks, pp. 142-51; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 752-69, 773-7 (Scramble for Africa)

April 2 – Guarneri, pp. 209-31; Thomas Bender, “Being the Whale,” A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), pp. 192-206 (American Empire)
April 4 – Exam ID Section – Transformations and Connections
April 6 - Exam Essay Portion – Transformations and Connections

Part III – The World in Which We Live

April 9 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 782-802; Guarneri, pp. 231-5 (World War I)
April 11 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 802-09; Vladimir Lenin, “What is to be Done?”; Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited Peoples” (communism)
April 13 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 702-9, 714-7, 826-34, 707 WHTW (new nationalisms)

April 16 – Guarneri, pp. 175-99 (Early 20th century American society)
April 18 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 812-28, 834-40; Guarneri, pp. 199-207 (Great Depression)
April 20 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 844-66; 860 WHTW; Guarneri, pp. 235-42; Holocaust testimonies (World War II, Holocaust)

April 23 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 866-70, 874-87, 882 WHTW, 911-8; Guarneri, pp. 247-62 (Cold War)
April 25 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 887-905; Guarneri, pp. 262-74; Vietnamese Declaration of Independence (decolonization)
April 27 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 930-8; Guarneri, pp. 274-96 (globalization today)

Final Exam: Monday, April 30, 8 a.m.

Assad and the Circassians

2012-01-10T19:47:00.003-05:00

Sufian Zhemukhov reports that Circassion voices in Syria are increasingly opposing the regime:

"President Bashar al-Assad is increasingly losing the support of the Circassian community many of whose members serve in his army and police. Such is the case of Yaser Ali Abaza, a Syrian Circassian lieutenant who, in a video posted to the Internet on December 29, openly established that he had defected from the Syrian Interior Ministry political units and joined the rebellion battalion under the command of General Khalid Ibn al Waleed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwU85ahlyxk)...

"In the middle of December, 115 Syrian Circassians signed an open letter to Russia asking for 'help and rescue,' stating that 'there is no hope for stabilization and peace in Syria.' Two days later, another 57 people joined them (www.echo.msk.ru/blog/cknot/844270-echo). The letter stated: 'The Syrian Circassians are in a desperate position. Every day, we are risking our lives' (www.aheku.org/page-id-2771.html). The Syrian Circassians dared to make the open statement after Russia’s criticism of Damascus in a draft United Nations resolution on December 15 prompted hundreds of thousands of Syrians to take the streets the next day against President Bashar al-Assad (www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/16/)."

Russia expelled Circassian Muslims in a series of ethnic cleansing campaigns in the 19th century, and the Ottoman government settled the refugees in uncultivated areas of Syria, Jordan, and Turkey. The Circassian population in Syria and Jordan today are their descendants.

Danghara for Dushanbe?

2012-01-09T17:11:00.002-05:00

In Tajikistan, there are rumors that President Emamoli Rahmon may move the capital to his native region:

"Danghara, a small town of 20,000 situated in Tajikistan’s southern lowlands, may not strike most observers as a likely spot to place a national capital. But locals are pointing to the resumption of work on a grand new international airport nearby to speculate that Tajik President Emomali Rahmon – a native of the area – intends to relocate his country’s seat of power to his modest hometown...

"The airport scheme is not the only reason Danghara’s residents are talking up their town as a possible successor capital. They point to other unusual capital projects that Tajikistan’s government has brought to the area, including a complete renovation of the town’s roads and extensive building construction. They also note that over the last 10 years, the government has steadily relocated families from the countryside to Danghara...

"But at least one government official close to Rahmon on the national stage has indicated his support for a change of capitals. Suhrob Shapirov, the former head of the Center for Strategic Research and a deputy in the Tajik parliament, told RFE/RL that he would support the move of the capital from Dushanbe to Danghara...

"And that does not take into account the local jealousies likely to be aroused by such a dramatic act of presidential nepotism. One resident of Khatlon Province who identified himself as Djamshed complained that 'even now, people are saying that the president is doing more for his hometown than others.'"

To me, the only truly suggestive thing in this is the airport. Why would you build your largest national airport around 75 miles from your capital and largest city? Danghara is in Khatlon Province, which is the most populous of Tajikistan's four main administrative divisions. Even if Dushanbe remains capital, it seems like Khatlon is where the business hub will be.

Tunisian Student Complaints

2012-01-06T10:55:00.004-05:00

In a piece about salafi activism among Tunisian college students, Monica Marks included this quote:

"Some professors noted that the revolutionary atmosphere has inspired a wave of more vocal student demands on Tunisian campuses. 'After the revolution there were so many student demands,' said Faiza Derbel, an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Manouba. 'Students wanted their papers re-graded and said that their exams were too difficult. I was able to handle their problems on an individual basis.'"

Posted without comment.

Arab Marginalization and Haredi Power

2012-01-02T13:55:00.002-05:00

I meant to link to this a few days ago, but Peter Beinart's points about the Israeli are still critical:

"The bad news is that many Israeli and American Jewish opponents of ultra-Orthodox coercion do not recognize that the struggle for women’s rights and the struggle for Arab rights are inextricably linked. They are linked because ultra-Orthodox coercion stems in large part from ultra-Orthodox control of key ministries in the Israeli government. Israeli prime ministers give the ultra-Orthodox control over these ministries in return for the Knesset votes that keep them in power.

"And why must Israeli prime ministers include ultra-Orthodox parties in their governments? In large measure because they will not include Israel’s Arab parties. Israel’s Arab citizens (those within Israel’s 1967 borders) can vote and elect representatives to the Knesset. But by tradition, an Israeli government cannot rely on Arab parties to stay in power. It must enjoy a Jewish majority in the Knesset...

"What gives the ultra-Orthodox the ability to oppress women, in other words, is partly a political system in which Israel’s Arab citizens are largely barred from power. What the protesters in Beit Shemesh and their supporters in the United States need to remember is the fundamental interconnectedness of equal citizenship. When you deny it to one group, you produce ripple effects that undermine the equality of others as well."

Ahmadiyya Suspended

2012-01-01T16:02:00.002-05:00

Kyrgyzstan has refused to renew the Ahmadi Muslims' recognition, which will prevent them from legally operating in the country:

"He said the commission's decision violates the rights of the some 1,000 members of the Kyrgyz branch of the Ahmadiyya community, an Islamic revivalist movement founded in India in the late 1800s by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Some of the Ahmadiyya community's beliefs are considered controversial with mainstream Muslims.

"Yusub Baltabaev, an official with the State Commission on Religious Affairs, told RFE/RL that the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (SAMK) proposed that the activities of Ahmadiyya in Kyrgyzstan be suspended because of its alleged 'threat to religious security' in the country."

I'm surprised that a group of Muslim religious leaders has that much influence in a post-Soviet Central Asian state, but then Kyrgyzstan is far from my forte. The Ahmadiyya differ from mainstream Islam primarily in not regarding Muhammad as a final prophet, and seeing their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a new messenger from God for a new age and society. I also dimly recall something about it's being an important movement in African-American Islam a century ago, but I don't have the resources to check on that right now.

2011 in Arab History

2011-12-29T14:22:00.002-05:00

One year ago yesterday, I noticed a news item about protests in southern Tunisia. Although I had intended to take a blogging break until after the new year, I sensed in these protests a new social movement of some significance, and so put up a post, and continued following the story the next two days (1, 2, 3). I definitely did not expect them to succeed in toppling the regime, and even when they did I was skeptical that they would lead to similar movements elsewhere. They did, however, and the result was what many have called the "Arab Spring," a year of popular activism which toppled old regimes and led to a rebirth of hope across the Arab world.

As a historian, I recognize the hubris in the title of this post, since we can only speculate what the immediate consequences of these uprisings might be, much less what will stand out about them after decades or a century. At most, we can say that these events will continue to be contested in political rhetoric, secondary education classrooms, and public history displays, as politicians and various social forces strive to shape their legacy and place themselves within it. Nonetheless, it seems worthwhile to offer some thoughts about aspects of these ongoing events that, to me at least, seem early candidates for consideration.

One of these aspects may lie in their origins. Leaving aside Kuwait, where popular protests have been having an impact for years, we can look at a group of countries where monarchies with colonial ties were, in the name of national independence, replaced by regimes based in the military or other security services. This also usually led to different social classes gaining power and influence in society, as the old urban notable and landowning families saw themselves targeted as a rival power center. Something like this also happened in Iraq in 1958, although the 2003 Anglo-American invasion meant that the successor regime of the 1958 "revolution" was gone before the year started. The exception which proves the rule is Syria, which had not had a king since 1920, but where the governing National Bloc was still based on the power of the old notables and landowners. As others have noted, the states which did not have these upheavals, which means those that remain monarchies today, as well as Lebanon and Algeria, have also seen little "Arab Spring" action. This is enough of a pattern that it could point toward some interesting socio-political roots of what we've seen in the past year and are seeing now.

Those regimes which had the least social basis fell most swiftly. Tunisia's wealthy elite wasn't going to take up arms to defend Ben Ali, and Egypt's military chose to manage the transition rather than prop up Mubarak. Other countries have seen tribal or sectarian groups who stood to lose a benefactor fight on behalf of the old system, as happened with the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. A key issue going forward will be the ability of new government forms to have a broad constituency among the populace, ideally through elections providing for a rotation of power.

This, however, is tied to another issue. One framework we have seen the past year is that "the nation," meaning the people, is rising up against internal oppressors so as to establish a new government on its own behalf. One question now is how the "nations" will be defined, or what identities will be on people's minds as they act politically. In Iraq, probably moreso than under Saddam Hussein, loyalty to a community of Sunnis, Shi'ites, or Kurds competes with that to Iraq as a whole. Those "Arab Spring" countries with religious differences will face the question of deciding if those differences preclude national unity. This issue might be most explosive in Syria, but for the moment, it is also a subject for discussion in Egypt, where salafis see Christians not as equal citizens, but as a subject population under Muslim rule.

2011 also shows signs of introducing new norms into Arab political life, as the Arab League is now willing to at least pretend to be upset by rulers oppressing their people, especially if those people are Sunni Arabs. In addition, peaceful mass protests have become for many the preferred form of political action, even affecting Hamas rhetoric. This still doesn't work if the government shoots back too much, but then it never has. This development, along with the death of Osama bin Laden, may have completely eliminated the already marginal al-Qaeda-like voices from the Arab political landscape, and could become a thorn in regimes' sides for decades to come.

I have mostly ignored Bahrain in this because it really doesn't fit the pattern, but I don't think interferes with it, either. Although its activists joined in the "Arab Spring" wave, their models are more Kuwait and Iraq than Tunisia and Egypt, and unfortunately, it is a country where mass protests appear to have been successfully contained, though they continue in rural areas. Bahrain shows the effects of the troubling sectarian political framework emanating from Iraq which may prove the region's biggest challenge in the 21st century.

All this is not to proclaim the "Arab Spring" over, especially in the cases of Syria and Bahrain. As I said, it is simply a pause for reflection on the past year, thinking about where it might have come from and what challenges and opportunities might lie ahead, as the Arab world enters what will clearly be a new phase of its political history.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Meshaal's Ceasefire Orders

2011-12-29T12:55:00.005-05:00

Fatah sources confirm reports circulating earlier this month that Khaled Meshaal has ordered an end to Hamas attacks on Israel:

"According to the sources in Fatah, the largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization, Meshal ordered a de facto cease-fire with Israel not only in the Gaza Strip, but also in the West Bank. Hamas had already refrained from launching rockets from Gaza.

"The sources say Meshal issued the order in late November, after the first round of reconciliation talks in Cairo between Hamas and Fatah.

"After that meeting, it emerged that the two organizations agreed also to focus on a popular struggle along the lines of the Arab Spring...

"Hamas' leadership in Gaza said it was surprised by Meshal's statement and that 'the only way to liberate the occupied lands is through the armed struggle.' The Hamas interior minister in Gaza, Fathi Hamad, added that the group's 'internal leadership' does not necessarily intend to abide by Meshal's policy.

"Meshal reiterated late last week that popular protest had 'the power of a tsunami' and has already proved itself in the Arab world. But he added that the organization would not give up the use of violence against Israel."

Two things come out in this story. One is the differences between Hamas's on-the-ground leadership in the Gaza Strip and the exiled leadership in Damascus. The latter is theoretically in charge, but does not always get its way. The second is the fact that, while contrary to popular impressions there has always been non-violent Palestinian resistance to Israel, Palestinians have also maintained that they have a right to use violence when under occupation, and that assertions to the contrary are a means of delegitimizing their struggle.

Israeli defense sources quoted by Ha'aretz are dubious about all this, and what will matter most is how Hamas responds within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Meshaal has been in exile for ages, and doesn't always carry credibility in the Occupied Territories. If violent attacks continue, then even the diplomatic impact of this will be limited. At the same time, for someone in Meshaal's position to endorse what he calls "popular protest" as a superior alternative to violence is an important step that could have implications down the road.

Requiem for a Two-State Solution

2011-12-28T15:53:00.004-05:00

Carlo Strenger believes a two-state solution is no longer a viable option in the Arab-Israeli conflict:

"Nousseibeh suggested (in a recent book that) the Palestinians relinquish their struggle for statehood. He even asked them to accept that, for a long time, they would not have full political rights, and that they should settle for civic and human rights to make life as bearable as possible. His deeply pessimistic conclusion was that, given the realities, the human cost of continuing the struggle for a Palestinian state was too high...

"From a historical perspective, the two state solution’s demise was, maybe, inevitable. Except for six years, the Likud has been in power for the last thirty-five years, and the Likud never relinquished its dream of the greater land of Israel. When Rabin won elections for Prime Minister in 1992, both he and Peres felt that this was a last chance; they believed that what they would not achieve in Rabin’s term would not be achieved at all.

"Rabin had to govern, with a minority of the Knesset supporting him, and Israel’s right never felt that he had a mandate for the Oslo process. Netanyahu spoke at demonstrations where crowds held posters depicting Rabin as a Nazi. He was later recorded taking pride in having killed off the Oslo process.

"Now he can take partial credit for having killed the two state solution. The other half goes to the Palestinians: As Mahmoud Abbas said more than a year ago, the Palestinian’s greatest mistake was the second Intifada. Indeed, together with Hamas’ win of the elections in 2006 and the shelling of southern Israel, the Intifada’s horrible violence has made Israelis averse to taking further risks for peace."

I am not the one to say whether Strenger is right. I would still like to believe it could work, but do not see a realistic chance of it happening under Netanyahu's leadership. Whether two states remain possible depends on the combination of facts on the ground and the political will to alter them. I cannot judge the former, and perhaps given the latter, it might be better to say that it has entered a persistent vegetative state from which no recovery is foreseeable.

How one apportions blame depends largely on what you think happened in the diplomacy under Ehud Barak in 2000. I'm not even going to attempt to untangle that mass of conflicting assertions. Strenger is right that the Second Intifada strangled the Israeli peace camp, but that in turn flowed from a belief in Israeli perfidy during negotiations. The uprising's most violent aspects were also the terrorist attacks on civilians inside Israel, and in the history of the conflict's violence, one should not forget that Hamas only turned to those tactics and made them a key part of its struggle after Baruch Goldstein committed the Hebron massacre in 1994, a massacre which stemmed directly from the inclinations toward ethnic cleansing on the part of many in the settler movement which the Israeli state tries to control, but also supports with defense and infrastructure. What Hamas did, in other words, was escalate dirty warfare in the region, not introduce it.

Strenger also addresses the future:

"Our long-term task is to develop new models of dealing with the emerging reality. I wish I could say something clear and constructive, but for the time being I can’t. I have not yet seen realistic models other than the two state solution.

"The one state solution, at this point, is an empty concept, so is that of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation. For neither case can I imagine how the parliament of the greater Israel-Palestine would function, or how equality of all citizens with respect to security could be achieved: I agree with Sari Nousseibeh that Jewish history from the Pogroms through the Holocaust, from the 1948 war to that of 1973, is too traumatic for Israelis to relinquish control of security for a long time to come...

"I am afraid that Israel will lose many friends in the gradual process of finalizing its sovereignty over the West Bank. Netanyahu and Lieberman have already aggravated many politicians and supporters of Israel, ranging from Hillary Clinton to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. And they have deepened the alienation many Jews in the Diaspora feel towards the current government’s policies that they cannot accept."

I actually think that what will happen is that, within 10-20 years, Israel will impose Netanyahu's vision of disconnected cantons with nominal sovereignty under Israeli domination. The path toward any one-state solution depends on demographics and, perhaps, the fate of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Iraq after the U.S.

2011-12-26T22:08:00.003-05:00

Shortly after the official end of U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved against high-ranking Sunnis in his government:

"On December 18, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki requested the dismissal of his deputy, Saleh al-Mutlaq...

"The next day, December 19, an arrest warrant was issued for Iraqi vice-president Tariq al-Hashemi, also a Sunni, on terrorism charges.

"On December 20, Mutlaq was prevented from entering the cabinet building in Baghdad. The same day, vehicles in which two Sunni politicians were travelling in the west of the capital came under fire, apparently from members of the Iraqi security forces.

"Although Mutlaq and Hashemi are the two most senior Sunni Arabs in positions of power, the authorities insist the proceedings against them have nothing to do with sectarian politics.

"State-run television last week showed what purported to be the confessions of Hashemi’s bodyguards, in which they said they assassinated health and foreign ministry officials and Baghdad police officers. They alleged that Hashemi paid them 3,000 US dollars for each attack...

"Hashimi left Baghdad and went to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north after security forces raided his home and office and arrested some of his staff...

"On December 21, the prime minister made it clear he no longer felt bound by the power-sharing agreement in which posts are shared out among Iraq’s various ethnic and confessional groups. Instead, he announced, he would be setting up a new majority-based cabinet."

The story here is that while Iraq today is politically freer with far more democratic features than it had under Saddam Hussein, the game being played is still one of which faction will dominate the state and the webs of government patronage that makes possible. In the decades prior to the 2003 Anglo-American invasion, the nation was ruled through the Ba'ath Party, which was dominated by military officers from the Sunni regions around Baghdad where power was concentrated under the Ottomans and British. After the complete collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, power passed to militias, either Shi'ites trained by Iran or Sunni units rooted in the old Iraqi army and augmented by foreign salafi fighters. The Sunnis wound up losing that civil war, which was at its peak from 2006-2009 and saw the end of mixed neighborhoods as people were forced to join their co-religionists for their own protection.

Prime Minister al-Maliki came to office through elections, but his power also rests on his dominance of a government which controls much of the economy and security services dominated by veterans of those same Shi'ite militias. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Sunnis live as refugees elsewhere in the Arab world, and al-Maliki's government is in no hurry to repatriate them. This is why Iraq's government is widely perceived, not as democracy, but as control by a sectarian strongman, and why those elsewhere in the Arab world always cited it as a negative example rather than a model. This is also why, over the past few months, Sunni regions have begun seeking autonomy:

"In recent months, Anbar, Salahuddin and Diyala Provinces have each pushed for a public vote on creating their own regional governments...

"Early Friday morning, Iraqi police commandos arrested a leading advocate of Salahuddin Province’s push for regional status and seized his computer and reams of documents, security officials said. They did not say why he had been detained.

"The provinces are not seeking a total divorce from the rest of Iraq, just a wider separation in the mold of Kurdistan, the relatively prosperous and safe area in northern Iraq. The Kurds, who have lived for decades as a people apart from the rest of Iraq, have their own Parliament and president, command their own security forces and have signed lucrative oil deals with foreign companies without Baghdad’s approval."

American forces have withdrawn, but the future of the country remains undecided. Its leaders treat their posts as fiefdoms through which to build their own power bases, and the general public fears a collapse of the security situation should competition among those leaders get too out of hand. Furthermore, the empowerment of a previously disadvantaged Shi'ite population has come at the direct expense of Iraq's Arab Sunnis, and that fact, kept firmly in Arab consciousness by the refugee problem, has been perhaps the most significant ingredient in a spike in anti-Shi'ite attitudes among Sunnis throughout the region. I will not say the country was better off under Saddam Hussein, but no one should pretend for political reasons that the U.S. has mid-wifed a stable democracy rather than a weak yet abusive state in a battered society which serves, not as a model of freedom, but a source of instability.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Netanyahu and Channel 10

2011-12-26T19:14:00.004-05:00

Channel 10, one of Israel's two independent news TV stations, ran an expose earlier this year which was embarrassing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some are arguing that this is a reason Netanyahu's government is not allowing the station to postpone its debt, a refusal which may force the station to close:

"'The fight over Channel 10 is partly a matter of revenge — Netanyahu wants to make them pay for what they did to him,' argued Nachman Shai, a member of Parliament from the opposition party Kadima, a former news executive who helped set up Channel 10 a decade ago. 'But it is also part of a three-front struggle — over the courts, civil society and the media. The right wants to control every institution. Freedom of expression is at risk...'

"President Shimon Peres has weighed in, saying that the channel’s effort to survive is 'a struggle for Israel’s democratic character.' In a related comment, he also declared himself 'ashamed' of several bills being considered in Parliament that he believes chip away at Israel’s democratic character — an antidefamation law, one that silences loudspeakers issuing the Muslim call to prayer and another that prevents foreign governments from financing left-wing Israeli groups.

"Last summer, Parliament passed a law making it possible to sue anyone who advocates boycotting things Israeli, including West Bank settlements."

What's really happening here? Israel has always had a strong state internally, and speech restrictions in the name of security are taken for granted. A disturbing trend lately has been restrictions on speech seen by the right as disloyal, meaning that it advocates views at odds with their conception of Israeli nationalism. The linked article, however, does not include much to tie the Channel 10 imbroglio to anything but Netanyahu's political interests. It seems reasonable to fear that he is trying to control the Israeli mediasphere the same way Berlusconi dominated Italy's media, and that this would be bad for Israeli democracy and, given that Netanyahu is a right-wing figure, have the same practical effect as would an attack on the station for ideological reasons.

IDF and the Settlers

2011-12-19T22:47:00.002-05:00

Mark Perry passes on the phrase "Jewish Hezbollah" to describe Israeli settlers in the West Bank who attack IDF targets:

"'I don't want to exaggerate, but it's time to call this what it is,' a veteran IDF officer noted in a recent telephone conversation on the Nablus incident. 'It might be news in America, but it's no secret in Israel. This is a very real crisis. What we have here is the birth of a state within a state. The birth of a kind of Jewish Hezbollah.' This former officer went on to speculate that 'what is emerging in the West Bank' is 'a three-state solution: Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and, standing between them, a radical settler state.' Yehuda Shaul, an organizer of Breaking The Silence -- a group of IDF soldiers committed to publicizing the reality of being an Israeli soldier in the West Bank -- is unwilling to go that far, though he confirms that the series of escalations between settlers and the IDF has roiled the Israeli military. 'The IDF is in the West Bank to control tens of thousands of Palestinians,' he notes, 'but they're having the most trouble controlling the settlers. It's quite an irony.'"

The anonymous IDF officer quoted above is referring to the fact that Hizbullah effectively runs Shi'ite areas of the country that were long marginalized by the Maronite-dominated government, and that its loyalty to that agenda supersedes any loyalty it has to Lebanon as a whole. Those settlers who are part of the religious Zionist movement believe that God wants Jews to settle the entire "Land of Israel" between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, a divine commandment which they place above the policies of the Israeli government which seeks to control and direct settlement based on its own agendas. This is not new, as there was violent opposition to the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. I also remember that in 2007, when I visited Hebron along with but not participating with Jewish anti-settler protestors, the IDF routed the bus caravan through Palestinian neighborhoods because of the fear of violence from the Jewish ones. Radical settler attempts to harass and intimidate the IDF have clearly increased over the past year, mostly over the IDF's attempts to suppress settler violence against the Palestinians.

Perry also reports on problems faced by the IDF as an organization, such as this video of an occupation patrol dancing in a Hebron street. My take on such matters is this: Sympathetic visitors to Israel often comment that Israelis, because of their mandatory military service, have to display maturity much earlier than teenagers in the United States. It doesn't take much time in the West Bank, however, to see that not all of them muster that maturity, adding insult to the injuries associated with the military occupation.

Zainab al-Khawaja's Arrest

2011-12-17T21:25:00.002-05:00

Mona Kareem provides information on Zainab al-Khawaja, who was arrested in Bahrain two days ago:

"Zainab was arrested while she was sitting in a roundabout on the Budaiya Highway, as part of a sit-in called for by protesters called Occupy Budaiya Street which aimed at pressuring the government to release political prisoners and pay tribute to Bahrain's 40-plus martyrs, killed at the hand of security forces since the unrest started.

"According to her sister Maryam, Zainab was arrested with another woman called Masooma Al-Sayed and was charged with illegal gathering, assaulting a female officer, and inciting hatred against the regime. The prosecutor decided to detain both women for seven days under investigation. Zainab was sprayed in her eyes when she was arrested and was unable to see for an hour. In the police station, Zainab was beaten on the head, arms and legs, as she was unable to see. She recognized the voice of the policewoman who beat her, but the prosecutor refused to write it down. Her lawyer attempted to show the prosecutor a video of Zainab's arrest, but he refused to see it. The policewoman came to the prosecutor with bandaged arm claiming Masooma and Zainab hit her. Zainab refused to sign the statement unless the name of the policewoman who hit was written down."

Zainab's father and husband are both in prison already. My usual disclosure: Zainab was in my "Medieval Islamic Civilizations" course at Beloit College, and my interest in this case is therefore not meant to belittle other activists around the Middle East. Her Twitter feed, however, is an excellent source for Bahrain's ongoing protest movement.

Shi'ite Origins

2011-12-15T23:12:00.004-05:00

How and when did the various movements of Shi'ite Islam begin clearly to become separate communities distinct from the proto-Sunni majority? Arabic sources dating almost exclusively from the ninth century and later present the events as going back to the generation of the Companions of the Prophet in the early-mid 7th century and a dispute over whether his cousin and son-in-law Ali b. Abi Talib was the rightful successor. Many modern historians have suggested that Shi'ism was a matter of simple preference or tendency until after the Abbasids came to power in 750. In The Origins of the Shi'a, which may be 2011's most important book on early Islamic history, Najam Haider re-examines this question by creatively applying cutting-edge methodologies of source criticism. He concludes that the two major strands of early Shi'ism, the currently minor Zaydi Shi'ism and the Imami Shi'ism from which both the dominant Twelvers and second most numerours Isma'ilis, both existed as distinct communities from the early 700's.

The extant Arabic sources include lots of hadith accounts concerning the proper performance of religious rituals. These accounts are sourced back to Muhammad through chains of transmission, and their reliability has been the most significant issue in the evolution of Islamic religious doctrine in the 20th century. In recent years, however, scholars working mainly in Europe have determined that if forgery was taking place on a large scale, it involved not only the names of authorities, but convincingly developing complete intellectual biographies that were shared among the occasionally inconvenient for the scattered generation of account transmitters who allegedly did the forging.

Based on this evidence, Haider uses the substantial corpus of traditions discussing religious rituals to develop three case studies to determine the degree to which Imamis, Zaydis, and Sunnis followed distinct paths in the crucial early 700's. He finds that they did, though the emergence of Zaydism over the period followed a somewhat different trajectory than has customarily been held.

In the final section of Haider's book, he examines the ways in which these identities were articulated in society. The materials concerning rituals and authorities on ritual matters suggest that how one performed acts of worship was, to some set of the public, more important than their specialized theological doctrines. These differences ultimately led to the development of separate sacred spaces within Kufa, the Iraqi city which was critical to early Shi'ism and the focus of Haider's study.

This whole book is not only important for its methodology and conclusions about early Shi'ism, but sits comfortably alongside other works examining religious identity in the late antique and early Islamic Middle East. I'm thinking here of Leor Halevi's Muhammad's Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society which won MESA's most prestigious book award for its examination of how rituals surrounding death became and important symbol of the emerging Islamic identity and values from the 7th through 9th centuries, as well as Maged Mikhail's 2004 dissertation "Egypt from Late Antiquity to Early Islam: Copts, Melkites, and Muslims shaping a New Society," which received "Honorable Mention" for MESA's dissertation award. Although I can't find it now, I'm sure the latter work argued at some point that Egypt's Christian communities came to consolidate their separate identities largely through the observation of specific fasts and similar observances. One might also lump in here that in the 4th century John Chrysostom's Adversus Judaeos sermons were motivated by his desire to keep Christians from following Jewish observances. The common link among these three works is the consolidation of religious identity among communities of practice, and lens which may finally allow historians to better understand the social dimensions of the theological tumult of the period.

Abu Dhabi and Oman's Protests

2011-12-15T22:59:00.003-05:00

I post without comment the idea that Abu Dhabi might have been responsible for the brief 2011 protests in Oman:

"Nonetheless, in late February, unrest erupted after hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in the northern port city of Sohar demanding jobs and an end to corruption. Qaboos swiftly responded by firing 12 cabinet ministers and raising government salaries while agreeing to boost unemployment benefits to 150 Oman rials (380 USD) a month. And shortly after the Sultan increased minimum wages by 40 percent, the unrest subsided almost as quickly as it had erupted.

"Some analysts, however, quickly attributed the unrest in Sohar to the neighboring United Arab Emirates (UAE). By playing up economic differences between wealthier tribe members residing on the UAE side of the border, in stark contrast to their poorer Omani 'cousins,' analysts argued that Abu Dhabi sought to send an unmistakable message to Muscat about its 'friendly' relations with Tehran.

"Since assuming power, the Sultan has played a delicate balancing game between his strategic alliance with Iran while aligning himself with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which comprises Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Oman is the only GCC country to carry out joint military exercises with Iran. Nonetheless, as a staunch American ally, former U.S. Vice President Dick Chaney visited the Sultanate three times during his years in office.

"In another rift with Abu Dhabi, the 10 billion USD GCC pledge to Muscat seemed to arrive at the backdrop of Omani officials announcing the uncovering of a UAE spy ring allegedly seeking to overthrow Qaboos by means of a coup d'etat, only months earlier.

"The historical mistrust between Qaboos and the UAE in particular stems from when the GCC failed to support the Sultan in his uprising against his father."

As I said, I have nothing of my own to say about this. I've just had Oman on the brain lately.

Shippensburg U.S. History Projects

2011-12-14T14:15:00.003-05:00

Students in the first half of Shippensburg's U.S. history survey are challenged to do research and present it in different ways:

"At the beginning of the semester, the students are charged with the responsibility of presenting a balanced historical interpretation that is accessible and interesting to a broad demographic.

"'I want them to think of the professional, analytical and aesthetic concerns that they will face,' he said. 'I want to fire up their passions.'

"Last Wednesday, Dec. 7, the students in two sections of Dieterich-Ward’s Early History of the United States course had the opportunity to display their hard work to ‘celebrity judges,’ which included university faculty and community members...

"Many of the students were pleased with the opportunity to explore historical topics in more depth, and were especially excited about the challenge of displaying information in a dynamic and engaging manner.

"'This is one of the only times we get to go outside of what is taught in class and learn in depth one piece of history,' said Alex Kramer, 20, Philadelphia. 'I like that we can research our own ideas and can then form our own opinions about things...'

"For other groups, the challenge came in making the information come to life in dynamic ways.

"'We decided to design a voting booth because it was more interactive than a tri-fold,' said Rachel Tyrpin, 21, Pine Grove. The group explored the Freedmen’s Bureau’s role in the overall reconstruction efforts of the South in the decades following the Civil War."

Christmas in Nazareth Illit

2011-12-14T12:49:00.004-05:00

One Israeli town has some issues with religious freedom:

"The mayor of a Jewish suburb of Nazareth sparked outrage on Wednesday after refusing to allow Christmas trees to be placed in town squares, calling them provocative...

"'The request of the Arabs to put Christmas trees in the squares in the Arab quarter of Nazareth Illit is provocative,' Mayor Shimon Gapso told AFP.

"'Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen -- not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor,'" he said of the northern Israeli town...

"His decision angered the town's Arab and Christian minority, who accused him of racism.

"'The racism of not putting a tree up is nothing compared to the real racism that we experience here,' said Aziz Dahdal, a 35-year-old Christian resident of Nazareth Illit."

Christianity is a hot-button issue for some in Israel due to the history of Christian persecution and forced conversion of Jews. Nazareth Illit is in the heart of the "Arab Triangle" in northern Israel, and was founded as a sort of shadow community to Nazareth by those interested in demographically Judaizing as much of the land as possible.

Nir Rosen wonders how this will play in conservative circles.

UPDATE: A commenter notes that this story is actually from December 2010. I'm not sure why it was making the rounds yesterday, but I don't know the current status.

Onward, Egyptian Democracy

2011-12-01T10:36:00.003-05:00

The first round of voting in Egypt's three-stage elections indicates that the new parliament will be dominated by Islamist parties. The areas that voted this week were more liberal than Egypt as a whole, and yet the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have upwards of 40% of the seats, or about what they were expected to do nationwide. More surprisingly, Salafis strongly overperformed expectations to win about 25% of the vote. As the New York Times reports:

"If the majority proves durable, the longer-term implications are hard to predict. The Brotherhood has pledged to respect basic individual freedoms while using the influence of the state to nudge the culture in a more traditional direction. But the Salafis often talk openly of laws mandating a shift to Islamic banking, restricting the sale of alcohol, providing special curriculums for boys and girls in public schools, and censoring the content of the arts and entertainment.

"Their leaders have sometimes proposed that a special council of religious scholars advise Parliament or the top courts on legislation’s compliance with Islamic law. Egyptian election laws required the Salafi parties to put at least one woman on their electoral roster for each district, but they put the women last on their lists to ensure they would not be elected, and some appear with pictures of flowers in place of their faces on campaign posters."

Egypt's liberals are despondent, and there is concern for the future of civil liberties in Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood decides to move in a more conservative direction to co-opt the salafis. My belief, however, is that the path forward is to establish a stable democratic system in which free elections become the norm. This means, in fact, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in its efforts to speed the transition to civilian rule. Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan al-Banna himself cited elections as something to admire about Western civilization, as it allows people to hold their leaders accountable, force those leaders to take into account the popular will and the condition of the country as a whole instead of just themselves and their own patronage networks.

Although Western political commentators assert as a given that all Islamist commitments to democratic principles is deceptive window dressing and that their true agenda is "one person, one vote, one time," evidence for that is scanty. After the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini installed an "Islamic Republic" which still has lots of democratic features, and which even with its undemocratic elements happens to be what he stood for before the 1979 revolution. In Turkey and so far Tunisia, Islamist parties have maintained their democratic commitments. In Algeria and the Palestinian Territories, Islamist election victories were followed by chaos, but in both of those case the ruling powers acted undemocratically against the election results, cancelling them in Algeria and sharply curtailing their ability to do anything in the PNA. In other words, there's no real precedent for Islamists suddenly acting on a hidden agenda, and plenty for fear of Islamists leading to rash, undemocratic actions damaging to the polities involved.

Given this history, the liberal parties, who are losing badly because they are simply badly underdeveloped and without a long history of arguing their message in society, should consider their common ground with the Muslim Brotherhood and the prospects for forming a coalition with them rather than leave the salafis are their only willing partners. The MB, for its part, has expressed an openness to this, denied rumors they are tacitly allied with the salafis, and even advertised their willingness to put Christians in high-profile positions. The way forward for those disappointed today is not to become political insurgents in league with the SCAF, but to accepts the results of 2011 so as to make sure they have a chance to do better in future elections.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Camel Shortage

2011-11-28T18:26:00.002-05:00

Foreign Policy calls attention to a growing global camel shortage:

"The stock of meat-producing camels in (Saudi Arabia) decreased from a high of 426,000 in 1997 to just 260,000 today, a drop of 39 percent, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Thousands of camels are slaughtered every year during the hajj pilgrimage -- hence the need for imports.

"But where to get them? The animals were once as common as squirrels in Pakistan, but the country's camel population is now down to about 700,000 thanks largely to demand from the camel-racing industry in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Overall, the Asian camel population decreased nearly 20 percent between 1994 and 2004.

"The biggest winner has been Australia, which boasts the world's largest remaining population of wild camels -- descendants of the animals brought by British settlers from India in the 19th century -- and has profited from the demand by shipping the animals to Saudi Arabia to be slaughtered for food."

The Enemy Within

2011-11-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

Gershom Gorenberg writes about the development of settler movement activism against Arabs within Israel's borders:

"For several years, extremist West Bank settlers have conducted a campaign of low-level violence against their Palestinian neighbors — destroying property, vandalizing mosques and occasionally injuring people. Such 'price tag' attacks, intended to intimidate Palestinians and make Israeli leaders pay a price for enforcing the law against settlers, have become part of the routine of conflict in occupied territory.

"Now that conflict is coming home. The words 'price tag' spray-painted in Hebrew on the wall of a burned mosque inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders transformed Israel’s Arab citizens into targets and tore at the all-too-delicate fabric of a shared democracy.

"Indeed, the mosque burning represented the violent, visible edge of a larger change: the ethnic conflict in the West Bank is metastasizing into Israel, threatening its democracy and unraveling its society.

"The agents of this change include veterans of West Bank settlements seeking to establish a presence in shared Jewish-Arab cities in Israel and politicians backing a wave of legislation intended to reduce the rights of Arab citizens...

"Rabbi Yossi Stern, the yeshiva’s dean, described the transformation of Acre’s Wolfson neighborhood — a set of Soviet-style apartment blocks built in the 1960s — from a Jewish to a majority-Arab area as 'a national sin.' He argued forcefully that Jews should move back into such shifting areas. For Arabs and Jews 'to be in the same neighborhood, in the same building ... that’s not good,' Rabbi Stern said. Coexistence was clearly not his goal.

"Segregation, though, is intrinsically a denial of rights. The countryside throughout the Galilee region of northern Israel is dotted with a form of segregated exurb, the 'community settlement.' In each of these exclusive communities, a membership committee vets prospective residents before they can buy homes.

"The concept, born in the mid-1970s, originally allowed West Bank settlers to ensure that their neighbors shared their 'ideological-social background,' including the same shade of religious commitment. The Likud government that came to power in 1977 applied the model to create Jewish-only bedroom communities in the Galilee and in the Negev."

I remember that the Knesset did not approve the first new Arab town since Israel declared independence since some point during my time there from 2006-2008.

Which Egyptian Christians?

2011-11-27T19:46:00.002-05:00

This Thursday-Sunday will be the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, and the program contains lots of sessions about the past year's political developments. One that looks interesting is at the very end, and includes, among others, this paper by Mourad Sinot:

"The investigation shows that Copts participated as individuals; the Church hierarchy had little influence. Evidence indicates that the number of Copts increased as a reaction against the Patriarch’s support of the regime after Mubarak’s speech on February 1. Later, Christians had a bigger presence in Tahrir because of Evangelical efforts culminating in what was mistakenly publicized as 'mass,' as well as commemorations of the Martyrs of the Alexandria bombing on February 6 and 9. Perhaps ignorant of denominational differences, the media hailed 'Coptic' participation in the Revolution and the unity of the nation. Lastly, in spite of their somewhat marginal position within the protest movement, Christians in general and Coptic Orthodox Christians in particular, have now seen the need for their direct involvement in the public sphere and are actively discussing possible modalities for such involvement – a fact that may redeem their slowness in endorsing the Revolution."

In Egypt, "Evangelical" is denomination of sorts rather than a tendency, and my understanding is that they are in some sense followers of Billy Graham. If they were disproportionately participating in the revolution despite the media portrayal of all Egyptian Christians as Copts, that would be interesting.

SCAF, MB and Political Failures

2011-11-22T15:41:00.005-05:00

The best way to follow events in Egypt is through a judicious selection of Twitter accounts, but in blog form, Issandr El-Amrani has some points worth noting. One is his assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood:

"I often think the Brothers' biggest problem is not that they are fundamentalist, or out of touch with the Egyptian mainstream, or too radical. It's that they are perceived, rightly, as schemers by average people. It's true of their leaders, at least, and it's what has made so many bright young people leave them in recent years and so many others doubt their intentions."

Over the past few decades, much of the leadership class of the Muslim Brotherhood did what other Egyptian elites did, and calculate how best to function in an undemocratic regime where some dissent was tolerated and cooption often a possibility. The leaders of major parties, such as the longtime opposition Wafd Party, have carried this mentality over to post-Mubarak Egypt, with the SCAF as the new rulers and referees in the competition for influence. Issandr also comments on this situation:

"The failure of SCAF's transition over the last nine months is not theirs alone. It is that of a good part of the political class that said nothing when key former regime figures where left alone for months, and Mubarak was in Sharm al-Sheikh with his sons. It is that of the Egyptian elite that went back to its privileged lifestyle and did nothing to address the social injustice in the country. Not to always compare things to Tunisia, but there the private sector, trade unions and the government got together and negotiated 10-15% salary increases across the board. They bought social peace by renegotiating the social contract.

"In Egypt you get the feeling that the upper class has completely ignored the social roots of the January uprising, and at the same time backed a return to similar kinds of politics of patronage, where parties and movements try to buy the poor with handouts and cheap meat at Eid. People don't want to be given charity, they want to be given social rights. This too is political — it's not about economic mismanagement. It's not about an uprising of the poor. It's about the political vision for a social economy.

"Whether it's about police brutality, social change or politics, my feeling is that Egyptians want to feel like they've actually had a revolution. Whoever gives them that feeling might win the people in Tahrir over."

Some people passionately argue that events, not just in Egypt, but elsewhere in the Arab world, have been about rights and dignity rather than economic circumstances, as if the latter were somehow a soiled motive. The two spheres often go together, however.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has a good roundup of analysis.

All Power to the Leader

2011-11-21T19:17:00.002-05:00

Iranian "Supreme" Leader Ali Khamene'i's comments about eliminating the country's elected presidency may be only one part of a broader push for clerical monarchy:

"Khamenei will further control the legislative branch with the recent approval of the 'Parliamentary Supervision over Members of Parliament' bill. On Tuesday, September 27, the Iranian Parliament approved Article 4 of the 'Parliamentary Supervision over Members of Parliament' bill, which specifies a method for Parliament to expel certain MPs from the body. Based on one of the provisions in this bill, if the Council of Supervision votes to expel a certain member, he or she is not able to file a legal objection through the judicial system. The bill completely removes the legal immunity of members of the parliament in fulfilling their role as representatives.

"This provides Khamenei or his aides with the ability to eliminate any parliamentary member deemed to be a trouble maker. By eliminating the position of the presidency, the Supreme Leader effectively dissolves a semi-independent branch of the government whose head is directly chosen by the people, after the Guardian Council vets the candidates seeking to run in the election.

"It appears that discussion about eliminating the position of the president has been underway for a few months. According to Fars News, a semi-official news agency, a powerful deputy in the parliament, Mohammad Dehghan, revealed that the office of the Supreme Leader had assigned a group of legal experts to study the feasibility of a shift in the political structure of the country."

The Next Phase

2011-11-21T18:33:00.004-05:00

My weekend was dominated by pre-Thanksgiving binge grading, and so I'm only now getting my mind around the details of the tumult taking place, not just in Cairo, but Alexandria, the Suez Canal cities, and elsewhere around Egypt. The direct chain of events leading to the current clashes came when Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Silmi of the SCAF's transitional government proposed a set of "supra-constitutional principles" which he asked Egypt's political parties to sign on to in advance of the first round of parliamentary elections November 28. These included two controversial articles putting the military beyond the control and oversight of any elected civilian government. All of the Islamist groups and some of the leftist opposition refused these conditions, and on Friday staged a major protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square to pressure the SCAF into accepting a civilian-controlled government as quickly as possible. Marc Lynch explains what happened next:

"The Islamists and most other participants in the demonstration left Tahrir at the end of the rally. A few hundred people, mostly (it seems) families of the martyrs of the January 25 revolution and veterans of past Tahrir occupations, decided to launch a new sit-in. This does not seem to have been coordinated with the political strategy of the day's demonstration. The move risked going down the same path as the July 8 demonstration, an originally successful rally which squandered its gains with a wildly unpopular occupation of Tahrir.

"But then Egyptian security forces, acting on authority which remains murky, moved in with extreme force to drive out the small group attempting to occupy Tahrir. Their over the top violence, including massive tear gas and highly abusive police behavior, seems to have then attracted the attention of the core of Egyptian activists who came running to join the fight. Instead of rapidly clearing the square, the security forces found themselves locked in an epic running battle with thousands of protestors. The momentum shifted repeatedly, with protestors holding the square and then being driven out and then returning. The security forces used massive amounts of tear gas, brute force, and weapons. That battle rages on."

Today, on the third day of protests, the crowds have become large enough and the demonstrations geographically widespread enough to recall the days of the revolution last winter. They are demanding an end to SCAF rule, and lethal fighting continues at the entrance to the street leading to the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior. The latter point suggests that the SCAF regime's frequent resort to violence in the face of any street opposition is the major sore point, and that a critical mass of Egyptians see the failure to rebuild the government's internal security apparatus as an important piece of unfinished revolution business.

Aside from the SCAF, the Muslim Brotherhood is the institutional political actor drawing the most scrutiny. MB leaders show a sensitivity to any slight against their potential influence, and seem to have, perhaps with some justification, interpreted the supra-constitutional principles as something akin to the Turkish tradition where the military stands on guard against Islamists. There is also muttering that this entire crisis might have been provoked deliberately to postpone the elections, in which their Freedom and Justice Party is expected to win upwards of 40% of the seats. Because of this, they are insistent that the elections go forward as scheduled, arguing that they represent the best way to bring a civilian government into power. The leftist opposition, however, seems to favor postponing the vote on the grounds the situation is too chaotic and the SCAF cannot be trusted to fairly administer it. The MB has been ambivalent towards the protests, expressing sympathy with the demonstrators grievances, refusing to participate as an organization, and yet highlighting the participation of individual MB members, especially medical personnel.

As a historian, I find it unsurprising that a revolution would traverse multiple phases, as that is simply what often happens. This is especially true when there is no ready made united opposition to assume the helm. Even in Tunisia, there were protests several weeks after Ben Ali fled to oust his prime minister, Muhammad Ghannoushi. In the Egyptian case, almost everyone seemed to put the regime's flaws primarily on Mubarak, and so were content to leave the transition to the military. Even then, I've seen a steady stream of stories in which a large number of groups fight for different types of influences and changes in local communities, businesses, and other institutions. It would not surprise me if Egypt's politics develop something like Kyrgyzstan did after the Tulip Revolution, with a steady ebb and flow of protest as groups with conflicting agendas that trust neither each other nor the system vie for influence.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Sectarianism in Homs

2011-11-20T17:13:00.002-05:00

Anthony Shadid fears that what's happening in Homs could be a harbinger of things to come in Syria:

"A harrowing sectarian war has spread across the Syrian city of Homs this month, with supporters and opponents of the government blamed for beheadings, rival gangs carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings, minorities fleeing for their native villages, and taxi drivers too fearful of drive-by shootings to ply the streets...

"Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, has a sectarian mix that mirrors the nation. The majority is Sunni Muslim, with sizable minorities of Christians and Alawites, a heterodox Muslim sect from which Mr. Assad draws much of his top leadership. Though some Alawites support the uprising, and some Sunnis still back the government, both communities have overwhelmingly gathered on opposite sides in the revolt...

"Fear has become so pronounced that, residents say, Alawites wear Christian crosses to avoid being abducted or killed when passing through the most restive Sunni neighborhoods, where garbage has piled up in a sign of the city’s dysfunction...

"Even as the death toll has dropped in Homs in recent days, the sectarian strife seems to have gathered a relentless momentum that has defied the attempts of both Sunni and Alawite residents to stanch it. One prominent Sunni activist, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, used the term shabeeha — an Arabic word that refers to government paramilitaries — to describe the situation evolving inside Homs.

"'There are shabeeha on both sides now,' he said."

There is a relentless logic to these kinds of identity-based conflicts by which a small number of militants can pry apart larger communities that would otherwise get along. Where public order is weak, armed fanatics will target you just for who you are. How do you respond? By finding the armed fanatics who will protect you just for who you are. We saw this dynamic play out in Iraq, especially between 2006 and 2008, when mixed Sunni/Shi'ite neighborhoods were cleansed of one group or the other. As a result of the turmoil of post-Saddam Iraq, hundreds of thousands of mainly Sunni Iraqis remain as refugees in Syria and Jordan, an everyday reminder in those countries of what many Arabs see, not entirely fairly, but also not unfairly, as an ethnic tyranny that now controls Mesopotamia.

Much as Saddam Hussein's regime was not overtly sectarian but disproportionately favored Sunnis based on personal connections, so Ba'athist Syria supports and is supported by the Alawite communities and other religious minorities. When Sunni/Shi'ite prejudices are already high because of the Iraq situation, the more recent developments in Bahrain, and Arab fears of Iranian influence, the ground is ripe for a repeat of sectarian civil war following the collapse of a Ba'athist regime. Based on the reporting out of Syria, I fear the worst.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Saudi Women in the Olympics

2011-11-20T12:57:00.003-05:00

Some activists have called for Saudi Arabia to be banned from the Olympics for practicing "gender apartheid," much like South Africa became an international pariah for racial apartheid. Crossroads Arabia notes that the pressure has yielded a concession:

"Saudi Arabian women are barred from driving and face penalties for attempting to do so, including public lashings. This hasn’t stopped the country from reportedly giving the green light to women to participate in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

However, the country only plans to send a female equestrian team to the games. The move is largely due to warnings from the International Olympic Committee’s Women and Sports Commission, which said the conservative Gulf kingdom could be barred from the Olympics altogether if women are not allowed to participate...

"This is not new for the conservative Gulf region. Qatar has only recently agreed to allow women to join its 2012 Olympic team, a likely move ahead of the small country receiving the World Cup bid for 2022."

This seems like a small move, but the symbolism should not be underestimated.

Jaber and Salim

2011-11-17T21:41:00.002-05:00

Kristin Smith Diwan links Kuwait's parliamentary issues to divisions in the royal family:

"However the election of Kuwait's most pro-government Parliament since liberation did not end the political intrigue. For the conflict between Kuwait's executive and legislative branches has been matched by the in-fighting within the ruling family itself. Since the contentious succession of 2006, rival princes have been fighting a proxy battle for influence through Kuwait's expanded private media and through the Parliament itself. This leadership struggle has stymied government-led economic diversification plans, further eroded the effectiveness of public services, and sown corruption throughout Kuwait's governing institutions.

"New evidence of the growth in corruption has been mounting for months. In August reports leaked to the media indicated that Kuwait's two largest banks were looking into the transfer of $92 million dollars into the accounts of two members of Parliament. By September, Kuwait's Public Prosecutor took the unprecedented move of opening an investigation into an ever-broadening number of politically suspicious transactions, resulting in allegations that around 16 MPs received about $350 million in bribes to vote in support of the government earlier this year. In October, the scandal spread to the Foreign Ministry on accusations by the parliamentary opposition members that the Prime Minister had diverted public funds to personal accounts abroad. This prompted the resignation of Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Salem al-Sabah, the lone minister from a rival branch of the ruling al-Sabah, who cited his unwillingness to serve in 'a government that does not carry out true reforms regarding the multi-million bank deposits.'"

The two branches of the Al Sabah royal family Diwan refers to are the Al Jaber and the Al Salim. Jaber and Salim were the two sons of Mubarak the Great, who reigned from 1896-1915 and is considered the "Father of Modern Kuwait." Jaber and Salim both briefly succeeded him as rulers, and then when Salim died in 1921 power passed to one of Jaber's sons. Power alternated more or less regularly between regularly between the two branches until 2006, when the longtime emir Jaber III of the Al Jabir died. His heir, Shaykh Saad of the Al Salim, was old and ill, and reigned for only a few days before being forced out due to his incapacitation. Thus began the reign of the current ruler, Sabah IV of the Al Jabir, who named another one of the Al Jabir as heir and a third, his nephew Nasir b. Muhammad, as prime minister.

In this way, the Al Jabir managed to monopolize the country's main executive power centers, and the idea seems current that the Al Salim have sought to avoid complete marginalization by mobilizing parliament against the monarchy. This clearly intersected with a grassroots interest in greater democracy seen throughout 2006. Although Kuwaitis had little interest in the subsequent institutional maneuvering, the corruption revelations, public sector employee dissatisfaction, and "Arab Spring" climate have converged to create a space where the opposition, latching on to the disputes among the ruling Al Sabah, is clearly hoping to push the envelope further.

Nahda's Caliphate Concept

2011-11-17T20:39:00.002-05:00

This dispute over whether Tunisia's Nahda party has a secret radical agenda briefly revealed in a leader's comment about a caliphate is all about nothing:

"Talks on forming a coalition government halted briefly this week after a secular party questioned the motives of its moderate Islamist partner amid intense jockeying for power.

"The trouble began when Le Maghreb, a Tunisian newspaper, reported that Hamadi Jebali, secretary general of the Islamist Ennahda party and pick for interim prime minister, had likened post-Ben Ali Tunisia to a new caliphate.

"The secularist Ettakatol promptly suspended talks on forming a government, sending Ennahda scrambling to reassure its partners and public opinion of its commitment to democracy...

"'Mr Jebali was talking to Islamists in the audience, people who think about the caliphate,' said Said Ferjani, a member of Ennahda's political bureau. 'Mr Jebali said that if they want a caliphate, it's what's happening now: democracy.'

"Ettakatol has accepted that explanation and agreed to restart talks, said Abdellatif Abid, a co-founder of the party and member of its political bureau."

The caliphate is actually a Qur'anic concept according to which humans are the regents of God on Earth, and probably did not become a title for an individual ruler until the Umayyad dynasty. In modern Islamist thought, the definition has gained new salience in calling believers to take upon themselves the task of setting the world to right. This is such a common usage that, particularly during a semester in which I'm teaching a course called "Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East," I thought of it immediately when I heard of the controversy, and therefore certainly believe Nahda's explanation. That does not mean, however, that Arabs who are suspicious of public religious movements, and there are many among Tunisians who came of age under Habib Bourguiba, would immediately recognize that just because they're Muslims. A comparison in American politics would be when a conservative Christian candidate speaks of God "calling" them to do something, and more secular people believe they think God is really talking to them.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Cairo's Neoliberal Urbanisn

2011-11-17T20:02:00.004-05:00

Over the summer, I ran into the concept of "neoliberal urban restructuring". It refers to transformations in which formerly public areas become the domains of elites linked to global capitalism, such as in Amman's urban renewal project. I thought of it again when I saw Arabist's link to this book review by Frederick Deknatel:

"By the late 1990s, though, the character of the satellite cities had changed in government plans from mass, working-class housing to suburban getaways in the desert. The regime and its business allies announced a series of high-end commercial developments and luxury, gated communities, complete with golf courses, amusements parks, and star architecture. Today many of these projects sit half-built. Are golf courses, or an office park designed by Zaha Hadid, really rising on that distant stretch of desert? Rather than being the solution to a population boom and a middle-class escape from congestion, the desert cities came to represent the failures and corruption of Mubarak’s neoliberal regime. Urban planning in the desert was sold off, effectively, to private real estate and business interests. Their low-density, wide streets, and sprawl — in contrast to central Cairo’s density — require massive infrastructure investments, from expensive access roads and highways to abundant water and sewage treatment plants. The desert cities are practically unreachable by public transportation."

The review is of David Sims's Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control, which sounds fascinating, and which I'm sure I'll read eventually. One thing Deknatel reports about Sims's take is the agency of the working class in adapting the urban space themselves:

"Despite all these problems, the interplay between state planning in the desert and unregulated, informal expansion near the historic center has in some ways, Sims argues, inadvertently served Cairo — just not how the regime intended. In the ring of slums creeping in on the Nile, Sims sees “true ironic serendipity.” In his view, the state’s neglect of former agricultural land near the center in favor of developing empty desert on the fringes has actually saved Cairo’s density. Affordable housing arose in well-located but officially ignored former agricultural areas around the Nile, with only a fraction of poorer residents moving out to the desert as the government hoped...

"Sims describes Cairo’s informal economy and transportation network, with the aid of government surveys and international development reports, revealing a city of perseverance and adaptability. The informal economy absorbs over half of Cairo’s labor force — which grows by some 200,000 people every year — while investment in informal residential real estate in Greater Cairo is estimated to be over $36 billion, almost 40 percent of the city’s total. Traffic might be horrendous, but informal transportation systems, like fleets of minibuses, shuttle millions across Greater Cairo every day, cheaply and efficiently, for between .5 and 1.50 Egyptian pounds (from less than a penny to a quarter)."

Kuwait Parliament Stormed

2011-11-16T17:08:00.002-05:00

Thousands of Kuwaitis stormed their country's parliament today, calling for the ouster of Prime Minister Nasser al-Sabah:

"Thousands of Kuwaitis have stormed parliamentary buildings after police and elite forces beat protesters.

"The protesters marched earlier on Wednesday to Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al-Sabah's home to demand his resignation, an opposition MP said...

"The demonstrators broke open the parliament's gates and entered the main chamber, where they sang the national anthem and left after a few minutes.

"The police had used batons to prevent protesters from marching to the residence of the prime minister, a senior member of the ruling family, after staging a rally outside parliament...

"Some activists said they will continue to camp outside parliament until the prime minister is sacked."

Kuwaitis have been protesting since March over a corruption scandal which has already led to the resignation of the foreign minister. Kuwaitis are not new to protests, having staged a successful 2006 "Orange Revolution" for election reform. The current prime minister's saga shows the edges of Kuwaiti democracy, in that parliament has been inhibited from supervising him as a member of the royal family. The current political crisis has been accompanied by a wave of public sector strikes, but I haven't been able to tell if the two are related.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Syria Suspended

2011-11-12T12:24:00.002-05:00

Back when I taught an interdisciplinary survey of Middle East Studies, I told my students that one constant of Middle East politics was that nothing ever happened at Arab League meetings. Today, however, they did something:

"The Arab League voted Saturday to suspend Syria in four days and warned the regime could face sanctions if it does not end its bloody crackdown against anti-government protesters. The decision was a symbolic blow to a nation that prides itself on being a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.

"Qatar's Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim said 18 countries agreed to the suspension, which will take effect on Wednesday. Syria, Lebanon and Yemen voted against it, and Iraq abstained. The Arab League also will consider introducing political and economic sanctions against Syria, he said...

"The decision comes as November shapes up to be the bloodiest month yet in Syria's 8-month-old uprising, with more than 250 Syrian civilians killed so far, most as part of a siege of the rebellious city of Homs, according to activist groups.

"Bin Jassim suggested that Arab League members withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus but left that up to the individual countries.

"The 22-member league will monitor the situation and revisit the decision in a meeting Wednesday in the Moroccan capital Rabat, bin Jassim said, a move that appeared to give Syrian President Bashar Assad time to prevent the action from being implemented."

Notice, of course, from that last paragraph, that that they can take it back. Meanwhile, Marc Lynch notes how regimes killing their people is suddenly bad:

"The rapid spread of a new norm against Arab regimes killing their own people is a frankly astonishing, but largely unremarked, change in the regional game. Since the Arab League backed the UN intervention in Libya in March, the idea that regimes might be sanctioned for their domestic brutality has become a normal part of the Arab political debate and enshrined in official Arab League resolutions...

"Let's recall how odd it is that Arab leaders would agree with even an empty principle that regimes which kill their own people should forfeit their legitimacy. Almost every regime in the Arab world has been doing exactly that for decades. Jordan's King Hussein kept his throne in 1970 when his troops massacred Palestinians in the infamous Black September. Syria's President Hafez al-Assad didn't forfeit his Arab legitimacy when his forces leveled Hama in 1982. Iraq's President Saddam Hussein suffered no great normative sanctions for his genocidal campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s."

He suggests this development may partially be from an unintended, now snowballing precedent set by their decision to use Qadhafi's repression to move against him.

Philpott on Arab Christians

2011-11-07T17:20:00.002-05:00

Andrew Sullivan links to Daniel Philpott making an argument similar to what I said below:

"But however dangerous Arab Christians’ fate now may be, going back to the good old days of dictatorships is not an option. The surge of democracy-demanding youth, popular impatience with corruption and economic stagnation, and a religious reawakening over the past generation all serve to block such a backslide. Of course, for other minorities and for Muslims at odds with their regimes, the good old days were not good at all. They were not good for the residents of Hama, Syria, 10,000 of whose inhabitants were murdered by the current president’s father, Hafez al-Assad; and they are not good for protesters of the son’s dictatorship, over 2900 of whom the regime has killed by now. They were not good for democracy activists or traditional Muslims in Egypt, over 20,000 of whom Mubarak held in his jails. Arab authoritarianism was a model that could not last. Apart from suppressing the dynamism of democracy and the free market, such regimes were repressively secular, creating legions of religious discontents and radicalizing traditional Muslims, often in the direction of violence. Ultimately this shelter for Christians proved to be not only leaky but rotten at its foundations.

"The position of today’s Arab Christians is indeed precarious. Among the possible outcomes, Islamist regimes that afford Christians little freedom to practice their faith or participate in politics are entirely plausible. But this outcome is far from inevitable, no more inevitable than was the persistence of dictatorship. Only this past week, elections in Tunisia, the country that ignited the Arab Spring, gave a plurality of votes to an Islamic party, but one that is relatively liberal and that will rule in coalition with non-religious liberal parties. In Egypt, too, the possibilities are more complex than secularist safety and Salafist violence. When Christians are attacked it is not always at the hands of Muslims. The shooting of Christian demonstrators in Cairo this past October 9th was carried out by the army. When Muslims have attacked Christians, far more have defended them. Just after Muslim terrorists slaughtered 25 Coptic worshippers and injured some 100 others in Alexandria on New Year’s Day of this year, thousands of Muslims across the country gathered in candlelight vigils and formed human chains around Coptic churches during worship. Today, Egyptian Muslim office-seekers are divided among proponents of a strongly Islamic state and supporters of liberal rights, including religious freedom for Christians. The scenario of religious freedom, then, is plausible, too."

Gingrich on Arab Christians

2011-11-07T13:45:00.003-05:00

Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for what he calls the "anti-Christian Spring." He needs a better fact-checker, since he also blamed Muslims for a complaint an unrelated professor at George Washington University filed against Catholic University of America. Juan Cole, meanwhile, points out how Gingrich's stated policy preferences on the matter are incoherent, and he's obviously just playing for evangelical votes in South Carolina. The idea that the Obama administration had anything to do with outcomes in Egypt and Tunisia is also ludicrous. In Egypt, the administration clearly supported Mubarak until it became clear he was toast, has since cast in its lot with the SCAF which is seeking to preserve whatever it can of the old regime, and may even have encouraged such a development through military-to-military back channels back in February.

What matters more to me right now is the mindset he is articulating, which I suspect is widespread in some circles, that autocratic regimes in the Middle East are necessary to protect Christian populations. This view is unacceptable if one takes seriously the human rights of non-Christians in these societies. Would Gingrich now trade al-Maliki's government for Saddam Hussein?

The most important problem currently faced by Christians in Iraq, Egypt, and elsewhere is a security vacuum caused by regime collapse. Chaos often accompanies revolutions, as happened with the classic cases of the French, Russian, and Iranian. In Eastern Europe in 1989, it was largely avoided as the old communist regimes mostly chose to manage the transition rather than cling to power until the last possible minute. Even then, nationalist violence erupted in Yugoslavia and Karabakh when the new leaders simply didn't have legitimacy with large swathes of the population. In Egypt, Christians have been victimized by salafi vigilantes, the SCAF trying to maintain power, and ignorant people susceptible to superstition and conspiracy theorizing. Their problem is that they are a powerless minority during a period when security is weakened. Such turmoil might be a reason to fear revolutions in general, but that's not a viewpoint I'm hearing articulated.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Nahda's Constitutional Plans

2011-11-06T21:51:00.003-05:00

Leaders of Tunisia's ascendant Islamist party say they will not bring religion into the constitution:

"Tunisia’s Islamist-led government will focus on democracy, human rights and a free-market economy in planned changes to the constitution, effectively leaving religion out of the text it will draw up, party leaders said. The government, due to be announced next week, will not introduce sharia or other Islamic concepts to alter the secular nature of the constitution in force when Tunisia’s Arab Spring revolution ousted autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January...

"Interviews with politicians and analysts revealed a consensus that the new assembly, the first to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings, will focus on reassuring Tunisian voters, and the foreign tourists and investors vital to its economy.

"All parties agreed to keep the first article of the current constitution which says Tunisia’s language is Arabic and its religion is Islam. 'This is just a description of reality,' Ghannouchi said. 'It doesn’t have any legal implications. There will be no other references to religion in the constitution. We want to provide freedom for the whole country,' said the Islamist leader, who will not take any official role in the new government. The new constitution is due in about a year."

Assad's Italian Tech Support

2011-11-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

Blake Hounshell flags the story of the company installing Syria's dissent-quenching network:

"As Syria’s crackdown on protests has claimed more than 3,000 lives since March, Italian technicians in telecom offices from Damascus to Aleppo have been busy equipping President Bashar al-Assad’s regime with the power to intercept, scan and catalog virtually every e-mail that flows through the country.

"Employees of Area SpA, a surveillance company based outside Milan, are installing the system under the direction of Syrian intelligence agents, who’ve pushed the Italians to finish, saying they urgently need to track people, a person familiar with the project says. The Area employees have flown into Damascus in shifts this year as the violence has escalated, says the person, who has worked on the system for Area...

"When the system is complete, Syrian security agents will be able to follow targets on flat-screen workstations that display communications and Web use in near-real time alongside graphics that map citizens’ networks of electronic contacts, according to the documents and two people familiar with the plans."

This company's contract for installing the system they call "Asfador" is $18 million.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

The Ikhwan's Organization

2011-11-03T21:01:00.003-04:00

Shadi Hamid explains the election organization of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood:

"During last November's parliamentary contest -- arguably the most fraudulent Egypt had ever seen -- I had the chance to witness the Brotherhood's 'get-out-the-vote' operation up close. One Brotherhood campaign worker, perhaps unaware it would sound somewhat implausible, told me that the organization has an internal vote turnout of nearly 100 percent. In other words, everyone who is an active Muslim Brotherhood member is expected to vote and actually does. Even if this is a stretch, it is true that the Brotherhood, in part because it is a religious movement rather than a political party, has the sort of organizational discipline of which competing parties can only dream.

"This discipline is deeply rooted in the organization's culture. Each Muslim Brotherhood member signs on to a rigorous educational curriculum and is part of something called an usra, or family, which meets weekly. If a Brother chooses to stay home on election day, other Brothers will know. But it's not just a matter of peer expectations. At each polling station, there is a Brotherhood coordinator who essentially does a whip count. Because the number of voters at a particular polling station can be quite small -- with the number of Brothers in the hundreds -- this is feasible in many districts. The 'whip' stays there the entire day, watching who comes and goes and tallies up the figures. If you were supposed to go and didn't, the whip will know. Perhaps sensing my skepticism, one such whip assured me, 'Well, you have to understand -- I know every single Brother who lives in the area.'"

Late last month we were covering the Muslim Brotherhood in my "Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East" course, and my students wholeheartedly rejected the idea that any group that size could have the discipline level it claimed, with student veterans saying that not even the U.S. military did. I encouraged this some by noting its tendency to spin out breakaway groups. The MB is definitely more ideologically diffuse than is often recognized, but this account does point to how strong a short-term vote-whipping operation could be. Hamid's larger point is that along with inexperienced and highly fragmented competition, the Brotherhood's organization is like to cause it to outperform its frequently referenced 30% support in polls, polls which in any case strike me as uncertain due to what I imagine are significant difficulties in statistically modeling Egypt politically. I agree, though, that free elections are likely to give Islamists a turn dominating parliament, for better or worse.

Language as Skill

2011-11-03T14:17:00.002-04:00

Matthew Yglesias says something important:

"Meanwhile, as someone who “speaks” French and is currently here in France, it’s clear to me that the real challenge is not so much what you can say as what you can hear. Based on years of French classes back in the day, I’m pretty darn good at taking a moment or two to think about what I want to say and coming up with an understandable way to say it. I can read French text, albeit slowly, and more or less understand what’s happening. But the risk of saying anything is that someone might reply! Parsing other people’s spoken language in real time is about 10 times harder than deciphering a text or composing your own statements."

When asked if I know Arabic, I've increasingly taken to given the perhaps annoying reply that sometimes you don't really "know" as language so much as "have skill" in it, and I do have Arabic skills. I can read fluently in my field, and could outside of it if I acquired the requisite vocabulary. I can almost always communicate my ideas to others verbally, as long as I first have a few days in country to get warmed up. Understanding the speech of others, however, is a major pain, especially when colloquial accents enter the mix.

Indian Ocean Website

2011-11-02T17:00:00.001-04:00

Oman's Sultan Qaboos Cultural Centre has produced an outstanding website for teaching Indian Ocean history.

Almohad Tribalism

2011-10-31T18:21:00.003-04:00

My current book project is focused on the incorporation of the genealogically organized societies which Middle Eastern Studies still calls "tribes" into the state structures of agrarian empires, specifically that of the early caliphate. My argument is that this process of incorporation depended as much of tribal ways of doing things as on state powers to coerce and entice. In his recent book on the Almohads in 12th century North Africa, Allen Fromherz came to a similar conclusion:

"The rapid formation of the Almohad hierarchy was made easier by the fact that there were pre-existing mechanisms and traditions for forming larger alliances within the tribes themselves. Alliances were based on power. Depending on the strength of the sheikh or tribal chief, some tribes were stronger than others. Not all tribes were purely isolationist in nature. Intermarriage and a confluence of tribal identities probably produced a vague sense of Masmuda identity even before the rise of Ibn Tumart. Ibn Tumart used a combination of military action, co-option of tribal traditions and tribal leaders, and persuasive indoctrination to transform this vague sense of unity into a solid government and army."

Incidentally, Fromherz is the author of a biography of Ibn Khaldun that just came out in paperback.

Khamene'i on Iran's Presidency

2011-10-29T15:50:00.002-04:00

Earlier this month, Iran's leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i suggested the country might switch to a parliamentary system:

"The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told an academic gathering last week that “changing Iran into a parliamentary system” in which voters no longer elected a president would not be a problem. His words were widely seen as the latest blow in a battle that began in April when Mr. Ahmadinejad crossed a line by openly feuding with Ayatollah Khamenei — who has the final word in affairs of state — over cabinet appointments...

"Ayatollah Khamenei’s veiled attack on the presidency has drawn sharply polarized responses. Ali Larijani, the speaker of Parliament and a rival to Mr. Ahmadinejad, endorsed the comments and called for a parliamentary system. A former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has at times sparred with the supreme leader, warned on Tuesday that eliminating the presidency would “be contrary to the Constitution and would weaken the people’s power of choice,” according to the centrist newspaper Aftab News. Other partisans have gone further, with one pro-Ahmadinejad daily newspaper, Iran, seeming to mock the supreme leader’s comments. (That article was soon taken off the paper’s Web site.)"

On one level, these comments serve to illustrate the point that in Iran's system of Islamic government, the Leader, Khamene'i's office, is more fundamental than the presidency. Since I can't picture the elimination of Ahmadinejad's office over the next couple of years, however, I also see it as a proposal aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2009 presidential elections.

In Iran, candidates for office are vetted by the Council of Guardians. This body represents one of the cornerstones of clerical power, and routinely disqualifies reformist and other undesirable candidates for parliament. However, some candidates are simply too obviously qualified to keep out, such as 1980's prime minister Mir Hussein Musavi in those 2009 elections. If they run for a presidency, they create a battle over a high office that can serve as a rallying point for opposition. If they are limited to contesting parliamentary seats, however, they can be kept as the face of a minority faction, perhaps even proving useful to present the regime as democratic in tolerating debate and opposition.

Turkmen Wedding Plans

2011-10-27T20:36:00.003-04:00

Early this past summer, I speculated that Turkmenistan might be moving decisively to a more open society, though in Turkmenistan that isn't saying much. Since then, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has made moves eerily reminiscent of life under his predecessor, such as writing a new national guidebook. The most recent is his requirements for newlyweds:

"Register marriage: check. Plant trees with the president in special wedding center park: check. Visit earthquake memorial: check. Visit Monument to the Constitution: check. Visit Monument to Independence: check. Visit...

"And the list goes on, part of new lengthy requirements laid out for newlyweds by the Turkmen ruler in remarks anticipating the October 28 grand opening of the 'Palace of Happiness' hotel complex.

"The detailed list of instructions has couples visiting a total of four memorials the day of their registration, far more than the one obligatory visit customary for newlyweds in the region...

"The new requirements are clearly meant to coincide with events celebrating the nation's 20th anniversary of independence on October 27 as well. The tree-planting ritual 'could start a new tradition to build family life and strengthen family values,' Berdymukhammedov was quoted as saying in an October 21 Turkmen State News Agency report."

The Turkmen were better off under the Soviets than in their first twenty years of independence.

Tunisia's Results

2011-10-24T22:58:00.003-04:00

In elections where voter turnout was over 80%, the Islamist al-Nahda (Renaissance) party will have a huge parliamentary plurality:

"Tunisia’s moderate Islamist political party emerged Monday as the acknowledged leader in elections for a constitutional assembly and began talks to form a unity government with a coalition of liberals in a rare alliance that party leaders hailed as an inclusive model for countries emerging from the tumult of the Arab Spring.

"By Monday afternoon, Tunisian liberal parties said they were entering discussions to form a government led by their Islamist rival, Ennahda, after it swept to a plurality of about 40 percent in preliminary vote tallies. The acceptance of the results by rivals signaled the beginning of a partnership seldom seen in the Arab world, where Islamists’ few opportunities for victories at the voting booth have sometimes led to harsh crackdown or civil war."

On that second paragraph, it's worth pointing out that in the Arab world, it has been the non-Islamist governments refusing to accept Islamist electoral victories which has led to conflict. Focusing on this Tunisian case, however, al-Nahda had the highest profile, was the best organized, and was able to position itself as the viable party furthest from the corruption and oppression of the Ben Ali regime. Its leader, Rashid Ghannoushi, has spoken of Turkey's AKP as a template and said he believes in what he calls the Anglo-American model of a religious-neutral public sphere to that of France of Kemalist Turkey, which are more hostile to religion outside the realms of belief and ritual. Parties are, of course, more than leaders, and al-Nahda seems to have drawn in some salafis and others who want a more formally Islamic order than Ghannoushi has called for. It's a good sign, however, that al-Nahda is reaching out to liberal parties rather than smaller Islamist groups, not so much for what it might say about the party's ideology, but for what it portends about the process of creating a new democratic order in which all Tunisians can have faith.

Tripoli's Power Vacuum

2011-10-24T18:20:00.002-04:00

Writing in The National, Bradley Hope paints a picture of Tripoli that isn't pretty:

"The deposed leader is dead and its temporary leaders have declared the country 'liberated.' Yet the capital, in particular, has become a patchwork of armed fiefdoms, as wannabe power brokers backed by hometown militias made up of former clerks, students and engineers battle with each other and with natives of Tripoli for the spoils of war, a slice of the country's wealth and a share of political power - all of it, in their way of looking, up for grabs.

"Kidnappings and disappearances are the new currency in the swelling conflict, with outright shootings a tactic of last resort. The creeping mayhem is fuelled by an infusion of weapons that has turned Tripoli into a virtual armoury."

Much like Iraq in 2003, Libya appears to have no nation-wide institutions capable of keeping a semblance of public order. Revolutions breed chaos, and even in Tunisia and Egypt there has been a steady undercurrent of private vigilante violence. The most challenging task for the National Transitional Council in Libya is not to decide on the nature of Libya's state, but simply to construct a state where Qadhafi's personalized organs of control have evaporated.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

The Trouble with Libya

2011-10-23T22:44:00.003-04:00

These statements from a leading TNC member have gotten a lot of attention today:

"When Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the Transitional National Council, pronounced the end of the uprising, the crowd reacted with shouts of 'God is great.' This was not long after people sang the bouncy national anthem of pre-Qaddafi days, which was revived to help celebrate the downfall of the dictator, who was killed on Thursday after he tried to flee Surt.

"Two strands — a new piety and all-purpose, freewheeling happiness — dominated the ceremony. Mr. Abdel-Jalil, stooping humbly to shake hands in the crowd and embracing the elderly relative of a fallen rebel, made clear that personality would have nothing to do with the new order.

“'We are an Islamic country,' he said as the sun descended. 'We take the Islamic religion as the core of our new government. The constitution will be based on our Islamic religion.'

"Among other things, he promised that Islamic banks would be established in the new Libya. He also talked of lifting restrictions on the number of women Libyan men can marry, The Associated Press reported.

"The comments reflected not only the chairman’s personal religious conservatism and the country’s, but also the rising influence of Islamists among the former rebels. The Islamists, who include some influential militia commanders, have warned that they will not permit their secular counterparts in a new government to sideline them."

What concerns me isn't the fact that Abd al-Jalil is proclaiming an Islamic state. Arab countries all claim their laws and institutions are derived from Islam. What concerns me is that this is simply being proclaimed rather than discussed in a political process, and that armed militias are likely to remain such an important force in the country.

I do not regret the fall of Qadhafi, but the road ahead remains difficult, far more difficult than in Tunisia or Egypt. Libya is divided and without strong institutions that can manage the transition. If under Qadhafi the west was favored, the TNC is drawn mainly from the east, and the patronage connections are sure to bring about an uncomfortable reallocation of national resources in that direction. Right now there is celebration and giddy proclamations about the future, but for Libya's sake, national reconciliation needs to be around the corner.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Tunisia Votes

2011-10-23T17:05:00.003-04:00

Issandr el-Amrani on Election Day in Tunisia:

"I have a confession to make: I used to hate Tunisia. I spent some time reporting there in the last decade and had an awful experience, including a fistfight with police informants who were following me at one point. Many others have had similar experiences. But most of all I disliked Tunisia because so many Tunisians I met seemed perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown, which I thought was because they were partly complicit in their ordeal under Ben Ali.

"Of course I met admirable Tunisians: I remember how, at a conference of human rights activists in Casablanca, a Tunisian woman broke down in tears as she told me of the daily humiliations the police subjected her to when she visited her husband in prison. But I thought far too many of her compatriots were silent, and this beautiful country seemed, compared to boisterous Egypt where I lived, dead in the soul. This was no doubt unfair — I was, in part, blaming the victims. I have never had to endure what they were subjected to.

"The Tunisia I have visited is another country, and not just because Ben Ali is gone. It feels like a different country. Yes, the Tunisians still have their national character: they are a serious-minded, persnickety, stubborn people (the opposite of Egyptians). But they now have a sense of humor, a levity, that I had rarely encountered before. Gone is their old dourness; they have a joie-de-vivre that I had never seen before. It is extremely moving to see when you knew the old Tunisians...

"Driving around northern Tunisia today, I saw tremendous enthusiasm. The long lines at polling stations and the preliminary turnout of at least 70% (although this is probably calculated from the eligible voters who registered, so should be taken with a grain of salt) confirms this. I heard, notably in rural areas, of vote-buying or parties that used gifts to woo voters. This is not surprising. My impression, however, is that these elections were generally the real thing. The aftermath — what the constituent assembly will do (which I’ll discuss tomorrow) — is a much bigger question mark, and more important for Tunisia’s transition to democracy.

"I was struck in my small sampling of voters by the act that while Nahda seemed dominant, many voted for other parties with a strong record of opposition to Ben Ali, such as Moncef Marzouki’s CPR, Najib Chebbi’s PDP or Mustafa Ben Jaafar’s al-Takkatul (all left/social democratic and secular). An overall trend is that, with programs often largely similar, people voted for parties, in the words of one young woman, 'that are as distant as possible from Ben Ali.' I think that is why Nahda may do particularly well — not just because of an Islamist/conservative vote, but because of a let’s-give-the-dissidents-a-chance vote. (I’ll write more on Nahda and other parties in the coming few days.)"

It's impressionistic, of course, but score it for the dignity of human beings free to choose their own destiny.

Tunisians Start Voting

2011-10-20T15:04:00.004-04:00

The death of Moammar Qadhafi should not crown out awareness of the fact that today is the day Tunisians start voting:

"Dozens of Tunisians who live in Egypt flocked to the Tunisian Embassy in Cairo on Thursday to cast their votes in the election for a constituent assembly that will be responsible for drafting a new constitution.

"The voters expressed joy, and some noted that it was the first time in their lives to share in an electoral process. One of the women was so moved by the event that she cried while casting her vote...

"The constituent assembly election is Tunisia’s first free election held in 23 years, and follows the ouster of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali late last year."

Voting in Tunisia takes place Sunday. The Islamist Nahda party is expected to win the largest share of votes, but probably not a majority of the parliement. Admittedly writing from Pennsylvania, I don't see that as a problem, especially if the Nahda is as close in philosophy to Turkey's AKP as some argue. It certainly shouldn't be confused with the salafi vigilantes active on Tunisia's streets. What matters most, however, is simply the fact that Tunisians will vote, and thereby take up a share in deciding their own political future. Elections produce winners and losers, and what matters in transitional periods like this is the willingness of all parties to agree on rules for political competition and to respect the results. Erik Churchill lays out what is at stake:

"The success of Sunday's election will be judged first and foremost on whether Tunisia will continue with its peaceful transition to democracy. While most observers expect calm, a slight disruption, especially if centered around the fairness of the polls, could quickly degenerate into large disturbances. Secondly, a strong turnout will show the legitimacy and support of Tunisians for the democratic process. The weakness of the voter registration drive gives cause for concern that Tunisians will not show up on Sunday, potentially delegitimizing the results. Thirdly, Sunday's vote will test whether the government will be able to accept the result of Ennahdha's presumed victory. A result of less than 20 percent could raise calls that the voting was rigged, while an absolute majority by Ennahdha could spark protests from secular groups. This is known as the Algerian scenario, after the Islamist victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in the country's 1991 elections, which sparked a backlash from military regime and ultimately resulted in civil war.

"Finally, despite foreign and domestic observers and the demonstrated competence of the electoral commission, many Tunisians have expressed doubts that the elections will be truly free and fair. Despite all evidence to the contrary, it is commonplace to hear arguments that the outcome has been predetermined by the West. If Sunday's elections dispel these rumors, Tunisians will not look at this election as the result of their uprising, but rather, the first step in the process of controlling their destiny as an independent, democratic country."

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Qadhafi's Golden Gun

2011-10-20T14:10:00.003-04:00

Moammar Qadhafi died today, probably by summary execution at the hands of Libya's successful rebel forces. He died brandishing this golden pistol, which has on it the word "al-jamahiriyya," the term for the unique view of society Qadhafi tried to promote in Libya: a governmentless state governed directly by its citizens. In practice, of course, this was a form of strongman rule in which Qadhafi and his family dominated through control of the army and security forces, as well as the distribution of oil wealth.

Will Qadhafi's death matter in Libya? In practical terms, this is best left to someone with more knowledge of transitional justice and reconciliation than I have. It will be celebrated throughout the Arab world, but even there the demonstration effect for the rest of the region of the regime's fall was probably mostly spent with the fall of Tripoli.

Kuwaiti Strike Warnings

2011-10-14T22:36:00.002-04:00

The Kuwaiti government is making threats against public sector workers striking for increased salaries and benefits. First was a plan to replace them with guest workers:

"Kuwait yesterday threatened to recruit foreign help to cope with a wave of strikes that has spread through the public sector and is endangering oil exports.

"Ali Al Rashid, the minister of state for cabinet affairs, told the state news agency, Kuna, that the cabinet has formed a team that will 'take all necessary measures' to 'fill gaps' caused by the strikes.

"Kuwait has been hobbled by dozens of strikes since oil sector workers successfully coerced the government into increasing their salaries and benefits in September. This week, operations at ports and airports were hit as the union for customs workers became the latest civil servants to begin industrial action."

There is also a proposal to criminalize the strikes, which could pose a threat to Kuwait's economy if sustained.

Weird Iran Plot

2011-10-13T11:10:00.002-04:00

Both Robert Mackey and Barbara Slavin round up the reasons many experts are skeptical of the Obama administrations assertions that the Iranian government was planning to launch an assassination and terrorist attacks within the United States. For me, the most convincing evidence that Iran's main intelligence organs were not involved is the sheer incompetence of it all:

"If Arbabsiar really had been an Iranian intelligence asset, he would have been informed if there’s one thing the US typically monitors, it is money transfers of more than $10,000 (as a measure against drug money laundering). The only safe way to undertake this transaction would have been cash, and no one in the Quds Brigade is so stupid as not to know this simple reality. Moreover, would the Quds Brigade really depend so heavily on someone with a fraud conviction, who was therefore known to US authorities? Expert terrorism deploys 'newskins' people who can fly under the radar of police and security forces."

The plot was also discussed on an open international phone line, which espionage professionals know would be tapped.

What's less clear is why the Obama administration is so assertive in assigning Iran responsibility. Juan Cole suggests Iranian drug cartels could be the culprint, and attempting to deflect blame to the Iranian government. Another possibility is a false flag operation, in which a third party, such as Saudi Arabia or Israel, is trying to create a crisis between Iran and the United States, though that again runs into the sloppiness argument.

I'm most interested in the idea that the plot arose from a faction within the Iranian government seeking to use an international crisis to enhance its own stature. President Mahmood Ahmadinejad, who thrives on controversy, has been on the losing end of a power struggle with Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, the country's paramount leader, and with his military connections could leave the appropriate fingerprints.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

The Good in People

2011-10-13T10:56:00.001-04:00

Matthew Yglesias has an anecdote:

"Last week I was outside my office and I saw a $5 bill on the ground. Famously, economists say you never see a $5 bill on the ground because someone would pick it up. But instead of picking it up, I stood around watching to see if anyone else would. A bunch of people walked by not noticing it. Then one guy saw it, saw me, and asked if it was mine. I said no it wasn’t, I was just curious what would happen. He laughed and made a joke about economists. Then a second guy came by, picked it up, and said I’d dropped five dollars. I said no, actually it was there before me. He looked around, noticed a homeless guy across the street, said 'I think he needs it more than me,' walked over and gave it to him."

Kuwait's Protest Movement

2011-10-09T20:53:00.002-04:00

Kuwaitis have a high standard of living, but that isn't stopping the spread of labor activism among both nationals and guest workers:

"Strikes sweeping through the Kuwaiti public sector will increase unless the government comes to grip with the concerns of employees, the head of a major trade union said...

"The recent surge in industrial action was sparked in September when the government gave oil sector employees, who had threatened to down tools, salary increases ranging from 15.5 per cent for senior officials to 66 per cent for Kuwaiti technicians, at an estimated annual cost of 142 million Kuwaiti dinars (Dh1.9 billion).

"When news of the deal spread, so did the strikes. Soon customs officials, port workers, and staff at the ministries of interior, health and social affairs and labour all started mass walkouts in protest against poor salaries and benefits...

"The trade union official said public sector employees have been forced into industrial action by a difficult economic situation. He said Kuwaitis feel they are not being treated equally in their jobs in areas such as promotions, because better educated workers are climbing the ranks ahead of experienced employees...

"Kuwait's hulking public sector employs the vast majority of citizens. In addition to paying some of the highest civil service salaries in the world, the state provides benefits such as free health care and education, land, cheap loans and generous pensions."

Quotes in the article hold that the movement is about rights rather than money, but I wonder if there isn't an element of Kuwaiti citizen entitlement behind some of these complaints. The spread is definitely one a case of one group getting a raise causing others to insist on having one two.

All this is happening as Prime Minister Nasser Muhammad al-Sabah is accused of yet more corruption. Kuwait's premier, who is also the emir's nephew, is always being accused of corruption, but this time the "Arab Spring" context is adding to citizens' assertiveness, while also pushing the government down the road of trying to divert dissent through displays of largesse. I don't expect this labor movement to support the political protests, however, as so far the grievances all seem to be economic, and many of not most Kuwaitis see the Parliament and not the royal family as responsible for keeping economic growth slow.

Another Bahrain Funeral Protest

2011-10-09T19:50:00.002-04:00

The death of a teenager at the hands of security forces sparked another protest in Bahrain:

"Large numbers of people filled the streets west of Bahrain’s capital, Manama, on Friday as a funeral march for a 16-year-old boy — who activists said was killed by the police — grew into one of the largest demonstrations in the tiny Gulf nation in recent weeks.

"Toward evening, activists said the police began using tear gas and sound grenades to disperse the crowd as protesters lingered on a central highway after the funeral procession had broken up. Al Jazeera reported on its live blog that at least one person had been severely injured in the face. There were also reports of gunfire, though it was unclear what type of bullets were being used.

"The protest, among the largest in the country since the Sunni monarchy put down an uprising in March with the help of forces from neighboring Saudi Arabia, was touched off by the death on Thursday of the teenager, identified by authorities as Ahmed Jaber."

The Maspero Massacre

2011-10-09T16:43:00.007-04:00

Today, Egypt's military government killed at least 19 Coptic demonstrators in Cairo:

"Nineteen people were killed in Cairo Sunday when Christians, some carrying crosses and pictures of Jesus, clashed with military police, medical and security sources said, in the latest sectarian flare-up in a country in political turmoil.

"Christians protesting against an attack on a church threw rocks and petrol bombs and set cars on fire, as thick smoke wafted through the streets in some of the most violent scenes since an uprising ousted ex-President Hosni Mubarak in February.

"Hundreds from both sides fought with sticks on a Cairo bridge. Protests later spread to the central Tahrir Square, the focal point of the February uprising. Witnesses said the army had moved into the area...

"'We were marching peacefully,' Talaat Youssef, 23-year old Christian trader told Reuters at the scene.

"'When we got to the state television building, the army started firing live ammunition,' he said, adding army vehicles ran over protesters, killing five. His account could not be immediately confirmed."

My attention was drawn to this my Twitter feed, where people like al-Jazeera English journalist Nadia Abu al-Magd state unequivocally that security forces responded with lethal force to a peaceful demonstration, despite what is on official state media. Hossam el-Hamalawy, one of the organizers of Egypt's leftist opposition, is blunt, and includes video clips:

"The army and police committed a horrible massacre against peaceful protesters today in Maspero, Cairo. Army vehicles ran over protesters. Live ammunition was used. Extensive rounds of tear gas were fired, and showers of beatings from the military police and the central security forces. At least 19 people have been killed, and more than 150 injured. The toll keeps increasing.

"The Army also stormed Al-Hurra TV station and 25 January TV stations, and took them off air. The Egyptian state run TV is inciting the public against the 'Coptic protesters' and even called on the citizens to take to the streets to 'protect the army'!! SCAF is trying to instigate a sectarian civil war."

Despite the lazy sectarian framing of the Reuters excerpt above, this is not sectarian violence, but violence of the regime against its citizens and an ongoing quest to use the threat of instability to preserve its own power. What's more, it has a lesson for those who argue that current regimes are good for religious minorities: Dictators make fickle friends.

UPDATE: Issandr el-Amrani is worried.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Syrian Death Toll

2011-10-06T20:45:00.001-04:00

The UN estimates that almost 3000 have died in Syria's uprising:

"The United Nations has raised its tally of people killed during seven months of unrest in Syria to more than 2,900 - an increase of 200 people since the beginning of September.

"Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Thursday that the figure was based on 'reliable sources' inside and outside the country.

"He also said that the names of the dead had all been confirmed and likely included some members of the security forces...

"A army officer who has taken refuge in Turkey, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, claims to have established an opposition armed force called the 'Syrian Free Army', but its strength and numbers are unknown."

Building a Fractured Society

2011-10-01T16:58:00.002-04:00

Robin Yassin-Kassab takes a look at religious minorities and Syria's uprising:

"Tragically, the propaganda is also taken seriously by members of Syria's minority sects -- not by all of them by any stretch, but perhaps by a majority. It's tragic because perceived minority support for this sadistic regime will inevitably tarnish intersectarian relations in Syria in the future.

"Those Sunni Syrians who are (understandably) enraged by the minorities' siding with the dictatorship should remember first that many Alawis and Christians, as well as many more Druze and Ismailis, have joined the revolution and that many have paid the price. Second, Sunnis should remember that Alawis and Christians have good reason to fear change, if not to believe the propaganda...

"The one thing the regime has done intelligently in the last six months is to play on minorities' fears. I know that prominent Alawis have been receiving threatening phone calls from unknown numbers, ostensibly from "Sunnis" but almost certainly from the mukhabarat. (How would street-level Sunnis get hold of the phone numbers, and why would they want to make such threats when the committees coordinating the protests are stressing the importance of avoiding sectarianism?)..

"The minorities -- and not only the minorities -- also fear the fate of Iraq and Lebanon. When Saddam Hussein fell in Iraq, the Sunni community as a whole was blamed for the crimes of the whiskey-quaffing dictator. The Sunnis then gave shelter to Wahhabi nihilists who bombed Shiite civilians and drove a large chunk of the Christian community into Syria. So will all Alawis be blamed for the Assads? Will they be returned to their pre-1920s status? Will Christians lose Syria, the one place in the Arab world where they have prospered and practiced their faith unmolested?

"The two scenarios that most terrify the minorities (and almost everyone else) are, first, the rise of intolerant Islamism, and, second, sectarian civil war. Unfortunately, both scenarios become more likely with every moment the regime remains in power. The experience of being shot at, besieged, and tortured will inevitably drive some toward more extreme views. In addition, the military units slaughtering the people are overwhelmingly Alawi and commanded by Alawis. The regime's shabiha militias in Hama, Homs, and Latakia are Alawis recruited from the surrounding villages. These are the people torturing Sunni women and children to death, burning shops and cars, beating and humiliating old men. Their actions will have consequences. If the regime falls soon, the consequences will be legal and targeted solely at the guilty. If the regime doesn't fall soon, the consequences may be violent, generalized vigilante 'justice.' Then Iraq and Lebanon will become Syria's models."

A point to take out of this is that religious and ethnic enmities are not natural. They emerge over time based on differential interests and political mobilization and manipulation. In times of turbulence, it's important to recognize this to try and prevent them from hardening, as difficult as that is.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Demography and the Jewish State

2011-09-26T17:39:00.002-04:00

Matthew Yglesias argues that population statistics will not compel Israel to adopt any particular policy toward the Palestinians. Here's what he foresees:

"The Israeli government will disavow any claim to sovereignty over the Gaza Strip. They’ll count on public opinion in Egypt to ensure some level of integration across the Gaza-Egypt land border, and then they’ll wash their hands of the whole thing. Nobody’s going to give West Bank Palestinians the vote (if anything, the trends in Israeli politics point toward diminished civil rights for the Palestinians who already have Israeli citizenship) but this will solve the Jewish majority problem. That, however, is just a reminder that there really is no Jewish majority problem. The problem is that the Israeli government wants to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank without granting citizenship to its Arab residents."

The idea of Palestinian cantonments in the West Bank can also be seen as an avenue by which Israel can functionally be a Jewish state while still retaining control of the Occupied Territories. Along these general lines, though, I remember that when I lived in Jerusalem from 2006-2008, I often heard assertions that the demographic argument was cooked up by Palestinians and leftists based on false premises to weaken Israeli resolve, and this was apparently a common argument in the right-wing nationalist media. I doubt this line of thinking has gone away in the past three years, and even though Prime Minister Netanyahu presumably understands the situation, a lot of Israeli public opinion will clearly never buy demography-based arguments.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Women in the Shura

2011-09-25T17:20:00.002-04:00

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has announced that women will start having a formal voice in Saudi Arabia's government:

"Saudi King Abdullah announced Sunday that the nation's women will gain the right to vote and run as candidates in local elections to be held in 2015 in a major advancement for the rights of women in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom.

"In an annual speech before his advisory assembly, or Shura Council, the Saudi monarch said he ordered the step after consulting with the nation's top religious clerics, whose advice carries great weight in the kingdom...

"Abdullah said the changes announced Sunday would also allow women to be appointed to the Shura Council, the advisory body selected by the king that is currently all-male.

"The council, established in 1993, offers opinions on general policies in the kingdom and debates economic and social development plans and agreements signed between the kingdom and other nations."

I wonder how those discussions between the king and the religious establishment went? That this is going through suggests that the king has the upper hand in the ongoing struggle between the two poles of Saudi Arabian society. Although the shura council is powerless and local government in the kingdom isn't all it's cracked up to be, this remains an important step forward, one which might enable women to start raising issues like the driving ban in high circles.

Yachimovich and Labor Revitalization

2011-09-24T12:18:00.001-04:00

Shelly Yachimovich is the new leader of Israel's Labor Party:

"Shelly Yachimovich, 51, a former journalist and a Labor member of Parliament since 2006, defeated Amir Peretz, a former leader of the center-left Labor Party and a former union leader, in a runoff ballot on Wednesday by 54 percent to 45 percent. Ms. Yachimovich is the seventh leader of Labor in a decade...

"Ms. Yachimovich, a staunch social democrat who has long campaigned against privatization and for socioeconomic change, captured the public mood. But few believed that her victory would be enough to propel Labor back to power."

The fact that the only security experience between the top two candidates for Labor leadership is Amir Peretz's tragicomic tenure as defense minister shows just how far the once-hegemonic party has fallen in the decade since the last Labor-led government fell in a landslide election to Ariel Sharon's Likud. I think, however, that especially in an environment of widespread social protest over economic conditions, Yachimovich could be the leader to revitalize them. Consider this endorsement:

"The summer of 2011 was also the summer of the Labor Party. The divorce from former Labor chairman Ehud Barak was good for Labor. The social agenda was also good for Labor. So was the late awakening by opposition leader MK Tzipi Livni. The party that was considered dead has been resurrected. It held a membership drive, renewed its institutions and conducted an impressive internal election campaign. It conjured up five worthy candidates to lead it. The party brought itself to a point in which it can be a counterweight to Kadima and a long term alternative to Likud. Shelly Yachimovich has many drawbacks, but only she can realize this potential. Only she can bring home hundreds of thousands who have abandoned Labor. Only she can bring hundreds of thousands of young people to Labor."

The phrasing "a counterweight to Kadima and a long term alternative to Likud" shows that even supporters recognize that Yachimovich is probably not a viable prime minister in security-conscious Israel, but would mostly likely serve in a coalition with Kadima, at which point some leaders could augment their foreign policy chops for a return to the top position after that. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni appears to recognize her own opening in calling Labor Kadima's "natural partner for a Zionist path to a future of peace and fair society," essentially co-opting a popular Labor social message into an image of what a Kadima-led government might look like.

Labor is in the dumps now, and outside of Israel, no one has heard of Shelly Yachimovich. However, parties have come back from the dumps before.

Saleh Returns

2011-09-23T16:14:00.001-04:00

Ali Abdullah Saleh has returned to Yemen:

"President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned Friday to the Yemeni capital after more than three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia in a surprise move that could further enflame violence between forces loyal to him and his opponents.

"Saleh left Yemen for Saudi Arabia in June after he was seriously injured in an attack on his presidential compound in the capital Sanaa. During his absence, the country further slipped into chaos after the protests that erupted in February demanding an end to his 33-year old rule.

"But the violence took a serious turn this week after a regionally-sponsored, U.S.-backed deal to transfer power hit a new snag.

"Saleh had repeatedly refused to sign the deal, and has recently delegated his deputy to restart negotiations with opponents on the deal. It was considered another stalling tactic by Saleh that was followed by a violent crackdown on protesters and the most violent bout of fighting between Saleh loyalists and his armed opponents.

"Sanaa has been gripped by street battles and exchanges of shelling between the elite Republican Guards, led by Saleh's son, and tribesmen opposing Saleh as well as military units who had defected."

Libya's Demonstration Effect: Armed Revolt Works

2011-09-23T15:52:00.002-04:00

Nir Rosen spends several weeks in Syria and finds a growing belief in the need to take up arms among the opposition:

"Abu Omar was a senior coordinator in the country's six-month-old uprising and was involved in opposition activities since 2007. He lamented that to date, the revolution had only succeeded in costing the lives of three thousand people.

"'After Libya, many people said it was a mistake to have a peaceful revolution and if they had done it like the Libyans they would be free by now,' he said.

"As I spent more time in Syria, I could see a clear theme developing in the discourse of the opposition: A call for an organised armed response to the government crackdown, mainly from the opposition within Syria. Demonstrators had hoped the holy month of Ramadan would be the turning point in their revolution, but as it came to an end - six months into the Syrian uprising - many realised the regime was too powerful to be overthrown peacefully.

"Previously, on August 25, I met with a senior opposition leader in Damascus' large suburb of Harasta, an anti-regime stronghold. The government had cracked down harshly on demonstrations there, though the armed opposition had been able to kill many members of the security forces.

"'In the end we cannot be free without weapons,' the leader said. 'It's necessary, but not by the people, by the army; we need defections.'

"A few days later, on August 28, I attended an anti-regime demonstration in the Bab Assiba neighbourhood of Homs. Demonstrators there were calling for a no-fly zone, much like the one imposed over Libya. Many of them hoped for international intervention."

Rosen goes on to argue that opposition cannot simplistically adopt the Libya model to change their regime. Part of the problem is a simple lack of weapons and training, which leaves them hoping for more significant military defections. He also doesn't see how Syria's geography would allow for the creation of a resistance enclave which could be protected from the air. The second point seems debatable, but I definitely don't see Assad's rule collapsing unless the resistance is able to win more support, including broad support in at least some regions. I'll be looking in further dispatches to see whether Rosen sees that as possible.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Tales of Manas

2011-09-19T20:01:00.003-04:00

Dina Tokbaeva reports on Kyrgyzstan's public commemorations of epic hero Manas:

"Unveiled on August 31 this year to mark the 20th anniversary of Kyrgyzstan independence, the nine metres-long bronze figure on horseback is called 'Manas the Magnanimous'.

"Manas, the central figure in a long epic poem of the same name, is regarded as a symbol of unity for bringing the various Kyrgyz tribes together in times of danger...

"The bronze horseman replaces a statue called 'Erkindik' – Liberty – a winged female figure on top of a globe, holding aloft a 'tunduk', the circular frame that forms the top of a traditional Kyrgyz yurt.

"Originally built in 1999 to celebrate independence from the Soviet Union, the winged figure moved into the square only five years ago to replace Vladimir Lenin, who had survived there until 2003...

"The idea of demolishing the statue came from a group of historians and politicians who based their argument around a legend that a woman carrying a 'tunduk' is an ill omen. They said the turbulent events of recent years – mass unrest that caused regime change in 2005 and 2010, and the ethnic violence last summer that left more than 400 dead – showed the statue must come down.

"As an alternative, the idea of a Manas statue came up. The authorities lent their weight to the campaign and appealed for public donations.

"It is in fact only the latest in a long list of monuments and places named after Manas – the latter including the country’s main airport. Schools in Kyrgyzstan are to start teaching the Manas epic as a separate subject."

Tokbaeva is cynical about the statue change, noting that it won't help solve Kyrgyzztan's problems. My interest is in the commemoration of the past in new nations, and the use of history, literature, and folklore to forge a new identity. You can read basics about the Epic of Manas here, and in more depth here.

Violence in Yemen

2011-09-19T19:51:00.002-04:00

Yemen's regime, which many hoped would collapse when President Ali Abdullah Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, has begun a violent crackdown on protestors, to which opposition military forces have responded:

"Violence convulsed the streets of Yemen’s capital for a second day on Monday as government security forces battled soldiers who have joined antigovernment protesters in their movement to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign. It was the worst violence since March in Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished country and a haven for Islamic militants.

"Medical officials in the capital said at least 28 people were killed on Monday, pushing the death toll from two days of fighting in Sana, the capital, to more than 50 — most of them unarmed protesters — and raising fears here that the escalation of deadly mayhem is hurtling Yemen toward a civil war...

"After sporadic gunfire overnight, fighting intensified as rocket-propelled grenades fell near the protesters, and forces loyal to Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, who has aligned himself with the protesters, fired artillery at positions held by government forces nearby. At least one residential building near the protest was in flames. Later Monday, witnesses said snipers were firing at protesters from rooftops.

"Soldiers from the First Armored Division, commanded by General Ahmar, had taken over the area Sunday evening after clashing with security forces. Protesters set up tents in the major intersection, improbably known as Kentucky Square because of a restaurant resembling a KFC outlet that used to be there. The intersection has become the new frontline of fighting."

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Tunisia's Suicide Option

2011-09-17T16:33:00.002-04:00

Several disappointed job seekers tried to commit suicide in southern Tunisia:

"Five Tunisians have tried to hang themselves after failing a competition to become teachers in the impoverished western Kasserine region, witnesses and media reports said.

"The men climbed an improvised scaffold outside a branch of the education ministry and tied rope nooses around their necks, witness Rachid Jabbari told the AFP news agency.

"One of the men, aged 43 - the age limit for entering Tunisian civil service - sustained a head wound before the group were rescued by a crowd of bystanders on Friday. They were taken to hospital, where the governor of Kasserine visited them, the official TAP news agency reported.

"The other four were later released from hospital, reported Radio Mosaique FM."

We don't know what was on the minds of these five, but it worries me. Tunisia's revolution began with the public self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi, an economically frustrated young man who has since been lionized. My fear is that this is making suicide, especially public suicide, a trendy option in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world. Admittedly this is the first real possible copycat case I've run across.

Bomb Removal in Lebanon

2011-09-16T19:35:00.001-04:00

Five years after Israel's war with Hizbullah, Lebanon is still dealing with the problem of cluster bombs:

"The terrain in south Lebanon that Lamis Zein scours every day should be open fields where farmers can grow food and graze their livestock. Instead, the land is littered with cluster bombs.

"Ms Zein and her team search for these unexploded devices, painstakingly combing land in a part of Lebanon where residents are all too familiar with the devastating impact of cluster munitions...

"Over the past four decades the cluster bombs left primarily by multiple Israeli military operations in Lebanon have killed hundreds and left many more maimed. Attention was once again focused on the weapons this week, when campaigners and officials from more than 120 countries gathered in Beirut for the second international conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was signed in 2008...

"National efforts to remove the bombs are led by the Lebanese army's Lebanon Mine Action Centre. The hope is that through the work of teams such as Ms Zein's, the country will be free of cluster bombs by 2016. However, Lebanese campaigners say US$75 million (Dh275.25m) is still needed to clear all areas."

Drone Downed Over Karabakh

2011-09-14T22:12:00.002-04:00

Karabakh's military says they shot down an Azerbaijani spy drone:

"Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that broke away from Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, said it shot down an unmanned Azeri drone over its territory on Sept. 12.

"The unmanned aircraft was downed to prevent similar reconnaissance flights over the disputed area, which have become more frequent along the border in recent days, the Karabakh Defense Army said in a statement on its website today...

"Oil-exporting Azerbaijan is using energy income to acquire modern weaponry, including unmanned planes from Israel, with whom the Caspian Sea nation started joint production of drones, President Ilham Aliyev said in April. Today’s incident marks the first time an Azeri spy plane has ever been shot down over the majority-Armenian populated region.

"The Azeri Defense Ministry has previously not denied Armenian media reports that some of the drones produced with Israel are being used to monitor Nagorno-Karabakh."

According to RFE-RL, this is the first such aerial target shot down since the end of the Karabakh War in 1994. However, if these unmanned spy drones have only been in service since April, this might not represent as much of an escalation as some fear.

Religious Minority Property

2011-09-12T16:29:00.002-04:00

Turkey's ruling party is moving decisively to return property to religious minorities:

"The new mentality to which Karakose is referring is the nine years of rule under the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has introduced a number of legal reforms aimed at resolving the seizure of hundreds of properties and lands by the Turkish state. Since 1936 strict controls had been enforced on the ownership of property by foundations belonging to non-Muslims. Churches, cemeteries, and schools were also among the seizures. But last month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while attending a meal with leading figures of the non-Muslim community, promised closure on the controversy with a legal commitment to return all properties.

"'The days when a citizen of ours would be oppressed due to his religious or ethnic origin, or different way of life are over,' Erdogan vowed. 'This is not about doing a favor; this is about rectifying an injustice.'"

The decline of Christianity in 20th-century Turkey has not occurred under Islamists, but under militantly secular Turkish nationalists who feared that difference could lead the state to fracture under local nationalisms. It's under the Islamist AKP that conditions are improving:

"The return of properties is part of wider process of improving the environment for the non-Muslim minorities under the AKP government.

"Earlier this year for the first time, Istanbul's Greek minority, or Rum, as they are called here, held an exhibition celebrating their heritage. Once the community numbered in the millions, now it is down to a few thousand -- the result of discrimination and historical tensions with Greece. This month is the 56th anniversary of a pogrom against Istanbul's Rum population."

Why Study History?

2011-09-11T16:49:00.003-04:00

Historiann asks, "What is the point of learning history?" I like the answer of Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi, called the "Imam of Historians" in premodern Muslim civilization:

"For any branch of knowledge to exist, it must be derived from history. From it all wisdom is deduced, all jurisprudence is elicited, all eloquence is learnt. Those who reason by analogy build upon it. Those who have opinions to expound use it for argument. Popular knowledge is derived from it and the precepts of the wise are found in it. Noble and lofty morality is acquired from it and the rules of royal government and war are sought in it. All manner of strange events are found in it; in it, too, all kinds of entertaining stories may be enjoyed. It is a science which can be appreciated by both the educated and the ignorant, savoured by both fool and sage, and much desired comfort to elites and commoners. The superiority of history over all other branches of learning is obvious. The loftiness of its status is recognized by any person of intelligence."

Community in an Age of Hatred

2011-09-11T00:37:00.003-04:00

Osama bin Laden will go down in history as a religious fanatic twisted by virulent anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and messianic self-righteousness. It is striking that his objective of a global terrorist campaign against all American and allied citizens and interests was so extreme and so repulsive to human decency that it was long concealed, with relevant religious arguments initially revealed to only a few of his committed followers and a fundraising campaign which was openly misleading even to those religiously puritanical and anti-Western backers who were its most natural consistency. Even if one were to accept his diagnosis of global problems and theological vision, one would have to say that his violent and messianic recklessness and desire to see himself as a military hero much like those he read about in his youth has led to nothing but the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where innocents have been caught in the crossfire of that war he sought to provoke.

And he did believe he would provoke a war on September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden believed that the United States lay at the root of much of the world's evil, and that inflicting casualties on it would cause it to retreat in those arenas he most cared about. But he believed the United States would strike at Afghanistan, at least with cruise missiles and probably with more, which is why two days before those attacks he sought to ingratiate himself with the Taliban by sacrificing some of his followers in the suicide attack which killed Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. He saw himself as someone who could wear down a second superpower in Afghanistan, and took upon himself the decision to sacrifice the blood and treasure that such a war would entail.

Bin Laden and his inner circle were not, however, enough to undertake this project on their own. They required at least a small army of foot soldiers to sustain the early stages of the struggle, and found it in the recruits who came to the training camps they set up in Afghanistan under Taliban protection. The last book I read dealing with al-Qaeda was Thomas Hegghammer's Jihad in Saudi Arabia, which looks at hundreds of reconstructed biographies of al-Qaeda recruits from that country since the 1990's. This was also, I should note, the homeland of the 15 "muscle hijackers" of the 9/11 attacks. What he found was that, overwhelmingly, their motives for traveling to Afghanistan were rooted in sympathy with and anger for the suffering of their fellow Muslims, a community with which they strongly identified.

All of our communities are based on communication, though rather embarrassingly I only just now noted that those two words are etymologically related. It is only through communication that the abstract can become real. Once upon a time most people were limited to oral communication and those they regularly interacted with locally. Over time, improved communication led to broader bonds that connected them to such wider circles as nation and ethnicity. Today, when a college student at Shippensburg University can watch live streaming video of a protest in Cairo, there is no spatial limit on the size of our communities, and even the bonds of language can start to slip away in an increasingly polyglot world.

For those Muslims inclined to care for the sufferings of their co-religionists, the 1990's offered no shortage of moving images. Today we forget that for 12 years, Iraq was under crippling sanctions that, more due to Ba'athist manipulation for propaganda purposes than their actual construction, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including children. In the summer of 2001, I made my first trip to the Middle East, and while lunching across from a mosque in Irbid, Jordan heard a Friday sermon that listed a series of names: Bosnia, Palestine, Kosovo, Iraq, and others. My deficient Arabic comprehension skills were not needed to see that that was a list of countries where Muslims were under pressure, albeit for very different reasons, and that the United States could be implicated in each, if sometimes only for indifference. Bosnia, Palestine, and Iraq were all prominent causes throughout the Muslim world, and if I've never read that Kosovo was in the same league, it might just be because it lasted for a shorter time. In 1999, Russia launched an assault on the Muslim republic of Chechnya, and it was here, according to Hegghammer, that many of those who went to Afghanistan to train in the camps of a hero of the anti-Soviet struggle expected to ultimately fight. It was in Afghanistan, under the spell of the charismatic war hero and intensive exposure to his propaganda, that many began to share in his agenda. Thus did a globalized love develop a dark twin in a globalized hatred.

The events of September 11 came as a shock to the American people, and the world. I remember well shying away from contemplation of the enormity of it, and also the fear of what was to come. I remember a girl on a street corner by the University of Wisconsin who was moved to just stand there and wave a flag at passersby. I remember the sense of national togetherness, as people of all stations and walks of life were visibly moved and trying to deal with the tragedy. I remember rallying with my fellow Americans around a president whom many saw as illegitimate, and craving justice upon the perpetrators. I remember also a quiet effect it had in many areas of the world. On that day, one of my professors was in Istanbul. When he returned, he told us that one thing he had noticed there was that people who had always seen the U.S. through a lens of flashy Hollywood movies and newscasts saw this country in a way they never had before, as for the first time the politicians and action heroes were displaced by police and firemen and medical workers. Friends I had just met in the Middle East e-mailed with sympathy and concern.

As the war in Afghanistan became imminent, the concern of my Middle East-based friends became opposition to the idea of a military response, as with the community solidarities they had developed, they felt kinship with the inevitable innocent victims and a suspicion stitched together of disparate cases mentioned above that Muslims everywhere were under a sustained assault by Western powers that hated and feared their religion. I expressed my support for the war in Afghanistan and gave my reasons, reasons I still believe in. But I don't think I really appreciated then what I understand more fully now: That having to fight that war was in itself a defeat. For even a battle won has costs, and even a war of necessity can lay seeds for future violence.

Military theorists tell us that one goal of terrorism is to force people to pick sides in an ensuing community struggle. President George W. Bush understood this, and emphasized on many occasions that the United States did not see Islam as responsible for terrorism. Al-Qaeda leaders believed that an open American attack on a Muslim country would rally the entire Muslim world behind them. It is of great frustration to them that this plan failed miserably. Some did join them, however, especially after the 2003 invasion of Iraq proved even more radicalizing than the sanctions. Within Iraq, Christians have become the most vulnerable of populations. There is evidence that religious hostilities are rising around the world, and some say 75% of religious persecution is now directed at Christians, with attacks on churches in Iraq and Egypt simply the highest-profile incidents.

Much as many Muslims perceive a Christian onslaught against Islam, so today many Christians and others in Christian-majority societies see a Muslim onslaught on the Christian world. In recent years, every American Muslim I have met feels a constant buzz of Islamophobic harassment. The Republican presidential race has seen bursts of sharp anti-Islamic rhetoric. Mosque construction is resisted by activists around the country. Last Christmas Eve, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield even raised the specter of Muslim immigrants imposing shari'a in a homily motivated by his concern for Middle Eastern Christians as fellow members of a worldwide Christian community.

In this there are uncomfortable parallels with the radicalization of al-Qaeda recruits that led ultimately to September 11. I do not say that those who have the opinions mentioned in the above paragraph are in any way on the same moral plane as terrorists, for those who pass from thoughts to acts of mass violence cross a significant barrier indeed. But as we recently saw in Norway, it is easy to unthinkingly create an environment in which some will make that crossing, and still easier, when under the influence of hate or fear, to allow those who are themselves lost in darkness to lead us onto evil paths.

Today we have more knowledge of the world than ever before, but it is still incomplete, shaped by our sources, our interests, and our communities. What we must learn is to be humble with all our knowledge, and to retain in the face of wrong those values which make us right. The greatest challenge of modernity is to expand our sense of community to encompass all humanity, speaking to one another across the lines that divide us to gain an understanding of different experiences and perspectives, as well as the root commonalities we all share. For only then can we see the grievances and pains of others as clearly as our own, only then can we draw from the full well of human experience and understanding, and only then can we see most clearly those who are the common enemies of all.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Cairo Embassy Protests

2011-09-09T20:11:00.003-04:00

Today a protest against the anti-democratic policies of Egypt's SCAF also encompassed the Israeli embassy:

"Organizers of Friday’s demonstrations had said they would call for a list of familiar liberal goals, like retribution against former President Hosni Mubarak and an end to military trials of civilians. But thousands of people marched off from the square to express their anger over disparate recent events, including a recent border incident with Israel and a brawl between soccer fans and the police at a recent match.

"Thousands of hardcore soccer fans — known here as ultras — were for the first time a conspicuous if not dominant force in the protests. They led the attacks on the Interior Ministry and the security building near the Israeli embassy. At the Interior Ministry, groups of political activists were seen attempting to form human barriers to protect the building, urging protesters to retreat to the square and chanting, 'peacefully, peacefully.'

"The Israeli embassy, which has been the site of several previous demonstrations after Israeli armed forces accidentally killed five Egyptian officers while chasing Palestinian militants near the border last month, was an early target on Friday. In response to almost daily protests since the border episode, the Egyptian authorities had built a concrete wall surrounding the embassy, and by early afternoon thousands of protesters — some equipped with hammers — were marching toward the building to try to tear down the wall."

The example of Turkey's forceful anti-Israeli diplomacy certainly increases popular frustration with the SCAF, but I'm wondering about the future. The big issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict right now is the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations. What happens if violence develops in the Palestinian Territories during this period? Will this have any impact on domestic developments in Egypt in particular?

UPDATE: Steve Negus has a great post on these events.

The Importance of Training Camps

2011-09-09T18:43:00.002-04:00

Over the past couple of years, I've noticed a trend of people pointing to terrorist plots hatched in, for example, Europe as evidence that "safe havens" for terrorist groups do not matter. In his monograph Jihad in Saudi Arabia, Thomas Hegghammer comes to a different conclusion:

"The arguably most important lesson from the history of al-Qaida is that unhampered access to territory can dramatically increase a terrorist group's military capability. For a start, the safe haven allowed al-Qaida to quietly plan operations on its own schedule with virtually no outside interference. Moreover, it allowed Bin Laden to build a core organisation with a relatively high degree of bureaucratisation and functional task division, which in turn improved organisational efficiency. Most important of all, territorial access enabled Bin Laden to set up an elaborate military educational system, the like of which has never been seen in the hands of a transnational terrorist organisation with such a radical agenda. This infrastructure - or "University of Global Jihadism" - greatly improved al-Qaida's ability to operationalise recruits. The training camps are also key to understanding the characteristic organisational unity of al-Qaida, namely the simultaneous existence of a hierarchical and bureaucratic core and a much larger and looser network of camp alumni.

"Beyond increasing the recruits' paramilitary expertise, the camps constituted an arena for social processes that improved al-Qaida's operational capability. Many of these processes imitated those cultivated by professional military organisations. Instructors first of all sought to desensitise the recruits through intensive weapons practice and through the promotion of an ultra-masculine and weapons-fixated camp culture. Moreover, the hardship of camp life made recruits forge strong personal relationships, thus building the deep internal loyalty and trust needed for long-winded operations such as the 9/11 attacks. Finally the 'graduates' of these camps were imbued with self-confidence and a sense of being part of a vanguard, which turned many into leading or entrepreneurial figures in the militant communities in their home countries. In addition to these social processes came the ideological indoctrination into global jihadism. Recruits were exposed to lectures and writings of global jihadi ideologues. Instructors also encouraged anti-American statements within the camps, leading recruits to try to rhetorically outdo one another. On the whole, the alumni from these training camps were more brutal, more bound together and more anti-Western than most of their peers."

Some context for the second paragraph is provided by Hegghammer's prosopographical study of 197 al-Qaida recruits from Saudi Arabia. Almost all of them travelled to Afghanistan intending to fight in prominent limited conflicts such as that in Chechnya and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Only in the training camps in Afghanistan did some start becoming committed to the al-Qaida vision of a global campaign against the United States or socially recruited into other agendas. The fact that deception about al-Qaida's actual agenda was involved, not only in fundraising, but recruitment, leads me to hate al-Qaida even more now than I did this morning.

I suspect suspicion about the "safe haven" idea results from skepticism about American policy into Afghanistan bleeding over into one of the primary rationales for our involvement there. I do not, however, draw from the work of Hegghammer and others whom I have read any especially militant conclusions. Specifically, it seems clear that al-Qaida and the Taliban themselves had different agendas, and that many within the Taliban were not keen on harboring Bin Laden's state within a state. This is, in fact, why he ordered the assassination of the Taliban's arch-rival Ahmad Shah Massoud ten years ago today. In addition, while it seems common sense that trained terrorists are more capable of inflicting harm than untrained ones, the point about drawing recruits into Bin Ladenism seems irrelevant now that everyone can clearly see what it is. I haven't closely followed the war in Afghanistan for several years, but given my sense of the situation on the ground, I would not be averse to a withdrawal that involved some elements of the Taliban gaining some measure of political power in the country, along with a sufficient intelligence presence to be aware of and a willingness to act against any new "training camps" that were sufficiently threatening to U.S.'s national interests.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Berdymuhammedov Replaces Niyazov

2011-09-05T18:40:00.002-04:00

Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov has obviously been President of Turkmenistan for several years, but is now taking more visible steps to develop a personality cult similar to, though hopefully not as extreme as, his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov. Last week came news that the Council of Elders, a government advisory body, was planning to declare him "Arkadag," meaning "Protector," and also suggest that as the name of a new capital city. Now RFE-RL reports that he is producing a replacement for the Rukhnama:

"Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov will soon release a new 'spiritual guidebook' for the country that will replace the long-used 'Rukhnama' (Book of the Soul) of his predecessor, RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reports.

"Well-placed sources in the Turkmen intelligentsia told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that the book will either be called 'Turkmennama' (Book for Turkmen) or 'Adamnama' (Book for Humanity)...

"Gutliyev had written about the need for a new guidebook that will be essential for a 'new period in Turkmen history' -- since Berdymukhammedov came to power -- which state ideology describes as 'an era of Great Renaissance...'

"Meanwhile, Berdymukhammedov has ordered his cabinet to mark the 10th anniversary of 'Rukhnama' on September 12, the day it was launched in 2001.

"The guidebook was made a compulsory part of the curriculum at all levels of the country's educational system and it was expected to be prominently displayed in public places and kept in every home."

Again, we have to hope that Berdymuhammadov will be content with a more limited role for his own book.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Black Africans in Tripoli

2011-09-05T18:26:00.002-04:00

It's not clear where Qadhafi actually used mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa in his losing battle for Libya, but a belief that he did is already putting Black migrant workers in an untenable position:

"As rebel leaders pleaded with their fighters to avoid taking revenge against 'brother Libyans,' many rebels were turning their wrath against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, imprisoning hundreds for the crime of fighting as 'mercenaries' for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi without any evidence except the color of their skin...

"Many Tripoli residents — including some local rebel leaders — now often use the Arabic word for 'mercenaries' or 'foreign fighters' as a catchall term to refer to any member of the city’s large underclass of African migrant workers. Makeshift rebel jails around the city have been holding African migrants segregated in fetid, sweltering pens for as long as two weeks on charges that their captors often acknowledge to be little more than suspicion. The migrants far outnumber Libyan prisoners, in part because rebels say they have allowed many Libyan Qaddafi supporters to return to their homes if they are willing to surrender their weapons."

From the article as a whole, it sounds like the upper levels of the rebel command structure are trying to get control of this situation, but in the meantime popular prejudice is running rampant. Western journalists found no evidence in Tripoli that the supposed mercenaries ever existed, but I expect a belief that there were to provide support to Libyan racism for years to come. Such prejudice exists already partly due to the idea that migrants are taking jobs from unemployed Libyans.

Israel's Protest Movement

2011-09-03T20:37:00.002-04:00

Over 450,000 people attended economic-themed protests in Israel this evening:

"Over 450,000 protesters attended rallies across the country (Saturday) night calling for social justice in what was the largest demonstration in Israeli history.

"The main protest took place in Tel Aviv's Kikar Hamedina, where some 300,000 people gathered after marching from Habima Square about two kilometers away. Protest leader Yonatan Levy said the atmosphere was like 'a second Independence Day.'"

To understand the scale of this movement, consider that Israel's population is 7.7 million, meaning that 1 out of every 17 Israelis was out on the streets protesting. Israel has such huge protests on occasion, but the last one on this scale was during the 1982 Lebanon War.

Optimism for Tunisia

2011-08-31T16:40:00.003-04:00

Fouad Hamdan is optimistic for Tunisia:

"The explosion of newfound freedoms since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14 after a three-week uprising is something no one can ever take away from Tunisians. If there is any consensus, it is that the hard-won freedom of expression is inviolable...

"Despite continuing protests and efforts by Ben Ali loyalists to disrupt the democratic process, it is nevertheless possible to be optimistic. In principle, everything is still on track.

"The roadmap for moving towards a truly open and democratic system is sound. El-Sebsi and the political reform commission have gained widespread acceptance, and army generals with no political ambitions are guaranteeing overall security and keeping a close eye on the feared police and intelligence agencies.

"Tunisians are rapidly developing a democratic culture that will enable them to tackle four major challenges after the October 23 election for a constitutional assembly – forging a coalition of several parties to form Tunisia’s first truly legitimate government, reforming the police and judiciary, creating jobs for young people and reducing the economic inequalities between different regions; and launching a process of transitional justice that will see human rights abusers and corrupt individuals prosecuted.

"The revolution in Tunisia did not end when Ben Ali fled. It has been continuing slowly since then, and will receive a boost after October 23."

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

A Death in Sitra

2011-08-31T16:28:00.004-04:00

I've mentioned before that Bahrain's protest movement remains alive outside Manama. The New York Times reports the latest:

"A 14-year-old boy was killed as security forces in Bahrain violently broke up a small protest in a town south of the capital on Wednesday. Witnesses said the boy was struck in the head by a tear-gas canister that the security forces fired directly at the crowd at close range, and died shortly afterward at a hospital.

"The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights published photos of the dead boy, whose name was given as Ali Jawad Ahmad, and of the blood-stained sidewalk in Sitra where the incident took place...

"Sitra, an oil hub six miles south of Manama, the capital, is known for its activist Shiite population. It was a stronghold of antigovernment activists at the height of demonstrations earlier this year. The government of Bahrain, with help from Saudi Arabia, violently put down the country’s peaceful protest movement in March...

"Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, wrote on his Twitter account in Arabic that video of the boy’s dead body was 'a gift to the people' from the government during Id al-Fitr, the festival celebrating the end of Muslim holy month of Ramadan."

Rajab's statement definitely seems tone deaf. Even if the martyrdom does rejuvenate the protest movement, you don't announce it that way. Sitra is an old center of Shi'ite religious learning on Bahrain's main island, much like Bani Jamra.

Syria's Military Cracking?

2011-08-29T20:37:00.005-04:00

As the Syrian regime continues its violent crackdown on demonstrators, there are reports of dissension in the ranks:

"Syrian security forces have killed at least six people and wounded dozens in raids across the country, as tanks and armoured vehicles rolled into various flashpoint areas, according to human rights groups...

"There have been consistent reports of some units refusing to fire on protesters, but the crackdown has continued...

"Opposition activists say security forces have also surrounded the central town of Rastan after reports of 'widespread defections' by soldiers there.

"A video posted on video-sharing website YouTube, which Al Jazeera cannot independently verify, appears to show 12 army officers switching sides...

"Activists and residents have been reporting increasing defections in the Syrian army since the demise of Muammar Gaddafi's rule over Libya, Reuters reported.

"They claim there have been desertions in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province, the northwestern Idlib province, the Homs countryside and at the outskirts of Damascus.

"A statement published on the internet by the Free Officers, a group that says it represents defectors, also said 'large defections' had occurred in Harasta; the first reported defections around the capital, where President Bashar al-Assad's core forces are based...

"This came as Syrian opposition leaders formed a National Transitional Council in Turkey. It included 42 members who are currently in Syria, and will be led by a prominent opposition figure based in Paris."

When I noted the possible effects of Qadhafi's fall on other Arab countries, I thought of the protestors, but had not considered that it could inspire defections in the armed forces. Incidentally, is "National Transitional Council" going to be the Revolutionary Command Council of the 21st century?

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

The NTC's Tripoli

2011-08-28T21:31:00.001-04:00

John Thorne reports on the NTC's challenges in Tripoli:

"Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the National Transitional Council chief, speaking in Benghazi where the rebellion began in February, called for emergency humanitarian aid for the capital, particularly medical supplies...

"He blamed 'sabotage by Qaddafi's forces' for shortages of water and electricity in Tripoli, and said: 'We are working on resolving these problems.'

"Rebels were working to restart a refinery at nearby Zawiyah that provides fuel for Tripoli's main power plant, said Mahmoud Shammam, the NTC information minister. For now, 30,000 tonnes of fuel would be distributed over the next two days, he said. He also promised a fair trial for the fugutive deposed leader Col Muammar Qaddafi and his senior aides, and to protect them from personal vendettas.

"Controlling the road from the Tunisian border to Tripoli would ease growing shortages of fuel and food, particularly in the capital, transformed from metropolis to ghost town over the past week...

"Shops in Tripoli were mostly closed yesterday and the streets nearly empty of cars, apart from the gun-mounted pickups of rebel forces cruising down avenues brilliant with revolutionary graffiti...

"Checkpoints have sprung up around the city, often staffed by armed young men and teenagers. For many, they are a poor substitute for security and sometimes cause of friction."

Theory and Practice of History

2011-08-28T21:12:00.002-04:00

Here is my syllabus for "Theory and Practice of History," the gateway course for history majors at Shippensburg University.

HIS 203-002: Theory and Practice of History
202 Dauphin Humanities Center, TR 12:30 p.m.
Dr. Brian J. Ulrich

Office: 201 Dauphin Humanities Center, ex. 1736
Office Hours: TR 2:00-3:30; W 11:00-1:00, also by appointment
E-mail: bjulrich@ship.edu

Required Texts:

The Pursuit of History, 5th Edition, John Tosh
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses and Dissertations, 7th Edition, Kate L. Turabian, et al.

James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, (New York: Knopf, 1982) – on reserve in Lehman Library

Electronic reserves found on Blackboard

This course is designed to introduce you to the theory and practice of history while developing basic skills to both work as professional historians and succeed in the academic study of history. It will both introduce history as an academic discipline and provide students with hands-on research experience. The most important element will be a project of original research based on primary sources, resulting in both a high quality oral presentation and a paper suitable for publication. Assignments are designed to develop critical reading, writing, and research skills as well as analytical ability.

Grading:

Research Project – 35% (25% paper, 10% presentation)
Peer Review – 5%
Short Assignments and Quizzes – 20%
Participation – 20%
Career Development – 10%
Light Final Exam – 10%

Research Project

Students will, based on original research in primary sources, produce both a publication-quality research paper of at least eight (full) pages and give a presentation to the class of a length to be determined based on de facto class size late in the semester. Students may select their own topics subject to the approval of the professor. Finding appropriate primary sources will be the most important limiting factor in topic choices. The course D2L site includes links to in-line primary source collections and archives in the area. We will also spend a day in Lehman Library for orientation to sources available on campus. Because a key aspect of this class is to mentor students in the production of such a project, internal deadlines for specific project elements will be rigorously enforced by a penalty of 10% of the possible research project grade (or 3.5% of the possible final grade). As noted, that penalty is doubled for the rough draft of the paper.

These internal deadlines are:

1.) October 11, 11:59 p.m. – Submit via e-mail a one paragraph project proposal that includes a topic, possible research questions, primary sources and an example of how you plan to use them, and relevant secondary sources.
2.) October 18, class time – Bring two sources to class for detailed work on using sources.
3.) October 27, class time – Bring to class an introduction that sets up the historical problem, your method for solving it, and your tentative solution (thesis).
4.) November 10, 15 – Prior to an individual meeting with the professor, you must produce a two page précis, or summary of your paper.
5.) November 22 – Bring to class a rough draft for purposes of peer review. This deadline carries a double penalty of 20% off the total project grade.
6.) December 8 – Research papers are due at class time. Final submission instructions are forthcoming.

Peer Review

On November 22 in class, students will do a peer review of another students’ paper. The student will provide oral feedback in class, as well as a more formal, written version submitted to both the student and the professor on-line by class time on November 29. The peer review assignment cannot be made up without a documented university-sanctioned excuse.

Short Assignments and Quizzes

As noted on the syllabus, students will frequently be asked to do short written assignments prior to each class. The professor also reserves the right to add short assignments and to give pop quizzes. Short papers must be typed and properly cited using Turabian-style footnotes unless otherwise noted. Nothing in this category can be made up. Because of legitimate excuses for missing class, the lowest grade in this category will be dropped from the final grade calculation.

The most common type of short assignment is the article review. Each of these is to be exactly three paragraphs. In the first paragraph, you will explain the author’s argument and any historiographical context. In the second paragraph, you will summarize how the author made this point, paying attention to both argumentation and how he or she used primary sources. In the third paragraph, you will provide an overall evaluation of the article, possibly using ideas from Tosh.

Participation

This class will be conducted seminar style, which means the onus is on you to prepare and participate. This also means attendance is critical at all times. Every missed class above two will result in a penalty of 15% off the maximum total participation grade (or 3% off the maximum total grade). This does not differentiate between excused and unexcused absences. Note that perfect attendance alone will not earn an A.

Career Development

Another goal of this course is to make sure you have some clue what you want to do after graduation and how to go about giving yourself the best chance to do it. Because of this, you will complete two career development assignments. By September 13, you must complete the Focus-2 Assessment at the web site of the Shippensburg University Career Development Center. You will need to log-in to the Focus-2 site on the Career Development Center (CDC) webpage, and then work through the site’s sections. At the end, the program will summarize your results in a personal “Career Portfolio.” As the syllabus is being finalized, the professor has realized he has no clue whether there is an option to e-mail yourself the results so that you can then forward them to him to turn in.

In addition, on September 27, you will hand in a career exploration executive summary. This should be three paragraphs, including 1.) the nature of the job, including employment possibilities and salary information 2.) the training, knowledge, and experience necessary for entry-level positions in this field and 3.) what you need to do to get that training, knowledge, and skills, including the identification of specific possible intern sites or graduate programs. Be aware that especially in the third paragraph, this assignment will probably require on-line research, and even telephone calls or e-mails.

In order to get the most out of these assignments, please discuss the results with the Career Development Center, your advisor, or the History-Philosophy Department’s undergraduate internship coordinator, Dr. Allen Dietrich-Ward.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is bad, and all work must be cited. The minimum penalty for plagiarism will be a zero on the assignment in question and, if it is a step in the research project, application of the appropriate late penalty.

Disability Accommodation

If you feel you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, you should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs at least 72 hours prior to the activity which requires the accommodation. If you have not already done so, you must contact the Office of Disability Services. This office is responsible for determining reasonable and appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities on a case-by-case basis, and more generally, for ensuring that members of the community with disabilities have access to Shippensburg’s programs and services. They also assist students in identifying and managing the factors that may interfere with learning and in developing strategies to enhance learning. I cannot approve an accommodation without you registering.

Schedule of Readings and Major Assignments

August 30 – Course intro
Come to class with a 1-2 page, potentially hand-written uncited paper in which you consider how aspects of history are portrayed in at least three examples drawn from contemporary popular culture (movies, novels, that sort of thing).
September 1 – Tosh, 1-25 (historical awareness and social memory)
Hand in a 2-page, now typed and properly footnoted paper in which you identify which of the “distorting effects” discussed in the reading affect the presentation of the past in those cultural sources you chose, as well as how. (See Turabian, Chapter 17 for citation formats)

September 6 – Tosh, 29-55 (uses of history, career center speaker)
September 8 – Turabian, 3-23 (conceiving the project)

September 13 - Tosh, 58-65 (political and diplomatic history, Focus-2 assessment due)
Read also the following articles from the “Political History Today” special in the May 2011 Perspectives:

“Political History Today: Plural Perspectives on a Protean Creature,” Pillarisetti Sudhir
“The Interdisciplinarity of Political History,” Julian Zelizer
“The Business in Between: U.S. Foreign Relations and Domestic Politics,” Christopher Dietrich
“Searching out the Sacred in U.S. Political History,” Darren Dochuk
“Research Resources for Diplomatic History,” Carl Ashley
“Political Resources Waiting to be Mined,” Donald Ritchie
“Revisiting the Early American Republic: The New Nation Votes Database Enables a New Political History,” Rosemarie Zagarri
September 15 – Tosh, 65-73 (social history, history and social sciences)
Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 (survey “On this day in…” case on left sidebar, which will hopefully be interesting)
Rebekah Nathan, My Freshman Year, selection
Mary Beth Sievens, “Divorce, Patriarchal Authority, and Masculinity: A Case from Early National Vermont,” Journal of Social History 37 (2004), pp. 651-661.
Hand in an article review on Sievens

September 20 – Tosh, 74-9 (economic and religious history)
Patricia Lopes Don, “Franciscans, Indian Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in New Spain, 1536-1543,” Journal of World History 17 (2006), pp. 27-49.
Chris Evans, Owen Jackson, and Goran Ryden, “Baltic Iron and the British Iron Industry in the Eighteenth Century,” The Economic History Review 55 (2002), pp. 642-665.
Read and hand in an article review on either of the above articles
September 22 – Tosh, 88-93, 108-16 (sources)

September 27 – Turabian 24-35 (sources continued, meet at library)
Complete career exploration executive summary
September 29 – Tosh, 93-98 (narrative sources)
J. Michael Farmer, “The Three Chaste Ones of Ba: Local Perspectives on the Yellow Turban Rebellion on the Chengdu Plain,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 125 (2005), pp. 191-202
D.O. Morgan, “Ibn Battuta and the Mongols,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (2001), pp. 1-11
Hand in one page reflection on things to consider when using literary sources, based on readings

October 4 – Tosh, 98-107 (documentary sources)
Davidson and Lytle, “Declaring Independence”
October 6 – “Background on Archaeological Methods” (archaeology)
Kent R. Weeks, “Archaeology and Egyptology,” Egyptology Today, ed. Richard H. Wilkinson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 7-22
Pam Crabtree, “The Archaeology of Medieval Europe,” History Compass 7 (2009), pp. 879-893

***Note deadline for proposed topic and sources***

October 11 – FALL BREAK
October 13 – Mary Kay Quinlan, “The Dynamics of Interviewing,” The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 23-36
Davdison and Lytle, “The View from the Bottom Rail”
look at oral history interviews (oral history)

October 18 – Tosh, 119-43 (using the sources – bring to class at least two sources you plan to use for your research paper)
October 20 – Tosh, 147-71 (historical writing)

October 25 – Tosh, 175-210 (philosophy of history, historians’ roles)
October 27 – Turabian, 62-81 (planning the paper, bring paper introduction to class)

November 1 – Tosh, 214-42 (history and theory)
November 3 – Tosh, 246-71 (cultural history)

November 8 – Tosh, 274-85 (gender history)
Ann M. Little, “Gender and Sexuality in the North American Borderlands, 1492-1848,” History Compass 7 (2009), pp. 1606-15
November 10- Individual meetings on two page précis

November 15 – Individual meetings on two page précis
November 17 – Tosh, 285-99 (race and postcolonialism)
Carl H. Nightengale, “Before Race Mattered: Geographies of the Color Line in Early Colonial Madras and New York,” American Historical Review 113 (2008), pp. 48-71
Hand in article review on Nightengale

November 22 – Rough drafts due, peer review of rough drafts (double late penalty!)
November 24 – THANKSGIVING

November 29 – Turabian, 98-126 (revisions and oral presentations)
December 1 – Presentation of Student Research

December 6 – Presentation of Student Research
December 8 – Presentation of Student Research (research paper due)

Tuesday, December 13, 1 p.m. – Light final exam

Friday Protests in Bahrain

2011-08-27T16:32:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a day of protest in Bahrain. Part of the background to this is Shaykh Isa Qasem's warning to the royal family that they could face the same fate as Muammar Qadhafi if they fail to reform:

"The sermon by Sheik Isa Qassim was attended by thousands of worshippers, and was a show of defiance after Bahrain's justice minister accused the cleric of promoting unrest in the strategic island nation, which is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.

"A police helicopter hovered low over the crowds spilling from the mosque after the service. Some worshippers unfurled banners saying 'We will never submit to anyone but God' and warning that government pressure on Qassim is 'political suicide.'

"Qassim vowed he would never be silenced, and said it was his religious duty to support demands by Bahrain's majority Shiites for greater rights and a stronger voice in how the country is run...

"'Can't they learn from the fall of dictatorships and see what happens to those who denied their people basic rights?' Qassim told worshippers. 'We now see what happens to the Libyan dictator, just as what happened to Tunisian and Egyptian despots.'"

In addition, the government banned protests for Quds Day, an annual day of solidarity with Palestinians sometimes associated with Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. My sense from Twitter traffic is that the frequency of protests in Bahrain diminished after the regime crackdown began, but that they never really ceased in the rural areas, especially Bani Jamra. Yesterday's reports, however, placed demonstrations in Manama, in Shi'ite neighborhoods such as Ra's Rummaan. I don't have good, detailed sources on the scene, but I suspect two factors are converging to cause an uptick in demonstrations at this time. One is the demonstration effect of Libya, which was mentioned in Qasem's sermon. The other is the government threat against Qasem, which called to mind the government's suppression of Shaykh Abd al-Amir al-Jamri during the 1990's. Al-Jamri was and remains posthumously a popular figure in Bahrain. I don't know if Isa Qasem, who is the highest-ranking cleric associated with the al-Wifaq opposition party, is in that league yet, but he could be moving in that direction. The AP calls him the top Shi'ite leader in Bahrain, and he has clearly been making a play for ayatollah status, but he shares the limelight with Abdullah al-Ghurayfi, whom some trumpeted as a possible successor to late Lebanese Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Bahrain's Ongoing Struggle

2011-08-24T21:58:00.003-04:00

I've been reading snippets that Bahrain's protest movement is still alive outside the capital. I'll try to blog about these more frequently, but for the moment I'm haunted by a former student's meeting with her imprisoned husband:

"I had expected that Wafi like others had been tortured, but hearing it come from his mouth really hurts much more, it makes it real." #

"Wafi told us today abt wen he was detained underground at fort. He was tortured so badly he coudnt stand for days. He had to crawl." #

"Wafi said he urinated blood for weeks, and was hospitalized for 4 days after severe torture. #

"He says those 4 days in the hospital, every night at 12 police would come in throw them of their beds and beat them badly." #

"He said he was electrocuted not only at the fort but also when he was brought to Dry Dock." #

"After saying hello Wafi gave me a heart he had made out of colored strings with our initials inside. He said "Happy Anniversary" #

"Wafi also made a little necklace out of strings for Jude, with the letter "J" and gave it to her." #

Pictures are here and here.

Qadhafi Falls

2011-08-21T16:49:00.003-04:00

As I write, it is crystal clear that Moammar Qadhafi's 42-year rule of Libya has come to an end, and he himself will likely be captured, killed or fled before the evening is out. Yesterday I commented that the best case scenario was for an uprising against him in Tripoli itself to go with the advance of the Free Libya forces. Juan Cole recounts how just that occurred:

"The underground network of revolutionaries in the capital, who had been violently repressed by Qaddafi’s security forces last March, appear to have planned the uprising on hearing of the fall of Zawiya and Zlitan. It is Ramadan, so people in Tripoli are fasting during the day, breaking their fast at sunset. Immediately after they ate their meal, the callers to prayer or muezzins mounted the minarets of the mosques and began calling out, 'Allahu Akbar,' (God is most Great), as a signal to begin the uprising. (Intrestingly, this tactic is similar to that used by the Green movement for democracy in Iran in 2009).

"Working class districts in the east were the first to rise up. Apparently revolutionaries have been smuggling in weapons to the capital and finding a way to practice with them. Tajoura, a few kilometers from Tripoli to the east, mounted a successful attack on the Qaddafi forces in the working class suburb, driving them off. At one point the government troops fired rockets at the protesting crowds, killing 122 persons. But it was a futile piece of barbarity, followed by complete defeat of Qaddafi forces. Eyewitness Asil al-Tajuri told Aljazeera Arabic by telephone that the revolutionaries in Tajoura captured 6 government troops, and that they freed 500 prisoners from the Hamidiya penitentiary. The Tajoura popular forces also captured the Muitiqa military base in the suburb and stormed the residence of Mansur Daw, the head of security forces in Tripoli...

"At one point an Aljazeera Arabic correspondent was able to get the frequency of the security forces and we overheard them fretting that they were running low on ammunition and fuel for their riposte to the revolutionaries’ advance."

That last paragraph calls attention to the critical role of international support for the rebels, seen most dramatically in the NATO bombardment which destroyed much of Qadhafi's military might. The NATO intervention was still a gamble, in that there seemed to be no plan for what would happen if a stalemate developed, but in this case it is a gamble that has paid off.

The history of the 2011 Arab revolutions now runs something like this: In December 2010, an uprising began in Tunisia, developing out of worker protests in the southern part of that country that may have been inspired by the culture of protest in neighboring Algeria. After a month, Ben Ali fled, and a massive uprising began in Egypt, which succeeded in ousting Mubarak just a few weeks. Tunisia's revolution had inspired protest movements elsewhere in the Arab world, and after Mubarak fell, these became much larger, as such a development in 1.) a second country and 2.) a larger, more culturally central country led people to see themselves as living in a possible age of revolution. However, other governments succeeded is using loyal security forces to crack down on their protest movements, and there have been no major developments since.

Until now. Does the success of the Libyan Revolution presage similar developments elsewhere, especially in Syria and Yemen? Not necessarily. Libya had a well-armed insurrection which succeeded with the aid of a significant foreign military operation. It is not clear that those conditions will exist elsewhere, and so the "Libya model," which as Robert Farley notes is really the Afghanistan model, does not seem a likely prototype for other countries. On the other hand, the fall of Qadhafi could inspire people elsewhere to resist their regimes to a greater extent than they otherwise might, against especially in Syria, and this in turn could ultimately lead to fractures in national security forces or between regimes and their security forces, and this could enable those revolts to succeed.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

SUTV Emmy Nomination

2011-08-20T19:01:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to Shippensburg University's student-run TV station's newscast for receiving an Emmy nomination:

"SUTV was nominated in the College Production — Newscast category. Also nominated in that category was Temple University. According to the NATAS website, this category is for outstanding achievement in a regularly scheduled newscast with entries to be judged on such areas as overall content, presentation, enterprise, writing and format.

"The program entered was broadcast March 31. According to the program description: 'SUTV’s Bubba Smith reports from Harrisburg on students' rally protesting the governor's proposed education cuts, an SUTV News/The Slate Newspaper exclusive with President William Ruud about the imminent tuition increases, Lucas Martin reports from the bus taking students to the rally in Harrisburg, and Rachel Snody explains how Facebook was a valuble resource in organizing the rally. Also, Casey Piell's forecast, Steph Horvat reports on professor's involvement with Peace Corps and the stories they share, Mariana Boguski's and Jim Gallagher's sports, how fake $10 bills have been found around town, and Anna Kerstetter takes us behind the scenes of Shippensburg's latest theatrical production.'"

What's funny about this is that I'm pretty sure that was the newscast for which they interviewed me on Libya, though I got bumped from the actual broadcast.

Libya's Nearing Climax

2011-08-20T15:11:00.002-04:00

The civil war in Libya may be nearing its climax as rebels draw their tightest circle yet around the capital of Tripoli:

"Rebels encircled the beleaguered Libyan capital on Saturday, claiming to have taken major towns to its east, west and south, leaving only the NATO-patrolled sea to the north...

"By Saturday afternoon, the rebels had driven Colonel Qaddafi’s forces out of the strategic oil refinery town of Zawiyah, 30 miles west of Tripoli. After a week of heavy fighting there, residents began to celebrate in the main square.

"The Arab news network Al Jazeera reported that Zlitan, a crucial Qaddafi barracks town east of Tripoli, also had fallen to the rebels. They captured Gharyan, the gateway to the south, last week.

"Farther east, the rebels claimed to have seized the residential areas of the oil port of Brega, a prize that had changed hands many times since the uprising began."

The Free Libya forces have often lost territory after gaining it, but the advances of the past few days have been greater than previously, Qaddafi is preparing for street fighting in the capital, and the pace of defections seems to have increased, signalling that regime figures are losing faith in its survival. What's really needed, though, is a major uprising in Tripoli itself to avoid the need for urban warfare that could ground on for quite a while.

Karabakh Military Build-Up

2011-08-17T22:03:00.005-04:00

In recent months, observers of the south Caucasus have been concerned about rising tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan as negotiations over the status of the latter's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh go nowhere. Most recently, Karabakh's top military commander has been advertising a build-up:

"The commander of Armenian-backed forces in the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh has said his military acquired significant amounts of new weapons this year and will continue its buildup, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.

"Lieutenant-General Movses Hakobian estimated that the 'military potential' of his troops grew by 20 percent in the first half of 2011...

"Armenia, whose armed forces are closely connected with the Karabakh military, is likely to be the main source of the arms acquisitions Hakobian reported."

The context is this:

"Azerbaijani leaders regularly threaten forcibly to take back Karabakh and Armenian-controlled territories surrounding the disputed enclave if the long-running Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks yield no results acceptable to Baku. The Azerbaijani government plans to boost military spending to $3.3 billion this year, up from $2.15 billion a year ago and just $160 million in 2003."

Azerbaijan has become flush with energy wealth since its loss in the Karabakh War of the early 1990's, and throughout negotiations has seen time as on its side given that such wealth could be invested in its military. Karabakh represents about 15% of Azerbaijan's territory, and hundreds of thousands of refugees have been displaced from the region into the rest of Azerbaijan. It is a festering sore for Azerbaijan, but also a point of nationalist pride for Armenia, for Karabakh was, in fact, Armenian before the Soviets sought to suppress Armenian nationalism by giving some Armenian territory to Azerbaijan in the early days of the U.S.S.R. If Azerbaijan concludes that it can defeat Armenia in a rematch and that Armenia will not allow Karabakh to revert to Azerbaijani's sovereignty as part of a peace process, then there will eventually be war.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring

2011-08-16T19:17:00.002-04:00

Mariann Ormholt looks at al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring:

"A study on al-Qaeda in the Arab Spring by Juan Zarate and David Gordon of Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, suggests a number of other reasons why al-Qaeda has been sidelined in the uprisings...

"Nonetheless, al-Qaeda leaders have quickly sought to try and position their movement as having a role to play in the revolutions.

"Abu Yahya al-Libi, a leading al-Qaeda figure, even linked the rebellions with its efforts to challenge the United States. He said this had inspired the Arab world to demand change.

"Other prominent al-Qaeda figures such as current head Ayman al-Zawahiri and Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric, have also attempted to claim credit for the revolutions...

"At the same time, Benotman said that it was difficult for al-Qaeda to find a role in the revolutions. While the militants blame western powers for the hardships faced by Muslims, the popular protests addressed ineffective governance and local grievances, such as unemployment and corruption.

"In addition, while the protesters are mostly driven by temporal concerns, al-Qaeda continues to be driven by religious imperatives."

I'm dubious of the distinction between temporal and religious concerns in that last paragraph, as al-Qaeda has always articulated temporal concerns through a religious lens. This, however, does not detract from the fact that al-Qaeda has become even more marginal to Arab political developments than they were before. At the same time, I think we should take seriously the concern that their brand of transnational salafi jihadism could attract more of a following if the Arab world reverts to the status quo of 2010, much as it has gained supporters in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and in some Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Patronage and Iraqi Politics

2011-08-15T20:42:00.002-04:00

Maria Fantappie looks at the relationship between Nouri al-Maliki and the Sadr movement in Iraq:

"In 2007, Maliki’s forces drove the Sadrists’ Mehdi army out of Basra. Although allied in the central government, Maliki and the Sadrists are once again competing, but this time through political rather than military means...

"The Sadrists rely on a fluid chain of decision-making that issues policies at the top levels of government and implements projects through local committees in the provinces they run. In just a few months, their ministries have begun to build housing complexes in Maysan, implement infrastructure projects in Muthanna, improve the provision of electricity in Dhi-Qar, and improve access to water in Najaf. Starting with Maysan, Maliki has spared no time in disrupting this flow by limiting government funding, delaying approval for implementation, and hampering foreign investments.

"The rush to outperform each other is most evident in the provinces of Basra and Baghdad. Maliki has hastened the allocation of funds and approved projects, but often the Sadrists have capitalized on Maliki’s efforts by taking credit for implementing projects through local committees and the ministries they run. In Baghdad, when the government began providing free fuel to supply electric generators, Sadrist committees organized distribution to each home in Sadr City and Shula. As the Shatt al-Arab irrigation project began in Basra, Maliki was compelled to create the National Council for Water under his chairmanship, undermining the Ministry of Water in the process.

"If Maliki governs Iraq as its patron –– through a pyramidal hierarchy of command emanating from Baghdad –– the Sadrists deploy a strongly connected network between their representatives in parliament, the Al Ahrar Bloc, and their political bureaus in the provinces. While the prime minister receives local officials in his office in Baghdad, Sadrist members of parliament travel to all of the southern provinces to listen to constituent demands and congratulate local bureaus on their achievements. Competition is high over tribal support. While the Maliki-sponsored 'Tribal Support Councils' have co-opted several southern sheiks over the past years, the Sadrists are winning them over by proposing irrigation projects and improving services in the areas they control."

The context for this is that Maliki can access the highest levers of power in Baghdad, but relies on the Sadr movement to penetrate Iraqi society, which is necessary to maintain power. The conduct of politics as described by Fantassie shows the persistence of patronage networks and informal ties in Iraqi politics. In this type of political economy, the Sadrists can do what other Islamist organizations have done in different Arab countries and fill public service gaps. At the same time, they seem to be serving as a mediator between state and society in a way they did with regional Ba'ath governors during the 1990's. Whether they can actually parlay that into a greater share of power at the top remains to be seen.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)