A Call from Saudi Intellectuals to the Political Leadership

Details at Jadaliyya.

See too Mai Yamani’s article in the Guardian, “Why a king’s ransom is not enough for Saudi Arabia’s protesters,” which concludes as follows:

“Denial remains the dominant state of mind of the Saudi rulers. The royals believe that they have a special status in the Arab world and that no revolution can touch them. And if one tries, they will follow the words of Prince Naif: ‘what we took by the sword we will hold by the sword.’

In Saudi Arabia, the technologies of globalization have been deeply felt. When people are awakened in this way, the view that economic development would automatically produce political stability has been shown as a lie by the events in Tunis and Cairo, Bahrain and especially Libya. There is no automatic stabilizing factor in either economic or the social bribery that King Abdullah is now engaged in.

To preserve their throne, the Saudi royals must embark on a political evolution commensurate with the country’s accidental economic modernisation. Today’s inchoate unrest can still evolve in the direction of a constitutional monarchy. Now is the time for King Abdullah to act and not to bribe.”

Humanitarian (i.e., military and/or otherwise) Intervention in Libya? (Updated through March 7, 2011)

Tom Hayden argues “Obama should tell Qaddafi to go:”

“Rarely, if ever, do I advocate U.S. intervention in the affairs of other nations. But President Obama should be supported if he calls for Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi to step down and asks the United Nations to intervene, if necessary.

There are two criteria that matter to me. The first is whether the leader in question is unleashing official violence against a popular movement, as was the case in China during Tienanmen, Chile’s armed forces against Salvador Allende, and Mexico during the Tlotelcolco massacre when U.S. strategic partnerships outweighed the value of human rights. The second is taking the opportunity to clear the name of the United States after decades of being sullied by spending our tax dollars and reputation on murderous regimes.

An immediate declaration that the Libyan regime has gone too far, coupled with a call for global support of the Libyan resistance, will have a serious impact on the balance of forces and be long remembered when people, including our own children, ask which side we were on during this rising of the Arab nation. Declaring such a principle – that the U.S. will not support dictators and monarchs who open fire on their own people – should be the guide to policy in other countries in the weeks ahead.

President Obama is quoted as seeing in the Egyptian revolution an opportunity for an alternative narrative to that of al Qaeda, that peaceful mass democratic uprisings are possible against Arab dictatorships. Here is his chance to prove it.”

There’s a nice (and a bit more nuanced) discussion of the issues and options regarding “humanitarian intervention” at the Jadaliyya blog by Asli Bali and Ziad Abu-Rish here.

Steve Negus has also weighed in on the question of intervention at The Arabist.

And now Issandr El Amrani adds his thoughts at The Arabist as well.

At Slate, Shadi Hamid appears to dismiss the possible problems and blowback effects of intervention in arguing that it is

“time for bold, creative policy-making. For starters, NATO should quickly move to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, both to send a strong message to the regime and to prevent the use of helicopters and planes to bomb and strafe civilians. The United States and European allies should freeze the assets of senior Libyan officials and consider other targeted sanctions. Meanwhile, the international community should also let it be known that any individuals involved in perpetrating atrocities will be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court, while regime figures who defect to the opposition will be granted amnesty.”

Background reading (alas, those entrusted with unenviable task of making timely decisions about such matters don’t have the luxury to read this material at present but one would hope at least some of them are familiar with the arguments contained therein):

For a principled discussion of humanitarian intervention from the perspective of philosophy of law and legal theory, see Allen Buchanan’s book (specifically, ‘humanitarian intervention’ in the index), Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

See too:
· Arend, Anthony Clark and Robert J. Beck. International Law and the Use of Force: Beyond the UN Charter Paradigm. New York: Routledge, 1993.
· Chatterjee, Deen K. and Don E. Scheid, eds. Ethics and Foreign Intervention. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
· Chesterman, Simon. Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
· Fletcher, George P. and Jens David Ohlin. Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
· Fox, Gregory H. Humanitarian Occupation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
· Greenwood, Christopher. Humanitarian Intervention: Law and Policy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001.
· Harriss, John, ed. The Politics of Humanitarian Intervention. London: Pinter, 1995.
· Holzgrefe, J.L. and Robert O. Keohane, eds. Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
· Jokic, Aleksander, ed. Humanitarian Intervention: Moral and Philosophical Issues. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2003.
· Tesón, Fernando R. Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality. Ardsley, NY: Transnational, 3rd ed., 2005.
· Welsh, Jennifer M., ed. Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

I’m acquainted with, and therefore partial to, the titles written or edited by Chatterjee, Chesterman, Holzgrefe and Keohane (which has a chapter by Buchanan), and Jokic.

If, as Juan Cole has posted today at Informed Comment, it is true that 90% of Libya is in the hands of the rebels (I’m uncertain as to how he arrived at this figure, as it is not based on the article from the Los Angeles Times he cites), I’m skeptical about the more vigorous proposals for (i.e., some form or forms of direct military) intervention.

Updates: Helena Cobban prefers an “incapicitation mission” to a “decapitation mission.” And (2/27/2011), Jonathan Wright sensibly argues that the “U.S. also needs to show some self-restraint:”

“It’s a very bad idea for the United States to intervene in Libya and I have no doubt that no one credible in the Libyan opposition will accept such an offer. ‘We’ve been reaching out to many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the east and, as the revolution moves westward, there as well. I think it’s way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we’re going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States,’ said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The last thing any Arab rebellion (and that is what we have in Libya) needs is the kiss of death that any association with the United States would bring. If the US administration is reacting to domestic pressures, as it did in the case of its decision to veto the UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements, then it should resist the temptation. Even the vague offer could do damage. Who is giving advice to these US officials, and what is driving them?”

At Jadaliyya, Ayça Çubukçu is worried about the prospects of UNSC sanctioned intervention in Libya, the larger argument with the axiomatic premise that the “UN Security Council does not have [the] authority speak in the name of humanity or the international community.”

March 3, 2011: “The Libyan Conundrum: Don’t let him linger,” at The Economist:

[....] “It is vital for the lengthy and difficult reconstruction of Libya that Libyans themselves depose Colonel Qaddafi. The idea of putting Western soldiers’ boots on Libya’s sandy soil is thus still out of the question. But a no-fly zone could save thousands of Libyan lives, just as an earlier one saved Kurds in Iraq. Even then, it is fraught with technical difficulties, it cannot fully protect the Libyan rebels against Colonel Qaddafi’s machinegunners and it is liable to ‘mission creep’ (see article).

That makes it still more important for international involvement to have the backing of the Arab and Muslim world, especially the section of it that stands for progress and justice. This test is less clear-cut than it might be. The 22-member Arab League is in mealy-mouthed disarray; its secretary-general, Amr Moussa, is himself bidding to become Egypt’s next president. The autocrats of the Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia, are looking askance at the democratic upheavals all around them. Moreover, the Libyan situation is so fluid that no one knows which leader or what coalition of political forces may come to the fore or win legitimacy in the global arena. Among Libya’s opposition, most people, though by no means all, seem ready to accept Western help.

As in all such mind-bending crises, it is best that the UN Security Council validates whatever course is pursued by the world’s beefiest governments, still inevitably led by the West, which, in turn means the United States, backed by Britain and France, its hardiest allies with a modicum of military muscle. The Americans are fearful of becoming embroiled in yet another distant venture. Among the Europeans, only Britain and Italy seem readier for a more robust involvement (see Charlemagne). China and Russia, though they voted for UN sanctions on Colonel Qaddafi in the Security Council, presently balk at a no-fly zone, let alone armed intervention by troops. Turkey, a key member of NATO in Mediterranean or Middle Eastern affairs, is so far dead against, too. So, for the time being, it seems, are the majority of Arab governments.

But if the Libyan regime starts killing people in their thousands—and especially if it uses helicopter gunships or aircraft—diplomatic reluctance should melt away. Too often the world has dithered open-mouthed as evil men have slaughtered Darfuris or Rwandans with impunity. Outsiders, led by the UN, must help Libya’s emerging transitional councils with humanitarian aid. The UN Security Council may yet have to be persuaded to restore peace by invoking the ample power of Chapter VII. And if that proves unattainable, the widest possible coalition of the willing, ideally including Libya’s Arab neighbours, must protect Libyan civilians by arming the opposition and defending them from aerial attack.”

March 7: Richard Falk argues against the bipartisan call in congressional quarters and elsewhere inside the Beltway for intervention, particularly in the form of establishing a “no-fly zone:” “Will We Ever Learn? Kicking the Intervention Habit.”

I agree with Allen Buchanan’s argument in Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination...(2004) that “under certain conditions a willingness to violate existing international law for the sake of reforming it [analogous to the use ‘civil disobedience' in municipal law] can be not only consistent with a sincere commitment to the rule of law, but even required by it.” It follows, for example, that we might explore the “possibility of developing a rule-governed, treaty-based regime for humanitarian armed intervention that bypasses the UN Charter-based law” that Falk cites as part of his argument. But Buchanan importantly qualifies his proposal by emphatically reminding his readers that

“[v]iolations of fundamental rules of existing international law, such as the prohibition of preventive war and against any use of force that does not qualify as self-defense and lacks Security Council authorization, are irresponsible, unless they are accompanied by a sincere effort to construct superior international legal structures to replace those they damage or render obsolete.” [emphasis added]

It is just this condition, namely, “the sincere effore to construct superior international legal structures” that I think is conspicuously absent today and makes Falk’s argument all the more persuasive.

[Image: Residents stand on a tank holding a pre-Qaddafi era national flag inside a security forces compound in Benghazi, Libya on Monday, Feb. 21, 2011. AP Photo/Alaguri]

The "Separation Barrier" ('separation wall'/'security fence') in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

I’ll post something on “the Wall” in a day or two.

The World of Work and Labor Law: A Select Bibliography & Apologia

This bibliography (the latest in our ‘directed reading’ series) contains a number of titles dealing with the “world of work” so as to account for some of the more compelling reasons we should assiduously attend to the topic of the work and leisure time of working people generally and the subject of labor law in particular.

Apologia: Not a few of us are woefully ignorant about the history of workers organizing to better represent and defend their interests, some of which coincide with basic human rights (see, for example, Gross: 2003 and Alston: 2005). Moreover, workers themselves are increasingly misled or confused as to what is in their best (or true) interest, as when they are seduced by the siren songs of conspicuous consumption or enchanted with conservative and libertarian economic ideologies. There are a number of reasons that might account for the fact that many workers fail to appreciate what is in their own best interests. As Jon Elster has argued,

“Marx’s most original contribution to the theory of belief formation was...his idea that economic agents tend to generalize locally valid views into invalid global statements, because of a failure to perceive that causal relations that obtain ceteris paribus may not hold unrestrictedly. For instance, although any worker may be seen as the marginal worker, not all workers can be at the margin. This is a local-global fallacy that leads to cognitive failures, different from yet related to the local-global confusions that lead to failures of action. This is perhaps the most powerful part of the Marxist methodology: the demonstration that in a decentralized economy there spontaneously arises a fallacy of composition with consequences for theory as well as for practice. [….] Outside the factory gate, no one can tell the worker what to do. He can purchase the goods he wants to, within the limits of his wage. He can change employer, within the limits of alternative employment. He may even try to become self-employed or an employer himself, and sometimes succeed. That freedom, while ultimately a danger to capitalism, has useful short-term ideological consequences, since it creates an appearance of independence not only from any particular capitalist, but from capital itself. [….]

Both the freedom to change employer and the freedom to become an employer oneself give rise to ideological illusions that embody the fallacy of composition. The first is the inference from the fact that a given worker is independent of any specific employer to the conclusion that he is free from all employers, that is independent of capital as such, to the conclusion that all workers can achieve such independence. It might look as if the conclusion of the first inference follows validly from the premise of the second, but this is due merely to the word ‘can’ being employed in two different senses. The freedom of the worker to change employer depends, for its realization, mainly on his decision to do so. He ‘can’ do it, having the real ability to do so should he want to. The freedom to move into the capitalist class, by contrast, only can be realized by the worker who is [to quote Marx] an ‘exceedingly clever and shrewd fellow.’ Any worker ‘can’ do it, in the sense of having the formal freedom to do so, but only a few are really able to. Hence the worker possesses the least important of the two freedoms—namely the freedom to change employer—in the strongest sense of these two senses of freedom. He can actually use it should he decide to. Conversely, the more important freedom to move into the capitalist class obtains only in the weaker, more conditional sense: ‘every workman, if he is an exceedingly clever fellow…can possibly be converted into an exploiteur du travail d’autrui.’ Correlatively, the ideological implications of the two freedoms differ. With respect to the first, the ideologically attractive aspect is that the worker is free in the strong sense, while the second has the attraction of making him free with respect to an important freedom. If the two are confused, as they might easily be, the idea could emerge that the worker remains in the working class by choice rather than necessity.” From Jon Elster’s Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 208 and 211 respectively)

In addition, as Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers explain, the nature of “capitalist democracy” places structural constraints on both the articulation and satisfaction of interests within the system. With regard to the latter, for instance, and owing to their control of investment, “the satisfaction of the interests of capitalists is a necessary condition for the satisfaction of all other interests in the system,” which means “the welfare of workers remains structurally secondary to the welfare of capitalists,” a fact we conveniently forget in times of economic abundance and low unemployment but is resurrected in the wake of the cycles, crashes, and panics endemic to capitalism. The decisions of capitalists are directly responsible for the well-being of workers, and thus we see the “interests of capitalists appear as general interests of the society as a whole, [with] the interests of everyone else appear as merely particular, or ‘special.’” As for the articulation of those interests inextricably tied to basic human and political rights:

“In a capitalist democracy the exercise of political rights is constrained in two important ways. In the first place, the political rights granted to all citizens, workers among others, are formal or procedural, and not substantive. That is, they do not take into account in their own form and application the inequalities in the distribution of resources, characteristic of capitalism, which decisively affect the exercise of political rights and importantly limit their power of expression. [….] Capitalist democracy also tends to direct the exercise of political rights toward the satisfaction of certain interests. The structuring of political demand, or what we call the ‘demand constraint,’ is crucial to the process of consent. [….] [C]apitalist democracy is in some measure capable of satisfying the interests encouraged by capitalist democracy itself, namely, interests in short-term material gain.”

This “demand constraint” canalizes the articulation of the interests of working people into the exclusive pursuit of economic advantage, in part owing to the ubiquitous conditions of “material uncertainty” for all but the wealthy classes: “There is a characteristic economic rationality to the actions of workers encouraged by capitalism. In the face of material uncertainties arising from continual dependence on the labor market under conditions of the private control of investment, it makes sense for workers to struggle to increase their wages.” See their book, On Democracy: Toward a Transformation of American Society (New York: Penguin Books, 1983).

This dramatically lessens the likelihood that workers will spontaneously awaken the requisite energy and craft the collective tools necessary for critiquing and transcending the system as such. And is perhaps one reason why, in Rudolf Bahro’s words, “[I]n no known historical case did the first creative impulse in ideas and organization proceed from the masses; the trade unions do not anticipate any new civilization. The political workers' movement was itself founded by declassed bourgeois intellectuals, which in no way means that the most active proletarian elements did not soon come to play a role of their own in the socialist parties and tend themselves to become intellectuals” (Rudolf Bahro, The Alternative in Eastern Europe, 1978).

As for the “ignorance” and inattention of academics and intellectuals, one can’t help but suspect ideological and socio-psychological mechanisms (e.g., states of denial, self-deception, wishful thinking, ideological illusions) are responsible for the comparative dearth of academics and intellectuals devoted to ameliorating and transforming the conditions of the world of work, or for the fact that precious few lawyers are, comparatively speaking, committed to assisting workers in such tasks as collective self-organization and collective bargaining. Such task-specific “cause lawyering” (see Sarat and Scheingold: 1998; cause lawyering is arguably most conspicuous among criminal defense lawyers) is but part of a general emancipation consisting in “the liberation of individuals from all socially determined limitations on the their development,” and is accomplished to the degree ‘that men are positively placed in a position to appropriate the social totality—or to put it another way, to make subjectively their own the quintessence of the overall cultural achievement that mankind has so far produced or reproduce (i.e., handed down)” (Bahro: 1978: 255). The conditions for general emancipation, as Bahro reminds us, “go far beyond the provision of material means in the narrower sense,” and hence transcends the primary interests engendered by capitalist democracy, “namely, interests in short-term material gain.”

Progressive cause lawyering on behalf of labor organizations and movements, as well as social justice and democratic struggles intrinsic to the world of work more generally, can be understood as acting in response to the Sartrian “plea for intellectuals” in so far as it

1. struggle[s] against the perpetual rebirth of ideology amongst the popular classes. In other words, [it] should attack externally and internally every ideological representation that they entertain of themselves or their power (the ‘positive hero,’ the ‘personality cult,’ the ‘glorification of the proletariat’…).
2. make[s] use of the capital of knowledge [the intellectual] has acquired from the dominant class in order to help raise popular culture—that is to say, the foundations of a popular culture.
3. help[s] to form technicians of practical knowledge within the underprivileged classes…in the hope that they will become the organic intellectuals of the working class….
4. [endeavors to] radicalize actions under way, by demonstrating the ultimate objectives beyond immediate aims—in other words, universalization as a historical goal of the working class. (Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘A Plea for Intellectuals,’ a series of lectures delivered in Tokyo and Kyoto in 1965 and published in Sartre’s Between Existentialism and Marxism. New York: Morrow Quill, 1979, pp. 228-285; cf. Edward W. Said’s ‘The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals,’ first published in The Nation, and found in his Humanism and Democratic Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. 119-144).

The assumption here is that such intellectuals are committed to what Sartre called “a concrete and unconditioned alignment with the actions of the underprivileged classes.” In the cases of workers outside these classes or this set, we might consider the following from Simone de Beauvoir:

“The conservative associates the interests of the bourgeois class with the preservation of spiritual values whose guardian it claims to be. At the same time he strives to demonstrate the primitive and purely material character of the interests of the working class. [….] In the name of his spiritual authority, the bourgeois declares himself to be in a better position to define the conditions suitable for the working class than the working class itself. [….] The standard of living that the worker demands is not required by his immediate needs, nor is it called for by dreams of compensation. It is the actualization, the expression of the idea that the worker has of himself, in the same sense that our body is the expression of our existence. It is the objective form that a transcendence takes on. For this reason it is not absurd that a man is willing to risk his life in a strike, or in a war, in order to maintain or gain a certain standard of living. The aim of the striker is not so much an increase in salary, as a crude amount of money, but an increase of something he has gained; it affirms his power to improve his condition on his own.” (From Beauvoir’s Philosophical Writings, edited by Margaret A. Simons, with Marybeth Timmons and Mary Beth Mader. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004)

Post-Revolutionary Developments in the Middle East and North Africa

As I will be turning my attention to other matters for a bit, I thought to make available some links essential to following developments related to the quest for democracy and social justice in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). I’ve not included well-known mass media sources (e.g., Guardian, Huffington Post, The New York Times…). While this list is far from complete, I suspect it will suffice for most purposes, as many of these sites contain further links that are also helpful. Let me know in the comments of any other links you deem “indispensable” and I’ll consider adding them.

• Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights—Gaza: http://www.aldameer.org/
• Al-Haq (An independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in Ramallah, West Bank. Established in 1979 to protect and promote human rights and the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the organisation has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.): http://www.alhaq.org/etemplate.php?id=3
• Al Jazeera (news): http://english.aljazeera.net/
• The Angry Arab News Service: http://angryarab.net/
• The Arab Association for Human Rights (Association in Service of the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel): http://www.arabhra.org/
• Arab Reform Bulletin (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace): http://www.carnegieendowment.org/arb/
• 3Arabawy: http://www.arabawy.org/
• The Arabist: http://www.arabist.net/ \
• Bikya Masr: http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/
• B’Tselem—The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territory: http://www.btselem.org/english/About_BTselem/Index.asp
• End the Occupation (U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation): http://www.endtheoccupation.org/index.php
• From the field (Augustus Richard Norton) - Excursions on the Middle East, politics, the Levant, Islam in politics, civil society, and courage in the face of unbridled, otherwise unchecked power: http://bostonuniversity.blogspot.com/
• Gaza Youth Breaks Out: http://gazaybo.wordpress.com/
• Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/
• Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion http://www.juancole.com/
• International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative—International Humanitarian Law in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory: http://opt.ihlresearch.org/
• International Middle East Media Center: http://www.imemc.org/index.php
• Jadaliyya: http://www.jadaliyya.com/
• Jonathan Wright (journalist): http://jnthnwrght.blogspot.com/
• Links to Israeli Peace Groups (Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church, USA): http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/israelpeacegroups.html
• Middle East Monitor: http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/
• Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy: http://www.mendonline.org/aboutus.html
• Middle East Online: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/
• The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP): http://www.merip.org/
• The Moor Next Door (Maghreb Affairs/Geopolitics/International Relations): http://themoornextdoor.wordpress.com/
• Never Cast Lead Again: http://nevercastleadagain.wordpress.com/
• Occupied Palestine: http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/
• The Palestine Chronicle: http://palestinechronicle.com/
• Palestine Media Watch: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/index.asp
• Palestinian Centre for Human Rights: http://www.pchrgaza.org/
• Socialist Project: http://www.socialistproject.ca/
• Syria Comment (Joshua Landis): http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/

Assessing the Democratic Legitimacy of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces during the Transition to Democracy in Post-Revolutionary Egypt

The following are a few (very) tentative and thus preliminary thoughts regarding the assessment of the democratic legitimacy and political authority of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces* in Egypt during the post-revolutionary transition to democracy. At a later point I would hope we can articulate more systematically and in a generalizable fashion, the criterial standards essential to assessing the behavior of actors and institutions during “extra-legal” transitions to (constitutionally) democratic regimes.

Are not revolutions by definition “extra-legal” socio-political events? If so, one of the foremost questions we need to ask is if they are, at the same time, “democratic” in the sense that they somehow (perhaps only making the claim to) represent the “will of the people” (or democratic sovereignty). In this case, and without going into the various reasons that lead to the conclusion, I think we can safely answer in the affirmative. The next question, in the instant case, is whether the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Egypt can be said to fairly represent in institutional form, the extra-legal yet democratic “will of the people” in the transitional period to a would-be democratic regime. One way to establish its “authority” (and by implication its legitimacy) in this regard would be to assess its commitment to democratic methods and processes (e.g., reliance on consultation, representation, bargaining, negotiation, and so on) during the transitional period, including its capacity and willingness to be, as it were, constitutionally-sensitive, that is, to evidence pre-occupation with amending or modifying the existing constitution or forming a coordinating convention by way of making a new constitution giving concrete institutional and representational form to democratic sovereignty or will, a will that took on revolutionary form and thus extra-legal character only as a necessary means toward attaining long-term democratic embodiment, institutional and otherwise.

Constitutional sensitivity is only one of the criteria we might invoke to assess the temporary political authority of the Supreme Council, such authority according it prima facie democratic legitimacy. For the representation of the “will of the people” is not, at least in our day and age, simply an aggregative exercise that endeavors to fairly represent the collective expression of individual “voices/votes,” for the right to collective self-determination is (at least arguably) constrained by justice and basic moral principles generally, constraints that entail directly or by implication a commitment to basic human rights, such as those rights exercised and advocated by “the people” during the revolution. So alongside “constitutional sensitivity” and “reliance on democratic methods and procedures,” we have “respect for basic human rights” (avoiding here the precise content of any such list) as among the criteria we can use to assess the legitimacy of the democratic political authority assumed by the military during this extra-legal transitional moment. One immediate question raised in this vein is whether or not the Supreme Council should permit organized labor’s “right to strike,” a right it seems, at this point at any rate, reluctant to grant. In addition, the Supreme Council’s willingness to acknowledge if not represent the myriad groups and movements of the organized democratic opposition in civil society provides tangible evidence of whether or not it is meeting (or shows signs of attempting to meet) our aforementioned “democratic” and “legal” criteria for the transition to democracy of some sort. Thus, for example, the Council should accord serious consideration of the proposals proffered by the Forum of Independent Human Rights Organizations: Roadmap for a Nation of Rights and the Rule of Law.

“Extra-legal” thus need not denote or connote a lack of respect for legality (either ‘authoritarianism’ or ‘mob-rule’) or even the necessary absence of a “culture of legality,” especially insofar as these are related to democratic legitimacy. After all, it’s such “extra-legal moments” that give birth to exemplary, foundational, or constitutive coordinating conventions that result in democratic constitutions, and thus their (temporary) “extra-legal” character is not necessarily an expression of disregard for legality or an indication of the poverty of existing legal culture. Intriguingly, such a culture may have been “underground” in the pre-revolutionary period inasmuch as it existed, notionally, that is to say, normatively and ideally, as an aspirational goal in the hearts and minds of those actors in civil society who mobilized of behalf of the revolution.

Jonathan Wright examines some myths about the Egyptian military here.

*As to the public political intentions and policies of the military, all we have to rely on to date are the following five communiqués:

The 1st Communiqué of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (2/10/2011)
Statement of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces:

Based on the responsibility of the Armed Forces, and its commitment to protect the people, and to oversee their interests and security, and with a view to the safety of the nation and the citizenry, and of the achievements and properties of the great people of Egypt, and in affirmation and support for the legitimate demands of the people, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces convened Thursday, 10 February 2011, to consider developments to date, and decided to remain in continuous session to consider what procedures and measures that may be taken to protect the nation, and the achievements and aspirations of the great people of Egypt.
* * * * * * * * * * * *

The 2nd Communiqué (2/11/2011)
The Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces

Due to the consecutive developments in current incidents and which define the destiny of the country, and in context of continuous follow up for internal and external incidents, and the decision to delegate responsibilities to the vice president of the country, and in belief in our national responsibility to preserve the stability and safety of the nation.

The Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces decided to secure the implementation of the following procedures:

First: End the state of emergency as soon as the current circumstances are over.
Decide on the appeals against elections and consequent measures.
Conduct needed legislative amendments and conduct free and fair presidential elections in light of the approved constitutional amendments.
Second: The Armed forces are committed to sponsor the legitimate demands of the people and achieving them by following on the implementation of these procedures in the defined time frames with all accuracy and seriousness and until the peaceful transfer of authority is completed towards a free democratic community that the people aspire to.
Third: The Armed Forces emphasize on no security pursuit of the honest people who refused the corruption and demanded reforms, and warns against touching the security and safety of the nation and the people. And emphasizes the need for regular work in state facilities and regaining of life to normal to preserve the interests and possessions of our great people.
God protect the nation and the people.
* * * * * * * * * * * *

The 3rd Communiqué of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (2/11/2011)

At this historical juncture in the history of Egypt, and in light of the decision by President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak to relinquish the office of the presidency of the Republic and the tasking of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces with the administration of the affairs of the nation , and with awareness of the seriousness of the demands of our great people everywhere for fundamental change , the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is examining this matter, asking the aid of God Almighty, to fulfill the aspirations of our great people. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will issue further statements that will announce forthcoming steps, measures and arrangements, and it affirms at the same time that it is not a replacement for the legitimacy that is acceptable to the people.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces extends its highest salutations and appreciation to President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak for his services over the course of his career in war and peace, and for the patriotic decision he took in choosing the supreme interests of the nation. In this respect, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces extends its highest salutations and admiration to the souls of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the freedom and security of their country, and to every one of our great people.

May God grant us success.
May God’s Peace, mercy and blessing be upon you.
* * * * * * * * * * * *

The 4th Communiqué of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (2/12/2011)
In the name of God the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,
The fourth statement of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces:
In light of the conditions that exist in the country, and the difficult times that have placed Egypt at a juncture that demands of us all to defend the stability of the nation, and the achievements of the people; And due to the fact that the current phase requires a reordering of the priorities of the state with the objective of meeting the legitimate demands of the people, and of delivering the nation from the current situation; And as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is aware that the rule of law is not only necessary for the freedom of the individual, but rather it is the only legitimate basis for authority; And with determination, clarity, and faith in all our national, regional and international responsibilities, and with recognition of God’s rights and in the name of God, and with His support, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announces the following: First: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is committed to all matters included in its previous statements.
Second: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is confident in the ability of Egypt’s people and institutions to get through this critical situation, and to that end, all agencies of the state, and the private sector must play their noble and patriotic role to drive the economy forward, and the people must fulfill their responsibility towards that goal.
Third: The current government, and governors shall continue as a caretaker administration until a new government is formed.
Fourth: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces aspires to guaranteeing a peaceful transition of authority within a free and democratic system that allows for the assumption of authority by a civilian and elected authority to govern the country and the build of a democratic and free state.
Fifth: The Arab Republic of Egypt is committed to all regional and international obligations and treaties.
Sixth: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces calls on the great people to cooperate with their siblings and children in the civilian police forces, for affection and cooperation must exist between everyone, and it calls on the civilian police forces must be committed to their slogan “the police serve the people.”
God is the source of success.
* * * * * * * * * * * *

The 5th Communiqué (2/13/2011)
In the name of God, the Merciful and the Compassionate!
The following is a constitutional statement:

Given the requirements of this crucial phase in the history of the homeland, and being faithful to its historic and constitutional duties to protect the country and its territorial integrity and to ensure its security, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is well aware that the real challenge faced by our dear homeland, Egypt, is to make progress by releasing the creative energies of all sons of our great people. This will be done by preparing the ground for freedom and by facilitating the route for democracy through constitutional and legislative amendments which will realize the legitimate demands expressed by our people during the past days. It [the Supreme Council of the Armed Force] will go even further in a way that suits the stature of Egypt whose people outlined the first lines of human civilization.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces strongly believes that the freedom of people, the rule of law and entrenchment of the values of equality, multiparty democracy, social justice and uprooting corruption are legitimate foundations for any political system which will lead the country in the coming phase.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces also strongly believes that the dignity of the homeland is a reflection of the dignity of every individual in the country. The free citizen who is proud of his humanity is the cornerstone of the edifice of a strong homeland.

Proceeding from and on the basis of the aforementioned, and hoping to achieve the progress of our people, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has taken the following decisions:1. To suspend operation of the provisions of the constitution.2. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will take over management of the country’s affairs provisionally for six months; or until the election of the People’s Assembly, of the Consultative Council and of the President of the Republic.3. The head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will represent the council in the country and abroad.4. To dissolve the People’s Assembly and the Consultative Council.5. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will issue decrees during the transitional phase.6. To Set up a committee to amend some of the articles of the constitution and to determine the rules of a people’s referendum on these amendments.7. To task Dr Ahmad Muhammad Shafiq with running affairs until a new government is appointed.8. To hold elections to the People’s Assembly and the Consultative Council, as well as a presidential election.9. The state commits itself to implementing international conventions and treaties to which it is party.

God is the One from Whom we seek help and success.

Signed: Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Field Marshal Husayn Tantawi.
* * * * * * * * * * * *

Update: Jonathan Wright also provides us with a “full translation of the informal minutes of a meeting between two members of the Egyptian ruling military council and eight of the young people who helped organise the protest movement that brought down President Hosni Mubarak. The minutes, a historic document, were drafted by Wael Ghonim and Amr Salama from the youth movement, and so they are not endorsed by the generals.” See here.

Iranians in Solidarity with Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutionaries

[Image: Meydan-e Azadi, Tehran, 2009]

“Iranian pro-democracy activists and opposition figures Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi have called for peaceful rallies across the country today, on the 25th of Bahman (February 14), to express solidarity for the spreading democratic movements in Egypt and Tunisia, and, implicitly, to revitalize their own popular civil rights movement, known as the Green Movement. In Tehran, the planned rally is to conclude at Meydan-e Azadi (Freedom Square), the counterpart to Egypt’s Meydan al-Tahrir (Liberation Square). It is one site where millions of Iranians gathered over the six months following the rigged presidential elections of June 2009 to demand free and fair elections; accountability for government repression during the election and its aftermath, including for systematic torture, beatings, rapes and killings; the release of all political prisoners; and their full rights to freedom of speech, press, and assembly. The brutality unleashed on Iran’s popular Green Movement drove it away from street protests, but the movement’s demands are still alive and looking for opportunities to assert themselves.”--Leili Kashani

See: Iranians in Solidarity with Egyptians and Tunisians Need Your Support, Now

Hosni Mubarak is no longer President of Egypt!--What's Next? [Updated 2/14/2011]

The nonviolent revolutionaries of Egypt have achieved one of, if not their foremost, short-term goals, namely, the removal of Hosni Mubarak from office as President of Egypt. Mubarak “gave up” the Presidency. It is a sweet day in Egypt, indeed, across the Arab world. In fact, all of us around the planet who believe in democracy and social justice have cause to join our brothers and sisters in Egypt in this moment of celebration. The highest political power in the land now formally rests with the Egyptian armed forces. Egyptian activists are right to feel--as one of them said on Al-Jazeera while I'm composing this--that “now, anything is possible.” Egyptians have discovered afresh that with intelligence, passion, courage, and determination, they too can, as individuals-in-collective-and-concerted-action, “make history.”

What’s next?* (After all, this is only the beginning of the ‘new Egypt.’) Well, this reader hopes that the new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, will also soon resign or be removed from office (without a president do we have a vice president?).** Why? First, as Lisa Hajjar reminds us, Suleiman has played the role of “the CIA’s man in Cairo and Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief.” Hajjar fills out the requisite contextual bio-political background:

“He has been from 1993 until last Saturday (29 January 2011), when he was appointed vice-president - he was the head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, which is similar to the CIA, but actually with much closer ties to the military. And he had, starting in the first years of the twenty first century... He’d really been very much in the shadows - he was Egypt’s spy chief, and that was, in fact, his title, from 1993 until just very recently.

He also became, when the ‘war on terror’ started, and the centrality of Egypt to the United States is ‘global war on terror,’ he was very much, perhaps, the most important person in Egypt for the United States, particularly as I would say, in his ties with the CIA. But he did, however, come out of the shadows in the early two thousands, because he started taking over a number of important dossiers in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, including the dossier for Israel, and in fact if one does a Google image search on ‘Omar Suleiman,’ the overwhelming majority of pictures that will emerge of him are him shaking hands with various Israeli leaders. So he’s definitely ‘Israel’s favorite Egyptian,’ one could say that, and he has been helping the Egyptian/Israeli... The crushing of Gaza, for example is very much a somewhat shared project between Israel and Egypt. So Suleiman, for example, has been responsible for the demolition of tunnels through which both weapons and foodstuffs have gotten into a besieged Gaza.”

And why have we heard precious few of those in power, or their sycophantic servants in the mass media in this country for that matter, say anything critical of Suleiman? Perhaps this explains it:

“The reason Omar Suleiman is so liked by the United States and by Israel is because of the fact that he’s been ardently anti-Islamist. One could say, if he was in the United States, he’d be a Fox News type [laughs] of personality, in terms of his anti-Islamism - And very much loves to ‘rattle the saber’ around Iran, so he’s very popular among American neo-conservatives who aspire to see Iran as our next military target. And that’s partially why he's been so willing to participate in the crushing of Gaza, which is currently controlled by a Hamas government.”

The appointment of Suleiman to vice president was thus an uncommonly shrewd move on Mubarak’s part, as Hajjar notes, for “he knew that America knows Suleiman — at least American administrators, political leaders in Washington, and the neo-cons, who are very influential in America. And appointing Suleiman would assuage Israeli anxieties, because he’s also known to be someone who’s ardently committed to maintaining the peace treaty with Egypt.”

In addition to the article by Hajjar linked-to above, see the interview with her, also at Jadaliyya, here.

* It’s an auspicious occasion to return our attention to some recommended reading from a previous post relating to issues, constitutional and otherwise, that the people of Egypt will face in the coming months and years in the “transition from Tahrir Square to democracy:”

Jon Elster, Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Jon Elster, ed., The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Communism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1996); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Press (et al.), eds., Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Tamir Moustafa’s The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Bruce K. Rutherford’s prescient book, Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); and Cass Sunstein, Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

There may be some lessons to be derived from the following book as well: Mona N. Younis, Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National Movements (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). Indeed, while many of the transitional problems faced by post-apartheid South Africa were (and are) clearly of a different order than those Egyptians will face, I think the South African experience is worth studying in-depth. Perhaps later I’ll find the time later to post some titles from the growing literature documenting and critically examining that experience.

Last and by all means not least, see the posts by Clark Lombardi (the first three) and Tamir Moustafa (the last) at the Comparative Constitutions blog (a project of ConstitutionMaking.org): here, here, here, and here.

**Update: At Jadaliyya, Bassam Haddad writes that “It appears that Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed Vice President, will have no role in the emerging political formula, but details have not yet surfaced.” Let’s hope he’s right.

Update no 2: Hani Shukrallah provides the revolutionaries with a “to do” list at Ahram Online.

Update no. 3: See the “Statement by the Forum of Independent Human Rights Organizations” – 2/12/2011: Long Live the Egyptian Popular Revolution...Roadmap for a Nation of Rights and the Rule of Law

President Hosni Mubarak's Speech Today Mocks the Means and Ends of the Masses Commited to Egypt's Democratic Revolution

From a pharaonic president at the apex of pyramidal power in a “bully praetorian regime,” an exquisite rhetorical and symptomatic exhibition of pathological narcissism, xenophobic nationalism, condescending paternalism, and preening megalomania.

Consider, for example:

pathological narcissism: What I have actually deployed the effort in this country for more than 60 years during the days of peace and war. [….] Like the youth of Egypt today, I was a young man as well when I joined the military and when I pledged loyalty to the nation and sacrificed to the nation. I spent my life defending Egypt’s land and sovereignty. I saw its wars, its defeats, and victories. I lived days of occupation and frustration and days of liberation. Those were the best days. The best day of my life is when I raised the flag of Egypt over the Sinai. And when I flew planes. There was no day when I was affected or I gave into foreign pressures. I respect. I professed peace and I worked for Egypt’s stability and peace and I worked for Egypt’s progress and the progress of its people. My aim was never to seek a force and take power. I believe that the majority of Egyptian people know who is Hosni Mubarak and it pains me what has been expressed by some people from my own country. [….] Once again, I would like to say that I live for the sake of this nation.

xenophobic nationalism: I would like to tell you as the president of the republic, I am not embarrassed to listen to the Youth of my country and to respond to them. However, the main embarrassment and what is wrong and things that I will not accept ever is to listen to the talks coming from abroad, whichever it’s coming from or for whatever reason or pretexts or excuses. [....] To protect its responsibility and Egypt will prevail above anybody and everybody.

condescending paternalism: I am addressing you today with a speech from my heart. A speech of a father to his sons and daughters. [….] The current time is not about me. The situation is not about Hosni Mubarak.

preening megalomania: I express my commitment to this and I express a similar pledge and commitment to carry on — do my responsibility to protect the constitution, the interests of the people, until a transfer of power and responsibility is handed to whoever is elected by the electorate next September in fair and free elections that will be guaranteed with transparency and freedom.This is the pledge that I made before God and the nation. And I will protect this pledge until together we take Egypt to the safety, to the shore of safety. I have expressed plans to get out of this crisis and also to implement the demands of people within the constitution’s legitimacy and in a way that will achieve stability of our society, the demand of its sons and also at the same time put forward a framework agreed for a peaceful transfer of power through a responsible dialogue amongst all the forces of society and with all — with most degree of frankness and transparency.I put forward this vision, committed to my responsibility to get the country out of this very difficult situation and I will carry on to win it, first one after the other, one hour after the other, and looking forward to the assistance of everyone who is eager for Egypt’s safety and stability. I put it forward to implement it. And these plans would be implemented within reason by our armed forces. [….] I face day after day a peaceful transition of power will start from now to next September.

[And the speech in toto]

Update, courtesy of Silawa at The Arabist:

Tonight's speech by Mubarak is a reminder of how much the course of a revolution against an autocracy is shaped by the personal quirks of the autocrat. Here are a few thoughts from my end what calculations or miscalculations might have been going through Mubarak's head...

Tone-deafness: Mubarak genuinely thought that he could defuse the situation with a hat-tip to the protesters, and that his transfer of powers would satisfy the protesters. He may also have thought back to his Feb 2 address, where he stirred up some genuine sympathy and regained the initiative, and was trying to repeat the performance. However, he so badly mangled his speech, and struck such an arrogant tone, that he made things worse.

Cussedness: Mubarak projected arrogance and intransigence so as to call the bluffs of everyone -- the protesters, the Americans, and presumably now the military -- who are pushing him to leave. Maybe he allowed expectations to be raised, so as to make the blow fall that much harder. If you can't get rid of me after this, he is saying, then you can't get rid of me until I'm ready to go. Show your hand, or give up.

Worse is better: Mubarak wanted to stir things up, to provoke a march on the palace and possibly trigger some violence. The regime had its greatest success undermining the uprising when the situation was at its most unstable. The return to normalcy on the other hand this week provided the opportunity for people to come together in the workplace, remember what they really dislike about the stagnant and corrupt status quo, and go on strike. So, he thought he might end the normalcy, rekindle fears of long-lasting anarchy, and put pressure on the demonstrators to quit with what concessions they have already won.

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011

1919 Revolution:
“Egypt, occupied by Great Britain in effect since 1882, achieved its independence from colonial rule only in the aftermath of sustained protests. In the wake of the 1919 revolution, and after two years of stalled negotiations, the British abolished martial law and granted Egypt unilateral nominal independence from colonial rule in February of 1922. Despite this, the British continued to maintain control over the security of imperial communications, the defense of Egypt, the protection of foreign interests and minorities, and the Sudan. The 1919 revolution had two stages: the violent and short period of March 1919 that involved large-scale mobilizations by the peasantry in rural areas that were suppressed by British military action; and the protracted phase beginning in April 1919 that was less violent and more urban, with the large-scale participation of students, workers, lawyers, and other professionals.” (Omnia El Shakry at Jadaliyya)

1952 Revolution:
“Egypt’s 1952 military coup and revolution led by Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the Free Officers ousted Egypt’s decadent monarch, King Faruq, and put Muhammad Naguib as President of the new Republic in his place. An understanding of this period of Egyptian history helps to clarify somewhat the ambivalent attitudes towards the military in Egypt, and the initial expectations of protestors that the military would help protect them from Egypt’s violent security and police services.

Interpretations of Nasserism have centered on the state apparatus. Discussions have focused on the authoritarian-bureaucratic state structure, characterized by a highly state-centralized process of socio-economic development, a corporatist patrimonial state bourgeoisie, a single-party system bolstered by a repressive state apparatus, and a populist nationalist ideology. This political formation, interpreters argue, proved incapable of radically restructuring the Egyptian state, society, and economy, as signaled by the failure to build a fully industrialized, capitalist or socialist, liberal democratic nation-state. This is the classic ‘authoritarian military dictatorship model’ we have been reading about in the press. But such a monolithic model fails to adequately capture the complexity of Nasserism.

Nasserism was equally characterized by an ideology and practice of social-welfare, premised upon the state apparatus as arbiter not only of economic development, but also of social welfare. Such a social welfare model was premised on an ethical covenant between the people and the state, a social contract in which the possibility of revolutionary or democratic political change was exchanged for piecemeal social reform and the amelioration of the conditions of the working classes. It was further based on a view of ‘the people’ (al-sha’ab) as the generative motor of history and as resources of national wealth (the motor of its development, as it were); and an interventionist policy of social planning and engineering. Social welfare, of course, should not be understood as a benevolent process whereby the state shepherds citizens in their own welfare. Rather, it entails the social and political process of reproducing particular social relations, often based on violence and coercion, at least partly to minimize class antagonisms.” (Omnia El Shakry at Jadaliyya)

2011 Revolution:
“Rather than view the spontaneous eruption of protests on January 25, 2011 as signaling the absence of ideological or political cohesion, we can view it instead as the product of an unprecedented historical assemblage of complex forces and contradictions. As Mohammed Bamyeh noted in ‘The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field,’ the revolt has been characterized by a large degree of spontaneity, marginality, a call for civic government, and an elevation of political grievances above economic grievances. Thus, we have seen the participation of a wide range of groups with differing ideological orientations but nonetheless coherent and articulate in their demand for an end to the ancien regime. These have included strong elements of trade unions and other labor organizers, such as the April 6 movement (named after its call for a General Strike in support of the workers in Mahalla). Indeed, since 2008 there has been a tremendous upsurge in labor and union organizing. But labor movements do not exhaust the types of players involved—including, of course, the new social movements (whether leftist, feminist, legal-judicial, NGO based, or social-media galvanized organizations) discussed in Paul Amar’s ‘Why Mubarak is Out,’ as well as the Muslim Brotherhood who have publicly declared their commitment to a civil and pluralist government.

Those on the ground in Egypt know what they want: an end to Mubarak, and end to the emergency laws that have strangled political expression in Egypt since 1981, a civil government with a new constitution guaranteeing elections and the curtailment of political power, and trials for those involved in the massacres of the protesters. Despite the machinations of the West, it is clear that what will simply not do is an insinuation of ancien regime forces of any kind into a post-Mubarak Egypt, whether neo-liberal robber barons, counter-revolutionaries, or political opportunists. The voices from Tahrir, Alexandria, Mahalla, Suez, and Minya must be heard in their call for a ‘reversal of the relationship of forces.’ In other words, this is a people’s revolution.”—Omnia El Shakry, “Egypt’s Three Revolutions: The Force of History behind this Popular Uprising.”

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011: a truly democratic, non-violent social revolution made, in the end, by all sectors of the Egyptian populace persevering in the face of fear, threats and intimidation, lies, economic uncertainty and insecurity, repression, Realpolitik and conventional power politics, Islamaphobia, violence.... We are privileged to be witness to this remarkable moment in history.

On an “Orderly Transition” in Egypt from a Non-Violent Revolutionary Perspective

The statements below, found at the Jadaliyya blog, are from “the April 6 movement” of young Egyptians and Cairo University’s Faculty of Law respectively, and speak to the question of the “orderly transition,” which has been invoked of late by Administration officials to insinuate the Egyptian protesters should abandon their demand for Mubarak to immediately leave office. As Carlyn Meyer has written at Informed Comment, this plays on a “fear of chaos” trope:

“Over the last few days, Hillary Clinton has been pushing the Mubarak/Suleiman ‘orderly transition’ hype hook, line and sinker. But why would Mubarak leaving bring chaos? The protesters demands are: no Mubarak, rewrite of constitution (including rescinding decades of martial law), free and fair elections.

These are demands for reform, not revolution. The uprising is not calling for dismantling the authority of the state or the army. This is not 1917 Russia, 1949 China or 1776 New World. The demands of Egyptians are much less extreme than the destruction of the Iraqi state and army after the 2003 US invasion. Now that resulted in chaos.

In fact, the Egyptian popular revolt has been exemplary in discipline and unity of purpose. The only chaos in two weeks of massive outpourings was caused by paid pro-Mubarak thugs. But the discipline of the protesters pushed back even these horse and camel night-riders.

Clinton says there needs to be time to set up free and fair elections. Who disagrees with that? Who in the opposition is calling for immediate elections? After all one demand of the protesters and legal and banned opposition is that the constitution be re-written first.”

As the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, it’s obvious that the Obama Administration has grown weak in the knees:

“The Obama administration has reconciled itself to gradual political reform in Egypt, an approach that reflects its goal of maintaining stability in the Middle East but is at odds with demands of the protest movement in Cairo that President Hosni Mubarak relinquish power immediately.

A week after the Obama administration demanded a swift transition to a post-Mubarak era, it has dampened the sense of urgency and aligned itself with power-brokers such as new Vice President Omar Suleiman, who are urging a more stable, if much slower, move to real democracy. But U.S. officials privately acknowledged that there is no guarantee that Suleiman, a former intelligence chief closely aligned with the military, is committed to substantial reforms. They have said that countries in the Middle East must be allowed to progress politically at their own speed. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. supports democratic reforms across the region but acknowledges that ‘some countries will move at different paces.’”

Statement of the April 6 Movement Regarding the Demands of the Youth and the Refusal to Negotiate with any Side

[This statement was prepared by the April 6 movement. Translation below by Fida Adely & Aiman Haddad]-February 6, 2011

The Egyptian Resistance Movement

The youth of Egypt have stood their ground and struggled against the tyrants. We have faced bullets against bare chests with great courage and patience. We salute the great Egyptian people, the creators of this revolution. For that reason, we affirm that victory is the fall of Mubarak and his regime.

Since the 25th of January, “The Egyptian Uprising,” we have toppled the legitimacy of the dictator. Egypt is now ruled by the valiant Egyptian people. To protect the peaceful and glorious uprising, let us continue to protect ourselves and our Egyptian assets against the destruction and thuggery of the terrorist regime.

We will complete what we started on the 25th of January. We the Egyptian youth will not be deceived by Mubarak’s talk, which aimed to manipulate the emotions of the Egyptian people and under-estimated their intelligence as he has become accustomed to doing for thirty years in speeches, false promises, and mock election programs that were never meant to be implemented. Mubarak resorted to this misleading talk, thinking that Egyptian people could be deceived yet more.

To all Egyptians who love their homeland, we are your children, your sons and daughters and we represent your demands and that which we have all suffered under Mubarak’s rule. Mubarak pretends to fully comply with the demands of the Egyptian people, but you must understand that this is merely a maneuver by the Egyptian regime to deceive the free Egyptian people who refused to go back to their homes and end their protests. Whoever among us examines the events that have transpired in the last few days with a conscious mind, beginning with Friday’s “Day of Rage”, will clearly realize that the Egyptian regime implemented an evil plan to keep Mubarak in power as is the desire of those elements within the regime who want to protect their own personal security, rather than the security of Egypt.

After that, the prime minister appeared with invitations to dialogue. The first thing he did to convey his belief in the importance of dialogue, was to launch an attack by regime thugs and security people in plain clothes against the Egyptian youth, who were without weapons [to defend themselves], in Tahrir square which led to the injury of hundreds and the deaths of eleven martyrs. In addition, the regime undertook an arrest campaign of people in the April 6 Movement’s operation room, many lawyers, human rights activists, and representatives of the youth groups which called for the demonstrations on January 25th. The prime minister was not satisfied with this dialogue, so he gave orders to shoot live bullets at the innocent demonstrators. The arrests and chasing down of the movement’s activists is still ongoing. Is that the dialogue that Omar Suleiman and Ahmad Shafiq are calling for?

We, the youth of the April 6th Movement, announce our rejection of Omar Suleiman’s (the vice president) invitation for dialogue. There can be no dialogue until the departure of President Mubarak. We insist that we intend to proceed with what we started on January 25th to restore the rights that the Mubarak regime has robbed us of during its 30 year reign.

We announce from Tahrir Square:

We will persevere until our demands are fulfilled, namely:

• Mubarak should step down from power immediately.
• Dissolving of the national assembly and the senate.
• Establish a “national salvation group” that includes all public and political personalities, intellectuals, constitutional and legal experts, and representatives of youth groups who called for the demonstrations on the 25th and 28th of January. This group is to be commissioned to form a transitional coalition government that is mandated to govern the country during a transitional period. The group should also form a transitional presidential council until the next presidential elections.
• Drafting a new constitution that guarantees the principles of freedom and social justice.
• Persecute those responsible for the killing of hundreds of martyrs in Tahrir Square.
• The immediate release of detainees.
• These demands are agreed upon by all the youth groups that called for the January 25th and 28th demonstrations.
• We also announce that there is not any coordination between us and what is known as “The Committee of Wise Men” who have suggested ending the demonstrations and beginning negotiations while Mubarak is still in power.
• Mubarak must leave immediately to preserve the security and stability of Egypt.
• There will be no negotiations until the departure of Mubarak and any negotiations should be concerned with the transferring power.

Statement from Cairo University’s Faculty of Law Around Legal and Constitutional Solutions to Meet the Needs of the Peoples’ Revolution

[Arabic statement and translation originally appeared on ‘Liberty for Egypt’ blog]
Statement from Cairo University—faculty of law

Issued from the discussion forum held on 7/2/2011 around legal and constitutional solutions to meet the needs of the Peoples revolution

On Monday the 7th of February 2011 the professors of the faculty of law at Cairo university met and after many fruitful discussions and thorough analysis of the parameters of constitutional thought and what is best for our country in order for it to correspond with the great leap & the revolution of the Youth of the Nation which has both been welcomed and backed by many communities within the nation , presented to the nation from a pure conscience and in reaction to the new developments that have affected the entire nation's sentiments. Presented here to the great Egyptian nation are the results which the forum has reached in regards to what must be done for the good of the nation at this historical juncture in our beloved country.

The forum has reached the following conclusions:

• Firstly : To completely support and back The revolution of the 25th of January which was sparked by the pure and uncorrupted Youth of Egypt in which all the diverse communities of Egypt joined to demand freedom , democracy and the sovereignty of the law, the achievement of social justice and calling to account the corrupt and those who have hindered the fate of this nation and honoring the blood of the martyrs which was spilt in the cause of the nations freedom and upholding the dignity of the citizen.
• Secondly – Withdrawing all legitimacy from the current regime
• Thirdly – Calling upon the President of the Republic to comply with the will of the nation as expressed by the public
• Fourth - The Necessity of the instant dissolution of both Parliament and the Shura Council due to the impossibility of their meeting as a result of final sentences issued from the High Constitutional court which nullify the results of the elections in many constituencies
• Fifth- A call for the creation of a founding committee devoted to the creation of a new constitution that is in accordance with the current phase, with the condition that all political ideologies are represented in this committee as well as civil society organizations and all Egyptian communities
• Sixth – The delegation of all presidential powers to the vice president, as permitted by Articles 82 and 139 of the constitution in accordance with their correct interpretation
• Seventh – The expansion of the current structure of the government in order for it to be an interim government dedicated to the nations recovery
• Eighth- The issuance of decrees from the republic which would create laws that launch the right to create political parties and allowing citizens the rights of election and nomination for public office
• Ninth- The swift restructuring of the state authorities in accordance with the new constitution
• Tenth – The immediate termination of the enforcement of the Emergency law

Signed on behalf of the attendees
Dr Ahmed Awad Belal
Dean of the Faculty of Law

The Impetuous Folly & Perils of Pax Americana: The MENA Variation

Graham Fuller has served as a CIA station chief in Kabul and is a former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council. He is currently an adjunct Professor of History at the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures at Simon Fraser University. And I think we can safely conclude that he is one of the more astute among a handful of reliable analysts of Islamist ideologies, movements and political events in the greater Islamic world but especially in the nation-states that make up the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). With regard to the recent revolutionary (or revolutionary-like) uprisings in the name of democracy and social justice exemplified in Tunisia and Egypt, Fuller writes that, while we cannot know with certainty the outcome of these historical events, “one thing is clear—the imperative to break the long and ugly pattern of harsh, incompetent and corrupt rule that sucks optimism, hope and creativity out of these societies and made them breeding grounds for radicalism.”

Fuller’s latest book, A World Without Islam (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2010), “offers a forceful, erudite reminder that neither Islam nor religious fervor adequately explains the animosity between parts of the Muslim world and the United States.”[1] The title is in reference to a counterfactual thought experiment in which we discover that the current crisis in “our” relations with the Islamic world “has really very little to do with religion and everything to do with political and cultural frictions.” As Zachary Karabell explains in his review of A World Without Islam, Fuller argues “that the fissures that currently exist might well have existed even if Islam never had, and he offers a wide-ranging, at times digressive but always illuminating look at the past centuries to support that contention.” Thus Fuller provides an uncommon if not courageous case for why we might think long and hard about “the degree to which the legacy of Western control and empire shape contemporary attitudes toward religion and terrorism in the Muslim world.” Alas,

“For Americans, that history seems either distant or beside the point, but for many Arabs and Iranians, it is neither. The struggles for independence are decades, not centuries, old, and until the 1970s, nationalism rather than religion was the preferred ideology of resistance. But with the failure of nationalism[2] to establish many Muslim countries as independent powerhouses, religion assumed a new role.”

Finally, Fuller’s book “tackles the question [of terrorism] more bluntly than many Americans will like:”

“‘Terrorism cannot be separated from the conditions, concerns and distress of people in the Middle East,’ he writes, and he excoriates the United States for using the label to invalidate any violent attempts by less powerful groups to fight for independence. In the end, terrorism directed at Americans will diminish when ‘Western military intervention and political intervention in the Muslim world’ diminish.”

The fear of terrorism, at times and turns either reasonable or irrational, finds academic and mass media commentators alike eliding important distinctions among Islamist ideologies and movements, in fact, often carelessly reducing them to species of violent and terrorist “jihadism,” as evidenced of late in mass media rhetoric about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.[3] Assuming the transparency or sincerity of such rhetoric, the level of ignorance it reveals about Islamist thought and movements in public fora is appalling, to put it mildly. Ironically perhaps, it also serves to expose widespread anxieties and fears over the actual or imminent realization of democratic principles, methods and practices in the MENA countries.

All of this by way of a prelude to Fuller’s latest essay at The Huffington Post, “The Arab Revolution is Beyond America’s Control,” a substantive extract from which follows:

[….] “What the people of the region demand is to be able to take control of their own lives and destinies. But that in turn depends on an end to the constant external intervention of the United States in the region.

In the near term, the prescription is stark—Washington must back off and leave these societies alone, ending the long political infantilization of Middle Eastern populations. We must end our incessant and obsessive efforts to intervene and micromanage the political life of foreign states based on a myopic vision of ‘American interests.’

Today the Middle East is the last redoubt in the world of regimes bought, maintained and guided by Washington. Is it any wonder that this region is now the cauldron of numerous rebellions and anti-American expression?

And just why are we maintaining this damaging, hated quasi-imperial role in the Middle East? Is it for the oil? Yet what tin-pot dictator has ever refused us oil? Furthermore, we don’t even rely that much on Middle East oil—Saudi Arabia ranks only number three among our top five providers: Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria.

Or is it perhaps all about Israel? Yet why should that state constitute the seeming touchstone of everything that we do in the region? After all, Israel is overwhelmingly the most powerful military state in the Middle East, acts at will in the Middle East under the protection of American veto, manipulates our own domestic politics in its favor, and is now run by the most inflexible and ultra-right-wing government in Israeli history, while soaking up more American foreign aid per capita than any other state. The U.S. still backs Israel against the Palestinians in an Israeli occupation now into its fifth decade.

So given the new outburst of frustration, anger and violence, we still do not seem to acknowledge the need to change the narrative. Washington does not yet grasp the phenomenon of popular Middle Eastern will that now seemingly defies us everywhere. Our default instincts from Cold War days are still to grasp for a phantom ‘stability’ at any price and prop up anyone who will be ‘pro-Western.’ Egypt is a ‘vital American ally,’ we hear—but what does this mean? The ruler may have been bought, but the Egyptian people are not allies—indeed they are predictably hostile to the status quo and to the powers that have propped it up. [….]

Like it or not, at this point in history Islamist parties do well all over the Muslim world; they have become the default opposition. Get used to it. They vary tremendously across a wide spectrum, from moderates to radicals, and include a small sliver of violent killers. These movements are constantly evolving. We must learn to work with the more moderate ones; that includes the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They are not prone to love America, especially in view of our past policies, but the Brotherhood has eschewed violence for half a century and moves cautiously. If they occupy a major place in any new Egyptian government, they could well do with our help. And they will have to meet the political, economic and social demands of the people once in power: Anti-Americanism doesn’t feed bellies or reform the social order.

America cannot go on riding the tiger forever in the Middle East. We cannot expect to have ‘pro-American’ forces in power in the Middle East when the publics don’t like our policies. We cannot continue our endless interventions—out of fear that some states might emerge as anti-American. The world is sick of such meddling. We have to deal with the causes of why populations have become anti-American. And all this comes in the context of the rise of new powers with their own interests, and desire for clout in what they see as a new, emerging, multipolar global order. The costs are rising on our old patterns of imposing Pax Americana.”

These are not the words of the “libertarian socialist” Noam Chomsky but a former CIA station chief, yet Chomsky[4] and Fuller are, in the end, on the same page. One can only hope their thoughts on such matters have at least a modicum of the power attributed to Buddhist prayer flags.

Notes:

[1] Zachary Karabell, Book review: “A World Without Islam,” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2010, accessed online: http://articles.latimes.com/print/2010/sep/26/entertainment/la-ca-graham-fuller-20100924

[2] On Arab nationalism in particular, see Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983 ed.); Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 3rd ed., 1996); and Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). On Iranian nationalism (both secular and religious), see Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution: Shi‘ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006 [this is a revised edition of Keddie’s 1981 book, Roots of Revolution]). On Turkish nationalism there are any number of books one might cite, but I’ll single out Carter Vaughn Findley’s Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A History, 1789-2007 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).

[3] On the Society of Muslim Brothers (or the Muslim Brotherhood), see Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 [1969]), and Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press/Garnet, 1998). I have a brief biography of the founder of Al-Ikhwān, Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949), in Oliver Leaman, ed., The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy, Vol. 1 (A-I) (London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2006): 70-74. For a recent succinct and accurate take on today's Brotherhood in Egypt, see this guest column for Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog.

[4] See here, here, and here, and then here.

[Images: (Top) - Mohammed Badie, the leader (‘General Guide’ or chairman) of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, during a press conference in Cairo following the arrests of hundreds of members and supporters of the Brotherhood just prior to the parliamentary elections 2010. (Bottom) - Archival photograph shows Egyptian women demonstrating in a 1919 uprising. Credit: Wikimedia Commons]