RANT: Egypt's Clash of Civilizations

Chaos continues to rock Egypt.

The country has been gripped in a vice of popular uprising and all-out dissent for weeks now, very much in the aftermath of the highly controversial and divisive constitutional vote that has almost but swept the Muslim Brotherhood and sharia law into this brave land.


Photo courtesy of Russia Today (RT)

The outrage is palpable - and very real. For, as I see it from the outside and from afar, it is the clash between those (mostly urban) who desperately want a secular, democratic post-Mubarak Egypt, versus those Islamic (mostly rural- and poor-supported) fundamentalists, decidedly undemocratic forces that have been fermenting for years in that country, and who now very much have the upper hand.  

Is this synoptic analysis the musings of a typical Westerner who does not understand the complexities of Egyptian politics and society? I believe not. Whilst I would never, ever presume to be an expert on Egyptian issues and societies, nor am I that clueless about history and the machinations of how society falls apart when it is plain to see secular forces on the one side, and religious fundamentalist forces on the other.

The recent declaration by a court in Port Said to sentence a group of supporters to death for their 'role' in causing a stampede and subsequent riot at a football match in that port town, which resulted in many deaths, is indicative of in just what serious trouble this country is.

Sentenced to death for (possibly) contributing to people dying at a football stampede? It's madness - it is the rot of a society completely in disarray, with no notion of due process and with no firm moral compass. 

In my opinion, that immense, primal clash between these two forces are plain to see in current-day Egypt. And I defy anyone to see it as anything else - essentially and fundamentally, that is, and with all the nuances and peculiarities of the Egyptian context and reality, of course. And with all due respect to all involved.

However, history is more common to all of us than not. And as a secular humanist, I cannot sit back and see what is going on in Egypt for anything less than what it fundamentally appears to be - the clash between the secular and the religious. And I know for which side I must root. 

In the clash between modern Enlightenment values (which is the only way forward for any modern, democratic state, regardless of ethnicity, history or religious persuasion) and religious barbarism, one cannot sit back impassively. One must get angry - and worried. Religious fundamentalism of any kind is a cancerous, festering wound on any society, and must be vilified and fought at every turn.

That is why I hope that the demonstrators in Egypt keep fighting and baying for the ouster of President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood henchmen - they have no choice in the matter. It's either fight, fight, fight, or be turned into yet another society shackled by religious fanatics - fanatics who are far more cynical and sinister than any secular forces could ever be.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Mors(i)ls of Egyptian Democracy

The outcome of Egypt's Arab Spring has been leaving me very uneasy for some time now. What was so exciting and so energizing for me to witness on TV and on the Internet last year, has become disconcerting and disturbing. 

Because for some time now I have realized that democracy and a 'new dawn' in Egypt has been nothing more than smoke and mirrors and wishful thinking. An excellent article by Chris Hedges posted on Monday on the Common Dreams website has offered me the insight into the Egyptian situation that I have been wanting and know that I have been missing.

Things have come to a head in Egypt with the first round voting for the country's new Constitution, which formed the basis for Hedges' article, and which is entitled. "Morsi: Egypt's New Pharaoh."


Courtesy of Carlos Latuff at Latuff Cartoons

President Mohamed Morsi has been unsettling more than just a few million people in his own country. Many liberal and progressive thinkers and activists, both within Egypt and worldwide, now know that Morsi is part of a much wider and deeper and malevolent conspiracy to achieve absolute power in Egypt - power that is anything but democratic. As Hedges reports:
"It is the story of most revolutions. The moderates, who are crucial to winning the support of the masses and many outside the country, become an impediment to the consolidation of autocratic power. Liberal democrats, intellectuals, the middle class, secularists and religious minorities including Coptic Christians were always seen by President Mohamed Morsi and his Freedom and Justice Party—Egypt’s de facto political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood—as “useful idiots.” These forces were essential to building a broad movement to topple the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. They permitted Western journalists to paint the opposition in their own image. But now they are a hindrance to single-party rule and are being crushed."

So that is what all the 'brotherhood' on the streets of Cairo last year was a ll about - it wasn't about the brotherhood of men trying to topple the odious Mubarak regime, but the Muslim Brotherhood of men trying to topple the odious Mubarak regime. Except they were behind the scenes rubbing their hands with glee as they used their "useful idiots" and now manipulate their puppet, Morsi, to do their political bidding.
As Hedges states:
"The referendum masks the real center of power, which is in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood. The party has no intention of diluting or giving up that power. For example, when it appeared that the Supreme Constitutional Court would dissolve the panel—stacked with party members—that was drafting the new constitution, the Brotherhood locked the judges out of the court building. Three dozen members of the panel, including secularists, Coptic Christians, liberals and journalists, quit in protest. The remaining Islamists, in defiance of the judges, held an all-night session Nov. 29 and officially approved the 63-page document."

He continues by adding:
"The draft constitution is filled with disturbingly vague language about democratic rights, civil liberties, the duties of women and the role of the press. It gives Islamic religious authorities control over the legislative process and many aspects of daily and personal life. One reason the constitution is expected to pass, apart from voting fraud, is because many liberals, secularists and Copts have walked away in disgust from electoral participation."


Hedges is of the opinion that the Brotherhood were reluctant when the Arab Spring took hold in Tahrir Square and spread all over Cairo and beyond in early 2011, only to seize the opportunity as events unfolded. I am not so sure. Hedges definitely knows his Middle East politics far better than I, but somehow I feel that the Muslim Brotherhood may have very well manipulated this whole 'Spring' far more than he thinks, probably from the very outset.
How very, very nifty and cunning of the Brotherhood. And how very stupid I feel - the gullible, naive Westerner so convinced that real, meaningful change was coming to the nation of the Nile. Stupid, naive me.

And now the Muslim Brotherhood orchestrates their grand takeover of Egyptian politics, society and life. And up in smoke will go the aspirations of a democratic, secular dawn for Egypt. Now all it seems is that an authoritarian, Islamist nightmare awaits that nation.

What a waste all of that emotion and jubilation and blood of Tahrir Square, as yet another nation is laid waste to the grubby, vicious fanaticism of religious fundamentalism.

What a great, great shame.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: A Positive Anniversary - Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution

As this week saw a shameful anniversary like that of Guantanamo Bay, so it too saw an anniversary to be celebrated - Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution is one-year old.



It was the genesis of a year of street protests and People Power all over the world; the very germination of what became known as the Arab Spring.

However many disappointments may have occurred in the aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution, and however many doubts may yet exist on the outcome of this Revolution, it must still remain a momentous, gigantic occasion for which Tunisians must be justifiably proud.

As with all revolutions that topple terror, greed and corruption, and free a people from that, every one of us is ultimately indebted to those who fought for those freedoms.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: This TIME They Got It Right

Time Magazine is not what it used to be. Once it was a news-breaking, world-renowned news magazine that often broke and set the tone of international news. Now it is nothing more than bitsy, crass reporting, yet another reflection of the slow, excruciating demise of meaningful journalism. Time became purveyor of the superficial, soundbite drivel that masquerades as journalism today.

The lowest common denominator pandered to yet again in an era of dumbed down, inattentive and commercial banality.

And very often Time would get their Man or Person of the Year very, very wrong. Rudy Giuliani or Mark Zuckerberg, anyone? Uh huh…

However, this year Time Magazine got it very, very right.

Their Person of the Year for 2011 was not a famous man or woman or any of the other, usual and ‘famous’ suspects. Instead, it was the man, the woman, the very person that came to epitomise 2011, and deserve all the kudos. Their Person of the Year was the very embodiment of an exciting, historic and, yes, watershed year – it was The Protester.

The Protester in Tunis, Cairo, Sana’a, Bahrain, Homs, Amman, Benghazi, Athens, Barcelona, Madrid, London, Paris, Minsk, New York, Oakland, Portland, Los Angeles, Rome, and everywhere else this year was the collective awakening of those ordinary people sick to death of the corruption, the greed, the power elites that are robbing our very future and our very humanity.

The Protester is everyone of us who has had enough and knows that the system, wherever and whatever that ‘system’ might be, is rotten to the very core.

Well done, Time Magazine. At least this time you got it right.

MAN OF THE YEAR 2011: Mohamed Bouazizi

My chosen Man of the Year for 2011 is a man who died on only the fourth day of this year. He was not a famous man. He was not a man of any great consequence, so to speak. He led an unremarkable, ordinary life in the small North African country of Tunisia.

He was a simple fruit seller.

Yet, after years of petty harassment and abuse at the hands of authorities in the small town of Sidi Bouzid, and at his wits end, he had finally had enough. So it was that on December 17th 2010, after having his plight ignored by the local governor, this man stood in the middle of traffic and set fire to himself in protest against the corruption and abuse of power he could no longer tolerate.

His words shouted out as he set fire to himself? "How do you expect me to make a living?"

This man was Mohamed Bouazizi.



He was just 26 years of age.

His act of desperate defiance became an instant cause celebre in Tunisia, and he remained in a coma for 18 days until his death on January 4th 2011.



More than 5000 people attended his funeral and many were heard shouting out that his death would be avenged and never be forgotten...

That would be putting it mildly.

Within days after his death, a welling up of public outrage and disgust against the despised regime of President Ben-Ali erupted in the streets of Tunisia, and within weeks one of the longest-running and most brutal dictatorships in the Arab world collapsed...no, to be more precise, it was toppled; topped by sheer People Power.

What happened in Tunisia in the early weeks of 2011 stunned the entire world.

And so the Arab Spring was born.

It was a veritable house of cards that fell in one of the most repressed and undemocratic regions in the world:

• Egypt - the overwhelming, joyous overthrow of the most reviled and powerful of them all, Hosni Mubarak
• Yemen - which will yet fall
• Syria - on the brink
• Libya - Qaddafi was goodriddance, even if his ouster by being murdered was barbaric and if for mostly wrong and no doubt the most cynical reasons
• Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, even the UAE - dictatorships all, and all very, very, very worried
• Saudi Arabia - can we hope?

And so the Arab Spring continues. It continues to galvanize not only the Arab world but similar people revolts all over the world - the Occupy Wall Street movement of New York, Portland, Oakland and numerous other US cities and cities worldwide, the sit-ins of Madrid, Barcelona, London and Rome, the rage of Athens - it goes on and on and on.

A groundswell of outrage by ordinary people all over the world, sick and tired of the lies and manipulation and outright obscene greed of the super rich and their corporate-politico puppets. A rage that marks 2011 as a watershed year for humanity, much as were 1789 or 1848 or 1968 or 1989...

And all because one man decided he could take the abuse of power no more, and whose desperate act of defiance is a mirror to all of us who have simply had enough.

For all those reasons, and many, many more, I do not hesitate in making Mohamed Bouazizi my Man of the Year for 2011.

He is a our everyman, a martyr for humanity.

RAVE: It Says It All - Arab Spring 'Eggs'

This cartoon I came across today really says it all:



It's brilliant.

The Arab Spring does seem to continue unabated as summer unfolds in the Maghreb and Middle East:

Tunisia: The proud birthplace of this 'Spring' continues to have its issues as its people try to reach their objectives against a stubborn ruling class. Power to the People.

Egypt: Mubarak was justly booted out - but now the people are back in the streets and in the iconic Tahrir Square demanding the Army follow through on its reform promises. As they rightly should demand. Power to the People.

Bahrain: The Saudis had to be called in to bail out the ruler, in what was a shocking display of  authoritarian muscle-flexing. But the people have won some concessions for now. Power to the People.

Yemen: A total mess for now, it must be said, but the 20-odd years regime was shook to the core and reforms are still on the cards in this poorest of Arab countries. Power to the People.

The other two remaing eggs yet to be fully broken:

Libya: The most 'testy' egg of all. Yes, the current conflict to 'aid the rebels' against Gaddafi may indeed be very cynical on the part of the United States, EU and Nato. Libya's oil reserves no doubt are key to all of their 'help'. But, nevertheless, Gaddafi's days do appear to be numbered and there is no denying that the Arab Spring 'flu' caught on here, regardless of geopolitics. Power to the People.

Syria: This egg needs to be broken. Assad, for all his preachings of being a 'reformer', has been brutal in his suppression of protests and killed hundreds of his people in the process. He is no democrat and it seems the bastard needs to go. I hope the Syrians are up for it. Power to the People.

The Moroccan king has been smart (not to mention scared?) enough to hastily call for reforms in order to ensure national unity, as did the government of Algeria to a lesser extent...for now. I have no doubt that the governments of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and even Iran continue to watch this Spring very nervously.

As ever, power to the peoples of the Arab Maghreb and Middle East. May their Spring continue, with all its many challenges and complexities.

Do you get my point?