Hallward and Zizek on North Africa

Both Peter Hallward and Slavoj Zizek have published pieces (here and here) on the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in the "Comment is Free" Section of The Guardian.

Hallward argues that:

Routine reference to "the will of the people" has long been one of the most formulaic turns of phrase in the modern political lexicon. The actual mobilisation of such a will, however, is less easily dismissed. Ongoing protests in Egypt – and in Algeria, and Yemen, and Jordan, indeed throughout the Middle East – may well oblige their governments to decide fairly soon whether they mean what they say.

Of course, if you read the comments section for this article (at your own risk!), Hallward's claim that in the streets of Tunisia and Egypt we see the will of the people is driving plenty of conservatives and parliamentarian liberals crazy (viz. 'how do you know!?'). I suppose they think that you've either got to be standing there interviewing however many hundred-thousand people there, or maybe taking a poll with a ballot box or two. His fundamental point is correct: we know it's the will of the people when every reformist gesture and every so-called concession brings more people out into the street, reinforcing the revolutionary and collective practice of the uprisings. Hallward again, with reference to Fanon:

Rejecting all distraction through "negotiation" or "development", Fanon insisted on decisive action here and now – the goal was not to reform an intolerable colonial situation over an interminable series of steps, but to abolish it. The "fundamental characteristic of the struggle of the Algerian people", Fanon maintained, is suggested by their "refusal of progressive solutions, their contempt for the 'stages' that might break the revolutionary torrent, and induce them to abandon the unshakable will to take everything into their hands at once". The fate of their revolution depends on the people's "co-ordinated and conscious" participation in their ongoing self-emancipation.

In today's Tunisia and Egypt, as in 1950s Algeria, to affirm the will of the people is not to invoke an empty phrase. Will and people: rejecting the merely "formal" conceptions of democracy that disguise our status quo, an actively democratic politics will think one term through the other. A will of the people, on the one hand, must involve association and collective action, and will depend on a capacity to invent and preserve forms of inclusive assembly (through demonstrations, meetings, unions, parties, websites, networks). If an action is prescribed by popular will, on the other hand, then what's at stake is a free or voluntary course of action, decided on the basis of informed and reasoned deliberation.

Zizek, without any references to movies or chocolate laxatives, attacks the hypocrisy of Western commentators:

What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will happen next? Who will emerge as the political winner? [...]

Here, then, is the moment of truth: one cannot claim, as in the case of Algeria a decade ago, that allowing truly free elections equals delivering power to Muslim fundamentalists. Another liberal worry is that there is no organised political power to take over if Mubarak goes. Of course there is not; Mubarak took care of that by reducing all opposition to marginal ornaments, so that the result is like the title of the famous Agatha Christie novel, And Then There Were None. The argument for Mubarak – it's either him or chaos – is an argument against him.

The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly supported democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on behalf of secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all deeply concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance? Today, more than ever, Mao Zedong's old motto is pertinent: "There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent."

The North African and Middle Eastern Revolutions: Which Side are You On?

Today CNN published an article titled "Egypt protests draw mixed reaction in region." The wrong reaction is only coming from sources or supporters of African and Middle Eastern dictatorships. What happened in Tunisia, what is happening in Yemen, Jordan,Algeria, and Egypt (more to come?) is straightforward: people are calling for basic human rights they have long been denied. Most of these dictatorships have been and are heavily supported by the US government and other nations. If a person or group does not unequivocally support these revolutions, the Egyptian one in particular,then that person or group sides with slaughter, torture, and all forms of oppression. Here is what the article shows:

Saudi Arabia "strongly condemns" the protest, it said. Mubarak assured the Saudi king "that the situation is stable" and that the protests "are merely attempts of groups who do not want stability and security for the people of Egypt, but rather they seek to achieve strange and suspicious objectives..."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Mubarak and "affirmed his solidarity with Egypt and and his commitment to its security and stability," according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa...

Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, told Israel's Channel 10 that he recently spoke with Mubarak, who told him that "this is not Beirut and not Tunis" and suggested that Egyptian authorities had prepared the army in advance...Ben Eliezer is known to be the Israeli politician with the best personal relationship with Mubarak...

What is the US position? Vice President Joe Biden said on PBS News Hour, "Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator."

The most horrid comments come from John Bolton on Fox News!!! Then watch Gibbs mumble his garbage about Obama's position. By the way, unlike what Bolton said, Islamists have played a very small roll in all this.

I want to encourage all supporters of freedom to mobilize and demonstrate, call politicians, or whatever, to side with the Arabs against despotism. Lets be on the right side of history!

Tunisia's Freedoms

"Freedom," as Matthew Arnold observed, "is a very good horse to ride, but to ride somewhere." With protesters now demanding the ouster of the interim government, and today, the breaching security barriers to march on to government buildings, our Western intelligentsia is beginning to feel ambivalent (and that's putting it nicely!) about where--to extend the metaphor--these horses are going. Let's just look at some recent 'voice of record' NYT op-eds. Robert D. Kaplan (anti-democratic ideologue author of The Coming Anarchy) is already telling us that we ought to be careful what we wish for:

Another thing to keep in mind: in terms of American interests and regional peace, there is plenty of peril in democracy. It was not democrats, but Arab autocrats, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, who made peace with Israel. An autocrat firmly in charge can make concessions more easily than can a weak, elected leader — just witness the fragility of Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank government. And it was democracy that brought the extremists of Hamas to power in Gaza. In fact, do we really want a relatively enlightened leader like King Abdullah in Jordan undermined by widespread street demonstrations? We should be careful what we wish for in the Middle East.

And Roger Cohen, wants those people out of the streets where things are getting shaken up, and into the polls where only a few ballots might get roughed up (and note how shamelessly he slips a bit of racism in there):

So I’d bear with Ghannouchi so long as his government works for rapid presidential and then legislative elections. [...] That’s right: chaos cannot prepare a credible vote. This is a nation where the most significant legal opposition group, the Progressive Democratic Party, boasts 1,000 members. Ahmed Bouazzi, a member of its executive committee, said, “We are walking on eggs:” the interior minister has blood on his hands, the defense minister once did sweet deals for the former first lady, the P.D.P. underplayed its hand in joining the government with a single minister — for regional economic development. Should the party now push for more?Through an open window a shout came up accusing the P.D.P. of selling out. “That’s good — free speech!” said a party member. There are going to have to be painful trade-offs if Tunisia is to demonstrate — finally — that nothing in the Arab genome [WTF?!] means one dictator must follow another.

Today I spent some time reading Richard Seymor's takes (there are multiple posts) at Lenin's Tomb, and he's quite clear about why Western pundits prefer that the masses only admire freedom rather than ride it somewhere, why we should be wary of the narrative that our media are slowly spinning:

the class character of the revolt is coming more clearly to the fore. The New York Times reports that the character of the protests has been changing, as middle class layers have accepted the new situation and celebrated a 'new freedom', while those still protesting are "more working class". But this is also a blow to imperialism, in the sense that it will prove difficult to impose a regime that simply cleaves to the solutions of the IMF and EU.

This is precisely one of the reasons why the working class protesters want the RCD  [Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique] out. Which is not to say that the IMF and EU will lose their leverage over Tunisia. Nor is it likely in the immediate term that Tunisia would withdraw from its treaty commitments to Africom, and thus from its role in the wider structure of US imperial control in the African continent. But if, as seems increasingly possible, the revolt spreads and takes down some other pro-American regimes in Egypt, Jordan or Algeria, then Obama has problems.

Revolution In Tunisia

The January, 22 Sydney Morning Herold published an article that pinpoints the implications of the revolution in Tunisia. I will post some excerpts:

Only fools talk with certainty of what might happen next. But with all the caveats that follow, last week's revolt in a postage-stamp nation on the southern shores of the Mediterranean has to be seen as a ''maybe'' turning-point for a region in which greedy old men and their extended families are practised at stealing the power and wealth of their people; and for the most part, getting away with it as the rest of the world averts its gaze...

Restless, jobless and ambitious, these young people are increasingly angry because of a tactical mistake by their dictatorial leaders - they educated them, not knowing that they would graduate in an era in which the internet and social media might be weapons of choice for would-be revolutionaries.

If revolt can happen in a backwater like Tunisia then theoretically at least, it can happen anywhere. With food riots in Algeria; anger at price jumps in Jordan; the collapse of government in Lebanon; stepped-up repression in Iran and the farce of democracy and human rights as they are practised by corrupt leaders across the region, Tunisians rarely came into the frame as likely revolutionaries...

The Egyptian-born writer Mona Eltahawy is eloquent on this: "Not once in my 43 years have I thought that I'd see an Arab leader toppled by his people. It is nothing short of poetic justice that it was neither Islamists nor invasion-in-the-name-of-democracy that sent the waters rushing on to Ben Ali's ship but, rather, the youth of his country."

Her point is this: unlike the crushing humiliation for Arabs in the ousting of Saddam Hussein by the American-led invasion of Iraq, the home-driven demise of Ben Ali in Tunisia is something that Arabs might emulate with pride...

Could this be the start of the year, or perhaps the decade of the Arab people? There's a giddiness in the air. But because of what the people of Tunisia have already achieved, the editor of Egypt's Al-Distoor newspaper, Taalat Rumaiah, cannot be dismissed entirely when he tells The Guardian: "We can expect things to replicate in Egypt - it's possible that two or three other Arab regimes could fall this year because of popular uprisings."