FIDEL CASTRO MUBARAK'S FATE IS SEALED "HISTORY IS LOOKING DOWN UPON US"

"HISTORY IS LOOKING DOWN UPON US"

MUBARAK'S FATE IS SEALED

By FIDEL CASTRO

February 3, 2011



Mubarak’s fate is sealed, not even the support of the United States will be able to save his government. The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization. “From the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history are looking down upon us,” Bonaparte once said in a moment of exaltation when the revolution brought him to this extraordinary crossroads of civilizations.

By the end of the Second World War, Egypt was under the brilliant governance of Abdel Nasser, who together with Jawaharlal Nehru, heir of Mahatma Gandhi; Kwame Nkrumah; and Ahmed Sékou Touré —African leaders who together with Sukarno, then president of the recently liberated Indonesia— created the Non-Aligned Movement of Countries and advanced the struggle for independence in the former colonies.

At the time, the peoples of Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, such as Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Western Sahara, the Congo, Angola, Mozambique and other countries immersed in the struggle against French, English, Belgian and Portuguese colonialism backed by the United States were fighting for independence with the support of the USSR and China.

After the triumph of our revolution, Cuba joined this movement in motion.

In 1956 Great Britain, France and Israel launched a surprise attack against Egypt which had nationalized the Suez Canal. The brave and supportive action by the USSR, which included a threat to use its strategic missiles, stopped the aggressors dead in their tracks.

The death of Abdel Nasser on September 28, 1970 was an irreversible setback for Egypt.

The United States never stopped conspiring against the Arab world, which holds the largest oil reserves on the planet.

There is no need to profoundly debate this matter; it is enough to read recent news dispatches on what inevitably is transpiring.

Let’s take a look at the news:

January 28:

“(DPA) - More than 100,000 Egyptians took to the streets today to protest against the government of President Hosni Mubarak, despite a prohibition of demonstrations issued by authorities…”

“Demonstrators set fire to the offices of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) and police surveillance points, while in downtown Cairo they threw rocks at police who tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets.”

“US President Barack Obama met today with a group of experts to become better informed on the situation. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the United States would reassess the multimillion dollar aid it provides to Egypt as events transpire.

“UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also sent a strong message from Davos.”

“(Reuters).- President Mubarak ordered a curfew in Egypt and the deployment of army troops backed by armoured vehicles in Cairo and other cities. Violent clashes between demonstrators and the police have been reported.

“Egyptian forces, supported by armoured vehicles, deployed throughout Cairo and other major Egyptian cities on Friday to put an end to large-scale protests demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

“Medical sources reported that so far 410 people have been injured in the protests, while state television announced a curfew for all cities.”

“The situation represents a dilemma for the United States, which has expressed its desire for democracy to spread throughout the region. Mubarak, however, has been a close ally of Washington for several years and the beneficiary of extensive military aid.”

“(DPA)”.- Thousands of Jordanians protested today across the country after Friday prayers, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai, and political and economic reforms.”

In the midst of the political disaster assailing the Arab world, leaders, who were gathered in Switzerland, discussed the cause of the phenomenon which they described as global suicide.

“(EFE).- Several political leaders at the Davos Economic Forum called for a change of the growth model.”

“The current model of economic growth, based on consumerism and a disregard of environmental consequences, can no longer be sustained because the planet’s survival is at risk, several political leaders warned today in Davos.”

“‘The current model is global suicide. We need a revolution. Revolutionary thinking. Revolutionary action,’ warned Ban Ki-moon. ‘Natural resources are becoming more and more scarce,” he added, during a debate on how to redefine sustainable growth at the World Economic Forum.”

“‘Climate change is also showing us that the old model is more than obsolete,’ said the head of the UN.

“The UN secretary general added that in addition to basic survival resources such as food and water, ‘one resource is the scarcest of all: Time, We are running out of time. Time to tackle climate change.’”

January 29:

“Washington (AP).- President Barack Obama tried the impossible: winning the hearts and minds of Egyptians furious with their autocratic ruler while assuring a vital ally that the United States has his back.

"The four-minute speech Friday evening represented a careful balancing act for Obama. He had a lot to lose by choosing between protesters demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak step down from a government violently clinging to its three-decade grip on the country.

“Obama...didn't endorse regime change. Nor did he say that Mubarak's announcement was insufficient.

“Obama’s address was the most forceful of the day, but it stuck largely to the script already set by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.”

“(NTX).- The Washington Post called on the Obama administration to use its political and economic influence to convince President Mubarak to step down in Egypt.”

“‘The United States should use all its influence, including the more than 1 billion dollars in aid it provides each year to the Egyptian army to assure its ultimate outcome (the surrender of power by Mubarak),’ the paper states in its editorial.”

“…in his message delivered on Friday night Obama said that he would continue working with President Mubarak and regretted that he had not mentioned eventual elections.”

“The newspaper described Obama’s position as ‘unrealistic’ along with that of Vice President Joe Biden, who told a radio station that he would not call the Egyptian president a dictator, and that he did not think that he should resign.”

“(AFP).- US-Arab organizations demanded that the government of President Barack Obama stop supporting the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt.”

“(ANSA).- The United States once again expressed its ‘concern’ over violence in Egypt and warned the government of Mubarak that it could not act as if nothing had happened.

Fox News reported that Obama only had two poor options with respect to Egypt.

“…warned the Cairo government that it could not ‘reshuffle the deck’ and act as if nothing had happened in the country.

“The White House and the State Department are closely following the situation in Egypt, one of Washington’s main allies in the world, and the recipient of some 1.5 billion dollars annually in civilian and military aid.”

“United States news agencies are giving extensive coverage to the disturbances in Egypt and have been indicating that the situation, no mater how it is resolved, could result in a headache for Washington.”

“If Mubarak falls, reports Fox, the United States and its other principal ally in the Middle East, Israel, could have to face a government of the Muslim Brothers in Cairo, and a turn towards anti-western sentiment in the North African country.”

“‘We were betting on the wrong horse for 50 years,’ former CIA agent Michael Scheuer told Fox. ‘To think that the Egyptian people are going to forget that for half a century we supported dictators is a dream,’ he concluded.”

“(AFP).- The international community increased its pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to implement political reforms and to stop the repression of demonstrators who that have been carrying out protests against his government over the last five days.”

“Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and David Cameron asked the president ‘to initiate a process of change’ in response to the ‘legitimate demands’ of his people and ‘to avoid, at all costs, the use of violence against civilians,’ in a joint declaration published on Saturday.”

“Iran also called on Egyptian authorities to heed the demands being made on the streets.”

“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia said that the protests represent ‘an attack against the security and stability’ of Egypt and were being carried out by ‘infiltrators’ in the name of ‘freedom of speech.’

“The king called Mubarak by telephone to express his solidarity, reported the official Saudi press agency SPA.”

January 31:

“(EFE) Netanyahu fears that the chaos in Egypt could favor Islam’s access to power.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that he fears that the situation in Egypt could favor Islam’s access to power, a concern he said he shares with leaders who have spoken to him over the past few days.”

“…the prime minister refused to discuss news reports by local media outlets that state that Israel has authorized Egypt to deploy troops in the Sinai Peninsula for the first time in three decades, considered a violation of the 1979 peace treaty between the two nations.

“In response to criticism against Western powers such as the United States and Germany that have maintained close ties with totalitarian Arab regimes, the German Foreign minister said, ‘We have not abandoned Egypt.’”

“The peace process between Israelis and Palestinians has been at a standstill since last September, mainly because of Israel’s refusal to stop building Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.”

“Jerusalem, (EFE).─ Israel favors the continuation in power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The Israeli head of State, Simon Peres, supported Mubarak today by stating that ‘a fanatic religious oligarchy is not better than a lack of democracy.’”

“The declarations made by the head of State are consistent with reports by local media outlets that state that Israel is pressuring its Western partners to tone down their criticisms of Mubarak’s regime, which the Egyptian people and the opposition are trying to overthrow.

“Anonymous official sources quoted by the Haaretz newspaper said that on Saturday the Israeli Foreign Ministry sent a communiqué to its embassies in the United States, Canada, China, Russia and several European countries to request that ambassadors emphasize to local authorities the importance of stability in Egypt for Israel.”

“Israeli analysts said that the fall of Mubarak could endanger the Camp David Agreements that Egypt signed with Israel in 1978 and the subsequent signing of the 1979 bilateral peace treaty, especially if it brings about the ascent to power of the Islamic Muslim Brothers, which have widespread popular support.”

“Israel views Mubarak as a guarantor of peace along its southern border, as well as a key supporter in maintaining the blockade against the Gaza Strip and isolating the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas.”

“One of Israel’s greatest fears is that the Egyptian riots, which follow in the wake of uprisings in Tunisia, will also reach Jordan, weakening the regime of King Abdullah II, whose country along with Egypt is the only Arab country that acknowledges Israel.”

“The recent appointment of General Omar Suleiman as Egypt’s vice president and, therefore, possible presidential successor, has been welcomed in Israel, which has closely cooperated in Defense matters with the general.”

“However, the Egyptian protests show that the continuity of the regime is not necessarily guaranteed nor that Israel will continue to have Cairo as its main ally in the region.”

As you can see, for the first time the world is simultaneously facing three problems:

Climate crises, food crises and political crises.

And we can add other serious dangers to them.

The risk of increasingly destructive war is very real.

Will the political leaders have sufficient serenity and equanimity to successfully face them?

Our species’ fate depends on it.

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AMERICA’S FOREIGN POLICY REVOLUTION

AMERICA’S FOREIGN POLICY REVOLUTION

Posted on Feb 2, 2011

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

The democratic uprising in Egypt has brought into relief a gradual and little-noticed transformation in American politics. Over the last decade, ideological divisions over the role of democracy and human rights in American foreign policy have been scrambled.

In the meantime, President Obama has restored foreign policy realism to the White House, giving a liberal gloss to what had traditionally been a conservative disposition. This mildly liberal realism explains why Obama and his team have been so cautious in their dealings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The most striking change is among conservatives. In the past, the default position of much of the American right was to support foreign strongmen friendly to the United States, on the theory that whoever succeeded them would be worse for their own people and disastrous for American interests.

This view was especially powerful during the Cold War when conservatives strongly criticized former President Jimmy Carter for encouraging the fall of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, whose government was replaced by Daniel Ortega’s leftist Sandinista movement. Carter was also condemned for undercutting the shah of Iran during the revolt that culminated in the rise of an Islamic government that still rules in Tehran.

The most celebrated expression of this conservative critique came from the late Jeane Kirkpatrick in a 1979 Commentary magazine article, “Dictatorships and Double Standards.” The essay called her to the attention of Ronald Reagan, who later appointed her as United Nations ambassador.

Kirkpatrick criticized Carter for being so fearful of opposing the “forces of democracy” that he was led in both cases “to assist actively in deposing an erstwhile friend and ally and installing a government hostile to American interests and policies in the world.”

She added that “no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.”

Yet now, many in the neoconservative movement of which Kirkpatrick was a proud member come close to the view Kirkpatrick criticized—that “it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances”—and have long been urging Obama to distance the U.S. from Mubarak’s regime.

Robert Kagan, one of the leading neoconservative foreign voices, has been in the forefront of those arguing that the United States needed to be more prepared for a democratic rebellion in Egypt, and he was among the specialists brought to the White House this week for a discussion of next steps on Egypt.

In an NPR interview on Wednesday, Kagan offered the classic view of human rights advocates: that the U.S. should avoid a repeat of its excessively long-lived loyalty to the shah, which had the effect of “alienating the Iranian people for decades.” Kagan also warned against the “illusory search for stability.”

There is a great irony here for those liberals who passionately took issue with the neoconservative crusade to impose democracy by force but nonetheless share the view that American foreign policy should be more animated by democratic values.

And note that conservatives who take the old realist view—Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., for example, declared that the “Egyptian demonstrations are the reprise of Iran’s 1979 radical revolution” and called on the U.S. to “stand with her ally Egypt to preserve an imperfect government capable of reform”—now seem isolated.

The resulting split on the conservative side has been helpful to Obama and he has won support for his cautious dealings with Mubarak from Republican congressional leaders.

If there was ever any doubt, it is now clear that Obama is more a realist than a human rights crusader, even if he has tried to square this circle in recent days by repeatedly invoking “universal” rights and values.

The existence of a pro-democracy conservative camp has made it easier for Obama to move away from Mubarak, since there is less risk of a conservative backlash if things go wrong in Egypt than there would be if most on the right were taking McCotter’s view. At the same time, many Republicans still quietly harbor realist instincts and thus sympathize with Obama’s careful approach.

Ultimately, Obama will be judged by results. If the Egyptian uprising eventually leads to an undemocratic regime hostile to the United States and Israel, the president will pay the price. This explains his caution. But for now, he has room to maneuver, thanks in part to the very neoconservatives whose Iraq policies he so strongly opposed.

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CHALLENGING AMERICA'S PHARAOH

A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AND THE FUTURE OF EGYPTIAN (IN)DEPENDENCE

CHALLENGING AMERICA'S PHARAOH

By DAVID H. PRICE

February 3, 2011

Anyone who has lived in Egypt for an extended period of time or has traveled there for extended stays over the past thirty years should not be surprised at the current uprising. The only surprising thing is that this uprising didn’t happen years or decades sooner.

I first visited Egypt in the summer of 1982, just half a year after the assassination of Sadat. I was twenty-two years old and had little understanding of the Middlex East, much less of America’s role in propping up Mubarak and supporting the Egyptian brutalities of martial law. I later studied Arabic, returned for several visits, lived in rural Egypt in 1989-90 conducting anthropological research, and have been present during several bloody police riots over causes ranging from the poor payment of police and military conscripts, to forced economic adjustments mandated by the International Monetary Fund.

A post-9/11 return to Egypt found a world one of increasing hardships for the bulk of Egyptian society as Mubarak pushed neoliberal economic models that intensified poverty for the many while a shrinking elite grew richer (which led to this account of political unrest and police brutality that appeared in the print version of CounterPunch). Neoliberal economic transformations require increased policing as states struggle to protect their own powerbase and elites from the spread of poverty that these projects leave in their wake; and the collapse of the authority of the Egyptian state must be understood as a major landmark in these international struggles.

The hatred and distrust of President Mubarak is widespread among Egyptians; Cairo cosmopolitans and the rural fellaheen alike long ago grew tired of Mubarak’s suppression of democratic movements, and his kowtowing to American administrations long ago undermined his domestic credibility. Mubarak’s late night speech on Tuesday announcing he would not seek reelection and that he would remove laws corrupting the possibility of free and open elections will be used to placate Egyptians who are growing weary of the uprising, and the use of pro-Mubarak thugs brings new forms of violence and chaos to the protests that will be used by the regime to justify harsh oppression against the peaceful protestors. The Obama administration’s disappointing response to the popular democratic Egyptian uprising demonstrates to the world that the United States is the nation that is not yet ready for democracy in the Middle East.

As the popular protests got under way, John Bolton and other apologists of past and present American administrations took to the airwaves, clarifying the hypocrisy of the American position: complaining that the Muslim Brotherhood was secretly behind the current protest movement, and arguing this demonstrated the need for Mubarak to stay in power. The early statements by Clinton, Biden and Obama were not much better as the US Administration held on to hopes that their man Mubarak might weather the popular uprising. They avoided any statements acknowledging the brutality of Mubarak’s inefficient police state or suggestions that the United States might be entering into an era of decreased hegemonic control of Egypt.

This is not an Islamic revolution, a la-Iran-1979. This is an economic and political revolution uniting Egyptians with secular, ethnic and religious differences, rising up against the US-backed, anti-democratic regime. While the pro-democracy movement in Egypt is based on a strong coalition that transcends traditional political and ethnic categories (uniting mainstream Egyptian Muslims, Christians, Wafds, the Muslim Brotherhood, farmers, academics and governmental workers), there remains real reasons for concern over the possibility of new levels of sectarian violence in the post-Mubarak period and while the Brotherhood is not at the fore of these current rebellion, the pre-existence of a working political structure with party discipline may allow them organizational advantages should Mubarak fall. The rise in attacks on Coptic Christians in Upper and Lower Egypt during the two moths preceding these latest dramatic events provide some glimpse into the ethnic tensions that may flare in the post-Mubarak era as a new Egypt searches for solutions to the economic inequities that lie at the base of the Egyptian crisis.

If real regime change comes to Egypt, concerns about the Suez Canal, and shifts in relations with Israel may be used by U.S. policy makers to assert US military might in the region. If any protest movement were to seize the gears and levers that open and close the gates of the Suez Canal, we could expect a rapid U.S. military response that would have serious international implications. Images of U.S. Marines landing in Suez to seize control over such a key global chokepoint could set new levels of geopolitical instability.

All the anthropologists and other westerners I know from my years in Egypt share a sense that Mubarak’s fall is part of a deeply popular uprising that was a long time coming, and there is widespread agreement that the Egyptian people strongly favor his end of political control. Yet, there is a push to find intellectuals who can add legitimacy to claims that the pro-democracy revolution in Egypt is actually a movement of a vocal minority. Prominent Norwegian anthropologist Unni Wikan just published claims that most Egyptians do not see Mubarak as a tyrant, and that the pro-democracy demonstrations present a distorted view of the popular Egyptian consensus. Wikan wrote in the Sunday edition of Norwegian daily, Aftenpostsen, that among the people she knows in Egypt (in a translation provided by a Norwegian friend):

“It is said further that the president himself is not particularly fond of power: it is the people around him, and his wife, who drives him. Why mention it here? Because it is no small feat in Egypt, for a man who has ruled for 30 years, to get away with such a "pure" reputation. Mubarak is no despot. He is not considered to be corrupt. Weak, weak, are the words used on Mubarak. Many feel a bit sorry for him. The sympathy he could have ridden on, he had not tried to introduce a dynasty.”

In all my conversations with various Egyptians over the past thirty years, I can not think of anyone (even his rare supporters) who ever described him as “weak.” Though Wikan has been working in Egypt since the late 1960s and is famous for her work studying Egypt’s urban poor, her analysis is unrecognizable to me as representing the mainstream views of the Egyptians.

Wikan goes so far as to claim that Mubarak’s son, Gamal, is beloved by most Egyptians and she assures her readers that “most people do not have a personal concern about his son.” While there is a long literature of anthropologists finding varying views within a single society (or once famously in the same town), I have difficulty understanding how any anthropologist who could find enough people to represent such a rare Egyptian view. It is strange that Wikan gives voice to that minority of Egyptians now attacking the peaceful anti-Mubarak demonstrators in Cairo and Alexandria, yet the majority of Egyptians of lower- and (shrinking) middle-class that I have spoken with over the years would categorically reject this slanted view of their leader. We can expect Wikan’s incredible claims to be paraded out by Fox News and CNN as part of a distortion campaign to support Mubarak’s efforts to cling to power, all in the name of balance.

It is commonly believed by many Egyptians that their leaders have been tools of the CIA since the days of Nasser, when Kermit Roosevelt had mixed results in efforts to capture Nasser’s loyalties from Soviet control. Many Egyptians understand (as was reported by the New Yorker this past week) that Mubarak’s Vice Presidential appointee, Omar Suleiman, was the CIA’s go-to man when running illegal extreme renditions in Egypt. That President Obama would send Frank Wisner Jr., to Cairo this week to clumsily help Mubarak negotiate his exit is just the latest installment on a long history connecting generations of American and CIA interference in repressing democratic movements. Many Americans might be surprised at how widespread such critiques are, not among the elites of Cairo and Alexandria, but among the rural peoples of Egypt.

The Fayoum Depression, where I lived in 1989-90, is a natural oasis fed by an ancient canal dug off the Nile millennia ago. It has been the home of some of the world’s oldest Christian monasteries (which still ring the Fayoum close to its desert edges). The Fayoum has a strong Islamic fundamentalist presence; with local ties to the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and key members of the Islamic Brotherhood. My friendships with farmers, students, and professional peoples of the Fayoum made clear to me that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the power of the Muslim Brotherhood was directly related to the brutality of the US-backed Mubarak regime; a relationship with parallels to the rise of Martin Luther King’s use of the church as a unique space to use Christian dictates advocating for brotherly love and social justice. In a country ruled by martial law and backed by the United States, where free speech rights are curtailed and political dissent was limited, it makes sense that critiques will emerge from within religious spaces which provide a unique opportunity for limited relatively autonomous critique.

The farmers and friends I met in Egypt taught me jokes about Mubarak, jokes in which he often had a recurring role as a slow gamoosa, the Egyptian water buffalo, ubiquitous in the countryside. Out in the countryside, when in any public setting—a coffee shop, waiting at a bus stop, or walking in a public place—my Egyptian friends were careful about voicing their critiques of Mubarak or his political party, the NDP. Through our friendship, they learned that my country’s international policies were not necessarily my own, and I learned just how deeply their own politics differed from the oppressive Egyptian state that Mubarak ruled, and my government propped up in place.

The events of this past week leave me thinking about how President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton’s bungling support of their Egyptian client Mubarak unites me with my Egyptian friends, as I find myself in a position in my own country -- with leaders whose support for Mubarak do not represent me or my interests in ways that parallel the distance my Egyptian friends have long felt from their President. As Mubarak’s career is one where his choices were limited by his Western minders, so Obama is limited by corporate interests, and long-term geopolitical forces he dares not upset and the shrill limits of Middle East possibilities imposed by America’s “special relationship” with Israel.

Egypt is full of contradictions. Modernity and traditional society clash and coalesce throughout its cities and countryside. A few years ago, I spent part of an afternoon talking to a longtime member of the flourishing Cairo art and literature scene who spoke of the local hipster rebel student scene at Cairo University during the 1960s. He recounted a recent chance encounter he’d recently had with a heavily veiled woman, who revealed to him she had known him as a radical liberationist during the days of campus rebellions.

Governmental censors limit what appears on radio, newspapers and television news; but lively political debates in private homes are a core cultural trait. Simple acts of kindness and courtesies are part of the fabric of daily life even while the nation has been under martial law since Sadat’s assassination, with corrupt police ruling the streets. It is not surprising that there are reports that un-uniformed police roaming as thugs wreaking havoc in Cairo’s neighborhoods, and that police IDs were taken from pro-Mubarak thugs attacking peaceful demonstrators on Wednesday. A fundamental dynamic supporting the military’s current decision to not fire upon anti-Mubarak protestors is that while elite forces and officers may come from educated middle-class backgrounds: the military’s rank and file are villagers (who could not afford the fee to avoid mandatory conscription) whose hatred of Mubarak is often on par with the pro-democracy protestors.

While the outcome of the current struggle is unclear, deep problems will face whoever emerges to rule Egypt in the aftermath of this revolutionary moment. Democratic reforms will help, but the economic problems facing Egypt — problems exacerbated by Mubarak’s economic policies — are severe and there are real dangers for the populace if there is a governmental collapse, or if foreign aid is withdrawn over disapproval of the results of free and fair elections. The importance of foreign aid for Egypt is a double edged sword: one that could be used to pressure Mubarak into a rapid resignation, but also one that can be used to manipulate whatever new government emerges.

The rural Egyptian farmers I came to know had little formal education, yet there was a remarkably widespread understanding that the United States exerted direct control over their government, and that their national debt and American aid was used to extort domestic and foreign policies unpopular with the Egyptian people. I had more than one farmer explain to me that if Egypt ever got to the point of revolution, then the new government (which was most often assumed to be an Islamic regime) would not be bound by the debts of the previous administration and would be free to start over with a clean economic slate. This view always seemed to ignore the basic problem that Egypt’s rapid population growth had exceeded the nation’s capacity to grow sufficient food to meet its needs, and when I pointed out that declaring bankruptcy through revolution could lead to food shortages, I was always answered with the response that God would provide.

Rapid population growth contributes to the many fiscal problems facing Egypt: with a population over 80-million people, all living along the narrow strip of arable land along the thin Nile basin and the Delta, Egypt has the highest habitable population density of any country on earth. The almost Dadaist 1950s Egyptian screwball comedies that play on Egyptian TV record un-crowded streets and sidewalks, with grassy medians and rooftops of a Cairo with less than two million people, scenes that are today crammed with squatters, bumper to bumper traffic, and overflowing with twenty-million people. This population growth achieved under a growing dependence on foreign aid and imported wheat and other foodstuffs leaves Egypt today only able to produce enough food to feed itself for only seven or eight months out of the year. If the transition of leadership after Mubarak undermines Egypt’s strategic relations with the United States and other nations providing this food aid, the nation of Egypt could stand a severe risk of famine.

But rapid population growth isn’t Egypt’s only problem: Mubarak’s neo-liberal trickle-down economic policies, enacted in consultation with the International Monetary Fund and the United States, have led to increasing gaps between rich and poor and ideepening poverty. While Egypt may well break free from Mubarak, independence from the United States might be far more difficult to achieve. Egypt’s dependence on foreign aid from the US, which expanded as a result of Jimmy Carter’s Camp David Peace Agreement, will keep the United States as a key partner with whatever leadership emerges in post-Mubarak Egypt. Aid dependence is a powerful force, and as former economic hitman John Perkins made abundantly clear, while recipient nations come to have growing dependence on this aid, vast amounts of the aid remains in US corporate and private hands.

While the brave spirit of the Egyptian people rising up against an oppressive regime is a hopeful moment for all working for democratic reforms and justice, serious problems await whatever leadership emerges. If Mubarak is removed from power, there will be serious domestic problems ahead for whatever ruling coalition establishes itself. While a new regime will likely distance itself from Mubarak’s past subservient relationship with the United States, the economic problems facing Egypt will still require it to forge economic alliances with some foreign patron state(s), and Washington (and other nations) will be eager to establish ongoing relations, and obligations, with the new regime.

David Price a professor of anthropology at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington. He is the author of the forthcoming, Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State to be published by CounterPunch Books, and a contributor to the Network of Concerned Anthropologists’ book Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual published by Prickly Paradigm Press.

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THE EGYPTIAN UPRISING IN THE AMERICAN MEDIA

By JOSHUA FAROUK GEORGY

February 3, 2011

It has been one week since the Egyptian revolt began, and the mainstream American media has wheeled out many of their standard, self-appointed “experts” to illuminate matters. They attempt to solve the riddle of what could possibly have driven the thoughtless throngs into the proverbial “Arab streets,” while providing their set of contrived scenarios about how things might develop. Even as our “experts” set about to demystify what they themselves have mystified, they are quick to turn to what really matters – the effects these events will have on the United States and our allies. There really are two fields of discussion here. The first deals with a fantastical world of wild imagery, a world where monsters wait in the shadows with plans to lead a retreat from civilization (or worse?), and where heedless masses may unknowingly (or knowingly?) stampede into their arms. This is an encrypted world that must be decoded with the help of experts trained to make sense of the senseless. And the second field is a very rational one – American interests in the region.

It is no wonder then that most Americans are hopelessly in the dark. Middle East “news” in the mainstream is constructed so that people remain in a perpetual state of confusion and fear. A favorite question now being tossed to the experts is “what do Egyptians want?” If their expertise included anything but obfuscation, they might respond, well, what the hell does anyone want? We want to feed our families; we want our children to grow up with the prospect of a decent standard of living; we want to come out of college with some hope of finding a job; we want to have a say in the present and future affairs of our country. But that is expecting a bit too much of our controlled, corporate media and their favored talking heads. If a serious treatment of the present matter is to be made, it requires a probing analysis of issues that interested parties would rather not be had. And so the cryptologists and fear mongers do their job.

President Mubarak used his own brand of fear mongering as he tried to justify the renewal of the “emergency law” every five years across his three-decade rule. The law allowed him to claim democracy in Egypt while running the country like a giant prison. But as he went on protecting Egyptians from themselves, young people of the Facebook generation managed to pull back the curtain. They revealed to the world that the mighty Wizard who was keeping the whole thing together was a shriveled up old man. And what did the Egyptians do as “order” broke down? They united to protect each other; all segments of society came together to defend their streets and properties, to defend their homeland. Meanwhile America’s favorite stooge, the dictator we call “moderate,” sent his goons out against peaceful demonstrators.

Western governments have been intimately involved in the innumerable injustices wrought on the Egyptian people during the Mubarak years. But who has time to sort through all of that when we have ghoulish “worst-case scenarios” to bandy about? And so we have a character like John Bolton, of Bush administration disrepute, rising from the political graveyard with predictions that in all likelihood “a radical, tightly knit organization like the Muslim Brotherhood will take advantage of the chaos and seize power.” And he quickly directs his prognosticator’s spotlight onto the Christian minority, warning that they have reason to be alarmed. And the chatter goes on and on, as talk of America’s strategic concerns is punctuated with grim potentialities designed to frighten the American people.

In reality, what the political scene in Egypt will look like after the revolution nobody knows. But given the choice between what they have known and the unknown, Egyptians have chosen the latter. This uprising does not belong to a specific segment of the population – and as much as some in the West might like to present it in a sectarian or partisan light, this is an Egyptian uprising. Christians alongside Muslims from all backgrounds and walks of life are participating in the protests, many holding signs featuring the “cross and crescent” that since the 1919 Revolution has symbolized Christian-Muslim national unity.

My own family in Egypt, who are Christian, are gratified by the demonstrations of solidarity between Muslims and Christians in the face of grave circumstances, the rotten fruits of Mubarak’s reign. And if we look to history, we will find that this is hardly surprising.

When Egyptians have risen up and demanded their rights, they have done so as a people. This was the case during the revolution of 1952 as it was during resistance movements to British occupation in 1882 and 1919. Now we are witnessing a revolutionary moment in 2011, and the structure of Western mainstream discourse obscures the obvious.

A long time ago foreign powers, with the United States in the first place, cast their lot with the dictator. Now the Egyptian people are having their say.

Joshua Farouk Georgy is an Egyptian-American Ph.D. candidate in modern Middle East history at Columbia University.

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A FLAT FOR MOHAMMED

A FLAT FOR MOHAMMED

Posted on Feb 2, 2011

By Richard Reeves

Ten years ago, one of our sons, Colin O’Neill, and I were walking across the Qasr el Nil bridge in Cairo late at night from Tahrir Square—Liberation Square—to the island of Gezira in the Nile. As he began the story:

"We were approached by a couple of guys about my age who looked as if they were selling something. Actually, they just wanted to talk—in English and French. They were cousins, both of them language teachers in private schools. The four of us, leaning out over the bridge, talked for almost an hour."

When I told them I was writer, the older one, named Mohammed, who was 26, asked if I was like Charles Dickens. "Not quite," I answered.

Then he said: "I have read ‘Death of a Salesman.’ Is that what America is like?"

"Yes," I said. "That is not all we are like, but that’s part of it."

They were well read, to say the least, but they were frustrated young men. Not angry. Frustrated by their place in a country they loved. Mohammed earned less than $30 a month. His rent, for a room he shared with another teacher, was more than $30. He made ends meet by giving private lessons to the children of rich people.

He pointed to the Nile Hilton on the river bank and said: "Though it is in my country, I can’t go in there. I mean I can go in, but a coffee costs almost more money than I make in a week. The dollar is all that counts now; money is king. But it is hard for someone like me to exist here. I want refreshment, to sit with my friends, to marry, to have a flat, but how can I do these things?"

Things got worse, not better, for Mohammed over the next decade. Everything became more expensive in a decidedly corrupt country as the authoritarian rule of President Hosni Mubarak turned into a cold dictatorship—with help from the United States, which was essentially paying Mubarak billions of dollars not to invade or harass Israel. Of course, we asked him, nicely, quietly, to liberalize, to give his people a break, but the important part of our role was our world strategy. We needed Mubarak, we thought. To hell with young Mohammed.

I love Cairo. I love Egyptians. They are, to me, like Italians. They love life, no matter what it brings. I lost my heart in Tahrir Square one midnight. It is a sprawling place of both asphalt and grass. The drivers are crazy. But in the heat of a summer night, hundreds, thousands of families were on the grass, sleeping and talking, laughing in the touch of coolness from the river. It reminded me of distant memories of Central Park, where New Yorkers would stay all night in August heat when I was very young and air conditioning was very rare.

I don’t know what will happen next. It will probably be chaotic, bad for us for a while—we seem to prize order above all these days—but that was going to happen anyway when Mubarak died and other hard men came along to grab what spoils they could before some kind of stability comes to a country decades behind the times.

(The people we see on television in Cairo are the better-off people of Egypt. We would see and know more if American cable systems had the guts to show Al-Jazeera English around the country. It is, more often than not, a better all-news deliverer than CNN, telling the stories of the world from the bottom up, rather than from Washington down.)

So it is time for us to step back, step away from Mubarak. Do not think we can control events. It is their country. Radical Islamists there are going to give us trouble, but we can handle that, maybe better than we are now.
And perhaps there will be a flat for Mohammed.

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TAHRIR SQUARE BATTLEGROUND: 'THESE PEOPLE TRIED TO SLAUGHTER US LAST NIGHT'

TAHRIR SQUARE BATTLEGROUND: 'THESE PEOPLE TRIED TO SLAUGHTER US LAST NIGHT'

Anti-Mubarak protesters in Cairo fight to hold square littered with bricks and burnt-out vehicles after night of bloodshed



Peter Beaumont and Jack Shenker in Cairo

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 February 2011 15.52 GMT

They were barely visible at first, a glimmer of tan clothing among the ranks of pro-Mubarak fighters lined on a low overpass above the entrance to Tahrir Square. It was from here that rocks, petrol bombs and bullets had been raining down on the anti-regime opposition defending their barricades below.

At 9am first one, then a second, and then dozens of Egyptian soldiers – the same military forces who had stood back and watched as last night's bloodshed unfolded – finally appeared at this key strategic flashpoint and began driving back those on the bridge. Before them lay a no-man's land littered with broken bricks and burnt-out vehicles that spoke of the extraordinary violence that had played out in the darkness.

It was the beginning of a day of to-and-fro street clashes in the densely populated neighbourhoods surrounding the square, as anti-Mubarak protesters fought close-quarter battles to hold Tahrir and, in a hail of warning shots and automatic gunfire, the army sporadically attempted to establish buffer zones.

A night of fighting that left more than 1,000 injured and several dead from gunshot wounds. Despite the denials of Egypt's government and interior ministry, both of which claimed these events were not state-orchestrated, the evidence strongly suggested otherwise.

Anti-Mubarak protesters dragged a supporter of the regime through their barricades just after 8am. In his pocket was an identity card showing him to be Ahmed Mahmoud Abdel Razik, a member of the police.

His was not the only identity card taken. Others were on display, taken as their owners were led away for interrogation in the buildings on the back streets before being handed over to the army. Despite the tensions in the crowd most captured fighters were protected from retribution by responsible protesters.

"These people tried to slaughter us last night – five of my fellow revolutionaries were killed by sniper fire at this location, and I saw one man collapse right in front of me at 4am with his brains falling out on to the road," said Mahmoud Mustafa, a 25-year-old anti-Mubarak demonstrator. "But look around you – we remain peaceful, we remain united and we remain determined to bring down this regime. I was never involved in politics before, but now I will stay here until Mubarak leaves or I die, whatever comes first."

The north side of the square was a scene of devastation – both physical and human. At the makeshift aid stations, which have been manned by 70 volunteer doctors in the open air, casualties were still coming in.

A man with a broken back was carried through the crowd on a piece of corrugated metal. Others came through with head injuries, broken arms and cuts.

One of those treating the injured was Dr Ibrahim Fakhr, a surgical professor. "We had shooting at 11pm last night and then again at around four in the morning from a sniper on the roof of the Egyptian Museum. We saw the laser light coming from the weapon. The latest that we have is that seven have been killed by gunfire."

Like the doctors, those trying to defend the square have been forced to improvise. Crude helmets were constructed out of cardboard boxes; others strapped water bottles to their heads. They built makeshift shields and used plastic crates to catch the incoming stones at their barricades.

"I'm an agricultural teacher by trade and I've never built weapons before, but I am good with my hands," explained Said el-Zoughly, who was directing a group of protesters as they broke down a burnt-out vehicle to salvage defence materials and put together catapults and slingshots. "We're not just running around wildly, we're trying to be organised and efficient. Anyone who wants a shield can get one. We'll stay for however long it takes – God is with us."

At the mouth of the square, buildings once held by the pro-Mubarak demonstrators had changed hands by morning. On the roof of one, a group of young men, equipped with stones and firebombs, were briefed by their leader, while others hauled sacks of rocks up the derelict stairs.

"Today's still early, but they're scared of us," he told those around him. "Don't get burnt out. If you are tired get into the building. If you want to sleep stay away from the edges of the roof and its corners.

"Then when they come into no-man's land we can surprise them."

As more people arrived at the square bearing food and supplies for those inside, the clashes – smaller in intensity than those the night before – broke out again. The lines of soldiers between were hit by missiles, and tanks moved in.

Mohamed Saleh, a 25-year-old senior accountant, surveyed the scene. "You must tell the world about this terrorism, government terrorism," he said. "We've been sitting here for eight days with no trouble, no fires, no violence – just a peaceful desire for revolution. Now civilians are being indiscriminately massacred by thugs. If the west cares so much about terrorism then why doesn't it act?

"Mubarak says he wants eight more months in power to manage a peaceful transition. Just see what the first day of that peaceful transition looks like, then you'll understand why we can't stop protesting until he leaves immediately. He is a thug and a criminal and he wants to kill us. Can you imagine what would happen to us tonight if we stood down and stopped defending ourselves? We would be slaughtered. We're fighting now for our lives."

On Twitter and by other means, anti-Mubarak protesters sent out appeals for medical supplies, blood donations and blankets, and exchanged information on which entrances and exits to the square were safe. On the fringes of Tahrir many people were assaulted and harassed by pro-Mubarak thugs, including dozens of local and international journalists who have been portrayed by state television as sympathisers of the revolution and accused of spreading misinformation and circulating drugs.

Elsewhere reports filtered in of other institutions perceived to be anti-Mubarak coming under attack, including the Hisham Mubarak law centre, which has previously provided legal services for arrested democracy activists, and the El Nadeem Centre for Rehabiliation of Victims of Violence, which has campaigned against police torture.

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