Pankaj Mishra on liberal internationalism.
Read it here
Tag: liberalism
Links January 25th and January 26th
Automatically posted links for January 25th through January 26th:
- The Arab – New London-based magazine on MENA
- MidEast Brief::Egypt – Newish website links to articles on region
- Egypt says will keep border open and help Gazans restock – Unable to stop flow of people, Egypt maintains borders open
- Abbas: No talks with Hamas despite Gaza border chaos – Abu Mazen turns down Cairo talks with Hamas
- PALESTINIANS CREATE NEW BREACHES DESPITE EGYPTIAN ATTEMPTS TO SEAL THE BORDER – Article mentions Egyptian tanks on their way to border
- Gaza source: Hamas planned border wall blast for months – Amira Hass
- Gaza into Egypt Middle East Strategy at Harvard – M. Kramer revives “give Gaza a chunk of Egypt” idea, good response by S. Cook
- The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process – Juan Cole’s Informed Comment hosts Joel Beinin op-ed
- ANALYSIS: Gaza border breach shows Israel that Hamas is in charge – Haaretz analysis
- ?????????? ?????: ????: ???? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ????? ??? – Mahdi Akef denied that Khaled Meshaal asked him to stage Gaza siege demos
- Furlough Day for Gazans (Prospects for Peace) – Daniel Levy
- Appeal for the defense of individual freedoms – Moroccan liberals call for right to individual freedoms after Islamist gay witch-hunt
- Egypt’s Gaza policy / A pan-Arab consensus? – Haaretz analyzes Egypt’s tough position re: Gaza and Hamas
A pardon for Nour?
It’s worth noting that US President Bush recently called for Nour’s release, as have opposition MPs in Egypt.
Continue reading A pardon for Nour?
Hamzawy: Democracy lost
This widening ideological divide between ruling elites and oppositions will make it more difficult to adopt political reform measures, which require at least some consensus and flexibility on both sides. More troubling is that the positions of putatively democratic Arab opposition movements on the war in Lebanon have exposed their totalitarian and populist tendencies. There is a great difference between adopting a rational discourse that rightly condemns the Israeli military for its crimes against civilians and criticizes unconditional American acceptance of the war, and cheering the death of Israeli civilians as a step toward the destruction of the “Zionist entity.” This goes beyond the tendency of Islamist and pan-Arab opposition movements to opportunistically capitalize on popular feelings to rally support. It shows that these movements lack a key characteristic of reformist political forces: a willingness to combat ideologies of hatred and extremism rather than using them for political advantage.
Furthermore, although they call for democratic reform in Arab countries, Islamist and pan-Arab movements have failed to acknowledge the fundamentally non-democratic nature of the actions of Lebanon’s Hizbullah. By unilaterally making a decision of war and peace on July 12, Hizbullah confiscated the right of Lebanon’s government, of which it is part, to determine the country’s fate. Israel’s response , by targeting infrastructure and the civilian population, was surely extreme, legitimizing resistance; however, Hizbullah acted like a state within a state, taking advantage of the weakness of Lebanon’s formal institutions and transgressing the principle of consensual decision-making.
The regional shadows of the war in Lebanon will persist for many years. They may well be a long and painful reminder that the hope for any near-term democratic transformation of the Arab world was perhaps the greatest loser in a war that produced tremendous damage on all sides.
Harsh words indeed. While I agree with him that Hizbullah acted irresponsibly on 12 July, it’s quite a stretch to say that it took a decision of war and peace. It was Israel that took the decision to escalate the conflict into a full-scale war. As for the opposition being opportunistic in capitalizing on the Hizbullah-Lebanon war for local advantage, I don’t really see that as a problem (they’re politicians, after all) as much as some of the delusions about this war. But there is a real concern in that the opposition does not realize that cheering for Hizbullah is a dead-end street: there is no real support in Egypt (and I suspect in all other Arab countries) for going to war against Israel. The need for a rational discourse about the region is indeed great, and it would have been nice to see less grandstanding from certain parts of the Nasserist left (which does indeed have totalitarian impulses). But it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg argument: can you have a quality democratic debate in the absence of democracy and when the only avenue open to dissidents is populism? Rational debate lost out on all sides here: in both the Arab world and in Israel (actually, particularly in Israel), jingoism triumphed.
Ayman Nour to undergo surgery
Baheyya on power politics
New liberal party launched
Harb, a former member of the NDP’s Policies’ Secretariat, resigned from the party shortly after he voted against Mubarak’s proposed constitutional amendment at the Shura Council February last year, and expressed his interest in forming a new political party with a liberal agenda.
I’m attaching the press release. Continue reading New liberal party launched
Journalist sentenced to one year in prison for “insulting” Mubarak
Ibrahim 3eissa, the popular liberal editor of Al-Dostour, has been sentenced today to one year in prison, for “insulting” the president in an article he published April last year, that included a copy of a lawsuit filed by an Egyptian lawyer against President Hosni Mubarak and his family.
The court sentenced also another Al-Dostour reporter, Sahar Zaki, to a year in prison, together with Sa3eed Mohamed Abdallah Suleiman the lawyer who filed the original lawsuit quoted by Al-Dostour‘s article. Three other reporters were released on a LE10,000 bail, pending their appeal.
The article, published 5 April 2005, Issue 55, included accusations by the lawyer against Hosni Mubarak, Suzan Mubarak, and Gamal Mubarak of “waisting the country’s resources” by “selling the public sector for a cheap price, … squandering foreign aid.” Suleiman demanded, in his lawsuit, that the president “returns LE500 billion to the treasury.” He also accused the president of turning the “Arab Republic of Egypt into a monarchy” and “replacing the constitution with State Security rule.”
Mubarak has usually been a favorite target for criticism on the weekly tabloid’s frontpage.
There will be a press conference in the evening at Al-Dostour’s office, 7pm, 29 Tanta St., 3agouza.
UPDATE: CPJ has issued a statement denouncing the court verdict. Continue reading Journalist sentenced to one year in prison for “insulting” Mubarak