Blogging the democratic revolution
Al-Hayat has reported that the Moroccan government has prohibited the daughter of the head of a banned Islamist organization from travelling to Spain because of critical comments about the government (“Morocco Restricts Nadia Yassin from Travelling Due to Her Statements Against the Regime“). The article notes that Nadia Yassin, the daughter of Shaikh Abd al-Islam Yassin, the head of the Islamist organization Justice and Charity, was planning to travel to Barcelona, Spain to participate in a conference on “Democracy and Islamist Movements.” It states that a court in Rabat will hold a hearing on June 28 to rule further on…
Chris Borgen over at Opinio Juris has a couple of engaging posts on international institutions and the building of a global liberal order. He argues that Clinton was more successful at promoting a desirable world order because of his support for international institutions, and his greater preference than the White House’s current occupant for treaty-making. I think Clinton does deserve a fair amount of credit for promoting global freedom, but I disagree with Borgen over his use of the term “liberal order” to the extent that he identifies it with international institutions which do little to nothing to promote democratization…
Having been out of the blogosphere for a week due to conflicting obligations, I’m back and I’ve put up a Middle East Week in Review looking at the major events. The main events centered around Lebanon’s elections, but Iraq made progress in facing down terrorists and Iran moved close to its “elections,” such as they are.
The nightmare continues to unfold in Zimbabwe. Publius Pundit has previously reported on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s “Operation Clean Up” which aimes to abolish private property, make homeless masses of people who oppose him, and ban independent traders and small businesses which are the only real economy Zimbabwe still has – see The Mugabe-China Connection, and Zimbabwe is Mugabe’s Personal Fiefdom. This is essentially an update, as the results of “Operation Clean Up” become clear, with excerpts from the Times of London, “Mugabe’s human rubbish dump“: WHEN President Mugabe????????s Government announced plans to ???????clean up??????? the country????????s cities more than…
It is not unusual for countries to have “rubber-stamp” parliaments, but they don’t usually make it as obvious as Egypt does. I recently posted a roundup on Egypt’s ruff-up of the opposition in the recent referendum meant to endorse a change to the election law which would superficially allow for open elections while in reality guaranteeing continued dominence of the ruling party. If you missed it and haven’t followed events in Egypt lately, you might want to read that for background. Yet now evidence has appeared which shows that the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak, the National Democratic Party,…
On Monday I posted to this blog an entry on the constitutional process in Europe and the rejection of it by the French. See, The French say “Oui” to Sovereigny, and to the Welfare State. That post received some comments, and as they were likely to take us off-topic here at Publius Pundit, I have just posted my full response on my blog; see Response to Comments – the EU Constitution. On that post I have pasted in a detailed comment by a French reader who voted for the constitution, and have then given my reply.
So the French have rejected the proposed new constitution for the European Union. This is a vote of potentially massive importance for the future of Europe and the Western world as a whole. The European project for an “ever closer union” has long been an elite one, and especially over the past decade the gap between the elites and European populations grew large. All maintream French parties supported this constitution, yet the French people strongly rejected it. The Communists, Greens, hardline socialists and the National Front voted overwhelmingly against the treaty; the moderate socialists and the center-right Gaullists of President…
It has been widely reported that the referendum on Egypt’s new electoral system was marred by violence. The referendum was passed with 82% of the vote with 54% participation amid a widespread boycott by both Islamist and secularist opposition parties. Meanwhile, multiple accounts were given of opposition protesters being physically attacked by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak and his National Democratic Party. (See my pre-referendum post, Egypt Clamps Down on the Muslim Brotherhood, which provides some background and discusses some of the issues regarding reform in Egypt.) But how bad was the violence? The Egyptian government, unsurprisingly, is arguing that…
Last night I watched an episode of “Writers,” a program on Al-Jazeera. They were actually in London, speaking to two Arab writers, one an Egyptian novelist who lives in London, Ahdaf Soueif (see this article for an interview with her), and an editor with the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi (whose full name I can’t remember, Amjad something I think, not Abd al-Bari Atwan, their managing editor). They talked about a number of things, but the guy made a comment on which I want to focus to the effect that when we speak of democracy in the Middle East, “the…
With Lebanon’s elections near, sources at GeoStrategy Direct are saying that the recent flare up in violence, both the bombings in Beruit and the attacks on Israel in the south, have been a deliberate attempt by Iran and Hizbullah to derail the entire process. I have a rather longish post on my own blog focusing on Hizbullah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. It mostly deals with national security issues and provides links for those who want more background on Hizbullah; check out Spotlight on Hassan Nasrallah to read the whole thing. These are the two paragraphs from my GeoStrategy Direct…
Somewhat belatedly, this is the link to the Midweek Edition of my Biweekly News Bulletin, which I posted Wednesday night. While not bearing directly on democracy movements, I did come across an amazing article in an Arab newspaper which I have translated in full. The basic store is this: Two Saudi brothers hear about the “jihad” in Iraq and decide they want to go there to fight Americans in Falluja. So they go to Syria, which runs the pipeline for people who want to do this, and they quickly get into Iraq and meeting with a terrorist leader. But when…
I’ve just posted to my own blog a piece on Pan-Arabist political movements in response to an email from an Egyptian reader who has just started a new blog to promote his. I post about 20% of my entries here on Publius Punditbut I’m not posting this one because (1) most of it doesn’t deal with democracy movements and (2) it is extremely long, much longer than my typical posts, and I don’t want to crowd out everyone here. There are some sections relevant to Publius‘ mission, however, and the broader topic is very important for the region. I am…
Al-Jazeera has run an interview with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir from Khartoum on its popular “Without Limits” program. I thought it was enlightening, and the main impression I took a way from it was that of a man in a very weak position. The issue wasn’t addressed directly (although the feed cut off a couple of times, so I missed part of the interview), but from answers to various questions it was pretty clear that this was not a man who felt himself in control of his country. Some main points: The first big issue brought up was Darfur,…
The London-based Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi reported Friday that protesters have taken to the streets again in Bahrain. The English-language media is ignoring this almost entirely, but we have tried to cover it here at Publius Pundit (see Mass March Urges Reform in Bahrain and Crackdown Coming in Bahrain?). This is a translation of the Al-Quds article, “Thousands Protest in Bahrain to Demand Reforms“: Thousands of Bahrainians engaged in mass protest to demand the implementation of constitutional reforms through a call from the four political associations… near the village of Sanabis in the west of the capital Munama carrying Bahrainian…
The Palestinian Authority held local elections yesterday, and the results, released earlier today, indicate a win for the secular Fatah but a clear gain for Hamas. This is an excerpt from the Reuters report, “Fatah prevails but Hamas gains in Palestinian polls“: Unofficial results released on Friday showed Hamas making strong inroads in key urban centres in the West Bank and Gaza, an indicator it could do well in this summer’s parliamentary ballot, possibly complicating Abbas’s peace efforts. Fatah won control of 52 of the 84 municipal councils being contested in the West Bank and Gaza in Thursday’s vote, while…
I have just posted the Midweek Edition of my Middle East News Bulletin, a roundup of some news since the weekend. This is the link: http://www.arabworldanalysis.com/blog/
The two major developments in Iraq over this past week have been (1) the formation of Iraq’s first democratically elected government and (2) the reaction of the terrorist opposition, which has expressed its views by a string of bloody attacks. I’m sure you have read enough of these things elsewhere, so I decided not to do a full post on this, but what I haven’t seen elsewhere in English is a list of the names of the ministers in the new government. This is the new government list according to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Bawaba. Obviously this is a government with…
Is Jordan heading toward a constitutional crisis? It is rare for Al-Jazeera to report from Jordan on anything, but just now (about 8:00 a.m. Wednesday in Jordan time) I saw a report on a sudden outburst of public anger from opposition parliamentarians over the lack of democracy. Jordan has had an elected parliament for years, but elections are always rigged and the institution has been kept pretty harmless under both the late King Hussein and his son, the current monarch, King Abdullah. I took special interest in the story because I spent a year living there. Jordan is a pretty…
I have just posted the weekend edition of my Biweekly News Bulletin. This is a regular feature which I am beginning just this past week. This is the link: Window on the Arab World, and More!
Israel’s long-planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is almost ready to go ahead, and it is becoming clearer what will take the place of Israeli administration there – a coalition government between the Palestinian Authority (run by the secular Fatah Party) and the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. The debate over the Gaza pullout has just about pulled Israel apart. Those who favor the pullout argue as follows: Since everyone knows that Israel will eventually have to leave Gaza, and since it is such a financial burden to maintain the few settlements there, it is better to leave now, even in…
Dedicated readers of Publius Pundit will have noticed that when I contribute to this blog, I attach a link at the bottom of the post to my blog, Window on the Arab World, and More! Up until today my blog was hosted by Blogger, a free blogging service which is wonderful for what you pay for it, but which otherwise has a variety of problems and limitations. I have today completed my design at my new Movable Type formatted blog, and will therefore be posting more regularly after two weeks of light blogging. That also means more posting here at…
Earlier today a firefight broke out in Mecca between gunmen loyal to Osama bin Laden and Saudi security forces. This coincided with the third and final round of local elections in that country which have been reported with significant fanfare in the West. This is the latest sign that the on again, off again fight between the Saudis and their Islamist opponents is alive, and raises the issue of the stability of the kingdom. While the overthrow of the House of Saud is still viewed as very unlikely, a degree of instability far short of that would could still be…
Recently here on Publius Pundit we had a spirited discussion about democratic reform in Egypt, with me warning of the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood using elections as an opening to come to power and create an Islamist state, a Sunni equivalent of what we face in Iran right now. My initial post, Egypt: Democracy Enthusiasts’ Toughest Test?, drew a number of critical comments which you can read there. I responded with another post, Response to Comments – Democracy in Egypt, dealing with the issues raised. One of the points I made was that American democracy supporters had to be…
This isn’t getting much attention at all in the English media, but the Yemeni government seems to be in the middle of a serious smackdown on the Yemeni press. I was first alerted to this earlier today after watching a brief news report on Al-Jazeera, but even that outlet doesn’t have anything on it either on the English or the Arabic version of its website. (A note for those who depend on Al-Jazeera’s English site: the two are almost entirely different; only the main Arab world-related stories make it into the English version, which is clearly designed for a global…
The Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat is reporting today that Syria’s ruling party, the Baath Party, is planning to amend its charter, ditch the socialist tenets, and perhaps even change its name. The article, The Syrian Baath Plans to Dissolve its National Leadership and Bring Down its Socialist Motto (it is the third article from the top, for Arabic readers): Informed Syrian sources have said that the national conference of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, which will be held most likely the seventh or the eighth of the coming month, with make a decision to dissolve the party’s national leadership. The…