Café Thawra

Egypt: SCAF face defeat; the Brotherhood face a crisis

2012-01-28T10:09:00.000+01:00

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has tobe overthrown and the Muslim Brotherhoods are no longer welcome in Tahrir.

The streets of Cairo are full of protesters two days after the firstanniversary of the beginning of the revolution of the 25^th of January. Demonstrators organized marches from different areasof Cairo all converging on Tahrir square.

The demonstrations from Mustapha Mahmud gathered hundreds of thousands.

The day was called “Friday of Pride and Dignity". SCAF was againdefeated by the massive participation of Egyptians in the demonstrations.

The slogans and chants raised by the protesters demanded the overthrowof SCAF and direct transition of powers to the parliament. The attempts by SCAFto transform the 27th and the 25^th into celebrations were a complete failure as we can be witnessedby the mobilizations of the people and their refusal to step down against SCAF.

Some protesters clashed with supporters of SCAF in front of the ministryof defense building. The protesters pushed through the human chain created bythe SCAF supporters and chanted "down with SCAF"

In Tahrir square, at the arrival of the various marches the main sloganswere still directed against SCAF. Demonstrators held up adoll of SCAF leader Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi in the square. The protestersmanipulated the doll to have the fake Tantawi say, "We [the SCAF] haveprotected the revolution. Whoever is in Tahrir is a thug."

Earlier in the square, a group of judges held a mock trial for formerPresident Hosni Mubarak, former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak, and other symbolsof the deposed Mubarak regime, charging them with corrupting Egyptian politics,abusing power and squandering public funds.

The judges mock sentenced all of the defendants to death. They were thenexpected to march to the Supreme Constitutional Court to demand their rulingsbe implemented.

The atmosphere started to change at one point when the officials of theMuslim Brotherhood began their speeches and became the target of a largesection of the protesters. The dispute began when someprotesters marched into the square, raised their shoes at the Brotherhood'sstage, chanted and threw rocks at them. After turning up the Quranic versesfailed, Brotherhood members instead began chanting against the SCAF.

That did not work, either, so the Brotherhood invited some youths of the6^th of April movement onto their stage to convince the crowd to notattack them. After that failed, the Brotherhood announced that it would removean anniversary banner from its stage as an affront to the revolutionaries, anddraped a cloth over the banner.

The ambiguous position of the Muslim Brotherhood towards the SCAF thesepast few months and its acceptance of the transfer of power to parliament inJune following SCAF are the main causes of the protesters anger towards them.In addition to this, the Muslim Brotherhood presented the day, as well as the25^th January as a day to celebrateand party; while the protesters considered it as an opportunity to say that therevolution must continue.

The protesters threw bottles and raised their shoes in the air againstthe MBs representatives on stage, while singing chants asking them to leave andaccusing them of being liars.

The opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood became the center of attentionin Tahrir square, the stage close to it joining the demands of the protestersfor the Muslim Brotherhood to leave.

The MBs then brought back a lot of their members to protect their stage andimpose their presence in the square.

Large masses of demonstrators are still in Tahrir, chanting for theoverthrow of SCAF and demanding a civil state. The Muslim Brotherhood continuedto be the target of protesters telling them to leave.

One year after the "Friday of Rage", when Mubarak's securityforces fired on protesters who had marched into Tahrir, killing and woundinghundreds, the Egyptians are back in the streets of Cairo not to celebrate therevolution but to demand the continuation of the revolution. The blood of themartyrs must not have been shed in vain repeat the protesters.

The message of the Egyptians is clear today: there is nothing tocelebrate, the revolution must continue, SCAF must be overthrow, power must betransferred to the parliament and the people now.

Its clear that the protesters of Tahrir will accept nothing less and theambiguous position of the Muslim Brotherhood towards the demands of therevolutionaries of Tahrir has been clearly condemned by them. The MuslimBrotherhood might not be welcome anymore in Tahrir if they continue to ignorethe demands of the streets and of Tahrir.

The Egyptian revolution is definitely back on track after the successfuland mass mobilizations of today and the 25^th.

Article also available on Counterfire: http://counterfire.org/index.php/articles/international/15472

Raising Fists and Voices: Lebanese Women's Struggle to End Violence

2012-01-26T12:55:00.000+01:00

“I don’t believe in a countrythat turns rapists into suitable husbands”.

Those were the kind of bannersyou could have seen being held by activists should you have walked on thestreets of Beiruton January the 14^th during the March to Fight Rape organized byLebanese feminist collective Nasawiya.

On this day, about a thousanddemonstrators took to the streets to denounce the highly discriminatory lawsthat govern the situation of women in Lebanon.

Indeed, Lebanon, apatriarchal country, fails its reputation of liberalism and openness when itcomes to women’s rights and gender equality. Indeed, not only are societalbeliefs and values with regards to gender deeply entrenched in the majority ofthe population, but laws condone these beliefs and perpetuate them.

For example, the societal beliefthat a woman who dresses in a particular way and walks by herself at night is“asking to be raped” is somewhat confirmed by the public powers inaction whenit comes to make Lebanese streets safer for women by lightning municipalitiesand allowing women to carry pepper spray cans for example. Another shockingexample is the commonly held belief that it is a wifely duty to have sex withone’s husband, and that marital rape does not exist. This very harmful belief,which transcends religious and economic divides, leads to women suffering insilence, most of the times their mouth shut by society and laws.

Discriminatory laws within theLebanese judicial realm are not a rare occurrence, and this discriminationhappens at all stages of a woman’s life, even within the most private parts ofher life.

Indeed, rape, as defined byarticles 503 and 504 of the Lebanese criminal code, is a forced sexualintercourse perpetrated by a man on a woman who is not his wife. Ergo, being forcedby your husband to have sex doesn’t fall under the “rape” label, and saidhusband is seen as a Man, capital M, taking what is considered by society to berightfully his, instead of the rapist he is for all intents and purposes. Evenif a man is convicted of rape, he will not serve his sentence and allprosecution will be halted against him if he marries his victim, as per article522 of the same (shameful) Lebanese Criminal Code. Besides, there is noViolence Against Women law specifically targeting perpetrators of gender basedviolence, hence several different offences such as verbal and psychologicalabuse and harassment go unpunished and unrecognized.

This set of laws is being upheldand supported by the Lebanese sectarian’s system that puts all civil powers inthe hands of religious authorities who, too satisfied with the amount of powerand control they are being granted over people’s lives and women’s mentalhealth and body, are not willing to relinquish said power by allowing thegovernment to pass a civil Bill on Violence Against Women. The Bill, which hasbeen prepared by a collective of 41 civil society organizations, includingwomen’s rights activists, lawyers and civil society organizations, has beenapproved by a Council of Ministers in April 2010 but is currently at astandstill, waiting to be passed and adopted by the Parliament. The reasonbehind this freeze of the Gender Equality process in Lebanon is to be found inthe outcry that the law caused within religious authorities who consider thatreligious texts protect women from violence and abuse and should governpeople’s relationships and that no other law is needed, especially not a civillaw that would supersede their power. The criminalization of marital rapecontained in the law particularly irked religious authorities who help maintainthe sacrosanct patriarchal authority in the household, keeping women in alesser position, maintaining the belief that having sex with one’s husband is aduty and not the result of a mutual desire.

To bypass these obstacles, someMPs (Keyrouz and Geagea) have tried putting forward a motion to pass a lawsolely criminalizing marital rape and cancelling article 522 of the criminalcode. While all efforts aimed at gender equality are to be saluted, it isparamount that we pay attention to maintain a holistic take on our actions andnot to start picking apart a law that is much needed in it entirety andintegrity.

Faced with this bleak picture,activists have decided that it was time to upscale mobilization and havedeployed themselves all over Lebanon, through radio ads, stenciling andposters, newspapers articles in Arabic, English and French, TV interviews,distribution of flyers and a quite effective social media campaign leading tothe big demonstration that took place on January the 14^th.

This demonstration was special inmany ways: first and foremost, in terms of numbers. It had been a while sinceBeirut had seen so many people from so many different walks of life unite underthe banner of Human Rights and Justice: the crowd was over a thousand people,and very diverse in terms of gender, age groups, class backgrounds andpolitical and religious affiliations. This diversity was a good show to publicpowers that women rights are a subject of concern to many Lebanese citizensfrustrated by the lack of commitment from a government that already deprivesthem from many social rights. This diversity and the never-ending energy of theorganizers and leaders of the demonstration enabled to create a very positiveenergy that carried the wave of people from Sanayeh in Hamra to Riad El Solh infront of the Grand Serail, next to the Parliament.

Besides, this demonstrationcarried and embodied many messages: demonstrators not only want to change laws,they want to change mentalities by breaking social taboos, prejudices andmental barriers preventing women from fully enjoying their rights. This aim wasexemplified by several demonstrators from Nasawiya breaking not only once buttwice the police and security barriers set up around the Parliament building,in a bid of reclaiming the streets of their own city.

The message is clear: streetsmight no be safe for women, society might think a woman has no place on thestreets anyway and should stay at home, our bodies and choices might becontrolled by external powers and values, yet we are on the streets, askingpublic powers to act to fill in their duties, the duties they have towards usas citizens, and we are breaking the logic of oppression by breaking youruseless roadblocks.

The demonstration was not a marchfor marching’s sake: follow up activities are currently being discussed andpressure will be continuously applied on public powers, calling oninternational law and Conventions Lebanon has signed and ratified to reinforceour claims. To those who argue that our demands are an import of the West, andreject them on this basis, I shall just answer this: we did not wait for anyEastern or Western power to teach us what dignity and justice are, they comewith the human condition and we intend to keeping up our fight until we aregranted what is ours, our rights.

Many articles have been writtenon the subject of violence and rape in Lebanon,to know more, please check this link, containing the majority of materialsproduces:

Nasawiya: http://www.nasawiya.org/web/2012/01/calling-all-bloggers-and-micro-celebrities/

Egypt: parliament and revolution

2012-01-25T09:55:00.000+01:00

Joseph Daher and John Reesreport from Cairo as the new Egyptian parliament is sworn in.

Article also available on Counterfire (http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/international/15460)

The newly elected Egyptianparliament met for the first time yesterday. What does it mean for therevolutionary process in Egypt?

The Supreme Council ofthe Armed Forces (SCAF) has ruled Egypt since the fall of Mubarak. They had avery simple attitude to the elections. SCAF wanted to erect a façade ofdemocratic legitimacy behind which the economic and political power of the army,and the wider ruling class of which itis a part, would continue with as little alteration as possible.

To this end SCAF hasfought a year long battle to suppress the revolutionary movement, increasinglyrelying of Mubarak era mechanisms of repression.

In the end they hopedthat, like the referendum that President De Gaulle used to end the events inFrance in 1968, the ‘discipline’ of mobilizing the least politically consciousmasses in an election would smash the momentum of the ‘Tahrir revolution’. Theconstantly repeated government phrase that ‘Tahrir is not Egypt’ was thegive-away formulation here.

The Muslim Brotherhoodhas, for the most part, assisted SCAF in this project because, as theorganization with the largest pre-revolution social base, it expected tobenefit most from a rapid electoral timetable.

In the event, anddespite the substantial vote for the Brotherhood, the election has been a muchmore ambiguous process than SCAF will have wanted.

This is because thereare a number of reasons why the elections are seen as illegitimate.

Firstly, the monthslong election process took place against a background of intensifying streetbattles and industrial action which millions still see as more central to therevolutionary process than the elections.

Secondly, the turnoutin the elections was low. A mere 54 percent of voters turned out, lower thanthe declining rates of participation in many western democracies. But also muchlower than the turnout in other first elections in post-dicatatorship societies.For instance, in the first post-Apartheid elections in South Africa over 90percent of the electorate voted. Even the December 2005 elections in occupiedIraq had a turnout of over 76 percent.

Thirdly, theseelections are only for the parliament. Many thought the Presidential elections,not due until June (and only then because SCAF were forced to bring themforward by last autumn’s demonstrations) should have come before or at the sametime as the vote for MPs.

Fourthly, SCAF relieson the Muslim Brotherhood to deliver this transition but there are tensionsbetween the two forces. It was the announcement by SCAF’s deputy prime ministerthat the Army intended to remove parliamentary oversight from the militarybudget and governance that forced the Brotherhood to briefly, but crucially, tothrow its weight behind the ‘Second Revolution’ return to Tahrir in Novemberlast year. This led to the fall of the civilian prime minister and to a renewedintensity in the street mobilizations ever since.

Now there are moretensions because although the agreement was that SCAF would leave power whenthe new parliament was elected, it is now saying that it will hang on untilJune. Many fear that there will be a further delay when June comes.

Parliamentary politics andthe left

So the electionresults are unlikely to allow SCAF to close off the revolutionary process inthe way that they wished. Nevertheless the parliament will be an element in thepolitical situation from now on and it will have some legitimacy that SCAF lacks.How the left deals with this, and with the dominant political force in theparliament, the Muslim Brotherhood, will be crucial for the future of the wholerevolution.

One thing is clear: asimple rejectionist model will not work. SCAF wanted to mobilize the mostconservative layers of society against the revolution using the election andthe parliament. The left and the workers movement will not hegmonise theselayers and win them away from both SCAF and the Brotherhood simply by counterpoisingthe streets to the parliament, even though such a counterposition is in itselfwell founded.

The first step wastaken in a broader and more effective strategy by those forces on the left whosuccessfully intervened in the electoral process itself. The bar for participatingat all was set by SCAF at 5,000 signatures for each political party. Some of approacheswhich involved setting up front organizations for electoral purposes failed toreach this figure and therefore were excluded from using the electoral processto popularize the lefts arguments. Other left organizations, like the SocialistRenewal Current, did manage to be part of wider coalitions despite thedifficulties of holding these together.

The result is thatalthough the left struggled in the unfavourable terrain of electoral politicsthere are 7 MPs from the ‘Revolution Continues’ bloc in the new parliament.These are the representatives that, when some Brotherhood MPs added the words‘and God’s law’ to the parliamentary oath when they were sworn in, they addedthe words ‘and the revolution continues’ or ‘without forgetting the martyrs’.

There is no doubt,however, the left faces a tough battle. The election result overall was asubstantial victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, the more religiouslyconservative Islamic current.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral arm, Freedomand Justice Party (FJP) , won between 43 and 47 percent of the votes, assuring them235 seats in the new People's Assembly (out of 498), while the Salafists,represented in the Nour Party, came in second, winning around 22percent of available seats.

Other political forces are weakly represented inthe new Parliament: the liberal Wafd party gathered 8 percent, while theEgyptian Bloc, a new liberal coalition led in part by billionaire telecom mogulNaguib Sawiris, won almost 7 percent of seats.

One way is which the left can demonstrate boththe superiority of its analysis and the importance of extra-parliamentarystruggle is by demanding that the new parliament actually fulfill the hopesthat people have of it…even if, perhaps especially if, we do not expect thesedesires to be realized by the MPs.

The left must demand that SCAF now vacates allpower and hands it to the parliament. SCAF is completely unelected and has noright to exercise any political power. The parliament, however weak, is atleast an elected body. But more than this SCAF represents the main, armed,counterrevolutionary force in Egyptian society and the more it is pushed out ofthe political arena the more the threat of direct counter-revolution ismarginalized.

Finally, for as long as the least politicallyconscious masses have some faith in the parliament, demanding that it take revolutionarymeasures is an important way of educating them on the limits of parliament andthe political forces that dominate it. It was for this reason that the BolshevikParty campaigned for the Constituent Assembly not only alongside theircommitment to the Workers Councils throughout 1917 but still continued to do soafter the October revolution. Only the Constituent Assembly’s final emergenceas a counter-revolutionary threat to the Workers Council’s brought therevolutionary government to the point of dissolving it in 1918.

The revolution continues

For all this, parliament is not the main arenain which the fate of the different political forces will be decided. And it isnot a body that under any circumstances can deliver a revolutionarytransformation of Egyptian society. As labour organizer Fatma Ramadan says ‘weare undeterred by parliamentary elections. The battle for parliament is onlypart of the struggle. The street is where our main fight lies.’

This fact was clearly visable on the first dayof parliament. Different groups, from leftists to liberals’ opposition groupsand youth popular movements, demonstrated outside the parliament. They weredetermined that martyrs killed since the beginning of the revolutionary processare not forgotten and sought to keep the pressure up on the deputies tocontinue the revolution.

There was a workers’ march which took a backstreet to reach the Parliament, joined by two other marches: one demandingfreedom of expression for artists and another demanding martyrs’ rights. Allthree converged in the small area outside the iron gates on Maglis al-ShaabStreet where protesters chanted, “Bread, freedom and social justice” and“Speak, say, power must be handed over.”

The Muslim Brotherhood mobilized its members aswell around the parliament onthe first day of the session to stop any protest turning “violent”. This wasclearly in order to preserve the smooth running of the first session of theparliament.

The Brotherhood has repeatedly insisted that anydifference in views should not turn into a confrontation and that there shouldbe co-operation between the military council, interim government and electedparliament. The Muslim Brotherhood has approved SCAF's opposition to strikes onnumerous occasions since the overthrow of Mubarak, while calling several timesto support SCAF and praising its role in ‘protecting the revolution’ and‘backing the people’.

Recently the MB and Egypt’s state-run affiliatedmedia outlets launched a campaign to make supporters of the continuation of therevolution look like criminals. The MB accused Anarchists and RevolutionarySocialists of being inciters of violence and propagandists of state demolition.They actually filed a lawsuit against members of these parties.

The Brotherhood’s meetings with US officials atthe beginning of this year and their unwillingness to end the QualifyingIndustrial Zones agreement under which hundreds of Egyptian companies exportproducts with Israeli components duty-free to the United States - shows itsweakening position towards imperialism.

The struggle of the left should never be limitedto parliamentary issues, especially after the victories of the Muslim Brotherhoodin Egypt, Tunis and Morroco, which will try to limit the process of change intheir countries. The continuation of the revolution will not be secured throughparliament but outside in the streets, universities and workplaces. Democracy,social justice and independence will not be achieved merely by concentrating onparliament and raising demands inside this institution, whatever the tacticalvirtue of doing this might be.

The left has to continue raising socio-economicissues such as supporting the demands of workers through strikes, the re-nationalizationof industries sold to private investors, and the creation and recognition ofnewly created independent unions. Since the beginning of the revolution lastyear, some 300 independent unions have been established nationwide, with areported membership of nearly two million workers. These new independent unionsmust be recognized by parliament. They must while continue to mobilize, aimingto co-ordinate the struggles of protesters in the streets with militancy andself-organisation in the workplaces.

On anti-imperialist issues, the left must callfor the end of political and economic relations with Israel: a refusal of anynormalization with the colonial settler-state.

Many elements for the successful continuation ofthe revolution exist. Many thousands of convinced revolutionaries want tocontinue the fight, even though they are not mostly in organized left parties.There is a still an ongoing revolt among Egyptian workers who continue tostrike and form new unions at an impressive rate. But there is a politicalvacuum which exists because the revolution has no institutional form which canact as an alternative centre of organization and authority. This is all themore important since the parliament will now be used to legitimate the rulingclass if they are able to overcome its weakness at birth.

Now more than ever the revolution needs its ownsingle centre of government. A successful revolution requires revolutionaryorganization and it requires the industrial struggle of workers. But these twoconditions are necessary but not sufficient for victory. Without a politicalcentre of authority these first two elements are likely to produce avacillation between propagandism and syndicalism, not a hegemonic strategy forworking class revolutionary politics. The struggle to unite the revolutionaryforces in a single popular council as a really democratic alternative toparliament is the precondition of the long term success of the revolution.

La lutte continue!

2012-01-23T17:19:00.000+01:00

Article publié dans le journal SolidaritéS 13 janvier 2012 (Genève, http://www.solidarites.ch/geneve/)

Les mouvements populaires auMoyen Orient et en Afrique du Nord continuent à se mobiliser pour faire avancerle processus révolutionnaire face aux tentatives des régimes en placede se maintenir par la répression et/ou des réformes superficielles, avecl'aide des impérialistes et de leurs alliés dans la région.

En Egypte, le mouvement populairen’abandonne pas, malgré le fait que ce sont les forces défavorables à lacontinuation du processus révolutionnaire, comme les Frères Musulmans et lesSalafistes, qui ont remporté les élections. La déclaration de la militantesyndicaliste Fatma Ramadan symbolise cette volonté d'aller de l'avant:

«Nousne sommes pas découragés par les élections parlementaires, la bataille pour leparlement n'est qu'une partie de la lutte. La rue est l'endroit où notrecombat principal réside. Nousexigeons le droit de librement se syndiquer, la fin de la loi criminalisant lesgrèves, un salaire minimum et maximum, le redémarrage des usines au point mortet la réembauche des travailleurs, une augmentation des retraites et des soinsde santé adéquats ».
Lavague de grèves et de manifestations nationales coordonnées, telles que cellesorganisées par les secteurs industriels, les postiers et les enseignants, ainsique l’action articulée de l'ensemble du secteur des travailleurs du sucre etdes travailleurs de l'Autorité du Caire des transports publics, a entrainé laparalysie durégime militaire en Septembre, et a pavé la voie au soulèvement de Novembre.

Aujourd’hui, différents groupes etmouvements populaires favorables à la continuation de la révolutions’organisent pour mobiliser le plus grand nombre de personnes et de forces envue de fêter, le 25 janvier prochain, la première année de la révolution.

Tunisie et Yemen : despeuples en marche

En Tunisie, les résultats des élections etla formation du nouveau gouvernement n’ont pas diminué la volonté du peuple dese mobiliser. C’est la pressionpopulaire du sit in du Bardo qui a poussé les partis politiques, et enparticulier Al Nahda, à adopter plusieurs mesures, telle que la promesse d’inscrireles Code du Statut Personnel comme loi fondamentale et non plus comme loiordinaire, protégeant ainsi les droits des femmes acquis auparavant detoutes modifications défavorables. Le sit-in du Bardo impliquait denombreuses organisations de la société civile, des délégations des chômeurs dela zone minière (Gafsa et d'autres régions), des militants de l'Union généraledes étudiants tunisiens (UGET), des partis politiques et des citoyensindépendants, etc.

L'Union des chômeurs diplômés (UCD) et despartis révolutionnaires de gauche sont au cœur des mobilisations sociales. Au débutd'Octobre, l’UCD a organisé une réunion nationale à laquelle environ 500 étudiants diplômés etchômeurs ont assisté. Leursprincipales revendications tournaient autour de l'émancipation sociale etpolitique.

Au Yémen, des dizaines de milliers demanifestants sont descendus dans les rues pour rejeter au mois de décembrel'accord du Conseil de Coopération du Golfe (CCG) soutenu par les Etats-Unis. «Notre révolution continue» était le nomdonné à la manifestation par le mouvement populaire, lequel rejetait le"compromis" entre le Président Ali Saleh et l'oppositiontraditionnelle, qui garantissait l'immunité pour le régime. Les manifestationsse poursuivent, avec de nombreuses grèves touchant plusieurs secteurs et desdéfections toujours plus importantes dans l'armée. Le mercredi 28 décembre destravailleurs en grève ont exigé des réformes et le licenciement de cadres liésau président Ali Saleh.

Au Bahreïn, les manifestations sepoursuivent, mais sur une plus petite échelle qu’au début de l'année dernière. Malgrél'intervention militaire des pays du CCG dirigée par l'Arabie saoudite et larépression du régime bahreïni, les manifestants n'ont pas abandonné la lutte etdes mobilisations sont permanentes dans le pays.

Syrie : une grève sans fin

En Syrie, l'élan révolutionnaire et lesmobilisations populaires massives se poursuivent malgré la répression violentedu régime. Lescomités de coordinations locales (CCL) et les différents groupes d’oppositionssyriennes ont appelé le 11 décembre à une grève sans fin nommée "Grèvepour la dignité". La première étape de la campagne de désobéissance civileet de grèves a été un grand succès avec des manifestations sans précédentdepuis l’été dernier et des pans entiers de la société en grèves ou boycottantles services publics. Lelancement de la deuxième phase de la campagne populaire démontre la volonté dupeuple syrien de continuer la révolution jusqu’à la chute du régime.

« Le peuple veut unenouvelle révolution »

En Libye, une opposition croissante aunouveau gouvernement nommé par le Conseil National de Transition (CNT) est entrain d’apparaître. Descentaines de Libyens ont manifesté pour dénoncer le fonctionnement opaque duCNT, le 12 décembredernier sur la place Al-Chajari dans le centre deBenghazi, théâtre des premières manifestations contre le précédent régime le 15février 2011. Les manifestants ont scandé des slogans tels que « le peupleveut une nouvelle révolution» ou «les gens veulent renverser le CNT ».Lesdemandes sociales apparaissent également de manière croissante dans les régionsles plus démunies, tandis que les révolutionnaires amazigh ont refusé dereconnaître le nouveau gouvernement, parce qu'il ne reconnaît pas leurs droits.

La mobilisation permanente des masses etl’organisation des différents secteurs de la société en syndicats et autrecomités populaires sont la seule façon de protéger ces différents processusrévolutionnaires et de remporter la victoire contre les régimes autoritairessoutenus par les impérialistes et leurs clients étatiques. Seull’approfondissement de la révolution – englobant la démocratie, la justicesociale et l'indépendance nationale contre l'impérialisme – est la solutionpour la réalisation des aspirations des peuples.

Le peuple demande

2012-01-05T14:06:00.000+01:00

Le monde arabe a vécu une année 2011 des plus passionnantes pour toutescelles et ceux qui résistent et qui luttent à travers le monde. Les mouvementspopulaires, qui ont secoué les dictatures du Moyen-Orient et d’Afrique du Nord,ont eu un impact dans le monde entier. Les Indigné·e·s tirent leur inspirationdes révolutions arabes. Plus de 700 villes dans plus de 70 pays ont résonné etrésonnent encore des mots d’ordre et des revendications d’un mouvement quimanifeste contre la précarité et le pouvoir de la finance. Mais les Indigné·e·sreprésentent surtout un défi et une claire condamnation du système capitaliste.Les masses populaires arabes ont relancé la résistance à travers le monde ;nous sommes entrés dans une période de processus révolutionnaire.

Les révolutions dans le monde arabe sont le fruit de la rencontre dedifférentes luttes et mobilisations populaires. Ces combats se sont entremêléset ont permis à différents secteurs de la société de joindre leur force pour serévolter contre les régimes autoritaires et corrompus liés aux intérêtsimpérialistes.

La question démocratique

Il s’agit tout d’abord de la revendication de droits démocratiquesélémentaires contre des régimes dictatoriaux, soutenus directement ouindirectement par les pays occidentaux (de nombreux accords politiques,économiques et sécuritaires témoignent de cette collaboration).

En Egypte, par exemple, le mouvement Kefaya, constitué d’activistes etde groupes provenant de toutes les tendances politiques (communistes,nationalistes arabes, libéraux, islamistes) brise, en 2004-2005, de nombreuxtabous caractérisant alors la sphère publique égyptienne ; notamment encritiquant directement le président et l’appareil sécuritaire. Lesmanifestant·e·s organisent alors des meetings populaires dans des lieux publicssans autorisation officielle, et utilisent de nouvelles formes deprotestations, telles que les veillées aux chandelles, contribuant à attirerl’attention populaire. La plupart de ces activistes seront en première lignelors du début du soulèvement égyptien le 25 janvier.

En Tunisie, les universités étaient des centres de résistance et derevendications démocratiques depuis de nombreuses années. L’activisme desétudiant·e·s au début du processus révolutionnaire poussera d’ailleurs ladictature de Ben Ali à fermer les Facs et autres hautes écoles.

En Syrie, l’arrivée de Bachar Al Assad au pouvoir amène tout d’abord unléger vent d’ouverture qui sera réprimé aussitôt. Néanmoins, des militant·e·s,intellectuels, artistes, écrivains, s’organisent et forment des clubs de débatspolitiques, tout en exigeant une démocratisation de l’Etat.

Des phénomènes similaires ont lieu dans d’autres Etats arabes, comme leBahreïn, la Libye et le Yémen. En Libye, Benghazi, la première ville à s’êtresoulevée contre le régime de Kadhafi a toujours été une base de l’oppositioncontre le régime.

L’aspiration des peuples à la démocratie s’accompagne de deux demandesfondamentales sans lesquelles la construction d’un futur Etat complètementdémocratique n’est pas envisageable : la question sociale etl’anti-impérialisme.

La question sociale : une dimension occultée

La profondeur de la question sociale et son impact sur le déclenchementdes révolutions est sûrement la dimension la plus occultée par les médias occidentaux.Ces soulèvements populaires, survenant à la suite de la crise financière etéconomique mondiale, sont en effet une révolte contre les politiquesnéolibérales imposées par les régimes autoritaires, et encouragées par lesinstitutions financières internationales, comme le Fonds MonétaireInternational (FMI) et la Banque mondiale (BM).

Les mesures néolibérales ont servi au démantèlement et àl’affaiblissement croissant des services publics dans ces pays, à lasuppression de subventions, notamment pour des biens de première nécessité,tout en accélérant les processus de privatisation, très souvent au profit desclasses dirigeantes et bourgeoises liées au pouvoir politique.

Les réformes néolibérales des régimes arabes ont encouragé une politiquebasée sur l’accueil des investissements directs étrangers, le développement desexportations et du secteur des services, en particulier du tourisme. Dans cetteoptique, les gouvernants ont assuré aux compagnies l’absence d’imposition ou defaibles taux, tout en garantissant à ces dernières une main-d’œuvre très bonmarché. L’appareil répressif de ces pays a servi « d’agent de sécurité » pources compagnies, les prémunissant de tous troubles ou revendications sociales.Ces Etats ont joué le rôle d’entremetteurs pour les capitaux étrangers et lesgrandes multinationales, tout en garantissant l’enrichissement d’une classebourgeoise liée au régime.

La dépendance économique des pays en question aux marchés internationauxs’est également accrue. Le renversement de la conjoncture économiqueinternationale, en 2009, a détérioré encore davantage la situation de crisesocio-économique. Les préceptes du FMI et de la BM ont créé dans ces pays plusde dépendance et plus de sous-développement.

Les fléaux qu’impliquent ces politiques néolibérales sont nombreux.Mentionnons le taux de chômage élevé, particulièrement parmi les jeunesdiplômés universitaires qui ne trouvent pas de débouchés dans une économiedésormais concentrée sur des emplois à faible valeur ajoutée, et où le travailqualifié se fait rare ; ou encore le sous-emploi, conséquence directe de cesmesures.

Les phénomènes de libéralisation ont également accru les inégalitéssociales et économiques. Les classes inférieures et moyennes n’ont pasbénéficié de la supposée « croissance». Elles en ont au contraire souffert.

Les processus de privatisation ont créé de nouveaux monopoles entre lesmains des proches du pouvoir. Ces phénomènes sont en effet partie intégrante dusystème de corruption, profitant aux classes gouvernantes de ces pays, parexemple la famille de Moubarak en Egypte, la famille Trabelsi, épouse duprésident Ben Ali, en Tunisie, la famille Makhlouf, cousin germain de Bachar alAssad, en Syrie. Les mouvements populaires se sont d’ailleurs accompagnés dedénonciation de la corruption prenant pour cible ces familles associées aupouvoir.

Grèves des travailleurs·euses et mouvement étudiant : un même combat

Ces politiques néolibérales ont appauvri, comme nous l’avons vu,l’ensemble des sociétés concernées. Cependant, deux groupes ont été plusgravement atteints : les étudiant·e·s et les travailleurs·euses. Ils·Elles sontaujourd’hui à la tête des mouvements de contestation.

En Tunisie, l’Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT) a souventjoué un rôle moteur d’opposition aux régimes autoritaires, malgré le fait quela centrale syndicale ait été gravement affaiblie par une combinaison derépression, de privatisation des emplois publics et parfois même decompromission de la direction syndicale avec le régime.

En 2008, ce sont en effet des membres de l’UGTT qui sont à la base dessoulèvements des ouvriers des mines dans la région de Gafsa. Ils ont soutenu lemouvement pendant plus d’un an.

En Egypte, le pays a connu le plus grand mouvement social depuis laSeconde Guerre mondiale, avec des grèves et des occupations de différentssecteurs de la société. Les grèves dans les usines de Mahala el Kubra, en 2008,témoignent aussi de la vigueur du mouvement ouvrier malgré la répression desforces de sécurité.

Aujourd’hui, de nombreux syndicats indépendants ont été formés depuis lachute de Moubarak, tandis que la multiplication des occupations et desmouvements de grèves démontre l’intensité du rôle des travailleurs·euses dansla révolution.

C’est pourquoi ils-elles ont été durement attaqués par l’élitedirigeante, l’institution militaire en particulier, et dans une certaine mesurepar leurs alliés les Frères Musulmans. Le Conseil de Sécurité des Forces Armées(CSFA) a en effet mis en œuvre une loi criminalisant les grèves, protestations,manifestations et occupations qui affectent l’économie.

Le mouvement des syndicats et des travailleurs·euses a joué un rôleimportant dans les révolutions, en particulier en Tunisie et en Egypte. Lagrève générale proclamée le 11 janvier en Tunisie et les journées de grèvesgénérales menées dans toute l’Egypte ont été décisives pour faire chuter lesdictateurs de ces pays.

En Syrie, à partir de 2006, la dégradation du niveau de vie de lamajorité de la population, couplée à la répression politique, a conduit à uneère de protestations, souvent sur des questions économiques. En mai 2006, descentaines de travailleurs de la Compagnie de construction publique organisaientune manifestation à Damas, provoquant des affrontements avec les forces desécurité, tandis que les chauffeurs de taxi à Alep faisaient grève à la mêmepériode.

Le mouvement syndical au Bahreïn a été un fer de lance contre ladictature du régime, tandis que de nombreux syndicalistes ont été condamnés àde lourdes peines de prison pour leur participation active au mouvement decontestation. C’est d’ailleurs à la suite des grèves des différents syndicatsqui ont paralysé, le 14 mars dernier, la capitale Manama, que les troupessaoudiennes, suppléées par les forces de sécurité du Bahreïn, interviennentpour réprimer le mouvement populaire.

La question de la justice sociale et la condamnation des politiquesnéolibérales sont donc au coeur des revendications des mouvements populaires.

L’anti-impérialisme : une question cardinale

L’anti-impérialisme et l’autodétermination des peuples sont égalementsous-jacents aux différents mouvements populaires de la région. Ces peuples enlutte ont clairement, et à de nombreuses reprises, exprimé leur volonté depoursuivre une politique étrangère qui réponde à leurs aspirations profondes età leurs intérêts, et donc de ne plus être soumis aux puissances impérialistes.En Tunisie, en Egypte et dans d’autres pays, la cause palestinienne a servi etsert encore d’étendard à cette bataille. L’anti-impérialisme a souvent été eneffet un moyen d’éducation et de conscientisation politique, canalisant parfoisles forces de la protestation vers l’extérieur plutôt qu’en direction derevendications liées à la situation intérieure de ces pays.

Lors de l’Intifada palestinienne en 2000, un mouvement populaire enEgypte, composé en très grande majorité de jeunes, a stigmatisé les politiquesaméricaines et israéliennes. Ces dénonciations étaient aussi un moyen decritiquer indirectement, mais explicitement, la politique de collaboration durégime de Moubarak avec les puissances impérialistes. Ce mouvement a continué àse développer, notamment à cause de l’invasion américaine et de l’occupation del’Irak. En mars 2003, le Caire a été le théâtre des plus grandes manifestationsqu’aient connu le pays depuis les émeutes de 1977.

Le processus révolutionnaire égyptien oblige aujourd’hui le CSFA,institution liée à tous les niveaux aux Etats-Unis par un financement annuel deplus de 1,3 milliards de $, de faire profil bas par rapport à sacollaboration avec l’Etat d’Israël et les autres Etats impérialistes.

En Tunisie, la collaboration du régime de Ben Ali à la « guerre contrele terrorisme » lancée par George Bush, mais utilisée surtout pour réprimer lesopposant·e·s, ainsi que la présence d’une représentation officielle israéliennedans le pays ont également été vivement dénoncées par le mouvement populaire.

La question anti-impérialiste a été pour beaucoup un moyen de formationpolitique.

La réaction de l’impérialisme et de ses alliés dans la région

Les révolutions arabes ont définitivement remis en cause et chamboulé lestatu quo dans la région, et particulièrement en ce qui concerne les forcesimpérialistes et leurs alliés, avec à leur tête Israël et le Conseil deCoopération du Golfe (CCG) présidé par l’Arabie Saoudite. Ces mouvementspopulaires sont en effet un danger pour leurs intérêts politiques etéconomiques.

Les impérialistes et leurs alliés ont néanmoins réagi assez rapidement,mais de différentes manières, après la chute des dictateurs en Tunisie et enEgypte. Les interventions armées croisées en Libye et au Bahreïn constituentnéanmoins la forme la plus directe et violente de leurs interventions.

1. Bahreïn

Les raisons de l’intervention de la force conjointe du Conseil decoopération du Golfe (CCG), appelée «Bouclier de la Péninsule », créé en 1984,sont multiples ; elles servent les intérêts des Etats contre-révolutionnairesdu Golfe, et ceux des Etats-Unis.

L’intervention des forces du CCG, composé en grande majorité demilitaires saoudiens, répond en premier lieu à la menace d’une propagation dela révolution à la région du Golfe. La ville de Qatif en Arabie saoudite a étéle théâtre de nombreuses manifestations, violemment réprimées, contre le régimedepuis le début de l’année, alors qu’Oman et d’autres pays du Golfe ont été lestémoins de multiples contestations populaires.

Pour les Etats-Unis, le régime du Bahreïn est un allié essentiel danscette région où se trouvent les deux tiers des réserves mondiales de pétrole.Les Etats-Unis ne voient pas d’un bon œil la montée d’un mouvement populairequi pourrait mettre en danger leurs intérêts et s’étendre aux autres pays. Deplus, le Bahreïn revêt une importance particulière pour les Etats-Unis en tantqu’hôte de la 5e Flotte de la marine américaine, considérée par Washingtoncomme le principal contrepoids militaire à l’Iran. Pour rappel, c’est depuiscette base américaine que, dans les années 1990, a été créée une zoned’exclusion aérienne dans le sud de l’Irak, et que les bombardiers qui ontfrappé Bagdad avant l’invasion armée de 2003 ont été lancés.

Le CCG, en collaboration avec les forces de sécurité du Bahreïn, aréprimé le mouvement populaire dans le pays, avec le silence et la passivité dela communauté internationale. La préservation des intérêts économiques etpolitiques de cette dernière est en effet bien trop importante. A nouveau, la« défense » des Droits de l’Homme par la communauté internationale apparaîtbien sélective.

Le silence et la passivité des puissances impérialistes au Bahreïnlaisseront la place à l’action armée dans le cas de la Libye.

2. Libye

La réaction différente de la communauté internationale face à lasituation libyenne, et la nature particulière de l’intervention en Libyereflètent néanmoins le même objectif : préserver les intérêts économiques etpolitiques des puissances impérialistes et arrêter le développement de la vaguerévolutionnaire dans la région. L’intervention armée de l’OTAN a été expliquéepar certains comme une preuve que la révolution libyenne était, depuis lecommencement, un complot pro-occidental. Cette version est loin de rendrecompte de la réalité du mouvement populaire libyen et de la dynamique du régimede Kadhafi avant le début du soulèvement. L’Occident n’avait en effet pasbesoin de créer une révolution pour garantir à Tripoli la création d’un régimeprêt à se soumettre à ses intérêts, parce qu’il en avait déjà un.

Depuis 2003, le régime libyen est devenu un proche allié del’impérialisme occidental ; à cette date, en effet, il avait décidé de renoncerà son «programme d’armes de destruction massive » et de participer activement àla « guerre contre le terrorisme ». Le régime libyen a en effet acheté pourplusieurs milliards de dollars d’équipements militaires de grandesmultinationales telles que BAE Systems, de l’Union Européenne et des Etats-Unis.

Le régime a également accéléré le processus de libéralisationéconomique, vendant ses ressources nationales dont le pétrole et le gaz. Lescompagnies pétrolières et de gaz occidentales étaient en effet actives en Libyeavant le début du soulèvement.

De plus, en 2008, le régime de Kadhafi a conclu un accord avec l’Italie,dans lequel les deux pays convenaient de coopérer dans la lutte contrel’immigration illégale ; ce « Traité d’amitié » a d’ailleurs été condamné parle Haut Commissariat pour les réfugiés.

C’est donc précisément parce que le régime de Kadhafi était déjàpro-occidental que les puissances impérialistes ont dû intervenir pour prendrele contrôle d’une révolution qui pouvait menacer leurs intérêts.

Les Libyens se sont débarrassés du régime sanguinaire de Kadhafi et ontaujourd’hui un nouveau gouvernement. En soi, cela constitue une victoireindéniable pour le peuple libyen, mais les objectifs initiaux de la révolutionet la souveraineté libyenne sont maintenant en danger. Le nouveau gouvernement esten effet fortement influencé par les forces contre-révolutionnaires de l’ArabieSaoudite et du Qatar d’un côté, et des pays occidentaux de l’autre, tandis quele pétrole est distribué aux forces étrangères qui ont participé àl’intervention armée.

Le coût humain de cette dernière a été de plus catastrophique. Lejournal britannique TheGuardian a indiqué que le nombre de tué·e·s avantl’intervention en Libye oscillait entre 1000 à 2000 pour atteindre 20 000 à25 000 au jour de l’assassinat de Kadhafi, sans parler des blessé·e·s.L’objectif principal de l’intervention armée qui était de protéger les civilsest loin d’avoir été accompli.

L’écrasement simultané de la révolution au Bahreïn et l’interventionmilitaire en Libye marquent le moment où les puissances occidentalesimpérialistes et leurs régimes alliés dans le monde arabe ont tenté d’arrêterla propagation et le développement des révolutions. Dans un cas, les monarquesdu Golfe, avec la bénédiction des Etats-Unis et des autres grandes puissances, ontécrasé le processus révolutionnaire. En Libye les mêmes forces, mais avec laGrande-Bretagne, la France et les Etats-Unis, prenant les devants, ont décidéd’intervenir au moment où le mouvement populaire libyen se trouvait dans uneposition de faiblesse et de grand danger, pour prendre le contrôle de larévolution.

Effets des révolutions sur la scène palestinienne

Les Palestiniens et Palestiniennes ne pouvaient rester insensibles auxrévolutions dans le monde arabe. Leur lutte avait animé pendant des années lesmouvements populaires de la région mais, cette fois-ci leur combat pouvait êtreinspiré par la mobilisation des masses arabes.

Les 15 mai et 6 juin 2011, des dizaines de milliers de Palestinien·neset d’autres activistes ont marqué l’anniversaire, respectivement de la« Nakba » (« la Catastrophe », où l’on estime que 800 000 Palestinien·nesont été expulsés en 1948 après la création d’Israël) et de la Naksa (le jour oùIsraël a occupé les territoires de Gaza, la Cisjordanie, Jérusalem-Est et leplateau du Golan). Ils-Elles ont organisé à ces occasions des manifestationsdans les pays avoisinants, qui se sont dirigées vers les frontières de laPalestine.

Ces manifestations pacifiques ont été prises pour cible par l’arméeisraélienne, causant la mort d’au moins 43 personnes (plus de 20 lors de lacommémoration de la Nakba et 23 lors de la commémoration de la Naksa) etfaisant plus de 550 blessés (200, le 15 mai et 350, le 6 juin 2011).

L’Occident est à nouveau resté silencieux face à la répressionisraélienne contre des manifestant·e·s pacifiques.

Cette mobilisation des réfugié·e·s palestiniens est une conséquencedirecte des révolutions et des soulèvements populaires de la région. Lalibération des peuples arabes de leurs régimes autoritaires et répressifs estsans aucun doute un pas en avant pour la cause palestinienne et la réalisationde l’intégralité des droits des Palestinien·nes.

Le mouvement du 15 mars et la réconciliation

L’esprit des révolutions arabes a également atteint la Palestine àtravers la mobilisation des jeunes Palestiniens et Palestiniennes dans lemouvement du 15 mars, avec pour revendication principale la fin de la division.Ce mouvement doit néanmoins être situé dans un contexte plus large dereconquête de la lutte pour libérer la Palestine.

L’unité politique n’est pas un but en soi, mais une exigence stratégiquepour la reconstruction d’un mouvement de résistance. Par conséquent, l’unitépolitique préconisée dans les mobilisations importantes du 15 mars ne peut pass’inscrire sous l’égide des « négociations » ou du «processus de paix ».

Les revendications principales du mouvement du 15 mars vont bien au-delàde la fin de la division de la scène politique palestinienne ; elles seconcentrent surtout sur la re-démocratisation du Conseil National Palestinienet sur l’établissement de la nouvelle loi électorale incluant tous lesPalestinien-nes, c’est-à-dire celles-ceux des Territoires Occupés de laCisjordanie et la Bande de Gaza, des territoires de 1948 (Israël), desréfugié·e·s et de la diaspora.

Sans surprise, l’Autorité palestinienne et le Hamas ont exprimé leursoutien rhétorique à la fin de la division, tout en réprimant lesmanifestations à Ramallah et à Gaza par la violence et par des arrestationslors de la journée du 15 mars ; une mobilisation qui avait rassemblé desmilliers de Palestinien·nes dans les Territoires occupés et à l’étranger.

La réconciliation annoncée en juin entre le Hamas et le Fatah, mais quin’est toujours pas réalisée aujourd’hui, a été rendue possible par le contexterégional, en particulier la révolution en Egypte. Cependant, cetteréconciliation constitue aussi un moyen pour chaque groupe de se partager lepouvoir, tout en se protégeant contre la menace du mouvement du 15 mars, quidéfend un programme populaire de résistance incluant tous les Palestiniens etPalestiniennes à travers le monde.

En effet, le chemin vers la libération de la Palestine implique deprendre en compte tous les Palestiniens et Palestiniennes sans exception et deréaffirmer leurs droits fondamentaux, tels qu’ils apparaissent dans la campagnemondiale de Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions (BDS) :

Fin de l’occupation et de la colonisation israéliennes de toutes les terres arabes, ainsi que le démantèlement du mur d’apartheid.
Fin du système israélien de discrimination raciale institutionnalisée contre ses citoyen·nes palestiniens
Droit pour les réfugié·e·s palestiniens et les personnes déplacées de retourner dans leurs foyers d’origine, comme énoncé par l’ONU, et d’obtenir des réparations.

La révolution permanente

Les multiples processus révolutionnaires dans les différents pays arabesn’en sont qu’à leur début. Les victoires obtenues par les masses populairessont indéniables, tous les régimes de la région ont subi les conséquences decette vague révolutionnaire, et les puissances impérialistes et leurs alliésont été obligés d’intervenir de manière directe et indirecte pour tenterd’arrêter la propagation de ces révolutions.

Les réactions des puissances impérialistes et de leurs alliés dans larégion se sont fait de différentes manières, mais elles ont eu néanmoins lemême objectif : limiter le plus possible tout changement de fond, tout enacceptant des modifications superficielles. Cette méthode rappelle l’approchede Tancredi, neveu du prince aristocratique de Salina, dans le roman deGiuseppe Tommasi di Lampedusa IlGattopardo. Interrogé par le prince sur ses motivations àse battre avec la révolution de Garibaldi contre sa propre classe, la réponsede Trancredi est la suivante : « Si nous voulons que tout reste pareil, il fautque tout change ». L’impérialisme occidental et ses alliés doivent en effetdonner l’illusion du changement.

C’est pour cette raison qu’aujourd’hui le slogan de la révolutionpermanente est plus que jamais d’actualité et prend tout son sens. Lacontinuation de la mobilisation et de la lutte des masses est nécessaire pourréaliser les profonds changements sociaux et économiques souhaités, ainsi quepour assurer les droits démocratiques et l’autodétermination complète.

La réflexion du révolutionnaire français Saint-Just reflète à merveillele dilemme dans lequel se trouvent aujourd’hui les masses populaires de larégion :

«Ceux qui font des révolutions à moitié n’ontfait que se creuser un tombeau.».

Article disponible sur le site de Solidarités Genève:

http://www.solidarites.ch/journal/d/numero/200/2#right=d/cahier/5115/

Lebanon, a Land of Men (and of a few Courageous Women)

2011-12-29T10:59:00.000+01:00

I am a Lebanese woman married toa Swiss man. My children will never be Lebanese, nor will my husband, because Iam considered as a second class citizen in my own country, which doesn't seemto deem it necessary to grant me the same citizenship rights as everyone else(also known as men).

My friend, we’ll call her Lina,is married to a Palestinian, and walks around with her two blue cards in herpurse, one for her child, one for her husband, those two little permits thatvirtually grant them nothing. May the law be amended soon, I told her, it’llfacilitate our lives.

Kess ekht 2al balad, she replied,arranging a strand of her loosely curly hair.

Lina has a tendency to swear witha sweet smile, while I tend to slam doors while doing it. To each its own.

Lebanon, along with many Arabcountries, has enacted reservations to the Convention for the Elimination ofall forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), notably pertaining tocitizenship rights (art. 9 par. (2) of the Convention) and rights within marriage(art.16 par (1) (c) (d) (f) (g) of the Convention). Reservations are conditionsput forward by States parties to a Convention or a Treaty enabling signatoriesto consider they will not be or only partly bound by some dispositions withinthe instrument they’re signing and ratifying.

Article 9 (2) of the CEDAWConvention states that:

Article 9
2. States Parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to thenationality of their children.

When signing CEDAW, Lebanon hasenacted its reservation with regards to this article, stating it will notconsider itself legally bound by it.

In International Law, there is astrict procedure to follow when putting forward reservations. Among otherthings, reservations need to be in conformity with the object and the purposeof the treaty. Clearly, a reservation aiming at discriminating women withregards to citizenship rights within a Convention against all forms ofDiscrimination against women is against the object and purpose of the treaty,and should have been objected to by other States signatories. However, ArabStates submitted their ratification of the treaty to the acceptance of theirreservations, so the International Community chose to accept them, for the sakeof having more States being bound to at least some parts of the Convention. Whichwas all well and dandy, but left Arab women to fend for themselves whenadvocating for the end of this blatant form of discrimination. Arab governmentscan now claim their reservations were made in all legality as no one objectedto them, making the advocacy work activists more difficult.

More difficult, but doablenonetheless: States parties may have not objected, but activists and civilsociety are and have been and will continue.

So let me get this straight: as awoman, I will carry a child during 9 months, I will bear the burden of givingbirth to it (no walk in the park), I will feed it with my own breasts and helpraise it and be its mother, his primary caregiver or what have you, yet I amdeemed by a government made mostly of grey aging overweight men that my childwill not have the same passport as me?

I don’t think so.

The Lebanese government can claimthe contrary until blue in the face, citizenship rights define what kind ofrelationship citizens have with a State, and in the present context in Lebanon,the State clearly indicates that all intents and purposes, women are secondclass citizens. Patriarchy and the sectarian system of Lebanon work hand inhand in oppressing women on a daily basis: indeed, most political partiesposition themselves with regards to citizenship rights not on the need to stopdiscrimination against women, but on confessional calculations, the mainquestion being: if Lebanese women married to foreigners can give their citizenship,how will it affect the confessional balance of Lebanon?

To which I reply: I don’t give adamn, get out of this poisonous sectarian thought system and give me my right,for women should not bear the burden of harmful political practices.

The Jinsiyati campaign (theNationality Campaign), started several years ago, has been gathering women’srights activists in an effort to amend the law. Even though public authoritieshave started facilitating the emission of permits to non-Lebanese spousesmarried to Lebanese women, the law is still at a standstill. To add insult toinjury, the Lebanese government has speedily endorsed a law enabling Lebaneseemigrants to reclaim their Lebanese nationality, but ONLY if they have aLebanese father or grandfather. Once more, women are put aside, and the discriminationis furthered. This new law completely overlooks Lebanese women’s participationin the economic and social life of Lebanon and the situation in whichwomen married to foreigners are experiencing.

This is why today at 15:00, women’srights activists and supporters will gather in a sit in protesting against thelack of political will to change the discriminating law. Women will also donatetheir blood in solidarity and to show that Lebanese women, just as men, haveLebanese blood.

Join us in front of the Ministryof Interior in Beirut,and help us put the government back in front of their responsibilities.

Say NO to discrimination againstwomen, you have a voice, make it be heard!

References

http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/lebanese-women-fight-back-against-new-citizenship-law-405729
http://www.nasawiya.org/web/2011/12/the-recent-recision-by-the-cabinet-to-restore-lebanese-nationality/
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Dec-14/156829-dual-nationality-draft-law-sparks-praise-and-ire.ashx#axzz1huODwS1G
http://www.undp.org.lb/ProjectFactSheet/projectDetail.cfm?projectId=89
http://www.learningpartnership.org/lib/lebanese-cabinet-issues-draft-law-reinstate-lebanese-nationality-descendants-lebanese-fathers-an

http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/calls-protest-anti-woman-nationality-law-interior-ministry

Revolution and counter-revolution in the Arab world

2011-12-19T09:35:00.001+01:00

It is one year since the revolutionary process in the Middle East and north Africa began. We can now observe a struggle between the counter-revolutionary forces of Western imperialists and their regional clients, led by Saudi Arabia, and the popular movements.

The counter-revolutionary forces are trying tostop the wind of change led by the popular movements, and limit it tosuperficial issues: "everything must change so that everything can staythe same". Let’s examine how the struggle between these two oppositeforces has developed.

The counter-revolutionary forces

The US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have used variousways to try to limit changes and preserve their economic and politicalinterests. The Western military intervention in Libya, led by the US, UK andFrance, has been especially important for re-asserting Western influence andundermining the revolutionary movement, corralling a popular uprising intoserving foreign interests. But the counter-revolution hasn’t been limited toLibya.

Saudi Arabia has attempted to secure itselfagainst any contagion of protests. In a few weeks in early 2011, the SaudiKingdom spent 214 billion dollars on its own citizens. In a country where 44%of the university graduates are unemployed, 60,000 posts in the Ministry ofInterior were created. This was motivated by fear of protests (the country witnesseda few popular protests, but at a low level).

The Saudi-led Gulf Co-operation Council hasprovided military, financial and political assistance to a number of regimeswhich were witnessing popular protests. In March the joint forces of the GCCintervened militarily in Bahrain in order to crush the popular movement.

At the same time the GCC was also creating adevelopment fund of 20 billion dollars to help Bahrain and Oman, anothercountry beset by protests. Ten billion dollars were offered to each country toupgrade their housing and infrastructure over 10 years. The GCC has alsopromised to deal "firmly" with any threat to the safety of one of itsmembers.

The Qatari government allocated US$500 millionto support Egypt's general budget, while increasing its investments in Egyptwith US$10 billion. In Yemen, the Saudi kingdom is trying to impose a deal onthe Yemenis in order to perpetuate Saleh’s regime, while Saleh himselfcontinues influencing events from behind the scenes in Yemen itself or from theSaudi kingdom.

Qatar was heavily engaged in overthrowingGaddafi and assisting the Transitional National Council (TNC) forces by sendingthem arms, oil and money. Qatar Special Forces had, for example, trainedthe TNC’s "Tripoli Brigade", while it is working behind closed doorsin the formation of the new Libyan government to have its close allies in toppositions.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have financiallysupported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Al Nahda in Tunisia during theelections. Both parties do not challenge the interests of the Westernimperialists and their clients in the region, while they want to limit thepolitical, social and economic consequences of the revolutions.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s behaviour towards SCAF(the ruling army council) since the fall of Mubarak in February has beencharacterised by collaboration. The MB Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie urgedEgyptians on several occasions to support SCAF - and he praised its role in‘protecting the revolution’ and ‘backing the people’.

The Muslim Brotherhood has insisted that thatany difference in views should not turn into a confrontation and that thereshould be co-operation between the military council, interim government andelected parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood has approved of the ruling SCAF'sopposition to strikes, going a step further by attempting to force an end toteachers’ strikes in some governorates in September.

In relation to Israel, the Muslim Brotherhoodcondemned the attack on Israel’s embassy a few months ago; while in theirelection manifesto they said that Egypt’s international agreements must beupheld, presumably including those with Israel.

Al Nahda, meanwhile, does not want to challengethe Tunisian debt and the current economic system. They have declared theirintentions to respect the various agreements with international financial andEU institutions, while the leader of the party, Rachid Ghannouchi, repeatedlystated these past few months that demands for higher salaries arecounter-revolutionary at this point in time.

Rachid Ghannouchi met Israelis discreetly inWashington during his trip and said that Tunisia’s constitution would not banfurther contacts between Tunisia and Israel.

The US has also been very active since thebeginning of the revolutions. In May, President Obama made two speechessymbolizing the reaction of imperialist powers to Arab revolutions which arechallenging their political and economic interests and above all of their closeally Israel.

On 19 May, Obama’s main message was that theUnited States and the West will pour billions of dollars into the Middle Eastin support of Egypt, Tunisia and other countries “embracing democracy”. Thisfinancial assistance was not in order to promote democracy but to co-opt Arabrevolutions and protect US interests in the region.

Two days before this speech, Obama was pledgingseveral hundred millions of dollars in aid to King Abdullah of Jordan, eventhough that country had recently repressed popular demonstrations. In relationto Egypt, Obama announced he would provide a debt relief of as much as $1billion, along with a new $1billion credit, while the Egyptian military regimewas at the same time accused of pursuing torture and arrests against opponents.

Egypt and Tunisia were invited to the G8 summitby the imperialist powers to discuss events in the Middle East and NorthAfrica, while the IMF and the World Bank have also been more and more activetowards both countries, suggesting new loans and so called financialassistance.

The US financial assistance is a way toguarantee that these countries will pay their debt, instead of financing socialprojects, to International Financial Institutions such as the World Bank andIMF, and therefore remain heavily influenced by these neo-liberal institutions.They can pursue the implementation of their policies impoverishing the peopleas a whole.

The US has also provided Egyptian authoritieswith the means to suppress protesters, according to a report by AmnestyInternational. From November 19 to 26, 42 people were killed and over 3000injured by gunfire while they were protesting peacefully to demand the transferof power from the military to the civilians. The American company CombinedSystems, based in Pennsylvania, is known to have delivered at least seventonnes of riot ammunition for the Egyptian interior ministry.

The imperialist powers and thecounter-revolutionary forces reacted quickly, following the revolutions inEgypt and Tunisia, and have tried to stop or limit any perspective of deepchanges in the region. The various revolutionary processes are nevertheless farfrom being over because of the will of the different popular movements tocontinue their revolutions until they achieve their full aspirations.

The continuing revolutions

Across the region, there have been movementsunwilling to limit themselves to mild reforms or superficial changes providedby the different regimes trying to protect their interests (with the help ofthe imperialists and their client regimes).

In Yemen tens of thousands of protesters took tothe streets to reject the US-supported GCC deal. “Our Revolution Continues” wasthe name given to the Friday rally when the popular movement rejected the“compromise” agreement between President Saleh and the established opposition.The Yemenis refused to accept a deal that provided immunity to the regime.

In Egypt, the popular movement has continued thestruggle. The statement of labour activist Fatma Ramadan symbolized this willto go forward despite the elections results:

“We are undeterred by parliamentary elections;the battle for parliament is only part of the struggle. The street is where ourmain fight lies. We demand the right to freely unionize, an end to the lawcriminalizing strikes, a minimum and maximum wage, the restart of stalledfactories and the rehiring of their workers, an increase in pensions andadequate health care”.

It was the wave of coordinated nationwidestrikes and protests, such as those organised by postal workers and teachers,coupled with industry and sector-wide coordinated action of sugar workers andworkers in the Cairo Public Transport Authority, which were a major cause ofthe paralysis which gripped the military regime in September, and thus helpedpave the way for the uprising of November.

In Tunisia, it was the sit-in of the Bardo thatraised pressures on political parties and especially Al Nahda to adopt severalmeasures such as the promise to include the Personal Status Code as afundamental law rather than as an ordinary law. The sit-in of Bardo involvedmany organizations of civil society, delegations of the unemployed in themining area (Gafsa & other regions), activists of the General Union ofTunisian Students (UGET), political parties and independent citizens, etc. Itaimed to put pressure on members of the National Constituent Assembly toaccomplish the goals of the revolution.

Social mobilisations have been ongoing as well.The Union of Graduate Unemployed (UGU) and revolutionary leftist parties are atthe heart of these mobilizations. At the beginning of October the UGU organizeda national meeting attended by about 500 graduate students and unemployed.Their main demands were around social and political emancipation.

In the middle of August, the mobilisationspromoted and led by leftists, unions members, lawyers and UDC reached a peakgathering more than ten thousand demonstrators in Tunis. They were protestingagainst the release, with the complicity of the judiciary and the current PrimeMinister, of some representatives of the old regime.

In Syria, the revolutionary momentum and theprotests are still ongoing despite the harsh and violent repression of theregime, although the Syrian National Council is highly reliant on co-operationwith Western powers. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) has called for theopen-ended “Strike for Dignity,” which it described as the first step in acivil disobedience campaign to bring down Assad’s regime. They call for sit-insat work, and the closure of shops and universities, before the shutdown oftransportation networks and a general public sector strike.

In Bahrain, protests are still going on but onmuch a lower scale than in the beginning of the year. Despite the military interventionof the GCC led by Saudi Arabia and the repression of the Bahraini regime, theprotesters have not abandoned the struggle.

In Libya, the Western intervention changed thecharacter of the popular movement and served as a major setback for the widerrevolutionary movement across the region. The overthrow of Gaddafi was of acompletely different nature to the overthrows of Ben Ali and Mubarak.

More optimistically, there is increasingopposition to the new government appointed by the TNC. Hundreds of Libyansdemonstrated on 12 December in Benghazi, to denounce the opaque functioning ofthe TNC. The demonstrators chanted "Benghazi wake up", “the peoplewant a new revolution," "the people want to overthrow the TNC” on theAl-Chajari square in the centre of Benghazi, which saw the first demonstrationsagainst the regime of ex leader Muammar Gaddafi on 15 February. The protesterstook to the streets and they said they want to correct the process of therevolution.

The demonstrators attacked mainly MoustaphaAbdeljalil and Abdelhafidh Ghoga, both key leaders of the TNC. A few weeks ago,the Amazigh revolutionaries refused to recognize the new government, because itdid not acknowledge their rights. Social demands are increasingly being raised,both in the regions that were most deprived under the former regime, and in theheart of the capital.

The permanent mobilisation of the masses is theonly way to protect these various revolutionary processes and to achievevictory against the authoritarian regimes supported by the imperialists andtheir clients. In the face of counter revolutionary reaction of differentkinds, only a deepening of the revolution – encompassing democracy, socialjustice and independence from imperialism – can offer a way forward.

VIH et Vulnérabilité économique : le cas des ouvrières du Sud Maroc

2011-12-05T22:32:00.001+01:00

Les liens entre vulnérabilité socio-économique, violence contre les femmeset prévalence accrue du VIH ne sont plus à prouver, et la situation des femmesouvrières du Sud du Maroc, ainsi que la prévalence plus élevée du VIH danscette région ne sont qu’un exemple parmi d’autres de la nécessité de répondre àla pandémie du VIH d’une manière intégrée et holistique, prenant en comptechaque dimension de la question.

Les femmes du Sud du Maroc subissent une double oppression: une oppressionà l’interne et une autre venant des entreprises étrangères.

Les femmes travaillant dans lesdomaines de l’agriculture et du textile sont particulièrement concernées parles situations de travail précaire. En effet, les ouvrières agricoles sontsoumises pour la plupart aux fluctuations de la demande de main d’œuvre selonles saisons. Une fois employées, elles ne bénéficient d’aucun contrat detravail, de salaire minimum ou encore de couverture sociale. En outre, la criseéconomique globale a eu pour effet la baisse de la demande de produitsagricoles du Maroc, laissant de nombreux ouvriers et ouvrières au chômage. Les ouvrières dans le domaine du textile sont ellessoumises à des pratiques abusives, telles que des demandes de signature à blancutilisées par la suite pour licencier les travailleurs et travailleuses sansnotification à l’avance. Les ouvriers se retrouvent donc sans emploi sans mêmedes possibilités de recours contre l’employeur dans la mesure où celui-ci peut présenter une lettre de démission signéepar le travailleur. Le domaine du textile a également été fortement touché parla crise économique globale : autrefois une destination de choix pour lesentreprises multinationales cherchant à exploiter la main d’œuvre bon marché etles avantages fiscaux qui leur sont octroyés, le secteur du textile et cuir au Maroc a enregistré 40% de fermetures d’entreprises,soit 24 établissements entre janvier et juin 2010 et des licenciementsatteignant 74,5% des effectifs, soit 5 699 licenciés sur un total de 7 645,selon des chiffres du ministère de l’Emploi marocain.Les entreprises décident donc de quitter le territoire marocain pour profiterde meilleurs avantages fiscaux et de main d’œuvre encore moins chère, licenciantdes centaines de salariés sans leur verser aucune indemnités ou compensation,le tout avec la complicité des pouvoirs publics prêts à contourner la loi dansl’espoir d’attirer toujours plus d’investissements étrangers. A cette situations’ajoutent les cas de harcèlement sexuel envers les femmes ouvrières sur leurlieu de travail, face auquel elles se trouvent démunies si elles tiennent àgarder leur travail. Face à ces violations flagrantes de leurs droits, lestravailleurs et travailleuses s’organisent au sein de leurs syndicats etorganisations et initient des actions en justice et des sit-ins demandant augouvernement de réguler les implantations d’entreprises étrangères sur le solMarocain : « il est inacceptable que les multinationaless’enrichissent au Maroc et le quittent sanss’acquitter de leurs engagements envers les salariés » réclament lesouvriers d’une usine de textile de Salé fermée début 2010.

La précarité des conditions de travail des ouvrières du Sud et la forteprévalence du virus du VIH dans cette région sont intimement liées : eneffet, la pauvreté et la vulnérabilité non seulement économique mais égalementsociétale de ces femmes perçues comme inférieures à tous points de vues lespoussent vers le travail du sexe pour augmenter leurs revenus. Elles deviennentpar conséquent des populations à risque, parfois appelées populationspasserelles dans le sens où elles peuvent transmettre le virus depuis les groupesà risque aux autres parties de la population perçues comme étant moins àrisque.

Avec une prévalence officielle nationale du virus VIH (la prévalence est lenombre total de personnes atteintes d'une maladie ou d'une condition de santéparticulière, qui vivent dans une population à un moment donné) située entre0.08% et 0.1 %, le Maroc, de premier abord, ne semble pas particulièrementcourir le risque d’une épidémie de grande ampleur : il serait cependanterroné d’ignorer la situation actuelle. Le mode de transmission largement leplus répandu reste la transmission par voie hétérosexuelle (87%), et certainschiffres restent alarmants et interpellent les autorités de veille sanitaire etles activistes de la société civile : en effet, l’épidémie poursuit unetendance vers la féminisation, les femmes représentant environ 48% des adultesvivant avec le VIH. Dans cette population, les travailleuses du sexe sont toutparticulièrement touchées et la prévalence nationale dans ce groupe atteint les2- 3%, un chiffre qui monte à 5%-6% dans la région du Sous Massaa Draa, site d’Agadir,au Sud du pays. Ces chiffres sont des approximations dans la mesure oùl’épidémie reste taboue et les groupes à risques telles que les travailleusesdu sexe ou les hommes ayant des relations sexuelles avec des hommes n’osent pasaller se faire tester ou se déclarer par peur du stigma social et des retombéeslégales, l’homosexualité étant un délit punissable par l’article 489 du codepénal instaurant des peines de prison contreles homosexuels allant de 6 mois à trois ans ou à des amendes allant de 120 à1200 DH et la prostitution reste interdite .

Pour contrer la progression de la pandémie, les pouvoirs publics marocainsse sont engagés à mettre en œuvre une stratégie multisectorielle englobant à lafois la prévention, la prise en charge des personnes vivant avec le VIH, l’accèsau traitement gratuit ainsi que la lutte contre le stigma et la discrimination.Pour ce faire, tous les acteurs marocains ont été mobilisés : membres dela famille royale, société civile (associations, ONGs, syndicats), artistes, différentsministères, ainsi que leaders religieux. Le pays collabore également avec desinstances internationales telles que le Fonds Mondial pour la Lutte contre leSIDA, la tuberculose et la malaria à travers le Comité de Coordination du Marocpour la lutte contre le SIDA. Le programme national mise avant tout sur lerenforcement des capacités des principaux acteurs et bénéficiaires, sur lacollaboration entre les différentes entités concernées, sur la décentralisationdes centres de prises en charge (comme le montre la rénovation et l’agrandissementde celui d’Agadir) et sur les stratégies de communication touchant toutes lescouches de la population, même les plus vulnérables ou groupes à risques.

Bien que le Maroc fasse figure de précurseur dans le monde Arabe dans sa stratégiede lutte contre le VIH et dans les ressources mises à disposition pour l’accomplissementde cette stratégie, il est nécessaire, dans une volonté d’approche intégrative,de ne pas occulter les enjeux économiques qui favorisent la propagation du virus.En effet, pour endiguer la pandémie il faut avant tout endiguer la vulnérabilitédes populations et plus particulièrement, des groupes à risque. Des actions derenforcement des capacités envers ces populations n’auront qu’un impact minimesi un changement structurel n’est pas entrepris, un changement visant unerefonte profonde des politiques néolibérales encourageant l’oppression destravailleuses en mettant le moins de règles et d’obligations possibles aux détenteursdu Capital dans l’espoir d’attirer des capitaux et des investissements étrangersau détriment de sa population.

Sans cette réflexion sur les causes systématiques des différences de prévalenceselon les régions et les contextes, la stratégie de lutte contre le SIDAreviendra à mettre un pansement sur une blessure nécessitant une interventionchirurgicale.

Ressources

http://www.arcat-sante.org/articleJDS/537/

http://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/morocco/

http://www.unaids.org/en/dataanalysis/monitoringcountryprogress/2010progressreportssubmittedbycountries/morocco_2010_country_progress_report_fr.pdf

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/haest-tesvs/p-fra.php#PREVALENCE

http://www.prb.org/pdf06/61.1GlobalChallengeHIVAIDS_FR.pdf

http://www.un.org.ma/IMG/pdf/unesco_ed_22_fr.pdf

http://www.telquel-online.com/120/couverture_120_1.shtml

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/conseils-aux-voyageurs_909/conseils-par-pays_12191/maroc_12289/index.html

http://www.un-ngls.org/mdgconsultation/upload/1273246901_81.192.48.236_IMPACTS%20SOCIAUX%20CRISE%20SYSTEMIQUE%20AU%20MAROC.pdf

http://lahoucine.unblog.fr/a-propos-2/

http://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1845

What Future for Tunisia?

2011-10-27T14:10:00.000+02:00

Tunisia has held the first elections in the regionsince the beginning of the Arab revolutions in January. They are Tunisia’sfirst free elections where the outcome is not pre-determined since 1956.
The winning party in these elections are the Islamists of Al Nahda claiming30-40% of the votes, followed by the centre left parties the Congress Party forthe Republic (CPR) and Ettakol, gathering together around 30% of votes.

AlNahda is considering forming a coalition with both Ettakol and the CPR, whilereassuring trade and economic partners and investors that they hope very soonto have stability and the right conditions for investment in Tunisia.

AlNahda has nevertheless recently been a target of criticism from some Westerncountries, especially France, characterising it as a fundamentalist partyhostile to the West and its interests. The right of the Tunisian people forself determination is criticised by some Western powers which supported BenAli’s dictatorship until the last moment, while their description of Al Nahda’sso-called extremism is far from the reality. Al Nahda is certainly not hostileto Western imperialism and the capitalist system.

Tunisianswent in their masses to vote to electthe 217 members of the constituent assembly across 33 districts. More than1,400 lists had been created. Each list had to have a candidate under the ageof 30 to give higher representation to the country’s youth. The names on eachlist were also required to alternate between men and women.

Theseelections led to a body which is responsible for drafting a new constitution,in addition to being in charge with appointing an interim president and acaretaker government for the duration of the drafting process. More than 11,000candidates were running in the elections, representing more than 80 politicalparties. Several thousand candidates were running as independents.

Despitethe great hopes around these elections, many on the left in Tunisia believethat this Constituent Assembly, which is the result of a popular mass movementthat brought down the second provisional government, is being hijacked by themain political parties from the liberals, Islamists and centre-left to imposeonly minimal changes in the future constitution and in the landscape of thecountry. But Tunisians struggled for much more than minimal change in theirsociety.

Mainpolitical tendencies

Anumber of tendencies have featured in these elections.
The winning party of Al Nahda was the favourite since the beginning of thecampaign. They have repeatedly stated that they want to follow the example ofTurkey's ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party.
Al Nahda, like the AKP, favours a capitalist system, not challenging theTunisian debt and the current economic system. They have declared theirintentions to respect the various agreements with international financial andEU institutions, while the leader of the party, Rached Ghannouchi, repeatedlystated these past few months that demands for higher salaries arecounter-revolutionary at this point in time.

TheAl Nahda party is also not hostile to western powers, developing meetings andcontacts with the US and UK these past few months. They held meetings in the USwith well known Zionist Senators and House Members (McCain, Liberman, Ackerman,etc..). A representative of Al Nahda in a meeting with US representative citedreligious parties in Israel as example of religious and democratic parties.Some of its most important figures and spokesmen were actually engaged in'dialogue' with the Americans on its behalf for several years before theoverthrow of Ben Ali, according to cables from the US embassy in Tunis obtainedby WikiLeaks.

Theparty has very good relationships with counter-revolutionary Gulf States suchas Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have been financing the party massively duringthe campaign. This allowed Al Nahda to build a network based on clientelistrelations with some of its constituencies, to pay for Ramadan meals and weddingceremonies in attempts to garner votes, while operating out of a gleaminghigh-rise in downtown Tunis, giving away professionally published paperbacks inseveral languages to lay out its platform, distributing wireless headsets forsimultaneous translation at its news conferences, and handing out bottled waterto the crowds at rallies.

Thebehaviour of Al Nahda on some other issues has also been the target ofcriticism of the left and other parties. Al Nahda have for example denouncedthe projection of the Iranian movie Persepolis, in which Allah is pictured, ona Tunisian channel considered “as a flagrant attack on the Divine” and “anattack on people’s beliefs and sacred symbols”, while leading “to threateningcivil peace and the people’s unity and historical harmony, just as theythreaten the democratic political process”. In addition to this, it did notcondemn clearly the attacks made by salafists groups against members of theTelevision channel and their buildings, but only dissociating itself from them.

AlNahda’s position towards women’s rights is also ambiguous. While puttingforward Souad Abdel-Rahim, a non-veiled candidate of the party, and reiteratingthat they would preserve the achievements and rights of women, it nonethelesspromoted a book from Salafis authors advocating the separation between men andwomen in public.

Thesecond tendency is the centre left, divided among different forces such as theEttakatol, Congress Party for the Republic (CPR) and Progressive DemocraticParty (PDP). These political parties have generally supported a raise in theminimum salary, while willing to ease regulations to increase foreigninvestment. They also do not want to break the different agreements withInternational financial and European institutions, and have no intention ofchallenging the Tunisian debt legality.

Thevarious components of the anti-capitalist left led by the PCOT (Communists) andof what remains of the radical Front of January 14 have not done well duringthese elections. This tendency has been characterised by its failure to unifythe various tendencies of the ant capitalist left. They were also unable toframe the main political debates around socio economic and political issues.The debate was instead often framed around the opposition between secularismand religion, while the real opposition in the Tunisian society is between onone side the people who want to continue the revolution and to achieve realchanges in society - and those in favour of the status quo with minormodifications.

Themain demands of the anti capitalist left, led by the PCOT, includedcancellation of the debt and association agreements with the EU and otherfinancial institutions, while arguing for the liquidation of the legacy of therepressive apparatus of the old regime. They also promote a plan of equitabledevelopment between regions and direct democracy, free services in the sectorsof transport, health and communication, and the removal of so-called ‘culturalexception’ applied to the signing of international conventions, such as humanrights and gender equality.

Finally,the third pole, which did not gather any large amount of votes, was representedby the liberals. These latter were not only composed of new political figures,but also of former members and Cadres of the Constitutional Democratic Rally(CDR), Ben Ali’s party now forbidden, such as al-Waten (The Nation), founded byRCD members who had previously served as Minister of Trade and Tourism andMinister of the Interior; al-Moubedra (The Initiative); the Justice and Libertyparty; and The Independence for Liberty party.

TheFree Patriotic Union (FPU) is an example of these new liberals. It was createdby a group of Tunisian businessmen who have lived abroad for years without muchprevious involvement in politics. The FPU has outspent every other party inadvertising. The party is running on a platform advocating a regionaldevelopment model based on a market economy and large projects involving mainlyprivate investment. Imed Belkacem, one of the party's cofounder, declaredseveral times that the FPU fills the centre-right void left by the dissolutionof the former ruling party, the RCD. The founders and many members of the FPUactually share personal and many business interests with Trabelsi family,linked to Ben Ali’s family, and other prominent figures of the now forbiddenRCD.

ThisLiberal pole was during the elections campaigns in negotiations with thevarious international monetary and Western governments. They acknowledge thedebt and intend to preserve the association agreements with the European Union.They also declared that they would be willing to ally with the islamists El Nahda.

Ongoingsocial mobilisation

Thesocial situation has nevertheless deteriorated in the period between theoverthrow of Ben Ali and now, despite promises from the various interimgovernments to tackle the increasing social and economic problems of thecountry. Unemployment has increased, while the parallel or black market isconstantly growing. Benefits for the unemployed were only paid for a fewweeks and layoffs are increasing. The production of cereals, fruits andvegetables has sharply diminished as prices continue to rise.

Socialmobilisations have been ongoing. The Union of Graduate Unemployed (UGU) andother revolutionary leftist parties are at the heart of these mobilizations. Atthe beginning of October the UGU organized a national meeting in Sousse whichwas attended by about 500 graduate students and unemployed. Their main demandswere around social and political emancipation.
In the middle of August, the mobilisations promoted and led by leftists, unionsmembers, lawyers and UDC reached a peak gathering more than ten thousands ofdemonstrators in Tunis. They were protesting against the release, with thecomplicity of the judiciary and the current Prime Minister, of somerepresentatives of the old regime. This demonstration was repressed by thepolice and a demonstrator was shot dead.

Theunion bureaucracy, in collaboration with the government, called anotherdemonstration in an isolated area in the outskirts of the city - with thesupport of liberal political parties and the islamist Al Nahda - to try toabsorb the anger of the protesters. They gathered less than 1000 demonstrators.Elsewhere in Tunisia, protests continued outside the headquarters of the UGTT(General Union of Tunisian Workers), in Sfax, Sousse, Monastir, etc...

Theday before the poll, the police clamped down on a sit-in outside the Kasbah,near government offices, by young men who had been shot by security forcesduring the uprising, demanding that the government help them with basichealthcare. In addition to the sit-in, seven young men have been on a hungerstrike the week before the elections, protesting against the interimgovernment's failure to take care of their basic health needs.

Anotherten injured men travelled to Tunis from Kasserine and Thala to join them, butthe government is continuing to refuse the injured men free hospitalisation.All of them had been shot by security forces as they protested peacefully inthe days immediately before Ben Ali was ousted.

Thediscourses of the various main parties reiterate the same rhetorical commitmentto democracy, freedom, justice, good governance and rule of law, but withoutsuggesting any concrete proposals to fulfil and implement the demands of theTunisian people since they began the revolution at end of the last year.

Thesemain political parties have not challenged the current government and theremnants of the old regime. Repression continues, while some political partiesare still forbidden (such as the Workers League). The current government iscommitted to paying the illegal debts created by the previous dictatorship ofBen Ali to its international creditors, while collaborating and demanding thepolitical and economic support of the imperialist West (as seen in a visit tothe US in October, led by the Tunisian Prime Minister M. Béji Caïd Essebsi).This government also refused to grant visas to eleven out of the twelvePalestinians invited to the Tunis meeting for the Third Arab Bloggers meeting.

Mostof the political parties in the new Constituent Assembly neglect the social anddemocratic aspects of the revolution. The Tunisian people did notstruggle for a minimum change in their country and they will certainly not stopwith elections of the Constituent Assembly. The Tunisian people need to continuetheir ongoing revolutionary process to achieve all their rights and see ademocratic, social and anti-imperialist Tunisia.

Blog Action Day 2011: On the Right to Food, Hunger and Poverty

2011-10-16T12:53:00.001+02:00

Theright to food is a Human Right: it might be good to be reminded ofthat fact as we watch around 6 million children die per year as aresult of starvation and related diseasesⁱ.

Theright to food sends us back to the very rights to live, and to livein dignity. It is consigned at article 25 §1 of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rightsⁱⁱ,

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food (…)

aswell as at article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural Rights of 1966:

Article11The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consentThe States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programmes, which are needed (...)

Itis particularly worth noting that not only does international lawrecognise the fundamental right to be free from hunger, but it alsoplaces the State as the duty bearer of ensuring that this right isimplemented and gives it the obligation to take every steps possibleto realise and implement that right.

Asfor all Human Rights, the State's obligation are threefold: torespect, to protect and to fulfil. Behind these words lie thefollowing explanations: to respect means that the State shall nottake actions or adopt laws that will increase its people's starvationor malnutrition. To protect means that the State shall preventpowerful institutions and entities from increasing starvation andmalnutrition and to fulfil means that, should a situation ofstarvation or famine arise, the State shall fulfil the right to fooddirectlyⁱⁱⁱ.

Basedon the World Food Programme (WFP) Food Statistics that indicate that925 million people do not have enough to eat, with 98% of them beingin developing countries^iv,we can deduce that the aforementioned State obligations are not beingtaken seriously enough.

Itis also important to underline the gender component of the globalfood crisis: also according to the WFP Food Statistics, womenmakeup a little over half of the world's population, but they account forover 60 percent of the world’s hungry.Besides, smallholders farmers^vproduce half of the world's food: among these farmers, 8 out of 10are women (in Africa, this number reaches 80%)^viandthey play a key role in counteracting the negative impact of theglobal food crisis. Women's vulnerability has been increased by theHIV/AIDS pandemic when women more often than not become the heads ofhouseholds as well as by natural disasters and catastrophes. It isalso important to underline that women tend to become more vulnerableto violence when they have no means of sustenance, but also evenwhile working on their lands.

Sowhat are the main causes for malnutrition and starvation? While theimpact of climate change has increased food insecurity and isworsening the hunger situation in many countries, the impact ofglobalisation and neo-liberal policies on price volatility andvulnerability is not to be undermined.

Indeed,first of all, trade liberalisation and IMF and World Bank policieshave had a negative impact on smallholders farmers because on the onehand, the request and in some cases the imposition for liberalisationof Southern agricultures that came from North countries has beencoupled with these same governments maintaining subsidies for theirown farmers. On the other hand, countries who “benefited” fromIMF and World Bank loans are now crippled by the debts they havecontracted towards these two institutions. Trade liberalisation andthe complacency of governments who have failed their duty to protecttheir people's right to food have enabled rich countries and bigmultinational corporations to buy lands at a very cheap price, makingthe previous small owners unable to cultivate their own lands,forcing them to become employees of the corporations or to seekelsewhere means of sustenance, increasing their vulnerability. Thehigh level of productivity of these corporations has impacted oncommodity prices and has rendered smallholders farmers who wereintegrated in regional and national markets unable to compete withcheaper imports, not to mention the environmental impact of intensiveagriculture. The cost of neo-liberal policies are economic,environmental and social, and have led to the global food crisiswe're currently facing^vii.

G20governments are now pouring money and food aid into countries facingfood crisis, but these actions, although now much needed, are likeputting band aids over cracks and will not solve the long termissues. In order to have long term economic growth, significantpoverty and hunger reduction, the systemic causes need to beaddressed. Cancelling debts, allowing subsidies for Southernagricultural economies, fighting governments' corruption andregulating and monitoring big food industries are just the beginningsof agricultural reforms that should concentrate on supporting farmerscooperatives and local and national production.

Itis high time governments face their responsibility: the right to foodis a human right, and appealing for funds to “save people dyingfrom hunger in the South” is just not good enough. It is notcharity that is needed, but a real in-depth democratic, social andeconomic globa reforms that puts the state at the core of thedevelopment action and involves farmers and citizens.

Nothingabout us without us!

iJean Ziegler, Previous UN Special Rapporteur on Food, http://www.righttofood.org/

ii http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

iii http://www.righttofood.org/new/html/WhatRighttofood.html

iv http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats

v http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5784e/y5784e02.htm

vi http://www.actionaid.org/hungerfree

vii http://www.eldis.org/id21ext/s10aml1g1.html

Egyptian workers movement pulling the revolution forward!

2011-10-07T15:21:00.002+02:00

Medias have mainly reported and put emphasissince the beginning of the revolution on the mass gatherings in Egypt in Cairoand Alexandria, while strikes and workers movements were not giving the importancethey had in the fall of Mubarak and the continuation of the struggle in Egypt.

The workers have been in many aspects,including with other activists and students, the leading force against theregime before and after the revolution. They are the one currently challengingthe Mubarak system still in place from democratic rights to socio economicones.

This is why they have been subject of attacksfrom the ruling elites, the SCAF especially and to a certain extent their allythe Muslim Brotherhood. The SCAF actually implemented a law that criminalizesstrikes, protests, demonstrations and sit-ins that affect the economy in anyway. The military council has trialed many workers who decide to strike inmilitary courts since it came to power in February 2011.

Lately the Minister of Manpower and ImmigrationAhmed al-Borai “cautioned” the workers against excessive demands, which heconsidered a sure-fire way to destroy the country and reduce the number ofjobs.

These attacks nevertheless did not stop the labormovement and its mobilization, while succedding on many fronts.

At the beginning of the months, the voice of 22000 Mahalla Textile Company workers was finally heard when the Egyptianmilitary government yielded to their demands, which included an increase inlaunch allowances by 100% to reach 210 Egyptian Pounds per month, and increaseincentives by 200% for the workers receiving incentives less that 120 EP, 100%for those receiving incentives ranging between 200 and 300EP and 25% formanagers and CEOs of public sectors and the good- performance incentives tocommence after the company’s general assembly that is due to convene nextNovember.

The decision will apply to all workers of thetextile sector. This victory was the result of series of strikes and coordinationbetween workers, while one of the leaders of the movement declared that thissuccess of the workers of Mahalla Textile Company will send a message to allwaged workers that the weapon of strike is the only way to win their rights.

This message was soon enough heard by others.

Just last week, air traffic controllers, andengineers from the Egypt National Air Navigation Company and the CairoInternational Airport Company, staged strikes to demand increase in theirallowances and workers conditions. Performance allowances of LE3000 wereallocated to air traffic controllers a few days ago. Besides financial demands,air traffic controllers have been protesting what they deem corrupt policiesadopted by the airport administration. Earlier in June, Cairo InternationalAirport air traffic controllers went on strike in response to the CivilAviation Ministry's reported intent to reduce their salaries after hiring a newbatch of traffic control officers with higher salaries.

At the end of last month, Universities across thecountry witnessed mobilization and joint strikes of student, teachers andstaffs. From Assiyut to Alexandria, passing by the famous American Universityof Cairo, Egypt’s universities were largely paralyzed by strikes organized bystudents and staff as term began. The strikes have been fuelled by demands to democratizesenior university appointments and calls to get rid of university and facultyheads appointed by the old regime, while demands for fairer salaries for staffwere also raised.

On September 21, the Cairo Administrative Courtsuspended the privatisation contracts of three companies, returning them to thepublic sector. The sale of the companies -- Shebin Textile Company, TantaLinens and Al-Nasr for Steam Boilers -- had been contested in court by theEgyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR). The landmark ruling comesafter years of struggle for the workers who have been on strike on and off forthe past few years against the privatizations of their companies, in which theyhave been since then very often mistreated and not paid. Workers erupted injoyous cries when the announcement was made, shouting “truth has emerged” amidtears and cheers. The ECESR had argued that the companies were sold illegallyunder the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak for prices far lower than their realvalue.

Workers across Egypt have actually beenincreasingly demanding the nationalization of companies in response to the worseningconditions facing them at dozens of factories. They argued that the governmentmust take responsibility for Egyptian citizens in buttressing and assistingtheir efforts to “live decent lives and have good working conditions” tosupport their families and the country.

Independent union leaders representing 45,000Cairo Public were still striking at the end of September following a massmeetings at the garages on 28 September where they rejected the deal offered bythe Minister of Labour, Ahmad al-Borai, Mona Mostafa, head of the PublicTransport Authority and the Governor of Cairo, arguing that the agreement didnot meet their key demands.

Beginning of October, around three thousandworkers from the Public Transport Authority blocked Qasr al-Aini street outsidethe parliament buildings in central cairo today, demanding increases to theirwages, a rise of 200% in their incentive pay, and the resignation of Ahmadal-Borai, the Minister of Labour and Migration, because of what they describedas “his failure to solve their crisis”.

Health professionals and technical staffrepresented by the Egyptian Health Technologists Syndicate started a strike onSeptember 25, after six months of fruitless negotiations over their demands.The union is fighting for an increase in the salaries of its members,particularly in relation to allowances received by health technicians such asthe travel allowance for health supervisors currently 3.5 Egyptian pounds permonth (35p), the exposure to infection allowance (1.85 pounds, 18p). Anotherkey demand relates to professional education which has not developed since1960.

On September 24, tens of thousands of teachers strokedand brought central Cairo to a halt in a huge protest outside the parliamentbuildings to press their demands for the resignation of the Education Ministerand improved their salaries and their working conditions. Delegations of teachersfrom throughout Egypt mobilised for the demonstration which was also joined byother groups of striking workers, parents marching in solidarity with theirchildren’s teachers, and activists from a range of political parties.

These strikes are creating new networks ofco-ordination at a local level which mobilised thousands of teachers for theprotest. Teachers in Al-Arish, in Northern Sinai have formed a conference oftheir strike committees which issued a statement calling for protests locallyin solidarity with the march in Cairo. Hundreds of teachers joined a similar demonstrationin Aswan. The Independent Teachers’ Federation played a key role in organisingthe strike.

This is why we should consider the recentallocation of the Qatari government of US$500 million to support Egypt'sgeneral budget, while increasing its investments in Egypt with US$10 billion,as a threat to this movement. The Internationaland regional capitalist countries of the Gulf especially have reacted to therevolution and these workers movement by increasing their investments and loansto Egypt, in an attempt to help SCAF undermine and weaken them. In the samevein, the reconsideration of the Egyptian government of an InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) loan package that was rejected in the past is as well athreat to the future of the revolution and its objectives.

The workers movement has been pulling forwardthe popular struggle in the country and serves as an inspiration for many. Theyare in many aspects challenging the current neo liberal system in Egyptinherited from Sadat and Mubarak era, which impoverished the society as a whole,while linking their economic demands to the global call for a deep democratizationof the country and to challenge and cut ties with imperialist powers, includingforemost Israel.

Where does Al Jazeera stands? The People’s Television?

2011-10-04T07:43:00.000+02:00

These past week Al Jazeera television has beenat the centre of debates following the resignation of Wadah Khanfar, AlJazeera's top executive since 2003, after disclosures from the group WikiLeaks indicatingthat he had modified the network’s coverage of the Iraq war in response topressure from the United States. He on the opposite said he had been discussinghis decision to step down with Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, the chairmanof the board, for some time and dispelled suspicions that it waslinked to political pressures. According to other sources, his resignationfollowed a harsh dispute with Palestinian intellectual Azmi Bishara, alsoworking at the Qatari television. Wadah Kanfar has been replaced by Ahmed binJassim Al Thani, a member of the royal family, who is not a journalist, but anexecutive at QatarGas, a state-affiliated natural gas producer.

The issue of Wadah Kanfar’s resignation andWikiLeaks’ revelation actually asked a much a deeper question: Where doesAlJazeera stands? Is it an independent television supporting the people of theregion in their struggle or is it a tool and reflection of Qatar’s politicaland economic interests? These questions deserve a global analysis of the mostpopular Arabic television channel and of the Kingdom of Qatar.

Al Jazeera was created in 1996 and isprimarily financed by the royal family of Qatar until today. The Qatari channelwas very successful to capture the feelings of the people of the region,actually way before the uprisings in the Arab world, by its full time coverageand with an editorial line mixing Pan-Arabism, Islamic feelings and a liberalperspective. It is undisputable that Al Jazeera has played role in thedemocratization of the Middle East by their reports and programs on theuprising, even fueling it in many ways, and before as well. Al Jazeeratelevision has actually been forbidden in Egypt during the Revolutions, as wellas elsewhere for its coverage criticizing several governments or screening theuprising. The professionalism of the Qatari television channel has beenacknowledged worldly, while its programs and reports are followed throughoutthe globe. Aljazeera has hosted various opponents of authoritarian regimes,welcoming on their TV set nationalists, liberals, leftists and islamists,(these latter having nevertheless much more time and space on screen), whilegiving voice as well to officials of authoritarian regimes.

AlJazeera became a reference for people and anycritics towards it were nearly forbidden by many because of its “positive” rolein broadcasting and supporting the revolutions.

The newly resigned Wadah Khanfar actuallydeclared that "Yet we (Al Jazeera) remained steadfast in our editorialpolicy – in fact, each attempt to silence us further emboldened us andincreased our resolve”, while since Al Jazeera’s launch in 1996 its slogan hasbeen “the opinion and the other opinion”Really?

These positives features should not blindus on AlJazeera television, and the role it played to frame public opinion ofthe region to fulfill the interests of Qatar’s political interests. Tounderstand this relationship we firstly have a look on Qatar’s profile andpolitical perspective.

Qatar is a Kingdom in which the monarch andpower is concentrated in a single family that controls the state apparatus andlarge strata of the economy. The so-called nationals are hardly 20 percent ofthe population, and 80 percent are expatriates without any rights, essentiallyguest workers from the Philippines, other countries that work in conditionsclose to slavery.

Qatar is a strong ally of the US, they actuallyhost one of the most important air bases in the region, and the forwardheadquarters of CENTCOM, the central command of the US Armed Forces, in theUdeid base in Qatar, which is decisive to monitor US military action over thewhole region. They are a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), aregional bloc of the six oil rich Arab monarchies led by Saudi Arabia and fourother countries, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Oman. The popular uprising in Bahrain wasactually crushed by the common action of state repression and the militaryintervention decided by the GCC, which was led by Saudi Arabia and backed byQatar. Finally Qatar welcomes on its territory an Israeli commercial representationin the capital Doha, while Qatar state-owned investment firm Qatari Diar agreedto take a 5 percent stake in the company Veolia, while this latter is on theBDS list for its involvement with Israeli apartheid infrastructure andtransport projects.

On the other hand, Qatar has fundeddirectly or indirectly toHezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, while they maintain diplomaticrelations, although difficult, with Iran. They have also very close ties,funding ties, with the Muslim Brotherhood in various countries, and the MuslimBrotherhood is an important political force behind the political message of AlJazeera. The Egyptian theologian Yusuf Qaradawi is actually considered as thespiritual father of the Muslim Brotherhood, and he has his program andregularly preaches on the channel. The Syrian scholar and now appointed head ofSyrian opposition council, Burhan Ghalioun had criticized few years ago therole of Al Jazeera in fostering the role of Islamists in the Arab region andgiving them the screen far more space and at the detriment of other politicalforces. The revolutions have nevertheless on many aspects push Al Jazeera tochange its screen landscape because of the multiplicity of political forcesinvolved in it, in which the Islamic movements were not far from being theleading force.

How do these features and political intereststranslates on Al Jazeera television channel?

Programs critical towards GCC countries arerare or nearly nonexistent on Al Jazeera, whereas popular demonstrations inthese countries were not given any importance. In the case of Saudi Arabia,following an agreement signed in 2008, rather in favor of Qatar, after years ofpolitical tensions, on the issue of borders, Al Jazeera in return doesn’twelcome anymore or far less the Saudi opposition on its screen.

The absence or the misled coverage on thepopular uprising in Bahrain is also a very good example in the influence of theQatar political establishment, which was supporting the military interventionled by Saudi Arabia to crush the protesters, on the television channel. Inaddition to this, they gave much more voice to the regime to justify itsrepression against an “Iranian coup” than--and much less to the opposition thanwhat they did in other countries, like Egypt or Tunisia.

The coverage on Libya was on the oppositeutterly in favor and enthusiastic for the rebels and for the NATO militaryintervention, despite the fact that the foreign intervention was presented on alot more careful and shy manner on the Arabic channel, than on the English one,because of the general distrust of the people of the region towards it. In thesame time NATO strikes on civilians and exactions of rebel forces on Africanmigrants were not given much importance on TV reports and programs. Qatar was actuallyheavily engaged in overthrowing Muammar al-Qaddafi and assisting the TNC forces in sending them arms, oil andmoney. Qatar Special Forces had for example trainedthe TNC’s "Tripoli Brigade", while it is working behind closed doorsin the formation of the new Libyan government to have its close ally in toppositions such as Mahmoud Jibril. He is a neoliberaleconomist who presided over the Gaddafi regime’s neoliberal reforms from 2007until the uprising and who was involved in asset management for Sheikha Mozah,the politically active wife of the Emir of Qatar. The strong support from Qatar to theTNC may guarantee a chunk of oil reserves to the Emirat.

The coverage inEgypt, although clearly in favour of the revolutions, concentrated its reportsand TV programs on demonstrations in Cairo and other cities, while workersstrikes were given no or very few time on screen. The idea and images ofworkers striking in favour of the revolution and for better socio economicconditions might inspire migrant workers with poor socio economic conditions inQatar and GCC countries to act against their situation. In the same vein,critics of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which are funded by Qatar, have notbeen given much space since the resignation of Mubarak, despite the support ofthe Muslim Brotherhoods and their call to urge Egyptians to back the rulingSecurity Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which people are demonstrating againstit in order to continue the revolution. In addition to this, the Muslim Brotherhoodpraised SCAF role in protecting the revolution and backing the people, whilethis latter is on the opposite trying to stop by any means. The political linksbetween Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhoods in various countries is clear throughfirstly funding, but also to their support to neo liberal policies, a sort ofpeace status quos with Israel and closer relationship with the US. Al Jazeera’srole in this relationship is to foster the role of the Muslim Brotherhoods intheir respective societies among the people to favour their political andeconomic interests in the region.

In conclusion,one has to understand Al Jazeera’s role as a tool of Qatar’s political andeconomic interests, which may very well share similar objectives with somepopular movements in some precises period of time and context, but it shouldnot be considered as the Television of the people or representing its interests,it is definitely not. The revolutions have showed the contradictions of manyactors and political groups in the region, we are now seeing the ones of AlJazeera.

What about the Palestinian Statehood bill?

2011-09-30T11:58:00.000+02:00

On Friday 23^rdof September, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas(whose mandate finished in January 2009) handed over a request to UN chief BanKi-moon, asking the United Nations to admit the state of Palestine as a fullmember, without have left open the option of a lesser alternative - anon-member observer state, where such status would be granted by the GeneralAssembly, where the Palestinians maintain broad support.

In the continuation ofthe article from August , “PalestinianState in September? Statehood is not enough for full freedom!” and thedebates around this initiative, we analyse the dynamics surrounding it.

Officials of the PA announced it would give two weeksto the United Nations Security Council to decide on their bid for full membership,while Obama, in the most proIsraeli speech ever made by an American President in the history of the country,opposed the Palestinian initiative and said a Palestinian state can only beestablished as a result of negotiations, and that there is no short-cut toPalestinian independence. The Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu rejected the PAinitiative in his speech, while the Israeli authorities have previouslythreatened the Palestinians if they would go with their initiative to withholdtax money it collects from Palestinians on behalf of the PA, and further expandits settlements in the occupied West Bank and even declare a state ofemergency, in addition to the military rule that has governed Palestiniansliving under occupation for decades.

Ona technical note, the UN does not actually have the authority to recognisestates: other nations reserve the right to bilaterally acknowledge statehood. Ifthe UN were nevertheless to recognise a Palestinian state, it might open thedoor for it to claim membership in international organisations including theUN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and theInternational Criminal Court. Status recognition by the UN does not ensureacceptance by these international groups, however, and would not ensure thatPalestinians could pursue charges of illegal occupation and human rightsviolations against Israel.

In the mean time, Palestinians acrossthe West Bank celebrated the formal submission of their bid to become a UnitedNations member state, while in the Gaza Strip, no sign of any activity to markthe UN bid was noticed, which has not been backed by Hamas, the rulingterritory’s authority. Hamas security officials actually cracked down on peoplewatching the Abbas address in Gaza City cafes and confiscated Palestinian flagsthat crowds were waving in the streets. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the UNbid would not bring independence.

No massivemobilisations by Palestinians refugees abroad were organised, except smalldemonstrations in few Palestinians refugee camps in Lebanon, while thePalestinians of 48 did not mobilise as well.

Themassive popular demonstrations in different cities of the West Bank on September23, which many attended it with real support for the PA initiative, shouldnevertheless be nuanced in some ways. The PA had actually prepared this day by mobilising the different unions, controlled mainly by Fatah,the ruling party, to join the demonstrations, while government offices and schools wereexpected to close early to allow employees and students to attend them. Bothstate television and the state-run news agency WAFA called on the public tomass at the Muqataa, and Palestinians across the West Bank received textmessages advertising "the official mass reception". Few days before,the PA ordered also all mosques to join its campaign in support of Abbas andthe PA’s bid for UN membership.

The PA statehood billinitiative, which could be observed and understood as part of the ongoingstruggle towards their liberation and to achieve all the rights of thePalestinians, has actually been opposed by many Palestinians activists anddivided the Palestinians community as a whole, from the occupied territories,to the refugees and the 48 citizens of Israel. In the midst of these debates, solidaritymovements across the world have been very often hesitant to support thestatehood bill. The speech of Mahmoud Abbas did not end the debates on theissue in any way.

ThePA has actually not published any text describing what a Palestinian statewould mean practically; neither did Abbas speech explained it, while thislatter asked the United Nations for recognition and membership for a statewithin the territories occupied by Israel in 1967: the West Bank, includingEast Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The application for UNmembership for the “State of Palestine” submitted by the PA to the UN givesprominence to resolution 181, the 1947 “partition” resolution which recommendedthe partition of Palestine without the consent of its indigenous people. Thispartition was, as a reminder, a negation of the right of Palestinians, as a peopleanticipating decolonization, to self-determination. The full applicationmentions resolution 194, which states the right of return of refugees, but thedocument mixes together various concepts including “self-determination,”“statehood,” the “the vision of a two-State solution” and accord high weight tostatements of the “Quartet” currently led by Tony Blair, an ad hoc body thathad consistently undermined Palestinian rights.

The PA and supportersof the initiative declared that the strategy behind it is to move beyond the current“peace process” impasse, and aims at internationalizing the Palestinian-Israeliconflict after more than two decades of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian peacetalks have failed to achieve a two-state solution. In his speech, however,Abbas maintained that he is willing to go back to the negotiation tableimmediately with Israel based on the 1967 borders and complete cessation of thesettlement activities, adding that he did not want to isolate Israel.

ThePresident PA on these two aspects is inevitably in opposition with thePalestinian people, who in their far majority believe that negotiations are andhave been useless as they have always been since Oslo agreement, while the BDScampaign, which is the most representative and popular campaign amongPalestinians, actually calls to isolate the State of Israel.

Many Palestinians havepointed out the dangersposed by the UN bid to the representation of Palestinians and the right ofreturn, notably in relation to the future status of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation(PLO) if a state of Palestine would be recognized. In particular, theyhave asserted the need for maintaining the PLO's status as the sole legitimaterepresentative of the Palestinian people at the UN, and have warned of thedangers of replacing it with the state of Palestine as its representative inthe seat. The right of return per se is notthreatened by the current initiative. It is an inalienable universal rightenshrined in international law and held fast to by the Palestinian people. Theconcern is that changing the representative at the UN from the PLO to the Stateof Palestine would adversely affect the ability of Palestinian representativesat the UN to claim and advocate that right, and that all Palestinians shouldhave their representation at the UN. The PLO is the national representative ofthe Palestinian people as a whole, representing those inside and outside the1967 occupied Palestinian territories. Being confined to the 1967 boundaries,the State of Palestine, which is yet to attain actual sovereignty on the ground,cannot claim to represent the refugees, unlike the PLO.

The Palestinian YouthMovement (PYM), an independent, nonpartisan alliance, founded by a group ofyoung Palestinians scattered throughout the world, has opposed strongly the PAstatehood initiative describing it as: “thestatehood declaration only seeks the completion of the normalization process,...The foundation of this process serves asnothing more than to ensure the continuity of negotiations, economic and socialnormalization, and security cooperation.” In addition the PYM states that this declaration jeopardizes the rights andaspirations of over two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugeesin countries of refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes fromwhich they were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequentlysince then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing inthe 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the ethniccleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime.

As we can see, neitherdid Abbas speech and the explanations of PA officials satisfied the opponentsof the Statehood initiative or reduced their fears. In addition to this, theinitiative was made without any discussions or consensus among Palestinianspolitical groups. This situation actually raised once again the issue of thelegitimacy of the PA and its initiative, but above all of the questions ofdemocracy and representation in the Palestinian national movement.

The PYM actuallycharacterised the Palestinian leadership as illegitimate and that it has notbeen elected to be in a position of representation of the Palestinian people inits totality through any democratic means by its people.

Since the Osloagreement, the PLO has actually been consistently undermined, and politicalfragmentation has been imposed upon the Palestinian people through theestablishment of the PA. In theory and on paper, the PA is a subsidiary body ofthe PLO - and the West Bank and Gaza's Legislative Council is incorporated intothe Palestinian National Council (PNC) so there is one legislative body for allPalestinians, and all are equal politically under the law. In practice however,the PA is emerging as a parallel structure which excludes the refugees whoconstitute the majority of the Palestinian people. It is essential that thisparallel structure not take the PLO seat at the UN, as the Palestinian refugeeswould be politically disenfranchised and legally and institutionallydisempowered from making their claims to their rights at the only place thatmatters, the United Nations.

Inline with this idea, there has been broad Palestinian mobilization in recentmonths, particularly 15th March movement this year, to reclaim and democratisethe PLO and the Palestinian National Council, asking for holding directelections for this latter. The PNC is the highest Palestinian legislative body,and it represents all Palestinians, whether they are refugees or not. The PNCis the body that creates the national strategies, platforms and policies of thePalestinian people, which the PLO executive committee should implement. Only arejuvenated, democratically elected PNC can lay the foundation for effectiverepresentation of Palestinian rights, including the right of return.

Inthis perspective, a statehood initiative at the UN which would be presented bya trusted, democratically elected, accountable leadership and representing thewill of the Palestinian people and their collective right to self determinationwould be supported strongly by all Palestinians - and, consequently, by solidaritygroups worldwide, as argued notably by OmarBarghouti, a founder of the BDS campaign.

The UN bid could be considered as a part of the ongoingstruggle in this framework, while the PA imitative is actually seen by many asway to improve the bilateral peace negotiations under US patronage. This could actually threaten the great advancesof the popular and civil struggle achieved until now in Palestine and worldly,particularly as a result of the global BDS movement.

Inconclusion, we can observe that the debate on the PA statehood bill initiativeis much more profound and deeper than the initiative in itself; it actuallytouches to the future of the Palestinian national movement and itsrefoundations on a democratic basis representing the collective interests ofall the Palestinians and reformulating a new strategy of resistance, otherwiseany so called Palestinian spring will be only an illusion.

On NGOs vs Activism: the Impact of Structure and Donor Trends

2011-09-27T11:07:00.000+02:00

« So,did you get the grant? » « Who are your donors? »are sentences that I've been hearing more than I care to mention.

Welcome tothe lovely world of activism and NGOs, of movements andorganisations, where the competition's so fierce a lawyer's studyseems like a quaint little place in comparison and where half of thepeople have existential crisis at night, asking themselves if they'rereally impacting change on society or merely selling themselves tothe highest donor. Or maybe that's just me.

SrilathaBatliwala from AWID and of the Building Feminist Movements andOrganisations Initiative (BFEMO) explains that movements are built,supported, managed and sometimes destroyed by organisations.Organisations can be formal, meaning they're legal entities regulatedby laws and financial accountability and can be external to orcreated by movements, while informal organisations, such as loosenetworks and collectives constitute more of an organising structureswithin movements.

My ownobservations as an activist and a former NGO worker made me reach theconclusion that informal organisations, that are lessprofessionalised, are more flexible and can adapt more easily.Networks and collectives also leave the door open for creative,dynamic initiatives that will be sustained by the commitment of theactivists rather than by grants. Their structure, mainly based onvoluntarism, thus less dependent on donors, can have a more importantimpact on society than a professional entity, a view that is sharedby Luther Gerlach, and, to a lesser extent, by Suzanne Staggenborg,for whom professionalisation includes fiscal stability andorganisation maintenance but also entails a decline in militantdirect actionⁱ.

The decisionon the structure of the organisation is, as Valentine M. Moghadamexplains, a result of many factors: conscious choice (an organisationcan make the decision not to have any paid staff or accept anyexternal funding to avoid any kind of cooptation and lose theirindependence), the nature of available resources, the constraints onthe use of those resources and the type of social movementⁱⁱ.If we take the example of Lebanon for example, Nasawiya is a looseorganisation within the women's movement that had made the consciouschoice to avoid NGO-isation and professionalisation in order to allowthe maximum of independence to its members within their initiative,thus enabling a wider independence for the organisation as a whole.Talking with other Lebanese activists, it has become very clear thatmany of them working in more professionalised structures strugglewith the issue of resources: they loathe the competition donorfunding creates between organisations (who they would tend to see asnatural partners in ideology but who become rivals when it comes toaccess to resources), they have issues with the agenda-bending thatdonor trends entail, often estimate the system of donor fundingunsustainable and almost all of them draw a line to what kind offunding they're ready to accept. For example, some organisations havepolicies not to accept funds from USAID while others see no problemin receiving such funds.

Themultiplication of NGOs in the Middle East goes hand in hand with thedevelopment of neo-liberal policies that slowly relieve the State ofits obligations by having NGOs perform what should be its duties.Donor funding only seal this situation by rendering NGOs dependent onthem, thus pulling them into their orbitⁱⁱⁱ,limiting their manoeuvre margin of questioning political regime andsociety. As Stephen J. Klees excellently puts it:

In many countries,cut throat competition developed among NGOs for funding. Those thatsucceeded were too often those which took a more compromising,apolitical stance, if not openly right-wing, and those which met thedevelopment agenda of their funders,or, at least, did not directlychallenge it^iv.

The equationreally is quite simple: if the donor will give you one million USD todo education in certain areas, while developing a partnership withthe Ministry of Education, if you sign that grant agreement you'relegally bound to do so, thus not thinking of being an activist for asystem that is flawed to start with. Apart from being a tool forneo-liberal policies and the demise of the state, donor funding is anexcellent political imperialist tool: through giving funds, donorgovernments define their agenda, thus their vision of the world andtheir political interest, not to mention the information they get outof all the reports they receive on the status of civil society in thecountries they give money to. One of the best illustration of thissituation is the Palestine VAW Strategy that was launched this year:the strategy is mainly supported by the MDG Achievement Fund, astructure mainly funded by the Government of Spain^v.This is how you end up with a much-needed document that could havebeen considered a full victory for women's rights had it not almostskipped the human rights violations Palestinian women suffer on adaily basis at the hands of the Israeli government and apparatus. Thestrategy merely mentions the “ Promoting protection and empowermentmechanisms for women violated by the Israeli occupation”, andthat's about it, undermining the impact of the document.

To go backto our early definition of movements and organisations, it isorganisations that become way too dependent and obedient to donortrends and funding who might end up destroying movements, divertingthem from their very purpose of activism towards positive change.

This is notto say that all NGOs are bad and should be banned from the civilsociety landscape: it wouldn't be fair to discredit the huge amountof work that many committed activists do everyday while working inthese structures. Some NGOs have innovative, creative, challengingprogrammes, carefully choose where they funds come from and try andexplore alternative ways of funding themselves in order to beindependent.

To bringabout real change, NGOs, organisations and movements have to make adaily conscious check not to be coopted or used to advances otherpeople's and countries' agendas, which, while difficult in the shortand mid-term, will prove to be beneficial to societies as a whole inthe long run.

iMoghadam, Valentine M, Globalising Women, Transnational Feminist Networks, John Hopkins University Press, pp 80-82

iiIdem

iii http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9868

iv http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cice/Issues/01.01/PDFs/11klees.pdf

v http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/BRIEF_NationalStrategyToCombatViolenceAgainstWomen.pdf

Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States

2011-09-23T08:39:00.000+02:00

Therevolutionary processes in the Middle East cannot be fully understood withoutan analysis of the role of the Gulf states in the global economy, and asintegrated into the regional construction of US power.

Adam Hanieh, Capitalism and Class in the GulfArab States (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), 266pp.

In an Arab world in turmoil and revolution,understanding the role of the Gulf Arab states is more important than ever. TheGulf states are gathered in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a regional blocof the six oil-rich Arab monarchies led by Saudi Arabia and five othercountries, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman. The politicalstructure of the six GCC states bear strong similarities. In each, the ruler isan hereditary monarch and power is concentrated in a single family thatcontrols the state apparatus and large strata of the economy. Politicalrepression has been the commonplace in all the GCC states. Except in Bahrain,the GCC states have not witnessed popular movements like elsewhere in theregion, other than relatively small demonstrations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia andOman.

Inthe Kingdom of Bahrain, the popular uprising was crushed by the common actionof state repression and the military intervention decided by the GCC, which wasled by Saudi Arabia and backed by Qatar. Nevertheless, demonstrations are stillgoing on today in the country but on a smaller scale. Otherwise, the GCC hasgranted ten billion US dollars to Bahrain and Oman, which were both repressingprotesters, to help them face their political and social crisis. Jordan alsoreceived one billion US dollars from Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom cope withits growing financial burdens and the increasing protests. The Gulf countrieshave not supported the revolutions in other Arab countries and have generallytried to slow or stop the wind of change in the region, while encouraging NATOintervention in Libya, despite the so-called ambivalently positive role ofQatari television Al Jazeera in fostering the various popular movements.

The GCC states are the central concern of thisbook. Hanieh analyses the process of class formation in the Gulf Arab states,and the role of the state in this process. The local capitalist class isreferred to by the term ‘Khaleeji (‘Gulf’ in Arabic) capital’, andHanieh uses it to analyse the patterns of accumulation crystallising in theGCC, which embody also a new set of internationalised social relations.

Hanieh’soriginal contribution here in relation to the GCC states is to show the natureof the state there as a particular expression of class formation. The state isunderstood as a set of social relations that is continually in the process ofcoming into being, rather than as a separate object, severed from the classrelations of Gulf society, such as it usually appears in ‘rentier state’theory. There the state is seen as a distinct sphere of the political economy,with its own strategies free from the constraints of the capitalist class. Thisis why Haneih explains that to speak of the autonomy of the state, both on aneconomic and political perspective, as past and current ‘rentier state’ theorydoes, is misleading for a full understanding of the GCC states.

Thestate is understood as an institutional relation of class, and thus it isimplied that many of the individual personnel related to the institutions ofthe state can simultaneously be considered part of the capitalist class. Thisis actually a pronounced feature of the way capitalism has developed in theGCC, and the capitalist class should be understood as including many statepersonnel and individuals from the ruling family. The reader can observe anumber of examples in the book in which members of the ruling family who holdhigh ranking state positions clearly act simultaneously as part of the privatecapitalist class and in a related fashion, where prominent non-royal privatecapitalists simultaneously serve in the state apparatus.

TheWorld Bank has actually explained that the interpenetration of state andprivate capital is one explanation for the ‘business friendly’ environment inthe Gulf (p.14). Noticing that the private sector in the Gulf included mostlyentrepreneurs either from the ruling families or their close associates, it hasbeen observed that the GCC’s political leadership (often extended familymembers) is large enough to develop the private sector country-wide.

Stateformation is therefore very much intertwined with class formation and plays anactive role in the latter process, as Hanieh explains. He argues rightly thatthe logic of the ‘rentier state’ model, where the development of capitalism isseen as the outcome of actions and decisions by state elites, ‘needs to beturned on its head’ (p.15). Hanieh’s argument defends the perspective that Gulfclass formation has evolved alongside and within the development of a globalcapitalist system, and is best seen as a specific reflection of the capitalist worldmarket as a whole. He goes on to show the global economy as part of the actualessence of Gulf society itself. The process of class formation in the regionneeds to be observed as a unique, spatially specific expression of theintertwining of the tendencies underpinning the development of globalcapitalism.

Haniehdemonstrates how oil should not be considered as a ‘thing’, but as a commodityembedded in a set of globally determined social relations. The book reminds usof the way Marx warned how commodity fetishism itself encouraged attempts toexplain patterns of social development through the presence or the absence of acommodity, rather than through understanding the significance given to thatcommodity by the social relations within which it is situated. It is thesesocial relations that need to be identified and traced if the nature of oil isto be understood. This is why, Hanieh argues, primacy needs to be placed on thewider motion and tendencies of the capitalist world market that confer a particularmeaning to oil as a commodity, centrally located within the reproduction of thesystem as a whole.

Two key features for understanding the developmentof Khaleeji capital are internationalisation and financialisation.Throughout the book, it is made clear the way the development of the globaleconomy, in which both tendencies, internationalisation and financialisationwere present, was reflected in the nature of class formation in the GCC.Concretely, this appears in the patterns of cross border investment flows,intra GCC trade, joint ventures, the establishment of branches andrepresentatives offices, and so forth, while Khaleeji capital observed and participated in the growingfinancial flows of credit, debt and derivatives (pp.89-90).

Theseprocesses of internationalisation and financialisation have been ongoing in theGulf Arab states since the end of the Second World War. The book traces thesuccessive deepening of capital internationalisation through this period,focusing in particular on the continuing expansion of accumulation, leading tothe intermeshing of production and consumption across the globe, and thegrowing significance of finance. The finance circuit actually shows its mostdeveloped expression in the GCC accumulation structure.

Another important component of the book is itsanalysis of migrant labour in the Gulf. He observes the specific character ofthe formation of the working class in the GCC, which is overwhelminglyconstituted by temporary, migrant workers with no citizenship rights. He showshow at a general level, the nature of class in these societies came to bestructured around temporary migrant labour flows from surrounding peripheries,overlaid by a relatively privileged layer of citizens. The book repeatedlyemphasises the strong link between the rise of Khaleeji capital and the very deep exploitation of non-citizenlabour. The 2008 financial crisis showed for example how the GCC states dealtwith migrant workers: they could be deported legally and with relative littleprotest, avoiding any of the potential social dislocation that unemploymentproduced in other countries.

The book shows also how the development of Gulfcapitalism occurred alongside and as part of the region’s ascension as a corezone within the global economy, therefore being integrated into the regionalconstruction of US power. This process indicates that the formation of the Gulfcapitalist class has been subordinated to and integrated with the extension ofUS power at the regional scale. The deepening financialisation andinternationalisation of Khaleeji capital haveonly helped to consolidate the domination of US power on the Gulf.

The political implications of Khaleeji capital’s increasing economic and financial power inthe region has been witnessed in many aspects. Throughout the Middle East,national economies have been strongly penetrated by both state and privatecapital from the GCC. The penetration of the regional space by GCC capitalflows has been accompanied, and this will likely to continue in the future toan even higher degree, by measures to open up economies to these flows and toencourage neoliberal policies. The development of class and state throughoutthe Middle East is therefore more and more deeply wrapped up in the formationof Khaleeji capital andthe processes of internationalisation in the Gulf.

Finally, the book assesses the impact of the 2008global financial crisis on the GCC states and its structures of accumulation,confirming the importance of Khaleeji capital to afull understanding of the GCC political economy. Hanieh shows how the GCCreacted to the crisis by actually reinforcing the position of largeconglomerates and further strengthening the tendencies underlying thedevelopment of Khaleeji capital.

Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States is the first work to be published in English thatgives a full understanding of the formation and development of the Gulfcapitalist class. Hanieh reminds the reader that the state was and is anessential tool in this process. The state is an essential feature of theeconomic rule of the class, and therefore of the constitution of the classitself. In other words, it is not a distinct or separate sphere that isexternal to the ruling class as the ‘rentier state’ theory pretends. This bookallows the reader to see the important role played by GCC countries in theprocess of economic liberalisation in the region, alongside other internationalinstitutions, and its increasing influence in the political economy of eachcountry of the region. The book is a must read for those wishing to understandthe weight of the GCC in the current attempts at counter-revolution, with theassistance of the US, and against the will of popular movements to continue therevolutions in the Middle East and North Africa.

The People Demand, a short history of the Arab revolutions

2011-09-16T10:14:00.000+02:00

Inthis extract from their new book “ThePeople Demand, a short history of the Arab revolutions”, John Rees andJoseph Daher (Café Thawra) consider the relationship between US imperialism andthe popular uprisings across the Arab world.

Youcan find and buy the book on the following link:

http://counterfire.org/index.php/articles/international/14654-out-now-the-people-demand-a-short-history-of-the-arab-revolutions

John Reesand Joseph Daher will be introducing their new book, The People Demand: A shorthistory of the Arab Revolutions. The launch will also feature a shortdocumentary on the Egyptian revolution.

The launchwill take will place at the following venue:

The BookshopTheatre, 51 The Cut

London SE18LF

Wednesday,28 September, 6.30pm

The Arab Revolutions haveunfolded in three distinct phases. In the first phase the Tunisian and Egyptianrevolutions swept all before them. Both the local ruling classes and theimperialist powers failed to predict or to stem the revolutionary wave. The revolutionaryforces, including important mobilisations by workers, were broader and moreunited than elsewhere, partly a product of long years of opposition activity.The armed forces of the state were either broken or neutralised and theirloyalty to the dictators eroded. The result was the toppling of the dictatorsin both countries and the opening up of a longer revolutionary process largelyunimpeded by direct or military responses from the major powers.

The second phase came with the co-ordinated militaryintervention by Saudi-led forces in Bahrain and Western-led forces in Libya.These interventions were more than coincidental in timing. They also involvedthe same state actors. The crushing of the Bahrain revolution was approved byRobert Gates, US Secretary of State for Defense, on a visit to Bahrain justdays before the crackdown, but largely carried out by forces from the GulfStates. The Libya intervention was largely carried out by Western militaryforces with the Gulf states playing the supporting role.

The aim in both cases was the same: to crush andcontrol the emerging revolutionary processes. In Bahrain this was achieved bystraightforward repression. In Libya the military intervention, supposedly toassist the revolution, was actually used to corral and control therevolutionary process, ultimately making it militarily, economically andideologically a vassal of the Western powers. The result has been to impede themarch of the revolution everywhere, in Syria and Yemen, as well as in Bahrain,and Libya itself. The dictators have dug in.

The third, most recent, phase of the revolutionshas been opened up by the impact of the Arab Revolutions on the Palestinianstruggle for freedom. This has had two major elements. Firstly, the Palestinianyouth movement (‘the 15 March movement’) pressured, from below, the dividedPalestinian factions to make moves towards unity. Secondly, the change inEgyptian foreign policy away from unquestioning submission to US wishes helpedcreate the conditions for the peace deal between Hamas and Fatah. Whatever theproblems with the terms on which this unity has been achieved it provides achallenge to US support for Israel, as we show in the next chapter.

Egypt and Tunisia have been invited to the G8 todiscuss events in the Middle East and North Africa, while the InternationalMonetary Fund and the World Bank have been increasingly active towards bothcountries in suggesting new loans and ‘financial assistance’ to help them withtheir social and economic crises.

On Thursday, 19 May, Barack Obama delivered a keyspeech on US policy towards the Middle East. The main message was that the USand the West will pour billions of dollars into the region in support of Egypt,Tunisia and other countries ‘embracing democracy’. This financial assistance,compared to the Marshall Plan, should not be understood as a way to promotedemocracy, but quite the opposite — as a way to co-opt Arab Revolutions andprotect US interests in the region. It is a way to guarantee that, instead offunding social projects, these countries will still be able to pay their debtsto international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF,and so stay within the confines of neoliberal structures. These institutionswill continue to control the socio-economic policies of these countries and topursue policies that impoverish society and the people as whole.

Egypt has a debt of $30 billion, while the Mubarakfamily has a fortune some have estimated at $70 billion. Tunisia’s debt is $5billion and Ben Ali’s fortune has been estimated at $5-8 billion. The debtsincurred by those regimes could be classified as ‘odious debt’, a legal conceptwithin international law which has important consequences. It was juristAlexander Sack, writing in the 1920s, who first defined this principle:

‘If a despotic power incurs a debt not for theneeds or in the interests of the State, but to strengthen its despotic regime,to repress the population that fights against it, etc., this debt is odious forthe population of all the State. This debt is not an obligation for the nation;it is a regime’s debt, a personal debt of the power that has incurred it,consequently it falls with the fall of this power.’

Both countries therefore have the right to refuseto repay these debts. Yet the current regimes in Egypt and Tunisia have askedfor new loans, despite growing criticisms from popular organisations and theleft in each country. The US announced debt relief of as much as $1 billion,along with $1 billion credit, for Egypt. Nobody should think this is a rewardfor democratic advance. Two days before his 19 May speech, Obama pledgedseveral hundred million dollars in aid to King Abdullah of Jordan, despiterepression of popular demonstrations calling for reform over the past fewmonths. And not a single line of Obama’s speech addressed Saudi Arabia, aviolent and retrograde dictatorship that has made no significant attempt atreform but which is one of America’s main oil suppliers and a key politicalally in the region.

Obama made a further speech on Sunday, 22 May topro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Itconfirmed an unbreakable imperialist relationship with Israel, as a strategically in the region that the US needs to secure its interests and to implementimperialist policies. President Obama, who won repeated rounds of applause anda standing ovation, reminded his audience that US financial support for Israelhad reached record levels under his administration. He declared his desire to maintainthe superiority of the Israeli military over its potential adversaries in theregion.

Obama has thus confirmed the continuation of formerPresident Bush’s policy of total support for Israel. Obama’s commitment to asettle- ment based on the 1967 borders ‘with mutual agreed land swaps’ assuresIsrael of US support for the annexation of its West Bank settlements, built inviolation of international law. Obama’s failure to call on Israel to respectthe full and equal rights of the 1.4 million Palestinian citizens of Israellegitimates Israel’s growing raft of racist legislation directed against thePalestinian indigenous community.

The US president further described the region as a‘tough neighborhood’ — a term borrowed from Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu — where Arabs are the violent and barbarian peoples of the MiddleEast and Israeli Jews are the peaceful and civilized ones. Obama has called onPalestinians and their supporters to stop ‘delegitimising’ Israel and accept itas ‘a Jewish state’ that is ‘for the Jewish people’. The term ‘delegitimising’is the word Israel and its supporters have applied to the global Palestinesolidarity movement that calls for equal rights, and in particular to theBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

President Obama also described the Arab Revolutionsas a threat to Israel’s peace with Egypt and Jordan. He therefore advisedIsrael to accelerate the creation of a bantustan Palestinian state. Obamacharacterised the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement as an obstacle to peace.The US president also called Hamas a terrorist organisation, insisting itshould recognise Israel’s right to exist.

The US’ weakening ability to maintain or imposeobedient client dictators on Arab states makes Israel more than ever animportant ally. The warm welcome of Netanyahu by members of the US Congress whogave the Israeli prime minister around 30 standing ovations, shows this.Revolutions and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa have opened upthe possibility of freeing the region from US imperialist domination. The keylies in combining solidarity with revolutionary movements with determinedopposition to the major powers’ attempts to intervene economically and, aboveall, militarily in the region.

The behaviour of the new ‘post-revolution’authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, assisted by Western imperialism, isreminiscent of the approach of Tancredi, nephew of the aristocratic Prince ofSalina, in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel ‘The Leopard’. When asked by thePrince why he is intending to fight with Garibaldi’s revolution against his ownclass, Trancredi answers ‘If we want everything to remain the same, everythingmust change’.

Western imperialism and the new regimes must givethe illusion of change for things to remain the same. The movements in Egyptand elsewhere created a revolutionary process with the power to overthrow thesystem, not merely to gain reforms. They must struggle for a permanentrevolution to achieve far-reaching social and economic change.

Girl Geek Camp Lebanon: Turning Women into Geekettes, one Tweet at a time

2011-09-07T17:15:00.000+02:00

13 faces eagerly looking at you frombehind their computers, all composed and serious. Welcome to theNasawiya second Girl Geek Camp organised in the lovely Auberge Beity of Kfardebian, Lebanon from the 4^th to the 8^thof September.

Over 5 days, about thirteen teenagegirls between the age of 15 and 18 will be trained to become propergeekettes (there's much hope they'll actually become feministGeekettes, but let's not shove anything down people's throats).

The Geek Camp is part of the globalcampaign Take Back the Tech, a campaign that aims at encouragingwomen to reclaim technology to serve their struggle and to actagainst Violence Against Women while giving tools to learn onlinesafety.

The training covers quite a broad rangeof technical fields, such as web development, introduction toblogging, video edition, introduction to photography, illustrationand social media and networks. Issues are not left behind either,with sessions on sexual harassment, with an introduction to the initiative « adventures of Salwa », women's rights,migrants rights and digital activism.

I had the extreme privilege to give twotrainings to the participants and to follow some of the othersessions that were given by trainers such as Maya Zankoul and Abir Ghattas, where I'm pretty sure I learnt as much as they did.

I've often heard older people complainthat it's difficult getting through « the youth », thatthey don't really care much about anything except having fun. Sittingin that room, talking about women's rights with these bright,articulate young women, such statements couldn't have seemed fartherfrom the truth. It's a matter or perception and of self-fulfillingprophecies: if you take people seriously, chances are, they will riseup to the challenge and really get into the sessions, which was whathappened with the Geekettes during the trainings. Taking part in thediscussions while live tweeting, we covered heavy topics such assectarianism, women's rights in Lebanon, Human Rights law and theprinciples underlying this whole body of rules, but also, we talkedabout their perceptions and understanding about Human Rightsviolations, about their opinions with regards to the reasons behindsuch violations. The young women had a very clear and very accuratevision of the items hindering the full enjoyment of their HumanRights, and mentionned religion, traditional practices and beliefs,the sectarian system, prejudices against women's abilities and themedia as the main causes of discrimination against women. The rolethe media played was heavily discussed, with ideas exchanged aroundthe impact ads and magazines had on women's body image, about theextreme emphasis and pressure put on women to reflect society's ideaof beauty. Participants vowed to keep their eyes and ears opened andto report any oppressing billboard or article in their newly-openedblog, to talk about it to their friends and to tweet about it. A goodindicator that they are slowly on their way to Geek Land is thatsocial media was the first thing they mentioned when I ask ed themwhat could they do to fight for their rights and pressure society andthe government to respect and implement such rights:« Butsocial media is not enough, said Marianne, one of the participants,at some stage there will need to be on the ground mobilisation anddemonstrations to demand our rights ». Well, I don't thinkanyone could have said it better.

The Geek Camp was a good kick in theprejudice ant hill: not only are the geekettes interested, motivatedand hard working, but they epitomize the awareness of young women inLebanon and in the region about the different kinds of oppressionthey have to face and how to go on about resisting it. All of this,if you can believe it, without the necessity of an imperialist lessonand intervention.

Many young women are joining ourfeminist collective, Nasawiya, to carry on with their journey offreedom.

As for me, I can't wait for the nextGeek Camp!

To Follow the Geek Camp:

Follow hashtag #GeekCamp on Twitter
Visit the Girl Geek Camp website: http://www.girlgeekcamp.com/
Visit Nasawiya's Website: www.nasawiya.org

Who is the Interim Transitional National Council and what’s next for Libya?

2011-08-26T10:16:00.000+02:00

Qaddafi’s regime is on the verge of falling and living its last hours after the takeover of the capital Tripoli by Libyans opposition forces with the help of NATOs forces and presumably MI6 officers on the ground advising the rebels on the strategy behind the operation, in a plan drawn up weeks ago. The fall of Qaddafi is a victory for the Libyan people and a first path to build a new Libya.

The Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC), established in February by a rebel coalition forged in Benghazi, has vowed recently to hand over power to an elected body within eight months of the downfall of the country’s ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The head of TNC Mustafa Abdel Jalil said the transitional body is necessary “to establish stability” in the country, but Libyans will choose a national congress after the Libyan long-time ruler is forced out of power. He also added that a referendum on a new constitution will be held 20 months after Gaddafi is overthrown.

In the same time, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced a special Libya summit with the heads of the European Union, Arab League and African Union this week in New York, while Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a press conference in Benghazi with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the leader of the ITNC, declared that NATO will continue its military campaign in Libya until full security is established in the nation.

The following question is therefore on everyone minds, especially Libyans: what future for Libya and for whom? To answer this question we first look at the current composition of the ITNC and people close to it, while looking at recent declarations of western powers in regards to Libya.

The ITNC, only an interim?

The ITNC has now been recognized by numbers of countries as the legitimate governing authority. The Arab League released a statement officially recognizing the ITNC, while many western countries have done so such as the US, UK and France.

The ITNC derives its legitimacy from the decisions of local councils set up by the revolutionary people of Libya on the 17th of February, according to its website. The aim of the ITNC is to steer Libya during the interim period that will come after its complete liberation and the destruction of Gaddafi’s oppressive regime. It will guide the country to free elections and the establishment of a constitution for Libya.

The ITNC is composed of a council which consists of thirty one members representing the various cities of Libya from the east to the west and from the north to the south and of an executive board of 15 members. The executive board was dismissed on 8 August 2011 following the assassination of the rebel military commander, Major General Abdul Fatah Younis. The board's chairman Mahmoud Jibril is expected to name members of the new board in due course.

The previous ITNC executive board nevertheless gives us a good picture of the Libyan opposition inside the council divided mainly in two separate groups. The first one is linked to the Qaddafi’s regime and has defected only recently from it to join the opposition. It has strong link with Western countries and were the first one to call for a foreign military intervention.

We find the leader of the ITNC Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned from his position as Gaddafi's justice minister on February 26 in response to the regime's violent crackdown on peaceful protests. He is known for having been supportive of some reform initiatives advanced by Sayf al Islam al Qadhafi and for challenging Muammar al Qadhafi and his supporters regarding due process and incarceration of prisoners in some prominent legal cases during 2009 and 2010. Mahmoud Jibril, Chairman of the INTC's executive board, headed the National Council and the National Economic Development Board in Gaddafi's regime. Mahmoud Jibril is a neoliberal economist who presided over the Gaddafi regime’s neoliberal reforms from 2007 until the uprising. He was involved in asset management for Sheikha Mozah, the politically active wife of the Emir of Qatar. He serves since the uprising as a foreign affairs representative for the Council and some reports suggest he has taken a leadership role in a new executive body attached to the Council. He has worked to secure recognition of the ITNC in meetings with European and U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Clinton. Ali Al Issawi is a foreign affairs representative for the ITNC. He served as Minister of Economy, Trade, and Investment from 2007 to 2009.

This first group led by Jibril and Abdel Jalil, bring a number of supporters with international backing to the executive body council, such as Ministers Tarhouni, Boughaighis, Shareef, El Osta, Shamman and El Alagi.

The second group is composed of long time opponent to the Qaddafi’s regime and has strong links on the ground among the population. They don’t have the international contacts as the first group. Many of them were Human Rights activists.

Abdel Hafez Ghoga, who is the former head of the Benghazi Lawyers Syndicate, is the symbol of this second trend; he is the Vice-Chairman and spokesman for the ITNC. He is described in the Libyan press and among the opposition as a “human rights lawyer and community organizer.” He was initially working to organize a national transitional council at the same time as Mustafa Abdel Jalil and others were working to form the ITNC. The two figures finally agreed to cooperate. Fathi Terbil is the youth representative to the ITNC. He is a legal advocate from Benghazi who represented some families of victims of the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre in which Libyan security forces are alleged to have murdered over 1,000 prisoners to put down an uprising. His arrest and release on February 15, 2011 sparked an initial series of protests and confrontations that eventually fueled the broader uprising. Dr. Salwa Fawzi al Deghali is the Council representative for women. She is a lawyer and a native of Benghazi.

This second group was initially not really in favor of a foreign intervention. Abdel Hafez Ghoga actually said in February in the beginning of the uprising that the newly formed council was not contacting foreign governments and did not want them to intervene. His comments came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was "reaching out" to opposition groups in the east and was prepared to offer "any kind of assistance" to Libyans seeking to overthrow the regime.

The first group led by Jibril and Abdel Jalil, characterized by its international links and who left Qaddafi during the uprising, have been dominant in the ITNC. We can observe this domination by the different declarations of the council in relation to counterterrorism and the IMF. In an statement of the 30 March, the ITNC pledged to work for the enhancement of the important role played by the United Nations, its committees and its task forces on Counter-Terrorism with a full cooperation, to join and commit to all international conventions and protocols relating to Counter-Terrorism, and to work on the legislative and executive levels for the application of provisions and measures contained in it. ITNC announced its readiness in May to work with IMF and declared it would adhere to and support the principles of good governance, accountability and transparency as promoted by the International Monetary Fund. They look forward to when a free and united Libya is able to work with such international institutions to increase fiscal transparency, accountability and best practice, particularly in the management of oil revenues and government expenditures. These policies are influenced by the group who had these international contacts and were implemented by these same personalities when they were with Qaddafi. As a reminder, the ex head of the IMF Stauss Khan few weeks before the uprising was congratulating the Qaddafi’s regime for its successful implementation of neo liberal policies, while the Libyan regime was collaborating these past few years with the US and other western countries in the fight against terrorism. Abdel Jalil also said that the ITNC will respect the treaties signed in the past. This first group is also in favor to incorporate members of Qaddafi’s regime.

The recent reshuffling of the executive board might represent an attempt by the second group and people on the ground within the rebel movement, including homegrown leaders who helped start the uprising, to assert their power by sidelining leaders who had returned from exile and held key posts.

The military leadership of the ITNC is also divided between different sections. The late Major General Abdul Fatah Younis defected from the Qaddafi regime few months ago. He was recently assassinated in unclear circumstances. Omar al Hariri has been a long time rival to Qaddafi, he participated in 1969 anti-monarchy coup alongside Qadhafi, but later was imprisoned and sentenced to death on suspicion of plotting an uprising in 1975. He was finally put under house arrest in 1990 and is now serving as the military affairs representative on the ITNC. Finally, the most controversial personality is the Colonel Khalifah Belqasim Haftar who is presented as CIA asset in the country and turned against Qaddafi in the 1980s. He returned in Libya after living in exile for more than 20 years in the USA and on the CIA payroll. He was given a high ranking military position by the ITNC under Washington’s pressure. The man was loathed by many in the Libyan opposition. Haftar has also been mentioned as a leader of the Libyan Movement for Change and Reform and the Libyan National Army, an armed opposition group reported to have received support from foreign intelligence agencies and alleged to have been involved in past attempts to overthrow Qadhafi.

Tensions among the military leadership were present, especially between Major Gen. Abdul-Fattah Younis and Colonel Khalifah Belqasim Haftar. The hostility between Younis and Haftar led some to believe that the assassination of the former was designed by the CIA in order to clear the way for the latter. However, Younis was not replaced by Haftar but by another early defector from Gaddafi’s regime, Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the Eastern province based in Tobruk prior to his defection. In fact, conditions do not seem to be favorable to the men with the strongest foreign links.

The key issue is that ITNC must remember its role is just as – transitional - and avoid all tactics that prolong its unchecked authority, but that seems not the case, despite the fact that its legitimacy remains contested. It is a widely diverse, self-selected group already facing significant and sometimes lethal division within its ranks.

Western interests and NATO

The Libyan leadership and NATO have actually both declared that this latter would continue its operations until needed. Colonel Roland Lavoie, a spokesman of the NATO declared their military mission has not changed despite the close fall of Qaddafi’s regime. It remains to protect the civilian population, enforce the no-fly zone and the arms embargo. NATO might play a role in Libya in the post-Qaddafi period, another NATO spokesman said.

A 70-page plan actually details Western designs for the occupation of post-Qaddafi Libya, and apparently signed off on by the political leadership of the ITNC has been leaked. The plan includes keeping large portions of the Gadhafian security apparatus intact, with a number of the leaders of the brutal regime’s crackdown left in position on condition of loyalty to the new, pro-West regime. Even more controversial will be the “Tripoli task force,” a 15,000-man force operated by the United Arab Emirates which will, after Gadhafi is out of power, occupy the capital city of Tripoli and conduct mass arrests of Gadhafi’s top supporters. The ITNC confirmed the authenticity of the report, and while the rebel ambassador to the UAE expressed “regret” that the truth had come out he said it was “important that the general public knows there is an advance plan.

In the same time, Davutoglu said he had spoken with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and 10 foreign ministers from the contact group on Libya, to discuss political, economic and military support for Libya during a transition period.

The British Prime Minister declared as well that hundreds of British soldiers could be sent to Libya to serve as peacekeepers if the country descends into chaos.

The future of the Libyan uprising will be played in the following months; the fall of Qaddafi is definitely a victory for the Libyan people, but now there is another struggle to fight: to regain the full control of the revolutionary process which is now in the hands of ex members of Qaddafi regimes who defected only few months ago, and who are ruling with the assistance of their old Western imperialists allies. The Libyans who started the popular uprising must be at the center of the revolutionary process to protect the interests of the Libyan people. They must make clear to the leadership of the ITNC that neither the NATO has a role in the future of Libya, or Western imperialism. Our Libyans brothers and sisters will have to continue their revolution to achieve their initial objectives: a true new Democratic, Social and Anti Imperialist Libya. This is just the beginning for Libyans.

Oil rush in Libya

2011-08-25T10:47:00.000+02:00

The continuing NATO intervention in Libya has been driven by a number of political and economic factors, one of which is the aim of securing control of oil supplies. That means establishing security over major fields, pipelines, refineries and ports in the country.

Libya's former top oil official Shokri Ghanem, who defected from Gaddafi’s government in May, says that some Libyan oil output will restart in a few months, but it will take up to 18 months to return to pre-war levels.

The Libyan rebel oil firm AGOCO has declared that it is technically ready to start oil output in its two eastern fields, with capacity of 250,000 barrels per day (bpd). Security forces hired from the former Libyan army are already at the fields. The firm is waiting for clearance to start production.

Some analysts report that oil service companies, which continued to pay their Libyan crews through the war, say there was relatively little damage to oil facilities during the NATO bombing campaign, led by the US, France and Britain, which started in March. But the resumption of large-scale exports will depend on how quickly repairs can be made to the Ras Lanuf, Melitah and Es Sider oil export terminals, and on how successfully a new government can secure fields and pipelines in areas with comparatively strong support for the old regime.

The leader of the Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil, recently thanked the international community as a whole, singling out those countries that had been especially supportive of the ITNC. We can now expect close relations between the ITNC and those Western countries centrally involved in intervention.

Qatar, whose special forces had trained the ITNC’s "Tripoli Brigade", could expect closer ties and privileged access to Libyan resources in the future, while the ITNC may be less enthusiastic about trade with Russia, China and Brazil, who generally supported a negotiated end to the uprising. All three countries have large oil companies that are seeking deals in Africa.

China urged Libya to protect its investments and said their oil trade benefited both countries, after a Libyan rebel warned that Chinese oil companies could lose out after Gaddafi was toppled. About 75 Chinese companies operated in Libya before the war, involving an estimated 36,000 staff, according to Chinese media. Since then, however, Beijing has courted Libyan rebels by hosting their leaders and sending envoys for talks.

Russian companies, including oil firms Gazprom Neft and Tatneft, also had projects worth billions of dollars in Libya. Brazilian firms such as Petrobras and construction company Odebrecht were also in business there. Aram Shegunts, director general of the Russia-Libya Business Council, concedes that Russia now expects to lose out economically in Libya.

The Turkish energy minister said that Turkey wants state-owned oil and gas exploration company Turkiye Petrolleri (TPAO) to resume oil exploration and production work in Libya if security is established. TPAO has interests in six Libyan oil wells.

Analysts and industry observers have said Italian-based Eni and French company Total could emerge as the big winners in post-war Libya due to their countries' heavy support for the rebels. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini says that staff from Eni have arrived to look into a restart of oil facilities in the country's east. French president Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, invited the head of the ITNC, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, to Paris for consultations.
Italy has in recent years relied on Libya for more than 20 percent of its oil imports. France, Switzerland, Ireland and Austria all depended on Libya for more than 15 percent of their imports before the fighting began.

The strong support from Qatar as well as oil trader Vitol, neither of them producers in Libya before the war, may also guarantee a chunk of reserves going to new players.

The conquest of Libyan oil by foreign countries and big corporations will contradict the ITNC statement made in March that affirmed its commitment to ensure oil revenues will be allocated to the fulfillment of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the Libyan people, such as increased spending on education, health, and other social services.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) once congratulated the Gaddafi regime for its process of economic liberalisation, like selling off national resources including oil and the gas. Such neo-liberal policies were among the main reasons the Arab revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. They impoverished the majority while enriching a small minority in power.

The oil question will be one of the main issues for the Libyan people and the future of the country. Libyan oil must benefit people in Libya first and not imperialist and corporate interests.

Article also available on Counterfire: http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/51/14512

HIV in the Middle East: Everyone's Business

2011-08-12T11:58:00.000+02:00

This article has also been published on ilouban

After reading an article on L'Orient-Le Jour by Nada Merhi on HIV (which by the way is an excellent thing in itself as the subject very rarely makes the mainstream media in Lebanon), I feel there is a need for us to re-humanize the HIV epidemic in the middle east. Indeed, the article speaks about numbers and prevalence rates, which for me misses a crucial point: the actual human lives and walks of life behind rates and numbers. Besides, the strong emphasis on at risk groups in the article and the relative complacency with regards to the situation in the Middle East sparked an uneasy feeling while I was reading it. Now don't get me wrong: Dr. Abu Raddad, the expert quoted in the article from the University of Weil Cornell in Qatar, states nothing but the truth. Indeed, HIV disproportionately affects men who have sex with men in the region, as well as injecting drug users, and the HIV prevalence rate in the region is low compared to other regions^ⁱ. However, what the article fails to underline is that the epidemic trends in the region show a consistent increase on all counts: increase in the number of people living with HIV (2.5 times more over the last decade, from around a 180000 in 2001 to around 460 000 in 2009) increase in the number of people newly infected with HIV, increase of the number of children living with HIV and increase in the AIDS related deaths^ⁱⁱ. This trend is worrying, all the more because consistent data is scarcely available.

The impact of the L'orient Le Jour article could be counter productive, because it tends to over-minimize the HIV presence and potential risk in the region, and most of all, because it does nothing to reduce the discrimination against most vulnerable groups. If a citizen lambda reads that article, he or she will most likely think two things 1) oh I'm not at risk, the prevalence is low and I don't inject drugs and I'm not homosexual and 2) HIV is a disease that only affect people who take drugs and have sex with people of the same gender, so they brought it on to themselves.

As if being a man who has sex with men or an injecting drug user was not difficult enough in our region given the severe stigma both situations already suffer from, the stigmatisation is now reinforced by the common perception that they're the carriers on the virus.

Besides, such beliefs could lower the vigilance of the wider public, thus impairing prevention efforts.

The article quickly says it but it's paramount to reiterate it: HIV can affect and infect each and everyone of us, it could happen to anyone and more at risk groups do not bring anything on themselves, they're more at risk because they're simply more vulnerable, being already judged and shunned aside from society, they have restricted access to information, prevention and treatment. Increasing the stigma will only worsen the situation for society as a whole.

It's a pity that the article misses to say what Dr. Abu Raddad has said in one of his publications “Characterizing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa”: that many married women with no risky behaviour whatsoever are found to be infected by their husbands who themselves engage in risky behaviours, and that, although there are variabilities in the transmission modes according to different countries, heterosexual sex is in several countries of the region the main transmission mode^ⁱⁱⁱ. There are indeed several demonstrated case of married women getting HIV from their husbands, and mentioning it in Ms Merhi's article would have created a sense of equality of human beings in front of HIV rather than the impression of finger pointing one can get while reading her article.

This tail of thought, to think that HIV is confined to at risk groups, is what has driven the lack of political will from Middle Eastern governments to carry out proper consistent studies and awareness raising and education campaigns. Besides, because of the low prevalence, people tend to think HIV is not a priority in the region, while with increasing spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), injection drug users (IDUs), numbers of unemployed youth, a conservative culture and low awareness of HIV the region is especially vulnerable to a large-scale epidemic^{^iv}.

I remember a trainer from the SUPPORT organisation, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of female condoms, who gave last year in Cairo a training on sexual and reproductive health and rights to young women, who were convinced that HIV was not a priority for their region. She told them: “I remember in the early 90's, during a conference in Africa, where no one was really taking HIV seriously, stating it was never going to be a big pandemic in Africa. I came back two years after, and we showed a movie on HIV on the continent, and everybody was weeping, because they had lost family to the disease”.

Let us not weep: our prevalence is low, let us put in every effort to keep it this way and reduce it, until we reach the UNAIDS vision. Zero new HIV infections. Zero Discrimination. Zero AIDS Related deaths.

Because one is already too much.

ihttp://www.unaids.org/documents/20101123_GlobalReport_Chap2_em.pdf

iiIdem

iiiCharacterizing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa: time for strategic actionLaith J. Abu-Raddad, World Bank, Francisca Ayodeji Akala, Iris Semini, Gabriele Riedner,David Wilson, OUSSAMA TAWIL, p. 85-87

ivhttp://rsh.sagepub.com/content/126/4/165.abstract