Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Monday, 21 February 2011
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Things on my mind: Mind as well as regime change is needed.
Things on my mind: Mind as well as regime change is needed.: "In January 2002 I wrote an article which was published in the Jerusalem Post, which lay out the reasons for Arafats failures and why i..."
Things on my mind: The land of milk and honey
Things on my mind: The land of milk and honey: "I wrote this article about eight years ago but it came to my mind as I watch events unravelling in the Middle East. Since then Arafat has di..."
Things on my mind: Dictators are on the wrong side of history.
Things on my mind: Dictators are on the wrong side of history.: "This year has started in both an exciting yet uncertain way for the world at large and the middl-east in particular. We witnessed the oustin..."
Things on my mind: Two spare tickets to the Bahrani grand prix. anyon...
Things on my mind: Two spare tickets to the Bahrani grand prix. anyon...: "Events in Libya, Bahrain , Yemen and Algeria are disturbing to me on many levels. I had with childlike naivety believed that a leader had a ..."
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Miaow. Spurned lovers Go go go
There is something unedifying about a president that won’t leave. Who clings to power like a spurned lover refusing to see he is no longer loved. President Mubarak is extraordinarily luck in having a people who want him to go in peace, they are not crying for retribution, they are just saying go go go.
Its really quiet funny, if that is the right word to see other arab leaders frantically changing governments, reducing taxes, promising change, poltical and economic reforms, promising not to seek re-election, not put their kids in power
. Well why why were all these changes not implemented before? Its not as if the Arab population was not crying out for it.
Lets take corruption or let me be gentler . Lets say you want a phone line in Cairo, in theory it straightforward. In practice you need ‘wasta’ someone who knows someone who knows someone who can do it. Otherwise you will spend weeks being sent from one line to another one building to another being asked for just one more paper. Along the way people want a little ‘sugar’.
It is just that corruption has become a way of life, of survival for ordinary people, for luxury for the elite.
One question that has always puzzled me and I have had no answers is the Palestinian Authority. How come do all these Abu’s who we are told have devoted their life to the Palestinian cause become so wealthy on government salaries? How come they can build these lovely houses in Ramallah on what is a modest salary? What businesses are they in that generate so much apparent wealth? How come all the big relatively speaking contracts or agencies are held in the families of the leadership? This is not exclusive to the PA or Egypt.
It is part of the system in the whole Arab world
Lets talk about the lack of the rule of law. Why did it have to take demonstrations and thirty years before it became on the agenda? How can you govern for so long and not have this most basic but fundamental right for anyone, any state? Its absurd for these leaders to now say oops we are now going to implement this?
What about poltical reforms? It’s too little too late to now proclaim that the process under the present leaders is going to take place. That I rubbish and we all know that.
These are just platitudes so that they can stay in power longer and the repercussion if they do stay will be horrendous for all the voices that spoke out.
What about abuses of human rights? Why was nothing done before? And these abuses are not exclusive to Egypt. Look at the labour laws or rather the lack of them in the UAE. Hundreds of workers from primarily Asian countries work in abysmal condition for a pittance. It does not stop there. Woe betide anyone who falls foul of a local as there is absolutely no protection from the legal system.
And all this is actually supported by the USA as they like other Western countries take the view that oil and geographically strategic importance takes precedence over small things like rule of law, poltical reforms, and civil rights, human right. So what if ‘some’ people suffer.
Lets be clear here its is for the West much easier to work with corrupt leaders as they can be ‘malleable’ and for years Western governments have refused to hear the voices from the street and have turned in truth a blind eye to the daily inequities that go on. Yet and this is what is so so frustrating. What people in the Arab world want is very much what we have in the West, Freedom of choice, to choose who we elect. Civil , poltical and social rights, the rule of law, Governments that are accountable to us.
Finally and its Miaow but it is interesting to see how many former leaders and prominent politicians rush to the Gulf when their public tenure ends. If it were not so sad it would be hilarious. Miaow……
Will you now hear the voices?
Am I surprised by the recent events in Egypt and Tunisia? I don’t think any Arab is. It was always a question of when not if? There comes a point when you simply say ‘enough’. Enough. ‘I am not going to be humiliated any more.’
‘ I am not going to beg for work ‘.
I am not going to prostate myself anymore to a leader that has stripped away my being’.
These are just some of the sentiments that have been bubbling away in the heart of the Middle East. and not just for days but for years and years. The enormous frustrations that many Arab feel is clearly being demonstrated out in the streets of Cairo. All the Arabs I know, friends, family colleagues are glued to the news or on the phone trying to reach family and friends in Cairo
On my last visit to Cairo at the tail end of the volcanic ash disruption last year. I landed, late tired just needing to sleep. I went through immigration. Purpose of your visit? Stay. Arab father? Yes. Oops wrong answer. To cut a long story short I was escorted to security and merely told that my name was on the computer. Why? What for? I never figured out. I only mention this to illustrate what it is like for Arabs to be in an Arab country led by an autocratic regime even with a UK citizenship.
It is much worse for the Egyptians. I can recount you endless stories of the daily frustrations encountered by Cairenes unable to get jobs, unable to support their families and bluntly put fed up with Western democracies like Britain supporting highly corrupt regimes on the basis that the alternative would be much worse…..
It’s a myth that has been so embedded into the Western psyche that the alternative would be catastrophic that in many ways we chose to turn a blind eye.
We took the tours not knowing or ignoring that an ordinary Egyptian national would be barred from certain seaside tourist areas in order to avoid any potential ‘terrorist’ attack. We focused on shark attacks at the red sea but not the attacks from a brutal highly corrupt regime towards its own people.
The reality for many Arabs under dinosaur leaders is a daily grind of survival. Add to this suppression, a frustration of being powerless to do anything and the result was going to be explosion. There is so much frustration on the streets in Arab capitals directed at the lack of any recognition towards them as people.
Arab leaders rarely accord dignity to their citizens. Anyone with a modicum of power will invariably abuse it as have seen with Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian who was humiliated by a police officer, slapped and denied a permit t sell a few paltry produce to support his family. Took the desperate measure of burning himself.
Corruption for the elite is part of the job perk and while this may not matter so much in the oil rich countries, it has a profound and deep impact on nations with less disposable income. Most of the Arab world is run by rulers who regard the nations wealth as theirs and their offspring’s.
President Mubarak’s family wealth like the deposed Tunisian President is massive. It is extremely diffcult to attempt to do business there without a powerful ally. It’s taken as read that any business venture of any substance would require the partner of someone powerful generally in the ruling elite.
I recall when my late father was in hospital at the Red Crescent in Cairo. Desperately ill he had just recived some treatment when Egyptian security barged in. Heavily armed they lifted my father off. In my feeble attempt to protect him I tried to put myself between the perpetrators and my father. I just got beaten up. My mother and I were locked in the room. When we finally managed to get out our car tyres had been slashed. When I personally spoke too the then Foreign Minister of Egypt. His response this can't be happening. This is Egypt.
Well it was happening and it did happen. Very quickly the Arab leaders colluded in ensuring our story was not heard as they have in the past stopped other stories. It is in their intrest to keep the lid on as otherwise a big can of worms will be opened. And sadly the West colludes in this. People like our family are a nuisance to them. We ask too many questions that ‘compromise’ their ‘special’ relationship.
This happens frequently, there is no rule of law, accountability. Most of the present leaders of the Arab regime know that the West may mouth and request rule of law, democracy, human rights etc, but in truth nothing has been done. We in the West need to ask our governments to stop protecting and supporting these regimes. The people of Egypt are not chanting Anti West slogans but they are asking us to listen.
Security, stability will only be durable when there are democratic regimes that uphold the rule of law and accountability.
Maybe just maybe this time the voices will be heard and as Chancellor Angela Markel said "you can't divide your principles and say my principles are valid for some countries, where you can speak your mind and vote freely, but in other countries these principles don't hold at all’.
The Arab revolt. Its not rocket science
Surely the first question that we need to ask is how corrupt are our own democracies in supporting the Egyptian regime for decades. Tunisia has already revolted. We all know the story of Iraq and its present mess. It would be against all common basic decency to continue to support a clinging President who refuses to leave power because we in the West believe he is the best guarantee of security and stability in the area.
It is simply a myth and its disingenuous and insulting to suggest as former Prime Minister Blair has that while he supports democracy we should also take note that there is ‘lurking’ behind this revolt is the Muslim Brotherhood. So what? If you uphold the principle of democracy then we in the West cannot say oops wrong party got elected. Same goes for Hilary Clintons premise that the US supports Universal Human rights. Great. Then lets do something about it
What is surprising about the recent events in the Arab world is that it took so long to erupt. The harsh reality in this delay was not lack of will on the Arab masses but the short-sighted view of Western democracies. They supported corrupt brutal Arab regimes. This was always done under the pretext that the alternative to those regimes would be the rule of Islamic fundamentalists. Simply put they relied on the psychology of fear and the unknown with no deep comprehension that the biggest threat to world security was not necessarily religious fervour but the reason religious fervour was gaining support. But that is another story.
However the events in both Tunisia and Egypt have blown away this myth. The demonstrations are from the people who make up the country. They are not infiltrators but people who got fed up of being downtrodden and short-changed economically and morally by dinosaur leaders. So called Western ‘security’ relied upon the brutality of the system that guaranteed no dissent, financial corruption on a massive scale by the ruling elite and a complete absence of the rule of law. Every Arab knew that, some expressed it but the West would not listen to these voices.
Its not rocket science. Arabs are people who generally want the same respect dignity principles that we demand in the West from our Governments.
Neither the Western democracies nor brutal Arab regimes were made accountable for their actions. By mutual agreement both propagated the status quo. Both played lip service to the rule of law, civil rights, freedom of speech, democratic elections, and human rights but no one was ever made accountable and certainly nothing of substance was ever implemented.
Will the former Tunisian President be invited back to Tunis and under the rule of law have an opportunity to explain his actions or will he diplomatically find a haven to live out the rest of his days cushioned by the massive wealth he has accumulated? Will Mubarak when he is ousted have guarantees from Western democracies that he is immune from prosecution? Or will he be made accountable for the torture and deaths of countless Egyptians?
Compromise in the name of moving forward will doubtless take precedence over accountability but this is a dangerous option to take up because it compromises the basic principal of democracy. Accountability is not about revenge or retribution Saddam style. It’s about upholding standards of human decency. You cannot ever compromise on the sanctity of human life. You either believe in certain standards applicable to all of us or you don’t.
Israel argument that it Mubarak who is the biggest guarantee of security in the area is a myth. The regions best guarantee for security is equity and freedom of choice. Brutality may temporarily give the semblance of stability but its simple common sense that without addressing the problems no amount of torture or death will erase the problem. Either we accept that fundamental rights are an intrinsic right for all or not. It’s absurd to expect and have those rights in the Western democracy but not in the rest of the world
The events in Tunis and Egypt demonstrated quite clearly a much more powerful sentiment and two core principles: the rule of law, and accountability. The abuse of these very human elements of life will eventually, as we have seen in Egypt, result in mass revolt. The attack on the police, the burning down of police stations can be dismissed as vandalism, the truth is much more likely to be an out pouring of anger, a relief, an emotional release from proud and dignified citizens directed towards the sites where personal abuses and human atrocities were committed in silence from the outside world. These burnt out pillars of the president’s legacy deserved to go up in smoke, if only in homage for those who suffered at the hands of one of the West’s favoured dictators.
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