[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Occupation, Intervention, and Law and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the O.I.L. Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each biweekly roundup to OIL@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every other week]

News

"2 Top Lawyers Lost to Obama in Libya War Policy Debate", Charlie Savage
The New York Times reports that Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krauss, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel both advised the White House that the United States' military involvement in the air war in Libya fell under the definition of "hostilities", and that the White House was thus required by the War Powers Act to terminate involvement after 20 May, 2012 barring Congressional consent. This advice appears to have been ignored by President Obama in favor of the legal analysis of advisers from the White House and Harold Koh of the State Department, who advised the President that the United States' activities in Libya did not amount to "hostilities".

"Mubarak Sentenced to Jail for Life Over Protest Deaths", Yolande Knell
Writing for BBC News in Cairo, Knell reports that an Egyptian Court has sentenced recently deposed President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for his role in the killing of protesters during the uprisings of early 2011.  Though the verdict was initially met with celebrations outside the court building and elsewhere, Knell of the BBC reports that some protesters have reacted with anger, criticizing the acquittals of four high-ranking officials and fearing that Mubarak's sentenced could be overturned on appeal.

“South Sudan says Sudan bombs, Shells its territory” Reuters
South Sudan has accused Sudan of attacks that violated a 2 May 2012 resolution by the U.N. Security Council which ordered both sides to cease hostilities and settle their differences through negotiations. The African Union mediator expects a meeting between the presidents of both countries next week, though neither side has confirmed a date.

"Palestinians Honor Dead Returned by Israel", Ali Sawafta
Reports on Israel's return of the remains of 91 Palestinians to the West Bank.  Details the return in the context of the relatively still public reaction in Israel and recent overtures from the Netanyahu government to resume negotiations with Palestinian leaders.

"Clinton Must Decide Iranian Group's Fate in Fourth Months: Court", Reuters
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has unanimously ruled that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must decide within a four-month period whether to ascend to or reject the request by Mujahidin-e Khalq (MEK) for removal from a list of foreign terrorist organizations.


Commentary

"The Imperial Mind", Glen Greenwald
Details the circumstances behind Pakistan's conviction of Dr. Shakil Afridi, a physician who, with the cooperation of the CIA, established a deliberately ineffective vaccine program for Pakistani children as part of an effort to gain access to the bin Laden residence in Abbottabad.  Points out that while the American media has expressed outrage over Dr. Afridi's sentence of 33 years, the United States government imposes much harsher sentences on Americans whose actions are less egregious than Afridi's.

"Words Are Not Enough", Rina Rosenberg
Writing for Haaretz, Rosenberg reacts to the recent release of human rights reports by the United States and the European Union criticizing the treatment of Israel's Arab minority and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.  Rosenberg argues that both the US and EU need to establish a "proactive strategy" to change the Israeli policies they criticize on grounds of violating human rights.


Blogs

"Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will", Joe Becker and Scott Shane
Discusses President Obama's personal involvement in the US "Drone War", to the point of evident micromanaging of a "kill list".  Julian Ku at Opinio Juris discusses the "relatively mild" legal blowback to the practices of the drone war described in the article, concluding that "the legal framework for the US war on terrorism is becoming increasingly solid."  Inspired by this piece, Cora Currier and Blair Hickman, writing for ProPublica, round up the best "watchdog journalism" on the legality of the Obama Administration's national security policies.
 
“Libya Challenges the Admissibility of the Cases Against Gaddafi and Al-Senussi” Kevin Jon Heller
Libya has brought a challenge under the Rome Statute against the ICC for admissibility for the trials of Muammar Gadaffi and Mohammed El-Senussi, insisting that  Article 17 of the Rome Statute prevents the Court from admitting a case solely based on con=cerns that there will be a lack of due process in national proceedings. The authors of the motion have gone to lengths to extol the fairness of the Libyan criminal justice system, and accuse the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (an official organ of the Court) of making false allegations against the Libyan government. 

“Expedited Justice: Gaddafi's Death and the Rise of Targeted Killings” Kevin Govern
Using statistical data, Govern discusses how extra-judicial killing is becoming an acceptable response to terrorism by the international community. He attributes this attitude to the fact that targeted killings have been increasingly used to expedite justice, rather than capturing terrorists and bringing them to justice through trial before a domestic tribunal or the ICC.


Reports

"Grave Concern for the Lives of Protracted Hunger Strikers”, Mahmoud Marsak and Akram Rikhawi,
Details the rapidly worsening conditions of two Palestinian political prisoners on hunger strike.  Addameer demands their transfer to a civilian hospital, that they be allowed visits by non Israeli Prison Service-affiliated doctors, allowed family visits, and that their sentences be released or shortened.

"Mavi Marmara Indictiments Herald an End to Israeli Impunity", Sarah Colborne
An eyewitness to Israel's assault on the Mavi Marmara flotilla recalls the attack, arguing that Turkey's subsequent indictment of four Israeli generals allegedly responsible signals an trend of increasing international solidarity with Palestine.


Conference Compendium

"Terrorism & Security Research in the UK: Using and Understanding Legal Resources"; 15 June 2012; Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Charles Clore House, 17 Russell Square, London; Register Here.

"International Law, Genocide, and Imperialism: The Colonial Origins of Human Rights?"; 14-16 September 2012; Stockholm, Sweden; Call for Papers/Register Here.

When I embarked on my research in 1970, to my mind I was engaged in a political project of attempting to rescue and reconstruct a slice of history in Palestine in the years following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The very existence of a communist movement in Palestine uniting within its ranks Arab and Jewish members pointed to a possible future, at variance with both nationalism and capitalism. In its short existence, the Palestine Communist Party (PCP) succeeded in bringing together Arab and Jewish workers on a platform of class solidarity.

Despite numerous shortcomings, the PCP attempted to establish a foothold in the midst of a colonial encounter of a unique character. In addition to the colonial power Britain, it faced another adversary in the shape of a Jewish nationalist movement embarked on a colonial settler project. This situation was compounded by Stalinist domination of both the Soviet state and the Communist International (Comintern). While eventually overwhelmed by the violent pull of national conflict, the PCP successfully articulated a broad platform which included all the salient features of a political program that has stood the test of time. This encompassed recognition of the imperative of Arab unity as a condition for social and economic transformation in the eastern part of the Arab world, and internationalism as the precondition for successful state formation in a multiethnic and multicultural region which after centuries of Ottoman rule was trying to rid itself of British and French colonial rule. Palestine’s problems could only be resolved in a broad regional context.

In trying to reconstruct a party of men and women, rather than one made up of ideological platforms, I sought to meet with the largest possible number of (by then old) party members and activists. There was, at the time, little published material on the history of the party, and what existed was either authored by cold warriors and/ or betrayed an Orientalist bias that treated the party as part and parcel of the master narrative of the contemporary Jewish settlement in Palestine. Historical circumstances led to the excision of the Arab members of the party from the historical record, and they have become erased from memory. While not aiming to produce an oral history, it seemed necessary to seek them out and record their narrative, noting at the same time that those personal narratives were colored by the passage of time, by changed political and personal circumstances, by rivalry and personal issues, and also by an effort to present a politically correct attitude retrospectively.

In the period since, numerous works have appeared in Arabic, English and Hebrew, purporting to deal with the history of the party and the working class in Palestine. None provide new ways of seeing, with two exceptions. The collections of correspondence between the Eastern Section of the Comintern and the party leadership, culled from the archives in Moscow, help provide a new reading of the internal history of the party. These have only recently become available to researchers. In addition, a number of political memoirs, some more enlightening than others, by old communist activists have been published.

From its inception as a worker-based group among the small community of Jewish immigrants in Palestine, the PCP attempted to reconcile adherence to Zionism with Comintern membership, while the Comintern for its part wanted the party to transform itself into a territorial organization which represented the indigenous population. Though the policy of the Comintern went through numerous changes as a result of Soviet foreign-policy imperatives, it remained committed throughout to a strategy of Arabization. In its attempt to translate Comintern directives into practical politics, the party sought to locate a radical revolutionary nationalist wing within the Arab Palestinian national movement. It elected to see Hamdi Husseini, a journalist from Gaza, and a small group of associates who were grouped together as a faction within the Istiklal Party as representative of this radical trend. As the newly published documents make clear, the party, from its recognition as a section by the Comintern in 1924 until the loss of contact in 1937-8, was in constant communication with Moscow requesting guidance and support. This extended to matters large and small, to an extent that makes it difficult to talk of the PCP as an autonomous organization. The loss of contact with Moscow meant that the party was no longer able to function as a united Arab Jewish organization, even as formal break up would only come about in 1943 with the formal dissolution of the Comintern, a gesture by Moscow to its western allies. Radwan al Hilou, the party general secretary in 1943, makes the point that his authority remained unquestioned so long as Moscow supported him, and indeed it is clear from the documents that authority over the party leadership came not from its rank and file but from Comintern officials. Party leaders since the recall of the first founder of the party, Wolf Auerbach, were all Moscow appointees.

To understand the debates of the early twenties it is necessary to remember that in the immediate post-1917 period, communists believed the future of their revolution lay with the spread of social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries – specifically in Europe – not the national independence struggles in the colonies. The PCP, like a number of other communist parties, was born in this dynamic of the international socialist movement. In the aftermath of Bolshevik success, containment, coupled with the failure of socialist revolution in Europe, and the consolidation of Stalin’s authority in Moscow, led in practice to the triumph of the doctrine of “socialism in one country.” The theoretical justifications advanced by Stalinism sought to legitimize an already existing political reality. All kinds of questions raised themselves as a consequence, concerning the nature of the foreign policy to be pursued by the new socialist state and the role of the various communist parties in their respective countries. Self- defense of the revolution, even before the raison d’état of the Soviet state, became the mainspring of Soviet policy. It searched for ways to break the iron curtain imposed by Western capitalism. Weakening Western capitalist powers suggested breaking the chain at its weakest link, their overseas possessions and the source of much of their wealth. This called for involvement in the national liberation struggle of the colonies. Palestine possessed its own specific conditions within the colonial order. Britain had taken upon itself the task of facilitating the establishment of a Jewish national home. This necessitated the fostering of Jewish immigration to the country, its protection, and the promotion of institutions of self-rule for the Jewish community. This was legitimized as an international undertaking entrusted to Britain by the League of Nations.

The rise of the Nazis to power in Germany in the thirties led to a considerable Jewish immigration to the United States, neighboring European states, and anywhere else the Jewish refugees could gain entry. This served to transform the nature of the Jewish community in Palestine. Initially the number of Jewish immigrants was insignificant. Zionism was a minor player in European Jewish politics, facing much stronger and longer-established parties, both traditional and revolutionary. In Palestine itself, until the 1930s, the Jewish community was small, and did not figure prominently in the political and economic life of the country. The increased rate of immigration, particularly the arrival in the country of up to 200,000 German Jewish refugees by the mid-1930s, transformed the situation.

The Zionist movement succeeded in establishing Palestine as a center for rescue and shelter for at least part of threatened European Jewry. Although Zionist credentials were not required from the newcomers, immigrants became objectively part of the Zionist settler enterprise upon their arrival in Palestine. The Arab revolt in the mid-
1930s had the unintended effect of promoting the autonomy of the Jewish community. By the revolt’s end, through immigration, a critical mass was achieved. The Peel Commission proposals in 1937, the first time the British masters of the country openly talked about partition, is significant in this respect. For the next ten years, and until partition took place in 1948, this was the invisible political agenda dictating the course of events.

Mid-1930s Palestine was no longer a purely Arab country with a small indigenous traditional Jewish community and a small minority of European immigrants. The “demographic consequences of Zionism” had become essential in shaping any possible future. So far, neither the PCP nor the Comintern viewed the struggle between Arabs and Jews as a colonial encounter. It would have been surprising had it been otherwise. The modern world in the aftermath of the First World War witnessed all sorts of wars – colonial, civil and revolutionary – but no ongoing settler colonial projects, and certainly not one where the colonial power did not install its own nationals as settlers, but rather people coming from a variety of countries with the object of “recreating” themselves as a nation. In the party’s (as in the Comintern’s) worldview, Jewish immigrants in Palestine acquired equal rights to those of the indigenous inhabitants upon their arrival in the country. Party and Comintern viewed the struggle in Palestine through the prism of class, not nation. They rejected as defeatist the view that the Jewish community constituted an undifferentiated mass and that all Jews in Palestine were counterrevolutionary. The corollary that all Arabs are revolutionary was also deemed theoretically untenable. Abandoning this view would amount to abandoning any hope of working amid and gaining support of Jewish workers, and would negate the party’s raison d’être. After all, to the extent that there was a modern proletariat in Palestine, this was predominantly Jewish. On practical grounds, treating the Jewish community as a monolithic Zionist bloc would lead the most ideologically committed Jewish members to leave the country altogether, further weakening the party.

The Party’s theoretical armory was necessarily better suited to fight the class battle, but it found itself in a situation not of its own choosing. The party was after all born within the folds of the Zionist movement, albeit within its left wing. This in itself meant that party members and party membership were predominantly Zionist until the early thirties, but most Zionists-turned-communists lost the will to remain in the country once disillusionment set in. In a best-case scenario, it was the task of the more enlightened proletarian elements to transform the condition of the native Arab population. Nevertheless, the Party was aware throughout of its settler origins, that its members were viewed as outsiders, that they were not familiar with the local language, and that they were not part of the social fabric of Arab society. While these were regarded as weakness, they were not seen as insurmountable obstacles. The party strove to represent the objective interests of both Arab and Jewish working people, the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the country. Jewish comrades would play the role at various stages of leaders and advisers, and would constitute the foot soldiers of the party. Consequently, even after Arabization was officially consecrated as official party doctrine, and after overcoming the link to Bolshevization, and the appointment of an Arab comrade as party secretary general, police and newspaper reports attest to the fact that most of those arrested distributing party leaflets and flyers and apprehended in demonstration were Jewish party members. Right to the end and the break up of the party in 1943, Jewish comrades represented the majority of party members.

It is not clear that the party fully comprehended the dynamics of Arab society or recognized the process of national identity formation taking place in the aftermath of the Anglo-French partition of Bilad al Sham (Greater Syria). It was evident that the Party had little understanding of how to carry out its aims in the absence of an Arab working class, and was unable to reach out to the Arab peasantry. Declaring the fundamental importance of the agrarian question, which it did, was not sufficient. Declaring the importance of Arab unity, which it also did, while at the same time establishing separate sections in the mandated Arab states did not further the cause of unity. It is perhaps not inappropriate to pose the question whether the Comintern itself, to whom the Party remained faithful throughout, itself ever came to an understanding of the role of national conflict. In the case of Palestine, it held to a broad view of a fundamental antagonism between the whole of colonial society and foreign colonial powers, but excepted from this view was a thin stratum of feudal traditional and religious leaders who dominated the national movement and were thus incapable of leading an anti-colonial struggle. Yet the national movement itself was differentiated. Within its ranks there was a more radical wing which was ready to carry on the struggle against British colonialism, and which refused to be deflected into directing its energies against the Jewish community.

The Party had to face criticism from within its own ranks of extending uncritical support to the Arab national movement. Party leaders later admitted, in their correspondence with their superiors in the Eastern Section, to committing serious mistakes. But if “mistakes” were made for a certain period during the first phase of the armed revolt in 1936 as a result of the party opening its ranks and its leadership to a new generation of Arab members, the record makes clear that party leaders were aware of the dangers posed by the pursuit of such policies. It is evident though that the division was not based on ethnic or national identity, but on political understanding of what the correct line ought to be. The problem lay in the Comintern’s mistaken analysis of nationalist conflict relying on the experience of selected European countries, which had long ago been through the crucible of national state formation and where internal antagonisms were centered on class rather on than national or religious identities.

Politically, the party remained unable to find a common language which spoke to the interests of both Arabs and Jews in Palestine. To Jewish workers it spoke the language of the class struggle, to Arabs the language of anti-imperialism. It declared itself in the anti-imperialist camp, which served to alienate a sizable portion of Jewish party members. Britain was the main enemy, and not only for reasons of ideological correctness, but also as a reflection of the realities of Soviet national interest. This was made clear at the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. The party withheld support for the war (a popular tactic among Arabs, but unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of Jewish inhabitants), and suffered the repressive policy of the British authorities as a result. On the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in 1941, the Party changed track and vigorously conducted a pro-war effort policy.

It is not evident that the Party understood clearly enough that no solution to the conflict in Palestine would be possible that did not provide for joint Arab Jewish co-existence. It put forward class as the basis of common interests. But the two communities lived separate lives, and more importantly viewed relations with the colonial power through different lenses. The Arabs largely viewed Britain as an imperialist power, and one which was facilitating the growth and power of the Jews in Palestine. The Jewish community, beneficiary of British promises and policies, was eager for more British support, and regarded it as Britain’s duty to come to its defense. Its opposition to the British Mandate in its final years grew out of a feeling of betrayal. For Arab nationalists, all Jewish immigration to Palestine was illegitimate and they could not conceive of political rights for members of the immigrant community, not only collectively, but also on an individual level.

For the PCP, emphasis was on shared social and economic needs and interests and not on ethnic identity, and these were held in common as far as the vast majority of both groups, the only exception being a thin strata of servants of British imperialism from both national camps. That one group was indigenous and the other part of a settler colonial project was irrelevant and beside the point. This was theory. In practice, and as Comintern documents make clear, the Arab leadership of the party was unable, at times of heightened national conflict, to remain unaffected by the general Arab nationalist atmosphere, which did not allow it to perceive the Jewish community as a differentiated society with conflicting interests. The same goes for Jewish party members, the majority of whom during the years of the Arab Revolt became inactive or established themselves as autonomous factions.

In order to understand the situation confronting the party, it is perhaps necessary to pose a number of questions, such as whether the PCP ever succeeded in transforming itself into a territorial organization. If so, then what does this says about the establishment of the National Liberation League as a framework for Arab communists and left-wing nationalists in 1944, and the separate existence of Jewish communists organized in a number of competing but purely Jewish organizations? It behooves us to inquire whether prior to the Soviet declaration for two states, the PCP itself actually called for the establishment of what kind of state? An Arab state? A binational state? Two states? Or what?

It was clear even before the end of the mandate and the ensuing struggle between natives and settlers that the British did not aim and had not created a new Palestinian identity or nationality, and that there were two separate and antagonistic national groups in the country, Arabs and Jews, holding mutually exclusive nationalist demands. The party did not acknowledge this and continued to place culpability at the door of British policies of divide and rule. The challenge of the changing and evolving nature of the Jewish community was not met by the party or by the Comintern in their theoretical articulations. Events forced themselves on the party. Jewish and Arab members had different responses. They did not live in the same binational reality. They lived and struggled within their own national communities which they saw as differentiated and nuanced. These were closed worlds and allowed them the comfort of correct positions. As relations between the party leadership and the Comintern grew weaker in the thirties, coming to a full stop during the latter years of the Arab revolt, this had a twofold effect. It allowed party members to pursue their own inclinations. The removal of Comintern control strengthened the respective nationalist tendencies within each group. At the same time, Moscow’s absence weakened the position of the party’s general secretary, who now came to constitute another competing faction, no longer safeguarded by the infallibility of the Comintern.

It is tempting to ask at what point the party changed its analysis of the conflict in Palestine, and if so when it ceased to regard it as primarily an anticolonial struggle. There is little doubt that various groups of Jewish communists did undergo such a transformation. Already in the opposition to Arabization and the rearguard action linking it to Bolshevization we can see evidence of a reluctance to follow a path which shifted the weight of party activity from the social to the national terrain. The party’s theoretical stance remained consistent that both Arab and Jewish communities were internally differentiated divided groups, thus priority was given to competing class interests and differences, and the necessity of continued activity within all national groups. At the same time, party activity, by aiming to ground itself within the Arab national community, appeared to lead to the adoption of the main slogans of the Palestinian Arab national movement, such as the cessation of immigration, the cessation of land sales, and the establishment of an independent Arab state. The advent of the era of the popular front, declared by the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, enabled both Arab and Jewish members to argue that it was permissible for the party to establish links with progressive elements within both national camps. In itself this was the beginning of the formal recognition of symmetry between the two national groups, without at the same time entering into a discussion about whether they possessed equal political rights or the legitimacy of their respective claims.

The various groups of Jewish communists would, in 1948, coalesce to support the establishment of the Jewish state within the borders decreed by the UN partition proposals. While politically rejecting Zionist practices aimed at establishing a national home and since Biltmore in 1942 openly calling for statehood, they were confronted by the consequences of the success of this endeavor, which developments, both regionally and internationally, forced them to acquiesce to.

For its part, the Arab national movement, with the exception of the Hamdi Husseini group, which probably held an exaggerated sense of the party’s capabilities, evinced no interest in the party and its activity, and for a long period regarded it with hostility (the Arab press regularly ran stories warning of the Bolshevik virus carried by Jewish immigrants, alerting the authorities to the danger posed by communist activity, and by extension Jewish immigration) and remained uninformed and uninterested in what were regarded as internal Jewish quarrels. All immigrants, regardless of ideology or political affiliation were considered part of the settlement enterprise, and consequently to be opposed. Even in the mid-1940s, when the Arab communists organized within their own “national” framework, i.e. a separate Arab party, they remained suspect, were excluded from the inner circles of national leadership bodies, and were accused of cooperating with Zionist parties.

On the outbreak of armed hostilities between the two communities in preparation for the impending departure of British forces scheduled for late 1948, the communists found themselves in a quandary. Since 1924, and the admission of the PCP to the ranks of the Comintern, the party had opposed Zionist efforts to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, characterized Zionists as British imperialist agents, and called for independence, in effect endorsing the call for an independent Arab Palestinian state. The call for an Arab state in Palestine, like the call for an Arab state in Syria or in Iraq, both of which had sizable Jewish and other religious and ethnic minorities, was not primarily concerned with the small non-Arab ethnic communities but directed against the colonial authority itself, Britain. This was the slogan raised since the early twenties, but conditions in the late forties were fundamentally different.

In 1948, the Arab communists, despite a split in their ranks in reaction to Soviet support for partition and the chaos which engulfed the Arab community as an outcome of the absence of any form of national authority, nevertheless succeeded in retaining a rudimentary form of organized existence. They professed to see the expulsion of the British from the country as a tremendous achievement, weakening Britain’s imperialist hold over the Arab east. They clamored for the establishment of an Arab state as decreed by the UN partition resolution, characterizing the ensuing war as an attempt to thwart the desire for independent statehood, and rejected the entry of the Arab Liberation Army into the country and the call for armed intervention on the part of the surrounding Arab states. They paid for this in the areas which fell under Arab military control with harassment and imprisonment. The destruction of Arab society, the transformation of its people into refugees living outside its borders as a result of Israel’s refusal to allow their return to their towns and villages after the cessation of hostilities, meant they lost their main base of support within the organized Arab working class. The Jewish communists for their part collaborated with the Zionist leadership of the Jewish community to establish a Jewish state and participated in the forums of its elected bodies, while Meir Vilner, one of the veteran communist leaders since the mid-thirties, put his name along with other leaders of the organized Jewish community to the Israeli Declaration of independence.

The changed demographic nature of the country, with the near total departure of the country’s Arab inhabitants, led to the disappearance of the independent existence of an Arab communist faction. The few remaining Arab communists were absorbed into the party’s ranks in a demonstrative act of reunification of the two national factions. But there was very little doubt that this was not a coming together of two equal halves. The PCP had gone back to its very beginnings. Shaped by events, and having shown itself unable to exert significant influence, it now re-established itself as an Israeli party. While remaining committed to defending the rights of workers and oppressed national minorities, it ended up after decades of trying to maintain an internationalist perspective as a party whose mass base lay in the Arab national minority yet which continued to be regarded as overwhelmingly a Jewish party.

[This essay was originally published in Jerusalem Quarterly]

The Space Between: A Panorama of Cinema in Turkey. 27 April – 10 May 2012, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, NY.

Introducing “The Space Between: A Panorama of Cinema in Turkey,” a major retrospective of Turkish cinema featuring twenty-nine films from 1958 to the present recently screened in New York City, Richard Peña, the revered director of the Film Society at Lincoln Center, noted that he first proposed the idea of a major series on Turkish cinema when he was hired in 1987. It took twenty-five years for this vision to be realized; easily the largest retrospective of Turkish cinema to be held in the United States, “The Space Between” is a fitting example of Peña’s great commitment to world cinema.

And yet that twenty-five-year gap between inspiration and realization might make us pause a bit. It suggests several things. The first is that as early as 1987, at a time when the “new wave” of Turkish auteurs who have come to achieve international prominence—figures such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Zeki Demirkubuz, Fatih Akın, Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Semih Kaplanoğlu, Reha Erdem, and Özcan Alper—had yet to make a film, the notion of a retrospective devoted to Turkish cinema was not an outlandish suggestion. This should help to counter the notion that not much worth noting happened in Turkish cinema before the 1990s. But equally noteworthy is the fact that such a retrospective did not in fact come to pass until 2012, which also suggests that even after the rise of this new generation of filmmakers, whose work joined that of internationally esteemed predecessors such as Yılmaz Güney, Metin Erksan, and Şerif Gören, Turkish cinema has remained largely unrecognized and unappreciated among audiences in the United States.

In his opening essay to the excellent catalog that accompanied the retrospective (which can be downloaded from the festival website), Peña cannily references both the accomplishments and the relative neglect of cinema from Turkey. As he notes, one of the intentions of programs like “The Space Between” is “to ‘help write film history’ by trying to fill in the gaps that exist in terms of our knowledge of certain artists, periods, or national cinemas.” But in a certain way, these particular gaps only become visible “when suddenly a national cinema about which we know very little begins producing a number of provocative, high quality works.” This has certainly been the case with Turkish cinema in recent years, “which has clearly become one of the national cinemas to watch,” Peña states.

And yet, as he goes on to add: “Experience teaches that these ‘waves’ don’t come out of nowhere: they’re generally the fruit of trends and developments that have existed sometimes for years, outside of the purview of most international film critics and scholars.” In the case of Turkey, the great achievements of filmmakers over the past two decades “rest on a solid foundation of courageous, ambitious filmmaking that has been part of cultural life in Turkey since at least the Fifties.” It is to the great credit of “The Space Between” that it takes as its goal the attempt to begin to trace the outlines of this cinematic legacy. Indeed, the festival’s title, in addition to referencing the “in-between” status occupied culturally and geographically by Turkey, could as easily refer to the space within the imaginations of US audiences just being introduced to cinema from Turkey.

In her excellent catalog essay “Cinema in Turkey: Inspiration Across Generations,” Zeynep Dadak helps to fill in the necessary background for new viewers. She begins by focusing on the pioneers of the Fifties and Sixties, such as Güney, Erksan, Lütfi Ö. Akad, Halit Refiğ, and Atıf Yılmaz, and takes pains to note that even during what is generally seen as the “decline” of Turkish cinema during the Seventies and Eighties, there was important work being done by film makers like Ömer Kavur, Ali Özgentürk, and Şerif Gören, all of whom were represented in the festival. But most of Dadak’s emphasis is on what she calls the “revival” that began in the 1990s; she includes here directors like Yavuz Turgul, Mustafa Altıoklar, and Derviş Zaim, who have not necessarily received the same international attention as some of their compatriots but have made important and quite popular films. Dadak also reminds us that this “new wave” of the Nineties has now been succeeded by the next generation, who rose to prominence in the mid-2000s. This new new wave of Turkish cinema was represented at “The Space Between” by Seyfi Teoman’s Tatil Kitabı [Summer Book] (2008), Raşit Çelikezer’s Can (2011), and Özcan Alper’s Gelecek Uzun Sürer [Future Lasts Forever] (2011), which was the closing film of the festival.

Of course, for all the noble efforts of the curators, the impossibility of representing such a rich tradition of cinema covering more than fifty years is obvious—imagine a similar attempt to capture the last fifty years of film from, say, Italy, or Iran, or Brazil, or Germany (feel free to add your choice to the list) in one festival. And one can always play the game of quarrelling with some of the choices: classic Yeşilçam could have been better represented, for example, and among contemporary filmmakers, the absence of Semih Kaplanoğlu was striking. The 2001 blockbuster Vizontele seemed to have been chosen largely for sociological reasons, as an example of a successful popular film, but a more interesting choice might have been Turgul’s Eşkiya [The Bandit], a beautiful film that was also hugely popular.

In terms of the directors best known to audiences in the US, Fatih Akın was represented by his musical documentary İstanbul Hatırası: Köprüyü Geçmek [Crossing The Bridge: The Sounds of Istanbul], a lovely film (and a clever choice for representing the filmmaker’s outside-in vision of Istanbul), but artistically a lightweight compared to his almost unbearably intense Duvara Karşı [Head-On], his deeply moving Yaşamın Kıyısında [The Edge Of Heaven], and even his scrappy and under-appreciated recent film Soul Kitchen. The great auteurs Demirkubuz and Ceylan had one film apiece, in each case a fine example of their work—the brooding Dostoeyskian vision of the former is certainly on display in İtiraf (Confession), and İklimler (Climates) is a perfect example of the ice-cold beauty of the latter’s work—but it would have been interesting to have featured films from earlier in each of their careers, films that might be unfamiliar to their fans in New York. Ceylan’s latest film, Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da [Once Upon a Time in Anatolia], had a (brief) run in the US; one can only hope for something similar for Demirkubuz’s recently released film Yeraltı [Underground], loosely based on Notes from Underground.

I was only able to view a handful of the films screened over the two weeks of the festival, and so missed out on several of the great neo-realist films of the Fifties and Sixties, and also, to my great chagrin, missed the chance to see Zaim’s darkly comic Tabutta Rövaşata [Somersault in a Coffin]. As Naira Antoun has recently written in a review of another festival, the act of watching a small selection of disparate films as part of a larger festival allows the viewer to come away with a particularly personal set of reflections, which is one of the most wonderful things about retrospectives such as “The Space Between.”

For me, one set of such reflections was set off by the film that made the strongest impression on me, Tunç Başaran’s 1989 film Uçurtmayı Vurmasınlar [Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite], described in the program notes as a “cult favorite.” An unabashed melodrama, with a screenplay by Feride Çiçekoğlu based on her novel, Başaran’s film tells the story of Barış, a young boy who grows up in a women’s prison. He is raised collectively by the women (his young mother is by turns affectionate and neglectful), but his closest bond is with İnci, a young and idealistic political prisoner. The film manages to avoid the traps that would lead it into mere sentimentalism, and it is also a deeply political film that never falls into didacticism. In one emotional sequence, a pregnant inmate gives birth to a son, lovingly assisted by her cellmates. A group of young political prisoners suggest a series of possible allegorical names for the newborn, all of them suggesting freedom, liberation, and peace; after a dramatic pause, the boy’s mother looks up and declares: “His name…is Ahmet.” With such deft moments of humor, Çiçekoğlu and Başaran leaven the darker themes of the film, before soaring back into emotional territory. Uçurtmayı Vurmasınlar is the sort of genuinely moving film that makes you want to recommend it to everyone you know (which is, I suppose, the definition of a cult film). It is also the sort of film that is difficult to follow: after watching it, Ustaoğlu’s Güneşe Yolculuk [Journey to the Sun], while a fine film, felt a bit didactic and dry, while Kavur’s Gizli Yüz [The Secret Face], though it was made two years after Uçurtmayı Vurmasınlar, seemed dated and rather staid (although the fault was not so much with Kavur’s beautiful cinematography, but with the script by Orhan Pamuk, adapted from a story that worked much better as a subplot of Pamuk’s brilliant novel Kara Kitap [The Black Book]).

I was also struck by the extraordinary vision of Yılmaz Güney, which dominated much of the festival. Güney’s influence on cinema from Turkey is enormous (“We are all somehow his children,” Akın has said), and his presence as a director, screenwriter, and actor in a number of films featured in the festival bespeaks this influence. Güney’s masterpiece Yol was actually directed by Gören, based on Güney’s detailed screenplay, while Güney was in prison, but their collaboration was so close that it should best be considered as a co-production. Yol is often described as the most famous Turkish film in history, in part because of its dramatic victory at Cannes in 1982 after the film was smuggled out of the country. It remains an incredibly powerful achievement. I saw it in a packed theater, with audience members who were clearly familiar with the film as well as those who were seeing it for the first time, all of whom were visibly moved.

But the festival also contained other examples of Güney’s mastery, for example his ability to elevate genre films with his intensity and keen political and aesthetic insights. The critic Murat Akser has drawn an interesting comparison between Güney and the American actor, writer, and director John Cassavetes; like Cassavetes, Güney first made his mark as an actor in mainstream films, eventually becoming a popular star (he was nicknamed the “Ugly King”), and then was able to parlay this success and influence into his work as an independent filmmaker, making films with his own production company. He was also incredibly prolific: between 1966 and 1972, he directed or co-directed nineteen films, among them important and influential works such as At Avrat Silah (Horse Woman Gun) (1966) and the 1970 film Umut (Hope), which was screened at the festival.

Another film featured in the festival, Ağıt (Elegy) (1972), which Güney wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, gives a good example of his approach to popular genres. The film’s anti-hero, played by Güney, is Çobanoğlu, who leads a group of smugglers eking out a living in southeastern Turkey; they find themselves alternately employed by and targeted for destruction by the landowners who control the territory. On the one hand, the film is recognizable within the genre of the spaghetti western, with clear nods to the work of directors like Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone; an unsympathetic viewer might see it as simply a derivative example of this form. But on the other hand, the film is also clearly influenced by the work of Turkish writers such as Yaşar Kemal, combining folk elements with portraits of contemporary society (the film also thematizes this storytelling itself, by featuring an urban intellectual who is shown writing the story of Çobanoğlu’s exploits). For all its conventional elements, the film is marked by strong writing and performances; the dynamics between the members of the smuggling gang are particularly complex, and one can sense Güney’s instincts as both a director and a performer, in the moments when he scales back his own performance to let other actors come to the fore in particular scenes. The film also exemplifies the humanist vision that guided Güney’s larger body of work. At one point, one of the smugglers is shown sewing a button onto his shirt; later on, a lowly member of the police force is shown performing the same action. In such moments, Güney transcends the division into “good guys” and “bad guys” that is too often at the heart of genre films; such gestures of parallelism echo a humanist tradition of filmmaking that hearkens back to similar moments in films like Renoir’s Grand Illusion.

Güney’s vision was, unfortunately, not very well represented in the discussion offered by film critic and curator Erju Ackman before and after the screenings of Ağıt and Yol. Ackman is a distinguished scholar involved in curating a festival of Güney’s work that has recently toured North America. But for some reason, in his remarks, Ackman took up a defensive and apologetic attitude towards Güney’s work that almost bordered on the patronizing (he also took pains to downplay the political persecution that Güney faced, remarking that he spent time in jail, but it wasn’t really such a bad jail, since he could receive visitors and work on his films from there). The two themes that ran through his comments were both linked to an insistence on progress: first, that Turkish cinema had come a long way since the slightly embarrassing films of the Sixties and Seventies; and second, that Güney’s films showed a country with many social and political problems, but that things had gotten much better in Turkey since then. Even in response to quite sophisticated audience questions, Ackman fell back on glib quips: asked about the clearly symbolic meaning of the rock slides that occur throughout Ağıt, he simply marveled that Güney had been able to shoot such scenes without the use of CGI effects; asked about the ways that Güney constantly undercut the seemingly “timeless” elements of a village story with visual references to modern technology, Ackman responded, a bit defensively, that Turkish directors couldn’t build fancy sets like Hollywood directors and so had to shoot their films wherever they could—as though having automobiles visible in a scene was simply a bit of carelessness on the part of the director.

Overall, Ackman’s remarks suggested a particularly contemporary sort of political and cultural position: one that combines a strong sense of Turkish nationalism (a nationalism that is deeply suspicious of any attempts to talk too much about “the past”) with a simultaneous sense of shame about Turkish culture, especially before a Western audience (this has been one of the major themes of Pamuk’s fiction). Of course, the complex work of an artist like Güney can never be accommodated by such a constricting position. Indeed, it may be that the worldly vision of Güney’s cinema was better served when Yol was screened a few years ago as part of the First New York Kurdish Film Festival (subtitled “A Cinema Across Borders”), alongside the work of that other great iconoclastic humanist, the Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi (their respective directorial debuts—Güney’s Horse Woman Gun and Ghobadi’s A Time for Drunken Horses—would make a spectacular double bill).

The discussion following the festival’s closing film, Özcan Alper’s Gelecek Uzun Sürer (Future Lasts Forever) (2011), was quite a different thing. In his remarks before the film was screened, Alper noted that he didn’t like to say much before audiences watched one of his films, but he did want to offer us one analogy. Turkey, he suggested, was like a family living in a large house with many rooms; when something was happening in one of the rooms that was disturbing or displeasing, the reaction was simply to close the door to that room. The problem was that eventually, all the doors are closed, and there is no place left to live, so the necessary thing to do today is to open up all those closed doors.

I must admit that, however apt this analogy may be, it struck me as somewhat heavy-handed, dangerously close to the realm of cliché, and left me with a few misgivings about the film I was about to see. I was delighted to be proven wrong. Gelecek Uzun Sürer shows us a young filmmaker with immense imaginative powers, great intelligence, and a huge heart. The film follows Sumru, an ethnomusicologist, who travels from Istanbul to Diyarbakır for her research: she is collecting and recording elegies sung by women who have lost loved ones in the ongoing Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Many of their lost fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers are among those who have simply disappeared, or who turned up dead and were counted among the myriad cases of “unsolved murders.” Much of the film takes place in a “Memory Center” in Diyarbakır (an invention of the film), shot against a back wall covered with photographs of these dead and missing men.

Sumru, we learn, has her own missing loved one who lies behind her seemingly academic interest in the topic, a Kurdish lover who disappeared suddenly from her life in order to return from Istanbul to his village. It is to the film’s immense credit that this element is handled with great delicacy, such that we can never quite gauge what motivates Sumru’s work: how much is personal, how much political, how much intellectual, and how much aesthetic, motivated by her love of music, and of sound in general (she spends many of the early scenes of the film walking from roof to roof with her microphone, recording the early morning sounds of the city). Gaye Gürsel gives a fine performance as Sumru, but it is Durukan Ordu’s stunning performance that anchors the film. Ordu plays Ahmet, a bootleg DVD vendor, avowed cinephile (in an early scene, we watch Ahmet rapturously watching the scene of Lenin’s statue floating down the river in Theo Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze, while his friend mutters “Uff, abi, how long is this film?”), and amateur archivist. Sumru approaches Ahmet, having heard that he had access to the archives that she needs for her research; having asked him over tea whether he will help her with her work, there is a long pause. Ordu doesn’t move, but his eyes shift rapidly back and forth, three times, before he finally meets her gaze and replies cautiously that he might be able to help. That pause speaks volumes about the difficulty of reckoning with the history that lies behind Sumru’s elegies.

Gelecek Uzun Sürer must grapple with the question of how to make a film about the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. By filtering its story through the eyes of Sumru (quite literally, in a number of scenes), Alper has found a way to make the search for the truth of this history part of the film itself (in this sense, the reference to Ulysses’ Gaze, a film about a search for a lost film that is also a search for the lost history of the Balkans, is hardly accidental). And by placing her alongside the character of Ahmet, whose apartment features prominently displayed posters of Güney’s films alongside those of Tarkovsky and Godard and Kurosawa, he informs us that he plans to use all the gifts of world cinema to help him in this search.

A number of scenes in the film show Sumru and Ahmet recording women and men talking about their lost loved ones, and in some cases singing elegies in their honor. These are real-life testimonies of actual cases. But one never gets the sense that this mixing of documentary and fiction film is done in the service of trying to increase the “realism” of the film. Indeed, by having us watch these actual testimonies through the eyes of those who are recording them, the film succeeds in reminding us that documentary, even when it attempts to strip itself of all aesthetic pretenses and simply confront us with the voices of others, always has to deal with the problem of mediating these voices and representing these stories. Similarly, when Ahmet goes in front of the camera to tell the story of his own family, this does not feel like a cinematic trick being played on the audience; it feels like a deeply ethical reminder of the thin line between “documentary” and “fiction,” and the distance between both of these and what we would call “the truth.” The juxtaposition of documentary and fiction, in other words, reminds us anew that at their best, both forms are attempts to represent bits of reality however they can, somewhere between truth and beauty.

Gelecek Uzun Sürer was greeted warmly by the audience in New York, as were Alper’s responses during the question and answer period. But what was most interesting was his response to a question from an audience member, about whether he feared for his safety having made this film, or was afraid to return to Turkey. There was clearly a desire on the part of such audience members (well-intentioned, but not untouched by Islamophobia) to contrast the forward-thinking artist with his monolithically repressive society. In his response, Alper took pains to refuse the black and white model of Turkish society, pointing out that as in any society, there are those who fight to uphold the status quo, and those who fight for a more democratic society, and that Turkey today is a place where such a struggle is taking place. But he added, with a wry smile, what he saw as the irony of the situation: that if America had not sided with and strongly backed the army in the 1980s, then Turkey might be a more open and democratic society today; but what the US wanted at the time, he suggested, was not a democracy, but a moderate Islamic government as an ally in the region. Later in the discussion, Alper also noted that a quote from John Berger featured prominently in the “Memory Center” portrayed in the film—“The records have to be kept and, by definition, the perpetrators, far from keeping records, try to destroy them”—was originally part of a message written by Berger in support of a session of the World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul. This quote, adopted by Alper for his meditation on the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, is thus also part of the effort of remembering the suppressed history of the US-led war on Iraq—a war that has, among its many other horrific and genocidal consequences, had more than a little effect upon the Kurdish conflict in Turkey.

Alper’s comments seemed to cause a bit of discomfort to an audience more prepared to enjoy the representation of the recent bloody history of a “far away” place rather than be confronted by its own implication in that history. Thinking back to Alper’s “house of many rooms” analogy, it struck me that if all those doors were to be opened, it would not only be those living in Turkey who would have to reckon with the consequences. In other words, this was a deeply ethical moment, one that reminded us of a shared responsibility for a shared global history. This has always been part of the ethical work of cinema, that great border-crossing art form. One of the mightiest achievements of “The Space Between” was to quite literally open the space for this ethical work. Let it continue, in a future that, indeed, lasts forever.

The first round of the Egyptian presidential election, like every other election over the past year and a half and unlike those over the previous sixty years, brought its own surprises. The usually unreliable polls were again wrong, as were most of the pundits (both Egyptian and foreign). In first place was Mohamed Morsi, the second-choice candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). Close by in second place was deposed President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, the former air force general Ahmad Shafiq. The two candidates who had widely been presumed frontrunners, the liberal Islamist Abdul Moneim Abul Fetouh and Mubarak’s former foreign minister and head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, took fourth and distant fifth places, respectively. The surprisingly strong third place candidate, Hamdeen Sabbahi, had been written off by most observers and many activists as too secular, too nationalist, and too Nasserist to be anything but a has-been. A shift of a tad more than three percent of the vote would have put him in the final round with Morsi.

Most Egyptians probably consider the contest between Morsi and Shafiq an apocalyptic scenario, although for very different reasons. The MB see events since January 2011 as a successful revolution that has brought them for the first time in their history to the power that their popular support warrants. They fear that a Shafiq presidency would restore the old order, not only stripping the MB of its newfound power and influence, but also hunting down its leaders for trial and jail. For them this is a moment in which their existential fears and hopes are on the line. The same applies for many of Shafiq’s supporters who saw the revolution as an overly zealous assault on a stable and increasingly wealthy society that has long since exceeded any reasonable bounds. They fear that a Morsi presidency would allow the Muslim Brotherhood to combine its control of parliament with the power of the executive to dominate the country, as did the old regime but with the additional, revolutionary intent of enforcing their particular version of Islamic law and politics. Supporters of the losing candidates in large measure see the revolutionary events of 2011 as an incomplete and failing endeavor to change Egyptian politics profoundly. For them no matter which candidate wins, the hope of a more open, socially just, and truly pluralist order will be lost in a renewed dictatorship. The perceived stakes of this election are, therefore, exceptionally high.

While it often has appeared that Egypt was divided into revolutionary and counter-revolutionary camps, this election indicates there are at least three major groups in the country: the Islamists centered in the MB, partisans of law and the old order, and supporters of a populist social-welfare state broadly construed. Each seems to be able to regularly command about a third of the electorate and there is no reason to believe that any of them will be leaving the scene any time soon.

After a year in which the Islamist movements, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, appeared to have dominated politics, the presidential election revealed a very different political landscape to the complete dismay of many Egyptians. The election campaign and, even more, the pre-campaign period were, as most of the last eighteen months have been, an emotional roller coaster. The first-choice candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the deputy general guide Khairat Shater, was disqualified because he had been convicted (on trumped-up charges) of a felony fewer than five years before the election. A week after the first round of the presidential election the MB-dominated parliament finally proposed a law granting political amnesty to those convicted of political crimes under the Mubarak era. Had they moved more expeditiously, Shater could have run, as could Ayman Nour, who had challenged Mubarak in 2005 and served four years in prison for his temerity. The presidential commission also disqualified the Salafi candidate, Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail who violated a constitutional requirement that no candidate for president have parents with non-Egyptian citizenship. Abu-Ismail himself had supported a “yes vote” in the constitutional referendum, which made that a binding condition, despite knowing that his mother had become an American citizen. He knew then, as when he proposed running for the presidency, that he was in complete violation of the constitutional provision, which, unlike the abrogation of the political rights of felons, could not be changed by an act of parliament.

It is no small irony that Abu-Ismail was disqualified for having a parent who became an American at the end of her life. So, too, would any Egyptian married to a foreigner, whereas Morsi can be president despite having children who are American citizens because they were born in the United States while he attended graduate school and worked as a professor in the California State university system. The somewhat xenophobic idea that the presidency must be an office reserved for “pure” Egyptians, untainted by intimate connections with foreign countries in their childhood or their marital bed, runs headlong into the reality that many professional and middle-class Egyptians have a variety of relationships with the United States, European countries, or the rest of the Arab world.

Many polls were conducted in the weeks before the election and they invariably showed Morsi winning less than ten percent of the vote while bestowing the leading positions on Moussa and Abul Fetouh. The two conducted the first open debate between presidential candidates in Arab history during which they traded barbed comments and directly insulting questions. Morsi and Shafiq, meanwhile, the two least charismatic figures in the race, were ignored or (when remembered) mocked. By the end of the campaign, even English speakers knew that Morsi was the Brotherhood’s “spare tire” without having to reflect much on the level of preparation and discipline required thereby. The MB’s decision to field a presidential candidate after months of denying that they would remains something of a mystery. Yet one obvious reality is that they had come to realize that almost any president other than one of their own would rapidly move to restrict their power. Another irony of contemporary Egyptian politics, frequently noted by Abul Fetouh (himself a former member of their inner leadership) is that the MB does not, strictly speaking, have legal status. Rather like the foreign NGOs whose staff members were charged with criminal behavior in the winter, the MB is not a registered organization, and its finances, elections, and internal organization are not subject to public review or government regulation. Unlike the NGOs, however, the MB is a powerful political and social force, but, in the wake of the revolution, it could be transformed by a president bent on making it at once legal and, thus, weakened. This Abul Fetouh explicitly promised to do.

Believing, as did most observers (including me had I been asked), that the second round would be a battle between Abul Fetouh, representing the hopes of the revolution, and Moussa, representing the fears of the felul (the conservatives and remnants of the old regime), many activists and members of the political elite spent weeks debating whether it made more strategic sense to back Abul Fetouh from the beginning or wait. The best strategic thinking was that Moussa would come in first, that Sabbahi would pull votes away from Abu al-Fetouh, leaving Morsi to sneak into the second round.  The scenarios widely (and at times wildly) considered were many but usually included a run-off between Abul Fetouh and Morsi, which would ensure some form of Islamist domination of the presidency, or between Abul Fetouh and Moussa, in which Egyptians would have to decide whether to back the most liberal of the Islamists or the most conservative of the liberals. The country, everybody knew, was dividing into two camps: the revolution and the counter-revolution of the generals.

Although the second and final round of the election will necessarily require a division of Egypt into two camps, the arithmetic of the first suggests that some surprising governing coalitions are possible. The top five candidates received about ninety eight percent of the vote so we can ignore the remaining eight.  The first two, obvious coalitions, represent the hopes of the MB and the old regime, respectively. Morsi hopes he can combine Abul Fetouh’s 17.5 percent of the vote with his own twenty-five percent of the vote and half of Sabbahi’s votes and govern through what he and his supporters will deem a revolutionary Islamic coalition. This assumes, of course, that all or almost all of Abu al-Fetouh’s supporters prefer an Islamist candidate and that many of Sabbahi’s voters will not cast ballots for a former Mubarak official. Shafiq, on the contrary, assumes that he can combine his twenty-three percent of the vote with Moussa’s eleven percent and win a significant portion of Sabbahi’s voters who have already demonstrated that they will not vote for the MB. There is also every reason to believe that Shafiq would benefit more from abstentions than the MB because abstainers are more likely to be found among dismayed supporters of Abul Fetouh and Sabbahi than among supporters of Moussa and Shafiq for whom this election poses an existential challenge. No longer available but tantalizing was a different coalition that earlier seemed impossible. Had, for example, Sabbahi and Abul Fetouh ran as a presidential/vice presidential ticket together there is every reason now to believe that Sabbahi would have gained some thirty percent of the vote and entered the run-off with Morsi with the near certainty that supporters of Moussa and Shafiq, a combined thirty-five of the vote, would vote for any opponent of the MB.

A last coalition of sorts that nobody talks about but obviously exists at least in theory is a “coalition of order” between the MB, Shafiq and Moussa supporters. If the assumption that guides the “Islamic revolutionary” coalition is that the MB were part of the revolution, there is also the possibility that they now speak for a large group of Egyptians for whom the revolution has gone far enough and who want a return to “normalcy.” Between Shafiq who believes the revolution has gone too far and the MB who believe they have brought it just far enough there is more room for political compromise than there would have been between either of these camps and Sabbahi. A Shafiq presidency with significant MB participation in the government could easily claim to represent some sixty percent of Egyptians. Shafiq would be unlikely to give the MB the so-called ministries of sovereignty but he might be quite willing to entrust them with several of the social ministries.

While any dreams of a Sabbahi-Abul Fetouh ticket are now spilt milk, they do suggest a profound problem with the Egypt’s oppositional political leadership, namely a seeming inability to put personal or partisan advantage aside, which ultimately cripples their ability to accomplish their own goals. Given that there was no prior electoral experience to suggest that Sabbahi had significant support that outweighed that of Abul Fetouh, their difficulty in reaching a common candidacy is understandable. It will nevertheless weigh heavily on the country’s future and it will weigh even more heavily if they and their followers cannot establish any ongoing institutional presence.

Going forward the question is which coalition—particularly the revolutionary Islamist one or the stability one—will be victorious in the presidential race.  Both have significant support among the Egyptian population, but neither has sufficient support to win alone. The votes of the third (I prefer not to think of it as “centrist” or “moderate,” two words that have bedeviled and confused discussions of Egyptian politics for more than a decade) coalition will decide the outcome. Supporters of Sabbahi and Abul Fetouh comprise nearly forty percent of Egypt’s voters in the first round, or about sixteen percent of eligible voters, since sixty percent of Egypt’s voters did not come to the polls. We know very little about who they are or where they are geographically other than at the almost useless level of the governorate.

The result is sufficiently surprising that many people suspect fraud, but no one can quite say how it occurred. Claims of fraud and the occasional mention that turnout was much lighter than in the parliamentary rounds masks one of the most important features of the first presidential round: the collapse of the MB/FJP vote due both to abstentions and shifts.

One of the surprising and so far unasked questions in the election is what happened to the significant number of MB and Salafist (primarily Al-Nour Party) voters who cast ballots in the parliamentary elections but were AWOL last week. Clearly millions of supporters of the MB in local elections did not cast votes for the presidency. The FJP, headed by Morsi, collected more than ten million votes (37.5 percent) in the parliamentary elections but Morsi himself won about 5.5 million (twenty-five percent). Some 7.5 million Egyptians (twenty-eight percent) voted for the Salafi Al-Nour party in the fall, but even if you make the absurd assumption that Abul Fetouh’s entire vote came from them why did he get only four million votes (eighteen percent)? Clearly some of the MB and Salafi voters (who are of course not themselves members of the MB or necessarily Salafis) voted for Sabbahi or Moussa but many must have not cast ballots.  Had Morsi received the same votes that went to the FJP (which he heads) and half the votes cast for Al-Nour Party, he would nearly have won the presidency on the first round.  He would have won nearly thirteen million votes out of twenty-nine million (forty-five percent) cast instead of 5.5 million out of twenty-two million. There was significant shock about the 586,000 votes (fifty-six percent of the those) cast for General Shafiq in the governorate of Menofia. But Menofia looks like an example of something else entirely. Nearly 1.2 million voters there went to the polls for the FJP alone in the two proportional list constituencies that made up the province for the parliamentary elections. This is more than the total number of votes cast in the province's presidential election. Morsi got about 200,000 votes; so if half the remaining million who voted FJP in the winter had gone back to the polls for the party’s leader in the spring he would have handily defeated Shafiq.

Not quite as puzzling but far from obvious is where exactly Shafiq’s and Moussa’s 7.5 million votes (thirty-five percent) came from. The vote for former National Democratic Party (NDP) offshoots in the parliamentary election was just under two million (about seven percent).  If you make the assumption that the combined five million parliamentary Al-Wafd and the Egyptian Bloc (eighteen percent) voters went for either Moussa or Shafiq then you are in the ballpark. This is in essence the claim that many supporters and members of the MB and the Salafi movements make, specifically that the electoral base of these parties was Christian and those voters cast their presidential ballots for Shafiq. Plausible as it may appear this assumption is not realistic.

The claim that Shafiq’s victory was due to Christians is not borne out by the numbers. As political commentators and activists have pointed out, Shafiq’s vote came primarily from overwhelmingly Muslim governorates such as Menofia where he won nearly 600,000 votes (about eleven percent of his total) and Sharqiya where he won more than 625,000 votes (about twelve percent). News accounts also suggest that in wide sections of the Delta voters turned on the MB, but again the crucial issue here is the absent vote for the FJP rather than the vote for Shafiq. Had Shafiq won 5.5 million votes out of nearly 30 million (about nineteen percent) his second-place showing would be less remarkable.

It is nevertheless certain that few if any Christians voted for (or will vote for) Morsi. Because Morsi has been reported as saying Christians who voted for Shafiq are not really Egyptians, the claim that they constitute the base of the old regime’s attempt to regain power is troubling for many reasons. This incendiary assertion suggests that the MB/FJP will use sectarian language to motivate supporters to the polls as they did during the March 2011 referendum and the parliamentary votes. It also reveals the profound difficulty the MB and the Islamist trend more generally have with understanding why Christians and many Muslims as well distrust them. That the Christians, as a minority facing discrimination and prejudice, might have their own legitimate interests in a truly plural and secular (in the American not the French meaning of the term) polity is clearly foreign to the MB. It is this unwillingness to recognize the limits on its power as a majority that makes so many Egyptians—Christian and Muslims—fearful of the MB.

The electoral campaign is important because it will bring to the executive office a candidate committed to the elimination of the losing side from public life, though not necessarily to their physical liquidation. The campaign also seems important because it will, almost necessarily, be a campaign that exacerbates the country’s already deep divisions over the revolution, its meaning, and the long-term value of the changes it has already wrought.

What applies to the MB applies as well to Shafiq who is campaigning on a promise to end, if not reverse, the revolutionary events of the last year. Both candidates appear unable to recognize that the Egyptian public is profoundly divided. The revolutionary solution to wipe out the counter-revolution (or felul), broadly defined, and the counter-revolutionary solution to eliminate the revolution, also broadly defined, will thwart any possibility of creating a democratic state in a plural society. It appears, moreover, that at least a third of the country understands this all too well and voted accordingly. Continued calls, especially by the losing candidates in the presidential race, for a presidential council are a recognition of this reality. Unfortunately this proposal to solve deep political divisions through an administrative improvisation, are too late, too little, and unrealistic. So, too, are attempts to resolve the dilemma through demands for guarantees from the two candidates and their respective supporters.  The renewal of demonstrations in the public squares of Egypt as I write this, however, suggests that the Egyptian people have not yet said their last word to those political elites who refuse to recognize that a return to authoritarianism, whether of the minority or a presumed electoral majority, is no longer a solution.

[Originally appeared in Nisr Al-Nasr]

On 6 June 2012, I will join countless others in commemorating the second anniversary of the death of Khaled Saeed, the twenty-eight-year-old Alexandrian who was beaten to death by plain-clothed policemen. The screams of Khaled echoed through Egypt and sparked the rapid countdown to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.

Khaled was the neighbor down the street whom I, admittedly, paid little attention to. Yet his posthumous transformation from another face in the neighborhood to revolutionary poster child has become a source of both inspiration and concern. Inspiring in that he has given a focus and impetus to Egypt’s revolution, and concern in that his mythologization considerably conceals the real problems that the many “Khaled Saeeds” of Egypt face.

Khaled has been distorted almost beyond recognition. To understand the extent of this, based on interviews from friends, associates and my familiarity and understanding of the district, I attempt to provide a descriptive account of his life up until that fateful night in June 2010. The facts of his life are contrasted with his mythologization and the polarizing effects of both. His death was not just indicative of the corrupt and brutal police state; Khaled’s life was symptomatic of the widespread despair that continues to plague Egypt’s youth and that manifests in a plethora of symptoms from drug abuse to the strong desire to emigrate. The reconstruction of Khaled Saeed perpetuates self-defeating myths that, by elevating him into a figure with saint–like qualities, minimizes and simplifies the dynamics of his life that led up to his death.

Khaled’s tragedy was a turning point in my life. I first wrote about Khaled Saeed shortly after his death in an article titled, “Egypt’s Collision Course with History.” On the day Khaled died, I was in Australia reflecting on my late father who had died two years earlier on 6 June 2008, near to where Khaled passed away. When the news of Khaled’s death reached me, it shook my world. It was not just the manner of Khaled’s death that had disturbed me, but the deep reach of President Hosni Mubarak’s repressive police state into a neighborhood where I had grown up and idealized as a beacon of harmony. Up until then, I naively thought that such things happened to other people, in the slums, Islamist strongholds, in prisons, on the news, Alexandria’s rural outskirts, any “other area.” My area became that “other area.”

[Outside Khaled’s house looking south. Photo by Amro Ali]

[Outside Khaled’s house looking north towards the coast. Photo by Amro Ali]

Call me Kaled Wave

Tucked deep away in the catacombs of social media rests the Facebook corpse of one Kaled Wave—the alias of Khaled Saeed. Khaled’s profile photo and Facebook activities would come to a halt like the time-frozen ashes of Pompeii. Ironically, it was the shocking and abrupt interruption of Khaled’s life that would unfreeze Egypt from its morbid state under Mubarak.

The photo speaks volumes of a young man that has been robbed of hope and a future. On his profile, the Alexandria he wishes to live in is not the once-thriving cosmopolitan city of Egypt sixty years ago, but the Alexandria Bay in New York. Instead it was his obsession to immigrate, particularly to the US, after having lived there for a short period of time. The closest form of escapism for Khaled was the Internet. In fact, he lived most his life online, using a pirated Internet connection from the Internet café below his home (not the one he visited on his last night). If his Internet connection went down, he would go down to the Spacenet Internet café (yes, that one) some thirty meters across the street. He would download the latest movies and songs and distribute them to his friends. He had an online relationship with two girls living abroad.

[Khaled with older siblings Zahra and Ahmed. Source: "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page]

Khaled Saeed means “eternally happy” in Arabic. He often made people happy, but it was questionable whether he himself was ever happy. When he was called up for military conscription, the harshness of army life made him go AWOL. His voluntary return and some family connections landed him with a light military prison sentence of ten months in 2006/2007. Khaled was often center-stage amusing the inmates with his antics. People rarely knew him by his full name. In his years at school, his childhood [and my close] friend, Wesam Mohamed, states that Khaled was known by, “Khaled Tayara” (“kite”) for attaching razor blades to his kite to threaten its rivals causing all kite-flying enthusiasts to flee the scene upon sighting the winged predator over Alexandria’s beaches. He later took on the nickname “Kaled Wave.” The name, which he went by until his death, was inspired by his older brother, Ahmed Wave—who was often living in the US—and his love for rap music and DJing (Khaled tended to shun Arabic music). It appears on his Myspace account. You knew Khaled was home if the music was pumping out loud from his second floor apartment. Being the resourceful character he was, he would power up his stereo on the beach from lamp pole wires. Finally, he had the less than flattering name of “Abu Sena” in reference to a crooked tooth.

His mother spent a lot of time in Cairo where her married daughter lived, leaving Khaled alone in the apartment – a rarity in a country where most of the young generation live with their families until marriage. Opportunism came knocking at the door.

Having the apartment to himself, Khaled attracted a new set of “friends” that exploited the privacy of his residency for substance abuse and his autophobic nature. They introduced the impressionable Khaled to the world of cannabis. Khaled’s need to “fit in” could at times reach bizarre lengths; on one occasion a friend swiped a medicine bottle from the bathroom cabinet and dared Khaled to drink it all down and he complied.

Tech-savvy, hospitable, youthful, energetic—everyone unanimously agrees that Khaled was always polite and willing to help anyone in need. His close friend Mohammed Mustafa notes that two months before his death, he had little money, and would sometimes forgo meals just to feed his twelve cats. Khaled tells, in his black alter-ego manner, Mustafa on one occasion: “I’m sick of attracting bitches, I want somebody decent. I just wish to love and be loved by somebody.” That wish was soon to be fulfilled by an entire nation.

Khaled’s Last Sunset

Supporting evidence lends credence to the view that Khaled walked into a trap, and was not the victim of a random police patrol. There is one figure that stands out from Khaled’s circle of friends, Mohamed Radwan, known by his fitting alias Mohamed Hashish. The street views him as the Judas Iscariot that sold out Khaled and most of Khaled’s close friends are convinced was on the police’s payroll. One strong piece of evidence for this is that despite Mohamed Hashish’s addiction to hard drugs, the light charges against him do not seem to match the gravity of his narcotics usage. One week prior to Khaled’s death while at Khaled’s apartment, Mohamed Hashish, to sustain his drug habit, stole a hundred dollar US bill from the money that Khaled’s brother had sent him from the US. When Khaled found out, he ran down to complain to his friends of what happened. His friends kept reminding him that Mohamed Hashish was a dubious character (and after Khaled’s death believe him to be a “morshid,” an informant for the police). Khaled was extremely furious at the breach of trust. Mohamed Hashish later called to apologize and Khaled forgave him despite the money not being returned. He would not see Khaled until the night of 6 June.

The police had picked up Mohamed Hashish a few days before Khaled’s death on bodra (a form of heroin) possession charges. Mohamed Hashish is released (meaning charges were most likely later dropped) and according to Mohamed Mustafa and most of Khaled’s friends, this was allegedly done in exchange that Hashish would participate in a police setup designed to arrest Khaled.

The popular view is that Khaled had a video of police officers sharing the spoils of drugs, and therefore the police wanted to catch Khaled. I am highly skeptical of the whole video claim, which does not square up with Khaled’s persona or activities and a number of Khaled’s friends are divided over this matter.¹ It comes across to me as a saving grace to shift attention from Khaled’s drug use to something more heroic. Wesam is in the camp of doubters: “I don’t buy the video, even when you watch the video, it’s open to different interpretations.” It is not that the police were concerned about Khaled’s welfare [that they were not], but the opportunity to catch someone in possession of drugs could mean anything from a promotion and fulfilling a quota, to holding something against Khaled in future in exchange for bribery or police cooperation. Mustafa notes the irony: “[Mohamed] Hashish is known to do the heroin and gets released, but it’s Khaled who gets killed for bango (a form of cannabis).”

Compelling circumstantial confirmations reinforce the lack of randomness and high likely involvement of Mohamed Hashish in that fateful ordeal. Islam Al-Messery, the owner of the Internet café just below Khaled’s building, notes that he has never seen before those two police officers on their street. Mustafa adds, “They were sighted in the late afternoon doing one big walking lap as if something was being cooked up.”

Wesam also points out; “Khaled was under-dressed in a way that indicated he was not leaving his street, just going to pick something up” (Khaled was wearing white long shorts and a black shirt the night of his death).

Mohamed Hashish has a notorious reputation that goes back to his conscription years. One source stated several years ago, Hashish went around the local area promising job offers to work at Alexandria’s esteemed petroleum company. The applicant had to pay 150 Egyptian pounds for the offer. Nothing came of it, and there was anger at Hashish as a result. In light of Mohamed Hashish’s dubious background and sycophantic reputation, he may not have been coerced but rather was opportunistic given his fixation with building connections. Yet Mohamed Hashish’s extreme despairing behavior on the night of Khaled’s death also indicates he was not expecting Khaled to die.

On the fateful humid summer Sunday night, Mohamed Hashish contacted Khaled and informed him that a drug seller would meet with them on the corner of their street facing the coast. After the sun had set over the Mediterranean just after 7pm, Khaled walked with Hashish and bought his bango (There is a black out straight after this of two hours that I’m still investigating). Mustafa reports according to second-hand testimony that Khaled suggested that they both go to his place. Hashish replied “Just come with me to the cyber [Spacenet Café] as I have to see something.” They continued walking towards Spacenet Café. As Hashish was speaking on his mobile through an earpiece (most likely to a friend), he is sighted doing a hand wave and slowly walked away from Khaled (but close enough for a conversational distance). A nearby mobile phone store run by a Salafi notes “It was way after Isha (the Muslim night prayer, around 8.30PM) when all the commotion began.” It was after 10PM.

Two police officers follow Khaled into the Internet café as Mohamed Hashish parts. One reliable anonymous source states: “At this point, Hashish walks (some say ran) on foot towards the Sidi Gaber police station and drives the police van back to the scene himself.” This claim transforms Mohamed Hashish from snitch to a barefaced accomplice. It would be incredulous if it were not for sightings of Mohamed Hashish with two mokhbereen (“detectives”) for his protection in the period following Khaled’s death. Back to the Spacenet Café scene, one police officer asks Khaled what he has on him and then inserts his hand into Khaled’s pocket. Khaled shoved one of the officers back making some references to the law and his dignity. The spited officers grabbed Khaled from his long hair and the beating began, first in the Internet café and continued into the doorway of the adjacent building. The details are on record. Khaled screamed, “I’m dying”, the police replied “I’m not leaving you until you are dead” (possibly not meant literally). The chilling aspect of the entire beating is that the gathered crowds did not get involved. One friend remarked: “We just did not think he would die, and this was the police we are talking about, who could stop them?” It is hard to believe it was only two years ago that Egyptians were that terrified of the police, even when they were brutalizing a young citizen.

[The entrance of the Spacenet internet café where the police confronted Khaled and began beating
him (You can see the stairs and marble shelf where Khaled’s head was hit). Photo by Amro Ali]

After the beating, the two police officers board the police van with Khaled’s dying body and driven back. Barely ten minutes later, the van returns and dumps Khaled’s dead body out in front of the building where he was beaten. Sitting in the police van past midnight, Hashish was in tears repeating, “I told Khaled not to carry drugs” to Wesam, Hashish disappeared from the social scene for many months fearing retribution (Although he had protection). In court he gave a watered down version that pinned the blame more on Khaled than the police. Mustafa remarked, “What is he fearing? We’ve just had a revolution!” Until this day, friends report that Mohamed Hashish has not been forthcoming with all the details of Khaled’s exact movements and conversations in the lead-up to his death.

[Entrance of the building adjacent to the internet café and the site where
Khaled was dragged and beaten to death. Photo by Amro Ali]

The question is still an open one as to whether Khaled swallowed the bango packet or if it was forcibly shoved down by the police. Interestingly, Wesam states “I came when they were lifting Khaled’s body into the ambulance, and his face looked morbid but it did not look like the horrific disfigured cut-up face you see in the photo, that photo could only have been taken after an autopsy.” In any case, the police behaviour and actions created the conditions that facilitated Khaled’s death. Khaled never made it past midnight, Egyptian history was altered, and the Khaled Saeed myth was born.

[Protest following Khaled Saeed’s death. Photo Tarek Fawzy/AP]

The Road to Mythologization

The name Khaled Saeed quickly grew to Rosa Parks’ proportions. His image from his photograph has become the enduring hallmark in Egypt’s revolutionary movement. Cleopatra square, adjacent to the crime scene, has become the “pilgrimage” site and way station that protesters march through and chant variations of “We are all Khaled Saeed.” As if by design, Cleopatra Square is positioned at the spearhead to the Northern Military Command headquarters in Alexandria where marching protesters end up creating a backlog.

The Poet David Lawrence noted that a “myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” Yet an attempt needs to be made if we are to understand the meteoric rise of Khaled Saeed and the national discourse he has shaped, and in turn has shaped how Egyptians perceive Khaled Saeed.

[Aftermath of Khaled Saeed’s death in Cleopatra Hamamat. Image from Almasry Alyoum]

Khaled’s myth is not surprising given that it was born out of an area that bears witness to the sparring forces of myth and history. Khaled lived and died on Medhat Seif El Yazal Khalifa Street in the middleclass suburb of Cleopatra Hamamat (“Cleopatra’s Baths”) – a possible namesake legacy of Queen Zenobia’s conquest of Egypt in 270 CE. Zenobia established the cult of Cleopatra and styled herself as Cleopatra the New.² The suburb last made headlines in World War II, when, according to local legend, the ghost of Sidi Gaber (a Moroccan Sufi who settled in Alexandria several centuries ago) saw the Axis warplanes approach as they were about to bomb the British military installations in the Sidi Gaber suburb. As to protect his adjacent mosque, which bears his name, waved the planes away and hence, the story goes, all the bombs fell on nearby Cleopatra Hamamat in the first week of the campaign.³ That was June 1940. Fast-forward seventy years to June 2010 and another ghost was to be offered up and that would eventually wave Mubarak away.

The case of Khaled became infamous, it is argued, because his death took place in brazen public and the grainy photo of his mangled face in the morgue haunted the nation. There is little dispute in that, but it does not take into account the factors that made Khaled a unique case in a country where victims of police brutality are not uncommon and have been caught on film in the past, though not with the same degree of gruesomeness.

[The ghost of Khaled Saeed seizing Mubarak during the 25 January revolution. Cartoon by Carlos Latuff]

Arguably, one of the factors that aided Khaled’s ascendency to the pinnacle of celebrity martyrdom is that he came from a middleclass background. This is critical as society is often more reflexive to individuals who enjoy such a profile than they would be to those of lower socio-economic or impoverished backgrounds. Another factor is that Khaled had no known connection to religious or political movements, and, therefore the absence of any obvious ideological bent in his background enabled many to claim ownership of Khaled as “their” everyday Egyptian. The fact that Khaled died in Alexandria tilted the scales. Reinforced by the popular arts, Egyptians are culturally predisposed to associate the coastal city with romance, escapism and various positive connotations. Had Khaled died in Sohag or Aswan, he might have gone unnoticed. Alexandria is Egypt’s epicenter of vanguard gravity, especially in relation to the country’s socio-political dynamics.

The street politics of Cairo matter most here. The absence of notable fact-checking human rights organizations in Alexandria, unlike Cairo, permitted a distorted view to come out. This was further aggravated due to Cairo-based activist circles’ reporting and “gratuitous” usage of embellished circumstances surrounding Khaled’s death. The fact that his tragic death crossed over into Cairo’s hub of movers and shakers further entrenched his national legitimacy and hastened his mythologization.⁴

Khaled also provided the missing link to the social media savvy generation – he was martyred at an Internet café while allegedly about to upload a video to YouTube of crooked cops sharing the spoils of drug money. However, irrespective of corroboration on this matter, the initial YouTube video claim fomented a rapid cognition to which people reacted intensely. One wonders if Tunisians would have reacted as vehemently if Mohammed Bouazazi were labeled a fellah fruit vendor rather than an unemployed middle class university graduate, as erroneously reported in initial accounts. The horrific image of Khaled’s mangled face went viral through the social media and the creation of the “We are all Khaled Saeed” Facebook page by Abdelrahman Mansour and Google executive Wael Ghonim transformed and sustained Khaled as a focal point for the nation to rally behind. Khaled became the human face of Egypt’s tragedy, but also its digital youth.

It is tempting to ask as to why did Cleopatra Hamamat’s residents not speak out to verify the character and fate of Khaled from the start? It is a case of the Al Capone syndrome. The Chicago gangster who despite running a vast criminal enterprise and murdering numerous rivals, is dethroned and imprisoned on mere tax evasion. For all intents and purposes, Khaled Saeed’s tragedy was not the worst the Mubarak regime had done, but once the incident exposed an Achilles Heel in the regime, Khaled then became the answer to redress all the lives taken away and injustices suffered in the past. It was more pertinent to stay quite if the myth served the purpose of the Mubarak regime unraveling itself. In any case, the national outrage was deafening that it was difficult to put any contrary view. One example was straight after the Egyptian revolution when I made one bare reference to drugs and Khaled Saeed on an Australian program; I received irritated calls the next day from Egyptian diplomats and other community figures.

This is not to discount the political context of the Mubarak era that had reached the end of its tether. The Egyptian public’s frenzied reaction at the return of Nobel Peace Laureate Mohammed ElBaradei in February 2010 more than hinted at the unquenched thirst for a “Messiah.” The stage was set, the script was written, and it now awaited the “appropriate” actors to show up and play out their assigned roles. Khaled was to be the chief martyr.

[Painting of Khaled Saeed in San Stefano, Alexandria, now painted over. Photo by Amro Ali]

So the question arises, what is problematic about Khaled’s mythologization? The very factors that play a part in constructing the Khaled Saeed we know today are the same factors that mask Egypt’s dysfunctional social system. The concentration of human rights advocacy work in Cairo at the expense of the rest of Egypt is an example. When a human rights worker in Cairo spoke to me in a self-congratulatory tone about what they did in Khaled’s case (as if to say Alexandria does not need its own representation), I responded that human rights depends on local knowledge of a city, extensive networks of contacts, lawyers, and importantly, for the police to know that they are being watched. This may explain why policing behavior is often much more brutal outside Cairo.
Other questions need to be raised from the subtext of the Khaled Saeed construct: What about the rights of those of lower socio-economic backgrounds? Does it matter that a rural youth may not have had access to the Internet? Would a dark-skinned Nubian victim garner as much attention? Can the term ‘martyr’ be applied to a Copt? To what extent would it have been her “fault” if it were a woman in Khaled’s exact same situation? Is there even a concept of Bedouin youth in Sinai? When you add it all up, there are many “Khaled Saeeds” out there on standby who we may never, and we don’t, hear about. Instead of utilizing Khaled Saeed as a signpost for the country’s current disparity and looming socio-economic problems, we use him as the template of what a good martyr should be and look like.

[Balcony of Khaled’s apartment, with his name written in Arabic. Photo by Amro Ali]

The Polarizing Saeed Effect

One of the spin-off effects of the Khaled myth is that it blames the victim, both implicitly and explicitly. Khaled Saeed’s myth is inescapable almost everywhere in Egypt except, not surprisingly, in our neighborhood where there is a degree of backlash with accompanied rolling eyes when the name Khaled Saeed is brought up – not helped by the world’s media inundation. I end up having to bite my tongue, if not argue, with my barber or neighbors following statements like: “Khaled used to harass girls” or “Khaled was not a good boy, he did drugs.” The implication of their remarks was that Khaled somehow deserved what came to him. This is not to mention my surprise at a comment by a mutual friend of Khaled’s straight after his death: “Khaled should not have run from the police!” (in any case, he did not). So Khaled is to blame for the police killing him or at the very least, the police behavior and conditions that led to his death?

Khaled Saeed (posthumously) gets off lucky, given that the social illness of victim blaming is all-pervasive. The Tahrir girl is a case in point – the young physician activist whose brutal beating at the hands of the military exposed her flesh and blue bra to the rest of the world last December. Well not many were blaming the military, according to popular opinion on the Egyptian street she “provoked them,” “was not wearing the hijab properly,” “the military does not wear running shoes,” “the image is Photoshop-ed” and insert your ‘denial is a river in Egypt’ reasoning here.

Decades of Emergency Law and Mubarak’s thug rule have torpedoed notions of arrest warrants, due process, and rule of law. This is why a Mubarak-era figure like Ahmed Shafiq with a questionable record can have the audacity to run for president and garner enough votes to make it to the run-offs. The promise of stability, it seems, is mutually exclusive with the rule of law.

The revolution’s unchecked adulators of Khaled Saeed indirectly contribute to blaming the victim syndrome – the very social injustice they seek to fight. In absolving Khaled of drug abuse and any other social-perceived misconduct leaves open the interpretation that someone who does otherwise is fair game to a police lynching. Raising Khaled to cosmic levels of heroism diminishes the real challenges that Khaled, and hence Egyptian youth, face daily. Khaled was not from another planet; he was the product of contemporary Egyptian society and its troubled young generation. Subjecting Khaled to sanitization, an airbrushed passport photo, an activist profile makeover, and parroting the questionable possession of an anti-police video does no justice to real day-to-day problems faced by youth and ends up censoring the questions of what pushes them to drugs, depression, religious extremism and so forth. What others and myself say will not change much the popular view of Khaled – a myth is more powerful than history.

[Khaled Saeed's passport which includes the widely circulated
personal photo. Source: "We Are All Khaled Saeed" Facebook page]

Finally, mythologization has underpinned the politicization of Khaled Saeed. One’s view of Khaled depends on one’s politics. On the one extreme, the 6 April Youth Movement has put Khaled on a pedestal – the wholesome and unadulterated Khaled. On the other, the Felul, Mubarak’s regime remnants, have pushed the “drug user Khaled” line (or ‘Marijuana Martyr’ as they once tactlessly called him) not because of a newfound respect for accuracy, but to vindicate the Mubarak regime. The Egyptian media circuit and nationalist commentators weighed in by inflating Khaled in order to eclipse the significance of Bouazizi and his act of self-immolation – it was an unforgivable crime that “lightweight” Tunisia should upstage the “mother of the world” by striking a blow to Egypt’s ego when it kicked off the Arab uprisings. The list of Khaled lovers and haters for their ends are, to say, endless. Not to mention a relative of Khaled’s whose unsuccessful bid for parliamentary elections last November had a less than subtle tagline: “Uncle of Khaled Saeed.”

The Road Ahead

Khaled’s tragedy is Egypt’s tragedy. We should not commemorate him because he was either a saint or sinner, but simply because he was a human being who was robbed of his rights and dignity once he breathed his last. We stand not only in commemoration of Khaled Saeed but also the countless nameless and faceless lives taken away before and since. Khaled’s mother, Layla Marzouk, is a remarkable woman who works tirelessly to bring attention to the mothers who have lost their children to the regime. Such a fraternity does not need any more heartbroken and distraught members.

[Khaled Saeed's grave, 27 January 1982 -- 6 June 2010. Source: "We Are All Khaled Saeed" Facebook page]

Khaled had started to turn his life around for the better in his final months. Only for all that to be cut short---very much the feeling many Egyptians have about the revolution. The theatrics of the recent Mubarak verdict that resulted in his light sentencing, along with former Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly, and the acquittal of Mubarak’s sons and the security henchmen, has once again reignited the revolutionary fervour across Egypt. As counter-revolutionaries and the felul, with the blessing of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), dig their heels in, Egypt’s revolutionary forces are overcome with a premonition they are going to experience more anguish as they seek to write Egypt’s Magna Carta with their blood, sweat and tears.

Khaled Saeed is a myth, but a necessary one. The extended Egyptian revolution is also a war of ideas whose story will prevail. The fate of Khaled Saeed is a reminder and an encapsulation of why Egypt rose up and keeps pushing the revolution painstakingly forward. Khaled Saeed enabled Egyptians to personalize and humanize complex issues that could otherwise have drifted into murky abstractions.

[Protest in Cleopatra Square chanting Khaled Saeed’s name on 30 May 2011. Video by Amro Ali]

[Aerial view of protest marching through Cleopatra Square
shouting Khaled Saeed’s name on 13 April 2012. Video by Amro Ali]

As Egyptians commemorate Khaled Saeed this year and in years to come, they also need to make peace with Kaled Wave so as to tune in to the war cry of a swindled generation whose political exclusion for so long has left them with the dilemma of drug abuse or religious extremism---the social equivalent of the current Ahmed Shafiq-Mohamed Morsy dilemma. A third way out is still pressing. Egypt does not need more Khaled Saeeds, it needs inclusive progress that can bear a torch to the youth and show them some semblance of what it is to be “eternally happy.” 

[The youth have unofficially renamed the street where Khaled lived and died after him. Image: Amro Ali]

----------------------------------------

[1] Wael Ghonim dismisses the video claim in his book Revolution 2.0.
[2] Okasha El-Daly, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings (London, UCL Press, 2005) 137.
[3] Interview with Magdy Hewedy, aging resident in Cleopatra Hamamat.
[4] Amro Ali, “E-gypt: The Convergence of Politics, Demographics, and a Wired Society,” Transcript of presentation given at Columbia University (29 September 2011).

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on the Arabian Peninsula and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Arabian Peninsula Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to ap@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week.]

Repression in Bahrain

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Imagined Heroism of the Saudi "Nail Polish Girl"
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Arabic

Outside observers frequently refer to Tunisia as democracy’s “best hope” in the Middle East—the likeliest case where the initial promises of the Arab Spring will be borne out. Of course, there are many challenges, including getting the economy running, drafting the new constitution, coping with some recent violence, and dealing with the emergence of the Salafis, a hard-line Islamist group. Still, Tunisia’s functioning state, largely successful and legitimate 2011 election for the National Assembly, politically neutral military, and relatively high level of economic development all seem to bode well for democracy’s chances there. If Tunisia is democracy’s best hope in the Arab region, then how is the international community supporting its democratic transition?

As Thomas Carothers, an expert on democracy assistance based at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has noted, democracy promotion has both “high” and “low” policy elements. The high policies of democracy promotion—which are formulated in Washington and Brussels—generally involve diplomatic statements, economic sanctions and rewards, or even military intervention. The low policies of democracy promotion—more likely to be formulated on the ground overseas, far from Western capitals—generally involve the delivery of foreign aid programs to support democratic transition or democratic consolidation in other countries. The international community’s effort to support the democratic transition in Tunisia has involved both high and low policy components. 

On the high policy side, both the United States and European governments have been strong rhetorical supporters of the Tunisian revolution. And their words have, to some extent, been backed up with financial action. The United States government, for example, gave a 100 million dollar cash transfer to the Tunisian government to pay down its debt earlier this year and will guarantee a 300-350 million dollar loan to Tunisia later this summer. Moreover, American assistance and cooperation with the Tunisian military have played a role in the maintenance of post-revolution stability and the country’s security sector reform process. European donors have also been key players. In addition to its commitments to the international financial institutions in Tunisia, the British government, for example, promised 170 million dollars to a new Arab Partnership fund to support political and economic reform in the Middle East, including in Tunisia. 

Yet despite Western states’ stated desires to support democracy in Tunisia using these high policy instruments, not all of their biggest promises have been fulfilled. The best example of an unfulfilled promise to date is the Deauville Partnership, a pledge made by the G-8 leaders in September 2011 in France to provide 20 billion dollars in support to Egypt and Tunisia through 2013. That assistance has not, as of June 2012, yet come close to being delivered. Moreover, the Deauville Partnership’s mandate now seems to have been expanded to include Morocco, Jordan, and Libya and its emphasis has been shifted away from financial commitments. The reasons have much to do with the global financial situation and donor countries’ tightened purse strings, especially as the Eurozone crisis rages on; as the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development put it bluntly in 2011, the Arab World “has chosen a bad time to revolt.” 

At the same time as the high-level diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis Tunisia have been forged in Washington and various European capitals, the local offices of assorted international organizations are also developing strategies on the ground for supporting Tunisia’s democratic transition. Those efforts are part of what Carothers calls the low policy of democracy promotion. As he writes, “’Low policy’ is much quieter and less visible, and resides mostly in the democracy assistance programmes that operate day-in, day-out, in close to 100 countries. These programmes are often complemented by quiet diplomacy at the embassy level, with very little direction from the top. While there has been oscillation with respect to high policy, there’s been considerable continuity in low policy.” 

The major international providers of democracy assistance in Tunisia are the European Union, various offices within the United States government (including MEPI and OTI), the United Nations Development Programme, and, to a lesser extent, various foreign embassies. Beyond those government players, many of the international NGOs in the professional field of democracy assistance—what I call the “democracy establishment”—now have offices in Tunisia. Those organizations include the Carter Center, ERIS, Freedom House, IFES, the International Republican Institute, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the National Democratic Institute, and Search for Common Ground. As international democracy assistance to Tunisia continues in the post-revolutionary era, we can expect even more organizations to open up offices. 

The local offices of the foreign donors and international NGOs have had some scope for figuring out on their own what they think are the best ways to aid democracy in Tunisia, whether through small grants or in-kind donations to local NGOs. Thus, international democracy assistance programs happen simultaneously but not always in conjunction with higher-level diplomatic efforts. Why is that the case? In part, as I have argued elsewhere, it is because it is hard for donor governments to monitor democracy assistance programs far away and in other languages. Overseas offices also have some discretion in their programming choices because there is little consensus within most Western governments on where democracy promotion should fall among their foreign policy priorities, which gives organizations in the democracy establishment more flexibility and room to maneuver. 

Given that situation, what do the international actors do in Tunisia under the umbrella of assisting democracy? I recently went to Tunis to find out. Many foreign-funded activities during 2011 supported the election and they will likely do so again when the next election (date currently unknown) takes place. International NGOs helped political parties craft their messages and campaigns (work that continues post-election), built the capacity of election officials, funded a media center for the election, and supported domestic groups that wanted to monitor the election, among other things. These are all typical parts of the international “toolkit” for a transitioning country. Beyond electoral assistance, international experts have provided technical advice and support for the writing of the new constitution. Moreover, since civil society organizations have rapidly multiplied after Ben Ali’s ouster, many organizations are new, lack capacity, and are poorly networked with each other. International organizations are trying to help Tunisian NGOs overcome those hurdles. As always, women’s groups and youth groups are a focus for the organizations in the democracy establishment. 

Will the efforts pay off in terms of a more democratic Tunisia in the long run? The political situation in Tunis is, of course, fundamentally uncertain and prevents any firm predictions. Still, there is much to be optimistic about. On the low policy side of things, effective programs will require international donors to closely monitor the political situation in Tunisia as well as their grantees and to cut their partners some slack because change cannot be expected over night. So far, and thanks to the donor governments’ solid political will to help Tunisia’s transition, international organizations in Tunisia are doing a good job of recognizing that change is a long-term process—although donors may get soon impatient as the days since Ben Ali mount. 

On the high policy side of things, international donors would do well to honor their financial commitments to help kick start Tunisia’s economy, which will be crucial for the country’s future. A recent IMF statement projected positive growth in Tunisia this year (2-3 percent). That figure could be worse, but it could also be better. Michael Miller, a political scientist at Australia National University, has convincing new research that shows that economic growth in democracies is a key factor that determines if other countries in the world democratize. In other words, Tunisia’s economy matters not only for its democratic future, but also for the future of other countries, in the Middle East and beyond. Therefore, for Tunisia to remain the region’s best hope for democracy, the international community’s contributions to help the country’s economy should remain a key component of their democracy promotion policies in Tunisia.

Confession: the images of the carnage in Houla did not move me like they seem to have moved the rest of the world. Yes, they were tragic, horrific acts of violence against the most innocent of victims. But they didn’t break anything inside of me that was not already broken, nor did they raise the level of outrage or sorrow I feel everyday over what is happening in Syria.

Maybe it was because in the twenty-fours hours before hearing about the Houla massacre, I had heard that a friend’s relative had been killed, I had heard that another friend’s elderly relative had been kidnapped by gangs for ransom, I had received desperate Skype messages from an activist in Homs, crying, “my precious ones are gone, my precious ones are gone,” referring to three Shaam News Network media activists who had been shot dead by Assad forces, I had spoken with the brother of a martyr in Aleppo, who told me that since his older brother was killed one week ago, he was trying to act normally but the truth was, his “heart was burning.” By late afternoon, when I watched the first video of the children of Houla, with their tiny throats slit open below their ashen, angelic faces, all I could feel was yet another heavy thud of dread. One we had felt many times before. 

The days after Houla brought the news of the death of Basel Shehade, the brilliant, young filmmaker who was killed by the shells falling over Homs. (Will the shells ever stop falling over Homs?) The days after Houla brought news of continued shelling and burning of Aleppo’s and Idleb’s countryside, and the deaths of another a dozen men — their eyes blindfolded and hands bound — executed in Deir al-Zor. The days after Houla brought news of thousands of Syrian refugees in Egypt who found themselves stranded with empty homes, empty pockets, and a bleak, uncertain future.

The days after Houla continued as all the days had before. But the world’s eyes halted on the massacre.

Houla’s images instigated the world’s outrage in its predictable forms: in heart-wrenching eyewitness accounts of children watching their families being murdered; in sectarian-tainted op-eds that cynically questioned who had perpetrated the crimes; in dry-eyed, canned statements by regime mouthpieces complaining about the media’s “tsunami of lies” which painted the regime as criminal when in fact it was a “victim.” There was outrage over the images themselves and outrage over the decision to exposing the international public to the violent images (as not to upset an innocent British boy or girl).

And the outrage moved from analysis and narrative to questions: Is the UN plan working? Is a regime-led investigation a fair way to proceed? Who committed the crimes? Is killing by shelling (by the regime) as bad as killing by close-range (by unknown “monsters” according to Bashar al-Assad)? Is it pronounced Houla or Huli? Were the slaughtered people Sunni or Shite (or Sunnis who had converted to Shiism)? Are we with or against foreign intervention? Who will replace Assad? Who will arm the rebels? Who are the rebels? Why is the Syrian opposition still fragmented?

And of course the debate: Will Houla be Syria’s Sabra and Shatila, Syria’s Srebrenica, Syria’s game changer?

What exactly is the “world” responding to? The graphic images? The sheer brutality? The number of dead? The gruesome stories?

Over the last fifteen months we have seen Houla and variations of Houla happen over and over. We witnessed slaughtered bodies in February in the Karm al-Zeitoun massacre. We have seen men and boys dripping with blood, with half their face blown off, still struggling to breath. We watched while an entire city was destroyed, missile by missile. We watched a man flattened by an Assad tank, over and over, into human road kill. We have seen dead children, not only slaughtered but bombed, burned, and mutilated. We know in addition to Houla’s fifty-two dead children, there are hundreds of others; in addition to Houla’s murdered men and women, there are thousands of others. Our dead have been left to rot on the streets of Homs. Our dead have been buried in the public parks of Hama. Houla’s mass grave is just one more to add to the others, in Homs, Hama, Rastan, and Jisr al-Shoughour. And let’s not forget the unknown thousands of Syrians buried under the concrete foundations of a luxury hotel in Hama by Assad the elder. 

Houla was tragedy. But it was not a game changer. Not even close. Not to us, at least. Maybe it was to those who have been hedging bets on Syria’s future. Or to those who keep a secret, magic “number” of how many Syrians are allowed to die before it’s too much.

How many more gruesome violent videos can we watch before we really can’t stomach it any more? How many people have to die before the world either says enough is enough, or turns away from their screens? How long before the daily death toll in Syria is no longer on the front pages and becomes an invisible battlefield, like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Libya?

How long before you are desensitized?

How long before you forget?

The cynics still claim that the majority of the Syrian people still back the murderous regime, (although by this time the regime and its “silent majority” should be irrelevant like it would be anywhere else in the world in face of such violence, including Bahrain). When a regime decides to kill thousands of its own, its supporters have become accomplices not neutral citizens.

Why the empty debates? Because the cautiously-watching (yet horrified) world has not decided yet on our “so-called” revolution. They claim it has changed from its romantic (and just) beginnings and has become armed, violent, and sectarian. While the world doubts, we watched the “sectarian” Abd al-Basset Sarout and his “bloodthirsty Salafi” FSA brothers sing in a room to a gleaming wooden coffin with a cross, that held their friend Basel Shehade’s shrapnel-ridden body. We witnessed the regime shut down Basel’s memorial service last Thursday in Damascus to the peaceful thousands who wanted to join the church service and light a candle in his honor. We watched last Friday in mosques across Syria, as Muslim men performed an “absentee” prayer for their martyr, Syria’s martyr, Basel. These are the Syrian people too, whether the world wishes to see them or not. Or perhaps they only tolerate seeing them as shrouded corpses.

Those who still argue searching for game changers in Syria should stop exerting themselves. Those who wait for Assad to change his ways and stop the killing, don’t hold your breath. For those who have been waiting for their magic “number,” it’s too late. The number is too high and has passed the threshold of forgiveness.

The game changed months ago while you were turned away.

Whether your eyes decide to confront or slide away from the images of our slain children makes no difference. Because we have already moved on, to face tomorrow, which holds only one Syrian certainty: there will be blood.

I, along with thousands of Syrians, made a decision from the moment the first fingernails were torn from the innocent hands of Bashir Abazid and his schoolmates in Daraa. After decades of our own silence, we had two words for the Assad regime: Game Over.

As for the world, across the spectrum, from the ones fretting anxiously to the ones claiming Houla was a “hoax,” and everyone else in between: we have one question: What’s your number?

Violence has defined the seven years since the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But there are ruptures in that now familiar landscape of burning tires; Israel’s abduction of Lebanese citizens, its invasion of the country’s airspace, mounting casualties from Israeli land mine and cluster bombs; the abuse and killing of migrant workers, and the sound of lonely machine gun fire somewhere in the night. This is only a list of the most discernible violence in Lebanon this past decade:

In 2006 a war with Israel left thousands of civilians dead and almost a million others displaced. In 2007 the Lebanese army, with the vocal support of many Lebanese citizens, made debris out of a Palestinian refugee camp. The army’s aim was to “root out” Salafi Islamists that had infiltrated the camp which housed four generations of Palestinian refugees. In 2008 a “mini civil war” broke out between the March 14 dominated Lebanese state and March 8 forces. Hundreds were killed and wounded in armed skirmishes in Beirut and in the mountains. These clashed were deemed diminutive against that always-already comparison of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990, the big brother that all violence is measured against. In 2011 violence returned to Beirut's streets when the government of Saad Hariri collapsed and Najib Mikati came to power. This year has been marked by violent clashes between Lebanese who support the Syrian regime and those that oppose it.

All this violence cannot be attributed to sectarianism alone. After all, Lebanese from all sects, genders, regions, and classes cheered on the destruction of a refugee camp and the killing and displacement of its inhabitants. In 2008 Lebanese citizens from all sects supported Hezbollah's actions and Lebanese citizens from all sects were against them. By 2011, Lebanese of all sects had grown tired of Saad Hariri's multifaceted deficiencies and Lebanese of all sects supported him. The word “sectarianism” fails to capture the nature of these disputes over Lebanon's future and its geopolitical alliances. In addition to a political system that produces sectarian identities as political identities, Lebanon is defined by underdevelopment and a class structure that sags with extremes. Furthermore, political leaders, many of whom used to be militia leaders during the 1975-1990 civil war, practice corruption and incite violence with impunity. This impunity rests on the painful truth that a majority of Lebanese citizens depend on these leaders and their patronage to make their families’ lives more livable. More painful still is the hard fact that beginning with the post civil war tenure of Rafik Hariri, all mainstream political parties have, without exception, followed neoliberal economic that ravage the middle and working classes. Only elites with disposable capital have been able to capitalize on these policies, further exacerbating the class divide.

In past weeks politicians, journalists, bloggers, and activists have been describing the shootings and killings in Beirut and Tripoli as both sectarian and a Syria “spillover.” These tropes are all too familiar; violence in Lebanon is more often than not attributed to an easily discernible “sectarianism” and to the negative influence of “outsiders” and “foreign” elements. Discourses of sectarianism and outside infiltration flatten the multiple factors that contribute to violence. Politicians use these discourses to absolve themselves of any responsibility. They use them to position themselves as the soothing balm of their constituents' frustrations and aggressions and as national figures who would protect Lebanon from the negative influence of outsiders. As they speak on TV and in newspapers, the public school system groans under the death kiss of still more budget cuts, electricity runs through the country with less confidence than candle wax, and unemployed and underemployed young men find purpose, a gun, and a paycheck in the defense of their neighborhoods, neighborhoods that become more homogeneously sectarian with every spasm of violence.

A focus on sectarianism and on “outsiders” also allows for the glossing over of other important factors in this conflict. We should not forget that, in the name of a domestic and international war against terror, Salafis from the north of Lebanon have been detained and jailed without trial or any hint of due process for years. Their singling out for “Lebanese justice” is part of what fuels their actions today. But not all who support the Syrian uprising are Salafis, because sectarianism has always been more of a secular political identity than a religious affinity.

What is happening in Lebanon should also be seen through the geopolitical lens of the Arab-Israeli conflict and US-Saudi foreign policy, part of which is war against Hizbollah and the very idea of armed resistance against Israel. As violence continues, Hizbollah loses their standing as a “national party” and is increasingly seen as a Shiite political party and militia. Their ability to maintain a ceasefire comes through brute force and the knowledge that they can easily defeat any configuration of Lebanese factions, militarily at least. This is a sad and dangerous chapter to a story that includes within it the national euphoria and pride that enveloped Hizbollah following the Israeli withdrawals of 2000 and 2006.

Similarly, a focus on sectarianism obscures other threads that together weave this warscape. The ties between communities in the North Lebanon and in Syria cannot be reduced to "sectarian affinity." These are communities that have been linked by marriage, trade, and deep social ties for generations. These ties carry the scars of redrawn borders and highways that tried to redirect trade and sociality away from Syria and towards Beirut and the rest of “Lebanon.” These ties also carry the scars of a failed economic policy that has abandoned North Lebanon to its falling schools, its corrupt and irresponsible leaders, and its dilapidated infrastructure. But North Lebanon is not alone. Everywhere, Lebanon has been abandoned to its criminal politicians, hastily dug up weapons, and ineffectual institutions. After all, only in Lebanon could the deployment of the army to quell violence that has claimed hundreds of casualties in the country's second largest city be seen as something extra-ordinary. We should not forget that the faces that promise us swift resolution and peace on our television screens are also the faces that threaten or have at one point threatened our lives with death both bodily and economic.

Above all, we should remember that Lebanese did not need a Syrian uprising to start killing each other or killing Palestinian refugees or Syrian workers. We have been doing it, to the applause of our at times politicians and at times militia leaders, quite successfully for decades now. 

Fifteen days from now, the Libyan people will go to the polls. It will be the first election of its kind in Libya, but not the first election in the country. Qaddafi’s Jamahiriya held elections, but these turned out to be very large rubber stamps for a regime that conducted the spectacular trick of centralization in the name of de-centralization. But this is going to be a fraught election. The social and political conditions are unprepared for the niceties of electoral democracy. At the Rixos Hotel, the US democratic consultants have been trying to “guide” the country to democracy, and to offer their wisdom about elections. Part of their guidance has been to suggest in the strongest terms that parties be set aside in favor of independent candidates. This means that one mechanism to create a robust political society is to be foregone, and in its place strongmen with strong purses are to be favored. The Muslim Brotherhood, obviously, is the target of this guidance, and it (with its Qatari backers) is furious. There are already rumbles that this election will be more a selection, with the neo-liberal elements from the Libyan Diaspora favored over the more earthy fighters who shed blood since the 1990s in the revolts against Qaddafi’s regime.

On Sunday, June 3, the commander of the Awfeya battalion from the town of Tarhuna, Abu-Ajilah Habshi, was restrained. The first report in the Benghazi newspaper Corina suggested that he had been kidnapped on the road to the Tripoli airport. Then, the Libyan authorities said that Habshi had been arrested. No reason for an arrest was given at that time.

Tarhuna is a quiet town forty miles southeast of Tripoli. It is known for its production of what used to be one of Libya’s main exports before oil, esparto grass. Qaddafi favored a section of the town’s elite, and had close links with the Tarhuna tribal hip. From among this leadership, Abu-Ajilah Habshi broke with the Qaddafi regime in the first weeks of the rebellion in 2011. Pressured by his kinsmen, Habshi left for Tunisia and then returned to Libya through Egypt. In Benghazi, he formed the Awfeya battalion, which fought along the Mediterranean Road under cover of NATO bombardment. It would make sense, then, if his kinsmen decided to kidnap him out of retribution for turning against Qaddafi. A resurgent “Green Resistance” has begun to assert itself in the margins of Libyan society. It is not clear how much this resistance is made up of revenge killings, or is motivated out of fear for the new order.

It appears, however, that Habshi was not kidnapped, but was arrested by the government. Unable to get verification of his whereabouts, the Awfeya battalion seized the Tripoli airport on Monday. This is not the first time that the airport has been used as a pawn in a battle for power. In December 2011, the forces loyal to General Khalifa Hifter (who I had called “America’s Libyan” in March last year) commandeered the airport road after unknown gunmen shot at Hifter’s car at a checkpoint. At the time the military authorities placed the blame on thuwar(revolutionaries) from Zintan. The army shelled their positions, obliterating them. The airport itself had been in command of the Zintanthuwar until April of this year, when the government’s forces finally took control of it.

The Awfeya battalion held the airport for several hours before the government’s armed forces arrived, fought with the battalion and retook the airport by Monday evening.

Tarhuna tells us a great deal about the fragile state of Libyan politics. This town is divided in its loyalties. A considerable section remains loyal to Qaddafi, and has found no space to develop its allegiances in the political domain. A ban on the “glorification of Qaddafi” extends to offering any position words of the past forty years of Libya’s history. Such a ban, and a de-Qaddafication, has alienated this section of the population. In April, according to the Libya Herald, there was a failed attempt to murder the deputy head of the Tarhuna Military Council, Colonel Abdullah Hussein and his colleague Colonel Salim Souissi. In May, when the Misrata thuwar attempted to go to Bani Walid to flush out pro-Qaddafi militias there, armed forces from Tarhuna blocked the road.

Armed checkpoints are back on the streets of Tripoli. Fighting in west Tripoli late into Monday night resulted in the death of at least one militia member. Mohamed Nasr Hrizi of the National Transitional Council finally gave a reason for al-Habshi’s arrest. Hrizi told a televised press conference that al-Habshi had been driving armed vehicles without authorization. His future is in question.

The black vomit of oil profits seep into coffers that are absent popular control. Oil contracts have to be doled out with the NATO member states first in the queue. A salty Islamist, Belhaj, is the most popular figure amongst the masses and his political ambitions must be denied. There is too much at stake for the US, its European allies, and the neoliberal clique that runs the National Transitional Council. They are alert to their responsibilities to themselves as the political grammar is written for Libya. Considerations of geo-politics prevent the views of the Libyans from coming to the surface. Bans on political parties are only one part of the muzzle. An amnesty for the crimes of the thuwarsmeans that their victims feel like strangers in their land, and they hold tighter to their guns. This amnesty is of a piece with NATO’s refusal to allow an evaluation of its bombardments on Libya.

Abu-Ajilah Habshi has vanished into the pit of the Libyan prisons. He joins the almost seven thousand detainees who have not been brought before a court. They are on the other side of the line drawn by the Libyan authorities: those on their side are good, and the others are bad.

[Vijay Prashad’s new book, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter , is published by AK Press. He will be appearing at the Brecht Forum in New York City this Thursday at 7:30.]

[This article was originally published on Counterpunch.]

 باستثناء المصريين، لا يسبق أحد الإدارة الأمريكية قلقاً وفضولاً لمعرفة هوية واسم الرئيس المقبل. وأثبتت خبرة الستين عاماً الأخيرة أن الرئيس المصري يمثل حجر الأساس الأهم للعلاقات بين القوة الأكبر فى عالم اليوم من ناحية، وبين القوة الأكبر فى الشرق الأوسط من ناحية أخرى. ويثبت التاريخ أن ميول ورؤية رئيس مصر هي ما يدفع العلاقات بين الدولتين للأمام أو يرجع بها للخلف.

وكان لما آلت إليه نتائج المرحلة الأولى من حصر المنافسة الرئاسية بين مرشح جماعة الإخوان المسلمين، الدكتور محمد مرسي من ناحية، فى مواجهة الفريق أحمد شفيق، آخر رئيس وزراء فى عهد الرئيس السابق حسني مبارك، من ناحية أخرى، نتائج مربكة لصانع السياسة الأمريكي حيث ترك بين بديلين أحلاهما مر. 

رئاسة مرسي تعنى لواشنطن أن عليها التعامل مع إطار مختلف للحكم فى مصر يقع على النقيض مما ألفته واشنطن خلال سنوات حكم مبارك الثلاثين. ويعني كذلك التعامل مع صفوة جديدة ذات مرجعية إسلامية غير مضمونة التوجهات ضد المصالح الأمريكية في مصر والشرق الأوسط. وكان لما ذكرته بعض أصوات داخل الكونجرس من أن العلاقات بين الدولتين ستتضرر حال وصول رئيس إسلامي لحكم مصر، أثره الكبير على تدعيم هذا التصور. 

أما رئاسة شفيق فتعني لواشنطن أن تغييراً لم يحدث فى مصر، وهو ما يبدو بديلاً ممتازاً للمصالح الأمريكية فى مصر وخارجها، إلا أن شبح عدم الاستقرار الذى قد تحضره معه رئاسة شفيق، وما تمثله من هزيمة كبيرة للثورة المصرية بما قد يعود معه التظاهرات المتكررة سيزيد الضغط على شفيق ويجعله عاجزاً عن القيام بالدور الذى قام به رئيسه السابق مبارك تجاه المصالح الأمريكية. 

ومن المعروف أن العلاقات المصرية الأمريكية متشعبة، وتحكمها مصالح وحسابات عديدة، ولذا لا تميل واشنطن رسمياً أو علنياً إلى شخصنة علاقاتها الهامة والإستراتيجية مع مصر، أو اختزالها فى الرهان على فريق أو شخص ضد آخر. 

ورغم ما تبديه واشنطن من انفتاح كبير على جماعة الإخوان المسلمين خاصة فى الشهور الأخيرة، إلا أن احتمال اختلاف توجهات رئاسة مرسي عن توجهات رئاسة مبارك فيما يتعلق بملفات السياسة الخارجية الأساسية مثل مستقبل العلاقات المصرية ــ الإسرائيلية، ومستقبل العلاقات المصرية ــ الإيرانية، والتعاون الأمنىي بين واشنطن والقاهرة، يرفع من سقف القلق بشأن بوصلة السياسية الخارجية لمصر بعد انتخاب رئيس جديد من جماعة الإخوان المسلمين. 

ويرى الكثيرون من خبراء واشنطن أن سنوات العلاقات الجيدة والمتينة بين دولتهم ومصر انتهت، ولابد من إعادة التفكير فى إستراتيجية جديدة لعلاقات مغايرة مع مصر ومع رئيسها الجديد. إلا أنهم يعجزون عن تقديم بديل مستقبلي لعلاقات مختلفة تجمع بلادهم بمصر الديمقراطية التى يفترض فيها أن تتغير قياداتها السياسية دورياً، وما قد يتتبعه ذلك من إمكانية تغيير توجهات السياسة الخارجية المصرية كذلك. 

خلال حكم مبارك حرصت واشنطن على الحفاظ على أهدافها الكبرى فى المنطقة من خلال تحالف قوي مع القاهرة، وارتبط بهذا التحالف وهذه الأهداف تلقى الجيش المصرى مساعدات عسكرية بصورة مستقرة منذ نهايات سبعينيات القرن الماضى استقرت مؤخراً عند معدل 1.3 مليار دولار سنويا. 

يقلق واشنطن أن ينتج عن الانتخابات الرئاسية وجود رئيس مصري منتخب ضعيف. وتعكس هذه المخاوف نقطتين هامتين، أولهما يعكس إدراكاً متزايداً لحجم الضعف الذى وصلت إليه الدولة المصرية، وثانيهما يتعلق بخطورة تشكيك بعض فئات الشعب المصري فى «شرعية الرئيس القادم لمصر»، خاصة لو كان شفيق. 

إلا أنه لا يجب أن يفهم من الاهتمام الأمريكي بمصر أن واشنطن تقدر على التأثير فى مستقبل الحكم وهوية الرئيس القادم. ورغم ما تزخر به واشنطن من مؤتمرات وندوات ودراسات لسيناريوهات انتقال السلطة، والتساؤول حول هوية ساكن القصر الجمهوري القادم، إلا أن هذا يعكس فقط قوة وأهمية مصر ودورها الإستراتيجي للمصالح الأمريكية، ولا يعكس قوة فعلية تتمتع بها الولايات المتحدة فيما يتعلق بمستقبل حكم مصر. 

تطرح بعض الوجوه فى واشنطن دعوات متكررة لإدارة الرئيس أوباما بأن يذكر المصريين أن لواشنطن مصالح عليا فى مصر وخارجها، وأن اختيارهم للرئيس الجديد قد يؤثر على هذه المصالح، وعليه سيدفع المصريون ثمناً لاختياراتهم. وعلينا نحن من جانبنا أن نحدد بوضوح أهداف الدولة المصرية الجديدة من علاقاتها بالولايات المتحدة بعيداً عن هوية وميول الرئيس الجديد سواء كان مرسي أو كان شفيق. 

يوم 21 يونيو ستترقب واشنطن إعلان اسم الحاصل على أكبر عدد من الأصوات الصحيحة والفائز بمنصب رئيس الجمهورية فى مصر. وعلى هذا الرئيس الجديد أن يضع أهدافاً واضحة تحدد طبيعة العلاقات التى ستجمع القاهرة بواشنطن بعد انتخابه. وسواء أصبحت تلك العلاقات خاصة أو عادية أو أقل من العادية، فلابد أن تبتعد عن مزاج الرئيس، وأن تعكس فقط مصالح الدولة المصرية الاستراتيجية. ويسلح الرئيس المصرى الجديد رأياً عاماً قويا ومؤثراً لم يكن له وجود خلال حكم الرؤساء السابقين. 

ويطرح هذا كله عدة تساؤلات حول ضرورة البحث عن طريقة جديدة غير تقليدية لإدارة القاهرة علاقاتها مع واشنطن؟ ويجب أن يستعد الرئيس الجديد لتوفير إجابات عن أسئلة قديمة مثل هل سيقدر رئيس مصر الجديد على تحييد أو على الأقل تقليل البعد الإسرائيلي فى علاقاتنا بواشنطن؟ وهل سيملك الرئيس الجديد من الشجاعة ما يمكنه من رفض المساعدات الاقتصادية والعسكرية الأمريكية جملة وتفصيلاً؟ وهل سيجرؤ الرئيس الجديد على زيارة طهران فى أول أسابيع حكمه؟ وهل سيخلِّص الرئيس الجديد مصر من عبء خصوصية العلاقات مع واشنطن؟

[عن جريدة "الشروق" المصرية]

لا شك في أن جدار الفصل العنصري، الذي بدأ العمل عليه منذ العام 2002 على الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة، كان ضمن مشروع ممنهج لخلق واقع جديد، عبر اختراقه أراضي المحافظات الفلسطينية، عازلاً لبعضها، ومحاصراً للبعض الآخر، وفي النتيجة ملتهماً آلاف الدونمات، ومفسحاً المجال لسياسات وعمليات تهويدية جديدة، على رأسها ضم الكتل الاستيطانية الموجودة على أراضي الضفة الغربية لإسرائيل، عبر اتّباع سياسة الأمر الواقع. لقد بدأ الاحتلال الإسرائيلي، وعلى الرغم من قرارات مجلس الأمن الدولي، وقرارات الجمعية العامة التابعة للأمم المتحدة التي تعتبر هذا الضم غير قانوني ولا تعترف به، بتغيير الواقع على الأرض في مسعى منه لتبديد أي إمكان لتقسيم القدس، أو للتنازل عن الشطر الشرقي منها، أو تحويل مسار الجدار ذاته إلى المسار النهائي لترسيم الحدود.

كانت القدس إذن، في صلب هذا المشروع التهويدي، حيث عزلها الجدار عن الضفة الغربية، معززاً ومكثفاً لسياسة الإغلاق التي يتبعها الاحتلال منذ العام 1967، وهو ما انعكس سلباً على مجمل نشاطات الفلسطينيين هناك، بما يشمل الجوانب الاجتماعية، الاقتصادية، الصحية، الدينية، الثقافية، وبما يؤثر أيضاً على المسألة الديموغرافية للمدينة، وذلك بعرقلة النشاطات الحياتية للمقدسيين، والفصل القسري بينهم وبين امتداداتهم الطبيعية والبنيوية مع مدن الضفة الغربية وقراها، وتحويل نشاطاتهم واهتماماتهم نحو المؤسسات والمراكز الإسرائيلية.

الحياة الاجتماعية

شكّلت سياسة الإغلاق قطيعة ملموسة مع الفلسطينيين بالضفة، وذلك بعرقلة حركة القادمين إلى القدس، عن طريق الحواجز والبوابات وجدار الفصل العنصري، أو عن طريق الإجراءات المشددة في استصدار التصاريح، مع ما يرافقها من معاملة قاسية وغير إنسانية مصحوبة بالشتائم والإذلال والإهانات بحق الراجعين إلى القدس. يقول الحاج أبو أحمد من سكان البلدة القديمة، إن البلدة القديمة تشبه في المساء البلد المهجور، تغلق المحال أبوابها، وتتوقف حركة المشاة، على نقيض أعوام ما قبل الانتفاضة: "كانت البلدة عمرانة والناس تروح وتيجي ...".

ينسحب هذا الأمر على العديد من المرافق الاجتماعية، فقد حالت سياسة العزل والإغلاق دون الزيارات الاجتماعية، وعقّدت الزواج بين الفلسطينيين داخل الجدار وأهاليهم المقيمين خلفه، وعسّرت التواصل الاجتماعي على اختلاف أنواعه. وما تؤكده حالات الزواج بين الجانبين هو لجوء الأزواج من المنطقتين إلى السكن خارج منطقة القدس، حيث باتت كفر عقب هي المأوى لهم، فيما تعرقلت حالات زواج أخرى، كحالة إحدى مواطنات القدس، التي رفض أهلها تزويجها لشاب من رام الله. تقول الفتاة: "في آخر عشرة سنوات بات السؤال الأول للمتقدم للزواج ما لون هويته؟".

اضطّر العديد من المقدسيين لتغيير أماكن سكنهم بما يتلاءم مع التزاماتهم وحاجاتهم الإنسانية، فالبعض ترك سكناه خارج الجدار لئلاّ يخسر بيته في القدس، والبعض الآخر سكن في الضواحي ليكون قريباً من عمله أو أقاربه، وهو ما يعني تشويه الحياة الاجتماعية التقليدية، وإجبار الفلسطينيين على إعادة تشكيلها، لتجنب أضرار السياسة الإسرائيلية التهويدية. وحول هذه القضية، يقول مدير دائرة الخرائط في جمعية الدراسات العربية خليل التفكجي: "إن العائلة المقدسية هي عائلة ذات نواة صلبة، كما أنها ممتدة، وبالتالي فإن المسعى الإسرائيلي يهدف لتحجيم هذه العائلات وفصلها، فيما الأسرة يتم تدميرها من الداخل بثقافة دخيلة وآفات اجتماعية على اختلافها"، ويضيف التفكجي: "سيصير 185 ألف مقدسياً منفصلين اجتماعياً ومعزولين عن امتدادهم، وهو ما يولِّد تطور ونمو مختلفين تماماً عمّا هو عليه في الضفة، وهو ما يشبه الثقافة في غزة وأراضي ال48، إذا إنها تحمل في داخلها خصوصية التقوقع المفروض عليها، بحيث تتلاءم مع خصوصيتهم كشريحة ذات وضعية خاصة، وليس مع الثقافة الفلسطينية الجمعية. الحالة ذاتها قد تفرز توجهات نحو الاندماج في المجتمع الثاني. ولكن إسرائيل في النهاية تسعى لإخراج جيل فلسطيني عدمي وغير مُنتمٍ يعمل لديها كعبيد لا أكثر، بمعنى هي تشمل كل من لم يستطع الاندماج في ثقافة المنتصر المُحتل، ولا يستطيع أن يعيش في إطار ثقافته".

العمل والاقتصاد  

هناك عشرات الحالات التي تشبه الحالة السابقة، والتي تقع ضمن التأثيرات الديموغرافية التي أحدثها الجدار وسياسات الاحتلال المرافقة، على أنَّ الأمر لم يتوقف عندها، بل نراه انسحب إلى مرافق أخرى. وفي هذا السياق يقول أحد تجار البهارات في القدس: "سابقاً، كنت تسمع كل اللّهجات الفلسطينية الخليلية والنابلسية، الجنوبية والشمالية والبدوية، اليوم ما بتسمع إلا لهجة أهل القدس ولهجة الأجانب"، ويؤكد أن التجارة تضررت بشكل كبير، ويصف مرحلة ما قبل الإغلاق والجدار بأنها "أيام زمان، أيام العز"، حيث كان يبيع البهارات لمختلف المناطق. لقد كانت القدس مركزاً اقتصادياً جاذباً للمستثمرين ورؤوس الأعمال وللصناعات الصغيرة، وكانت حركة التسوق نشيطة، وكانت العديد من المنشآت الاقتصادية تعتمد فقط على سكان ضواحي القدس، أو على سكان الضفة الغربية. أمّا مع الإغلاق فقد تضررت المواصلات، إذ كانت حركتها نشطة بين الضفة الغربية والقدس، وتضررت كذلك العديد من المصانع الصغيرة والمراكز التجارية، التي اضطرت للانتقال إلى الضفة الغربية أو أجبرت على أن تغلق أبوابها نهائياً، مخلفة وراءها حالة ركود اقتصادي، وأوضاعاً اجتماعيةً قاسية.

ولم تعد القدس، على وقع هذه التطورات، تشكل مركزاً مشجعاً للعمل والاستثمار، فلم تعد السوق قادرة على استيعاب العدد الكبير من الباحثين عن عمل، وهو ما دفع بدوره العمال المقدسيين إلى البحث عن عمل خارج السوق المقدسية. وقد انعكس هذا على الحالة المعيشية للمقدسيين، خاصة في ظل تمييز وإجحاف يتبعه الاحتلال في مستوى الخدمات التي يقدمها إليهم، وخصوصاً التمييز في الميزانيات وتوزيعها. وحول هذا الموضوع يلخِّص د. نظمي الجعبة، أستاذ التاريخ في جامعة بيرزيت، الوضع بقوله: "لم تعد القدس تجذب المستهلكين أبداً، والكفاءات بدورها انتقلت إلى منطقة رام الله، فالقدس خالية حتى من منطقة صناعية، والمقاولين وخصوصاً مقاولي الإسكان تضرروا بشكل كبير في القدس، الكثير من المستثمرين ملّوا من عناء الحواجز فسكنوا رام الله، وبقيت القدس تعاني حالة تفريغ قاسية"، ويضيف: "باتت حالة القدس مزرية في ظل مدارس غير جاذبة، ترتفع فيها نسب تسرّب الطلاب، كما تحوّل المقدسيون المتسربون إلى عمال تنظيفات حتى يكاد يخلو شارع في القدس لا ينظفه مقدسي، كل هذا متوافق مع المشروع الإسرائيلي المتجلي باتجاهين: الأول، تشجيع الاستيطان وتسهيل حياة المستوطنين؛ والثاني، وضع العراقيل أمام المقدسيين. أمام كل ذلك فمستقبل المدينة هو مدينة مفرغة من سكانها الأصليين، ومن يتبق منهم يتم تجريده من الهوية الفلسطينية المميزة له".

التعليم الأكاديمي

يدرس أغلبية طلبة القدس في جامعات بالضفة الغربية، وقد بات مع سياسة الإغلاق والحواجز الوصول إلى جامعاتهم متعباً للغاية، مما يضطر قسم كبير من هؤلاء الطلاب إلى أن يقيموا بقرب جامعاتهم، وعدم العودة يومياً لمنازلهم بالقدس. لكن، وبالنسبة على القسم الآخر من الطلاب الذين يسافرون صباحاً على جامعاتهم ويعودون مساءً، فقد باتت الحواجز تشكّل تحدياً حقيقياً. تقول الطالبة رزان جبريل من بيت صفافا، تدرس هندسة الكمبيوتر في جامعة القدس في أبو ديس، إنها تخرج من البيت في الساعة السادسة والنصف صباحاً، لتصل إلى محاضرات الساعة الثامنة، كما أن طريق العودة يحتاج إلى ساعة ونصف على الأقل، هذا إذا لم تحدث مناوشات مع الجنود، الذين يحاولون دائماً استفزاز المقدسيين الذين يمرون عبر معبر "الزعيِّم" الذي يفصل العيزرية عن القدس، علماً بأن الطريق من دون حواجز لا تحتاج إلى أكثر من نصف ساعة". قد تكون رحلة المعاناة هذه أصعب لمن يدرس في جامعةٍ أبعد من جامعة أبو ديس، يقول الطالب كنعان الغول من سلوان، ويدرس التربية في جامعة بيرزيت، إنه يستيقظ يومياً في الخامسة والنصف صباحاً، ويخرج من البيت في السادسة كي لا يتأخر عن محاضراته، وبوجه عام، فإن الطريق تحتاج على الأقل بين ساعتين إلى ثلاثة ساعات في كل اتجاه. 

تعرقل وتؤذي هذه المعاناة المسيرةَ الأكاديمية، إذ إن الطالب بعد ساعات السفر يصل إلى البيت مرهقاً لا يقوى على التركيز وعلى متابعة دراسته، كما أن أربع إلى خمس ساعات سفر يومياً تكون قد التهمت ساعات اليوم ولم يتبق من وقت لمزاولة نشاطات الحياة اليومية. تهدف سلطات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي من هذا كله إلى عرقلة المسيرة الأكاديمية الفلسطينية في القدس، على رأسها قطع العلاقة الأكاديمية بين الضفة والقدس، وهو ما ينجلي في فتح الجامعة العبرية أبوابها للمقدسيين، لكي تخلق بديلاً يوقف تدفق الطلبة المقدسيين إلى جامعات الضفة الغربية. ولأجل إتمام هذا المشروع كان لا بد من خلق البديل، بحيث يكون بديلاً يحمل مضاميناً إسرائيلية: الراحة في مقابل المعاناة، والقرب في مقابل البعد، والتقنية والتطور في مقابل البدائية، وبهذا تصير الجامعة العبرية في القدس طوق النجاة الذي قد ينقذ الطالب المقدسي من مرارة الطريق وصعوباته، بحيث يستطيع المقدسي، على خلاف الإسرائيلي المُلزم بامتحانات "البجروت"، أن يتقدم للجامعة الإسرائيلية بما يثبت أنه درس اثني عشر عاماً تعليمياً، وبتحصيل معدل جيد في "السنة التحضيرية" (المخيناه في العبرية)، ممّا يؤهله في النهاية إكمال دراسته الأكاديمية.

الثقافة

تعتبر الثقافة، بما فيها من عادات وتقاليد ومعتقدات وحِرف وصناعات، وطقوس، وفولكلور، وأساطير، وأنماط حياة، وفنون، ومنتجات مادية، وعمران؛ إحدى أهم معاقل المواجهة بين المُستعمِر والمُستعمَر. فهي البناء المميِّز للأمم والشعوب والجماعات، وهي التي تحفظ هذه الكيانات من الاندثار والزوال، وتبقيهم وجوداً حياً وفاعلاً، وقادراً على المقاومة ضد الغزوات الخارجية. لذا ليس من المبالغة القول إنَّ كل أنماط الثقافة الفلسطينية وتجلياتها في القدس باتت في خطر نتيجة للسياسات التهويدية. فمن الواضح أنَّ عزل القدس عن امتدادها الفلسطيني، وقطع أواصر العلاقات وفتح أبواب العمل والتعليم للمقدسيّ في المؤسسات الإسرائيلية يعني تسريب أنماط وأشكال ثقافية جديدة إلى مخزونه الثقافي – المعرفي، مما يشكّل حالة من الاصطدام الفكري بين أفكاره وثقافته الأصيلة، وبين ما يتم تسريبه من أنماط ثقافية إسرائيلية، ممّا قد يخلق لاحقاً حالة اغتراب، تتجلى في انعدام المرجعية السلوكية المُشكِّلة للتصرفات الفردية. إن هذه حالة تستوجب "أمناً ثقافياً" تتضافر فيه كل الجهود من مؤسسات وجمعيات ونخب سياسية وثقافية، إلاّ إن الوضع في الحالة المقدسية كان قد شهد تعقيداً إضافياً، تمثَّل في قيام سلطات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي باستباق إحداث مثل هذا "الأمن الثقافي" بإغلاقه مختلف المؤسسات والجمعيات الفلسطينية المتواجدة في القدس سنة 2000، ثم تلاها سنة 2005 مصادقة هذه السلطات على قانون منع السلطة الفلسطينية من القيام بأي نشاط رسمي في القدس، ويمثل "مسرح الحكواتي" نموذجاً حيّاً لهذه السياسة، إذ منعته السلطات من إقامة مهرجان أدبي لاشتباه سلطات الاحتلال بكونه تلقّى تمويلاً من السلطة الفلسطينية، وعليه فقد استضاف المركز الثقافي الفرنسي حفل افتتاح المهرجان. 

إلى جانب ذلك فقد باتت مشاركة الفِرق الفلسطينية، سواءً الثقافية منها أو الفنية، في مهرجانات القدس وحفلاتها مشاركة متدنية، وهو ما يتسبب بتغيير برامج عروض كثيرة بشكل جذري، أو إلغاء مشاركة الفِرق الفلسطينية من خارج القدس، كي تتلاءم الأعمال الثقافية والفنية مع الواقع الجديد. ويمكن في هذا السياق ملاحظة ازدياد عدد الفرق الأجنبية، التي باتت تشارك في مهرجانات القدس على حساب الفِرق الفلسطينية. يعلِّق أستاذ علم الاجتماع في جامعة بيرزيت خالد عودة الله، على هذا الجانب بالقول: "إنّ ما يجري في القدس هو هندسة ثقافية اجتماعية، يسعى الاستعمار بها ليس إلى تغيير صورته لدى المُستعمَر فحسب، بل إلى تغيير صورة المُستعمَر عن نفسه أيضاً، وهو ما تتضافر لأجله جهود المُستعمِر بما فيه وزارة التربية والتعليم، ووزارة الداخلية ومختلف الأذرع الأخرى"، ويضيف عودة الله: "تعيش القدس حالة مكثفة من الهندسة الاجتماعية، وما يجري ليس عملية أسرلة، بقدر ما هو محاولة لإخراج المقدسي من دائرة العداء لإسرائيل، وربطه بنظام الاحتلال الاستعماري، الذي لا يسعى لإفراغ القدس تماماً، فهو بحاجة لتواجد الحد الأدنى من المقدسيين لئلاّ يظهر مشروعه كتطهير عرقي، وعليه يضمن بعض الأخلاقية التي تعزز بدورها روايته الاستعمارية، وتوفر له في الوقت ذاته راحة الضمير". أمّا عن أواصر العلاقات بين الضفة الغربية والقدس، فيقول عودة الله: "فكّ الارتباط مع القدس هو تسهيل لهندستها، الحاجز ليس للمنع فقط، نحن ننسى الناس المسموح لهم بالدخول، لأنها حالة تأديبية لا تقل عن عملية المنع ذاتها، فهي تحويل الداخل إلى مراقب لنفسه ليحافظ على علاقة طيبة مع النظام، فإذا كان ابن عمّه مشبوهاً، يقوم بتحديد علاقته مع ابن عمه".

مرافق الحياة اليومية

لقد بات مشروع الاحتلال واضحاً، فالمرحلة الأولى منه تمّت بإغلاق الجمعيات والمؤسسات الفلسطينية في القدس، لينتقل المشروع لاحقاً إلى بناء الجدار، الذي أرهق العلاقات الاجتماعية وأفرز ديموغرافية جديدة تقوم بالأساس على الأمن الإسرائيلي، وعلى تفتيت البُنى الاجتماعية الفلسطينية، ومن ثم دفع المقدسيين (الجيدين بالتعبير الإسرائيلي) نحو الاندماج بالمؤسسة الإسرائيلية. وقد هدف هذا المسعى إلى تفتيت الهوية الثقافية للمقدسيين، وإجبارهم على ترك القدس عن طريق سحب هويات الإقامة من أكبر عدد ممكن منهم، ووضْع عراقيل عديدة أمام حياة طبيعية لهم، كملاحقتهم بضريبة الأرنونا وبغيرها من الضرائب والغرامات، ومثل تعقيد شروط الحصول على رخصة بناء أو ترميم، وعلى لمِّ شمل العائلات.

أمّا المرحلة التالية فكانت بدفع المقدسي إلى "المرافق الإسرائيلية" عبر العديد من السياسات، كفتح سوق العمل الإسرائيلي أمام المقدسيين، وتهيئة السوق الإسرائيلية ذاتها لاستيعاب المقدسيين، بحيث تتحول وجهة المقدسيين إلى السوق الإسرائيلي، هذا ما يمكن ملاحظته قبل أعياد الفطر والأضحى وعيد الميلاد، إذ تتزين المراكز التجارية الإسرائيلية، كمركز المالحة التجاري، ومركز مأمن الله، والمحال التجارية في شارع يافا، بما يلائم حاجات المستهلك المقدسي في عيده. كما أن هذه السوق ذاتها باتت تستقطب العمال المقدسيين، مع ملاحظة فروق الدخل بين العامل العربي والعامل اليهودي. ورغم ذلك، فما بين الضفة الغربية أو القدس، تصير القدس هي البيئة المفضلة للعامل المقدسي بما فيها من قرب جغرافي، وفارق مادي ملحوظ. إنّ ارتباط المقدسي بالمؤسسات الإسرائيلية، مثل البنك، والبريد، وشركة المياه، وشركة الكهرباء، ودائرة الضريبة، ومن ثم سوق العمل والمنهاج الإسرائيلي الهادف إلى إعادة التنشئة في المنظور الإسرائيلي، يشكّل اختراقاً اجتماعياً وفكرياً وانتمائياً للمقدسيين، الأمر الذي يمكن استشرافه من مختلف الشواهد الإجرائية التي اتخذتها إسرائيل مؤخراً.

يتكلّل هذا المشروع بالتجنُّس، فلم يعُد خافياً اليوم السهولة التي يتم بها تمرير طلبات التجنُّس، إذ يكفل القانون الإسرائيلي حق طلب الجنسية الإسرائيلية لسكان القدس، ليتحول المقدسي "المقيم الدائم" وفْق القانون الإسرائيلي إلى "مواطن إسرائيلي"، ولكن بالغربلة عبر ميزان الأمن والمخابرات الإسرائيليين. إن "المقيم الدائم"، وهي الوضعية القانونية للمقدسي، تعطى بوجه عام إلى المواطنين الأجانب، الذين يزورون إسرائيل ويطلبون رسمياً حق الإقامة فيها، وبالتالي فإنّ الدولة تمنح هذا الحق "كرماً" منها، بشروط بسيطة، كعدم وجود أية سوابق لأعمال تشكّل مخالفة أمنية، وإجادة متواضعة للّغة العبرية، وأمانة صاحب الطلب "للدولة"، وعليه، ووفق هذا القانون، يتحول المقدسيون إلى مواطنين بمحض الكرم والمنّة الإسرائيليَيْن.

 إن كل هذه الدوائر التي تُمعن إسرائيل في رسمها، تؤكد أنها تريد من عملية السلام العملية ذاتها وليس السلام نفسه، فكسب الوقت في ظل مجتمع دولي لا يسعى لفرض القرارات الدولية، ولا لإلزام إسرائيل باحترام ومراعاة القانون الدولي، يمكن أن يفرض وقائع على الأرض تكون ورقة رابحة في أي مشروع تفاوضي قادم، وما يمكن قوله إن رسم معالم الهوية المقدسية والسعي لإفراغها من مضامينها وضخّها بالمضامين الثقافية الإسرائيلية، يعني أن إسرائيل ماضية في فكرتها حول القدس الموحدة. ومما لا شك فيه أن للمقدسيين في تجربة فلسطينيي ال48 خير مثال للحالة التي قد يكونون عليها بعد أعوام، إلا إن حالتهم رغم ذلك تبقى أكثر قسوة نظراً إلى كونهم يعيشون في المدينة المقدسة، لبّ الصراع، وبالتالي فإن الخطوات متسارعة أكثر، كما أن الصراع أكثر حدّة وخطورة، وهو ما يجب على الجميع سواءً السلطة الفلسطينية أو المجتمع الدولي، بما فيها الرباعية الدولية، أن تحرك ساكناً باتجاه تطبيق قراراتها المتعلقة بالقدس، لئلاّ يضيق الوقت بأصحابه فلا يُعرف ما يكون بعدها في ظل مناخ عربي ثوريّ، بات يفرض هواجس الثورة، والقدس ليست ببعيدة عن الخيال الجمعي للشباب العربي.

[نشر هذا المقال بالاتفاق مع "حوليات القدس"، عن المجلد 11 العدد 12، الصادرة عن "مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية". ] 

Hundreds of thousands took part Tuesday in protests across Egypt, calling for a "political isolation" law to be implemented against General Ahmad Shafiq and remnants of the old regime. Protesters in Tahrir Square and elsewhere demanded the retrial of Hosni Mubarak, his sons, and the police leaders in front of revolutionary courts.

[Protesters denouncing Shafiq in Talaat Harb Street. Image by Hossam El-Hamalawy.]

[Talaat Harb Square. Image by Hossam El-Hamalawy.]

[Tahrir Square. Image by Hossam El-Hamalawy.]

 
[Protestors in Tahrir Square on 2 June 2012. Video by Hossam El-Hamalawy.]

Hamid Dabashi, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. London and New York: Zed Books, 2012.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Hamid Dabashi (HD): As you well know, a massive set of revolutionary uprisings are sweeping across North Africa and Western Asia, from Morocco to Syria and from Bahrain to Yemen. This is all happening in the aftermath of an equally important uprising code-named the Green Movement in Iran. While the Arab uprisings were under way, the Eurozone crisis and civil unrest swept across Europe from Greece to Spain, and before that was completely registered the Occupy Wall Street movement started in the US. Like everyone else, I was mesmerized by these events and wanted to understand them. I had just finished my book on the Green Movement, Iran, the Green Movement, and the USA: The Fox and the Paradox (2011), when the Arab Spring started, and it was only natural for me to continue that reflection into a wider domain. The Arab world is a second homeland to me. For the decades that I have not been able to go back to Iran, the Arab world, from Morocco to Lebanon and Syria down to Egypt and the Persian Gulf states, have been like home to me. Palestine in particular is central to my moral and imaginative geography. So everything—from my scholarship to my politics—came together for me to write this book.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does it address?

HD: At least since the Iranian revolution of 1977-1979, I have been thinking and writing about revolutions. My book Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads (1989) was my first attempt to try to understand the nature of charismatic leadership. My Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1991) was an extensive treatment of the ideological build up of that cataclysmic event in Iran. The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism is thus in effect the culmination of more than three decades of thinking and writing on mass social protests.

Here in this book I work with a number of ideas, among them the ideas of delayed defiance; open-ended (as opposed to total) revolutions; the articulation of the public sphere; and the notion of revolutions unfolding like a Bakhtinian novel rather than a Homeric epic. There are also, of course, classical sociological question of race, gender, and class that I raise, particularly in the globalized context of labor migration. But perhaps the most important idea is that of the end of postcolonialism, which I treat in detail. The book is very much under the shadow of Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on revolutions—for example, her comparison of the French and the American revolutions—as well as her emphasis on political space as a haven from violence rather than a systemization of violence, unlike the way that Max Weber, for example, thought of politics.

The Arab Spring is a fast-paced book, following the unfolding events very closely, in order to generate a theoretical space to think about the historical significance of this moment, in comparison with other transnational revolutions, going back to the European revolutions of 1848—which were also called the “Spring of Nations,” or “Springtime of the Peoples.” 

How does this work connect to and/or depart from your previous research and writing?

HD: It is most immediately connected to Iran, the Green Movement, and the USA, but also to my Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in Time of Terror (2008). You may in fact say that the endings of these two books anticipate The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. The particular excitement of this book has to do with the transnational disposition of these revolutions, so that you need to edit your thoughts, between long shots, medium shots, and close ups, to use a film metaphor. So I aim a laser beam on Egypt, or Libya, or Syria, for example, and then I pull back and look at the larger geopolitics and see what are the side effects. It provides an amazing theoretical chess game to play and see how history and theory interface.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

HD: Well, everyone and anyone who is, like me, concerned about the future of democracy and justice in our world. The book emerges from a longstanding reflection on the nature of social uprisings and is deeply committed to these Arab revolutions. I am very optimistic about these revolutions, though I am of course concerned about the counter-revolutionary forces that have now gathered force around the US-Saudi-Israeli axis regionally, and the military-Muslim Brotherhood machinations in Egypt. But unlike some unfortunate voices on the left, I do not dismiss all these revolutions just because the former alliances are falling apart and a criminal regime like Assad’s is exposed for the terror it has perpetrated on Syrians for decades. These regimes will all fall, and it is impossible for the combined counter-revolutionary forces of the Saudis, or Israel, or the US to micromanage these revolutions and legislate their consequences. This is a marathon, not a one-hundred-meter sprint, and our people will be the beneficiaries of the formal destructions we are witnessing as they unfold apace. As for the impact of the book, I really hope for nothing more than for its ideas to be part of our conversations about these historic moments. I hear and read lots of pessimistic voices and visions. I follow them closely in order to adjust my own very upbeat and optimistic reading.

J: Could you talk a bit about the book's subtitle? In what ways do the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring signal what you describe as "the end of postcolonialism"?

HD: There are a number of themes that are quite paramount in the book and that could have been its subtitle—one was “delayed defiance,” another “open-ended revolutions,” and yet another, which I really like, was “liberation geography.” But we (my fantastic Zed editor Tamsine O'Riordan and I) finally opted for perhaps the most provocative, “The End of Postcolonialism,” which is indeed the single most challenging idea I put forward.

My proposal, put very simply, is that what we are witnessing in these Arab revolutions is in fact the end of the ideological production that we ordinarily identify with the postcolonial period. In the aftermath of European colonialism, a series of political regimes came to power, predicated on the assumption that European imperialism had ended and we had now entered the phase of national sovereignty and postcoloniality. This was the period associated with the sorts of ideological formations that finally resulted in authoritarian figures like Hosni Mubarak or Muammar Qaddafi—the political progenies of such leaders as Gamal Abdel Nasser or Omar Mukhtar. I identify this period of postcoloniality, in pure ideal-types, with the active formation of three sorts of ideologies: Third World socialism, anticolonial nationalism, and militant Islamism. My point is that these ideologies have, as epistemes, exhausted themselves, so that the new regimes that will come to power will not enjoy the sorts of regimes of knowledge that we identify with these ideologies. This is the phase that Asef Bayat has correctly identified as “post-Islamism,” but I have expanded this to “post-ideological” because I don’t think it is just Islamism as we have known it that has run its course; the two other forms of ideological formations I just identified have also epistemically exhausted themselves. This is not to say that socialism, or nationalism, or Islam will have nothing to offer these post-ideological events, but that the modus operandi of ideology-production as we have experienced it over the last two hundred years—in the course of the colonial and postcolonial episodes of our histories—has finally run its course as a matter of paradigmatic exhaustion.

This reflects a deeper epistemic shift, which I identify as the end of the “Islam and the West” binary, something I dealt with in great detail in Post-Orientalism. My suggestion is that this binary has collapsed, not just in “The West” itself, but also by extension in any other context that this “West” had entailed. This is because the false ideological assumption that the operation of capital had a center (code-named “the West”) and thus a periphery (delegated to “the Rest”) has been effectively dissolved. The emergence of globalized capital and massive labor migrations around the globe have necessitated an amorphous mode of imperialism that Hardt and Negri have sought to theorize in their Empire and subsequent two books.

The whole notion of “the West,” I thus argue in geopolitical terms, has imploded in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the formation of the European Union, and the major rift between the United States and its European allies. This was most evident in the course of the US-led invasion of Iraq, when the then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld had to speak of a “new coalition of the willing.” The rise of China in particular has marked the Pacific Rim as the new site of contestation between US on its western frontiers, and thus the whole Atlantic theater is being dissolved into a EU-Russian operation. This means that Israel may find it necessary to cater more to Russia, or to play even more effectively with the European Holocaust guilt, rather than remain a US client state, in order to continue as a settler colony garrison state—or “a villa in the jungle,” as the racist Defense Minister Ehud Barak puts it. I read the publication of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007) entirely within the framework of the so-called “realist” school of American diplomacy, in which Israel has increasingly become a liability for emerging American foreign policy. AIPAC thus spends all its might and money to prevent that realization on Capitol Hill.

This shift has been in the making for quite some time. The formation of the European Union already posited a different set of priorities that were not always automatically conducive to US strategic, global, and imperial interests. So this idea of “the West” in binary opposition with “the Rest” doesn’t have the same potency that it did from the early nineteenth century to the height of the Cold War. Look at the current Eurozone crisis, the rise of neo-Nazis in Greece and the far right in France, or mass murdering Islamophobes in Eastern (Ratko Mladic) or Northern (Anders Breveik) Europe. Look at the desperate narratives of historically outdated and intellectually outmaneuvered historians like Niall Fergusson. Read the magnificent dismantling of Fergusson’s historiography by Pankaj Mishra. These are all signs of the anxiety of the thing that termed itself “the West” on a tight rope between Western Europe and North America—and the rest of their former colonies (blindly) followed suit.

This dissolution of the nasty term “the West” to me is the most liberating moment of our recent history, which began perhaps with Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt and has now ended with the open-ended Egyptian—and by extension Arab—revolutions. So what I mean by “the end of postcolonialism” is a narrative marking of the commencement of this liberation geography, accentuated by an even playing field in which our people can define the terms of their own history, no longer in conversation with a dead interlocutor called “the West.” So this argument about “the end of postcolonialism” has a very carefully constructed genealogy in a central chapter of the book, one that I very much hope people will read and consider closely.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

HD: Many other projects—but mostly I am reading now and following the news of the Arab revolutions very closely, as I do regarding the mass rallies against austerity measures in the Eurozone crisis, and of course the Occupy Wall Street movement. A lot is happening, but we also need to read and think with a bit of distance from these urgent events. Right now I am reading an advance copy of Pankaj Mishra’s fantastic new book, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia. It will be released in August, and it will mark a new era of continental thinking for us. My weekly columns for Al Jazeera keep me happy and busy, and reading Jadaliyya closely is a constant source of inspiration. We need to be both very close to these ongoing events and yet manage to find a theoretical distance from them at the same time.

Excerpt from The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism

The world keeps discovering, keeps inventing, keeps overcoming itself. Because of the Arab Spring, the world is once again pregnant with better and more hopeful versions of itself. The crescendo of transnational uprisings from Morocco to Iran, and from Syria to Yemen, is turning the world upside down. The task facing us today is precisely to see in what particular way our consciousness of the world is in the midst of transforming itself—by force of history. The world we have hitherto known as “the Middle East,” or “North Africa,” or “the Arab and Muslim world,” all part and parcel of a colonial geography we had inherited, is changing, and is changing fast. We have now entered the phase of documenting in what particular terms that world is transcending itself, overcoming the mystified consciousness into which it was colonially cast and postcolonially fixated.

In understanding what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East, we are running out of metaphors. We need new metaphors. Even the word “revolution”—understood anywhere from Karl Marx to Hannah Arendt—needs rethinking. Such a new language of the revolution will cast the impact of “the Arab Spring” on national and international politics for generations to come. These uprisings have already moved beyond race and religion, sects and ideologies, pro- or anti-Western. The term “West” is more meaningless today than ever before—it has lost its potency, and with it the notion, and the condition, we had code-named postcoloniality. The East, the West, the Oriental, the colonial, the postcolonial—they are no more. What we are witnessing unfold in what used to be called “the Middle East” (and beyond) marks the end of postcolonial ideological formations—and that is precisely the principal argument informing the way this book discusses and celebrates the Arab Spring. The postcolonial did not overcome the colonial; it exacerbated it by negation. The Arab Spring has overcome them both. The drama of this delayed defiance Arabs have now called their spring; and I will use the occasion to make a case for our having entered the phase of the end of postcoloniality, delivered from exacerbating a historic trauma.

The transformation of consciousness, and precisely not through dogma or violence, is the inaugural moment of discovering new worlds—not by willing what does not exist but by seeing what is unfolding. As I write, the Arab revolutions, each with a different momentum, are creating a new geography of liberation, which is no longer mapped on colonial or cast upon postcolonial structures of domination; this restructuring points to a far more radical emancipation, not only in these but, by extension, in adjacent societies and in an open-ended dynamic. This permanent revolutionary mood has already connected the national to the transnational in unexpected and unfolding ways, leading to a reconfigured geopolitics of hope. That the Arab revolutions are changing our imaginative geography is already evident in the interaction between the southern and northern coasts of the Mediterranean in terms of modes of protest, with the spread of Tahrir Square-style youth uprisings evident from Greece to Spain, and indeed to the United States and the Occupy Wall Street movement—with even Aung San Suu Kyi comparing her campaign for democracy in Burma to the Arab Spring. These revolutions are not driven by the politics of replicating “the West”—rather, they are transcending it, and thus are as conceptually disturbing to the existing political order as to the régime du savoir around the globe. The ground is shifting under the feet of what self-proclaimed superpowers thought was their globe. These variations on the theme of delayed defiance hinge on the idea that the revolutions are simultaneously a rejection not just of the colonial oppression they have inherited but, a fortiori, of the postcolonial ideologies that had presented and exhausted themselves as its antithesis in Islamist, nationalist or socialist grand narratives.

The mystical consciousness our world has inherited hangs around the binary of “The West and the Rest,” the most damning delusion that the European colonial map of the world manufactured and left behind, with “Islam and the West” as its most potent borderlines. It is precisely that grand illusion that is dissolving right before our eyes. But that is not all: the challenge posed by these revolutions to divisions within Islam and among Muslims—racial (Arabs, Turks, Iranians, etc.), ethnic (Kurds, Baluchs, etc.), or sectarian (Sunni and Shi'i in particular)—has at once agitated and (ipso facto) discredited them. These revolutions are collective acts of overcoming. They are crafting new identities, forging new solidarities, both within and without the “Islam and the West” binary—overcoming once and for all the thick (material and moral) colonial divide. The dynamics now unfolding between the national and the transnational will, as they do, override all others. The synergy that has ensued is crafting a new framework for the humanity they have thus embraced and empowered. Those dynamics are checked, to be sure, by counter-revolutionary forces that are now fully at work—and that have much to lose from these revolutions.

The world, and not just “the Muslim world,” has long been dreaming of these uprisings. Since at least the French Revolution of 1789, the European revolutions of 1848, the Russian Revolution of 1917, since the British packed their belongings and left India in 1948, since the French left Algeria, the Italians Libya, the world has been dreaming of the Arab Spring. From the time the colonial world began lowering European flags, and as the postcolonial world was raising new ones, the world has been dreaming of the emblematic slogan, now chanted by people from one end of the Arab world to another: Huriyyah, Adalah Ijtima'iyah, Karamah, “Freedom, Social Justice, Dignity.”

To pave the way for an open-ended unfolding of these revolts, the public space has been expanding for a very long time, and the political act is now being charged and redefined to accommodate it. But the public facade of unity across social classes and between different political tendencies, which has characterized the uprising from the very outset, has been and will continue to be fractured. But these fractures will expand the public space, not diminish it. That societal expansion of the bedrock of politics will not be along ideological lines. In the world beyond Christian dogma, people are not born in a state of sin, for this to be forgiven by way of communal declaration. As there is no original sin, there is no final forgiveness—and thus no grand illusion, no master-narratives of emancipation. The ideals remain open and grand, as they must, but demanding and exacting their realization require painstaking and detailed work by particular voluntary associations beyond the reach of the state—labor unions, women's rights organizations, student assemblies—all by way of forming a web of affiliation around the atomized individual, thus protecting her, thus enabling him, to resist the ever increasing power of the emergent state.

The specter of that emerging state will keep the democratic muscles of these revolutionary uprisings flexing—for a very long time, and for a very simple reason. The world we have inherited is mystified (Marx's term) by the force fields of power that have at once held it together and distorted it. Fighting the military and economic might of counter-revolutionaries goes hand in hand with deciphering the transformed consciousness that must promise and deliver the emerging world. The colonial subject (now revolting beyond the mirage of the postcolonial state) was formed, forced, and framed as the object of European imperial domination, with multivariate modes of governmentality that extended from the heart of “the West” to the edges of “the Rest.” Europe colonized the Arab and Muslim world from one end to the other precisely according to the model of power by which it was itself being colonized by the self-fetishizing logic of capital. It was, by way of partaking in the making of the fetishized commodity, being alienated from itself as it was forcing that massive alienation on the colonial world. Postcolonialism was instrumental in conceptually fetishizing colonialism as something other than the abuse of labor by capital writ large. It is not, and never has been.

The postcolonial subject, which was none other than the colonial subject multiplied by the illusion of emancipation, was thus released into the force field of that very same colonial history on a wild goose chase of ideological certainty before and after political convictions. For more than two hundred years—the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—colonialism begat postcolonial ideological formations: socialism, nationalism, nativism (Islamism); one metanarrative after another, ostensibly to combat, but effectively to embrace and exacerbate, its consequences. As these postcolonial ideological formations began epistemically to exhaust themselves, the position of “subalternity” travelled from South Asia and became a North American academic fanfare, before it was politically neutered and soon turned into the literary trope of a “native informant.” Thus colonialism and postcoloniality combined to place the Arab and the Muslim (as its supreme and absolute other) outside the self-universalizing tropes of European metaphysics, where the non-Western (thus branded) was never in the purview of full subjection, of full historical agency.

The world was thus sealed in a self-sustaining binary that has kept repeating, revealing, and concealing itself. Finally coming to full historical consciousness in terms of their own agential sovereignty and worldly subjection, “the Arab” and “the Muslim” are now exiting that trap, having identified it as the simulacrum of a renewed pact with humanity—beyond the European entrapping of “humanism.” Arabs and Muslims in revolt have no crisis of the subject, no problem with their cogito.

“The work of our time,” Marx rightly declared, is “to clarify to itself the meaning of its own desires.” Indeed—and in that spirit I have written The Arab Spring. 

[Excerpted from The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism, by Hamid Dabashi, by permission of the author. Copyright © 2012 Hamid Dabashi. For more information, or to purchase this book, please click here.]

Hotspot, Bloodspot, or Blindspot?

Bahrain's protracted and intransigent political deadlock remains one of the paradoxes of the Arab uprisings. At the nexus of regional influence, global political power, and economic interests, the human rights and democracy movement there face colossal challenges to realizing its goals. Not the least of these is a complicated network of media that both advantages and disadvantages the regime and its adversaries. In this video interview, we speak with Alaa Shehabi, a British-born Bahraini who is an economics lecturer, activist and writer on the varied aspects of media in this ongoing conflict. From the hyperbolic narratives of pro-government state media and the deafening silence of the Arabic media such as Al-Jazeera, to the growing dominion of cyberactivism and the increasing rhetoric of sectarianism. Shehabi explores the global media's attention to the F-1 Formula race offering a chilling account of her arrest alongside a British journalist who was reporting on protests that coincided with the race. She gives a deeply unsettling description of what is effectively a media blackout on the small island kingdom and the struggle of a small population to break out of a soundproof enclosure. Shehabi is a human rights activist whose husband is a political prisoner in Bahrain. She holds a PhD from Imperial College London.

The interview was conducted on 29 April 2012 in Lund, Sweden on the heels of a conference entitled "Contesting Narratives, Locating Power" about the uprisings in the Arab world. 

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Syria and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Syria Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week's roundup to syria@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every week] 

Regional and International perspectives

When Syria Sneezes Murhaf Jouejate argues that the Syrian regime is trying to export sectarian violence to Lebanon as a means to deter foreign intervention on Syrian soil.

Gulf States and Turkey Going all-out Against Syria Ibrahim al-Amin argues that they are not just following orders from the West but have their own interests in de-stabilizing Syria.

Hands off Syria Ivan Eland says morally and financially, the US cannot be involved in the Syrian “mess” but paradoxically writes we should leave Turkey and the Gulf states deal with the case.

Calls for Jihad Split Salafists Jordan’s Salafi community divided over the Syria uprising

Le Brésil défend le dialogue avec la Syrie en vue d'une transition politique Former Brazilian ambassador Antonia Patriota in an interview on the Brazilian position on Syria

Exclusive: Veteran Lebanese fighter trains new generation of jihadis – for Syria  Around 300 Lebanese fighters have left the Bakaa Valley of Lebanon to join so-called FSA groups in Syria

Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad Hangs on to Power Despite Turmoil Joshua Landis draws a profile of Bashar al-Assad.

Imperialism and the Left

Hollow Responses to Houla Massacre Karl Sharro criticizes the “unprincipled and improvised nature of Western attitude toward Syria.”

Syria Must Determine its own Future William Engdahl on the importance of not intervening in Syria.

On the Edge of Darkness Patrick Cockburn argues that Western powers should push for reforms that leave a modified version of the Syrian regime in place.

The Houla affair highlights Western intelligence gap in Syria Thierry Meyssan says that “the Houla affair shows that the West is incapable of knowing the situation on the ground, whereas Russian military intelligence is privy to exactly what is happening.”

Haytham Manna : « pour Moscou, Bashar al-Assad n’est pas sacre » Haytham Manna talks about his recent visit to Moscow and says the Russians care more about the Syrian state than its regime.

On Syrian narratives

Some Questions on the Houla Massacre and Beyond As’ad AbuKhalil asks why the exiled Syrian opposition and the media did not attempt to deconstruct the events surrounding the Houla Massacre.

Assad Speech: Lost in Translation Amal Saad Ghorayeb analyses the ways in which news agencies imposed a narrative on Assad’s speech

Syrie: Arreter la course a l’abime Alain Gresh provides a list of articles from Western outlets that condemn the Syrian regime while rejecting the intervention scenario.

Syrian Intervention Risks Upsetting Global Order Henry Kissinger warns that “in reacting to one human tragedy, we must be careful not to facilitate another.”

UN Mission in Syria, far from Being Useless is Essential Hassan Hassan argues the UN mission is essential to build an international consensus on Syria.

The Houla Hoaxters  Justin Raimondo on the media’s creation of another “Benghazi moment”

The Logic of Kofi Annan’s Strategy Rami Khouri says Annan is nearing the make-or-break part of his mission 

The Media Revolution of the Arab Spring Habib Battah’s detailed report on the problems with the media coverage of Syria.

Syrian crisis in orbit Arab-league wants to ban pro-regime media on two satellites, but Syrian expatriates want to work around that potential ban to present the Syrian regime narrative.

Inside Syria:

Syrian Tribal Networks and their Implications for the Syrian Uprising Nicholas Heras and Carole O’Leary write about the social demographic impact of tribalism in the uprising and potential post-Assad era.

Ghosts of Syria: Diehard Militias who Kill in the Name of Assad Peter Kellier writes about Syria’s Shabiha providing a historical and economic background that sustain its existence.

Annan’s Mission Impossible Nasser Charara writes that Annan is aware of the problems with his plan and tries in vain to get the two sides to work within it.

Policy and Reports

Amnesty International Written Statement to HRC Special Session on Syria June 2012

Arabic

الصراع في سوريا (وفي لبنان): جدليّة الطبقي والطائفي

Ward Kasouha discusses the existence of a mixture of class and sectarian conflicts within the current Syrian struggle.

دعوة إلى العمل لا إلى اليـأس 
Saad-Allah Mezr’ani writes about the ramifications of the struggle in Syria on the existing sectarian tensions in Lebanon. 

من ذاكرة السجون السورية: بانتظار مُضر الجندي
The Damascus Bureau recounts the story of Mudar Al-Jundi and his undeclared death after being tortured during his time in prison in the Palestine Branch of the Syrian Military Intelligence Agency.

البطالة والنزوح يثقلان كاهل المواطن السوري
The Damascus Bureau recounts the experiences of Syrian citizens who have been suffering from the implications of high unemployment rates and emigration in Syria.

مقابلة الأستاذ ماجد حبو مع مجلة عشتاروت
Majed Habou talks about the Syrian Revolution with Achtarout Magazine.  

المنّاع يرد على الأسد: العنف لم يأتي من الشارع و لا من الشعب 
Haytham Mannaa responds to Al-Assad’s recent speech on BBC Arabic TV and warns against its dangerous implications on Kofi Annan’s plan in the country.  

درعـا: خـزان النـظام ومعارضتـه بعـد شـرارة «تنزيـل العقـال»
Tarek Al-Abed presents the current situation in the Syrian city of Daraa, in which the most significant Syrian mass protests began.

توطين الأزمة في سوريا!
Fayez Sarah warns against the Syrian regime’s efforts to settle the current “crisis” in Syria.  

خطاب الرئيس الاسد 
Abed-Al-Bari Atwan on Al-Assad’s recent speech.

هل يكفي التحذير من «حرب أهلية» في سوريا؟
Arib Al-Rentawi writes about the warnings of a civil war in Syria.

مناع لصحيفة لوفيغارو: “بالنسبة لموسكو، بشار الأسد ليس مقدساً”
The National Coordination Committee for the forces of Democratic Change in Syria provides a translation of the interview that the French Newspaper “Le Figaro” conducted with Haytham Mannaa on Russia’s stance on the current situation in Syria.  

العودة للوطن … الدكتور عارف دليلة
Dr. Aref Dalileh writes about the importance of the new call for “the return to the nation” by some Syrian opposition members.

حجاب «الميداني» يرأس حكومة الأزمة الثانية
Ziyad Haydar writes about the current Minister of Agriculture Riyadh Hijab, and his expected duty to create the new government in Syria. 

In the following interview Egyptian journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous discusses developments in Egypt in the wake of last Saturday's verdict in the Mubarak trial. The interview begins with an overview of the verdict, the legal process that led up to it, and the erruption of protests in its aftermath. It then tackles the broader context within which the trial and verdict unfolded: the struggle to define the scope of revolution in Egypt. Sharif discusses the (re)emergence of Ahmad Shafiq (Mubarak's last prime minister and retiured air force general) in the context of the presidential elections and what this represents about the these elections as opposed to the parliamentary elections. Also addressed is the position of the Muslim Brotherhood vis-a-vis the Mubarak verdict, the presidential elections, and its changing strategic position since the parliamentary elections. In discussing this broader context, Sharif highlights the importance of the coming two weeks, which will feature a constitutional court ruling on the Political Isolation Law as well as another one on the Parliamentary Elections Law. Both rulings have the potential to either consolidate the existing political dynamics or radically alter them. Towards the end of the interview, Sharif discusses the proposed presidential council, noting its origins, viability, and reactions to it, as well as the status of the constitutional assembly.

This week we talk to Egyptian journalist Ahmad Shokr about the political landscape in his country after the pivotal verdict on Hosni Mubarak and members of his regime announced on Saturday, 2 June 2012. We’ll also discuss Turkey’s plans to purchase US armed drones with University of Indiana researcher, Burhan Althuran. Last year, the United States had moved four of its Predator drones from Iraq to Turkey, and now that country is trying to acquire armed drones of its own---the kind used by the US in Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. 

بدأت القصة عندما ساق القدر ثلاثة شبان للعب "ورق الشدة" بالقرب من منزل النائب وليد جنبلاط في كليمنصو. أثار مشهد الشبان القوى الأمنية، فساقوهم للتحقيق معهم في أحد المخافر. لم يمض وقت طويل عندما تبين أن لا خلفيات سياسية، أو نوايا أمنية للموقوفين. 

انتفاء التهمة لم يكن كافياً للإفراج عن الشباب. لاحظ أحد الرتباء الأمنيين أن شكل أحدهم "ناعم"، فتم نقلهم إلى مخفر حبيش للتدقيق في احتمال تورطهم بمخالفات أخرى، ومنها المخدرات، أو المثلية الجنسية. لم يجد مكتب مكافحة المخدرات أي شبهة حول اقتناء أو تعاطي الموقوفين لمخدر، فأحيلوا إلى مكتب الآداب في المخفر نفسه للتدقيق في "نعومة" الشاب. 

إثر مخابرة عناصر المكتب للنيابة العامة، ومن دون وجود أي دليل غير شكل احد الموقوفين "الناعم"، أمرت النيابة العامة بإخضاع الشباب لفحص المثلية لإثبات ميولهم الجنسية، وتحديداً احتمال ممارستهم العلاقات المثلية. 

يروي المحامي نزار صاغية حادثة الشبان الثلاثة الذين تجرأوا مع المحامي الذي تولى قضيتهم على رواية ما حصل معهم، ليقول إن فريق عمل "المفكرة القانونية" قرر تخصيص ورشته عن "فحوص العار"، وهي فحوص المثلية التي يخضع لها الموقوفون من الشباب، وفحوص العذرية التي تخضع لها الموقوفات من الإناث، في المخافر، وبالتحديد في مكتب حماية الآداب في مخفر حبيش. 

نتحدث هنا عن فحص حسي يقوم به احد الأطباء الشرعيين، وبإشارة من النيابة العامة في بيروت، على الأجزاء الحميمة من أجساد الشبان والشابات، من دون أي نص قانوني يبرر ذلك، اللهم إلا صلاحية القاضي في اعتماد الوسائل "المشروعة" خلال توخيه قرينة الإثبات. وكان فريق المفكرة القانونية واضحاً في تخصيص الحديث عن الفحوصات التي تجري في "العلاقات الرضائية" سواء بين شباب من النوع الجندري (الجنس) نفسه، أو بين شاب وفتاة، وليس في حال وقوع حالات اعتداء أو اغتصاب، يصبح معها الفحص ضرورياً لإدانة المعتدي. 

ويعود صاغية إلى حادثة الشبان ليقول إن الطبيب الشرعي لم يكتف بإجراء الفحص الذي يتلخص بإدخال آلة في شرج الشاب الموقوف منتهكاً خصوصيته وحميمية جسده، بل إنه استعمل موقعه وصفته الطبية لانتزاع اعتراف من الشاب الموقوف. يومها قال الطبيب لأحد الشبان "أحسن لك تعترف لي، لأنك إذا كذبت وأثبت الفحص العكس، فإن عقوبتك ستكون أشد". وبذلك رأى صاغية أننا أمام رتيب تحقيق يبني شكوكه على "نعومة" احد الشباب، وأمام نيابة عامة تأمر بإخضاع الشبان لفحص المثلية من دون أي دليل، وأمام طبيب شرعي لا يكتفي بتنفيذ أوامر النيابة العامة من دون الاكتراث بموافقة الموقوفين، وإنما يلعب دور المحقق بلباس طبيب ويستغل وظيفته لانتزاع اعتراف بممارسة المثلية، ما دام يعجز، وعبر الفحص الطبي عن إثباتها. 

وعليه، يحمل المسؤولية للدولة ممثلة بالقوى الأمنية والقضاة وللجسم الطبي الذي لا يتخذ موقفاً واضحاً ورافضاً لما يحصل. 

ويأتي إجراء الفحص المعتمد في لبنان بينما تثبت نظريات الطب الشرعي في العالم عدم جدوى الفحص، في حال عدم العثور على السائل المنوي، في إثبات ممارسة المثلية ام لا، وهو ما أكده الطبيبان الشرعيان سامي قواس وحسين شحرور خلال ندوة الأمس، مشيرين إلى أن الكثير من دول العالم المتقدمة توقفت عن إجرائه. 

وترافق الفحص شوائب لا تقل سوءاً عنه. وهنا يروي ممثل جمعية "حلم" شربل ميدع قصة شاب رفض الخضوع للفحص لأنه يعلم، بعكس بقية الشبان، انه يحق له الرفض، فقام رجلا أمن بتثبيته على طاولتين متلاصقتين، فيما أخضعه الطبيب الشرعي لفحص المثلية، بالقوة. وهنا سأل أحد الحضور عما إذا كان ما حصل مع الشاب يختلف عن الاغتصاب أم لا. 

يقول عدد من الأطباء الشرعيين أن بعضهم يجري أربعة إلى خمسة فحوصات مثلية في الشهر الواحد، فيما يفضل الشبان الذين يخضعون للفحص عدم التحدث عن الأمر مطلقاً، على قسوته. 

ويأتي صمت الشبان الضحايا من شعورهم بالمهانة، ويشير ميدع إلى أن ثلاثة شبان خضعوا للفحص خلال أعوام 2006 و2007 و2008، "كانوا يبكون لدى رواية تجربتهم في العام 2012، متحدثين عن وجع مميت، وقد حاول بعضهم تشويه جسده بعد ما تعرض له". 

ترى المحامية غيدا فرنجية التي أدارت الندوة أن "فحوصات العار تمس بشكل واضح حرية الأفراد وحياتهم الخاصة، وتعرض كرامتهم الجسدية للإهانة"، مشيرة إلى أن "الباحثين الطبيين يرون أنها وسائل من التاريخ". 

وكتأكيد على عدم توفير الفحص الطبي دليلاً قاطعاً، حتى إذا سلمنا بحق القوى الأمنية في التدخل بحياة الفرد عندما يتعلق الأمر بالعلاقات الرضائية بين شخصين، يرى الطبيب الشرعي سامي قواس ان "هناك اسبابا اخرى غير ممارسة المثلية الجنسية تتسبب بتوسع شرج أي شخص، ومنها عملية توسيع الشرج او البواسير مثلاً". ويؤكد انه لا يجري فحص المثلية لأي موقوف في حال عدم موافقته، مشيراً إلى انه ينفرد به في المخفر (يتعذر إخراج الموقوفين إلى العيادة)، ويعمل على طمأنته، وضرورة تعاونه لكي "لا يكون الأمر موجعاً أو مهيناً". 

وفي إطار تأكيد عدم جدوى فحص المثلية عينه، يستشهد الطبيب الشرعي حسين شحرور بـ"كبير الأطباء الشرعيين في مصر، الذي يؤكد أن العلاقة الرضائية لا تترك أثرا، وأن أكثر الناس بعداً عن هذه العلاقات قد تظهر عليه علامة أو أكثر من علامات الإثبات المعتمدة من دون أن يكون قد مارس المثلية". ويؤكد شحرور أن الطبيب يمكنه أن يشير إلى وجود علامات، ولكن لا يمكن إثبات حصول العلاقة المثلية إلا عبر العثور على السائل المنوي". 

وتوقف نائب مدير منطقة الشرق الأوسط في منظمة "هيومن رايتس ووتش" نديم حوري عند الاتفاقيات والقوانين الدولية التي تنص على ضرورة احترام حرية الفرد وخصوصيته وحياته الشخصية، وبالتالي عدم إخضاعه لفحص المثلية. وأشار إلى استحالة أن يعطي الموقوف قبولاً حقيقياً بالخضوع للفحص، وإلى ضرورة احترام خصوصية الفرد وكرامته التي تشدد عليها ألأمم المتحدة. وذكر حوري بالآداب الطبية وبضرورة عدم إخضاع أي شخص للفحص أو التفتيش إلا للتأكد من عدم إخفائه آلات قد تؤذيه أو تؤذي غيره. 

وعلى خلفية استمرار هذه الفحوص المهينة بعيدا عن الأضواء، أشار صاغية إلى أن المفكرة بصدد توجيه كتاب إلى وزارة العدل وآخر إلى نقابة الأطباء تدعوهما فيه إلى وقف هذه الممارسات، خصوصاً ان لا نص قانونيا يفرضها. 

وفي ظل استغراق النقاش في بحث فحوصات المثلية، أشار صاغية إلى تنظيم لقاء ثان قريباً يخصص لفحوصات العذرية الخاصة بالسيدات.

[عن جريدة "السفير" اللبنانية.]

On 29 May, Jadaliyya, in collaboration with Egypt Independent, hosted a roundtable discussion on the Egyptian presidential election. The discussion featured a group of our columnists and commentators. Moderated by Ahmad Shokr, the discussion featured American University in Cairo political science lecturers Ashraf El Sherif and Mohamed Menza; columnist Akram Ismail; human rights activist Heba Morayef; independent analysts Mohamed Naiem and Mohamed Said Ezzeldin, in addition to historian Zeinab Abul-Magd.

The advancement of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq to the presidential runoff scheduled for 16 and 17 June has created a serious dilemma for many Egyptians. Voters’ choices have become limited between choosing a figure who represents the Hosni Mubarak regime during its most brutal days, or supporting the head of the Brotherhood’s political arm at a time when the group’s seriousness about power sharing with other members of the community seems uncertain.

Indeed, the results of the first round of voting has raised numerous pressing questions regarding the future of the revolution and the choices facing revolutionary forces, often dubbed the “third bloc” in reference to its autonomy from both traditional Islamist political trends and remnants of the Mubarak regime.

The surprising results of the ongoing election have forced Egypt’s opinion shapers and intellectuals to re-evaluate their own reading of the country’s political map. As one participant remarked, the election offers a unique opportunity to deepen our understanding of Egypt’s political society. Similarly, another participant noted that elite-led prescriptions are meaningless if detached from the public pulse, which can be detected by understanding the election’s results.

Besides institutionalizing political Islam and the regime as two main poles of political life, participants noted that Shafiq’s and Morsy’s initial victories underscore the importance of organization in winning elections. Shafiq, one participant stated, is in fact the candidate of the “state,” and has evidently enjoyed the support of many bureaucratic interests allied with the previous regime. Shafiq, we were reminded, had succeeded in gathering seventy thousand signatures in order to get his name on the ballot, thus amounting to the second-highest number of signatures, following Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, the ultraconservative preacher who was ultimately disqualified from the race.

              
[Roundtable participants from left to right: Mohamed Said Ezzeldin, Ashraf El Sherif, and Heba Morayef. Photo by Virginie Nguyen.]

Surpassing the other candidates in terms of qualifying signatures was the first indicator that pro-regime forces had embarked on mobilizing their resources on behalf of Shafiq. Thus, the first round shows that the regime may in fact possess the organizational resources to secure a win for its candidate in a free and fair election.

After it was dissolved by court order in April 2011, Mubarak’s National Democratic Party seems to be recreating itself in rural areas, especially Upper Egypt, where Shafiq secured the second-highest number of votes. One participant alluded to how members of the security apparatus lobbied influential families in the south to mobilize support for Shafiq. NDP efforts to re-establish itself suggest that the party may return to the political scene if Shafiq wins the presidency.

Unlike the parliamentary elections, in which fragmented Mubarak regime affiliates performed poorly, the presidential race offered pro-regime forces an opportunity to rally around a leading figure like Shafiq and organize more cohesively to secure representation.

On the other hand, despite Morsy’s success in advancing to the runoff, many participants argued that the group’s performance was disappointing and highlights a drop in its popularity. The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party claimed more than forty percent of seats in Parliament, but its candidate secured a mere twenty-five percent in the presidential election’s first round. Morsy came fourth in Alexandria, second in Cairo and lagged behind in traditional Brotherhood strongholds in the Nile Delta.

This plunge could be attributed to the Brothers’ poor performance in Parliament, and its attempts to dominate the assembly that will be tasked with drafting the country’s constitution, among other factors. After they were willing to give the Brotherhood a chance to prove itself in Parliament, the reasoning goes, Egyptian voters ultimately withdrew their support after the group’s failure to live up to public expectations.

This crisis is not confined only to the Brotherhood and its party, but encompasses Egypt’s Islamist current in general, including Salafis. Islamist forces succeeded in mobilizing support for the constitutional amendments during the 19 March 2011 referendum, in which seventy-seven percent of voters supported the Islamists’ position of approving the amendments, which led to the holding of elections in which Islamists were sure of their win, before the writing of the constitution. Subsequently, Islamists secured about sixty-eight percent of seats in Parliament. In the presidential election’s first round, on the other hand, Islamist candidates — namely Morsy, Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh and Mohamed Selim al-Awa — were only able to garner 40 percent of the votes.

Salafis, one participant noted, seem to be having a “soul-searching” crisis. While Salafi leaders had endorsed Abouel Fotouh, there is evidence they were unable to persuade their supporters to vote for him against Morsy, who adopted firmer stances on the question of applying Sharia.

The success of Morsy and Shafiq in securing about a quarter of the votes each could also be attributed to the polarization of the political field in such a way that crowded out centrist candidates. All candidates who adopted centrist, conciliatory positions failed to advance to the runoff. This could mean that almost half of the voters were searching for a firm president with decisive, even if extreme, positions.

Rhetoric oriented toward compromise and moderation seems to have failed to secure the same level of support, hence the elimination of candidates such as Abouel Fotouh and, to a lesser extent, Nasserist hopeful Hamdeen Sabbahi.

               
                                  [Audience listens to remarks by Mohamed Naiem. Photo by Virginie Nguyen.]

Forty percent of the vote went to Sabbahi and Abouel Fotouh, who came third and fourth, respectively, and were seen by many as pro-revolution candidates. Some discussion participants interpreted this forty percent as an emergent “third bloc” that is more embracing of revolutionary forces. 

Many intellectuals had supported Abouel Fotouh based on the belief that the revolution would not succeed in the electoral arena without an Islamist candidate. In this respect, some of Abouel Fotouh’s supporters perceived him as the most viable pro-revolution candidate in that he had sufficient Islamist credentials to compete against the Brotherhood in winning over a presumably pro-Islamist electorate that voted overwhelmingly for Islamist candidates in the parliamentary elections.

The presidential election results, however, may have broken the myth that Egypt’s electorate is largely Islamist, suggesting that there is a great number of swing voters whose voting patterns are unpredictable. For example, many regions commonly known in the past as hubs for pro-Islamist voters, such as Alexandria, showed overwhelming support for Sabbahi.

The unexpected success of Sabbahi, who closely trailed Shafiq, came as a surprise to many analysts. The concentration of Sabbahi’s votes in important urban centers such as Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said is consistent with the claim that support for the revolution is primarily urban. Some analysts see in Sabbahi’s success an opportunity to frame him as a popular leader of the revolution, in an attempt to replace the rather elitist profile of Mohamed ElBaradei, the reform advocate who inspired revolutionaries but failed to garner popular support. At the same time, round-table participants disagreed on whether the voting bloc that went to Sabbahi does in fact reflect a cohesive, powerful “democratic street” that could compete with the electoral savvy of Islamist and old regime political forces.

While there was no agreement on whether the forty percent who opted for revolutionary choices do in fact represent an emerging “third bloc,” there is certainly at least a “thirst” for it, as one participant put it.

The discussions surrounding the runoff and the choices facing revolutionary forces in this battle seemed less conclusive, reflecting the uncertainty permeating Egypt’s political arena. Some participants believed that the runoff is a battle between the Brotherhood and the old political order, and that it is futile for revolutionary forces to support either camp.

One participant assessed the problem in the Islamist-Mubarak regime binary by saying that the Brotherhood is battling the regime using its very same logic, a legacy of the 1952 regime. It is here where an alternative logic, a revolutionary one, emerges as a separate path. Many acknowledged that it is difficult to imagine that this revolutionary logic, primarily adopted by the multitudes who took to the streets on 25 January 2011, can rule the country.

Yet it is within this third bloc that hope lies to open up the political arena and help it transcend the classic military-Islamist duality inherited from the 1952 regime. In this context, the presidential election becomes one of many other battles that the revolutionary forces should face.