Egypt’s state of despair

S P SETH

One would expect that the referendum on the draft constitution would usher in a new democratic era in Egypt. But that is not going to happen. Ever since the Egyptians brought down Hosni Muabark, their dictator, who presided over Egypt’s destiny for three decades, the country is struggling to find a new path to democracy. The referendum on the constitution is making that transition even more difficult and painful.

In fact, President Mohammed Morsi’s gamble to assume sweeping powers to rush through a newly drafted constitution for popular referendum, brought the country to near chaos, with Tahrir Square once again the centre of popular demonstrations. Though Morsy later rescinded his decree under popular pressure, he refused to rescind the referendum on the constitution. Most of the opposition members of the constituent assembly had boycotted the drafting process, fearing that it was being rushed to produce a draft that negated the inclusive spirit of the Egyptian revolution to empower women, youth, minorities and the population at large around its new secular polity.  With the ruling Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party rallying its supporters for counter demonstrations, it looked like the country was in free fall.

The Morsi camp had calculated that the constitution, drafted by a predominantly Islamist assembly, would pass easily and that would give his party the stamp of popular approval for their policies. And that might not happen because there is significant opposition to it. The draft constitution is opposed as much as for its creeping Islamization as for its ambiguity on minority rights and human rights in general. The opposition, therefore, objects both to its substance as well the process by which Morsi has sought to push it through.

The process by which Morsi assumed sweeping powers, supposedly to promote democracy by putting the draft constitution to popular referendum is preposterous. Once the executive authority, in this case President Morsi, decides by decree to suspend or supersede established institutions, such short cuts can easily be replicated in future to circumvent normal constitutional channels. In other words, this was not an auspicious start for Egypt’s new democracy. No wonder, there was determined opposition to Morsi doing away with democratic processes to promote democracy.

Not only that the draft constitution had virtually no input from parties and groups other than the Islamists, the unseemly haste with which the referendum was pushed through, with very little time for any public debate, was against the norms of democratic functioning. Morsi needs to guard against becoming identified, like the fallen dictator Hosni Mubarak, as the symbol and personification of all that continues to be wrong with Egypt.

It is true that Morsi was voted President in the first ever-popular election in Egypt’s history. But he won by a very narrow margin, taking only 51.7 per cent of the vote against the Mubarak-era prime minister and a former air force commander, Ahmed Shafiq. In other words, the country is highly polarized. Another fact worth noting is that the voter turnout at the presidential election was quite low at 43.4 per cent. More than 50 per cent of the eligible voters didn’t care to vote either way, suggesting disillusionment or indifference with the political process being unfurled.

There are two reasons for this. First, the attempts by the army to manipulate the system by entrenching its over-riding power and interests seemed to suggest that the old system was likely to prevail minus Mubarak. Second, even as the army was trying to subvert the emerging democratic process, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists were resurrecting religion (both as a matter of faith and political tool) to create an over-arching political presence. Which threatened the minorities, many women, liberals and secular elements that were in the forefront of Egypt’s revolutionary upsurge that brought down Hosni Mubarak. It appeared that the Islamists for their obscurantist ends were hijacking the revolution. Many people simply lost interest and seemed to be opting out by not voting at all. And many others decided to vote for the remnant of the Mubarak era, Ahmed Shafiq, than Morsi of the Brotherhood. They certainly didn’t like the Brotherhood usurping power in the name of democracy.

It was sad that the revolution had reached this point. And for this the Brotherhood must bear responsibility. They have never made a secret of taking the country into a faith-based (Islamic) direction, notwithstanding the fact that the revolution was actually pioneered by liberal elements, with women and the country’s Christians playing a prominent role. According to Human Rights Watch, Article 36 of the constitution promises to ensure equality between men and women as long as it does not conflict with “the rulings of Islamic Sharia”. There is this underlying message that the society will be reconfigured on Islamic principles. Considering that the Brotherhood and Salafists had dithered and only reluctantly, towards the end, decided to jump in on the revolutionary bandwagon, the usurpation by them of a broad-based revolutionary movement is not a good start.

It wouldn’t be easy, though. First, even if the constitution is adopted, it will face myriad challenges of vote rigging, the absence of international monitors, the stacking of the drafting panel and so on. Therefore, it will always suffer from a certain sense of legitimacy that comes from a country reconciled after a tumultuous popular upsurge.  And that is not going to happen with a large and diverse part of the population feeling that the Islamists had hijacked the revolution.  Such irreconcilability, in the midst of the country’s economy tottering, is likely to crystallize into Morsy replacing Hosni Mubarak as the hated symbol of all Egypt’s problems, past and present. If that were to happen, the regime will become increasingly dependent on the army like Mubarak was, taking things back to where it started. It would appear that Egypt is set to remain in a perpetual state of strife for the foreseeable future.  The Arab Spring in Egypt looks like turning into a long winter of discontent.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

For Israel, Palestine doesn’t exist

S P SETH

On the scale of human tragedies, Palestine will rank as one of the highest. Here is the case of a people who have foisted on them a new state of Israel for reasons unknown, except that this was once the home of the Jews in ancient times and that they are returning to claim their lost home. This ancient legend has nothing to do with the Palestinians who have known this region as their home as far back as they can envisage.  But that doesn’t matter because the powers that be of the time decreed through the United Nations that the Jews need a home of their own and that would be Palestine.

Understandably, Palestinians didn’t like it and sought to prevent it. But they lost, as was expected, because Israel was more powerful and had the support of some of the most powerful countries in the world. Since then things have only got worse for them. The new state of Israel sought to obliterate the Palestinian identity by denying its existence. And hoped that their expulsion from their homes in the new state and dispersal in other Arab states will remove any evidence on the ground.

They only partially succeeded by creating the phenomena of Palestinian refugee camps scattered in several Arab countries. The net result, over and above the perpetuation of Palestinian misery, was that their sense of identity even became stronger in refugee camps. And to this day, many of them want to return to their homeland, now Israel, and to their lands they were expelled from. Which is causing additional problems.

In 1967, when Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Arab countries and went on to occupy more of the Palestinian territory, Palestine’s humiliation and devastation was further compounded. Since then, even though most of the world and the United Nations regard Israel’s occupation illegal, including its powerful friends like the US and European countries, Israel remains undaunted and continues its policy of new Jewish settlements over and above the half-a-million already settled in West Bank and Jerusalem. The remainder of the Palestine now resembles like “Bantustans” of the apartheid era in South Africa.

Indeed, soon after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly upgraded Palestine’s status recently to a non-member observer state, Israel has granted permission for the building of another 3,000 settlement units in East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank. And it includes the area, called E1 that would “completely” cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times, in a report from Jerusalem, has explained it thus: “Construction in E1, in West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war, would connect the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem, dividing the West Bank in two.” Which will mean that, “The Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem would be cut off from the capital, making the contiguous Palestinian state endorsed by the United Nations last week virtually impossible.” And that has raised some concern, even among Israel’s friends, who have criticized the move.

The point is that there is nothing new in Israel’s provocative policy of creeping annexation of what is left of the Palestine. The only thing new is that the US and some of the European countries have publicly criticized Israel for this new provocation, as if they have suddenly discovered that Israel has no interest in a two-state solution of the Palestinian issue. In any case, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as usual, doesn’t give a hoot about criticism of the new decision of his government. As he has reportedly said, “We are building and we will continue to build in Jerusalem and in all areas that are on the map of the strategic interests of the State of Israel.” In other words, Israel will continue to press ahead with Greater Israel of the legendry territory of Judea and Samaria that will remain conceptually flexible to include, if necessary, other Arab lands.

Understandably, the Palestinian celebrations over their virtual statehood, conferred by the UN vote, have been overtaken by the Israeli announcement of new settlements. The timing of the announcement, so soon after the UN vote, might seem overtly provocative. But the fact is that over the last twenty years of the Oslo Accord in 1993, that supposedly was to lead to the two-state solution, Israeli settlement activity has continued unabated. And now that there has been some sharp criticism from Israel’s traditional friends in Europe and even here in Australia, the government is making a virtue of it by linking their renewed settlements as a riposte to Palestine’s violation of the Oslo Accord by seeking a vote in the United Nations.

Israel certainly has a way of turning logic and law on its head. Palestine is supposed to wait for Israel until it has been annexed almost entirely with nothing left to negotiate. This is precisely what Israel has been doing and is continuing to do, and when the Palestinians make even some feeble protest to get things back to the starting point, as with the UN resolution, they are pilloried and punished by Israel for not following the Oslo Accord.

Israel maintains that they are willing to talk without any pre-conditions. But how can talks produce any results when Israel holds all the cards by way of occupying much of Palestine, refuses to stop settlement activities, threatens to withhold revenues it collects for Palestine, and do all this without inviting any international action and sanctions? Is it possible to imagine a more unequal relationship as between Israel and the Palestine? And still, Palestine is blamed for all the problems in the Israel-Palestine situation.

And this not likely to change unless Israel is made to realize by the international community that enough is enough and it is time to go back to the pre-1967 borders. Will it be possible? It doesn’t seem likely in the short and medium terms because there is a strong sense, morally and politically, in Israel to recreate the imagined territories of Judea and Samaria by annexing the West Bank and other Palestinian territories.

 According to Peter Beinart in the New York Review of Books, “In his 1993 book, A Place among the Nations, Netanyahu not only rejects the idea of a Palestinian state, he denies that there is such a thing as a Palestinian. In fact, he repeatedly equates the Palestinian bid for statehood with Nazism….” Netanyahu claims, as Beinhart writes, that Israel has already made “gut-wrenching concessions… It has abandoned its claim to Jordan, which by rights should be part of the Jewish state.”

Israel’s Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, is even more ambitious having reportedly said recently that, “We must blow Gaza back  to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”

With such mind-set and ambitions, it is difficult to see any peaceful way forward on the Palestinian question.   

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.

Syria: a road to nowhere

S P SETH

The Syrian crisis is going nowhere, with both sides mired in a brutal stalemate. On the other hand, it has the makings of a serious regional crisis. Turkey is deeply involved in it, providing cover and sanctuaries for the rebels. Its forces are on high alert on the Syrian border, and there have been exchange of artillery fire. Turkey is also worried about the linkages between the Kurd populations on both sides, fearing that Syria is stoking up trouble for Turkey’s Kurdish region. It has asked for Patriot missiles from the United States to deal with any threat from Syria, and the US has reportedly agreed.

Israel is not inactive either. It recently fired a warning shot across the ceasefire line between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights after a mortar round from the Syrian side accidentally hit an Israeli position.  

Lebanon is likely to become an alternative battleground, with supporters and opponents of the Assad regime going after each other.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some of the other Gulf kingdoms are deeply involved, supplying arms and financial help for the rebels. Outside of the region, the US and Western countries are doing all they can, short of putting troops on the ground. In the same way, Russia is supportive of the regime, and would like to see a political solution of the crisis. China is with Russia on this.

Iran is a fervent and active supporter of the Syrian regime. The Syrian crisis is also shaping into a sectarian conflict between the Sunni and Shia kingdoms/regimes, with Saudi Arabia leading the charge to keep Iran out of the region.

When the Syrian uprising erupted early last year, it wasn’t expected to drag on like this. The popular upsurge against Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime was supposed to sweep it away in the spirit of the Arab Spring toppling dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi took a little longer, needing considerable help from the US and its allies to overthrow him. But so far, the regime in Syria is still largely intact, even though its control of the country is shrinking.

There are a number of reasons for this, and some of them were spelled out at a recent TV forum of Syrian-Australians here. It was quite surprising to find such an animated group of people of Syrian descent with such strong opposing views on the crisis in their home country. And even more surprising that the Bashar al-Assad’s regime has some strong supporters in far-off Australia, reflecting some solid support back home.

The majority of the participants in the TV forum, reflecting the views back home, branded the regime as barbaric that should be got rid of to save the country and its people. They were frustrated with the lack of international help to speedily consign the Bashar regime into oblivion. The minority view, argued as passionately and with some conviction, condemned the rebellion that seeks to destroy a functioning stable and secular country and plunge it into sectarian warfare to finally install the Muslim Brotherhood in power with all the horrible consequences that might follow. And they also highlighted the danger from the al-Qaeda and other foreign Jihadi elements seeking to hijack the rebellion.

The surprising thing about the Syrian crisis is the tenacity with which the Bashar regime is still around. And this is not simply due to their superior firepower, though that certainly is a major factor. An important reason is that the regime has some solid support among the minorities, who are terrified of the alternative of extremist elements hijacking the revolution for their own internal and external agendas. The images of summary execution by the rebels of Bashar’s captured soldiers are not a pretty picture.

The counter argument that the regime is committing worst atrocities, even though true, is neither here nor there.  If the alternative is as bad or slightly less odious, it is not a choice with much recommendation. The proponents of the Assad regime, at the Australian TV forum, pointed out that, until the rebellion started, the country had a stable and secular government and people, by and large, (unless you were an anti-regime activist) went about their business without harassment and fear. And if the reported anger of many Aleppo residents is anything to go by, many blame the rebels for bringing destruction on their town from the Assad regime’s bombing raids by entering their town to make it their battleground. If the rebels were expecting that the streets and suburbs, with their civilian residents, might provide an effective cover to capture Aleppo, and other towns, they were obviously not counting on the regime’s brutality to hold on to power.

The rebels, and their external supporters, are frustrated by the staying power of the Assad regime. The regime was supposed to crumble under its own brutality by creating divisions and defections in its power base of the government and army. That has happened for sure, but not to the point of bringing down the regime. For this, the most important factor is the loyalty of much of the armed forces. And if that continues, it will require much more than the rebel action to get rid of the Assads.

Another important factor in the regime’s favour is the disunity of the rebel forces that lack a common program and command structure to fight against a much more disciplined and lethal professional army. There have been attempts recently to address this serious problem. A recent conference of most rebel groups in Doha, at Qatar’s initiative, has created a united front with its long-winded name of “National Council of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition.” This has been recognized by some countries “as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria”. It might later metamorphose into an interim government. But so far the US and Europe are not rushing into supplying weapons and air support to the new coalition. Doubts still remain that weapons, if supplied, might fall into extremist hands with their own agendas, because these groups are not keen on submitting themselves to unitary control.

The new coalition is certainly a step forward if it can be coalesced into a national resistance movement without distraction from competing and conflicting goals. It is early days yet but so far the brutal stalemate continues with civilians paying the highest price with an estimated cost in human lives of 40,000.    

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.