Category Archives: democracy

OPINION: Supporting peace requires action

Democracy is more than going to the polls
By Amira Hass, Haaretz, October 2, 2007

“The protest wave has calmed down,” some Israeli journalists said Friday of the Burmese military junta’s success in driving thousands of demonstrators off the streets, using excessive violence.

Despite the natural sympathy for the uprisers, several editors chose the word “calm,” which embodies the rulers’ point of view: The norm is “calm,” even if it means constant government violence. The mass protest against the oppression is a disruption of order and calm.

The word “calm” was an automatic reflection of how most Israeli Jews and their media see the constant, 40-year Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is the norm one thinks of when the Palestinians disrupt the calm. [complete article]

NEWS & OPINION: Egypt’s struggle for democracy

Cairo moving more aggressively to cripple Muslim Brotherhood
By Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post, October 1, 2007

After imprisoning or prodding into exile Egypt’s leading secular opposition activists, the government is using detentions and legal changes to neutralize the country’s last surviving major political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Brotherhood leaders and rights groups contend the government is clearing the stage of opponents in politics, civil society and the news media ahead of the end of the 26-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who is 79. Egyptians widely expect the transition to be tense and that Mubarak’s son Gamal will be a top contender. [complete article]

Your best friend hates you
By Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Conflicts Forum, September 30, 2007

Of all the puzzling remarks made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, naming Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his regime as one of America’s strongest and most strategic allies in the Middle East is perhaps the most puzzling.

anti-americanism.jpgWhat is strange about the statement is that it portrays one of the strongest proponents of anti-Americanism in the Middle East as one of America’s closest friends. It seems that Ms Rice, just like other senior politicians and decision-makers in America, were fooled by the Egyptian regime’s international facade, which does not reveal its reality. [complete article]

OPINION: The Muslim Brotherhood is not at odds with its democratic rivals

The Muslim Brotherhood will stand up for all Egyptians
By Ibrahim El Houdaiby, The Forward, September 26, 2007

In her opinion article, [Mona] Eltahawy criticizes the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, for calling her “naked” because she was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and pants. I could not agree more with her.

Not wearing the hijab, or headscarf, makes a woman unveiled, not naked. I realize how offensive it is to call someone “naked” for not wearing a headscarf, and I find Akef’s comment unjustifiable.

To be clear, I support Akef’s stance on wearing the hijab, and like him view it as a religious obligation. There has been consensus on that among Islamic scholars for centuries.

Yet this has got nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood as a political group. While we believe that wearing the hijab is an obligation, we believe it is an individual woman’s choice to uphold it — a choice that the state should not interfere in. [complete article]

NEWS & ANALYSIS: Myanmar’s Saffron Revolution

Bush astounds activists, supports human rights
By William Douglas, McClatchy, September 25, 2007

President Bush implored the United Nations on Tuesday to recommit itself to restoring human decency by liberating oppressed people and ending famine and disease.

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, the president called for renewed efforts to enforce the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a striking point of emphasis for a leader who’s widely accused of violating human rights in waging war against terrorism.

Bush didn’t mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA’s “rendition” kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Bush, the champion of democracy, now the defender of human rights — all he has succeeded in doing is to underline the bankruptcy of American presidential authority and his own ability to devalue language.

Burma’s question
By Aung Zaw, Open Democracy, September 26, 2007

Amid the rhetoric in the outside world, the regime is confident that it can continue to ignore critical world opinion. It is reinforced in this stance by China and India as well its other, smaller neighbours, whose desire to maintain lucrative trade deals and exploit Burma’s natural resources override any interest in the junta’s brutal suppression of its own people.

China lends active political support to the regime, and in 2006 teamed with Russia to shoot down a US initiative to bring the Burma issue to the UN Security Council. India shamed its reputation as the world’s largest democracy by flattering the generals in hope of winning contracts to buy Burmese gas and supply the regime with armaments. [complete article]

Buddha vs the barrel of a gun
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, September 27, 2007

US sanctions are just for internal American consumption; they will have absolutely no impact. For starters, Myanmar is not under a military embargo. A really different story, for instance, would be the Bush administration telling the Chinese to drop the junta, otherwise no US athletes will be seen at the Beijing Summer Olympics next year. London bookies wouldn’t even start a bet on it. The French for their part now say they fear a terrible crackdown – but in fact they fear what happens to substantial oil business by French energy giant Total. The European Union should have a unified position, but for the moment that is hazier than sunrise at the sublime Shwedagon Pagoda in the heart of Yangon.

This year China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the junta’s human-rights record. It’s virtually impossible that the collective leadership in Beijing will let one of its neighbors, a key pawn in the 21st-century energy wars, be swamped by non-violent Buddhists and pro-democracy students – as this would constitute a daring precedent for the aspirations of Tibetans, the Uighurs in Xinjiang and, most of all, Falungong militants all over China, the embryo of a true rainbow-revolution push defying the monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party. [complete article]

Monks’ protests put pressure on junta
By Amy Kazmin, Financial Times, September 25, 2007

Gen Than Shwe and Burma’s other rulers have long appeared dangerously out of touch with the sentiments and struggles of the population, heightening the chances of a miscalculation.

Gen Than Shwe is also famously hostile towards Aung San Suu Kyi, making it highly unlikely he would enter into any kind of negotiations with her now.

Some younger Burmese officers are thought to favour an accommodation with Ms Suu Kyi, raising the prospect of an internal military shake-up that could see more flexible, pragmatic leaders come to the fore.

Diplomats say internal army tensions and rivalries are such that any newly emergent leaders may not feel sufficiently confident of their position to deal directly with a figure that the military has so long sought to demonise. Yet ultimately, Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, may hold the only key for the generals to find a peaceful way out.

“It’s very sure that the forthcoming scenario will be a compromise between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi,” says one Burmese scholar, who asked not to be identified. “Whether they like it or not, there is no choice. The situation is demanding it. For their own benefit, they have to compromise with ‘The Lady’, or they will pay the price.” [complete article]

Eyewitness reports from bloggers inside Burma
By Tom Whipple and Thant Zin, The Times, September 26, 2007

With the Burmese government restricting visas to foreign journalists, and all internal media controlled by the state, the internet provides one of the few routes left for getting eyewitness reports from inside Burma to the outside world. Despite rumours that the junta intends to close down internet access, a few brave bloggers continue to report their experiences. [complete article]

ANALYSIS: Elections in Lebanon

All power to the weak in Lebanon
By Sami Moubayed, Asia Times, September 27, 2007

Lebanon’s Parliament on Tuesday postponed the first stage in electing a new president after a Hezbollah boycott. If legislators do manage to complete the process – despite the mountainous obstacles – it will be the first real election in Lebanon since the country erupted into civil war in 1975.

Parliament’s 127 deputies will now vote next month on who should replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, whose term ends on November 23. Parliament has until then to finalize the issue, though there is disagreement over just how this should be done to get a new man in Baabda Palace.

Lebanese politics is sharply polarized into two camps, which refuse to back down. On another level, the contenders are divided Lebanon caught in a proxy war between the great powers. [complete article]

EDITORIAL: Ahmadinejad’s free speech

Ahmadinejad’s free speech
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, September 25, 2007

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did something yesterday that neither President Bush nor Vice-President Cheney have the courage to do: stand up and speak in front of an unfriendly college audience. How can America’s leaders claim that they are defending freedom when they are so clearly afraid of it?

In the Bush-Cheney lexicon, “free speech” is something that can be confined to a zone out of earshot and out of sight; it is something whose value is cathartic rather than political. They regard free speech as a form of free expression that serves the psychological needs of the individual rather than the political needs of a healthy democracy.

America has over the last six years become infected by this impoverished view of free speech. It is a right that seemingly only benefits those who exercise it, while society merely tolerates its performance. Thus, as he introduced President Ahmadinejad, Columbia president Lee Bollinger wanted to assure the nation that no one in his illustrious university was in jeopardy of being influenced by anything that Iran’s president might say. Continue reading →

FEATURE: The faultline in American democracy

‘The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’ – Chapter One
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, New York Times, September 23, 2007

America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues-health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration-and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia’s hostility to NATO, and China’s rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various candidates.

Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country-Israel-as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to defending Israel’s interests under any and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside. [complete article]

OPINION: Bush’s message to Egyptian democrats — you’re on your own

Forsaking the Egyptian free press
By Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, September 24, 2007

Two years ago, political liberalization in Egypt was at the center of Bush’s attention, and Kassem’s newspaper, al-Masri al-Yom (the Daily Egyptian), was at the forefront of a fragile Cairo Spring. With Mubarak under pressure from Washington, Kassem was able to employ journalists who reported critically on domestic issues and secular liberal columnists whose voices had previously been stifled. Other newspapers soon rushed into the gap, some of them aggressively populist. Taboos on criticism of Mubarak and his family were broken. By this year, the new independent press had captured a quarter of overall newspaper circulation, compared with just 3 percent four years ago.

The free press survived even as Mubarak moved methodically to crush other nascent centers of opposition in the past 18 months, including liberal political parties, a movement of judges seeking greater independence for the courts, and the Muslim Brotherhood. But this month, irritated by press speculation about his failing health, the 79-year-old president turned on the newspapers. First, one of the most fiery independent editors, Ibrahim Eissa of the newspaper al-Dustor, was charged by a state prosecutor with disturbing the peace and, even more absurdly, harming Egypt’s economic interests. A trial date was set for Oct. 1.

Two days later, on Sept. 13, Eissa and three other newspaper editors were hauled into court and sentenced to a year in prison for publishing articles critical of Mubarak; his son and presumed heir, Gamal; and other government officials. It was the biggest single assault on the press in Mubarak’s quarter-century in power and one of the worst blows in years to media freedom in the Arabic-speaking world.

Yet there was no reaction from the State Department or the White House, which Kassem once credited with helping to create the space his newspaper occupied. [complete article]

EDITORIAL: The future of democracy depends on abandoning the war metaphor

The future of democracy depends on abandoning the war metaphor
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, August 3, 2007

If presidential candidates can’t come up with some intelligent foreign policy positions, it’s time that they followed State Department advice: shut up — at least for a while.

In just three days we’ve heard candidates proposing sending troops into Pakistan, using nuclear weapons against al Qaeda, and threatening to bomb Mecca and Medina.

Campaign rhetoric is doing what ought to be impossible: make the Bush administration sound responsible. It is also sending a chilling message to the rest of the world: if you’re hoping that George Bush is going to be replaced by a president with a more enlightened view of the world and a more sophisticated approach to politics, don’t count on it.

In the latest instance of “precision bombing” gone wrong, women and children are among up to 300 civilians killed in air strikes in the Afghan province of Helmand. How many more times does the West have to be responsible for the indiscriminate killing of innocent people before it acknowledges that this is neither an effective nor legitimate means to counter terrorism?

The so-called “war on terrorism” has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Small wonder that in the Muslim world this war is regarded as a war on Islam. This perception is further reinforced by the fact that Western leaders persist in framing the struggle as one between religious extremists and secular moderates.

In a bold initiative in April, John Edwards posed a challenge to fellow Democratic candidates when he rejected the phrase “war on terror”:

“This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to do,” Edwards said in a phone interview from Everett, Wash. “It’s been used to justify a whole series of things that are not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans. Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I also think it suggests that there’s a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don’t think that’s true.”

In 2001, the neocons rapturously applauded President Bush’s “insight” (triggered by their prompting) that America was at war. What the last six years have demonstrated are the consequences of allowing “war” to become the governing metaphor in national and international affairs.

The inescapable effect of being governed by the war metaphor is that it fosters absolutist expectations. The goal of war is to crush, defeat, and eliminate the enemy.

When Bush declared that we will not discriminate between the terrorists and those who harbor them, he opened the door to a genocidal sentiment. Security analyist, Michael Vlahos notes:

I have had many “Defense World” conversations that have ended with: “the time may come when we will have to kill millions of Muslims,” or, “history shows that to win over a people you have to kill at least 10 percent of them, like the Romans” (for comparison, we killed or contributed to the death of about five percent of Japan from 1944-46, while Russia has killed at least eight percent of the Chechen people). Or consider the implications of “Freeper” talk-backs to an article of mine in The American Conservative: “History shows that wars only end with a totally defeated enemy otherwise they go on … Either Islam or us will quit in total destruction.”

Even if the majority of Americans might not believe that America is engaged in a war on Islam, Muslims have solid grounds for thinking otherwise. Images of the dead are not erased by empty rhetoric from American politicians who express their support for “moderate, peaceful Muslims.”

If the 2008 presidential elections are to going to open the possibility for a change of lasting political consequence then they should be focused on a campaign between those who support and those who reject the “war” metaphor.

George Bush declared his to be a “war presidency.” Because he faced no political challenge in doing so, America blindly submitted itself to being governed by war. The real wars in which the United States is now embroiled were not entered into in response to real acts of war. Terrorists can commit atrocities but they cannot start war; only nations can enter war. Not only the war in Iraq, but also the war on terrorism itself, were wars we embarked on by choice. We didn’t choose to be attacked on 9/11 but we did choose to turn a political challenge into a military one.

As Zbigniew Brzezinski eloquently stated in his seminal Washington Post op-ed earlier this year, “Terrorized by ‘war on terror’“:

The damage these three words have done — a classic self-inflicted wound — is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves.

The 2008 presidential race is still in its early days. There is still time for Democratic candidates to follow John Edward’s lead (something they are clearly already eager to do in other ways). But if by the time it comes to election day we have no better choice than between candidates who are competing for the role of “strongest leader in the war on terrorism”, we might as well burn our ballot papers rather than vote.