December 18th is International Migrants Day, when in 1990 the U.N. General Assembly signed the Migrant Workers Convention, an agreement that establishes the rights of one of the most vulnerable global populations within a framework of human rights. The problem is the only countries that have actually ratified the convention are mostly countries in Global South, countries of origin for many migrants that experience the negative consequences of mass migration. Neither the United States, nor China, nor a single EU member have signed. The work of migrant rights activists has been cut out for them.

War Times marked this past International Migrants’ Day with an interview with Catherine Tactaquin, Executive Director and co-founder of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR). For over three decades, she has been working to defend and expand the rights of immigrants and refugees, regardless of status. She recently traveled to the Philippines where she participated in the 5th World Social Forum on Migration along with more than 1000 people from over 70 countries. War Times’ Francesca Fiorentini and I spoke with Catherine about the experience and her thoughts on work globally as well as here in the United States.

Catherine Tactaquin: The Social Forum on Migration was very timely, well-attended and I thought a really good conference both in terms of what is taking place around migration – there’s a lot of debate among governments and within different countries on migration today – as well as connecting to what we are all facing at the domestic level. What’s great about the social forum is that it makes no apologies about a critique of neoliberalism and how global economic restructuring has really contributed to migration. It also contextualized different national and international responses of to migration.

Walden Bello, a well-known scholar in the United States and the Global South and now a congressman in the Philippines, was the keynote speaker and he really set the tone for the discussion, talking about what needs to be changed fundamentally to address the root causes of migration. There were three plenary sessions, which addressed everything from what’s taking place at the grassroots level to reimagining the future.

We had a great selection of speakers, including Salah Salah, a leading Palestinian activist who really challenged the social forum to include war and conflict as a central issue at the next social forum. This topic was addressed in some of the workshops but I think some groups internationally don’t necessarily make that a part of their agenda. NNIRR does because when we were founded back in

1986, among our core organizers and members were folks from the Philippine movement, from the Central American struggle who very much connected the questions of migration to civil strife and war and conflict. But its been a challenge to address the war in the Middle East and I think what our colleagues from the Palestinian movement were raising is that we can’t avoid that. And that’s something that internally within the immigrant rights movement in different countries needs to be addressed and to recognize the hundreds of thousands and millions are displaced because of war and conflict, including Palestinian refugees for over 50 years.

Henry Saragih, general coordinator of Via Compesina spoke and that was significant because the global peasants movement still had not made the connection on migration. Over the last year, we’ve been working with them and had a number of opportunities to talk about the shared conditions of migrants and peasants. We do have common roots and they really see themselves joining in this global movement so that was very exciting that they participated in the social forum.

We had Pablo Solon, the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South and former Bolivian ambassador, under the Evo Morales government, to the United Nations. Solon talked a lot about climate change and its global impact, especially in a number of island states and low-lying areas where we now have up to 25 million people displaced directly from climate change and that number is growing exponentially. So it was just that kind of spectrum of speakers was so exciting and I think really enlightening for all of us.

War Times: What were some of the other issues taken up at the social forum, including the different causes of migration?

CT: We looked at a lot of the different dimensions of the migration experience. So, for example, we had organized a workshop on violence against migrant women which was examined the whole phenomena of women and migration today. Women make up over half the refugee population and half the migrant population in general. We talked about the fact that migration policies are not gender neutral but what that also means is that there are multiple oppressions that women face and that there is a disparate impact on women and families in the enforcement and especially in repressive enforcement like here in the United States but in other countries as well.

There were opportunities to compare our national experiences. So for example, looking at borders, we had a number of discussions where we compared international border situations. For example, looking at Africa and the particularities of migration there, there is an emerging network of civil society groups addressing migration. Representatives from a new Pan African Migrant Network came to the social forum which is significant as Africa is one of the main sources of migration around the world today. But the conditions under which people migrate and why varies.

WT: There is certainly war and conflict there.

CT: Yes, and there are also religious differences. There is a particular impact on women. There’s the political economy so when you look at the differences between countries, historic tribal issues, language issues – English speaking and French speaking Africans as well as their own particular languages - there are a lot of challenges to being able to build a Pan African migrant rights movement there.

WT: One of the conference themes focused on looking at models and alternatives. Can you share with us what some of those were? 

CT: It was at different levels. We did talk about the emerging global movements and I think that the challenge and also the progress over the last five years frankly is, for example, the alliances forming around the work in Africa. The last plenary panel looked at a range of movements - migrant and peasant movements, movements around the environment and climate change, women’s movements, labor. There were a number of folks from the global labor movement with whom we’ve been working for a number of years. Grassroots organizing is key and something that we in the United States are always talking about. In some other countries it’s not consistent across the board.

I think we’re looking at ways we can organize in which we can be self-sustaining. Certainly around the world, building capacity for groups is still a huge issue. There are uneven resources so you can imagine how difficult it is. We think we’re under-resourced here in the U.S. but it’s so much more difficult in other countries. So some of the models we’re looking at that we’re sharing are actually fairly basic – organizing among migrant associations, how we build capacity, how we build leadership, just sharing that type of work was very valuable.

WT: Tell us more about Migrant Rights International (MIR). 

CT: MRI was formed in 1994 at the U.N. Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. This eventually became an association of migrant rights and advocacy groups from the different global regions. Our main mandate is pushing a human rights framework, specifically advocating for universal ratification of the U.N. Migrant Workers Convention. But over the years, other initiatives have come out of MRI and it really does bring together networks from Europe, Latin America, Asian, the U.S. and Africa. We’ve worked in partnership with faith-based groups, with the global trade unions, and with other migration advocacy groups.

What’s exciting is that over the last five years, MRI has been organizing parallel events to the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which is an intergovernmental annual meeting that’s taken place since 2007. That’s helped to expand the movement and to inform it. Actually for 2 days after the Social Forum in Manila, we had a meeting of what’s now called the Global Coalition on Migration which includes MRI, who is anchoring this, but includes a lot of the global networks: faith-based organizations like the International Catholic Migration Commission, think tank and policy oriented networks. But we have a fairly strong unified vision that is rights based and does have a critique of the sources of migration. That’s a fairly new movement but that’s also why it’s very exciting to see this evolving at this point.

[Catherine Tactaquin.]

WT: December 18 is International Migrant Day. Coming off of the Social Forum what are some of your hopes as a leader in this country for that day and what are some of the international efforts that are taking place in conjunction with that date?

CT: We’re having a celebration here in Oakland that will be spotlighting international developments from the World Social Forum on Migration. We’ll be taking about what’s happening with the intergovernmental discussions on migration and how we’re actually challenging some of their thinking. The governments are still very much into what they call “circular migration” which is essentially global guest worker programs. That’s something that we’ve been challenging for a number of years.

We’re going to highlight a big campaign taking place next year in New York that includes a high level dialogue in the fall at the U.N. We’re going to use that as a vehicle to open up a whole global conversation on the causes of migration, a people’s dialogue. So we’re already planning a series of events a year in advance. New York is a global city so we want to try and capture the media’s attention, rally the migrant communities there, as well as labor and other allies, to really open up the discussion on the global context. We think that will also coincide with whatever is taking place in the U.S. on immigration reform.

We’re also kicking off the launch of a renewed campaign to pressure the U.S. to ratify the Migrant Workers Convention. This is an uphill battle but we think is really important to spotlight the Convention and what is says about recognizing the rights of all migrants regardless of citizenship, nationality, immigration status and to recognize that all migrants have human rights and that there are standards that we should adhere to. The U.S. tends not to ratify rights, treaties and agreements. In Manila, at the World Social Forum, we had a great conversation with delegates from Australia and we’re going to be comparing notes on what it means to try and ratify the convention in migrant-receiving countries. So we’re hoping to kick off a great attention to active ratification efforts in the migrant receiving countries. 

WT: What are the main barriers to countries ratifying the Convention.

CT: The United States has still not ratified The Rights of the Child or the Convention on the Rights of Women. So we’re not surprised that it hasn’t ratified the Rights of Migrants. They have said that they believe that Convention is too prescriptive, too detailed. The United States, and a number of other countries, don’t like international institutions interfering with the creation or influencing of national laws.

 They also believe that the U.S. has standards that are higher than what’s contained in the Convention. We beg to differ on that. But that is the response they have given with respect to the Migrant Workers Convention as well as The Rights of the Child and the Rights of Women. They believe that protections here outstrip what’s in the international agreements.

One of the reasons why we want to revisit ratification and open it up now is that in past years, treaties have to go through the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and certainly when those committees are chaired by extremely conservative, hard-nosed Republicans, it wasn’t even an option to move it there and to bother having a hearing. We want to at least attempt to engage Congress on this, especially the Senate and use it in our congressional education efforts as part of the immigration reform fight here. We really want to push, along with a number of our allies, the importance of rights-based principals and provisions in immigration reform.

WT: Does the Convention on Migration look at the root causes?

CT: No, it’s still just dealing with the manifestations of the root causes. It’s elevating human rights standards. That’s why we have to take this up on multiple levels. Whenever we engage governments in discussions on migration and development, pushing that human rights framework has to be central to any discussion on development as well as understanding what they mean by development and challenging it.

Governments think the win-win scenario is migration for development. You encourage this through bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. This is their circular migration scenario – people leave their home countries, they work on a temporary basis only in developed countries, they learn from their experience there, they make money, they send it home and then they return to their home country. But guess what – that doesn’t work. 

They do send the money back but they don’t go back themselves. It’s the myth of temporary work. They become undocumented. Whether they’re skilled or non-skilled. So we engage with governments against this whole scenario but this is the kind of scheme that they are discussing at the global level. No one is talking about permanent migration programs. They’re all taking about temporary programs and migration for development. They’re talking about remittances and the whole remittance industry is part of that conversation. It’s a huge industry itself – the financial institutions that facilitate remittances. Those remittances are used as an engine for development in the developing countries instead of dealing with sustainable development and job creation.

In the developing countries – and this is why it’s so important to be working with labor - where there is economic growth, it’s also important for people to get organized. As countries are evolving economically, who’s paying for that? The workers. So it’s getting basic worker protections in place, the right to organize as workers – these are just fundamental issues. So we are addressing the root causes in some ways but it’s really evolutionary, it’s transformational and most of us are just doing transitional kind of work. 

[Protest including members of the Global Coalition on Migration.]

WT: You recently wrote that “Obama’s second terms gives us another opportunity to push for meaningful immigration reforms and put an end to the conciliatory, bad, repressive policies that so many Democratic politicians claimed they really didn’t support.” What do you think is on the horizon in terms of the debate and changes to U.S. law, immigration policies and practices?

CT: Ever since the election, immigration has been a hot topic. Even when I was in Manila (at the 5^th World Social Forum on Migration), everyone was asking, ‘What’s going on in the United States? Are you going to get immigration reform?’ A lot of other countries pay attention – U.S. laws often influence laws in other countries.

Immigration reform appears to be fast-tracked. What we hear is that the White House will probably make known its proposal for immigration reform shortly after the inauguration. There’ve already been a number of meetings with both sides, Republicans and Democrats reaching out. Interestingly, the Republicans, after the election and the beating that they got and the lack of support that they got from Latinos, see the writing on the wall, the demographic change. In recognizing that they are asking, ‘What could we support that’s not going to be too controversial and win points with the Latino community?’ Of course, there’s not a whole lot that’s not controversial [laughs] that they could support. They’re looking at it in a very narrow way and it doesn’t appear that the Republicans have a consensus on how to approach immigration reform. Will it be piece meal vs. a more sweeping bill? Even among the Democrats, it’s not clear whether they think they can put forward a sweeping bill.

But certainly among advocacy groups, we are beginning to forge fairly strong opinions about what we want. We are meeting in Washington D.C. to form what’s called an enforcement caucus with those of us who have worked a lot around immigration enforcement issues over the past several years. We want to make sure that we don’t see this traded off for legalization in immigration reform, or where there’s going to be an increase, for example, in border militarization and enforcement programs that have been widely criticized in the past couple of years – like Secure Communities, local policing, and that type of thing. We want to see a roll back of that in anything that goes forward.

If we don’t see a rollback, it’s really going to have an effect on legalization. It’s going to throw up more barriers, there will be more people who are ineligible for anything that’s put on the table. As a core issue, we want a number of ways for people to adjust their status. Legalization is one but we want a restoration of a lot of programs that were actually in place in past years where people could adjust their status. They could pay a fine. They could get on the path to legal status or work authorization. There are a lot of issues that we’re presently discussing but it could move very quickly. There are some members of Congress who want it done by this year before the congressional break in the summer. They certainly want it done by the 2014 mid-term elections. I don’t think either party wants this rolling over into the 3^rd year of the Obama administration.

WT: Some of the exit polls after the elections said that the majority of the voters support giving undocumented immigrants in the U.S. a path to legal status, including, according to Fox News, 37% of Republicans. Yet we know there is often disconnect with what people want and what goes on in Washington.

CT: Obama has long said he favored a legalization program and even over the last 4 years that was always a conversation. But how would you get that? He worked very hard to meet the Republican demand that before they would engage in immigration reform, he had to secure the border and continue some of the enforcement policies. So Obama repeatedly would say things like, ‘I have ha more boots on the ground at the border than any previous administration.’ Which is true. But it’s a continuation of policy and the Democrats were so backed into a corner on this issue by the Right that they were willing to make that concession. As usual, the throw away was human rights on the border. So frankly, if we have a human rights crisis in the United States, it’s at the U.S.-Mexico border. But it’s often such an isolated place, it’s not seen by the rest of the country physically or in people’s thinking.

WT: Talk more about the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.

CT: It’s grown steadily since the Clinton Administration. To strengthen enforcement at the border we now have 30,000 border patrol agents. Since the mid-90s and certainly after 2001, programs have steadily been put into place to process people immediately and send them back without access to courts. We see the use of technology including leftovers from the war in the Middle East. Interestingly, there’s been a decrease in people coming across the border in the last year and a half or so. There are lots of reasons – certainly enforcement but also the economy and the decrease in the birth rate in Mexico which has gone down dramatically in the last decade. So actually coming across the border now are OTMs – Other Than Mexicans. But with that decrease there have been a lot of questions including why are we continuing this level of border enforcement? So we certainly want to push back the enforcement but also increase access to due process and peoples’ rights at the border. Both people who are crossing and the resident communities that live along the border have been tremendously affected.

I think the other factor that we’re concerned with is that the border is also the site where the war on drugs is playing out and that has certainly been a big factor in continuing militarization and the rationale to continue levels of militarization. I think as an immigrant rights movement we have to address the war on drugs and we’ve actually begun engaging in conversation with folks working on drug policy because it’s certainly intersected and that will have to be a conversation that also comes into the immigration reform debate.

WT: Coupled with that militarization of the border, we’ve also seen the increase in the private prisons that house undocumented immigrants.

CT: There are more contracts being given to private prisons and detention centers to be built all around the United States, including in the border areas. We’re actually part of the private prison divestment campaign which has been raising awareness about the profiteering from these policies of mass incarceration. The detention of immigrants and others is the prison industrial complex getting played out.

With increased detention centers along the borders, you can detain over 30,000 people a day. Some people are in and out; some are there for a longer period of time. I think there has been awareness raised thanks to some of these campaigns about the degree to which private prison companies like GEO Group and CCA – the Correction Corporation of America – are really profiting off of this.

The United Methodist Church and others have divested their pension funds from Wells Fargo, for example, which was investing in private prisons and recently Wells Fargo, thanks to the efforts of the National Private Prison Divestment Campaign, has withdrawn nearly 75% of its investments in GEO Group, the nation’s second largest private prison company.

WT: Many churches have been involved in immigration advocacy – from the sanctuary movement to divestment campaigns. In November, Evangelical Christian leaders, including a Southern Baptist Convention official, called for President Obama and Congress to reform the nation’s immigration laws and grant legal status to millions of undocumented residents. What’s the significance of this sector weighing in?

CT: It’s interesting. They are also seeing the demographic shift. A number of evangelical churches are bringing in immigrant populations who were members in their home countries and who are now exerting their influence here. With local congregations that are predominantly immigrant based, they have to take a position at the national level. Now we don’t know what the totality of their position will be. Immigration is really wide-sweeping and there are a number of issues on which people will be divided. So, for example, they will be divided on who they see are good immigrants vs. bad immigrants, who will be eligible for legalization.

The laws have increasingly criminalized immigrants, re-categorizing laws, so what was once a misdemeanor is now a felony. If you’re a repeat crosser coming back across the border - multiple reentry - that’s a crime. You’re a criminal. You’re coming back to see your family because they’re destitute because you were deported. So we don’t know how everyone is going to break down on issues that will emerge as immigration reform plays out. But certainly the broader the coalition behind some of the core issues, the better.

WT: Speaking of differences, we’ve seen within progressive movements, there are those who talk about Obama being the worst single President in U.S. history when in comes to jailing, persecuting and deporting immigrants, citing 1 million deportations, the expansion of Secure Communities, etc. How do you respond?

CT: I know there are those who’ve said Obama is worse than George Bush but its not a very useful conversation because the Right has dominated and controlled the immigration debate for a couple of decades or more. What has played out, especially since 9/11, has been a fairly consistent level of government policy. 

Obama is really a transitional President, if that. Not a transformational one. I know a lot of us had higher expectations and hopes that have been dashed and that’s been very sobering. But it is a distorted analysis of what takes place within an administration. So it true that Obama has carried out and deepened some of the enforcement level programs that were started much earlier. But we also know in working with the administration –  not to defend them – but certainly if you were to compare Obama and the previous Bush administration, there are also a number of things the Obama administration has taken up which George Bush would not.

You also have to look at Congress. It’s one thing to have someone in the administration and to use that route to push the agenda. I think we have to continue to push the administration and the departments within the administration, including the Presidency and cabinet, especially the Department of Homeland Security. But unfortunately where policy gets decided is in Congress and we’ve been stymied there for years on immigration reform and lots of other issues. That’s where I think the battle is going to be. We have to continue to push Obama and other members of the cabinet to stand up for some of the things that they have agreed to, like legalization protections and core rights. But you can’t ignore the Congress – that’s where the rubber hits the road.

WT: How is this going to play out with all the draconian anti-immigrant laws being passed at the state level, such as Arizona and Georgia, while trying to push for changes at the federal level?

CT: It’s interesting. Some of what was happening at the state level was very much part of the agenda that was coming from the Right not just on immigration, but also pushing anti-gay marriage laws and other laws which happens when there appears to be a vacuum at the national level. When they couldn’t move their agenda there, they could take it to the state level, especially where they had a stronger base and could manipulate more easily and more readily. It’s not surprising that it’s Arizona and other states in the South where that could take place.

I think we learned a lesson in California from Proposition 187 in 1994. We lost the vote on 187 but the Supreme Court later ruled that it was largely unconstitutional. But it was successful in polarizing the public on questions of immigration, of painting and stigmatizing immigrants as bad immigrants, as sucking up the welfare system, as doing this and that. I think this is a lot of what happens in these state campaigns – it’s meant to polarize the debate and turn people against immigrants and to revive hate and racism.

[Campaign header of the New America Opportunity Challenge.]

WT: Your thoughts on the work of the DREAM activists and their tactics - sit-ins, civil disobedience, taking to the streets - and their role in the movement?

CT: The DREAMers really symbolize a revived active movement and a reenergizing of that movement. The pressure that the DREAMers put on the electoral campaigns really had an impact. They did push to formalize what had been an informal practice, unwritten policy, of the Obama administration, which was to not prioritize deportation of young immigrants.

Pushing that really inspired everyone across the board politically but also in terms of approach and methodology and tactics - you need to get out in the streets. The fact that they were willing to make that kind of sacrifice, to put themselves on the line, was really inspiring.

But undocumented were also in the streets during the massive 2006 rallies, the biggest demonstrations ever on any issue in this country. Those mobilized older immigrants, families, everyone. But they were rallying against something – the anti-immigrant legislation. Sometimes it’s harder to get people out for something. So we may not mimic those rallies but I think that if we can begin to change the environment and make it acceptable, safe for people to come out, then we will get those larger numbers and the breadth that we need to exert greater pressure.

And it’s going to have to be with allies because, frankly, Congress is not necessarily intimidated by immigrants – they’ve said, ‘Frankly, you don’t matter, you don’t vote.’ And I think the movement as a whole is much more prepared to mobilize allies. We’ve seen more sectors willing to enjoin in doing that which is great. We’ve always thought this is not a go-alone movement. It can’t just be immigrants. It has to be something broader where people are seeing a common agenda.

We can see, for example, the work of BAJI – the Black Alliance for Just Immigration - here in Oakland that has really anchored work among African Americans and also with other allies bringing in new populations of African migrants and even bringing those two communities together. Because they ARE two communities. So it’s led to the creation of the Black Immigration Network and we have these new vehicles that we didn’t have 4 years ago.

WT: Organizing in the Latino immigrant community, in the Asian immigrant community and now in the African immigrant community - how are those different communities coming together in this next phase to push the government for reforms?

CT: We hope they are going to come together in greater ways. We’re actually working in California now to convene a dialogue among Asian Pacific Islander communities who are not homogenous. There are challenges on how immigration reform is addressed. So in a lot of Asian communities, for example, they look at legalization that is opposed to dealing with the backlog. There is susceptibility to the charges from the Right that the “good” immigrants have been standing and waiting in line to come in, waiting for their visas, and these “bad” immigrants have crossed the border and are getting in line first. So we see attempts to divide communities. But we recognize that there are different communities and you can’t treat everyone the same. You have to listen to what people are saying.

We have a lot of African migrant populations who are refugees and who look at immigration in a different way who are nonetheless facing similar conditions. We’ve had a lot of conversations with the Arab community too who have undocumented but didn’t necessarily perceive themselves as immigrants. It’s just that the spectrum has shifted a whole lot.

I just had a conversation with a friend and we’re going to be connecting with some of the LGBT groups, and we have our own caucus of LGBT immigrant organizations, to weigh in on some of the policy language to make sure that it’s inclusive and will bring in allies from the LGBT movement.

It’s challenging but challenging in a good way because I think some of these alliances were much more fragile or non-existent in previous years and a lot has actually matured in the last 4-5 years.

WT: What has been the role of organized labor in this work?

CT: We’ve always had a strong relationship with the labor movement and over the years, a number of unions have specifically seen their ranks grow because they dedicated themselves to organizing among immigrant workers. The AFL-CIO, for example, has affiliated with non-union groups like day laborers and domestic workers groups who are largely immigrants. That’s something very new that didn’t exist 20 years ago.

Organized labor has been a declining force yet it is a good friend here in the U.S. and globally. We work closely with the global labor movement as well. We see our futures as intertwined and as a distinct vehicle that has its own base of influence, labor is still a critical partner for the immigrant rights movement.

We are very much agreed that immigration reform has to be very solid in terms the provision on workers’ right so we don’t want to use immigration reform in any way to diminish labor protections. I know we are going to face a big fight in immigration reform on the guest worker issue, temporary workers, which the Republicans have said, is their main focus. They’re willing to engage in immigration reform if they get a guest worker program that is temporary with no guarantee for permanent residency and largely based among the skilled and highly educated immigrants. So they don’t want any poor, uneducated immigrants. They want to continue the whole phenomena of the brain drain. “These are the ‘good’ immigrants. They’re acceptable.” So it’s going to be a fight because we are unified in our opposition to temporary workers and I think we are agreed that family unity is still a core anchor for immigration policy in the U.S.

We are also looking at what it means to have employment visas, for people to be able to migrate on the basis of employment as long as it’s on equal footing with workers here, where there’s access to permanent residency, where their rights are protected at the same level as U.S. workers. Those are issues that we really need to work with labor on to insure that that kind of language is included.

WT: Do you think serving in the military as a path to citizenship will be part of the coming debates?

CT: I’m not sure. This was an issue around the DREAMers. When we first worked on the DREAM Act 10 years ago we did not have as one of the criteria for young immigrants to gain citizenship status through service in the military. That was added by the Republicans and specifically the language that was written into current versions of the DREAM Act was done by the Defense Department.

It’s not surprising that they drafted that provision. My own dad came from the Philippines and had some form of legal status but was drafted into the U.S. military during World War II and received his expedited citizenship by his military service. Our position is that it’s likely that some of that language will continue and you have to continue to do education in the community about what that means. People have to be able to make their own decisions. We just think there should not be barriers to people to have other avenues to gain legal status apart from the military, and the fact that the Defense Department wrote that provision in the DREAM Act is very telling in about how young immigrants are perceived.

WT: Your organization, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, talks about the fight for immigrant rights as not just a fight for legislation. What is some of the other work that goes hand in hand with the work for immigration law reform? 

CT: We just came out of a California meeting where we were talking about this. I think it’s very important for us, as a movement, to understand what our broader political agenda is in terms of justice for immigrants. Legislation is one route and there’s considerable pressure to push legislation through. And you do need legislation. But under these circumstances there’s also a lot of pressure to cut a deal, to compromise, so we have to be very careful about what that bottom line is. We also have to realize that we don’t get everything that we want through legislation. There’s a lot of other work to do. There’s administrative pushes, there’s litigation, but moreover, I think the movement is much more recognizing the importance of organizing and building capacity for the long-run.

The kind of justice we’re seeking at the legislative level is only going to take place when we’re able to do transformative work around the country. We have to change the base of power the base of influence, who gets elected to Congress. It’s certainly not going to be through effective congressional education that we’re going to get what we want. We have to change the character of the legislature itself.

We have to shift the public narrative. We recognize that’s a huge agenda and it’s not just an immigrant rights agenda. So we’re in conversation with folks around health care reform where on the one hand, the current health care reform leaves out lots of people including large sectors of immigrants. That access won’t be there, even by reforming the Affordable Care Act.

Right now we have a door open so everyone is eager to play this out but on a sober note, the challenge is to keep the door open. We’re not going to get everything we want. We have to keep pushing. Unfortunately that door has been closed, certainly since 9/11. In a very token way, it appeared to be open in the last four years – but that wasn’t a serious effort to have immigration reform on the table. It was a campaign promise and we didn’t think it would come around until a second term of the Obama administration. That door is now ajar and we’re going through it!

[This interview was originally published by War Times.]

Qui mieux qu’un misérable saurait narrer la tragédie qui frappe les siens ? 

Et comment raconter aux autres l’indicible horreur, lorsqu’à la tragédie s’ajoute la barrière de la langue ? Pour ce qui nous concerne, tout ce que nous pourrions jamais décrire de  la noirceur de cette misère-là, de la morsure du froid, de l’insupportable enclavement ou de la mort du nourrisson, ne vaudra pas tripette, tant la tâche est insurmontable. 

Tout commence au bord d’une route incertaine. Long ruban grisâtre, grignoté par la crasse, l’érosion et les malfaçons, qui serpente au milieu de nulle part et qui a emporté la vie de tant de ses usagers. Et tout s’achève au fond d’une vallée encaissée, où seul le vent glacial qui souffle sans discontinuer, ose encore rompre le silence imposant de l’Atlas. Entre les deux, le néant, sous la forme d’un désert de pierres ocres rouges, éclatées par le gel et des sentiers improbables, à jeter l’effroi parmi les mules les plus endurcies. Des sentiers tracés à force de cheminements, par des populations qui doivent à leur incomparable instinct de survie, d’avoir traversé le temps et les complots des hommes et ceux de la nature, pour les réduire. Une prodigieuse prouesse de la génétique !

Avez-vous remarqué comment ceux d'Anfgou vous parlent de leur misère ? En souriant. Comme cette femme qui raconte l'agonie de son nouveau-né, des jours durant, entre diarrhées, vomissements, toux, fièvre, avant d’être emporté, faute de soins.

Un certain El Houcine El Ouardi, Ministre de la Santé, est bien passé par là. Un bonimenteur outrecuidant, comme seul sait en fabriquer notre système politique et qui a prétendu avoir rencontré la mère en question. Pure calomnie. Qu'était-il donc venu faire là, sinon rendre visite à ceux qui souffrent ? La mère ne s'y était pas trompée. Sa dignité lui aura épargné de se porter à la rencontre du ministre, car ici, on sait mieux qu’ailleurs, que tout ce qui vient du Makhzen n’est que mensonges, travestissements de la réalité, fausses promesses et persécutions !

Alors, elle  lève un doigt vers le responsable présumé de la tragédie qui l’a frappée, le ciel. Il vaut mieux viser celui-là, plutôt que l’« autre ciel »,  pour rester soi-même en vie. Combien sont morts d’avoir osé, dans le passé, dénoncer les véritables responsables du drame et s'insurger contre l'incurie de l'administration centrale ?!  On ne les conte, ni ne les compte plus, dans ce coin, où même les montagnes semblent avoir des oreilles.

Étrangement, celle qui raconte le drame exhibe, ô divine surprise, un téléphone portable. La civilisation serait-elle donc parvenue jusqu’ici ?  Non, mais les affaires oui, qui continuent envers et contre tout, ou plutôt contre tous ! Car ceux qui ont oublié de tendre la main à ce Maroc-là,  n’ont pas oublié de le doter d’antennes de téléphonie mobile, histoire de mieux plumer ses mort-vivants. L’argent n’a pas d’odeur. La mort non plus ! C’est connu.Quelques arpents d’Atlas plus loin, une fillette surgie de son village, raconte un autre morceau de la tragédie. Elle vient d’un village enterré sous la neige, Tamlout. On le rebaptiserait « Talmout », « jusqu’à la mort », qu’on ne risquerait pas de s’égarer, tant ce coin de l’Atlas a aligné de cadavres,  à chaque fois que la nature s’y est emportée.

La fille qui n’a même pas achevé d’en découdre avec ses dents de lait,  est propulsée dans un monde d’adultes, fait de cruautés et de privations. Elle porte un bébé dans le dos, comme d’autres les stigmates d’une sombre blessure. La mort de sa génitrice lui a légué un encombrant héritage, en la personne de son frère cadet. Le diktat de son père a fait le reste. Il l’a condamnée à porter ce dernier, comme on porterait une croix.

Plus question d’école ! « Ourilli ! », sourit-elle !

Histoire d’un rêve brisé, dont personne ne se souciera ! D’autres petites filles, comme elle, sont légions, qui, la nuit venue,  croupissent sur des paillasses infâmes, nourries de coups, d’injures, de cuissage et de restes ignobles de festins qu’elles auront largement contribué à confectionner, la journée durant, dans les cuisines de quelques maisons bourgeoises des grandes villes. Certaines en sont même mortes.

La somme de tout ce que l’on pourra dénoncer, multipliée par mille, ne suffirait pas à quantifier toute la souffrance de ces misérables. Pour un drame jeté en pâture aux projecteurs, combien d’autres resteront dans l’ombre,  jusqu’à ce que la mort vienne, à nouveau, nous rappeler que la vie existe bel et bien à Anfgou et ailleurs !

الإنجاز الكبير بالنسبة للمرحلة الانتقالية للثورة المصرية ليس في كونها جاءت برئيس منتخب يمثل الإخوان المسلمين، وإنما كان الانتصار لحرية الإختيار، التى جعلت الكفة تكاد تكون متساوية بين المرشحين. ولم ترجح كفة الرئيس مرسي إلا قليلاً. وهو، ما ظهر تأثيره بفاعلية مؤخراً، في ثقافة الرفض لسياساته التي تكللت بمظاهرات إحتجاجية لا تقل في حجمها عن تلك التى أسقطت النظام السابق. ومن هنا، نحن كباحثين يفترض بنا أن نجلس ننتظر ونرى ونحلل، فعلى الرغم من انقضاء ما يزيد عن خمسة أشهر من الحكم، ظهر الرئيس مرسي كرئيس لمصر بشكل لا يتناسب مع حجم الموقع والمسؤولية. كما يمكن أن تلمس على النحو التالي:

 اولاً: شكل قد يدركه محللو الخطاب السياسي، والمتمثل في عادة باتت ملفتة للنظر، هي الإصرار على أداء الصلوات بشكل علني. سواء في القصر أو في المسجد المجاور لبيته أو الذهاب لأداء صلاة الجمع في أحد المحافظات، وكل هذا قد يبدو أمراً عادياً لشخص متدين، إلا أنه يبدو غريباً لرئيس دولة يتطلب منه أن يكون جاداً في إتخاذ سياسات مهمة تجاه مجتمع خارج من ثورة، يبلغ تعداد سكانه تسعين مليون، أغلبه فقير، ومعظم شبابه يبحث عن فرص عمل وينتظر تشغيل عجلة الاقتصاد لخلق فرص عمل جديدة .

 ثانياً: كثرة المخاطبة والحديث في التجمعات بمناسبة وبدونها، وهو ما يعطي صورة حقيقية عن نمط تفكيره وطريقة تعاطيه مع واقع المشكلات التى ينوء بها المجتمع.  فإصراره على إلقاء كلمة عقب كل صلاة جمعة، قد يكون هذا أمراً عادياً لو حدث مرة، إلا أن تكرار ذلك أمر ملفت للنظر. كما أن كلام رئيس الدولة محسوب عليه، ويجب أن يأتي كل ما يقوله بجديد، وما يبشر به من أخبار سواء في حل مشكلات أو أمور تجعل الذين ينتخبونه يعيدون انتخابه مرة ثانية. أما أن يتحدث رئيس الدولة بهذا الشكل المفرط. فهو بالفعل يؤكد ويفسر عقلية الجالس الجديد على كرسي الرئاسة في مصر، وبأن هذه العقلية لا تخرج عن الإطار العام، الذي تربى عليه في جماعة الإخوان المسلمين، وبالأخص المبدأ المعمم المتمثل في السمع والطاعة الذي يحدد نمط تفكيره وتفسيره ورؤيته للحقائق والواقع.

 فليس من المستغرب أن تكون هذه المدة من الحكم التى كانت محددة بإنجازات ووعود في برنامجه، تظهر شخص الرئيس في توجيه الناس بالموعظة وإرشادهم لفعل الخير، فتتولد لديه وفقاً لمبدأ السمع والطاعة قناعة أنه بمجرد إلقائه الكلمة عقب كل صلاة أو حديثه في برنامج يكون أدى جانباً كبيراً من مهام وظيفته. وهو هنا يكون معذوراً، لكونه جاء من تنظيم كان محظوراً ومنطق قوته وتماسكه على مدار ثمانين سنة جاء من خلال الخضوع لهذا المبدأ (السمع والطاعة) . الأمر الذي جعل جماعة كالإخوان المسلمين قوية تنظيمياً، ضعيفة من الناحية الفكرية ومن ناحية قدرتها على تخريج كوادر فكرية، ليس فقط على المستوى الديني، وإنما على المستوى السياسي بسبب هذا المبدأ، القاتل للإبداع والمقيد للعقل في أن يوسع من الإدراك والمحاورة.

 ثالثاً: سياسات منفصلة عن الواقع: فمن خلال إصرار الرئيس مرسي في تصرفاته وسياساته على الانصياع لهذا المبدأ بطريقة لا إرادية لا يمكن أن ينتظر منه أو من جماعته أو ممن يعاونه من الإخوان، أن يأتوا بسياسات فريدة قادرة على الإتيان بحلول عبقرية لمشكلات المجتمع، لأن ما سوف يسرى على الرئيس، سوف يسري على الآخرين من المعاونين معه من الإخوان.  فأقصى ما سوف يبذله مرسي، هو أن يطبق ما يراه ويؤمن به وما بني تفكيره عليه، وهو تطبيق مبدأ السمع والطاعة بما يخالف صورة الرئيس الموجودة في الوعي الجمعي، لدى المصريين الذين قد يفاجأون، في وسط مشاكلهم التى يغرقون فيها، كل يوم برئيس عائش في المثالية وفي الكلام المعسول ظناً منه أن ما يقوله، سوف ينفذه أفراد الشعب . وهو لا يدرى أن هذه سياسة قد تنفع مع رب أسرة وأولاده أو مع إمام مسجد ومصلين، أما من رئيس دولة لشعبه، فهي تؤشر على أن القادم سوف يكون أسوأ خصوصاً بعدما رأينا القرارات المتمثلة في الإعلانات الدستورية المحصنة، والإصرار على إنجاز الاستفتاء على مسودة الدستور، المختلف عليها منذ البداية، مما مهد في غضون هذه الأشهر القليلة التى ظهر فيها الرئيس مرسي في المشهد، للانتفاضة الثانية للثورة المصرية، ولكن في هذه المرة عن طريق الطبقة الوسطى اعتراضاً على هذا الجالس في قصر الاتحادية، الذين جاءوا به بالانتخابات؛ ليفاجأوا بقراراته وسياساته التى في باطنها تعمل على هدم أسس المجتمع المصري بمؤسساته، مثل ما ظهر في الإعلان الأخير. الذي أراد به بالاساس مؤسسة القضاء وبالاخص المحكمة الدستورية العليا، التى كانت في طريقها إلى إبطال عمل اللجنة التأسيسية لوضع الدستور لعدم اتساقها مع القيم الأساسية لمنطق العدالة. فتم الالتفاف على قيم القضاء ومبادئه بقرارات فردية أطلق عليها دستورية. هذه القرارات التى لا تتناسب، مع رئيس جاء بالانتخاب تؤكد على السمة الثالثة التى تميز هذا الجالس بأن ما يصدره من قرارات أو يتبعه من سياسات سوف يكون فيه عدم إتساق مع الواقع. وبالتالي التوابع والنتائج قد تكون كارثية. خصوصاً أننا أمام دستور يعطيه سلطات مطلقة على حساب السلطات الثلاث التي تخلق عملية توازن في حالة عدم كفاءة رئيس الدولة، أما أن يضعفها ويفرغها من مضمونها ويضع معظم السلطات في يده، فهذا هو الانتحار بعينه، في شخص رئيس عقيدته السياسية مبنية على السمع والطاعة.

Rizana Nafeek was beheaded on 9 January, less than two days after a final appeal made by Sri Lankan President Rajapakaa. The several clemency appeals made by Sri Lanka, other states, and human rights organizations failed largely due to the disastrous interplay between Saudi’s flawed legal system and Sri Lanka’s miserly support for migrant workers.

Saudi Arabia holds one of the world’s highest execution rates, ranking second after China in 2011. Amnesty is granted to convicts only by “forgiveness” from the victim’s family. In the case of migrant workers, this forgiveness generally entails bond money paid out by sending-nations. Consequently, appeals at the diplomatic level scarcely affect the outcome of these cases. Instead, they serve primarily as symbolic gestures, as well as public ‘evidence’ of the state’s efforts to save a national’s life.

Furthermore, Saudi’s legal system is particularly hostile to migrant workers. Translators are rarely provided during judicial proceedings, which are conducted entirely in Arabic. Nafeek’s original confession was made under duress, and without the presence of either a lawyer or a translator. Though Sri Lankan authorities are well aware of these conditions, “embassy policy” prohibits the provision of legal aid to migrants. Thus, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry’s claim that Nafeek’s execution occurred “despite all efforts at the highest level of the government and the outcry of the people locally and internationally” is misleading. Instead, an MP’s indictment that the government did little to “ensure Rizana Nafeek’s legal rights” more accurately reflects Sri Lanka’s conduct; the absence of any support mechanism for incarcerated nationals precluded the opportunity for a fair trial. The Sri Lankan government obviated accountability even whilst Nafeek’s case became a protracted, years-long affair, abandoning her defense to resource-limited NGOs. Only when Nafeek was sentenced to certain death did Sri Lanka intervene, at which point the prospect of her discharge was substantially diminished, dependent entirely on the procurement of amnesty–rather than on her innocence, or through a capable lawyer’s argument (which may have stressed that the death penalty would contravene Saudi’s obligation to the Convention on the Rights of the Child).

Additionally, the questionable conduct of Sri Lankan delegations sent to appeal for Nafeek’s release was heavily criticized by rights groups. Organizations including the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) accused the delegations of misleading the public regarding the status of Nafeeks’ case. Delegation officials repeatedly indicated that a settlement was on the horizon. However, the family’s tribe, with whom negotiations were conducted, expressed a dramatically different version of events. The tribe’s leader angrily stated“that these kind of ‘diabolic lies’ would only worsen the case of Sri Lanka’s house maid Rizana Nafeek as well as the cordial relationship of our two countries.” Rights groups indicated the delegations’ missteps may have been detrimental to Nafeek’s fate.

In the aftermath of Nafeek’s execution, the crucial question becomes: how can states avoid similar situations in the future? Sri Lanka may be inclined to ban domestic workers from Saudi, as Indonesia did following Ruyati Binti Sapubi’s beheading in June 2011. Bans are intended to provoke a response from receiving nations in the form of new legislation and improved policies, but they have had little success in the past. Bans also represent very public condemnations of Saudi policy, but they can actually be detrimental to workers, who often elect to migrate to banned nations illegally. While Saudi must address the deficiencies of current migrant worker policies, bans are rarely an incentive for substantive policy change. Other bilateral mechanisms must be explored to pressure Saudi to adopt essential reforms.

In addition, Sri Lanka can begin to improve nationals’ conditions on its own initiative. In the same way Indonesia has provided free lawyers to workers in Malaysia, Sri Lanka can create a legal defense fund to support its convicted nationals. Translation and attorney services can ameliorate judicial discrimination and prevent cases from reaching such critical phases. The introduction of legal support mechanisms will have a much greater and more immediate impact on migrant worker conditions than indefinite moratoriums.

However, Rizana Nafeek’s ultimate legacy does not lie exclusively with states. Nafeek’s preventable tragedy received extensive media attention, both within and outside the region. Her injustice may encourage local NGOs to fill the systemic voids in legal and translation services, as well as to promote social reflection of institutional migrant discrimination. If civil societies in both sending and receiving nations escalate repudiation of the states’ mistreatment of migrant workers, a critical step to improving migrants’ reality will be initiated.

[This article was originally published on Migrant Rights.]

The start of 2013 brought a fresh upsurge of US drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, killing between twenty-three and forty-four people. Since 2008 when President George W. Bush ordered increased strikes on “militants” and associated “infrastructure targets” in these areas, killings have been a constant occurrence. President Barack Obama continued this policy but escalated it dramatically. Of the 360 total strikes documented by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 308 have occurred since Obama took office. It is no surprise, then, that individual drone strikes no longer cause much of a stir in the international press, except when “high-value targets” are reported—or rumored—to be killed. Other killings, if reported at all, mention some unfortunate “military aged males.”

The drone strike on 2 January was one of the widely publicized variety because it reportedly killed Maulvi Nazir, a militant leader who had survived three previous attempts on his life, two by CIA drones and one by a suicide bomber. The last of these was attributed by many either to the Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) or Uzbek militants long established in the region. Nazir’s men had frequently clashed with both groups. 

Nazir, tolerated and supported by the Pakistani military, had acquired the widely reported moniker of a “good” talib, in large part for evicting Uzbek militants from his South Waziristan stronghold and refusing to carry out attacks inside Pakistan. His death by drone is but the latest example of the wildly different priorities of Pakistan and the US. 

Pakistan has winnowed the violently anti-state TTP from other militants who do not pose an immediate threat to the state, and has supported groups like the Haqqani Network, the Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Consequently, many commentators opine that Pakistan is playing a “double game”: conducting military operations against groups it considers a threat while protecting its own militant proxies. One can find this ubiquitous phrase dotting mainstream media reports and op-eds on the US-Pakistani relationship. In some instances this line devolves into lurid tales of Pakistan as “an ally from hell.”

What undergirds accusations of this double game is the fanciful imperial assumption that Pakistan’s policies should be strictly aligned with US objectives in the region, without contemplating the consequences of such an alignment for Pakistan. Also absent from these grievance-laden narratives is a proper accounting of the already close alignment of Pakistani policies with US interests, despite overwhelming domestic opposition.      

Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, bargaining with US vice president Joe Biden in the first days of the Obama administration, said “You know this country is awash with anti-Americanism, and they’re going to hate me for being an American stooge. You have to give me economic resources so that I can win over the people.” [1] His fear of being seen as an American stooge was not misplaced; if anything, it was too limited. CIA drone strikes and Pakistani military operations in FATA, heavily subsidized by the US and partly undertaken in response to US pressure, have delegitimized the Pakistani state in the eyes of many who see the government fighting America’s war.

Nothing has spurred militancy in Pakistan more than the US war in Afghanistan and its subsequent spread to Pakistan. Kashmir-oriented militant groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba all faced internal splits after the Pakistan government’s decision to support the US war in Afghanistan. Many members of these groups argue that Pakistan became “a puppet of the Americans” and a legitimate target for jihad. [2] An organization like the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammad (TNSM), which initially emerged in 1994 to redress the legal vacuum in Swat by implementing shari’a, responded to the US invasion of Afghanistan by sending some 7,000 volunteers to fight alongside the Afghan Taliban. The group would later join the TTP’s fight against the Pakistani state, clamoring to implement shari’a in all of Pakistan.

Punjab-based sectarian outfits like the Sipah-e-Sahaba-Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi also have grown closer to the TTP. As the Economistbelatedly noted: “The [sectarian] violence [in 2012] has been notable not just for its scale, but for what lies beneath it: a growing alliance between established anti-Shia militant groups and the Pakistani Taliban, Sunni extremists who have spun out of the army’s control, allied with al-Qaeda, and are determined to attack the Pakistani state.” [3] Ahmed Rashid similarly wrote of the growing conviction of Punjabi militants that “the Pakistan Army was the lackey of the Americans and an enemy of Islam, so now God ordained them to overthrow Pakistan’s state through an Islamic revolution.” [4]

The TTP itself was only formally established in late 2007 as a result of the Afghanistan war’s fallout in FATA. A report published by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center in 2011 acknowledges that US drone warfare and Pakistani military operations inside the tribal areas played “central roles” in the creation of TTP and its violence against targets in Pakistan. 

Those stubbornly fixated on narratives of Pakistan’s double game conveniently elide the devastating effects the US war in Afghanistan has had on Pakistan, quite separately from Pakistan’s support of militant groups. To be sure, Pakistan’s strategy of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, its policy of using militant groups to wage a proxy war in Kashmir, and the nexus of political parties and sectarian groups in the country all remain serious issues. But those who believe or suggest that the solution lies in further alignment of Pakistani policies to US interests are blind or ignorant to all relevant history. In fact the first step toward any sustainable solution to the problem of militancy in Pakistan must involve a complete disavowal of the US “war on terror.”

It is in this context that the inveterate discussion of Pakistan’s “double game” appears to be what it really is: a complaint that Pakistani policies are insufficiently subordinated to US interests. The killing of Maulvi Nazir in a drone strike, regardless of any consideration about the potential consequences in Pakistan, is in keeping with past US policies—ostensibly aimed at eliminating militants—that have exacerbated the threat of militancy in the country. It is all the more ironic given the now desperate US search for its own “good” Taliban in Afghanistan in order to restart peace talks before its much vaunted “withdrawal” in 2014—one that may still leave 6,000 to 20,000 US troops in the country. Pakistanis, on the other hand, would be left to cope with the aftermath of America’s long war.

يقول الإسلاميون إن نجاح البلاد لا يمكن إلا بمرجعية الدين الإسلامي. وهمْ يستدعون الدين كلما تطلب الصراع السياسي ذلك، مثلما استدعوا جمعة الشريعة أخيراً قبل الاستفتاء رغم أنهم - (الإخوان تحديداً) - سكتوا عن قصة الشريعة منذ مليونية قندهار في يوليو 2011. ورغم إنه في الحقيقة لم يتهدد الشريعة ممثلة في المادة الثانية التي يحبونها أي أمر، بل كانت معركة وهميّة، وسلمّت معظم القوى العلمانية بوجود المادة الثانية، سواءً عن قناعة أو برجماتية مرحلية.

(1)

لا يتسع هذا المقال لبحث أسئلة حقيقة الدين أو ضرورته، وغير ذلك من النظريات المضادة والصادمة تماما لأنصار الديانات بشكل عام، لكنه فقط يحاول محاولة متواضعة الاستناد إلى زعم آخر غير صِدامي يقول مبدأياً إن الدين – أي دين - لا يرتبط ارتباطاً شرطياً لا بالتقدم ولا بالتخلف. وإن أي دين كَمُكون ثقافي للشعوب، بما في ذلك الإسلام، يمكن أن يكون من عوامل شقاء معتنقيه وفقرهم وتخلفهم، أو دافعاً إلى عكس ذلك. 

هناك دلائل تاريخية تعزز صحة تلك السردية الكبرى في التاريخ الإسلامي، الأمر في هذه الحالة يتطلب الاستقصاء والتحري عن طبيعة الأقاويل الكبرى المسيطرة في هذا الدين، بالإضافة لبحث طبيعة ممثليه والطبقة الاجتماعية المهيمنة على تفسيره وتقلباتها وعلاقتها بنظام الحكم، وإذا كان هناك أكثر من قولين (أو جهتين أو تفسيرين) كبيريَن لهذا الدين، فأيهما الذي نجح في السيطرة على الحكم تاريخياً وبأية حجج وأسانيد الخ. ثم إن الدين بعد كل ذلك يبقى فقط – وفقط – مجرد واحداً من الدوافع الثقافية للتقدم أو التخلف، لا هو بكل دوافع الانحطاط ولا هو كامل أسباب النهضة، بل يتمازج وينصهر في العديد من الدوافع الثقافية والاجتماعية والاقتصادية الأخرى التي يشكل انصهارها جميعاً المنتج النهائي لكل مرحلة "زمكانية".

(2)

الدعوة مفتوحة إذن للفلسفة والتفكير وإعادة التفكير، لكن المقال يتعامل مع الواقع السياسي الآني وينطلق منه، لذلك نعود للواقع. يشير أغلب الإسلاميين في حماسة رهيبة إلى ماليزيا أو تركيا أو إندونيسيا كتجارب "إسلامية" ناجحة، والحقيقة إني لا أفهم أبدا كيف يتصورون أن تلك التجارب لها علاقة بمفهوم الدين كما هو في رؤوس الإخوان والسلفيين في مصر مثلاً.  فهم ساعتها يرتكبون أخطاءً مركّبة مضحكة، في محاولتهم للتدليس وتلبيس العمّة. ولماذا لا يشيرون مثلا لتجربة باكستان رغم إن جُرعة الدين فيها أضعاف تركيا وإندونيسيا؟

لايتسع المقام لمناقشة مُقارَنة تفصيلية بين تجارب كل تلك الدول ومصر، لكن في الأسطر القادمة محاولة مجتزأة ومختصرة للتدليل على عدة أمور، ليس أهمها فشل استدلالات الإسلاميين وسذاجتهم وإحداثهم المعذورين فيه نسبياً، ولكن الأهم؛ التدليل على وجود أشكال وصور عديدة للدين والتديين ومساحة "الإسلام" في الحياة العامة للمجتمعات وعلاقته المتحركة التاريخانية بالتقدم والتخلف.

في الأسطر التالية محاولة للتفصيل.

(3) 

لا يشير – أو ربما لا يعرف – الإسلاميون في مصر إن مهاتير محمد في ماليزيا اضطهد حزب الإخوان هناك وسجن رئيسه في قضايا سياسية. ومع ذلك يقول إخوان مصر إن سبب نهضة ماليزيا هو الإسلام. في حين إن السنوات القليلة الماضية أشارت بوضوح إلى أن أي محاولات لاستجلاب الإسلام للسياسة بشكل مُبالغ أو زيادة حصته في الحياة العامة في ماليزيا سيعمل فوراً على إشعال النعرات العرقية والطائفية في مجتمع نعِمَ بالسلم الأهلي والتعايش طوال سنوات طويلة.

في زعم ساذج آخر، قال مرشح رئاسي إسلامي هو حازم أبو إسماعيل إن نهضة ماليزيا سببها تحريم الربا (بنفس السذاجة التي قال بها إن كلمة "بيبسي" تعني ادعموا إسرائيل) في حين إن ما حدث هو أن مهاتير بحث عن حلول اقتصادية أخرى خارج إطار وصفات صندوق النقد الدولي والهيمنة الأمريكية، ودوامة القروض ذات الفائدة العالية، ولم يحرّم ولا يستطيع أصلاً تحريم الربا في ظل النظام الاقتصادي العالمي الحالي. الأكثر سخرية هو إن ما فعله مهاتير هو من عيّنة ما يُطالب به الآن كفار قريش (من اليساريين والعلمانيين) في مصر، ورغم ذلك فإن الإخوان متمسكون بقرض صندوق النقد كحل وحيد، فهم دائما الشيء وعكسه. وعِمّة الإسلام هي دائماً الشيء وعكسه: القرض هنا، واللاقرض هناك. 

وفي الواقع، إن التجربة الماليزية ناجحة اقتصادياً، لكنها سيئة فيما يتعلق بالحريات المدنية والسياسية، ولازال هناك نضال مستمر لتكريس مفاهيم الحريات العامة والسياسية، وحرية الرأي والتعبير، وتحجيم سلطوية الدولة وذراعها الأمني، فالتجسس البوليسي واعتقال النشطاء المعارضين يتم هناك بصفة منهجية. وقمع التظاهرات المعارضة هو السلوك المستمر للحكومات المتعاقبة. بل حتى في التجربة الاقتصادية، فإنه لا يمكن تقييمها إجمالاً بمعزل عن سياسات الدعم وعدالة التوزيع، وفي هذه النقطة الأخيرة ثمة استفهامات كثيرة أجاب عليها رئيس الوزراء الحالي نجيب رزاق حين قال إن ماليزيا لا يمكن أن تتحول لنظام الرفاهة، وبمعنى آخر لم يجرؤ على قوله إن الفقراء يجب أن يبقو فقراء ومعدومين رغم ثروات ماليزيا الهائلة. ورغم إن نظام الرفاهة هو بذاته نظام رأسمالي نيوليبرالي طبقته بدرجات متفاوتة معظم دول أوروبا الغربية.

حين يروّج الإسلاميون لماليزيا كتجربة "إسلامية" فإنهم لا يشيرون إلى كل تلك الحقائق المعقدة للواقع الماليزي، وربما يجهلونها بالفعل لأنهم لا يحاولون القراءة أو المعرفة مكتفين بمادة تتحدث عن الشريعة في الدستور الماليزي، وحتى تلك المادة الأخيرة، ونظراً لطبيعة ماليزيا الفيدرالية، فهي تختلف بشكل عميق وجذري عن نوعية الشريعة الموجودة في دستور مصر وأفهام الإسلاميين الراكدة، والتي يرغبون في تطبيقها على تسعين مليون إنسان لمجرد وجود عشرة ملايين  صوت لصالح دستورهم أو حتى خمسين مليون مقتنعة بأفكارهم.

****

لا يشير إسلاميو المشرق كثيراً إلى التجربة الإندونيسية بعد الثورة ضد سوهارتو، جزء من السبب أنها مجهولة لأهل المشرق عامة بسبب مركزيتنا الشديدة، وجزء آخر لأنها لم تحقق حتى الآن النجاح الاقتصادي المنشود كماليزيا وتركيا، وبالتالي فهي "أقل إسلاماً" ربما، ولا داعي للإشارة لها كثيراً! 

ورغم التحديات الاقتصادية التي تواجه إندونيسيا المتمثلة في معدلات الفساد الرهيبة التي خلفها نظام سوهارتو، لكنها تحرز تقدماً لا بأس به. لا يشير الإسلاميون في مصر أيضاً إلى عزوف معظم الجماعات الإسلامية هناك عن خلط الدين بالسياسة بعد نجاح الثورة، ورغبة أكثرهم في البقاء في حيز "الدعوة". كما لا يشيرون أيضاً إلى التجربة الجيدة جداً في التوافق حول تعديل الدستور الإندونيسي برئاسة شخص ينتمي لأقلية دينية وعرقية في ذات الوقت ليعكس تنوع الشعب رغم إنه أكبر الشعوب الإسلامية من حيث التعداد. لكنه يعترف بـست أقليات دينية، بينما تزيد الأقليات العرقية هناك عن مئتين وخمسين عرقية. 

المفارقة اللطيفة إن من ضمن تعديلات الدستور في إندونيسيا إنشاء محكمة دستورية لحماية الدستور وكي تتولى تفسيره، بينما في مصر حرص الإسلاميون على تقليص المحكمة الدستورية، وإعطاء دور للأزهر شبيه بدور محاكم التفتيش والمحكمة الدستورية معاً.

(4)

ًفي تركيا، نسخة كربونية أخرى من عباءة الإسلام التي تنكمش وتتمدد وفقا لقوانين الإخوان، فالإخوان (والظواهري زعيم القاعدة أيضاً) اعتبروا أردوغان علمانياً، وهناك تصريحات قديمة في مطلع الألفية يقول فيها قادة إخوان مصر إن تجربة أردوغان لا تشرف الإخوان ولا تمثل الإسلام، كان هذا منذ حوالي إثني عشر سنة في بداية نجاح أردوغان الانتخابي بعد انشقاقه عن حزب أربكان، ذراع الإخوان في تركيا. وبالتالي كان رد فعل الإخوان معاداته وحرمانه من "العِمّة الإسلامية".

بيْد أنه بعد نجاحه في قيادة البلاد أصبح الآن ممثلاً للإسلام الحضاري في وجهة نظر الإسلاميين، بل ويريدون استيراد "التجربة التركية". لكنك حينما تنجح في إحراج أحد الإسلاميين بذكر تلك المواقف المتقلبة، وتطالبه باستجلاب التجربة التركية كاملة سيقول لك فوراً: "لا! هناك أجزاء في تجربة أردوغان لا تلائم المجتمع المصري". وهو يعني في الأساس الأمور التي تتعلق بالحريات الشخصية الأوسع في المجتمع التركي. وبهذه الطريقة يجيب الإسلامي على نفسه ويُجهز على الأسطورة المؤسسة للإسلام السياسي (دون أن ينتبه)، إذ يصبح الدين حسب الطلب والمزاج. وتطبيقه يعتمد على مدى مقاومة المجتمع ورفضه لسلطوية الراغبين في حشر الجميع في عباءة دينهم على مقياس تفكيرهم.

لا يجيب الإسلاميون على أسئلة أخرى مفصلية، من نوعية ما علاقة حرص أردوغان على كون جيشه جزء من قوات حلف الأطلسي بالإسلام؟ وما علاقة إنكاره لاضطهاد الأرمن بالإسلام؟ وما علاقة استمرار اضطهاد الأكراد في تركيا بالإسلام؟ وماعلاقة سعيه الحثيث للانضمام للاتحاد الأوروبي للإسلام؟. لماذا لا يمثل هذا جوانب في الإسلام إذن إذا كان أردوغان استقبل استقبال الخلفاء العثمانيين لدى الإسلاميين في مصر؟ في تركيا ذاتها، هناك حديث مستمر ومحتدم عن محاولات أردوغان وحزبه للسيطرة على البلاد لصالح أجندة إسلامية غير معلنة.. والحقيقة إن هناك شواهد يمكن أن تفسر بشكل متطرف للتدليل على ذلك. لكن من المبكر الحكم على مدى قبول المجتمع التركي لذلك حين تسفر السلطة عن وجهها الحقيقي، بفرض صحة تلك المزاعم. 

لكن الإنصاف يقتضي القول إن استمرار حزب أردوغان في السلطة بُني على الإنجاز الاقتصادي الذي حققه بشكل مبهر. بالإضافة إلى أن المواطن التركي حتى الآن لا يستشعر أي تهديد على حرياته أو حياته الشخصية، رغم إن العلمانيين الأصوليين بالطبع يكرهون رؤية الزيادة في نسبة المحجبات ونسبة المدارس الدينية الخ، إلا أن ذلك يبقى مجرد ضغائن حزبية واختلافات فكرية لا تكفي لشحن العلماني التركي العادي ناهيك عن المواطن غير المسيس، ضد أردوغان. 

وفي النهاية، يتجاهل الإسلاميون في مصر عند حديثهم عن تجربة تركيا "الإسلامية" حقيقة تحرجهم كثيراً هي إن حزب أردوغان نجح في إحراز الأغلبية في حين كان إخوان تركيا (أربكان وصحبه) على قيد الحياة في هامش السياسة، عاجزين عن إقناع رجل الشارع بكراهية أردوغان وحرمانية الانضمام للاتحاد الأوروبي، حتى فشلوا في إحراز مقعد واحد في البرلمان على مدار إثني عشر عاماً.

(5) 

ما سبق كان محاولة سريعة ومبتسرة لتفكيك الأساطير المنسوجة حول إسلامية التجارب التي يُلصق الإسلاميون بها صفة الدين، لكن الأهم هو دعوة للتفكير مرة أخرى عن دور الدين في المجال العام والسياسة، وتعريفاته وتفسيره.

إن الزعمالأدبيالذيتستندعليهمنطلقاتالإسلاميين،يتلخصفيسرديتين: الأولىإنالإسلامهوالدينالحقالذيأرسلهالخالق، ولأنه خالق كل شيء فهو أعرف بما يُصلح حياة البشر، وعلينا لكي ننجو وننجح أن نلتصق بمنهجه وخاتم الرسالات. والسرديةالثانيةهيإنهلاتوجدأمةتتقدمبالتنكرلتاريخهاوتراثها.

والحقيقة إن الرد على السردية الأولى موجود جزئياً في رأس المقال، فالدين وتعريفاته وتفسيراته تتعدد وتتشعب، ولا يمكن ببساطة أن تنفي وتتجاهل عشرات التجارب المتخلفة وتنزع عنها "إسلاميتها" بالزعم أنها لم "تلتزم" صحيح الإسلام، في حين تلصق كل تجربة ناجحة بالإسلام حتى ولو لم يزعم أهلها ذلك! وهذا الدين الذي يتفق المسلمون إن الله هو مصدره لا يبقى بهذا النقاء حين يقدمه الإسلاميون – أو غيرهم - للناس مختلطاً بتفسيراتهم "البشرية". وحين يختلط "الإلهي" بـ "البشري" لا يصبح البشري إلهياً ولا حتى نصف إلهي، بل العكس؛ يفقد الإلهي قداسته وتنتهي الفرضيات المنوطة بقدسيته حول فعاليته الأكيدة، لأنه يبقى تجربة بشرية تاريخانية قابلة للنجاح أو الفشل. 

أمّا السردية الثانية، فهي حق يراد به باطل، صحيح أنه لا يمكن لأمّة أن تتقدم بالتنكر لتاريخها وثقافتها، لكن هذا التاريخ وتلك الثقافة أيضاً متنوعة وملوّنة ومتعددة بشكل يعجز أحاديو التفكير عن رؤيته أو الاستفادة منه، أو حتى الاعتراف به، ناهيك عن إن التاريخ غير مقدس أصلاً ويمكن الإضافة له والبناء عليه بشكل لا محدود.

When President Mohamed Morsi issued his highly controversial extra-constitutional decree on 20 November, which he later partially annulled under mass public protest, he promised to use the extraordinary legislative powers it afforded him only within very limited boundaries. When he actually used these powers, he did so very quickly to pass law 105/2012 in the midst of what could be described, without too much exaggeration, as one of the most critical moments in Egypt’s modern history. Even the most seasoned political analyst could have been forgiven for naively assuming that this law must concern the imminent referendum on the highly controversial draft constitution which had polarized the country, or the role of the army in the economy. Interestingly enough, however, law 105/2012 was designed to increase punitive measures against street vendors. It raised penalties for violations enacted in law 33/1957, which to date has regulated the work of Egypt’s estimated five million street vendors, to three instead of one month prison sentence and a fine of five thousand instead of one thousand Egyptian pounds. Was this yet another one of Morsi’s seemingly endless blunders in recent weeks reflecting his total lack of engagement with political realities? Or is there more to be read into such a decision in terms of the nature of state-society relations, the economy and public space in the current revolutionary phase?

The 25 January mass uprising, the tumultuous eighteen days in Tahrir Square and the ensuing marches, mass protests, and occupations that have not ceased to grip the country ever since have done more than simply bring about the downfall of Hosni Mubarak and pose a challenge to those who have succeeded him. The new political culture that emerged in the wake of this revolution has, first and foremost, heightened the sense of an individual and collective quest for freedom and, consequently, has altered practices and perceptions about public space. The traditional policing of Egypt’s urban spaces—backed by the infamous emergency law, a huge police presence on the street and the sprawling high walls of gated communities and shopping malls—has long intimidated citizens and defined the limits of their entitlement to public space. Whether they were activists mobilizing against the regime, lovers seeking brief moments of intimacy, or the poor hoping for moments of respite from their grinding daily misery, Egyptians were physically barred from accessing public spaces. The sense of empowerment gained through taking to the streets over the last two years has not managed to negate the policing regime altogether but it has most certainly led to what many have since called the (re-)appropriation of public space. The millions who experienced the freedom of coming out onto the streets to protest, debate, and exchange ideas with fellow citizens whom they never had the opportunity to meet openly before could no longer be restrained by the same oppressive regime, at least not completely.

Naturally, however, the discovery of new opportunities and resources soon leads to battles over ownership and entitlement. Thus, the ability to (re)claim public spaces soon created heated debates over who should have access to which spaces, whom needs to be excluded and what the rules of engagement between fellow citizens should be. The warring political factions have exemplified this new battle in their bid to claim certain venues, not least of which the iconic Tahrir Square, as theirs. A cartoon that widely circulated on facebook in the aftermath of confrontations between forces for and against Morsi’s presidential decree over using Tahrir as the epicenter of their popular campaigns of mobilization pertinently reflected this conflict. The cartoon suggests a set of rules for a “Tahrir Timetable” where Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays are reserved for Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters while Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are for “revolutionaries.” Finally, Friday is designated as a day for cleaning up, maintenance and the exchange of prisoners of “war.” However, since 25 January 2011, battles over ownership of and entitlement to public spaces have gone beyond the conflicts between warring political factions. The new possibilities of claiming public space have renewed deep-seated societal anxieties and lines of tension between different social and political groups. One pertinent example for such tensions was the question of women’s presence in public spaces and the routine harassment they suffered during and after the uprising. Other cases that exacerbated long-running anxieties concerned the place of other marginalized groups such as street children and street vendors.

[Top: “Tahrir Square schedule: Saturday, Monday, Wednesday—Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood; Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday—Revolutionaries; Friday—Maintenance, watering plants, collecting bird pellet bullets and teargas grenades, and exchange of prisoners. Bottom: “People’s “rise” is Saturday and Sunday, but our “rise” [renaissance] is unprecedented. Photo from “Motadayaat Ashaab Cool” Facebook Page]

From the early days of the uprising, street vendors flocked to Tahrir Square, where they created a thriving local economy that provided the millions of protestors who have subsequently descended on the square with affordable snacks and beverages. Whether families and groups of friends who came to join protests or to enjoy the sense of freedom and optimism exuding from the square, or die-hard fighters who made Tahrir their home, they all relied on street vendors instead of the unaffordable cafes and restaurants of downtown Cairo. With time, they were joined by more vendors selling all sort of merchandise, and they all soon spilled onto the pavements and streets of the whole downtown area.

Immediately following the fall of Mubarak, the military and successive governments have engaged in a campaign to evict Tahrir Square, not only of protestors but also of vendors. These attempts are meant to restore public order to the streets and more importantly to regain the image of a powerful state and of the “respectability” of Egyptian society, which, the logic goes, was being threatened by occupation of public spaces. The forcible removals invariably have resulted in violent clashes in which vendors and “thugs” (the two are often conflated/used interchangeably) are always blamed for the violence. The state authorities’ efforts to evict vendors from Tahrir and the surrounding streets have been only a part of an overall, long-term, nationwide campaign to crack-down on a phenomenon, to which people attribute a host of evils including street chaos, traffic congestion, lawlessness and above all the “tarnishing” of Egypt’s “civilized image” (mazhar hadary). Shop owners and middle class city residents have supported such efforts. For shop owners, street vendors are evidently a source of threat because they sell affordable merchandise, literally at their doorstep. While residents of middle-class neighborhoods in the city see street vendors as a menace because they impede the flow of traffic and clog the pavements making it impossible for pedestrians to move about easily, there is also another, almost “moral,” dimension to their sense of anxiety which is evoked by the poverty and disorder embodied by the street vendors. Needless to say, the real reasons for Cairo’s horrific traffic and street chaos cannot be blamed on street vendors. They are to be found in the absence of an effective system of affordable public transportation, in poor road networks, in major blunders in urban planning and in a system of crony capitalism. However, residents of Egypt’s privileged communities are intent on eradicating the “uncivilized” and morally threatening presence of street vendors using any justification. In this, they repeatedly call on the police, which they see as their natural ally in their fervor against lawlessness and disorder, to crack down on vendors operating in their neighborhoods.   

Morsi’s bewildering law has come as a desperate step in a long battle to eliminate street vendors. For example, in March 2011 military and civilian police forces violently evicted street vendors in Ramses Square arresting many vendors, some of whom were later tried and sentenced under military courts. More recently, in October 2012, a twenty-two year old fruit vendor died in violent clashes during a raid by the police in an attempt to clear Giza square of all vendors. This led to a protest by his fellow vendors in front of the Public Prosecutor’s office demanding retribution.

This ongoing battle is neither new nor unique to Egypt. It has very much been an integral part of the building and functioning of the developmentalist state since the 1950s and 60s in most developing countries. The developmentalist state in newly independent nations, and the economic order which backed it in the second half of the twentieth century, promoted a modernization project based on rationality, efficiency, Western technology and methods of management, and above all, order. As such, it regarded the informal economy and street vendors at its heart as antithetical to the state’s project and existence. Street vendors epitomized everything that modernization was not: inefficient, chaotic, parasitical and disorderly. The image of modern, well-planned, Western style cities was threatened by the association of poverty, lawlessness and chaos engendered by traditionally-clad and traditionally-operating vendors. Vendors wandered the streets, had no fixed trading places and followed no rules, which a modern, civilized society ordained.

Zygmunt Bauman captured the essence of modernity by describing it as “order as obsession.” Order has served, above all, an essential function in reproducing the prevailing economic system. In a modern, capitalist system, the large corporation working on the principles of economics of scale, the firm and even small (yet organized) entrepreneurs are recognized as partners and agents of modernization because they fit a model that is based on centralization of production and distribution. Street vendors, on the other hand, do not pay taxes, keep no records and are impossible to factor into general economic indices such as GDP and, hence, are detrimental to national economic planning. More importantly, firms and large corporations also enshrine the regulatory role of the state in managing relations of production. The state as an “ideal collective capitalist” provides the political preconditions for a “healthy” process of accumulation by controlling labor-capital relations in favor of capital interests.

However, despite the efforts of states of newly-independent nations to incorporate the informal economy into an ordered system and to eradicate street vending, both have continued to thrive independently of the state across developing countries. The failure of central planning, the underdeveloped private sector and other economic realities of these countries has meant that more traditional sectors have had to offer solutions and satisfy the needs of millions excluded from the project of modernization—needs that the same developmentalist state has failed to meet. This is true now in the twenty-first century as it was in the early decades of independence. For one thing, the informal sector continues to provide jobs for those entering the labor market every year and who have no chance of finding employment in the formal sector.

Over the decades, the meaning of development, its definitions and the approaches employed to realize it by national governments have all dramatically changed. The transformation in the meaning of development has always gone in step with the growing needs of the global economic order. Accordingly, many national governments in the global south have had to alter many of their earlier assumptions about development and the policies towards achieving it on the basis of developments in the global economy. The paradox now is that the recent needs of the global capitalist system have led to instituting processes of informality. Changes in the configuration of systems in the manufacturing and other sectors have given rise to new logics of production. The “global assembly line,” for instance, relies on networks of outsourcing, subcontracting and labor market flexibilization. This system, however, invariably creates more labor exploitation, lower wages, unsafe working conditions, and more job insecurity.

The subsequent critique of this development and its impact on the lives of millions of poor people worldwide have led major financial institutions to devise policies which actually promote more forms of informality in order to improve the lot of those working within it with the assistance of state intervention. Neoliberal policies promoted by the Washington Consensus and obediently endorsed by governments in the global south, including Egypt, now ironically promote small entrepreneurship through microcredit and other borrowing and training schemes as the cornerstone for propping up the economy. As a result, policies emanating from economic institutions towards the informal economy, for sometime now, have been aimed at “organizing” the sector but in order to promote and not to eradicate it.

In the context of Egypt, “organization” has always assumed a different meaning depending on who is talking. While unionizing labor is a great weapon against exploitation, the way Egyptian officials understand “organizing” is very different to that of workers. For a truly corporatist state like Egypt, organizing labor has never been about harnessing the collective bargaining power of workers, but rather about ordering them into manageable bodies. In the case of street vendors, it has meant ordering a messy, yet unavoidable, phenomenon. Street vendors in this perception are tolerated as long as they occupy a fixed place, and thus can be located, isolated and controlled. Recently, the Syndicate of Commercial Professions, along with both the Ministry of Finance and the infamous, corrupt Egyptian Trade Union Federation, (ETUF) has started a nationwide survey of street vendors in a bid to organize them. In recent weeks, the Federation for Egyptian Chambers of Commerce has called on the government to allocate a fixed weekly market day in a specific location in order to “incorporate them into the official state entity”

Successive governments, including those of the Mubarak era, have repeatedly attempted to relocate street vendors from the center of Cairo to satellite cities on its fringe such as ‘Obour, Sixth of October, Sheiykh Zayed, and Salam. With poor public transportation networks out to these peripheral conurbations (a spectacular example of urban planning failure), relocation is a death sentence that all vendors are determined to avoid.

On the other hand, street vendors have been eager to unionize, not least to collectively organize against state harassment, police corruption and protection rackets. A Cairo-based street vendor has taken the initiative to lobby for an independent trade union. His initiative was able to collect four thousand signatures from vendors in several governorates. However, the process to launch an independent union has reportedly been complicated by the Ministry of Labor. This comes as part of a systematic strategy by post-Mubarak governments to arrest the development of hundreds of new independent unions, which have flourished in the aftermath of Mubarak’s fall.

Like most national governments in the global south, Egyptian officials have had to work with the dictates of global financial institutions whose policies are devised to support the interests of a global capitalist system. However, state bureaucracies are less flexible than global capital and state officials find it difficult to learn new tricks and give up old habits. This is why the Egyptian state is still committed at heart to eradicating street vendors who exemplify threats to its maintenance of order, while at the same time its declared official policies are to engage them as partners in development. Needles to say, none of the state’s approaches to dealing with the “problem” of street vendors is going to work. The criminalization of a sector so crucial to the labor market as well as to official government economic policies, without offering alternatives, will be neither effective nor prove to be wise. Similarly, the containment and ordering of street vendors by removing them from the heart of the cities and relocating them to the urban margins in the hope of rendering them invisible works against what makes the informal sector the success it has always been: its flexibility, its informality and its physical mobility. The modernizing, (still?) developmentalist state in Egypt, and elsewhere, has tried hard to fit social reality into an imagined framework—one that has systematically excluded and marginalized its citizens. It has not worked in the past and it is not going to work now either.

Trente pour cent, c’est le taux d’analphabétisme donné par les autorités au Maroc, qui est encore plus élevé chez les femmes et en milieu rural. Mais trente pour cent c’est aussi le chiffre du chômage avancé par la Banque mondiale pour les 15-29 ans (qui représentent quarante-quatre pour cent de la population en âge de travailler), alors même que la majorité d’entre eux est diplômée. Si cela traduit une faille et une inadaptation du système éducatif marocain aux réalités économiques et sociales du Maroc, les déficiences en matière de politique éducative ne font qu’aggraver les possibilités d’insertion des jeunes marocains au sein d’une société en mutation et leur développement personnel en tant que citoyens.

Les problèmes de l’éducation au Maroc sont multiples, et s’il a su susciter quelques débats, les étudiants, eux, restent les laissés-pour-compte d’une politique scolaire qui peine à assurer l’éducation d’une jeunesse aspirant à un avenir meilleur. Face à l’inefficacité des politiques éducatives, et probablement au désintérêt des pouvoirs publics, des étudiants marocains ont récemment décidés d’agir, et de se rassembler au sein de l’Union des étudiants pour le changement du système éducatif (UECSE), afin de penser et réfléchir aux moyens de changer le mode d’enseignement au Maroc. Nabil Belkabir, étudiant marocain membre de ce mouvement, a accepté de répondre à nos questions sur ce rassemblement, ses raisons, actions et objectifs.

Mickael Vogel (MK) : L’UECSE, qu’est-ce que c’est ?

Nabil Belkabir (NB) : L’Union des étudiants pour le changement du système éducatif est un mouvement spontané créé il y a 5 mois, rassemblant des étudiants et des élèves marocains et ayant pour but de constituer un front unifié contre la politique désastreuse appliquée au Maroc depuis l’indépendance jusqu’à ce jour dans le domaine de l’éducation. L’UECSE a établi des divisions dans plus de 30 villes marocaines et organise des rencontres régulières pour penser au changement du système éducatif et à des actions concrètes pour le réaliser.

L’union aspire à devenir un véritable mouvement culturel, révolutionnant la mentalité des étudiants marocains. Aujourd’hui, ces jeunes qui semblaient autrefois passifs et indifférents  face à leur situation ainsi que celle de leurs concitoyens ont changé grâce au printemps arabe et au Mouvement du 20 Février. Ils apprennent à se mobiliser pour leurs droits, à protester contre les atteintes à leurs droits, à penser par eux-mêmes et à critiquer le statu quo. C’est pour cela que l’UECSE est d’abord un mouvement de sensibilisation qui tente d’inclure l’ensemble de nos étudiants dans un processus de conscientisation collectif et de façonner leur esprit critique et leur activisme. Si la jeunesse ne change pas l’ordre ambiant, qui le fera ?

L’UECSE est indépendante de toute idéologie politique, de tout cadre partisan, de l’État ainsi que du reste de la société civile. Elle est également inclusive et  souhaite représenter non seulement l’ensemble des étudiants et des élèves, mais également les professeurs, les parents d’élèves ainsi que l’ensemble de la société marocaine. L’UECSE n’a pas de hiérarchie ni de leader, et surtout, elle est basée sur l’initiative libre et spontanée des étudiants. N’importe quel marocain peut participer à nos rencontres, ayant lieu dans des cafés, des parcs ou autre lieu public. Il sera écouté au même titre que les autres participants.

MK : Qu’est-ce qui vous a donné l’envie de créer l’UECSE ?

NB : Pour comprendre l’UECSE, il faut bien analyser l’histoire contemporaine marocaine. Depuis que le Fond Monétaire International a imposé la PAS (Politique d’Ajustement Structurelle), l’État s’est désengagé des services publics (éducation et santé), car il considérait ceux-ci comme improductifs. A la place, il a mis l’accent sur le tourisme, les investissements étrangers ainsi que la politique de « grands projets », dans le but de favoriser la croissance économique au détriment du développement humain. Cette politique s’est avérée un échec total. On ne peut pas bâtir un pays sans éducation,  un investissement rentable à long terme et un des secteurs les plus productifs. Ce choix du gouvernement de favoriser certains domaines rentables à court terme  n’est pas tant un problème budgétaire qu’un manque de volonté politique. Chaque année, le Maroc publie un nouveau plan pour relancer le tourisme, l’industrie, et autres.  Le Marocain n’entend par contre parler d’éducation qu’une fois par an, lorsque le monarque distribue des brochures dans les milieux ruraux. Est-ce tout ce que notre système éducatif mérite ? Les plans, chartes et autres discours se succèdent et chaque fois font place à desaveux officiels de leurs échecs. Les pires ministres se succèdent également, sans aucune vision à long terme par rapport à cette cause nationale fondamentale.

Les  plus récents ministres de l’éducation, Mr. Daoudi et Mr. El Ouafa, sont parmi les pires ministres que l’on a pu connaitre. Mr. El Ouafa est tout simplement incompétent et n’a aucune vision pour notre système éducatif mis à part la stigmatisation des jeunes filles, qui pour lui ne sont bonnes qu’à se marier. Avec  Mr. Daoudi, le Maroc a atteint un record inégalé de libéralisme économique en matière l’éducation. Au début de son mandat, il est revenu sur le principe de gratuité du cycle supérieur au Maroc. Aujourd’hui, il voudrait ouvrir le « marché » de l’éducation aux entreprises polonaises, russes, et autres, pour qu’elles viennent combler les lacunes laissées par l’état dans ce domaine. Au nom du pragmatisme, il ne poursuit en fait qu’un seul objectif : le désengagement de l’État dans l’éducation. Il souhaite nous faire croire que si l’éducation est privatisée et qu’elle devient profitable et lucrative, alors nous résoudrons nos problèmes sans observer le sort qu’ont réservé les étudiants chiliens à leur ministre.

L’UECSE a été créée pour dire NON à l’éducation du profit, pour dire NON à la suppression du principe de gratuité scolaire, car l’éducation est un DROIT ! C’est l’État, et non les entreprises, qui a la responsabilité de faire sortir notre système éducatif de la faillite actuelle! L’UECSE est là pour demander à l’État une vision à long terme qui permettra d’atteindre  cet objectif au lieu d’introduire des réformettes visant à résoudre ses problèmes budgétaires : c’est par l’éducation que nous allons les résoudre !

Mais jamais l’État libéral ne s’engagera dans ce processus et jamais les représentants politiques n’auront cette volonté de changer les choses tant qu’ils n’y seront pas obligés ! C’est là que les étudiants interviennent, en devenant une force de contestation qui pousse les dirigeants à déployer le maximum d’effort pour sortir le Maroc de cette situation épouvantable. La constitution d’une force de protestation étudiante est le mécanisme manquant pour réformer notre système éducatif et ainsi garantir progrès et démocratie. Nos libertés ne sont tout simplement pas dans l’intérêt des responsables. C’est donc le rôle du peuple de se les procurer en restant intransigeant face à ce qu’il juge être fondamental.

[Un sit-un de l'UECSE. Image de la page d'UECSE sur Facebook.]

MK : Quelles sont les faiblesses du système éducatif marocain ?

NB : Le système éducatif marocain est en faillite totale. Les seuils d’accès pour se présenter aux écoles de médecine, de commerce, d’ingénierie ou d’architecture, qui requièrent des 18/20 au bac, en sont la preuve. Cela est révélateur du manque d’infrastructure ainsi que de la qualité de notre éducation. Le système éducatif marocain malheureusement, est entièrement « pourri ». C’est pour cela que nous ne demandons pas sa réforme mais bien son changement !

L’éducation marocaine est plombée par le processus d’arabisation, arrêté en chemin. Les étudiants marocains poursuivent des études primaires et secondaires en arabe, avant de devoir étudier dans une faculté en français ! Selon les rapports officiels ils ne maitrisent d’ailleurs ni l’une ni l’autre de ces langues.

Le système éducatif est plombé par les programmes scolaires et la pédagogie limitant le développement du sens critique des étudiants et des citoyens. L’État ne souhaiterait pas avoir en face de lui des citoyens conscients de leurs droits et capables de réfléchir par eux même.

La formation des professeurs est une catastrophe totale, au niveaux primaire et secondaire. La sélection des enseignants ainsi que leurs sensibilisation à la culture des droits de l’homme et au respect de la dignité des élèves est primordiale.

Les infrastructures de base sont réellement déficientes. En  milieu rural comme en milieu urbain, il y a un manque considérable de structures sanitaires adéquates, ainsi que d’universités et d’écoles supérieures accessibles

L’orientation des élèves est, en outre, inexistante. Mais bien entendu, c’est la gouvernance qui fait aujourd’hui défaut. Quel que soit le budget alloué, on n’en voit que les miettes. Il n’y a aucune culture de suivi et aucune transparence dans les projets de notre ministère ! Qui sait ce que sera l’éducation dans 10 ans au Maroc ! Alors que l’État se montre discrète au le sujet de l’éducation, les plan pour l’environnement, le tourisme ou encore l’artisanat sont parfaitement médiatisés.

MK : Quels sont les objectifs du mouvement ?

NB : Le premier objectif du mouvement est de penser au changement du système éducatif. Un projet de documentation est en cours d’élaboration et s’étendra sur de longs mois. Chaque pan de l’éducation nationale, du niveau primaire au niveau universitaire étudiera la problématique de l’arabisation ainsi que  le manque flagrant d’infrastructure. Nous irons à la rencontre d’experts mais aussi des étudiants, car en étant les principales victimes du système actuel, ils seront en mesure de fournir des solutions aux problèmes de l’éducation nationale.

Ensuite, il faudra unifier les étudiants et les élèves de toutes les facultés et de tous les lycées. La construction du changement se fera également par la sensibilisation des étudiants à la cause du changement du système éducatif et la culture de l’activisme.

Pour finir, il faudra réaliser ce changement. Cela se fera par l’ouverture d’un débat national sur la question, puis, s’il le faut, par la pression dans la rue.

[Un sit-un de l'UECSE. Image de la page d'UECSE sur Facebook.]

MK : Quels types d’actions organisez-vous ? Quelles ont été vos réussites à ce jour ?

NB : L’esprit de l’UECSE est avant tout centré sur le concept d’Artivisme : l’activisme par l’art. C’est par notre créativité et par l’art que nous trouverons de nouveaux moyens de faire passer notre message. En 2013, il faudra déployer des moyens nouveaux et originaux, axés sur l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux, d’un discours accessible et jeune, des idéaux de notre époque.

Nous avons organisé de nombreuses actions de sensibilisations et de protestation à ce jour. Parmi les plus marquantes, le 6 Août, il y a eu un sit-in organisé nationalement dans une vingtaine de villes marocaines, pour le droit à l’éducation et la gratuité. Cette première action de notre mouvement a été un franc succès. Le 18 Octobre, nous avons organisé des activités artistiques (distribution de livres, théâtre, musique…) en solidarité avec les mouvements internationaux à travers le monde dans le cadre de l’International Student Movement. Notre dernière action en date est la campagne de  « renaissance estudiantine », inspirée par celle lancée par le Women Uprising in the Arab World, et appelant à se solidariser avec les étudiants luttant pour le changement du système éducatif. Nous avons reçu des centiares de contributions dès le premier jour et la campagne continue encore aujourd’hui…

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

“Two new alleged torture victims in Alexandria”
Human rights organization filed a complaint with the prosecutor general on account of the latest case of torture in an Alexandrian prison.

“Salafist Nour Party head confirms rift with Brotherhood”
Newly appointed Salafist Nour Party chairman, Younes Makhioun, says the party is in disagreement with the Muslim Brotherhood but does not hold it responsible for internal split.

“Egypt army officers charged with joining protesters against SCAF released”
Four of the “April 8 officers” are released, but charges against them have not been dropped.

“Aid or Arrests? Qatar and UAE Go Separate Ways on Muslim Brothers”
Qatar and the UAE adopt diverging strategies in dealing with the new realities in the Middle East.

“Egypt to seal IMF deal before elections, minister tells Al Arabiya”
Egypt's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Ashraf El Araby, says that Qatari aid has not delayed acceptance of the IMF loan.

“Ex-NDP members on opposition coalition lists for parliamentary elections”
Al-Wafd Party member says his party insists on having former NDP members on electoral lists for the National Salvation Front in order to get a maximum amount of votes.

“Cairo’s New Normal: Protests Spawn a World of Walls and Barricades”
At major protests and clashes, Egyptian authorities are responding with building of walls cutting of access to areas of city.

“Dozens protest in solidarity with Qursaya defendants”
Protests against the military trials of Qursaya residents take place in downtown Cairo.

“Egypt court takes fiery Sheikh Abdullah Badr off air”
Sheikh Abdullah Badr’s show is taken off air for thirty days following a court ruling in a lawsuit actress Elham Shahin filed against him.

“Mubarak to be retried”
Cassation Court accepts appeals of the Mubarak trial verdict from both prosecution and defense.

“Abu Ismail tops 'press enemies' list, says he has not insulted journalists”
The National Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Expression publishes first report on freedom of expression and opinion in Egypt.

“Abouel Fotouh: National Salvation Front should purge itself of feloul”
After meeting Dostour Party leader Mohamed ElBaradei, Abd El-Moneim Abou El-Fotouh says his party would enter into an alliance with the National Salvation Front if it removes former regime officials.

“Bahais cannot enroll in public schools, education minister says”
Ibrahim Ghoneim says Bahai children cannot enroll in public schools because it violates the constitution.

“Egypt finance: Qatar steps in to ease Cairo cash crisis”
After meeting with Mohamed Morsi, Qatari PM announces doubling of financial aid to Egypt to save Egyptian currency.

“Ministry announces governor reshuffle; Islamists to gain eight posts”
Eight new governors are appointed; most of them affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Nour Party.

“Women in Graffiti: A Tribute to the Women of Egypt”
Graffiti art has flourished since the revolution, and women have been well-represented on this new art scene.

“The Writing on the Walls of Egypt"
Samuli Schielke and Jessica Winegar trace back graffiti art in Egypt to before the revolution and observe its development since then.

“National Salvation Front to run two separate lists in elections”
Sources say Hamdeen Sabahi has suggested that the National Salvation Front contest parliamentary elections.

“ElBaradei decision causes internal rift in Al-Dostour”
Members of Al-Dostour Party start a sit-in at the party’s headquarters in protest of Mohamed ElBaradei’s recent internal decisions.

 “Palestinians, Egyptian Jews and propaganda”
Joseph Massad talks about the implications of the recent scandal with Essam Al-Arian calling on Egyptian Jews to return and the history of Egyptian Jewish community.

In Arabic:

“أبو الفتوح لـ «الحياة»: مصر لا يحكمها «آية الله المرشد» ... و «أخطاء» الحكومة لا تستدعي «ثورة جديدة»”
Abd El-Moneim Abou El-Fotouh’s interview with Al-Hayat in which he says that the mistakes of the new government do not warrant a new revolution.

“إضراب مفتوح لأمناء وأفراد شرطة نجع حمادي احتجاجًا على استشهاد زميلين لهم”
Members of the security forces in Nagaa Hamdi in Qena go on a strike after their colleagues are shot dead by a criminal gang.

“مرسي يقبل استقالة عصام العريان من الهيئة الاستشارية للرئيس”
The president accepts the resignation of Essam Al-Arian from the presidential advisory body.

“رئيس الطائفة اليهودية بالإسكندرية لـ«العريان»: لم نغادر مصر حتى نعود إليها”
The head of the small Alexandrian Jewish community reacts to Essam Al-Arian’s statement calling on Egyptian Jews to return.

“«غزلان»: معتصمو التحرير «مجرّدو الأخلاق لاعتدائهم على أهالي معتقلي الإمارات»”
Mahmoud Ghazlan, the spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood, denounced Tahrir protesters who attacked a sit-in in front of the Arab Union in support of the arrested Egyptians in UAE.

“دعوى تطالب الرئيس بتقديم طنطاوي وعنان وبدين للمسائلة السياسية”
Martyrs’ families launch a lawsuit aiming at obliging the president to hold responsible Mohamed Tantawi and Sami Anan for killings of protesters.

“أحد الوعدين سيفشل”
Ibrahim El-Hodaibi says attaining power for the Muslim Brotherhood has become the goal rather than the means.

Recent Jadaliyya articles on Egypt:

عن الإسلام والأسلمة حسب الطلب وأنواع الدين
Amr Magdi says there are different shapes of religion and experiences of Islam in the world.

الرئيس مرسي وعدم القدرة على الخروج من بوتقة السمع والطاعة
Azmi Ashour writes about how the belonging of the president to the Muslim Brotherhood’s traditions is burdening his rule.

عن التفجير والأزمة الطائفية: محاولة للفهم وأخرى للهدم
Aly El Raggal argues Egyptians should look at incidents of sectarian strife in a different way.

Announcing the New Issue of Middle East Report Winter 2012
The latest issue of the Middle East Report is looking at the Egyptian Revolution two years on.

Call for Papers: Political Slogans in a Changing Arab World (April 2013, Cairo)
Announcement of the workshop on political slogans in the Arab World organized by the Orient-Institut in Beirut.

This is a selection of what you might have missed on Jadaliyya last week. It also includes a list of the most read articles.  Progressively, we will be featuring more content on our "Last Week on Jadaliyya" series.

• "من المآسي المضاعفة للنزوح:فتيات سوريات للزواج "بثمن بخس
• The Naked Bodies of Alia
• المثليّات المضمرة في أغاني رباب والخليج العربي
• Lebanon’s Leaders Build an Ark
• Orientalist Feminism Rears its Head in India
• Who Failed Rizana Nafeek?
• "V for Vendetta": The Other Face of Egypt's Youth Movement
• Repossessing the Dispossessed
• Tamerlane in Damascus
• Settler Colonialism: Then and Now (Video)

• Ongoing Protests in Bahrain (Video)
• Settler Colonialism: Then and Now (Video)

• عن الإسلام والأسلمة حسب الطلب وأنواع الدين
• Good Taliban, Bad Taliban: Pakistan’s Double Game and the US War on Terror
• University of California Student Petition Against HR-35 Surpasses 1,000 Signatures
• Who Failed Rizana Nafeek?
• Reports Roundup (January 12)
• الرئيس مرسي وعدم القدرة على الخروج من بوتقة السمع والطاعة
• Visualizing Human Rights for Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon
• La somme de tous les rêves brisés d'Anfgou et d'ailleurs
• Migrants' Rights & International Solidarity: Interview with Catherine Tactaquin
• عدّ الكالوريات وصناعة الليمونادا في غزة
• Maghreb Media Roundup (January 10)
• Syria Media Roundup (January 10)
• Al Jazeera America: Purely a Business Endeavor? Interview with Adel Iskandar
• Imagining Justice Beyond the ICC
• Settler Colonialism: Then and Now (Video)
• Tadween Publishing Roundup: News and Analysis from the Publishing World
• University of California System and The Three-Pronged Attack on Free Speech and Campus Organizing
• New Texts Out Now: Lisa Hajjar, Torture: A Sociology of Violence and Human Rights
• Repossessing the Dispossessed
• عن التفجير والأزمة الطائفية: محاولة للفهم وأخرى للهدم
• المثليّات المضمرة في أغاني رباب والخليج العربي
• An Open Letter to Lebanese MP Nayla Tueni
• Announcing the New Issue of Middle East Report Winter 2012
• Don't Play Apartheid Israel: Summary of 2012 Cultural Boycott
• Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (January 8)
• رد فرقة الدام على مقال التقاليد والآلة المناهضة للسياسة
• التقاليد والآلة المناهضة للسياسة: "جرائم الشرف" تغوي فرقة الدام
• Tamerlane in Damascus
• Egypt Media Roundup (January 7)
• Last Week on Jadaliyya (Dec 31- Jan 6)

من الوهلة الأولى قد لا يبدو أن هناك علاقة بين قرض صندوق النقد الدولي المنتظر وبين تعديل إتفاقية المناطق الصناعية المؤهلة، المعروفة اختصاراً بإسم (الكويز)، والموقعة بين مصر وإسرائيل والولايات المتحدة. إلا أن تزامن حدثين مهمين خلال الأسبوع المنتهي يسهل من الربط بينهما، ووضعهما جنباً إلى جنب فى صورة أكبر لهيكل علاقات لم يتغير بين مصر والولايات المتحدة منذ بدء ثورة 25 يناير وحتى الآن.

الحدث الأول جرى في واشنطن حيث عقدت لقاءات مهمة بين مسـؤولين مصريين وإسرائيليين وأمريكيين بهدف بحث تعديل إتفاقية الكويز الموقعة عام 2004 بين الدول الثلاث. إذ بحث مسؤولون مصريون مع نظراء إسرائيليين وأمريكيين طلبات تتعلق بتعديل اتفاقية الكويز لتزيد معها عدد المناطق المؤهلة من أربع إلى سبع مناطق، وأن يتم خفض المكون الإسرائيلى في المنتجات المصدر إلى 8% بدلاً من 10.5% المتبع حالياً.

وكانت القاهرة مقر الحدث الثاني الذى تمثل فى زيارة وفد صندوق النقد الدولي لبحث طلب الحكومة المصرية للحصول على قرض قيمته 4.8 مليار دولار، وبحث التفاصيل المتعلقة به. وقابل يوم الاثنين الماضي السيد مسعود أحمد، مدير إدارة الشرق الأوسط وآسيا الوسطى بصندوق النقد الدولي، كل من رئيس الجمهورية ورئيس الوزراء ومحافظ البنك المركزي ووزير المالية ووزير التخطيط والتعاون الدولي، وعدد آخر من المسؤولين، وخرج بعد هذه المقابلات ليؤكد أن «الحكومة المصرية جددت طلبها الحصول على دعم مالي من صندوق النقد الدولي. وعلى عزم الحكومة إتخاذ الخطوات اللازمة لتحقيق الانضباط فى قطاع المالية العامة».

 وقعت مصر بروتوكولاً عرف بإسم الكويز فى ديسمبر 2004، وهو عبارة عن ترتيبات تسمح للمنتجات المصرية بالدخول إلى الأسواق الأمريكية دون جمارك أو حصص محددة شرط توافر مكون إسرائيلي فى هذه المنتجات لا تقل نسبته عن 11.7%، ثم تم تخفيض نسبة المكون الإسرائيلي إلى 10.5%. وبموجب الإتفاق تمت إقامة أربع مناطق صناعية مؤهلة في مصر في منطقة القاهرة الكبرى، ومنطقة الإسكندرية، ومنطقة قناة السويس ومنطقة وسط الدلتا. وهدفت واشنطن من هذه الإتفاقية إلى دعم إتفاق السلام المصري ــ الإسرائيلي، الذي هو أحد أهم أعمدة إستراتيجيتها في الشرق الأوسط، عن طريق فرض تطبيع (اقتصادي) على رجال الأعمال المصريين مع نظرائهم الاسرائيليين. وكانت تجربة ربع قرن من السلام بين مصر وإسرائيل قد فشلت في أن تؤتي أي ثمار تطبيعية على المستوى الشعبى أو الفني أو الثقافي. وتكشف التقارير الحكومية المصرية وصول عدد المصانع المصرية المشاركة فى الكويز إلى 800 مصنع. وبلغت نسبة إجمالي واردات هذه المصانع من إسرائيل العام الماضى 97.5 مليون دولار، في حين حققت صادرات الكويز المصرية قيمة بلغت 931.6 مليون دولار خلال نفس العام. ورغم إلغاء الحكومة المصرية لإتفاقيات تصدير الغاز المصرى لإسرائيل العام الماضي، لم تتأثر اتفاقيات الكويز على الاطلاق!

وبعد لقاءاته في القاهرة خرج ممثل صندوق النقد الدولى ليقول إن المسؤولين المصريين ”قد أعربوا عن تصميمهم على وضع وتنفيذ برنامج اقتصادي وطني يحظى بتأييد واسع النطاق لمواجهة التحديات الاقتصادية. كذلك أكدت الحكومة مجدداً طلبها الحصول على دعم مالي من صندوق النقد الدولي لمساندة هذا البرنامج“.

وفي نفس اليوم قال الرئيس محمد مرسي، لمحطة ”سى إن إن“ الأمريكية رداً على سؤال حول قرض الصندوق: ”إن إجراءات الاقتراض ستنتهي في وقت قريب“، وأشار الرئيس إلى أن هناك مفاوضات وتعاوناً ولكن لا توجد شروط. وذكر ”هناك فارق كبير بين التعاون والشروط، فنحن لا نقبل الشروط. القرض المشروط مرفوض ولكن التعاون في مجالات متعددة ومنها التعاون الفني والمعونة الفنية هو المطلوب“.

تدرك واشنطن أن الاقتصاد المصري يمر بأزمات خانقة أدت إلى حدوث نقص في مصادر الطاقة التي يستعملها المصريون يومياً، مع وجود دعم غير مستقر للغذاء والوقود، وخلل هيكلي كبير فى الموازنة العامة. من هنا لم يكن بمستغرب أن تشترط إدارة الرئيس باراك أوباما على الحكومة المصرية تلقيها قرض صندوق النقد البالغ قيمته 4.8 مليار دولار، قبل منح مصر أي مساعدات من تلك التي أعلن عنها الرئيس أوباما لدعم دول الربيع العربى، والتى تقدر في مرحلتها الأولى بمليار دولار. وذلك لضمان ربط مصر الجديدة بمنظومة الليبرالية الاقتصادية التي تحدد هي إطارها الواسع.

نظرة متأنية على ما تكشفه هذه الاحداث المتقاطعة من ديناميكيات التفاعل بين ”أصحاب السلطة“ وبين ”أصحاب المال“ في مصر والدول الأخرى والمؤسسات المانحة، يظهر مدى تعاون أصحاب المال المسيطرين على الحصة الكبرى من الاقتصاد المصري مع متخذي القرارات السياسية، أي الحكام، على مقاومة التغيير، وإبقاء الأوضاع على ما هي عليه.

طرح للنقاش داخل الولايات المتحدة العديد من الأسئلة حول قضايا متعلقة بمصر بعد 25 يناير مثل مستقبل العلاقات مع القوى الإسلامية الصاعدة، واتجاهات حكام مصر الجدد، ومستقبل العلاقات مع إسرائيل. وكانت كل تلك الأسئلة وغيرها، تثير قلقاً وارتباكاً كبيراً في دوائر صنع القرار الأمريكي. إلا أنه وبعد مرور ما يزيد على عامين على بدء الثورة، ومرور نصف العام على تولي الرئيس محمد مرسي حكم مصر، يبدو أن قلق واشنطن تضاءل، ولم تعد هناك أسباب موضوعية للقلق من نتائج التغير الدراماتيكي الذى تشهده مصر، منذ بدء ثورة 25 يناير قبل عامين.

ويبدو أن سعي واشنطن لاستثمار سياسي جديد يضمن لها استمرار خدمة مصالحها الإستراتيجية قد أتى ثماره من خلال ربط النخب السياسية المصرية الجديدة بمراكز القوة التقليدية في عالم المال والأعمال.

[عن جريدة "الشروق" المصرية]

قبل خمسة أعوام تقريباً، أُجريت دراسة بتكليف من مجلة بوشر Bücher الألمانية حول أثر الشاعر والمسرحي برتولد بريشت في الجيل الألماني الجديد. 42 بالمئة ممن شملتهم الأسئلة، اعترفوا أنهم لم يسبق لهم قراءة أو مشاهدة أي عمل من أعماله. أظهرت الدراسة نفسها أن غالبية هؤلاء كذلك، لا يعرفون أن بريشت، هو مؤسس المسرح العالمي الشهير "برلينر أنسامبل"، كما لا يملكون أدنى فكرة حول نظريات بريشت ودوره في تطوير المسرح الحديث، ونقله من الأفق الدرامي إلى الملحمي. 

إنها ليست مسألة الدولة الألمانية، بل مسألة دور النشر التي لم تعد تجد في نتاج بريشت مادة للتقاسم مع القارئ الألماني. كتب بريشت شعره ومسرحه ضمن مكون أساسي، هو الفكر الهيغلي والماركسي ( كتاب "رأس المال" تحديداً). حاول اعتماد إيديولوجياتهما عبر الشعر والمسرح، لكن بشكل يحفظ النص من الشعاراتية. وكان لهذا التواتر ما بين الإيديولوجيا المحدودة من جهة، واللغة التي لا يجب أن تحد، من جهة أخرى، أثراً إيجابياً على المستوى التقني، تجلى في تحريض الممثل على أخذ مواقف شخصية من الحوار، والتفاعل ذاتيا على خشبة المسرح وعدم التقيد بالنص بشكل تام، إضافة إلى إشراك الجمهور في اللعبة المسرحية، ونقله خارج خانة المتلقي، وكسر ما كان يسمى بالجدار الرابع. فتح هذا الأمر الجملة، أمام بريشت، ما دفعه إلى عدم الكف عن التجريب، والتشكيك الدائم في أفكاره، إذ لا شيء مطلق ونهائي، وفي مقابل أوروبا المتغيرة سياسياً واجتماعياً، كان هناك أرضية متذبذبة يقف عليها النص البرشتي. فحضوره كمتلق شخصي لأعماله، نافذ بقدر حضوره كمسرحي وشاعر. كان بريشت مدفوعاً بغاية "قومية- اشتراكية"، معادية لنظام أودلف هتلر النازي. لكنه لم يجعل من هذا الأمر مظهراً مباشراً لمشروعه، ولم يكن إحدى شروط طاقة جملته المسرحية أو الشعرية. هكذا تحاشى المواجهات مع إيديولوجيات مغايرة، وإن لم يكن يكف عن انتقاد أثرها سوسيولوجيا.

لكن ما الذي يجعل بريشت خافتاً في أوروبا وألمانيا بالتحديد، وناشطاً خارجها؟ وما هي المعايير التي نستطيع من خلالها تفسير هذا المشهد؟ هل هو سعي مجتمعات أوروبا إلى تجاوز أيقونات المرحلة التاريخية والسياسية السابقة وإيجاد المظلة اللغوية التي توافق هيكل المجتمع الأوروبي ونظم عيشه الحديث؟ وهل أن  أعمال بريشت دفنت تحت أنقاض مرحلة سياسية سابقة، لم تعد قائمة حالياً في دول الشمال؟ ولماذا قد يؤثر مسرح بريشت كثيراً في دول أفريقيا وأمريكا اللاتينية والبرازيل تحديداً، والدول العربية، فيما تكون أوروبا قد تجاوزته نحو أشكال مسرحية ولغات أكثر حيوية من قبل؟ هل تمسكنا بمسرح بريشت إلى الآن، هو قشة ننفخ فيها حالة مجتمع يعيش في القرن الواحد والعشرين، فيما يجد متنفسه في أسلوب مسرحي كتب في النصف الأول من القرن العشرين؟ هذا إذا افترضنا أساسا أن الحياة "المسرحية" ناشطة بما يكفي لإطلاق هذه الأسئلة وسواها.  

القارئ لأعمال برتولت بريشت الشعرية (ترجمة أحمد حسان/ دار الجمل)، بالتوازي مع بعض ملامح حياته، يلمس خطوطاً لمشروع أدبي ومسرحي، كان بريشت قد وضعه نصب عينيه منذ أن كان شاباً. يقول لإحدى صديقاته في المرحلة الثانوية "سأكون بعد غوته مباشرة من حيث الأهمية". من هنا، يكون لبريشت رؤيا فنية، اعتمدت على قراءة الواقع السوسيولوجي الصعب لسكان ألمانيا بعد الحرب العالمية الاولى. كان على ما يبدو "بصّاراً" بمتطلبات المرحلة الأوروبية ما بعد تلك الحرب. انسحب ذلك على اللغة، والشكل. في أشعاره الأولى (القصائد والمزامير المبكرة 1913- 1920)، يبدو عالمه الشعري، لصيقاً بذاكرته الجغرافية والعائلية. يحاول الدخول إليها واكتشافها، مقابل غربته أو عدم اقتناعه بالعالم الخارجي، الأكثر قسوة والميتافيزيقي إلى حد ما، من دون أن يكون تراجيدياً بالضرورة أو بكائياً. فالهزيمة، هي النقطة التي ينطلق منها، والتي يصوب بوصلتها سوسيولوجيا، إلى الداخل الألماني، ليعيد إنتاج لغته بمخاطبة الذهن، وليس العاطفة، والمجتمع وليس الطبيعة، والواقعية وليس الرومانطيقية. 

خرج بريشت مبكراً على تركة أسلافه الشعراء. لم يكن منافساً لهم، أكثر من كونه غريباً عنهم، أو غير مألوف، أو "شكلاني" أو ذهني. فلم تعنيه الشعرية الغنائية أو السوريالية أو الرمزية، كقالب جاهز للارتداء. عناه أكثر أن يتدخل الشعر في ترتيب الحياة، وتفاصيلها وتشريح إحداثيتها المختلفة (إن لم نقل الجديدة) دون أن يفترض منطقا حالماً، أو غير واقعي على الأقل، في العبارة نفسها. لم تشرد لغته عن منهجه الفكري المشكك بصحة الأشياء. كانت هذه قاعدة بلا ضوابط، ترى وتنفصل بسرعة عن المحيط، قبل أن يمتصها. يتحول السرد إلى قصيدة، تخاطب وتتألق، لكنها لا تعلن موقفا. يمكن أن يكون لها دلالات تتعلق بالمستجد السياسي بُعَيْد الحرب العالمية الثانية مثلاً، أو بحالة فردية تفضح (قصيدة مناجاة لصاحب مقام رفيع)، أو حتى لتشم دون أن تشتم (قصيدة "مراثي هوليوود" التي كتبها عن المنفى)، أو لتحكي ذلك الإفلاس الأخلاقي في التعاطي مع العلماء (جاليليو)، أو الفنانين (كارولا نيهر الممثلة الألمانية التي أعدم زوجها الروسي في موسكو وأرسلت هي إلى أحد المعسكرات حيث توفيت هناك). 

لكن قراءة كهذه لا تتجاوز منطق القصيدة، ولا كينونتها الشعرية، بل تبحث فقط في الجوانب الإيديولوجية العامة والخفية، الدافعة لها، كما والوضع السياسي المحيط بالشاعر. وهي قراءة غير شاملة، لأنها تستبق القصيدة، نحو أسباب سوسيولوجية وتربوية متعلقة ببريشت، ولا تطرح شيئا حول جمالية شعره. لكن ما هي المسافة التي تفصل ما بين شعره وآرائه الشخصية؟ وأين يقف القارئ من هذا كله؟ نستطيع التشديد على "القارئ"، لأن بريشت كان يعتبره، ركنا من أركان القصيدة، يقف خارجها (ملاحظات بريشت حول كتاب الصلوات). القارئ الألماني، الذي جهد بريشت طويلاً لاستمالته، وتطهيره من الرجس النازي، والإنفلات الأخلاقي، تخطى بحياته الخاصة بريشت، لم يعد العالم بحاجة إلى واعظين او محرضين عبر الشعر أو المسرح، لأن أوروبا اليوم ببساطة مشغولة بتلميع مرآتها وليس صورتها، وعلى شاكلتها الإنسان الأوروبي. 

لا يمكن الاتكال على معيار واحد لقراءة بريشت شاعراً، لسببين اولهما أن بريشت ظل ينشد التجريب والشكلانية، حتى كتاباته الأخيرة، وبالتالي فإن ملامح قصيدته لم تكن ثابتة، وثانيهما، أن عالم بريشت لم يكن نهائياً، وهو عالم متفسخ، تطفو جدلياته والتشكيك فيه على السطح، لاصقة الضباب في وجه أي قيمة شعرية منافسة. يكون في شعره، توظيفاً للذهن، واستمالة له، وتحريضه على التأمل، يلعب الشعر عنده دوراً إجتماعياً، محاولاً أن يفرض سلطة تتمسك بتنظيم الأخلاق، حتى تكاد تشبه سلطة كنيسة متزمتة. ليس هناك استثناءات، فحتى الطبيعة، يتم تجييرها، كمكان للفساد. فهي طبيعة أنانية، تستعير ملامح الفرد، لتمحوها وتعيد نحتها. وهي الطبيعة التي لا بد وأن تخضع لإيديولوجيا مغايرة، ليعاد النظر بقيمتها، واستخدامها كذلك، وإن دعت الحاجة إلى الراديكالية. عملية الهدم، تطال كل ما هو ثابت، ومتحرك كذلك، بغض النظر عن نسبة مسؤولية كل مكونات الوجود. إن هذه النظرة الشمولية والداكنة للحياة باعتبارها مستوعباً مليئاً بالتحولات غير النشيطة، يجعل من بريشت دائم الاستطلاع، فلا يستثنى أصدقاؤه، ولا زملاؤه في المسرح، ولا المدينة، ولا القرية، ولا الطفولة، ولا الحكمة، ولا الحلم، ولا الشتيمة، ولا النرجسية، ولا التنظير، من احتمالية الحضور في القصيدة. هكذا، فإن بريشت يبدو وكأنه يريد خلق دوائر بأحجام مختلفة، ومتشابكة، على سطح الماء، لكي يؤمن للعالم رؤية ما تحت هذا الماء بشكل أفضل.

 قد يكون بريشت كتب شعراً مرحلياً، عاكساً لحقبة سياسية انتقالية. ويبدو أن خطأه الوحيد هو ضغطه للقصيدة بين إصبعي السياسة والسوسويولوجيا والظرف، داخل أنبوب ماركسي، وإن حاول تجاوزه حيناً، والتغاضي عن جدرانه حيناً آخر. الأكيد، أن بريشت لم ينتبه إلى أن التكنولوجيا التي يفتقر شعره الإشارة إليها (والذي انتبه إليه آخرون قبله كالسورياليين مثلا)، هي المحرك الذي سيؤثر في أساليب فنية لتتجاوز زمنها. ظل شعر بريشت ريفياً بمعنى استخدامه للعناصر والأدوات، ربما لأن الريف يحمل رمزية البدائي، الأضعف أمام الإجتياحات، والأول إنضماماً للثورات. ستقفز التبدلات فوق اعتبارات قصيدته في أوروبا، لكنها في أنحاء أخرى، ستسند شعوباً لا تزال تلتحف بأحلامها. بريشت المسرحي ينافس بقوة بريشت الشاعر، ويزيحه جانباً، لكن لا يزيح خصوصية شعره وتلك الجمالية الهائلة التي تنبثق عن تأليف الحكايات المجاورة للواقع، وترميزها، واعتمادها على الموسيقى التي درسها بريشت باكراً، وتركت أثرها في ضبط إيقاع جملته وتجذيبها، ولعبه على الأصوات. هو أول من وضع سطراً شعرياً "غير شعوري"، لاختراق السائد بالعقل، ولإعادة تشكيله، بلغة غير متحذلقة، وغير مركبة. أراد لشعره أن يكون مدرسياً، محفزاً لجيل مختلف، لا تنفصل قيمه الحياتية عن القيمة الأسمى التي يحملها الفن، والتي يرى فيها بريشت مخزناً لأدوات الديالكتيك.

[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.]

Regional and International Relations

Qatar increases aid to Egypt to $5bn A news report on Qatar’s financial aid to Egypt to boost its shrinking foreign currency reserves, on Al Jazeera English.

Getting closer to Qatar Dina Ezzat analyzes the Qatari prime minister’s recent visit to Egypt in light of the latter’s foreign policy, on Al-Ahram Weekly.

UAE-Egypt Crisis: Mubarak and Iran Lurk in the Background Bisan Kassab writes on the crisis between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates in light of the Egyptian-Iranian relationship and Emirati loyalty to the Egyptian ex-president, Honsi Mubarak, on Al-Akhbar English.

Deteriorating relations Doaa El-Bey examines the impact of the detention of eleven Egyptians in the United Arab Emirates on the already tense relationship between Egypt and the Gulf state, on Al-Ahram Weekly.

The case of Egyptian detainees in the UAE is increasingly politicized Mai Shams El-Din examines the accusations against the eleven Egyptians detained in the Gulf state, on Egypt Independent.

Reports and Opinions

The US – alongside Saudi Arabia – fights for freedom and democracy in the Middle East Glenn Greenwald unravels the American government’s discourse of freedom and democracy in light of its alliance with, and support of, the repressive Saudi regime, in The Guardian.

In Saudi Town, Women Protest Detentions, Leading to Their Own Christine Hauser reports on the arrest of Saudi women and children who were demanding the release of their relatives outside the Board of Grievances in Buraida, in The New York Times.

Public Prosecutor Seeks Flogging for Saudi Women Protesters Osama Khalid offers an account of the punishments and treatments of the women who were arrested in Buraida, on Global Voices.

Saudi king allows women on top advisory council A news report on King Abdulla’s appointment of thirty women to the Shura Council, in The Guardian.

Saudi Arabia’s King Allows Women to Join National Advisory Council Christine Hauser writes on King Abdulla’s appointment of women to the Shura Council, in The New York Times.

Crisis in Yemen

Human trafficking networks flourish in Yemen A news report on the expansion of human trafficking networks with international reach in Yemen, on Al Jazeera English.

1.3 million Yemeni children ‘deprived of their childhood’: Report A report released by the International Labor Organization on the condition of Yemeni children, on Al-Akhbar English. 

Justice for the Disappeared in Yemen Jomana Farhat examines the political campaign demanding to know the fate of the disappeared in Yemen.

Army watches over national dialogue Nasser Arrabyee analyzes the significance and implication of the deployment of the army in Yemen’s main cities.

DCMF condemns government campaign against journalist in Yemen A statement by Doha Centre for Media Freedom condemning the arrest of Khaled Al-Hammadi for an article he wrote for Al Quds Al Arabi last week.

Repression in Bahrain

Bahrain under pressure over refusal to reconsider activists’ sentences Ian Black writes on the British and French governments’ criticism of the Bahraini court’s decision to uphold the prison sentences of thirteen activists, in The Guardian.

Protests in Kuwait

Kuwaiti jailed for insulting emir on Twitter A news report on the two-year jail sentence against Ayyad al-Harbi for tweets considered insulting to the emir, on Al Jazeera English.

With Kuwait Twitter Arrests, the Emir’s Gloves Come Off Mona Kareem analyzes the political implication of the arrest of al-Harbi, on Al-Akhbar English.

The Beheading of Rizana Nafeek in Saudi Arabia

Anger at Saudi beheading of Sri Lankan maid A news report on the human rights groups’ condemnation of the beheading of Nafeek who was accused of killing an infant in her care in 2005, on Al Jazeera English.

The plight of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia An Inside Story program featuring the conditions of migrant workers in the kingdom following the beheading of Rizana Nafeek, on Al Jazeera English. 

Saudi Arabia’s treatment of foreign workers under fire after beheading of Sri Lankan maid Gethin Chamberlain writes on the plight of forty-five foreign maids who are sentences to death in Saudi Arabia, in The Observer.

Saudi execution: Brutal, inhuman and illegal? Jo Becker writes on the beheading of Nafeek, on CNN.

Human Rights Watch

Saudi Arabia: Halt Execution of Sri Lankan Migrant Worker AN HRW statement calling upon the Saudi authorities to halt the beheading of Rizana Nafeek.

Amnesty International

Sri Lankan woman at risk of execution in Saudi Arabia An AI statement urging the Saudi king to grant amnesty to Rizana Nafeek.

Beheading of domestic workers shows Saudi Arabia at odds with international standards A statement AI condemning the kingdom for the beheading of Nafeek.

Saudi Arabia: 11 women still held after protest A statement by AI calling upon Saudi authorities to release women who were arrested during protests in Buraida.

Labor

Living and working in Qatar Lyse Doucet reports on the experiences of Qataris and expats who live and work in Qatar, in Qatar Direct: Working Lives, a program broadcast on BBC World News.

Bahrain to probe deadly labour camp fire A news report on the death of thirteen people when a three-storey building caught fire in a labor camp in Manama, on Al Jazeera English.

Environment

Qatar builds farms in the desert Laurence Caramel writes on the Gulf state’s efforts to grow flour, fruits and vegetables to reduce its reliance on imports, in The Guardian.

Media

Al Jazeera: Must do better An article on Al Jazeera’s acquisition of Current TV in an attempt to reach the American audience, in The Economist.

شعر

باقةُ وردٍ للأحياء

الأمواتُ لا يمارسون الكلام 

يحترفونَ الصمتَ والغياب 

وإن أغراهم ذات حياة كلام ما 

خرجوا خفيفين كالظلال 

ينتعلون قبورهم

 بخفة الشبح 

يتبادلون شاياً بارداً 

يضعونَ الوردَ

 على أرواحِ أحيائهم ويرحلون 

صداقة متينة

يرافقني الحزن

في رحلتي اليومية

ينهضُ معي صباحاً

يتناولُ معي فنجان القهوة

نغادرُ البيت معاً

يتأبط ُذراعي

ننزلُ الدرج

نقطعُ الرصيف

نستقلُ القطار نعمل معاً

ننظرُ لشاشة الكمبيوتر سوية

نعودُ للبيت، نتناول وجبتنا 

ونتبادلُ اللعب مع الأولاد

 ينام ُقربي

يقرأ معي كتاب ما قبل النوم.

يقلبُ لي الصفحة إن سهوت

يأذن للفرح أن يزورني في الحلم

مخيلة للمساء

أسقطُ عن حبل الغسيل

ثوباً ملوناً لسهرتنا

شرشفاً نظيفاً لرغبتنا

أتقمصُ الأشياءَ

حوض َالوردِ

 الذي زرعتُ وجهي فيه

الستائر التي علقتها 

كي تسترَ قبلاتنا

الطريق إليك

خطواتي في الطريق إليك

لهفتي المتفلتة مني

رغماً عني وعنها

تقفز خطواتي

وتسبقني برشاقةِ غزالٍ

يسبقني جسدي إلى الفراش

تستلقي رغبتي

بكاملِ فتنتها وتستفزني

بأنها أكثر رغبة بك مني

تتقلب وتعلو وتطوقني

 كالهواء ألُفك به

وبجسدي أغطيكَ

قلب ساذج

قلبي الصغير

يتيمٌ في حضرةِ الذكرى

يستدرجُ الحنين

كطريدةٍ ضعيفة

قلبي لا يتقنُ التعلمَ

يتواطأ مع الخيبة دائماً

ويشرعُ نوافذهُ لها

طيبُ القلبِ قلبي

* * *

بيدين آثمتين

أكل قلبي

وبنفس اليدين

أطفأ ضوء عيني

تركني كضريرة

أتلمس الطريق

باحثة عن قلبي

بين يديه.

* * *

هذا الهواء

السميك

كسترة واقية

من الرصاص

سأثقبه

بالبكاء

على نفسي أولاً

وعلى الحياة ثانياً

وفي النهاية سأومئ لأصدقائي

ولحياة كأنها لم تكن لي وابتسم

غواية التفاح

ليس ذنبي

إذ ترتل بأذني

آياتك الشيطانية

فألدغك بلساني كأفعى

وأوحي إليك بالتفاح

**
لو أن أمي عرفت بأن الحياة

ستحرق جناحي لاحتفظت بي

في عتمة شرنقتها الحريرية.

* * *

تحترق النجوم في الكون منذ الأزل

هل الله أعمى لهذه الدرجة

كي يحتاج لكل هذا الضوء؟

أم أن الظلام مهيمن؟

فى الأسبوع الماضي زار وفد مصري رسمي واشنطن للتفاوض مع إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة على توسيع إتفاق الكويز وتقليل نسبة المكون الإسرائيلى فى صادراته المصرية لأمريكا. في نفس الوقت تقريباً، كان نشطاء فلسطينيون يضعون اللمسات الأخيرة لخطة إنشاء أول قرية فلسطينية على أراضٍ خصصتها إسرائيل اغتصاباً للمستوطنات، قبل أن يقيموها بالفعل فجر الجمعة الماضي تحت اسم «باب الشمس»، مطلقين سبيلاً جديداً فريداً للمقاومة في زمن صعب.

خبر اجتماعات الكويز، الذيانفرد به الزميل محمد المنشاوىمدير مكتب الشروق فى العاصمة الأمريكية، ليس مفاجأة في الحقيقة. فقد مهدت له زيارة أمريكية للقاهرة فى سبتمبر، وكانت الإتفاقية بنداً رئيسياً على جدول أعمال حكومة هشام قنديل، منذ أن عينها الرئيس مرسي. وفي التاسع من سبتمبر ٢٠١٢، وفي حوار مع وكالة بلومبرج الأمريكية المتخصصة في الاقتصاد قال قنديل، إن مصر ستفي بتعهدها فيما يتعلق بالإتفاق، الذي يفتح باب السوق الأمريكية لمنتجات مصرية إذا كان بها مكون إسرائيلي يبلغ ١٠.٥٪ (وهو ماتريد مصر مرسي تخفيضه الآن لـ ٨٪). بل قال قنديل بالنص إن «أناساً كثيرين يصنعون عملاً ناجحاً منها، ونريد أن نكون متأكدين أننا نفعل الشيء الصحيح لهم لكى يزدهروا».

الإخوان وكويز ٢٠٠٤

في ٩ ديسمبر ٢٠٠٤، يقول تقرير منشور على موقع «الإخوان المسلمون» (إخوان أونلاين)، وتحت عنوان «نواب الإخوان: الكويز خطر على أمن مصر»، إن نواب الكتلة البرلمانية للإخوان بالبرلمان حذروا من خطورة إتفاقية المناطق المؤهلة المزمع عقدها بين مصر و«الكيان الصهيوني» بعدها بأيام. ونقل الموقع عن طلبات إحاطة واستجوابات النواب أن «الاتفاقية تمثل خطورة حقيقية على الأمن القومي لأنها أول اتفاقية اقتصادية وصناعية مع العدو الصهيوني». وقال الدكتور حمدى حسن فى طلب الإحاطة الذى قدمه إن الاتفاق «يحقق ما كان يسعى إليه العدو منذ عقود من الزمن للسيطرة على المنطقة اقتصادياً عبر اختراق الاقتصاد المصري بعد أن سيطر عليها سياسياً عقب إتفاقية كامب ديفيد». وأنهى الدكتور حسن طلب الإحاطة بأن «الصهاينة لا ينفع معهم لا سلام ولا عهد ولا كويز» رافضاً بكل قوة جميع محاولات التطبيع مع «عدونا الغاصب» معتبرا إياها «وصمة عار ستتحملها الأجيال القادمة».

ولم تتوقف أسباب رفض الإخوان للكويز فقط عند السياسة. بل حرصت الجماعة على تفنيد مبررات نظام مبارك ووزير التجارة والصناعة رشيد محمد رشيد من أنها ستكون السبب في انقاذ صناعة النسيج وأنها ستخلق ١٥٠ ألف وظيفة جديدة. وهزأ النائب محمد مرسي وهو وقتها المتحدث بإسم نواب الإخوان بهذه المبررات في كلمة له بالمجلس مطالباً الحكومة بإيضاح من أين تأتى الـ١٥٠ ألف فرصة عمل رافضاً توقيع مصر إتفاقاً مع وزير صهيونى. أما النائب حسنين الشورة فقد تساءل عن الضغوط التى يمارسها لوبي المستفيدين من رجال الأعمال على الحكومة للتوقيع على الإتفاقية.

الآن، وبعد ٨ سنوات، تسعى الحكومة التي عينها الرئيس محمد مرسي إلى توسيع نطاق الكويز وسط صمت كامل من حزب الحرية والعدالة ومن جماعة الإخوان. فهل هناك ما تغير من زاوية مبررات الرفض؟

من كويز نظيف لكويز قنديل..ابحث عن المستفيد

كما نعلم جميعاً، لم تتحقق أي من الوعود الاقتصادية التي بشرنا بها الوزير رشيد وحكومة أحمد نظيف. فلا كان الكويز طوق النجاة لصناعة النسيج المصرية ولا شهدت الصادرات المصرية الطفرة التاريخية المنشودة. وعلى مدى ٨ سنوات وربع، من بداية تفعيل الاتفاقية في ٢٠٠٥ إلى نهاية الربع الأول من ٢٠١٢، صدرت مصر للولايات المتحدة ما قيمته ٥.١ مليار دولار في ظل الإتفاقية، أي بمعدل ٦١٨ مليون دولار سنوياً. أما أهم منتج نصدره فهو سراويل الجينز، التي وحدها بلغت نصف قيمة صادرات الكويز تقريباً فى ٢٠١١ ويتلقى أغلبها محال «جاب» و«ليفايس» الأمريكية، بحسب آخر أرقام وحدة الكويز بوزارة التجارة والصناعة. بينما استوردت مصر من إسرائيل خلال تلك الفترة ما قيمته ٥٦٠ مليون دولار من إسرائيل. فياله من حصاد هزيل بالمقارنة بحجم صادرات مصر الذى بلغ ٢٩ مليار دولار فى ٢٠٠٧/٢٠٠٨ و٢٧ مليار دولار فى ٢٠١١/٢٠١٢.

ومنذ الثورة ارتفعت صادرات الكويز مسجلة ٩٣١.٦ مليون دولار فى ٢٠١١ مقارنة ب ٨٥٨.٢ مليون دولار فى ٢٠١٠. وفى الربع الأول من عام ٢٠١٢ بلغت الواردات المصرية من إسرائيل ٩٤ مليون دولار منها ٤٨ مليونا فى شهر واحد هو مارس وهي أكبر ب ٤ مرات من مثيلتها فى نفس الربع من ٢٠١١.

ومما لا شك فيه أن الأثر الأول للكويز جنباً إلى جنب مع إتفاق الغاز كان زيادة التبادل التجاري بين مصر وإسرائيل بما لذلك من معانٍ سياسية. فماذا حدث على مستوى الوظائف وتوسع الصناعة واستفادتها وهل جلبت تدفقات الاستثمار الأجنبي الموعودة للاستفادة من تلك الفرصة التصديرية؟ 

من بين ٥٣٦ شركة سجلت نفسها فى الكويز هناك ٣٨٢ شركة لم تصدر بمليم واحد. وبلغ عدد الشركات التى صدرت شيئا ما خلال ٨ سنوات وربع ١٥٤ شركة، أي أن هناك 7 شركات من كل 10 مسجلة لم تستفد على الإطلاق من الإتفاق، وذلك حتى نهاية الربع الأول من ٢٠١٢. وتبلغ حصة المنسوجات والملابس الجاهزة ٨٩٪ من هذه الصادرات تليها منتجات بلاستيك بـ٢٪ ومنتجات كيماوية بـ ٢٪. أي أن المستفيد الأول والأهم هم مصدرو الملابس الجاهزة. وتخبرنا دراسة لمنتدى البحوث الاقتصادية (يرأسه د.أحمد جلال أحد منسقي ما سمي بالحوار المجتمعي الذي دعت إليه حكومة قنديل مؤخراً)، أن «مساهمة الكويز كانت ضئيلة للغاية فى حل المشاكل الهيكلية التى تهدد قطاع المنسوجات المصري». وتقول الدراسة الصادرة فى أبريل ٢٠١٠، إنه من بين ١٧ منطقة صناعية بها مصانع كويز فإن ٨٠٪ من الصادرات تخرج من ٦ منها فقط. و٨٨٪ من الصادرات تتركز فى الشركات التى تتجاوز عمالتها ٥٠٠ عامل. «وبين الشركات الكبيرة فإن الانحياز يزيد لصالح الشركات الأكبر والأكبر فنصف حجم صادرات الكويز يخرج من شركات عمالتها فوق ٢٠٠٠ عامل»، بحسب الدراسة التي أعدها الباحثان جيفري نوجنت وعبلة عبد اللطيف. ويعني هذا أن الفائدة قليلة جداً بالنسبة للشركات الصغيرة والمتوسطة، التي وعدت بالرخاء المقيم. ومازالت كل الشركات تعتمد بالأساس على أقمشة مستوردة من الصين والهند وإسرائيل، «مما يقلل من فوائد الاتفاق» ويعنى أن الفوائد لصناعة الغزل والنسيج عموماً ضعيفة.

من ناحية أخرى جلبت الكويز بعض الاستثمارات التركية في القطاع للاستفادة من الفرصة التصديرية. لكن الدراسة هنا أيضا تقول إن فائدتها المفترضة هي تقوية الصناعات التي تمد صناعة الملابس الجاهزة، «وهو مالم يحدث».

إذا لماذا تدفع حكومة قنديل مرة أخرى في هذه الإتفاقية العاقر؟ الإجابة في السياسة: فقد كانت هذه الإتفاقية حجر أساس في علاقة الولايات المتحدة بنظام مبارك الذي يعد لتوريث إبنه، ومازالت شرطاً أمريكياً لتأييد أي نظام في مصر. أيضاً، وكما قال النائب الشورة في ٢٠٠٤، هناك التحالف مع اللوبي الضيق المستفيد من الكويز والذي يقوده رئيس اتحاد الصناعات قبل وبعد الثورة جلال الزربا، وهو أحد المتحدثين لموقع الإخوان مرحباً بتأسيس جمعية «إبدأ» لرجال الأعمال، التي يقودها السيد حسن مالك. يوماً بعد يوم، تشي السياسة الاقتصادية لحكم الإخوان بحجم وعمق هذا التحالف السياسي والاجتماعي مع رجال أعمال مبارك حتى وإن تناقض ذلك مع مواقف سابقة. وهكذا بينما تتصاعد أصوات حكومية وغير حكومية في الغرب لمقاطعة سلع المستوطنات الإسرائيلية بسبب سياسات إسرائيل الاستيطانية الشرسة، تسقط حكومتنا التي عينها رئيس من الإخوان المسلمين في جب توسيع التطبيع الاقتصادي والتجاري معها، دعماً ودفاعاً عن تصدير سراويل جينز ينتجها بالأساس ٥ رجال أعمال.

•••

في ٢٦ أبريل ٢٠٠٦، أي بعد ما يزيد عن عام من تطبيق إتفاق الكويز، نشر موقع الإخوان المسلمين تقريراً يستعرض كتاباً للدكتور أشرف دوابة، (ينشر موقع الحرية والعدالة مقالاته الاقتصادية بانتظام) تحت عنوان «الكويز فى المنظور الاقتصادي والشرعي». فى التقرير يفند د. دوابة «مزاعم أن الكويز مكنت الصادرات المصرية خاصة من المنسوجات من تجنب المنافسة الشرسة في السوق الأمريكية». ينقل التقرير عن الكتاب أنه «لا يمكن تجاهل مخاطر (الكويز) على جهود رفع الكفاءة الإنتاجية للصناعة المصرية؛ نتيجة اعتماد الصناعة المصرية على ما قد تتضمنه تلك الإتفاقية من مزايا استثنائية يمكن أن تُلغَى في أي وقت لسبب أو آخر، فهناك العديد من الدول ــ وفي مقدمتها الصين وبنجلاديش والهند وباكستان وغيرها- قد استطاعت أن تزيد من صادراتها إلى الولايات المتحدة، خاصة في قطاع المنسوجات والملابس الجاهزة دون دخولها في مثل هذه الإتفاقيات معتمدة أساساً على زيادة كفاءتها الإنتاجية وتحسين جودتها وتخفيض أسعارها». لكن د. دوابة يذهب لأبعد من ذلك قائلاً إنه «لاعبرة لما يردده البعض بالمصلحة الاقتصادية دفاعاً عن الاتفاقية»، ويضيف «التصدير لا يغفر جريمة ولا يقلب الحرام حلالاً».

المجد لرسل الحرية من فلسطين، بناة قرية باب الشمس. والعار كل العار للمطبعين على حساب القضية والأخلاق، على حساب الحق ومصالح الشعب.

[عن جريدة "الشروق" المصرية و"جدلية" تعيد نشرها بالإتفاق مع الكاتب.]

[”ملف من الأرشيف“ هي سلسة تقوم ”جدلية“ بنشرها بالعربية والإنجليزية بالتعاون مع جريدة ”السفير“ اللبنانية. الملفات لشخصيات أيقونية تركت أثراً عميقاً في الحقل السياسي والثقافي في العالم العربي.]

الإسم:نزيهة

الشهرة:الدليمي

 إسم الأب:جودت

تاريخ الولادة: 1923

تاريخ الوفاة: 2007

الجنسية:عراقية

الإختصاص:دكتوراه في الطب

الفئة: سياسية

المهنة:وزيرة

[نزيهة الدليمي مع عبد الكريم قاسم]

نزيهة الدليمي

 • عراقية.

• ولدت في محلة البارودية، ببغداد سنة 1923.

• أنهت دراستها الإبتدائية في مدرسة تطبيقات دار المعلمات الإبتدائية.

• دخلت كلية الطب عام 1941، بعد فشل حركة رشيد عالي الكيلاني، وكانت يومها تدور مع زميلاتها وزملائها على البيوت وتجمع التبرعات، لدعم الجيش العراقي في انتفاضة ضد الاستعمار.

• بدأت نشاطها السياسي في أواسط الأربعينيات، في جمعية نسائية اسمها "جمعية مكافحة النازية والفاشية". وكانت رئيستها طالبة الحقوق فيكتوريا نعمان، التي أصبحت فيما بعد أول مذيعة في الإذاعة العراقية.

 • عام 1948، وبعد أن تخرجت طبيبة، انتسبت إلى الحزب الشيوعي العراقي، وأصبحت عضوة في اللجنة المركزية للحزب.

• بعد قيام الثورة في 14 تموز 1958، إختيرت وزيرة للبلديات سنة 1959 (وزارة جديـدة) بتأييـد مـن الزعيـم عبـد الكريم قاسم. وهي أول إمرأة تشغل مقعداً " وزارياً"، لا في العراق فحسب، بل في الوطن العربي. وشغلت المنصب الوزاري بين صيف 1959 وخريف 1960.

• ساهمت في تأسيس "رابطة المرأة العراقية"، التي يعود إليها الفضل في إصدار قانون الأحوال الشخصية سنة 1959.

• بعد خلاف عبد الكريم قاسم مع الشيوعيين، أصبحت وزيرة بلا حقيبة.

• سافرت إلى موسكو، وسمعت من هناك بالانقلاب الذي أودى بحياة عبد الكريم قاسم في شابط 1963.

• انتقلت من موسكو إلى براغ، وساهمت في تشكيل حركة الدفاع عن الشعب العراق مع الشاعر محمد مهدي الجواهري وفيصل السامر وشاكر خصباك.

• عام 1968 عادت إلى بغداد، وعملت ضمن كوادر الحزب الشيوعي بشكل سري، وفجعت بموت شقيقها، ومن ثم مرض والدتها وموتها.

• عام 1979 غادرت العراق ثانية، وعاشت في ألمانيا (مدينة بوتسدام).

• قرر مجلس الحكم المحلي تخصيص مبلغ 750 دولاراً كراتب تقاعدي لها ابتداء من أول نيسان 2004.

• ظلت في المنفى حتى وفاتها في 2007/10/09 في ألمانيا.

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Mali, South Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, and Comoros Islands and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the On the Margins Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each month's roundup to info@jadaliyya.com.]

Somalia

Potential goldmine for fishermen as piracy declinesIRIN’s report explains how the improvements in security permit the increase of fishing and seafood exports.

Cash transfers for social protectionIRIN’s analysis shows that the expansion of cash transfers programs can help sustainable development and reduce dependency on emergency support. 

Somalia human development report finds youth essential to country's futureThe United Nations Development Programme report reveals that youth empowerment is key to stability and growth.

The last stand of Somalia's jihadCan Kenya's invasion of Kismayo put an end to al-Shabab for good? 

On the front line in Kismayo Photos from the crucial Somali port city, after its liberation from the hands of al-Shabab.

Private army formed to fight Somali pirates leaves troubled legacyNew York Times piece on mercenaries and security firms left to fend for themselves after abandonment of the antipiracy army.

Why charcoal may endanger Somalia’s best hope for peaceTristan McConnell reports that the UN embargo on the charcoal trade to prevent a revival of Al-Shabab’s financial circuit  is leading to disputes.

Djibouti

President calls on Eritrea to release prisonersReport on the President of Djibouti’s call for the release of the prisoners of war seized by Eritrea during Eritrea incursion into Djibouti in 2008.

EU to support Djibouti's desalination water plant project Analysis of theproject that aims to increase access to water for every Djiboutian to help bring stability and security to the country.

High level Djibouti delegation visits Belet WeyneDjibouti’s defense minister visits AMISOM troops in a town recently liberated from Alshabab. 

Poor rains push Djibouti's hungry pastoralists towards the cityReport finds that people are migrating towards Djibouti City but urban areas are experiencing high food prices and unemployment.

Drone crashes mount at civilian airports Craig Whitlock says that drones mechanical breakdowns led to miscommunications and tensions with Djiboutian civil aviation officials.

Comoros Islands

All on board Comoros plane survive crashReport on the twenty-nine people pulled out of the Indian Ocean waters after aircraft crashes after takeoff.

Comoros praises Khalifa foundation’s supportThe author reports that the ambassador of Comoros praises emergency relief provided for flood victims.

IMF and World Bank announce US$176 million debt relief for ComorosThe heavily indebted poor country status of Comoros makes it eligible for USD $176 million in debt relief.

Exim bank for more branches in Comoros The author reports that as Comoros’ economy grows and regional trade expands, EXIM Bank Tanzania is preparing to open two additional branches.  

Other Countries:

Mali

Tourism in Mali: Would you go to Timbuktu? The author describes the impact of the military coup and the consequent instability in the north on Mali’s tourist industry.  

Can the jihadists be stopped? An insightful look at the jihadist group Ansar Dine’s enigmatic leader, Iyad ag Ghali, to assess the chances for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Mali’s Prime Minister resigns after arrest, muddling plans to retake North Adam Nossiter describes how the army junta hold to power complicates planned military aid to free north Mali.

Mali’s Crisis: Is the plan for Western intervention ‘crap’? Bruce Crumley analyses the discord between French and US officials on military offensive in Mali.

Security Council unanimously backs Mali intervention force Colum Lynch reports on the UN Security Council’s unanimous decision to prepare for possible military offensive to defeat the jihadists.

Al Qaeda in Mali: Islamist fighters carve out new country Rukmini Callimachi describes the jihadists’ defensive preparations deep inside caves in remote desert bases.

Racism obstructs extremism in Mali Blogger John Campbell’s analysis of the racial tensions within the northern Malian radical jihadist groups reveals a potential for diplomatic opportunities.

South Sudan

Sudan and South Sudan sign accord, but several issues are unresolved Jeffrey Gentleman’s analysis of the deal reveals that the seeds for future conflict are firmly planted.

Sudan and South Sudan in fresh border clashes The author reports that despite the Accord reached between Sudan and South Sudan, both armies are still fighting near the border. 

Bashir, Kiir to meet in Ethiopia this week Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir and South Sudanese president Salva Kiir to meet to show their commitment to peaceful dialogue.

Journalist killed Josh Kron reports on the threats faced by journalists in South Sudan.

South Sudan's new oil laws offer a reason for optimism Dana wilkins finds that a serious implementation of the new oil laws can avoid South Sudan to fall prey of the resource curse. 

Sharing my story Emmanuel Jal tells his experience as a child soldier in the Sudanese conflict.

U.N. says South Sudan threatens its peacekeeping mission Josh Kron reports on the threats and attacks by the South Sudanese military against the UN peacekeeping mission.

Why the armed forces of South Sudan shot down a UN helicopter Blogger Eric Reeves argues that Sudan’s supply of weapons to rebels in South Sudan explains attacks on the UN mission.

South Sudan's oil production hasn't trickled down to basic servicesCharlton Doki’s analysis shows that oil revenues are yet to be poured into schools, hospitals, roads and agriculture.  

Mauritania

Anti-slavery law still tough to enforce IRIN reports that despite a 2007 law criminalizing slavery, the government has proven reluctant to focus on it with only one case resulting in conviction.

A coup-less coup for Mauritania? Hannah Armstrongexamines the population’s show of support to President Aziz at his return from France following his convalescence. 

Nicola Pratt, "The Gender Logics of Resistance to the 'War on Terror': Constructing Sex-Gender Difference Through the Erasure of Patriarchy in the Middle East."Third World Quarterly 33:10 (2012).

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

Nicola Pratt (NP): This article is based on fieldwork conducted in 2007 and 2008 at the “Cairo Conferences,” which were a series of conferences in opposition to imperialism, Zionism, neoliberalism, and dictatorship. Initially, I attended the 2007 Cairo Conference as an anti-war activist. At this time, the US and its allies were occupying Iraq and Israel had launched deadly assaults on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in the previous year. As part of the conference, I participated in the “Women’s Forum” and was interested in the opinions expressed and positions taken within the session. Unsurprisingly, these were all in stark contrast to the “women’s empowerment” discourses that were important (and remain so) for the Western justification of the “war on terror.” Simultaneously, as a result of my previous project with Nadje Al-Ali on the impact of the US-led invasion on women in Iraq, I was interested in the gendered impacts of conflict, on which there is a substantial academic as well as policy-related literature. Yet, there was nothing within that literature that helped us to understand the political responses of women to conflict, including the voices of the women at the “Women’s Forum.”

In 2008, I returned to the conference (which turned out to be the last one held) as an activist and an academic to further document the voices at the “Women’s Forum.” One of the biggest paradoxes for me was that most women speakers valorized women’s agency in resisting the “war on terror” (in its many dimensions) in terms of their positions as wives, mothers, and sisters, whilst dismissing gender equality and women’s empowerment. The article tries to understand why anti-war movements may be inhospitable to feminist goals, without reducing the issue to the nature of the ideological currents (Islamist, Arab nationalist, and socialist) represented at the conference. I find that the problem arises from the huge task of bridging multiple identities to build a movement, which thereby makes it difficult to resist multiple relations of domination at the same time.

[Poster from the 2007 Cairo Conference. Image via the author.]

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

NP: The article aims to theorize women’s agency within the context of an anti-war movement. I focus on a range of women activists, not only Islamist women or only women’s rights activists, but also women activists who are socialists or Arab nationalists as well as women workers. It engages with feminist literature on women and resistance and the problem of women’s collective solidarity against the backdrop of intersecting inequalities. Whilst engaging with feminist literature, it also seeks to understand women’s non-feminist activism. It builds on post-colonial/black feminist literature that highlights the significance of race, nation, class, and sexuality as well as geopolitical and global political economic processes in shaping women’s identities and their resistance. Much of the literature on Middle East women’s activism tends to focus on women’s feminist resistance or women’s activism in pursuit of women’s rights objectives. The exception to this is the literature on Palestinian women’s activism, which has been framed by both national and gender-specific objectives.

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

NP: It builds on my previous work with Nadje Al-Ali on the impact of the US-led invasion and occupation on women and gender relations in Iraq by considering the wider impact of the “war on terror” on women’s agencies and identities in the Middle East. It also builds on my earlier work on civil society in Egypt, which was the subject of my PhD project. I wouldn’t necessarily term it a “departure,” but this article further develops my interest in post-colonial feminist theory as a means of understanding women’s agency in the Global South, particularly in the context of the Middle East’s geopolitical position.

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

NP: I published this article in a non-women’s studies/feminist studies journal in the hope that it will be read by a wider audience interested in politics and society in the “Third World,” particularly with regard to the study of social movements and resistance. However, the article mainly addresses two audiences, which, from my experience, rarely intersect: scholars of feminist international relations and feminist security studies, on the one hand; and scholars of Middle East women’s studies/gender studies, on the other. I hope that these audiences will be prompted to explore further not only the historically-specific production of gender, but also its geopolitically-specific dimensions. I think that there are a lot of excellent studies examining this in relation to the colonial period. However, I have not come across much literature that does that for more contemporary cases. In addition, I hope to encourage further thinking about the ways in which social relations of “gender,” “sexuality,” “race,” and “class” may intersect in contradictory and complex ways, not only in theory, but in everyday practices (such as anti-war activism). This has implications for progressive politics.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

NP: I am currently working with Katherine Allison of Glasgow University to edit and publish a roundtable discussion that we began at the International Studies Association conference in 2012 on “Feminist Engagement with the ‘War on Terror.’” I am also working on a book project that examines the role of geopolitics in shaping women’s rights and women’s mobilization in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon in the post-independence period. Meanwhile, I am preparing to convene a workshop in July 2013 on “Rethinking Gender in the ‘Arab Spring,’” which will be held as part of a joint project with Birzeit University Institute for Women’s Studies.

Excerpt from “The Gender Logics of Resistance to the ‘War on Terror’: Constructing Sex-Gender Difference through the Erasure of Patriarchy in the Middle East”

Feminist scholars have highlighted how the so-called War on Terror is “gender-ed,” as well as “race-ed,” “sex-ed,” and “class-ed.”[1] This literature illustrates how the “war on terror” has been constituted by and constitutive of constructions of “brown women” in need of saving from “barbaric” “brown men” by Western militaries, evocative of Gayatri Spivak’s description of colonialism as “white men saving brown women from brown men.”[2] Such tropes have been criticized for stereotyping Muslim women as “passive” and “oppressed,” Muslim men as “terrorists,” and Western governments and militaries as “enlightened,” thereby helping to naturalize and even to perpetuate the “war on terror.”

It is important to recognize that the “war on terror” (which constitutes a number of different but interconnected processes, including military and intelligence measures, economic restructuring and political and diplomatic alliances) not only has differential effects on different social groups (according to the configurations of intersecting gender, class, ethnicity, nationality, and other significant relations of power) but that groups resist these processes in ways that also have implications for gender and other relations of power, and, in turn, for wider political, socio-economic and cultural processes. However, the subject of resistance to the “war on terror” has been under-studied.

Whilst some attention has been given to the construction of militarized masculinity in violent resistance to the “war on terror” (sometimes depicted as mirroring the militarized masculinity of the US army and its military allies),[3] until now, the theorising of non-violent resistance to the “war on terror” and how it may be gender-ed, race-ed, class-ed, and sex-ed has been almost neglected. Those scholars who have written about the gender-ed dimensions of non-violent resistance to the “war on terror” have focused on feminist or “feminist-friendly” resistance,[4] often highlighting the links between war, militarism and masculinity/”patriarchy.”[5] Yet, such an approach implicitly assumes that patriarchy, capitalism, racism, and militarism are mutually reinforcing, thereby rendering it unproblematic for women to resist all of these simultaneously.[6]

This article examines how gender-ed identities, or particular femininities, are constituted by and constitutive of resistance to the “war on terror,” focusing on the case of the Middle East. Towards this end, the article begins by attempting to theorise resistance in the context of international relations, highlighting the significance of (strategic) identity construction. The following sections examine the processes of constructing femininity in/through resistance to the “war on terror” at a series of conferences against imperialism, Zionism, dictatorship, and neoliberalism, held in Cairo between 2002 and 2008. I find that women mobilize to resist different relations of domination based on imperialism, Zionism, neoliberalism, and dictatorship through the construction of national/religious or class differences. However, the gender logics of the “war on terror” shape the performance of a femininity that valorises sex-gender difference as a source of agency (rather than a source of oppression). I argue that this notion of femininity is constructed strategically to foreground the national/religious and class dimensions of power relations that underpin the “war on terror,” whilst erasing “patriarchy”/gender-based domination. This notion of femininity also enables the bridging of class and ideological differences amongst women.

This suggests wider implications for how we understand the construction of gender-ed identities in international relations, the significance of gender in women’s activism and the relevancy of feminism in struggles against multiple and transnational relations of power. Rather than speaking of anti-feminist blowback in the “war on terror,” it is perhaps more useful to problematize the construction of resistance femininities as the outcome of a dialectical relationship between, on the one hand, multiple relations of power at the inter-personal, national and transnational levels and, on the other, the need to bridge multiple identities to build collective resistance to these structures.

Notes

I thank the British Academy for funding this research as part of a small grant to study “Women and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.” I am very grateful to Victoria Basham, Bice Maiguashca, Warwick Critical Security Studies Reading Group, and participants in the Tenth Mediterranean Research Meeting on Social Movements in the Middle East and North Africa, Lancaster University’s Center for Gender and Women’s Studies seminar series, the SOAS Department of Politics seminar series, the 2010 WOCMES panel, “Reconceptualising Gender in the Middle East,” and the 2012 ISA panel, “Reconceptualising Security: Gender, Race, and Sexuality after 9/11” for useful feedback and discussion. 

[1] Z Eisenstein, Sexual Decoys: Gender, Race and War in Imperial Democracy, London: Zed, 2007; K Hunt and K Rygiel, eds., (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007; R L Riley, C Talpade Mohanty and M Bruce Pratt, eds., Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialism, London: Zed, 2008; A M Agathangelou and L H M Ling, “Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence and Desire from September 11,” International Studies Quarterly 48, 2004, pp. 517-538; G Bhattacharyya, Dangerous Brown Men: Exploiting Sex, Violence and Feminism in the War on Terror, London: Zed, 2008; M Khalid, “Gender, Orientalism and Representation of the ‘Other’ in the War on Terror,” Global Change, Peace & Security 23:1, 2011, pp. 15-29; L J Shepherd, “Veiled References,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 8: 1, 2006, pp. 1-23; L Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?,” American Anthropologist 104: 3, 2002, pp. 783-790.

[2] G Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?," in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, London: Macmillan, 1988, p. 92.

[3] Agathangelou and Ling, “Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence and Desire from September 11”; Michael S. Kimmel, “Globalization and Its Mal(e)Contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism,” International Sociology 18:3, 2003, pp. 603-620.

[4] C Cockburn, From Where We Stand: War, Women's Activism and Feminist Analysis, London: Zed Books, 2007; Riley, Mohanty, and Pratt, eds., Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialism; Z Eisenstein, Against Empire: Feminisms, Racism and the West, New York: Zed, 2004.

[5] C Enloe, The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004; Cockburn, From Where We Stand: War, Women's Activism and Feminist Analysis; C Cockburn, "Gender Relations as Causal in Militarization and War," International Feminist Journal of Politics 12, no. 2 (2010); L Sjoberg and S Via, eds., Gender, War and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010, amongst others.

[6] J Halley, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 81-82.

[Excerpted from “The Gender Logics of Resistance to the ‘War on Terror’: Constructing Sex-Gender Difference through the Erasure of Patriarchy in the Middle East,” by Nicola Pratt, by permission of the author. © 2012 Taylor & Francis. For more information, or to order the article or the complete issue, click here.]

Noga Efrati, Women in Iraq: Past Meets Present. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

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

Noga Efrati (NE): The US-led invasion of Iraq became a full-scale military occupation while I was in the midst of working on a historical account of women under the British occupation and the British-installed monarchy in the first half of the twentieth century. I found myself more and more intrigued, as contemporary events cascaded, to find that the struggle of Iraqi women’s rights activists, especially between 2003 and 2005, to a large extent revolved around the same three issues that had concerned activists during the Hashemite period. Activists in fact warned that women were about to be dragged back to days of the monarchy. I decided, therefore, to risk criticism and add to my historical account an addition concerning present days' events. I believe that placing activists’ post-2003 struggle against the backdrop of the Hashemite period illuminates their efforts to secure meaningful participation in politics, to prevent state tolerance of coercive practices pertaining to women, and to preserve Iraq’s Personal Status Law.

J: How does this work depart from previous research and writing?

NE: Historical studies of women’s issues have only rarely extended beyond the Ba῾th period (1968–2003). One reason that the weight of activists' warnings was not appreciated was that the history of women in Iraq before 1958 did not receive its due attention in scholarly literature. Women in Iraq seeks to fill this historiographical lacuna, as well as to elucidate activists’ fears springing from the period of the British occupation and the British-backed monarchy (1917–1958).

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

NE:Past Meets Present is first and foremost a historical work. The first part describes how and why women were constructed as second-class citizens during the state-building process under the mandate and the monarchy. It outlines the way the legal and political systems were shaped, first by the British occupation and then by the Iraqi government the British put in place, focusing on the evolution of legislation that defined and influenced women’s position in family and society. At the same time, it acknowledges conflicting perceptions, power struggles, and other larger issues of the era as driving forces fueling this evolution.

The first chapter, "Occupation, Monarchy, and Customary Law: Tribalizing Women," addresses the topic of customary law. During World War I, the British imposed the Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulation (TCCDR) for the purpose of ruling over Iraq’s vast countryside. The regulation bolstered tribal leaders and tied them to the state by giving them authority to settle disputes between “their tribesmen” in accordance with “tribal methods” and “tribal law.” Customary practices were thus not only sanctioned but, because the existence of “age-old tribal practices” provided an important justification for deploying the TCCDR, also perpetuated. The chapter explains how this regulation, which later became state law, was incorporated into the government gender discourse despite growing criticism from Iraqi intellectuals, and reveals the harsh implications for women. The chapter further demonstrates that women’s well-being was knowingly sacrificed to facilitate the governing of Iraq’s vast rural areas.

The second chapter, "Family Law as a Site of Struggle and Subordination," looks at the topic of family law. Under the Hashemite monarchy, Iraq had no civil law governing personal status matters (marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, etc.). This chapter briefly reviews British policy, which left family matters in the hands of religious leaders in order to tie these leaders to the British-dominated nascent state, and highlights opposition to this course of action. It then expands on state attempts to intervene by way of legislation and examines their ramifications for women. Although the debate over the state’s introduction of the Personal Status Law has been inextricably linked to the debate over Iraqi women’s standing in the domestic realm, the chapter shows that gender relations were not the only object of dispute; in fact, the conflict between the government and the ulama to a large extent centered on who had the authority to formulate laws governing personal status, which courts were to be involved, and who should be entrusted with the authority to adjudicate disputes. Meanwhile, women citizens were constructed as subordinate and dependent and were left unprotected from unfavorable interpretations of Islamic law. One example is that the government, in its proposed legislation, turned to other schools of Islamic jurisprudence, unaccepted in Iraq, for provisions that enabled women to end their marriages through legal procedures in the state courts, rather than offering them a simple way to initiate divorce that was acceptable to both Sunnis and Shi'is in Iraq but did not require recourse to the state court system.

The third chapter, "Politics, Election Law, and Exclusion," is devoted to women’s participation in formal politics. A parliamentary system was an efficient tool for the British to tie urban intellectuals in Iraq to the new state. But to ensure that the power of the British-backed Hashemite government would not be undermined, the Constitution and election system posed considerable obstacles for most men, and totally blocked women from entering Parliament. This chapter looks at women’s disenfranchisement throughout the Hashemite period. It delineates the huge obstacles that stood in the way of altering the first Iraqi Constitution, emphasizing the entanglement of the efforts to gain political rights for women with the broader struggle to effect change in the existing political order. It argues that the Hashemite government, troubled by the prospect of rocking the political boat, employed a strategy that simultaneously avoided distancing conservative supporters who opposed women’s vote and placated the opposition that favored it. In line with its modernity rhetoric, this government strategy required women to exhibit signs of “progress” as a prerequisite to receiving rights. What facilitated this tack was the fact that supporters of women’s suffrage shared with those opposing enfranchisement certain assumptions that constructed women as ill-prepared for political participation.

J: In what ways do you point to Iraqi women's own agency?

NE: Women's own agency is the theme of the second part of my work. It shows how those active in the women’s movement under the monarchy contested their government’s gender discourse. The fourth chapter, "Gender Discourse and Discontent: Activism Unraveled,"unveils some of the earliest scenes of activists challenging their government’s gender discourse and follows the process of organization that later facilitated a more direct challenge. Women’s activism in Iraq gained momentum after World War II: it expanded, gained strength, and became institutionalized. The fifth chapter, "Challenging the Government’s Gender Discourse," focuses on activists’ struggle against their construction as second-class citizens as that construction became increasingly obvious during the 1950s. It registers voices raised by both the Iraqi Women’s Union and the underground League for the Defense of Women’s Rights against the TCCDR, the lack of government intervention in the realm of personal status, and women’s disenfranchisement. I argue that activists' struggle constituted a competing construction of Iraqi women citizens and that the challenge they posed to the government’s discourse shaped to a large extent a new gender discourse that emerged in Iraq after 1958. Their criticism helped precipitate the dissolution of the TCCDR, the ratification of the Personal Status Law, and the appointment of the first female minister in the entire Arab world by Abd al-Karim Qasem.

J: How does past meet present?

NE: I discussed post-2003 events in the epilogue and argued that Iraqi activists in post-invasion Iraq faced the intrusion of a gender discourse all too similar to that of the monarchy period. Once again, an attempt to control Iraq through "authentic leaders"—giving them legal and political powers—marginalized the interests of women and sacrificed their well-being. Today’s activists’ sense of déjà vu was informed by the generation of activists who had exposed and fought against the detrimental gender discourse of the monarchy period. Their struggle was not only against the return of the harsh discourse that in the past constructed women as second-class citizens, but in defense of the very discourse that the founding mothers of the Iraqi women’s movement had helped set in place.

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

NE: I hope those interested in the social, political, and intellectual history of the Middle East will read Women in Iraq: Past Meets Present,as well as those with a particular interest in the history and historiography of Iraq, and women and gender issues in the MENA region. I hope it will also speak to a readership of women’s rights activists and policy makers, as well as the more general readership of non-scholars interested in current issues in Iraq. As for the impact of my book, I hope it will encourage historians of Iraq to elevate women from the footnotes of history to the text.

Excerpts from Women in Iraq: Past Meets Present

From Chapter One:

The British official position during the mandate period and beyond, then, thwarted any attempt—by British administrators, Iraqi urban politicians, state officials, lawyers, nationalist journalists, and even tribal leaders—to interfere with the TCCDR or with customs affecting women. The TCCDR was still seen as the proper tool of control, and “tribal practices” were a main justification for deploying it. It is not surprising that the more lenient “Tribal Code,” [proposed by tribal leader] which reflected the dynamic nature of rural practices, was rejected. Fir῾awn’s book, more unfavorable to women, was hailed because, by confirming that Iraq was a tribal society with distinct and age-old tribal customs, it lent legitimacy to the TCCDR. Thus, British tribalization of rural women in Iraq encompassed not only women’s construction as tribal, subject to separate “tribal law,” but also British involvement in determining “tribal law” affecting rural women as harsh.

From Chapter Two:

The harsh construction of women’s position vis-a-vis their kin and husbands [in the government's personal status law proposal] was not necessitated by Islamic law. Al-A῾zami and al-Hilli’s works clearly indicate that more favorable rulings were available. It was rather the result of state officials’ preferring some rulings over the others. Judith Tucker has pointed out in reference to other countries in the Middle East that in picking and choosing the rulings for states’ codes, those who framed them “were engaged in the fundamental transformation of Islamic law from a shari῾a of vast textual complexity and interpretive possibilities to a modern legal code of fixed rules and penalties.” In Iraq under the monarchy, this process threatened not only to initiate the loss of diverse interpretive possibilities, but also to bring about a code in which the substantive aspects did not work in women’s favor. Why did the government’s proposal rely on rulings that put its female citizens in such an unfavorable position as regards their kin and husbands?

From Chapter Three:

Granting women political rights was a potential liability for the Iraqi government because it might alienate pro-government MPs, while drawing opposition from the ulama. Allowing women to vote en masse also had the potential to destabilize the political status quo as opposition parties endeavored to mobilize them for their cause of changing the composition of Parliament and undermining the existing socioeconomic and political order. Faced with a growing demand to enfranchise women, however, the government saw an advantage in responding or at least in giving the impression it was responding to demands. To this end, it invoked the notion of “gradual modernization.”

“Gradual modernization” was an important part of post–World War II governments’ platform in Iraq, most notably those governments headed by Nuri al-Sa῾id. This theme merged well with the general aspiration to transform Iraq into a modern state. Indeed, a discourse of modernity, promising a better social, economic, and political future for all, was a salient aspect of Hashemite Iraq. Successive governments highlighted their interest in Iraq’s becoming “modern” and promised “progress” through reforms in all aspects of life. Al-Sa῾id’s party championed a fundamental and comprehensive “awakening” through a series of far-reaching social, economic, and political reforms.

The prime minister and his associates made it clear, however, that rapid changes would be impossible—that reforms would be introduced only gradually, taking into consideration the country’s “reality and its possibilities.” A balanced reform movement, they contended, required stability and should aim at adopting what is good in Western civilization while preserving what is best in Iraq’s own heritage. The linkage between the country’s “reality and its possibilities” and “reform” opened many possibilities for staving off reform. It enabled the government to decide which developments should occur or what change one particular section of society ought to exhibit before reforms affecting it could be introduced. This linkage, as shown in chapter one, provided justification for preserving the TCCDR and for refraining from touching detrimental practices affecting women. It was now used to perpetuate an exclusive political system and to hinder women from gaining political rights. Spurred by objections raised in religious circles, the government could argue that Iraq was not ready for such a change; and buttressed by the consensus among many intellectuals, according to which women were unfit or at least still unfit to take part in politics, it could easily claim that most women were not ready for such a reform.

From Chapter Five:

For the duration of the monarchy period and especially in the 1950s, Iraqi women’s rights activists confronted their government’s construction of women as second-class citizens. They exposed women’s lot in the countryside and the TCCDR’s contribution to their oppression. They bemoaned the government’s nonintervention in the field of personal status. They pushed for women’s full participation in their country’s economic, political, and social life and drew attention to the marginalization of female citizens. Their struggle constituted a competing construction of Iraqi women citizens. This construction comes into relief, however, only after the July 1958 coup.

Following that coup, the new republican government initiated measures largely portrayed as influenced by the efforts of the League for the Defense of Women’s Rights, which now worked legally under the name of the Iraqi Women’s League. However, these measures clearly reflect to no less an extent a response to the Iraqi Women’s Union’s efforts before 1958. The TCCDR was swiftly annulled, and Article 41 of the penal code, which permitted referring offenders to “tribal adjudication,” was later deleted. Women’s formal tribalization was thus erased. In addition, an agrarian reform, demanded by both organizations, was introduced. It was presented as intending to tackle the deplorable situation in the Iraqi countryside and to open the way for rural men and women to possess land.

The new republican regime also promised women political rights once political life renewed and gave a clear signal that it intended to end women’s exclusion from formal politics. Naziha al-Dulaimi was appointed as a minister, setting a precedent not only in Iraq, but in the entire Arab world. Women now became part of the administration and took part in formulating laws. Al-Dulaimi, appointed minister of municipalities, was among the specialists, jurists, ῾ulama, and politicians who prepared the new Personal Status Law, and the league prepared and presented a draft of this law to the Ministry of the Interior.

On 30 December 1959, Iraq’s Personal Status Law was introduced with the declared intent “to ensure women their legal rights and family independence.” Personal status issues came under state control, and by borrowing lenient provisions from the various schools of Islamic law, it was attuned to criticism regarding family matters and gender relations raised by activists prior to 1958. The law moved toward securing women’s personal rights, such as the right to consent to marriage, the right to choose a spouse, and the right to decide when to marry. It made an effort to address the problem of child brides by setting a legal minimum age for marriage and, by emphasizing their entitlement to mahr, made women a party to the marriage contract rather than objects of transaction. Women were thus to a much greater degree able to make free and rational decisions.

The law also severely curtailed polygamy, sanctioning it only with the express permission of a judge. In addition, it restricted a man’s ability to divorce his wife. Repudiation became void if uttered by a man whose mental capacities were in doubt—due to intoxication or extreme anger, for instance. A triple declaration of divorce could now result in a single divorce only, and men were required to commence divorce proceedings in court. The law also allowed women to seek the dissolution of their marriages through judicial proceedings on various grounds, including injury and domestic discord. The threat of divorce—with the resulting loss of a woman’s financial support, home, and children and thus cemented dominant–submissive gender relations—was eased; the law gave mothers preferential rights regarding the custody of their children. Maternal custody following divorce was granted for children up to the age of seven; the court was allowed to extend this upper age limit if the child’s welfare so required. The new legislation also contained a particularly far-reaching reform: Islamic inheritance laws were abandoned in favor of equal inheritance status for men and women. It is noteworthy that when religious leaders protested to Prime Minister ῾Abd al-Karim Qasim over this clause, he replied that the public welfare of the Iraqi people demanded equality between men and women in every respect out of consideration for the rights of half of the Iraqi people. But the significance of this clause lay not only in making men and women equal before the law, but also in strengthening women’s economic base, thus undermining a major coercive element cementing men’s dominance over women. Although in later years some critics pointed to the many loopholes contained within the 1959 law, it was in actuality a milestone when viewed against the draft Code of Personal Status and the TCCDR of the monarchy period. As the TCCDR was annulled, the law significantly offered the same treatment for rural and urban women in the personal status realm. 

These measures may more closely resemble “first steps” than the comprehensive reform the Iraqi Women’s Union had hoped for or the radical transformation the League for the Defense of Women’s Rights had desired. There was no legislation tackling customary law (e.g. prohibiting the nahwa and fasl marriage—the handing over of women in blood dispute settlements) or severely punishing perpetrators of “honor” crimes; the new Personal Status Law was far from perfect; Dulaimi’s appointment was short lived; and because the new government failed to establish a Parliament, any provision in the new Constitution that could be interpreted as granting women political rights became a dead letter. Yet with these measures a new government gender discourse had clearly been born. The contour of that discourse, as we have seen, was shaped by the struggle of activists, both union and league, throughout the monarchy period. Although competing with other perceptions, entangled with the problematic notion of modernity, and often utilitarian and hypocritical, the new construction of women now gained dominance and prevailed well into the second half of the twentieth century.

[Excerpted from Women in Iraq: Past Meets Present by Noga Efrati, by permission of the author. © 2012 Columbia University Press. For more information, or to order the book, click here.]

Last year, Moroccan civil society was highly mobilized around the case of Amina Filali—the young Moroccan girl who committed suicide after having been forced to marry her rapist. Ten months later, article 475—the article that absolves a rapist of his crimes if he marries his victim—remains in place, despite the fact that calls for its removal were a central part of the mobilizations. Today, the tragic story of another Moroccan girl—who in 2010 was raped by a stranger during her commute to Marrakech—is now dominating headlines. Forced into domestic labor at the age of fourteen, a field of work Human Rights Watch rightly labeled “Lonely Servitude,” Nasma Naqash’s work required her to travel from house to house, including occasional trips to her family’s hometown. However, upon returning home and telling her family of the brutal attack she endured, she was shunned and rejected from her household.

Due to the depression from the attack and the rejection of her family, she began cutting herself, which left her unable to continue working at households. Despite that, her parents coerced her into returning to work. When she felt that no other option remained, she jumped from the rooftop of her apartment building in an attempted suicide. While the building concierge tried to pull her in from the edge of the rooftop to prevent her from jumping, she jumped and a man caught her fall and saved her on the ground—an act that resulted in his death. She remains hospitalized.

Nasma’s tragic story is prefaced with a history of family-related issues, stemming from her parents barring her from going to school and forcing her into domestic labor instead. Throughout the course of her testimony, she alludes back to the relationship with her family as the tipping point for her attempted suicide. Her only wish, as she lay bruised and hospitalized, is to “never see her family again.” Various NGOs and members of civil society continue to mobilize in her support.

Below is an English translated transliteration of her video testimony, taken and filmed by Febrayer (Warning: The video testimony contains footage of her attempted suicide).

Interviewer (I): When were you born?
Nasma Naqash (NN): 1994

I: What month?
NN: I do not know.

I: How long did you go to school?
NN: I did not go to school.

I: You never went to school? Why?
NN: They would not let me.

I: You never went to school, fiqh, or anything?
NN: No, nothing.

I: What area do you live in?
NN: Tisilt, near Taoulat.

I: Your siblings went to school?
NN: Yes.

I: Where did they go to school?
NN: At a school near us.

I: So why did you not go to school if your siblings did?
NN: That is what I do not understand. I feel like I am just a girl that they have adopted. That is what I feel in my heart. I started working between 2007 and 2008. I started working at a very young age in homes. Once I started working, I stayed working. In 2010, something happened to me, after which I stayed working in Meknes at a woman’s home. Her name was Zhor. I continued working at her home and on Eid al-Fitr, I left to go visit back home. She took me to the train station, and when I arrived and headed towards the taxis, I went with someone who said they were going to Marrakech. I went with him and he brutalized me. After he brutalized me, my family did not want me anymore, they just wanted money. Whenever I went to see them, they would yell at me and it was clear they did not want me. It was a bad situation that hurt me in my heart. The way they treated me hurt me in my heart. Even my siblings did not want me.

When my family brought up the incident that occurred to me, I went and started cutting my veins. They were frustrating me and I was getting angry. I mean, they did so many things to me and I just did not want to hear those things. When I cut my veins, they just wrapped my arm up with a scarf. Since they just wrapped it up and did not stitch the cuts up, my arm was bleeding for almost five days. They did not do anything. When my cuts healed, they took me back to houses to continue working. I was told to begin working at a house in Rabat, but I refused and told them I am not working anywhere. I told them I want to stay at home. They said, “No, you are not staying at home. You are going to work. Fatima works for herself. For her and Nadia.”

I: Your sisters?
NN: Yes. They do not take money from them. I am the only one they treat like this. They even wanted to legally disown me. They are the ones who brought up the matter and said they no longer wanted me. They only wanted money, even though I told them I do not want to work in homes anymore. And every time I was at home, they would bring up the incident that occurred.

I started thinking about suicide because death was my only option. I had no other option.

I: And who tried to save you that day?
NN: The concierge at the apartment.

I: From the window?
NN: No, not from the window. In the rooftop, they have an area where people can dry clothes, and they have it covered to protect the area from the rain so the clothes do not get wet. He wanted to grab me but I pushed him off of me.

I: How did you go about deciding to do this?
NN: I thought about doing it because I felt like I no longer had any options. For two days I was in a coma until I found myself here at the doctor. I felt a hit here [points to forehead]. That is the only thing I remember. But when I woke up, they told me someone tried to catch me and that he died trying to catch me.

I: And the people whose house you were working at? How did they treat you?
NN: They were nice. My parents were the ones who were bad. The problem I have is with my family, not with others. Other people were taking care of me, I have no problem with them.

I: Did you see your mother after this happened to you?
NN: They told her I tried to commit suicide because I was being sent from house to house. She came to visit me and talked to me, but I kicked her out. They lied and told people that the concierge of the apartment got me pregnant. It is all lies. 

I: And did your father come see you?
NN: No, he did not. I worked at one lady named Zhor, another named Asma, another named Zineb, one named Eman, and another named Maryam. I ask to not go home and to never see my family again.