With Jasmine in the Air
Jasmine, as both the name of the flower and the woman's name, comes from Arabic (and the original Persian) mean "gift of God". In this case, it has been the name the media have come up with for the revolution in Tunisia. Since January 14th when President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled the country after some violent protests. He is still trying to find a safe place to stash himself after Canada told him he was not welcome there. Rumor is, he's finding safe haven in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; it should be noted Idi Amin did the same thing some years ago. The EU and Canada have both started the process for freezing his and his family's assets there. Tunisia has issued an arrest warrant for the former president and is seeking more for his various family members who profited during his reign. Now, the newer events in all this are the more interesting. It's a given that Tunisia will start having a real representative republic of some sort. But given what's going on in Yemen, Egypt, Algeria and even Jordan many observers are starting to wonder if this is the magic moment many have hoped for: democracy sweeping into the Middle East. Others are watching wondering if this is the one thing they have feared most for decades: Muslim fundamentalists having a legitimate, democratically elected government.
Egypt has always been a bulwark of stability and sanity in the Middle East. Long a broker between the US and the Middle East, they have treasured the role of elder statesman. Egypt was one of the first Arab countries to recognize Israel. Egyptian Arabic is taught as the modern standard to foreign students (point of disclosure, mine is Levantine, roughly Syria and Lebanon) and Egypt is the largest close to democracy in the region. All that said, Egypt has had a weird history with representative government. Shortly after signing the Camp David accords that recognize Israel as a state, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. Hosni Mubarak, the vice president, took over and has stayed in power ever since. The way he has done this is by extending the declaration of emergency law that began in 1967 under Gamal Abdel Nasser. Note, this law has only been lifted once for a brief time in 1980. This law allows Mubarak to ban political parties, commit many human rights abuses and generally keep the country running the way he wants. The upside, terrorists really don't have a great foothold in Egypt. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's right hand man, is Egyptian from a prominent family and one his biggest grievances is the lack of freedom for Muslim theocracy in Egypt. so, as things started to take off in Tunisia, Egypt responded by cracking down. this has led to more protests. Which has led to more violence and abuses by the Egyptian government. Egypt then did the unthinkable in the modern era, they shut down Twitter, Facebook and almost all of the internet coming in and out of the country. A British journalist was arrested and secretly taped his mistreatment and managed to get it back to the BBC. To top all of this off, Egypt's leading political force, Mohammed el-Baradei has returned to Egypt seemingly to lead the revolution.
Yemen is a country known for not much other than being a neighbor of Saudi Arabia and a little nutty. We've had plenty of drone attacks there since that's where so many terrorists for Al-Qaeda are turning up in the Arabian peninsula. Yemen has long been one of the poorer nations in the area. Outside of the capital of Sana'a, most people are nomadic to varying degrees but the government is pretty close to a real republic. Again, the president is a strongman who has been in power for decades, but he's been a fighter against terrorist, so the US likes him. The problem is, people are poor, uneducated and not much has improved in government services since they became their own country. The twist in all this is that a lot of the forces complaining about the government being so bad are often the same people who are recruiting for Al-Qaeda and generally want a more theocratic government with stiffer rules. They don't want a full on republic with full rights for women and religious minorities, they just want to be in charge and the best way to get there is to topple the current government by stoking the fires of people being pissed off about a lack of responsive government. The US is FAR more freaked out by this than by Egypt because Egypt has always been trying to play at least two sides against the middle and Yemen is just too small to try that but JUST big enough to be a real problem if a Taliban style government were to be voted into office. Being right across the gulf from Somalia also makes it precarious in terms of weapon and arms smuggling into the Arabian Peninsula. The terrorist types have funding to actually make this kind of thing a possibility, and if people are pissed enough to think "anything is better than this guy" then they're in some shit.
Algeria, another former French colony like Tunisia, is also mid rebellion, or at least mid protests. Unlike other places, these protests aren't just protesting for the fun of it. Yes, like Tunisia and Egypt, there have been "emergency measures" in place since 1992 after a coup came to power. They're also protesting a lack of food, in addition to unemployment, government oppression, corruption and poor living conditions. Of course, the protests, like the protests in other countries, are not the simple, fun annoying protests that are daily occurrences in Washington DC. These are closer to riots and there are body counts, dozens arrested and lives upturned. Algeria hasn't seen riots like this since the 1991 coup which brought the current government to power. And like all good revolutionaries, they hate competition. These riots are odd in that there are no political parties, unions or other groups behind them; this really is what the Tea Party thinks it is: a popular uprising without political attachment other than "change the status quo". Unlike Egypt, though, Algeria has attempted to alleviate the food problems by reversing government policies that led to food prices skyrocketing. Algeria, like Tunisia, is a north African country that was a French colony that has made its made way in the world by being anti-Communist when the tide was right and anti-terrorist when that tide was right. Of course, the problem being is that when a leader is that focused on external affairs, the internal affairs end up suffering, which means the people end up suffering which means trouble when people get the scent that their oppressors might be able to be taken down. So Algerians, seeing how well revolution worked in Tunisia and how well it seems to be pissing off Egypt, are now set on having a little rebellion of their own, including self-immolation to prove a point.
The trick is where this leaves everything. Egypt was long seen as one of the most stable countries in the Middle East. Egypt has been a leader since the days of Abdel Nasser and Mubarak was seen as a man who allowed Islam to exist BUT kept it in heavy check so he could retain power, which is respected by many. However, as Egypt cracks down harder and harder and more friends in Europe and the US stop being able to support him as openly, he will be stuck in a quandary. Right now, the country that supports them the most is Israel. Why? Israel and Egypt are both committed to sealing up Gaza and recognizing Israel. If a group like the Muslim Brotherhood takes power, the first thing they'll likely do is stop the land embargo of Gaza and maybe even send supplies and materiel across the border. Of course, Israel's not stupid and they're trying not to say this all too loudly, lest it fan the flames of anti-Israel sentiment in the rioting Egyptians. All that said, the tighter President Mubarak clamps down, the angrier the people get. If it actually gets all the way to executions, that will be BIG trouble since everyone loves a good martyr. If Mubarak falls, however, every other Arab nation will be running for cover. Hell, Iran is already trying to preempt spreading revolution by hanging its own revolutionaries and hoping no one notices. What is Egypt left to do? They just had elections recently and if El-Baradei is back in the country and looking for a leadership position in all this, he's too well respected and well known to just disappear quietly. People wanted him to run in the last election and he didn't because he didn't want to give legitimacy to what he thought was an illegitimate election. If he manages to actually come to real power, he might provide an honest bulwark between Islamic fanaticism and Mubarak's dictatorship. If we're lucky, this will lead to more governments in the Middle East that are popularly elected, honest and non-fanatical all at the same time; a true groundswell uprising of real democracy.
Which means one man in Tunisia might pull off what Bush wanted but never could, a wave of revolution in the Middle East.
So it is written, so do I see it.
Egypt has always been a bulwark of stability and sanity in the Middle East. Long a broker between the US and the Middle East, they have treasured the role of elder statesman. Egypt was one of the first Arab countries to recognize Israel. Egyptian Arabic is taught as the modern standard to foreign students (point of disclosure, mine is Levantine, roughly Syria and Lebanon) and Egypt is the largest close to democracy in the region. All that said, Egypt has had a weird history with representative government. Shortly after signing the Camp David accords that recognize Israel as a state, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. Hosni Mubarak, the vice president, took over and has stayed in power ever since. The way he has done this is by extending the declaration of emergency law that began in 1967 under Gamal Abdel Nasser. Note, this law has only been lifted once for a brief time in 1980. This law allows Mubarak to ban political parties, commit many human rights abuses and generally keep the country running the way he wants. The upside, terrorists really don't have a great foothold in Egypt. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's right hand man, is Egyptian from a prominent family and one his biggest grievances is the lack of freedom for Muslim theocracy in Egypt. so, as things started to take off in Tunisia, Egypt responded by cracking down. this has led to more protests. Which has led to more violence and abuses by the Egyptian government. Egypt then did the unthinkable in the modern era, they shut down Twitter, Facebook and almost all of the internet coming in and out of the country. A British journalist was arrested and secretly taped his mistreatment and managed to get it back to the BBC. To top all of this off, Egypt's leading political force, Mohammed el-Baradei has returned to Egypt seemingly to lead the revolution.
Yemen is a country known for not much other than being a neighbor of Saudi Arabia and a little nutty. We've had plenty of drone attacks there since that's where so many terrorists for Al-Qaeda are turning up in the Arabian peninsula. Yemen has long been one of the poorer nations in the area. Outside of the capital of Sana'a, most people are nomadic to varying degrees but the government is pretty close to a real republic. Again, the president is a strongman who has been in power for decades, but he's been a fighter against terrorist, so the US likes him. The problem is, people are poor, uneducated and not much has improved in government services since they became their own country. The twist in all this is that a lot of the forces complaining about the government being so bad are often the same people who are recruiting for Al-Qaeda and generally want a more theocratic government with stiffer rules. They don't want a full on republic with full rights for women and religious minorities, they just want to be in charge and the best way to get there is to topple the current government by stoking the fires of people being pissed off about a lack of responsive government. The US is FAR more freaked out by this than by Egypt because Egypt has always been trying to play at least two sides against the middle and Yemen is just too small to try that but JUST big enough to be a real problem if a Taliban style government were to be voted into office. Being right across the gulf from Somalia also makes it precarious in terms of weapon and arms smuggling into the Arabian Peninsula. The terrorist types have funding to actually make this kind of thing a possibility, and if people are pissed enough to think "anything is better than this guy" then they're in some shit.
Algeria, another former French colony like Tunisia, is also mid rebellion, or at least mid protests. Unlike other places, these protests aren't just protesting for the fun of it. Yes, like Tunisia and Egypt, there have been "emergency measures" in place since 1992 after a coup came to power. They're also protesting a lack of food, in addition to unemployment, government oppression, corruption and poor living conditions. Of course, the protests, like the protests in other countries, are not the simple, fun annoying protests that are daily occurrences in Washington DC. These are closer to riots and there are body counts, dozens arrested and lives upturned. Algeria hasn't seen riots like this since the 1991 coup which brought the current government to power. And like all good revolutionaries, they hate competition. These riots are odd in that there are no political parties, unions or other groups behind them; this really is what the Tea Party thinks it is: a popular uprising without political attachment other than "change the status quo". Unlike Egypt, though, Algeria has attempted to alleviate the food problems by reversing government policies that led to food prices skyrocketing. Algeria, like Tunisia, is a north African country that was a French colony that has made its made way in the world by being anti-Communist when the tide was right and anti-terrorist when that tide was right. Of course, the problem being is that when a leader is that focused on external affairs, the internal affairs end up suffering, which means the people end up suffering which means trouble when people get the scent that their oppressors might be able to be taken down. So Algerians, seeing how well revolution worked in Tunisia and how well it seems to be pissing off Egypt, are now set on having a little rebellion of their own, including self-immolation to prove a point.
The trick is where this leaves everything. Egypt was long seen as one of the most stable countries in the Middle East. Egypt has been a leader since the days of Abdel Nasser and Mubarak was seen as a man who allowed Islam to exist BUT kept it in heavy check so he could retain power, which is respected by many. However, as Egypt cracks down harder and harder and more friends in Europe and the US stop being able to support him as openly, he will be stuck in a quandary. Right now, the country that supports them the most is Israel. Why? Israel and Egypt are both committed to sealing up Gaza and recognizing Israel. If a group like the Muslim Brotherhood takes power, the first thing they'll likely do is stop the land embargo of Gaza and maybe even send supplies and materiel across the border. Of course, Israel's not stupid and they're trying not to say this all too loudly, lest it fan the flames of anti-Israel sentiment in the rioting Egyptians. All that said, the tighter President Mubarak clamps down, the angrier the people get. If it actually gets all the way to executions, that will be BIG trouble since everyone loves a good martyr. If Mubarak falls, however, every other Arab nation will be running for cover. Hell, Iran is already trying to preempt spreading revolution by hanging its own revolutionaries and hoping no one notices. What is Egypt left to do? They just had elections recently and if El-Baradei is back in the country and looking for a leadership position in all this, he's too well respected and well known to just disappear quietly. People wanted him to run in the last election and he didn't because he didn't want to give legitimacy to what he thought was an illegitimate election. If he manages to actually come to real power, he might provide an honest bulwark between Islamic fanaticism and Mubarak's dictatorship. If we're lucky, this will lead to more governments in the Middle East that are popularly elected, honest and non-fanatical all at the same time; a true groundswell uprising of real democracy.
Which means one man in Tunisia might pull off what Bush wanted but never could, a wave of revolution in the Middle East.
So it is written, so do I see it.